"So." Cloud started in between mutated guard hounds. "You didn't tell anyone you were in SOLDIER."
Natalie finished another hound off, with numbers this thin as they climbed the underground facility, they continued to talk and fight. "Yeah, and?"
Cloud's huge sword took out another boosted guard dog in a couple of swings of his Buster sword. "Why keep something like that a secret?"
Natalie rolled her eyes, where Cloud didn't see it. "It's not exactly a secret that I'm a- I was a SOLDIER. I just don't introduce myself like that."
"Why, Lee?" Cloud looked confused, "why keep that a secret?" He was so proud of that part of him, it was part of his identity. He seemed surprised that anyone else wouldn't be the same. It was almost cute in a naive way.
Though Natalie twisted her mouth shut. There was a storm in her gut while her heart pumped adrenalin with the constant monster encounters. She didn't talk about her past as a habit. Cloud's questions were disturbing things she had been avoiding talking about for years. Added to that was knowing that Cloud had never been trained a SOLDIER, yet he could fight and act like one. But she wasn't ready to confront that either.
Cloud spoke up when Natalie didn't respond.
"Well? Are you going to say anything?" Cloud was being a little more demanding.
'Spit it out.' "Not everyone is proud to have made it into SOLDIER."
Cloud was a little taken aback. "Didn't you sign up like everyone else?"
Natalie bit back the retort, he didn't know what he was saying. "No. I didn't." She could be honest with this point at least. "When the Turks find a viable candidate. Sometimes they don't bother asking." Natalie's situation in Sanford had been even more complicated than that. But Natalie never wanted to go over that again. Not with Cloud, or any of her friends. Not even Tseng had gotten all the details, and he had led the interrogation when he had 'arrested' her in that town.
"What do you mean they didn't ask?" Cloud wondered.
Natalie sliced into a creature that had been lurking in a shadow under one of the lights. It yelped and thought Cloud would be an easier target to slip through.
Cloud's sword was larger and, given the experience gap between them, he easily killed the guard hound that attempted an easy pass through by Cloud.
Natalie picked up the next thought, as the guard hound barked it's last. "I was press-ganging, volun-told, conscripted, they saw what I was capable of. They signed me up, whether I wanted to or not. I found reasons to stay, later, sure. But they had to drag me to Midgar for SOLDIER."
"What reasons would a waitress-"
"Enough!" Natalie raised her voice this time. It hurt, the memories stirred up hurt, reminding her of what she'd lost. "No more questions. Please."
Cloud stopped pressing Natalie. He looked to have more questions on his face. But he kept them to himself. They were only done for now.
Gun fire echoed further in the facility. Barret and Tifa were still out there, their group was still separated.
"This way." Natalie set off towards the echoes. She brushed past Cloud without touching him.
Cloud's boots stomped behind her, catching up and starting to pull ahead, like he wanted to find Barret and Tifa first.
'Oh, it's going to be like that is it?' Natalie thought. She quickened her pace to keep abreast with Cloud down the gangplank and up another case of stairs. By the time they reached the top of the last case of stairs, they were both running.
Natalie was grinning.
Cloud huffed between words. "Whats. So. Funny?"
"How many," she puffed herself. "Of those dogs did you just take down?"
"Five."
"Only five? I'm counting six, if I don't include the one that I hit towards you."
"Hmm." They had reached the top of the stairs. They paused a moment to decide if they went down the hallway or further up the stairs.
"Scrapyard boulevard was a nice warm-up" Natalie told Cloud. "But I haven't had a real challenge in a long time." This was only partly true. But Natalie wasn't about to get into preventing Genesis from ending the world. Not when a comatose Cloud had been waiting aboveground of that fight.
"What, think a first class can't challenge you?"
"Ha!" Natalie chuckled. "I made second class a long time ago." She remembered in time what she had mentioned to AVALANCHE, nothing specific other than long ago. "A lot can happen over the years."
"All right Lee." Cloud looked stern, but he was game. "Show me."
Natalie pointed to the hallway that issued the loudest echoes of gunshots. "This way."
"There!" Natalie pointed through the doorway onto industrial flooring hanging from the ceiling.
In the larger chamber, Tifa and Barret were fighting something. Something over twenty feet tall and vaguely humanoid. With purple carapaces, no face and a glowing red light that was coming from it's internals.
Cloud was off, sword out. He was already pouncing on the huge one as Natalie leapt down from the walkway. Cloud finished off the larger one. The rest of the fighting had already died down in the room.
"'Bout time Merc!" Barret told Cloud.
"Lee!" Tifa called to her.
Lee jumped down to the already-cleared battlefield, littered with more of those things, but more human-sized. As they started returning to the Planet. "The big one still only counts as one." Natalie called to Cloud as she leapt down from the busted gangway.
Barret and Cloud were exchanging friendly insults and they regarded the remains of the bigger creature.
"This wall," Natalie pointed out the wall the giant creature had leaned against. "It looks like shit but it's newer than the others."
Cloud finishing the big Entity off had left some damage on the wall, it was reinforced with rebar but very thin. Barret made quick work of getting through it, to reveal an opening to another chamber on the other side. The giant creature had long disappeared, returning to the Lifestream. Even mutated monsters went there when they died. All life did eventually.
"A secret wall in an already secret facility." Natalie said. As they approached to peer in the hole.
A huge dark room was on the other side. Filled with huge vats. The light from their hole lit the nearest one.
A humanoid figured, lit only by the light from their hole, sat in the bottom of the vat. It was clearly dead, the shrunken signs of being mummified could be seen even in the shadows of the hidden room.
"Were those-?" Tifa asked.
"People?" Barret said.
"Yeah. That's the ShinRa I know." Cloud said. He looked a little closer, then started gasping and breathing heavily.
"Cloud?" Tifa asked.
Before any further words were spoken. A wave of more of those wraiths appeared. Dragging the four of them out of the facility.
Natalie kicked and roiled, she could only see wraiths. She could no longer feel the ground. Floating or flying out of the facility. The wraiths dispersed. Leaving her laying on the ground, back on the surface.
Cloud had regained his bearings as quickly as Natalie had. While Barret and Tifa were still shaking off their exit.
"What the hell was that?" Barret asked.
"I'm just glad we're out." Natalie said.
Wedge was knocked out, nearby, his cat was sniffing him.
Natalie checked on Wedge, doing what she could for his injuries, "He's breathing. But he needs to be somewhere safe to recover."
Tifa said they had to get Wedge to safety. Barret agreed, picking up the unconscious man in a fireman carry. They turned to leave. Cloud was back at the hole, staring at it.
Whatever he was thinking, Natalie didn't want to ask. In case she got questions in return.
"Let's go." Barret said.
Tifa picked up the only cat of Wedge's they had found.
"Cloud." Tifa called, breaking Cloud from whatever he was thinking.
They started picking their way back through the ruins when Barret made a request.
He wanted to get them to take Wedge out. And he would continue to look for Biggs and Jessie.
Natalie hadn't been at the last stand at the pillar. 'I shouldn't hope but…'
Tifa and Cloud had been on the pillar. They had seen Biggs' and Jessie's final moments. "They've returned to the Planet." Tifa told Barret.
Natalie had dared to make more friends, and now she mourned that loss for the second time.
Barret took a moment before responding, "They...they were supposed to return to us." He looked around at the devastation. "But if we stop now...they'll never let us live it down."
Natalie surveyed what little of the ruins she could. Wondering what the wraiths would stop her, well any of them, from doing next.
As well she started to consider the many events that they had never interfered in. And now they felt like a constant presence. For that matter, maybe she wasn't going crazy if other people could see the wraiths. It seemed absurd to consider the alternative. The possibility that all of them were going crazy was a remote one.
Lost in thought, Lee had missed the rest of what Barret had been saying. He started leading the way between the wreckage, back the way they had come. He continued to carry Wedge to Elmyra's home in Sector Five.
Tifa trailed behind with Natalie in the rear, as Natalie kept and eye out for trouble.
"Can I ask you something?" Tifa asked her.
"Maybe, but go on."
"I'm not trying to pry. But can I ask you how old you are Lee?"
Natalie sighed, "I'm twenty-seven now."
"You don't look it," Tifa said. "And you left SOLDIER seven years ago…"
"Yeah, Tifa. Why do you ask?"
"Remember back in the reactor? About degeneration..."
Natalie remembered, "Oh yeah, that." She wasn't actually sure if Cloud and Natalie would avoid that. If her 'hyper compatibility' would be a factor. She just did not know enough about the science of what she and Cloud was, for an answer. For sure she was done with false hope. "It's different for everyone. I don't understand the science of it enough to answer you."
"What do you know?"
"I knew one a little older than me. He suddenly aged decades in less than a year." Genesis.
"Oh," Tifa looked heart broken. "But you're so much older than Cloud. And you look so young."
'Hyper compatibility.' "People have always assumed I'm younger than I am. It was really annoying in-" Natalie cut herself off, she felt the annoyance, but not when it had happened. Natalie stumbled on a corner of rubble, while tripping over another gap in her memory.
"Annoying when I was younger. But anyway, degeneration doesn't follow logic or time. Sometimes it just happens, or it doesn't. I'm sorry Tifa. I don't know more than that." Natalie could be that honest at least.
It clearly didn't reassure Tifa. They traveled in mournful silence the rest of the way back to Sector Five.
Elmyra was glad to help Wedge and Marlene out, as well as his cat. As protective as she had been of Aerith. She refused to 'leave a wounded man out on the street.'
After that was settled, Cloud restarted a conversation with Elmyra that Natalie hadn't seen the start of. "I know what you said, but you have to let us go after Aerith."
Elmyra wasn't listening, "Not this again."
Cloud explained about the human testing lab they had discovered. How Aerith was the last living Ancient, a Cetra. ShinRa would never let her go now that they had her.
'Last living Ancient.' Natalie thought. 'The only other Ancient I've met is already gone back to the Life Stream.' She had no proof, only believed that Roceler was an Ancient anyway.
Cloud continued arguing with Elmyra. "Especially that son of a bitch Hojo. We're all just numbers and meat to him."
"Enough!" Elmyra cut him off.
"But-" Cloud tried to go on.
Tifa took his hand. Cutting him off.
"Please," Elmyra asked. "I need time to think." She agreed to them staying the night, a chance to get refreshed and get some real sleep.
Natalie was the last one to the stairs. Elmyra waved her over.
"I'm sorry about before." Elmyra told her. "Driving you away."
"No, no. The Turks drove me away from this house. You were just doing what you had to for Aerith. I'm just glad I know her."
"At least you made more friends, Natalie."
"Yeah. And you can just call me Lee. All my friends do."
Elmyra didn't respond.
Natalie continued the quiet. Not knowing what to say or if it was rude to leave.
Elmyra looked at Natalie's face. "You look dead on your feet. Go get some sleep."
"I'll be fine for a while longer. I could use a bath first, then rest."
Based on the noises coming from upstairs, Natalie was going to have to wait on that bath.
"I'll leave you to do what you need to do." Natalie headed to the stairs, to find out who was asleep and who was ahead of her for washing off a sector's worth of dust off.
Before the stairs took Natalie out of sight, she said one last thing to Elmyra, "And thank you. For taking us in."
"You're welcome, all of you." Elmyra was staring at the top of the table, already deep into thought.
Natalie woke up in the tub, the sound of boots outside the bathroom had woken her. While the steps faded away, she shivered in the bath. The water had gone cold.
It was a sign of how hard she had pushed herself, all day and night, until she had made it somewhere safe. 'That's what I get for being last in line. Everyone else was too tired to wake me up.'
Cold but clean, Natalie changed into her only clothes, before her bath she had shaken out as much dust as she could. Stepping quietly back to the room she was sharing with Tifa. Reminding herself that the only other clothes she had were replaceable. They were currently buried under the ruins of Sector Seven.
Tifa wasn't in the bed. There was no sign of even her boots.
Movement out the window caught Natalie's eye. Something white flashed in the yard in front of the house. In the light of a street lamp that lit Elmyra's garden.
After not very long, a dark shape with a blond head joined it. Natalie backed up from the window. It was obvious to her who was out in the yard now. She gave Cloud and Tifa privacy by sitting out of view of the window, an extra blanket around her shoulders. The blanket was a bit much this time of year, but if it helped her sleep after her bath had turned cold.
Natalie was asleep as soon as she closed her eyes.
Natalie rolled onto her back and stared up at the dark ceiling. She listened for the breathing of the other person in the room. But the room was silent.
Natalie's mind was filled with the cobwebs of a half-forgotten dream. Something about Aerith, somewhere, refusing help. But had been glad that Natalie had insisted.
After rubbing her eyes she surveyed the room, there were no sleeping forms in the shadows. Tifa wasn't there. 'I must not be the only one having sleeping problems,' she thought.
Natalie rolled back over on her coat and tried to go back to sleep. Despite the day she had had, she had had no nightmares so far.
She heard the sound of steps on the stairs, someone was coming back, it was probably Tifa. Natalie rolled onto her side and tried to get more sleep.
The steps proceeded past the door to her room and Tifa didn't join her. Or it had never been Tifa. Natalie gave up on sleep and settled her feet into her boots. Picking up her Materia-bracer where she had left it out of reach and hidden from sight. Planning to head downstairs, if anyone asked she was looking for the bathroom.
Except for the creak halfway down, she made no noise going down the stairs. Not that it mattered.
"Couldn't sleep?" Barret asked from the dimness of the kitchen table. His voice was low so it wouldn't carry up the stairs.
"Nah," Natalie settled beside him, matching his quiet volume. "Sounds like nobody can."
"I don't blame yeh." He told her.
"Yeah," Natalie filled a couple glasses with water from the sink. The water was clear and didn't smell, matching the pool of flowing water beside the garden outside. This house was a mini paradise in the slums.
"Thanks," he told her, "I got sum sleep. You?"
"I must've," she told him. "I had one dream or another. Which is better than a nightmare." 'Especially with Tifa sleeping in the other bed. I sleep alone for good reason.' Speaking of, her weapons were upstairs, and out of reach of Lee on the chance she had a nightmare.
"Yeah." Barret sighed. Mine was about Aerith."
"Hey, mine too." Natalie wondered aloud, "Been thinking about her lately, when we're not fighting for our lives anyway."
"You know anything about these Ancients and dreams?"
Natalie shrugged in the darkness, then added words, "No idea. We could ask Tifa."
"Ask me what?" The woman asked from the front door. Tifa had returned from outside.
"Keep yer voice down," Barret warned her, audible above a whisper, but not by much.
"Sorry," Tifa lowered her volume and asked again, "Ask me what?"
"If you dreamed of Aerith." Natalie quietly got up and poured more water for the third occupant at the table."
"Thanks Lee." Tifa drank the whole glass down in one go. Answering after she put the cup back down. "Yeah I did actually. I wonder what kind of filter Elmyra uses?"
"So did the rest of us," Barret told her.
"Haven't asked Cloud yet. I guess that was him going to bed a minute ago." Natalie told the others.
Tifa nodded, she had just come from outside. She was keeping something to herself.
Natalie didn't press Tifa's silence. Her only regret that Elmyra didn't have a stock of booze she could pay for. The only drink was water, sparkling clean water, but only water.
"Cetra and dreams." Natalie mumbled.
"Who what and dreams?" Barret asked her.
"Cetra, they're another name for the Ancients," Natalie told him.
"How do yah know that?" he asked her.
Natalie shrugged, "I must have read it somewhere." She couldn't remember from where, and she was trying to recall.
Barret rubbed his own eyes, "It's been a long day. And tomorrow's important. We gotta figure out tha' next step."
Tifa added, "we should get some sleep."
Natalie shrugged, "I'm going to get some air. Then get some sleep before the sun rises." She stood up and stretched, popping various joints the way most people pop their knuckles.
"Don't be too long." Barret told her, "we don' know wha' we'll be up to tomorrow."
Natalie nodded to both of them before going outside.
Natalie sat ion the darkness under a larger tree in the middle of Elmyra's and Aerith's yard. The sun lamps up above were the only light, like distant street lights or miniature suns. Leaving most of the garden in darkness. Tifa had been up earlier, must have been to use the bathroom, when she had come back sniffling and made enough noise to have disturbed a light sleeper like Natalie. If Natalie hadn't already been awoken by a person nearby moving in and out of the guest bedroom.
"We talked," was all Tifa had hinted at after Natalie had asked. Between sniffles.
Natalie had not pressed any further and allowed the woman to go to sleep otherwise. Giving Tifa some time in the darkness by going to the bathroom herself, only to go outside instead and sit under the tree in the middle of Elmyra and Aerith's garden.
Staring up at the steel sky again, if she squinted she could imagine that the lights between the sun lamps were stars, not smaller artificial lights. She had to squint pretty hard to blur her vision enough, and ignore the sun lamps, to make the sky look like normal sky.
A normal sky, full of stars was a long time gone from her recent memories. What memories Natalie still clung to. Her life on the North Pole was mostly a void, especially her childhood, before she had gone on a misbegotten journey to Midgar. And all the years since she had become a SOLDIER. Sure they were still intact, the memories she didn't want.
Her ears perked at the sound of boots on gravel nearby, killing her melancholic thoughts from descending further.
Natalie stayed leaning against the tree at the familiar step of familiar boots from the direction of the house.
"Couldn't sleep Lee?" Cloud asked.
"Nope. You?" Natalie closed her eyes and turned her face up to the sky.
"Nope."
Natalie sighed slowly.
Cloud took a seat under the tree, with his own exhalations. "What were you doing before I got here?" He asked.
"Imagining the sky above was a starry sky. Like-" she had almost said Nibelheim. "Like home." She remembered being in Nibelhiem more vividly than her own home in the North Pole. "More like home."
"Hmmm." Cloud looked up at the steel sky himself. "You miss it? Home?"
"Sometimes. Though I barely remember it."
"How's that?"
"I don't know if it was the Mako shower or something else. But I don't remember much of home. Places I've been to once or twice stand out better than the place I lived half my life in."
"You don't remember-?"
"Nope. My childhood is gone, like it never was. Don't tell the others."
"Barret and Tifa would understand," Cloud explained. "And Aerith-"
"I know they'd understand, but that's not what I want." Her head started pounding, lancing in her temples. "I don't want sympathy, I want my memories back." She growled the last few words out, keeping her voice low and from carrying much further than Cloud.
Cloud didn't have a ready answer.
"Sorry Cloud. I know they would understand. But it's not something I talk about much, ever really." She wanted to squeeze her temple between her fists at this point. Instead she squeezed her eyes shut. "Memories."
"Hrngh." Was all Cloud said.
"Clou-aaah." Now she was squeezing her temples between her fists. Her heart thudded in her ears and her neck.
"They won't trust you if they knew, how weak and amnesiac you were." Jamie's voice, somehow audible over the pain in Natalie's head. "They would never understand you."
"Shut up Jamie. Shut up!" Natalie clacked her teeth shut, nipping her own tongue. Jamie was rare to show up, but around other people? And Natalie had spoken to her dead girlfriend aloud to boot.
Before long the pain passed, and Natalie was resting back against the tree. Cloud himself had gone quiet.
They sat like that a few more minutes before the silence was broken.
"Who's Jamie?" Cloud asked gently, even if it was against policy.
Natalie, past a pin fit was too exhausted to complain from the question. "It's a long story. And I don't want to talk about it."
"Ah yeah, sorry I asked."
"Whatever Cloud. It's fine. Jamie's dead now, that's the important detail."
"I'm sorry."
"Thanks."
They sat in the dark a few more minutes before Natalie said anything more. "We should get to bed, we have a long day in store tomorrow."
"Yeah."
Interlude:
Shawn watched Jamie while she pulled herself away from her homework.
"Why does this matter again?" She asked him and Danny.
"I care," Danny started, "but again, why are we going this far in depth for an antagonist that might not even matter."
Shawn sighed, again, and answered. "We all want to bring Marin home. But if we run across any trouble, I want to be prepared."
"I have no plans on fighting the guy in the big black coat. I just want Marin back." Jamie said. "Can't we avoid the plot of this game?"
Shawn shook his head, "We have so far. But what if we don't get a choice?"
Danny sighed, "I don't think I can stand to play Remake another five minutes."
Shawn shrugged. "There are other games."
Danny tubbed the bridge of his nose, "More? I thought there was just this sequel."
Shawn shrugged, "I don't know how useful they are anymore." He waved at the pause screen of the game he had been playing. "But if that view of Nibelheim, which we WERE at, is any guide. Then That Midgar is our Midgar."
"That doesn't answer my question." Jamie said. "Why does all this talk about this Sephora guy matter?"
"Sephiroth." Shawn corrected her.
"Whatever. Stephanie." She enunciated wrongly on purpose that time.
Shawn thought she did it on purpose, he brushed it off. It's not like a guy who had done what he had done deserved their respect anyway. "Sephora, Stephanie, Sephy. Whichever. As long as I know who you're talking about."
"So if you don't care about his name. Why should I care about what he is?" Jamie asked the others.
Shawn rolled his eyes, "Once again, because this is complicated." Shawn took a deep breath. "In the OG, the Original game, there were people that had a particular cell sample in their body."
"Yeah, Steph's mom, or whatever. That alien thing, Jenny." Jamie cracked a smile, for inventing another nickname.
"Yes and no." Shawn said, "But I don't mean how 'Stephanie', I mean Sephiroth was born." Shawn looked at Jamie. "Any more questions or can I continue?"
Jamie waved her hand for him to do so.
"Ok, so, people who were injected with these J-cells. 'Jenny's'/Jenova's cells. They could have their mind's and bodies reached at. Controlled, had their mind affected. Even from across the world."
"And we need to care because?"
"Because eventually, Sephiroth can reach into the minds of people who don't have these cells. Trick them with illusions." Shawn waved at the TV screen. "Turns out the illusions can happen way sooner. Whether or not someone has those cells."
Danny perked up, "Like the Dreamweaver boss?"
Shawn nodded. "I guess they finally came up with an explanation for how a leg or an arm can change into a giant tentacle boss." Shawn looked to the middle distance. "Maybe that was always the explanation, but I hadn't figured it out."
Jamie tapped her laptop. "So, if this is all in a video game, and not real. Why does that matter to us? If it's not real?"
Danny looked to Jamie, "The rules. Remember?"
Jamie glared over Danny's head. "Yeah, that guy Ardyn and his stupid rules."
Shawn suggested, "It sounds like when we're there, it's as real to us as this world is. So it can really kill us there. Sephiroth can really reach into our minds and trick us with illusions." He looked at Jamie when she opened her mouth. "What?"
"And Marin, she played that old game. What of all of this does she know?"
Shawn shrugged, "None of the new stuff. From Remake, or any of this new or more clear things about 'Stephanie'."
Jamie had a distance look in her eyes, "and Jenny's cells? Would Marin know about those?"
"No, yeah. She would know. About how Cloud was, I guess is now, controlled by them. And besides, you can't exactly get them at the corner store." Shawn shook his head. "No, pretty much only SOLDIERs get those. And Marin said she played the OG a bunch of times. She would know not to get mixed up with that bunch."
"Nine years is a long time." Danny said.
"Yeah," Shawn agreed, "and I haven't even gotten to the worst of it yet."
Jamie was shaking her head now, disappointed that Shawn wasn't done. "Now what?"
"I haven't even gotten to my point."
Jamie sighed, "And what is it?"
"All that talk about Sephora, and minds and cells a minute ago. That's the one from the OG."
"I never played it," Danny admitted. "Sounds like Marin did, a lot."
Shawn shrugged, "It might be enough to watch someone play a story play through of it. Save you some time."
Danny asked, "And what about Remake Sephiroth?"
Shawn took another deep breath. "Alongside the old one, I have a theory that there is another Sephiroth, from the future."
"What now? TWO Stephanies?" Jamie asked.
Shawn hook his head, "Maybe four, or more. I'm not sure on that though. But at least two. And there is another thing about this guy."
"Now what?" Jamie was getting more frustrated.
"People that know about him, remember him." Shawn started. "They give him power. Or something. He's forgotten who he was, and people who remember him seem to help him rebuild who he was. Or something."
Jamie held her hands out. "So isn't all of this chatter HELPING him when we go back to get Marin!?"
Shawn matched Jamie's tone "Marin knows about him TOO!" Shawn paused to pull back on his anger. "We have a choice to make. Go in knowing as little as possible. Or go in armed with as much knowledge as we can, before we call that Ardyn guy back. And then go." Shawn looked at Jamie, waiting for her to speak, when she didn't he continued. "Marin remembers him too. And he can appear to anyone who remembers him. She could be out there all alone, with a raving-psychopath-god-like figure possibly messing with her head. And as far she she knows, we're all dead."
"I remember fire, and now I'm here." Danny said. "I don't know if she saw me disappear or thinks I burned to ash."
"You see?" Sam asked. "So I had to make a choice, dig into whatever Sephiroth is, or has become. Or go in as ignorant as Marin. Besides. I already know what Sephiroth looks like. If he can fuck with Marin, he could fuck with me. I may as well go deep-diving into theories to try to find something we can use against him if we need to."
"Such as?" Jamie asked.
Shawn shrugged, "No dice yet. I need more time. And a refresher on the old games."
Jamie leaned over her computer. "Oh no, not more games."
Shawn shook his head, he was doing that a lot today. "No, just concentrate on keeping your fighting skills up. I'll be the researcher. When I'm not working on my trauma nurse certification."
"I'll help." Danny said.
"Thanks." Shawn sighed. "The Internet is a very good place to find all of those things. And maybe even someone who has figured this out better than I have. And that Internet is something we lose access too once we leave here. Remember that. Shitty cell phone service too." He switched apps on his Playstation Four, "I have some more of my own homework to do."
"Yeah, I get it." Jamie sighed, ignoring the TV screen. "We go back we stick together." Jamie shot a look at Shawn. "That means no more midnight raids of mansions, no getting into trouble alone. Got it?"
Shawn sighed, "I remember. So did the Whispers." Shawn looked back at the TV screen. "I don't know if they're going to even be an issue any more though."
"Augh!" Jamie made an anguished noise. "Not more theories!"
"It depends."
"On what?" Danny asked.
"I'm not sure yet. But if the Whispers are still there, watch out for the purple ones."
Danny rolled his eyes. "I remember there was one that had a strange color. What now?"
Shawn brought up the movie he wanted, before starting it he turned to Danny "Let me explain…"