Eris walked up to an old PeTra mechanics shop, face flushed and panting for breath after running a good way to get there. Both she and her slumbering passenger Rose were still quite damp. She wasn’t quite sure who Professor Sutton had bought the old property off of but it must have been cheap. It was missing a lot of signage and clearly hadn’t been used in a long time. The building itself, while made of sleek metal and plastics like the rest of Anchorsways architecture, had definitely not been upkept since it had last been used as a proper business. The only sign that Eris knew she had the right place was a banner hung up over the two garage bay doors with the words “Mind's Eye Society” spray painted on it. 

Eris was almost surprised to see Professor Tilly Sutton herself standing outside an open bay door, arms crossed impatiently with a grimace to match. The Professor was a self proclaimed ‘one ferret army’ that ran the Mind’s Eye Society here in Anchorsway, typically scaring off most hired staff with her eccentricities. She stood there in a too-big lab coat that went all the way down to her ankles, a dark red turtleneck and slacks with sneakers shown through the open coat. Upon seeing Eris her expression brightened considerably, and she waved excitedly to the red panda. “Eris! Get in here quick! We have so much to discuss about your little adventure today! I’ve even called in the other PSYCOs! They’ll be on their way here now!”

“What? How do you already know about that?” Eris asked as she walked past the professor into the former garage. It was a large open space littered with workbenches and several tall cubicle-like partitions with their own doors for visual privacy in a row up against the far wall, tarps draped over top to prevent anyone from peeking in on any potentially private matters. The red panda telekinetically nudged the door to one such room open.

“It’s been all over the news my dear! Did you really think that a confrontation like that in the middle of the street in broad daylight would go unnoticed? Dozens of people were streaming it from their PETs in the surrounding buildings, and now it’s all over the headlines! ‘Arbitrator's daughter subdues rampaging inkling’! ‘Anchorsway’s very own superhero’!”

Professor Sutton followed Eris into one of the little makeshift rooms that had a very simple metal framed bed in it. Across from the bed was a pair of desks sat side by side and a filing cabinet between them. One desk was littered with all sorts of files and test reports, the other just had a stethoscope hanging off the edge and a desk placard that said ‘Tilly Sutton’. This was just a quiet room for Eris and her fellow psycos to rest in overnight if needed. The Professor also made use of it to store her documents and research notes. 

Eris set Rose carefully onto the bed as The Professor gushed about all the attention her work was going to get. The cat girl was a little tall for the bed itself- and very, very naked, Eris noted- as she pulled a blanket up over her that was folded at the foot of the bed. Not bad looking at all. 

Eris very pointedly turned her thoughts and eyes away from the catgirl, giving her head a little shake. Now was not the time for that; Rose was hurt and scared and didn’t know where she was. Worse still the wound wasn’t physical, that much was easy to tell for an empath. The smothering feelings of fear and anger from earlier in the day had faded, leaving only regret and confusion as Rose slept. She looked troubled but lay still, her breathing calm and even.

The red panda had several questions on her mind. Mostly concerning Rose and wherever she had come from, not to mention the robots she was afraid had captured her. Were they the same robots causing trouble up in Locksmouth? Would they be chasing after her? Eris did at least have one question that Professor Sutton could hopefully answer.

“Ah! Uh, Doc,” Eris asked as she pulled an office chair from one of the desks next to the bed, and finally sat down. Professor Sutton paused in her ramblings. “There was something odd that happened out there. During the uh...fight.” Eris glanced down at Rose. It was more of an asskicking that she was lucky to walk away from, Eris being the one whose ass was most certainly about to be kicked. 

“Oh? Odd in what way?” The Professor pulled a small notepad and pen out of an oversized lab coat pocket, likely intending to scan her writings to her PET after. Professor Sutton really liked keeping backups on top of backups for her information. 

“There was this...weird energy stuff? Around...Rose.” Eris said, not taking her eyes off the girl in question as she sat next to the bed. “Made things real loud and windy but it didn’t seem to be pushing anything around like any amount of real wind would. It sure had an effect on my powers though, it blocked them.”

“Ah, some other empaths awakened by my fellows in The Society have experienced similar phenomena too!” The Professor exclaimed, she flipped through the pages in the notebook until she seemingly found what she was looking for. “Yes, it may even be something you encounter again. Individuals with great willpower feeling strong emotions are much more difficult to influence with control powers at a distance. In fact...” 

Eris leaned back in her chair, stretching her arms out with a yawn before crossing them behind her head as the chair leaned back with her. The exhaustion of the afternoon started to catch up with her as she zoned out, only half paying attention to The Professors ramblings on psyonic energies. Professor Sutton paced around the room, her excited explanations trailing off as she took all sorts of notes. Soon enough it seemed like she had completely forgotten about her two guests, one of them fast asleep on the bed and the other about to follow suit in one of her desk chairs. Or perhaps she hadn’t, as she walked out of the room, shutting off the lights that hung from the edges of the partition, and shut the door behind her carefully enough to not even click as it closed.

Eris had a feeling that things just might start getting even weirder from here on out. She sighed, leaning back even farther and rolled the chair ever so slightly closer to Rose, an ear twitching briefly as she listened to the faint breathing of the sleeping cat next to her. Eris dearly hoped that Rose would be a bit more open to talking instead of inking up and fighting upon waking up this time. But that was for Awake Eris to worry about, Eris thought as she started to drift off. 

Cute cat girls could wait until after sleep.

-
--
-

The sky was a sickly pale yellow from the dust and smoke left in the wake of the metal beings that everyone was fleeing from in a blind panic. Rose tumbled through old broken memories. 

She dodged and weaved through dozens of faceless civilians both with and without fur running through the streets, afraid for their lives. She chased after a pair of piercing yellow eyes in the crowd. Each time belonging to a different face as they fled from her. Rose followed them through distorted streets and alleys she could almost remember, but it hurt to try.

“Rose!”

She stood overlooking the city as it vanished in a flash of light, and the earth where it once stood began to heave and quake. Soil and stone upturned and rose to the sound of heavy machinery as people were hunted down like animals. Mechanical feet pounded through the forest surrounding her. So much lost, and for what? Nobody knew. There was no way to call for help, nobody to ask why. She ducked into the foliage and hoped that the furious red gaze of the leader of the pack wouldn’t fall upon her hiding place.

“Rose get a hold of yourself!”

The roaring of the ocean under the dark moonless sky, the boat shifted beneath her feet on the waves kicked up by the shaking of the earth. The sounds of scared and confused people she was meant to protect filled the air as they fled. She felt her connection to the water around her as she tried to throw off the cold blue eyed metal bodies crawling up the side of the hull. She tugged hard on the immense intoxicating power of the ocean--too hard, but she had no choice--and there were screams. The world grew dark as a harsh pressure took hold of her body and mind and she fell deep beneath the waves.

“Rose! Wake up!”

-
--
-

Rose awoke to darkness, the chattering of people outside a stark contrast to the near quiet nearly empty sounds of the hospital she first found herself in. She took a deep shuddering breath, and was most certainly not okay as she sat up and wiped away her tears. 

Rose glanced around the room, a quaint little office with walls that reminded her of an old office cubicle, and a tarp hung over the top. If she hadn’t known better by now she’d assume she was in some thrown together shelter to hide from the invaders, judging by how thrown together it looked. instead, there she was again: The red panda girl who snapped her out of her rage. She slept soundly in a desk chair next to the bed she was lying in. A bed that--now that she was waking up a bit more--she realized was ridiculously comfortable. 

A bed that she was naked under, Rose realized. She pulled the blankets up to cover herself with a slight grimace. Probably not the best idea to have gotten rid of that hospital gown without any sort of backup clothing options. 

“This is fucked, Wave.” Rose whispered. “Do you...do you know what the hell is going on? Why the hell are we here?”

“We’ve been...asleep a long time, Rose.” Wave replied softly. “For lack of a better term. Those robots did something to you, to us. It took me a long long time to put your pieces back together. And I don’t know how great of a job I did trying to keep us both alive while conserving prana.” Rose heard a weary sigh from her inkling partner. “And if what that girl showed us is true, we’re at least safe from Osoth. I never thought I’d see the day that I could be...that [i]we[/i] could be safe from her control.”

	“No time to celebrate just yet,” Rose muttered, running a hand through her hair as she tried to regain her composure. “We don’t even know where we are.”

The sounds of conversation and excitement outside continued. Rose slipped out of the bed and shivered as her feet touched the cold stone. She wrapped the blanket around her torso in a manner one might do with a bath towel as she stood up and examined the small office, her eyes darting to the desk covered in paperwork. It would probably be a good idea to see if she could glean a little intel before walking into a group of people she knows nothing about.

Sitting on top of the desk Rose saw a single folder laid out open on top of everything else, labelled Eris Redwind. A photo of her new acquaintance attached by a paperclip. 

“Is that your name?” She asked, purely rhetorically at the sleeping red panda. She picked it up and skimmed over everything, ignoring most of the details of Eris’s information in the document until one particular detail caught her eye. Date of birth. The year was listed as 2523. Nearly five hundred years since the robots came, destroying infrastructure and burying cities. But clearly, as evidenced by this massive underwater dome she found herself in, these people weren’t struggling to survive, they [i]thrived[/i]. “Maybe we did win.” 

Rose closed the folder again and placed the documents down back on top of the pile. “Five hundred years, huh?” She whispered as she turned and slumped down onto the floor, pulling her knees to her chest. She hardly noticed that she was taking heavier deeper breaths.

Five hundred years was a long, long time. Before even that she had watched as her own hometown was buried. She had no home to go back to. Post-splice people weren’t estimated to live for five hundred years either. Everything and everyone was long gone.

The faces of those she would never see again flashed through her mind. Her parents had been out of town for months when communication infrastructure had gone down. She’d never get to tell them she loved them again. She never even got the chance to tell them about Wave and all the good she’d been doing as a hero. Her chest felt tight, constricted, like something was squeezing her heart and lungs and wouldn’t let go.

She could just barely hear the voice of Wave trying to calm her down as her body shook. Her eyes wrenched shut as she thought of her friends, and never being able to get together for another night of playing games together. No more weekend trips to the beach. What-ifs and what-could-have-beens ran through her head.

Five hundred years left her nothing but memories to dwell on. They were stuck here, and everyone she knew was gone now.

Rose felt a set of arms wrap around her, warm and strong and familiar. Eris’s voice broke through the haze of panic that had taken her. 

“Hey, it’s okay. You’re safe here. I’m not gonna let anything happen to you.” Eris’s words were strong and steady. She sounded so sure of herself that it just had to be the truth.

This girl knew who she was, who they were. She knew Wave was her inkling partner and even after her rampage-even after being hurt by her-was unafraid. Maybe they weren’t alone after all. Maybe she could ask for help, and not worry about being turned away. 

-
--
-

Eris had been an empath for several weeks now, and she was learning something new every day. Like the fact that you can in fact be woken up by someone being too sad near you. That might just be her though. The emotions of others are all too easy for her to reach out and touch, sometimes even from across a room. As she sat there holding Rose tight, she felt like she was drowning. 

This clearly wasn’t something her powers could fix, not permanently at least. That would just be a bandaid, at best. Or a crutch, at worst. 

“How can I help?” Eris was of the mind that the direct approach was always the best way to go about things, in her opinion. And as she looked at Rose, [i]really[/i] looked, she saw a scared lost girl who needed someone to ask that exact question. 

“Well uh...jeez I don’t even know where to start.” Rose leaned even further into Eris’s touch. Her long black hair needed a good brushing. “I don’t exactly have anywhere to stay, what with the whole five hundred years under the ocean thing.”

“Oh.” Eris’s mind screeched to a halt. That was certainly a bombshell, and maybe explained a lot more about Rose’s emotional state than she thought it might. “That’s...a long time.”

“Yeah.” Was the only reply Rose gave. Bitter, the sharp bite of cold air wasn’t directed at Eris but she still felt it nonetheless. “And now I have no idea where I am, and all I’ve got is Wave.”

Eris squeezed the girl sitting in her grip. “I’ll be here. With whatever you need.” 

“Don’t you have anything better to do than babysit me?” Rose asked.

“Not really, I’m not really in school anymore, and the sports commission doesn’t let me play officially nowadays because I’m a PSYCO.” Eris said.

“I saw that term in...in your file.” Rose confessed, slightly guilty. “What does it mean?”

“Don’t ask me why they let that name slide, but it’s an acronym or something.” Eris said, shaking her head. “Psychically Capable Organisms. It’s weird. We’re all some variant of psychic. The professor and everyone else can tell you more, but we’re all part of the Mind’s Eye Society.” And at a raised eyebrow from Rose she added a little hastily, “No we’re not a cult! It’s more of a research group, this is sort of a new science.”

Rose grinned, “I wasn’t thinking ‘cult’ but I’m glad it isn’t one. How new are we talking?”

“Uhhhh...a couple months ago is when the first major breakthrough happened, that wasn’t our branch though.” Eris admitted. “And several weeks ago is when official testing started.”

“Jeeze, leave it to science to make ‘awakening psychic powers’ into something boring like ‘official testing’.” Rose teased. It was good to see her trying to make jokes, it was easier to help people who wanted to get better.

“Putting it so casually like that, you’re taking the news of psychic powers remarkably in stride.” Eris said, pulling Rose up so that the girl was sitting directly in her lap. Which was perhaps a mistake because Rose was quite tall. The top of her head barely reached Rose’s shoulders like this. 

Rose leaned back from the hold Eris had on her and gave her a deadpan expression. “As a girl with an alien symbiote who’s been asleep for 500 years after escaping some kind of robot apocalypse, the part I’m most used to is being a weirdness magnet. Even if I’m not always ready for the weirdness itself. Even before the robots I’d been running into all kinds of crazy stuff with Wave. We’re all probably going to be running into even weirder things.”

A giggle escaped her lips. A giggle! Eris didn’t normally giggle, this was definitely a strange development. This cat girl was doing things to her. “Quick to assume it will be ‘we’ aren’t you?” Eris joked, holding Rose tight. 

“You’re the one who came and sought me out yourself, miss ‘runs towards a rampaging alien with nothing but a pipe,’” Rose said, with a smirk. “If anything I’m going to be sticking around for your own safety.”

The mood in the air began to lighten as the pair sat together, Eris didn’t let Rose wallow in her sadness. If not letting the girl out of her sight was what it took to help her get better, then so be it.

“Such sass. You can stay with me and my dad, we’ve got a guest bedroom that you can take up.” Eris said, unable to keep a wide smile off her face. “No room for negotiation.”

“Really? Don’t we have to handle things with…” Rose grimaced, looking remorseful. “I did kind of wreck a bunch of police cars.”

“We’ll...handle that when we get to it.” Eris quickly reassured her, and pulled her close again, resting her head on Rose’s arm. She had no idea how she was even going to [i]begin[/i] to help Rose make amends for all that. She was pretty sure those things had enough failsafes that no officers would actually have been seriously hurt, even with the electronics fried by water. “Whatever happens I’ll be right there with you. I kind of had to get you out of there asap so you didn’t sleep off your adventure at the police station. So I uh...kinda vouched for you, so now you’re my responsibility anyway.”

Rose looked down at Eris, confusion plain to see, and of course feel. “Wha- is that how that works nowadays?”

“I’m not sure if that’s how that’s supposed to work or not, they did kinda just let us go though.” Eris confessed. “Either way I don’t think we’re getting off scot free.” 

Eris really didn’t know. As much as her dad wanted her to be aware of all the laws and bylaws in and around Anchorsway, legal shenanigans weren’t really her specialty. 

“Before we do anything else though,” Rose said, her face a bright red as she blushed through her fur. “Do you think you could get me some clothes?” 

Ah. That is pretty important. Eris felt her own face heat up as she also realized she was holding this girl who was wearing nothing but--

The door slammed open and light poured in from the garage the office sat in. Rose yelped and jumped, which pushed Eris--who was still holding her--back. The sheet wearing cat girl laid on top of her.

“I foresaw that there is a [i]fashion emergency![/i]” The small girl standing in the doorway shouted. “Why is it so dark in here? I can’t see a thing!”

“Leah please.” Eris said as she groaned. Leah walked into the room carrying a gym bag that seemed to be stuffed to the brim with who knows what. Probably clothes. Her foresight was annoyingly convenient. She grinned a wide toothy smile at Eris befitting her nature as a shark. 

“Aw come on, you brought in a new girl, someone new to make blind jokes at! Don’t rob me of my fun.” Leah replied. As she reached over and clicked on the office’s light Eris could then see her clearly. She wore a plain white sundress, and just flip flops on her feet. Her long blonde hair was surprisingly well groomed today, put up in a high ponytail. “I can see you two are getting comfortable with each other already, though. Why don’t you help your new girlfriend get dressed and introduce her to everyone?”

Eris and Rose both began to sputter in indignation and surprise. Eris didn’t know if it was possible for Leah’s teasing grin to get any wider. 

“G-girlfriend?!” Rose shouted, before continuing in a more subdued tone. “I-I mean, we’ve only just met, really. I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with you Eris, you’re absolutely wonderful and I’d definitely love to--” Rose shut her mouth, rather abruptly, covering it with her hands and looking rather like she was going to pass out from lack of blood to anywhere other than her face as she rolled herself off of Eris, face down on the floor. She positively radiated embarrassment, but thankfully not offense. No need to go knocking some heads around yet.

Eris brought a hand to her forehead and glared at Leah. When she woke up earlier she had briefly thought that Rose was going to be a pain in the rear. Thankfully Leah is here to remind her that, as much as she dearly loved all her friends and even the professor, things were a little rough in the social skills department for everyone here as they were still getting used to the new dynamics after several weeks.

Leah’s smile absolutely could get wider, and did so as she looked over the embarrassed girls. She felt like a zebra being hunted by a lion. Except Leah was a shark. 

“I’ll just leave you lovebirds to get ready, everyone’s waiting.” Leah teased as she started to make her way to the door. “Clothes for the new girl are in the bag. And your jacket and PET are in there too, Eris. You left them behind at the spot where you abducted your new lover. Good luck!” The shark girl quickly stepped out and slammed the door behind her. Her giggles faintly trailing off through the flimsy cubicle-board of the office walls.

A pause. Eris reached over and rested a hand on the back of Rose’s head as she continued to lie on the ground. “Sooooo...wanna talk about that?” Eris asked.

“Please just bring the bag over here and don’t look while I change.” Rose muttered from behind her hands.

“Okay. Good plan.” Eris said, nodding once as she got up and made her way over to the bag. 

-
--
-

Wave, from the sounds of laughter echoing around Rose, was having an absolute blast. Rose indignantly adjusted the bottom of her new loose fitting t-shirt, a plain white thing that hung a little ways over her newly acquired black exercise shorts. The cat girl clung desperately to what dignity and composure she could manage without any provided underwear--[i]Shut up Wave![/i]--and turned around.

Her inkling only laughed harder. “Okay, I’m dressed, but I’ll definitely need something better than this soon. It’s really not my style” Rose said. It was obvious to both the host and occupant that Rose desperately wanted to talk about the thing. The thing that she desperately did not want to have to deal with on top of everything else. She could allow Wave her fun though, it had been almost five hundred years since they had last seen each other from the inkling’s perspective.

It almost felt wrong, Rose thought to herself as she picked up the gym bag at her feet, just how normal this all was. Getting changed into clothes that barely fit, in a city she didn’t know the name of, in an entirely new time period.

 Eris stood up from the chair she placed facing a corner of the room, the same chair she had slept in while watching over Rose. She quickly gave the cat girl an appraising look.

“Jeeze, yeah. What were they thinking? We’ll get you all set up later.” Eris replied casually, hands on her hips as she shook her head briefly. Rose was exceptionally thankful that she continued to not talk about the thing. “Let's go meet everyone else, because I’m sure they’re all dying to meet you.”

“Everyone else.” Rose repeated nervously. Wave’s laughter had stopped, silent worry replacing it. More people meant people who would need to be told about the five hundred years thing. People who would ask how, or why, they’d want to know about--

And ever vigilant, as though she could feel Rose slipping into panic, Eris reached out and squeezed her hand. [i]Of course she can feel. It was in her file. Empath.[/i]

“I’ll be there with you. If anyone gives you trouble I’ll smack them over the head like I always do.” Eris calmly explained. She gripped Rose’s hand a little tighter, and Rose was deeply thankful for it. Wave’s amusement and caution were lingering in the back of her mind as quiet thoughts instead of spoken words now. 

“How many of you guys are there?” Rose asked, unashamedly stalling as she shuffled closer to the shorter red panda girl. Standing so close together, holding hands, Rose couldn’t help but notice the large height difference between them even more so than when she was sitting in Eris’s lap earlier.

“There’s about a dozen in the city as a whole, so far as people that have been brave enough to be tested. And only five of us have any significant power potential.” Eris said, gently leaning against Rose as she began to lead them both towards the door with slow methodical steps. She probably knew that Rose absolutely was delaying the inevitable. “It isn’t a very good show of statistics though, not too many people are keen on having anything to do with psychic powers so we don’t get a lot of volunteers. Me and my dad both got tested, but he didn’t have potential, not like I do.” 

Rose replied with a simple nod. It was interesting to hear about but she wasn’t too keen on making anyone impatient. “We should probably go.” She quietly suggested, making no moves to do so herself as they both stopped in front of the exit. 

“Are you sure? I mean, we don’t have much of a choice in leaving this room, but we can keep em waiting a while longer if you’re not ready.” Eris said, reassuringly.

Rose took a slow deep breath through her nose, letting the air fill her lungs, holding it for a moment, and slowly letting it out through her mouth. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be ready to deal with all this but Eris was right. It’s not like she had much of a choice. 

Besides she could always just have a nice calm mental breakdown in private later.

Rose felt a brief tingle as Wave’s ink flowed down her right arm, and she took control. She promptly used said arm to reach up and pink Rose on her cheek. “Ow, rude!”

[i]”I’m holding you together as best I can Rose but you gotta work with me on this.”[/i] Wave said chastisingly. Wave gave back control of her arm as her ink receded. 

“Ow? Ow what? Are you okay?” Eris asked, clearly concerned as she looked up to meet Rose’s eyes.

Rose sighed. “I’m fine. Just Wave keeping me in linel.” she flashed Eris a small smile to reassure her. 

[i]”Cheeky water elemental, one day I’ll figure out how to get you back.”[/i] Rose thought to herself. [i]”But I’m glad you have my back.”[/i]

“If you’re sure,” Eries replied, clearly rather confused. She turned to the door, opened it, and motioned for Rose to go first.

Rose raised an eyebrow at Eris and glanced around the large garage space as she poked her head out the door. She noted more makeshift cubicle rooms alongside the one they stepped out of, pushed back in a row against the wall across from the large bay doors. Most of the open floor in the center was unused save for large chalk lines that made the room feel rather like a small gymnasium, everything of note seemed to be pushed back around the edges of the room. Computers and server racks, piles of dumbbells, and even some proper office cubicles. 

Eris gave her a gentle nudge from behind and she stumbled out of the smaller room. The sounds of discussion in the building were no longer there, having gone silent as Eris opened the door. 

To her right, as she stepped out, Eris saw a sitting area populated with a number of chairs and rugs and cushions. Leah was sprawled out across a large couch, her eyes closed, but the other two occupants of the room were looking directly at her: a grey sea slug girl and a white furred wolf man.

“Come on, they don’t bite.” Eris joked as she poked and gently pushed Rose towards the thrown together lounge.

“H-hey, quit it! I can walk there on my own!” Rose complained, trying to dodge and move out of the way of Eris’s assault as she was hurried forward.

“Well you weren’t, I have half a mind to pick you up and carry you myself.” Eris said with a grin. 

“Are you planning on making that a habit then?” The sea slug lying back in a completely reclined recliner asked as they got closer. She had a grin of her own on her face, blue and green stripes ran around her neck and down her arms in swirling patterns across her grey skin. She wore a short sleeved dark green jumpsuit, not unlike what Rose had seen workers in her time wearing in a number of mechanical trades. All that was missing was some kind of hardhat covering the girl’s shoulder length purple hair. 

“I swear you’re worse than your dad sometimes, you just picked her up and ran all the way here! You’re insane Eris.” The slug girl remarked, throwing her hands up in the air lazily. She turned her head to Rose, still not sitting up, and continued. “My name is Julia, it’s nice to meetcha, the gang's all here to meet the new girl! Minus the professor. She said she went off to take a call.”

“Thankfully your dad at least thought to drop your PET and jacket off here before you two woke up, Eris.” The tired looking wolf said. He sat hunched over with his elbows on his knees, the un-tied blue tie around his neck hung down around the back of his neck over the long-sleeved pink dress shirt he wore.

With a soft grunt he stood up as Rose approached, offering his hand. She tentatively took it, and shook his hand. “Rose, Rose North. At least handshakes are still a thing after 500 years.” She said. 

The wolf paused, taking back his hand and bringing it straight to his forehead. “I knew it, even more trouble...” He remarked with a sigh. “I’m sorry, it’s nice to meet you, miss. My name is Elliot, I’m here ‘officially’ in place of my mother, seeing as she’s likely off with Arbitrator Redwind right about now.”

“Come on El, you know this place just skeeves her and the rest of the precinct out. She doesn’t need much of an excuse to send an actual PSYCO to deal with other PSYCOs anyway.” Julia said as Eris sat down on a couch directly across from the one Leah had been lounging on. The Sea slug seemed rather distracted, regardless of her energy. Not looking directly at anyone unless she spoke to them. 

“Yeah but it always means more paperwork for her to dump on me, Jules. I’m gonna have a hard enough time figuring out what forms to fill out for inklings, but a time traveler?!” Elliot flung one arm up in exasperation as he ran the other through his black hair, a rather ineffective gesture as it was tightly tied back in a low ponytail. The only response Julia gave him was a contemplative hum as she pulled out her phone and typed something into it.

Rose tensed and stepped back when the wolf had let go of her hand. He likely hadn’t meant any offense in his minor outburst, but he was clearly more than a little overworked. Time was yet to tell if it was because he was just dependable or because people used him like a doormat. He seemed far too prim and proper to let anyone walk all over him, but people could surprise you. She stumbled backwards slightly and sat down on the same couch as Eris, who promptly reached over and dragged Rose to her side by her waist. “Wha-hey!” Rose exclaimed.

“Not a single speck of subtlety in your body huh?” Leah teased, turning onto her side and facing the rest of the group, eyes still closed.

“I’m just being preemptively supportive before you all start asking intrusive questions.” Eris explained, holding Rose a little tighter. The reassurance was very much appreciated.

“Like ‘how did you actually end up here in our time’? Did you have a cool time machine?” Leah not-so-helpfully added. 

Rose’s mind flashed to images of a dark churning sea, the sensation of flinging metal bodies overboard, of screams in the night as she fell into the deep dark water.

A squeeze from Eris brought her back to her senses, she let go of the tension that had taken hold of all her muscles and relaxed in the grip of the red panda. She must have looked like quite the sorry sight as she wiped a few stray tears from her eyes. “It wasn’t fun. There was no time machine.” 

Leah looked remorseful as she gazed not-quite at Rose. “I’m sorry.” Leah said. And Rose nodded thankfully, glad that the girl was able to recognize when she had taken things too far. The girl had made mention of blind jokes earlier, and while she showed no signs of being in any way hindered, she figured it wasn’t quite polite to ask about it just yet. There was no need to meet a faux pa with another faux pa. 

Rose swallowed nervously, a short shiver running up her spine as she tried to find her words. It was odd, and very unwelcome being so reserved and fearful. It didn’t feel all that long ago when she had a good grasp on her emotions and could calmly take command in an emergency. But it wasn’t something she could help at the moment. It was agonizing feeling like a scared helpless child. 

“It’s fine.” Rose finally said, reaching around and resting a hand on Eris’s arm. “I should probably talk about it anyway, especially if I’m sticking around.” 

She hadn’t learned much about anyone here just yet, but that would come in time. Elliot the overworked junior police officer not much older than herself. The young shark Leah who seemed unafraid to joke with and tease a potential new friend, perhaps the most outgoing of the group? Julia, by comparison, seemed rather introverted. She seemed content to sit and watch the rest of the group converse.

She was very thankful for Eris most of all, who stepped up to be someone she could lean on. Someone she could rely on to keep her from spiralling. 

She cleared her throat and tried not to panic as all eyes set on her. Elliot was sitting down again, Julia had sat up and was actually showing interest now. Leah had closed her eyes once again, but Rose trusted her to listen, at least, as she began to speak. 

“Five hundred years ago, I...drowned.”

Rose told her story, but only the story of the disaster. One day she might be able to open up to them about her old life, but not today.

-
--
-

Professor Matilda Roselina Sutton was not, contrary to popular belief, insane. Colleagues both current and former might have judged her to be more than a little unhinged, and overly paranoid. 

She sat at her desk in her dark little office looking at the dozens of wall mounted monitors displaying live feeds of locations in and around her humble little facility. The blue glow of her monitors clashing with the neon lights from other businesses in the area shining through the window at the back of the room, a former private office for the old mechanics shop.

Tilly sipped her coffee and thought about how such a colorful reputation was a small price to pay for being well prepared. Having a neurod or twelve stashed in convenient locations was only brushed off as silly paranoia until the inkling invasion. 

She brushed a hand over her left thigh, over the leg she lost those months ago in locksmouth. She was thankful to live in times where such an injury was able to be fixed.

Professor Tilly Sutton was neither insane, nor an idiot, as she watched over her children. Her employees, technically, but hers nonetheless. She bore no ill will against the inklings themselves, not anymore. This one though had not even six hours ago disabled almost the entirety of the police force’s on-duty vehicles without breaking a sweat. 

She trusted Eris though, an empath could see many things that normal people could not. Her trust did not override the sense of foreboding that came with Rose after she and Eris had slept, however. The Professor glanced up at the outer ring of monitors on her display, cycling through the perspectives of drones that surveilled the compound. The two notifications of lost connections approximately three hours ago hadn’t gone unnoticed. 

That was the part she didn’t trust.

Tilly sat, and she listened to the girl from a long forgotten history.

“They were unstoppable. Metal and wire conquered flesh and blood and in a matter of days there was no more internet or telephone infrastructure, cities disappearing right off the map. I almost wouldn’t have believed the rumors of them being buried if I hadn’t watched it happen right before my eyes.”

She spoke of the automa, of how they completely wiped out civilization's progress for the hope of giving humanity a new start, but from the perspective of someone who was there. 

Someone they missed.

Another notification of a lost drone.

She watched a shadowed figure bound across the rooftops from one that was too high up to shoot down, this time away from the garage, her home. The one place many of her children felt safe to be themselves these days.

Professor Tilly Sutton would keep watch regardless, and protect her charges.

She glanced over in the corner of her office, at the synthetic arm made with materials and parts she hadn’t seen in any records, classified or public. She knew she wasn’t going to get any sleep tonight. And as Rose described haunting glares from electric displays, she realized that the two of them were one and the same. While she trusted her childrens powers to help them identify a liar, Tilly knew from the frightened silence she occasionally fell into that Rose was telling the truth.

The branch of the Mind’s Eye Society that had made its way to Locksmouth in the past weeks had proven that she was no longer defenseless, none of her children were. And for that, she was immensely thankful. Rose would be safe for as long as Tilly could help it.

She would have them all sleep the night here, calling it a celebration of new friends, and bring out some hot chocolate. But Tilly would watch, and wait. 

She stood up, with a thoughtful look at that cursed mechanical arm, and made her way out of her office.