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Chapter Text

On the very edge of the floating city that hosted their base was the training grounds. The shooting range, spike plant and defusal trials, and just beyond the open fields…

Was a parkour section that Jett found all by herself.

‘Parkour section’ was a loose term for several floating rocks dotting the perimeter of Ascent but it served its purpose, nonetheless.

Various team members often flocked to the training grounds in shifts. The three youngest duelists + Killjoy often found themselves going together, such as right now. Raze, Phoenix, and Jett take turns obliterating Killjoy’s training bots while Killjoy takes notes on how to adjust the difficulty and adaptability of the machines accordingly.

On this day, Jett grew weary of this routine after about a half-hour. She took the opportunity to slip away when Killjoy took offense to Phoenix calling her robots ‘dummies,’ some time when harsh German was calmed by smooth Portuguese.

Fifteen minutes later and Viper was making her way around the base in pursuit of fresh air. An experiment gone wrong caused her to inhale caustic material and she would rather be left to hack and spit in nature than all over her lab where she had to clean it up.

When most of the coughing subsided, she continued to walk around, trying her hardest not to audibly wheeze with each step. It was only when her breathing evened out that she heard Jett’s updraft followed by an immediate tailwind at steady intervals.

While this was customary (Jett’s abilities were one of the loudest and she used it constantly to escape Viper, Sage, Reyna, even Omen’s occasional wrath around the base) it quite literally sounded like she was whooshing herself… right off the map.

A few quick strides and Viper is right at the edge, watching Jett boost herself high up in the air and dash from rock to rock.

“Have you lost your mind?” The controller all but sneers. Jett falters mid-dash and gasps as she lands belly-first on the side of one of the rocks, hard. Winded from the impact, she tries to dig her nails into the rubble for purchase but finds herself sliding over the edge until she is quite literally dangling from her fingertips.

“You. Are an idiot.”

“All good, Viper! I got this!” Jett says, swinging her legs to use the momentum to hoist herself back up. She fails, miserably, and is once again suspended mid-air.

“You wait right there.” There is pure venom in Sabine’s words by now, and if anyone tried to point out the way she all but turned and darted back into the base to find help, she would deny it vehemently.

“I kinda have to, you know…” Jett tries to turn around to look in the direction of Viper’s voice and finds that she is all alone again.

~*~

Viper found Sage, who was with Reyna and explained the situation. With haste the trio make their way out of the base and, Astra, who had just finished setting chicken in the fridge to marinate, trailed after the three out of pure curiosity.

“OH!” The Ghanian vocalized after seeing the state of Jett.

“How did this happen, Joon-Hee?” Came Sage’s deadpan not a moment later. Despite this, she is approaching the edge of the rock with both arms outstretched, gauging how many walls she would have to erect to bridge the gap between each ledge.

“It’s my parkour course!” Jett says. There are beads of sweat falling from her face now, her arms beginning to shake under the weight of her entire body.

“Can you use your updraft to boost yourself up?” Astra asks.

“I tried that already! I used the last one right when you all showed up!”

“You really are an idiot.” Viper says.

Astra is in her astral form now. A star appears before Jett.

“Hold on tight, Chale! Pulling in!” Astra says, and Jett feels one arm being pulled closer to the surface of the rock. She tries to use her other hand to find purchase but soon finds herself sliding back down to dangle.

“This is taking too long. Her arms will give out before either of you reach her. Pobrecita.” Reyna disappears without another word. Viper had half a mind to go with the duelist, who seemed to have given up on the younger girl.

“Continue pulling her in, Astra,” Sage says just as her first wall is raised.

“Got that.” Astra is in her Astral form not a moment later. Another gravity well is activated and Jett sighs in relief, as she manages to push herself back onto the rock with the Ghanian’s support. Once again, this is short-lived, and she is over the edge again.

“This isn’t working!” Astra said.

“At the very least we are giving her arms reprieve until we can find a better solution.”

The second wall is up, and the two use it to climb to the next rock.

~*~

Several walls and gravity wells later and the sentinel and controller are two floating rocks away from their troublesome duelist. Sage’s hands shake as she moves to summon another wall. The orb in her hand is translucent and chipped now. Both hands fall to her sides, and she looks over at the Astral Guardian, who looks back at her with the same look of defeat.

“It seems I’ve reached my limit.”

“So have I.”

“Uh, guys?” Jett is panting with the effort of holding herself up. Astra, without missing a beat, activates her last star on the rock and hears Jett’s relieved sigh behind her.

“Thank you!”

“Allow me to take over from here.”

The pair look back and see Omen on the step below them, with Viper and Reyna on either side of him. Cypher is watching from the main island. From the way he has one foot on Sage’s first wall, which is now chipping, Sage can tell he is contemplating joining the rest as well.

The sentinel and controller step aside and allow the wraith to step onto the rock beside them.

He is standing in front of Jett with the help of two quick shrouded steps. The duelist, who is now hanging on by only one arm, thrusts her free one up for Omen to grab onto.

With a grunt, Omen uses both hands on her forearm to pull her up halfway before switching to grab both arms once she lets go of the cliff. Once she’s on her feet, she’s dusting her pants off and picking pebbles out of the flesh of her stomach.

“Whew. Thanks for saving my butt. I had to have been hanging there for, like, 5 minutes.”

“Fifteen.” Sage, Astra, Viper, and Reyna corrected.

Jett shrugs. “Potato tomato.” She crouches low and focuses on her target, the rocks between herself and Omen, before several sentinels, controllers, and one duelist all yelled, effectively stopping her in her tracks.

“What?” Jett asked.

“Have you learned nothing, cariño?”

“Well, then how do you propose we get down?”

“Omen will get you back down to Sage and I and then we will all use her walls to get back on base.” Astra supplied.

“I… only had two shrouded steps left.” Omen admitted with slumped shoulders.

“And, uh…” Jett points behind the group to Sage’s walls. Cypher moved back right as the first wall broke. Followed by the second. And third.

The group watched as each wall disintegrated. The only noise was an occasional cough from Viper, and the breeze surrounding them.

“Jett.” Viper cut through the silence like a knife, tone venomous.

“I know, I’m an idiot.”

“Then my work here is done.”

~*~

“I propose I should be able to summon enough walls to get us out of here...” Sage said after a few moments. She heard several sighs of relief around her.

“In approximately an hour and a half. Maybe two.”

And then she heard a chorus of groans.

~*~

Two duelists and one sentinel bumped into one another as they stumbled out of the training grounds, laughing all the way.

Killjoy was the first to notice Cypher standing just a few feet ahead, hands on his hips as he stared off into the distance in deep thought.

“Cy?”

The sentinel turned to the other sentinel.

“How many controllers does it take to rescue a duelist?” He asks.

“Huh?” Raze and Phoenix say, now slowing to a stop.

Killjoy, however, quickened her pace until she stood beside Cypher, and gasped when she saw their friends stranded across a few rocks.

“Scheisse!” She says, before pulling out her comm device from the pocket of her sweater and pressing it to her ear.

“You all wait right there! I will have Brimstone bring the jet!”

“They kinda have to, you know…” Phoenix says, now standing on the other side of Cypher and taking in the trouble his best friend caused.

“Nice one, amiga!” Comes Raze who makes it her business to stand right at the cliff’s edge, snickering all the while.

~*~

All of them.

It took every single controller, plus three sentinels and one duelist to rescue their beloved Joon-Hee.

And as each of them sat on the jet and watched as Sage healed the superficial cuts and bruises on her, they realized it was not because they all needed to be there, but because they wanted to be.

“And I’d better not catch you over there again.” Was Viper’s final word on it.

~*~

Dinner rolled around and Astra made quick business of placing a bowl of rolls in the middle of their grand dining room table. She paid no mind to the way Jett dashed in, grabbed a bun, and dashed out in the other direction until she saw Sage, Cypher, Viper, and Reyna hot on her tail.

Unbeknownst to Jett, Cypher placed several tripwires at the entrance of the parkour course to keep her away. Of course, she set them off a mere two hours after her first rescue.

How many sentinels does it take to catch a duelist?

Chapter Text

Brimstone, Sova, Jett, Reyna, and Sage were on Icebox. The team convened on the jet before dropping down in defender side’s spawn.

“Just like we said. Sova and Reyna will cover B-site. Jett and I will cover A-site. Sage will wall tunnels and anchor mid.”

Without much conversation, everyone began making their way to both sites. Brimstone turned around to check on his duelist who stood on the rafters, spectre dangling off her right hand and left hand holding her growling stomach.

“Oh, I’m hungry. Anyone hungry? Lunch on Brimstone after this!”

Brimstone couldn’t help but chuckle at this. Lifting his bracer to eye level, he pressed the pad of his pointer finger down on the screen in preparation for a push. Seeing her leader at the ready, Jett raised her weapon to hip-level with all traces of playfulness leaving her demeanor.

Footsteps are heard just beyond A nest. With the single press of a button his smoke is deployed, and the rest of his team prepared to rotate.

~*~

“Wheels up in five,” Brimstone said. He handed the spike, now secured, to Sage, who began loading it into the jet. Reyna is already at the very back, waiting (with arms crossed over her chest) for someone to start the engine and, as a result, turn on the heat.

“I believe everyone is ready to go, captain.” Was Sova’s reply.

Brimstone turned around to regard the other and, before he could say anything, paused, taking in Sova’s unusual appearance. The Russian’s face, unchanged, showed no sign of injury. He wore the same brown slacks. But his shirt… something was missing…

Jett came into view from where she stepped around Sova, now clad in his cloak. She pulled the fabric around herself and pouted with a shaky bottom lip.

“Y-yeah, c-can we g-go now?” She asked, teeth chattering as she did so.

Sova reached out and placed the hood, which Brimstone wasn’t even aware the garment had, over the poor duelist’s head.

~*~

Three hours have passed. The five-stack made their way back to base safely. They each stepped off the jet together before splitting off in different directions, no doubt to shower and get ready for lunch.

As they always seemed to do, the five agents reconvened with their other colleagues and each other in the common room. Phoenix and Breach were hogging the Playstation by the couch, duelist and initiator in a heated game of Call of Duty. Many other agents gathered around and made small talk as they waited for lunch to be served.

Brimstone, the resident early-riser, somehow had enough time in the morning to set steaks in the fridge to marinate. With Yoru in charge of the side dishes, all that was left to do was grill the meat, which he set off to do. On his way out the door he brushed by everyone sitting on the couch. His free hand came down to ruffle the white bun that belonged to Jett, dressed in a pair of sweats and still wrapped up in Sova’s cloak (fresh out the dryer).

“I don’t know how many times Sage an’ I have to tell ya. Bundle up when you’re on Icebox, mate!” Skye says from the floor. She sat between the coffee table and Jett, whittling away at one of her trinkets.

“I’m Korean! I’m used to cold weather!”

“But now you live on a floating rock in the middle of Italy and closer to the sun! Most of your tolerance to the cold was bound to wear off!” Killjoy explained from the loveseat she shared with Raze.

Defeated, Jett nestled further into the warm garment, now pulled over her mouth to hide the pout on her lips.

To add insult to injury, the wind girl was beginning to develop a bit of a sniffle, hence why Skye was working on her creations with haste.

~*~

During mealtime, Brimstone sits at one end of the table, and Breach at the other. In between them, cliques form, usually the four younger duelists (Yoru, Jett, Raze, and Phoenix) plus Killjoy on one side and the older women (Reyna, Skye, Sage, and Astra) plus Cypher on the other. The rest of the agents are left to fill in (Sova usually takes the spot to Breach’s right), with Kay/O and Omen rarely sitting at the table because they lack the need for sustenance.

Killjoy and Viper (or Sage) usually choose to sit on either side of their leader. On some rare occasions though, these seats are used as a ‘time-out’ corner of sorts in that nobody would dare act out while sitting directly under his nose.

Today, Jett was placed in ‘time-out’ for pushing Phoenix into Yoru, who dropped a few buns on the floor before he could set them down.

Viper looked over at the trio. Yoru cursed and put the bowl on the edge of the table.

“One of you had better pick that shit up.” He said before walking back into the kitchen to grab the rice.

“Phoenix.” Viper sneered. With a groan, the firebird bent down to pick up both fallen rolls.

“And you.” A glare and a manicured finger gestured over to the unoccupied chair to Brimstone’s left. With a pout, Jett pulled Sova’s cloak higher on her shoulders, so the hem didn’t touch the floor as she moved to take her seat.

With the main troublemakers of the afternoon separated, Yoru, Brimstone, and Sova continued to set the table as the other agents began to filter into the room. Within five minutes each seat is occupied. A few agents converse quietly from time to time, but the only sound that is consistent is those of cutlery scraping against plates.

Brimstone takes one bite of his steak and hums at the pleasant taste. With both fork and knife at the ready, he prepares to cut himself another strip–

Until he hears the screeching sound of a knife scraping against glass.

He watches as Jett clumsily tries to cut her own piece. Eyebrows furrowed in concentration and tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth, she tries in earnest to keep the edges of Sova’s cloak from draping over her arms and landing in the sauce below.

Wordlessly, he reaches over and takes her plate from her.

“As annoying as she is, I still believe she deserves to eat, Brimstone.” Yoru says, earning a few scattered chuckles from his colleagues. Jett sticks her tongue out at him. She sets her knife down and watches, fork still in a vice grip, as Brimstone cuts sizable pieces for her.

A few moments later and he’s finished cutting.

“Kamsahamnida!” Jett says as she accepts the plate.

And Brimstone, having no idea what she just said, simply nods, happy to return to his meal in peace.

But then there’s a sniffle.

Then another.

Then a third.

And Jett lets out a massive sneeze.

Right as Brimstone opens his mouth.

There is silence, and then Sage sets down her fork with a sigh.

“I will go get the Robitussin.”

Chapter Text

Jett loves pickles.

Pickles remind Jett of kimchi in a way. Seeing as they’re a long way from Korea, or civilization as Ascent would have it, fresh or even preserved kimchi was hard for the Korean duelist to come by.

Teleportation was a fickle science, Killjoy explained to her one day when she asked why she couldn’t use the portal located just outside of the training grounds to get to Korea for some decent food. Of course, most of the science-y words went in one ear and out of the other after Jett realized the answer to her question was no.

As it stood, their portal was limited to other countries in Europe. They did most of their grocery shopping in England, and England has decent pickles because their pickles were imported from Germany which, apparently, has an abundance of pickles to share.

So, every two weeks when it’s time for the more responsible agents (read: Viper, Sage, Sova, and Brimstone) go grocery shopping, she makes sure pickles are at the top of the list. And liquor, which all four of the agents consistently refuse to buy for her.

She woke up early to see the four agents off and, after an hour, went back to stand by the portal to wait for the bags to appear, as they often do.

Not ten minutes later and she gets her wish. She snatches up the first bag she sees and begins looking through it for the tell-tale glass jar, before being stopped by Viper who materialized in front of her, several bags stretched across both arms.

“Bring it to the kitchen before you drop something, Jett.” Though her tone is light (or as light as she is capable of) she is on the brink of exasperation dealing with the younger girl before 10 in the morning.

With a nod, Jett dashes inside the house and walks toward the kitchen, one hand rummaging through the bag as she did so. By the time she sets it on the counter and pulls out its contents, she realizes that she did not, in fact, choose a bag that had her pickles in it.

Viper walked in and, lightly pushing the girl to the side, set all the bags in her arms down on the counter before her. She steps back a moment to make room in the fridge, and Sage takes her place. Jett helps unbag items and set them on the marble top before she sees Sage pull out her prize.

A gasp and she’s moving toward the Sentinel excitedly.

“Can I have a pickle now?” She asked, already reaching out for the jar. Sage angles the item away from the girl with ease.

“No.”

Viper takes hold of the jar. “Not until after we finish putting the groceries away. And just so you won’t sneak one when we go out to get the rest of them…”

Viper opens the cabinet and places them on the top shelf, in the back, almost barely standing on the tips of her toes to do so.

Jett crosses her arms over her chest and – yes – pouts, not caring how childish she may look if she does so.

“Cheer up, Chale!” Astra’s slippers scrape against the smooth tile underfoot. She still has her satin scarf on her head as she bumbles about to help put the groceries away. “It’s Brimstone’s turn to cook breakfast!”

“I don’t want eggs and bacon, I want pickles.” She insists. The controller waves her off and walks out the door to grab more bags. Viper and Sage follow suit, the sentinel looking back at the duelist and smiling fondly at her childish antics.

Once the three were out of the room, Jett turned to the cabinet and, glaring, tried to gauge how many updrafts she would need to reach the top shelf.

Two updrafts and she’s at eye-level with the pickles for only a moment. Before she can grab them, her head hits the ceiling, and she sinks back to the floor.

With one hand clasped over the knot forming on the top of her head, her frown deepens. She’s full-on scowling at the shelf now, so much so that she doesn’t notice two initiators filling the space by the counters and stovetop to her right.

Breach looks between Jett’s glare, the cabinet, and the door. He looks back at Sova, who holds his gaze for a moment before looking down and fishing bread and eggs out of his bag. The Swede reaches up and grabs the jar.

Jett’s frown turns into a smile, and she holds out her hands to accept the jar.

Fingers close around the lid. She tries to turn it with a grunt and frows again when the metal does not budge. Tucking the jar under her armpit, she tries to open it once more, and all but whines when she is unable to do so.

Holding in a smile, Breach takes the jar back and hands it over to Sova lest his arms crack the glass and make a mess for Viper to yell at him about.

Sova takes the jar, twists off the lid, and hands it back to Breach, briskly walking to the other side of the kitchen to put the bread in the pantry before he can be seen conspiring with the two.

“Scaredy cat.” Breach jests as he holds the open jar out to Jett.

Jett grabs the pickle and puts it in her mouth before taking the jar and closing the lid. Quickly, Breach replaces it at the top of the shelf.

Jett dashes out of the room with her snack quickly enough to dodge Viper, Astra, and Sage, who were making their way back down the hallway to the kitchen.

“Joon-Hee, you are not getting out of grocery duty that easy! You finish that pickle and come back here!” Sage said, making Breach flinch.

Chapter Text

It’s leisure day on base.

Many of the agents busied themselves with the menial tasks they did not have time for between missions. Others took the day off to explore their hobbies; a new wooden figurine here, a knitted scarf there. The familiar clicking of Chamber’s Tour De Force as he cleaned the gun’s barrel.

Four people occupied the couch in the common room; Phoenix to Jett’s left, Raze to her right, and Killjoy wedged between her girlfriend and the sofa arm typing away on the tablet in her hands. The three duelists had just finished a Grand Prix in Mario Kart.

At the end of the race, having come second to Raze for the third time in a row, Jett cast her controller to the side and gave a long, forlorn sigh.

Phoenix and Raze were still idly jabbing at each other from atop her head when she gave another, louder, more dramatic sigh, squirming off the couch until she slid beneath the cushions onto the rug below them.

“What’s the matter, Jett? Don’t tell me you’re a sore loser too!” Raze said, placing a warm hand on her shoulders.

“Just you wait, Bruv! M’gonna bring it back!”

With another sigh, Jett got to her feet.

“M’bored. I don’t wanna play Mario Kart anymore.” She says whilst fighting the urge to cross her arms over her chest petulantly.

“Hm. Do you want to do our dailies on Genshin?” Killjoy piped up from the couch.

“No…” Jett answered with a groan. “I’m not in the mood for Paimon’s sass today.”

“One more game and then we can head down to the training grounds. How’s that sound?” Phoenix asked, holding out the controller for her to take.

“No… That doesn’t sound fun either.” A beat of silence, and then another. “I’m gonna go see what everyone else is up to.”

“Leave Viper alone!” Killjoy cautioned the duelist as she turned to walk away.

~~

The first person she saw on her stroll around the base was Sova, in the kitchen, standing over a pot. Noticing her loitering in the archway without even looking, he called out to her.

Slowly, she walked over to him, standing beside him to stare into the pot as well.

The aroma of the concoction was familiar, rich, and warm. Sweet and inviting and… very brown.

Sova cut off the stove and, after wrapping the handle with a dish towel, brought the pot over to the counter where two cups sat. Thinking about it, he used his free hand to bring a cup out from the pantry; Jett’s most favoritest cup, a powder pink mug with strawberries on it.

Slowly, he poured the mixture into each of the three cups. He placed two of the mugs on a saucer, no doubt to carry up to Breach who was working hard on his servos and jutted his chin out at the third one.

“Drink.”

Eagerly, took the cup in her hands and blew on it. A quick gulp and she savored the deliciousness, before deflating.

“No vodka?” She asked.

Sova scowled and turned to exit the room.

“There is more to Russia than snow and liquor!”

~~

After finishing her drink and rinsing out her cup, her next stop was somewhere outside. Slowly she walked over to the edge of the map, and she saw it. The faint outlines of Cypher’s trip wires blocking access to her parkour course, waiting to be triggered. With a pout, she wandered a ways past it and stumbled across Astra mid-air.

The Ghanian sat, cross-legged, suspended amidst the light breeze, no doubt meditating.

Astra let out a deep sigh, one with her thoughts, content with her present state of being.

And then she heard it. The familiar woosh of Jett’s updraft.

Trying her best not to falter, she shakes it off. There are stars behind her eyes; she sees it, a new lineup for another inevitable Haven retake. She can smoke off long and use her gravity well to make the enemies in short vulnerable…

Another woosh. She allows herself to acknowledge that she’s close to losing it.

WOOSH!

That one was nearly directly in her ear!

Opening her eyes, she looked to her right and found Jett beside her. The duelist’s eyebrows furrowed as she crouched low and updrafted again. Quickly, she used the momentum to fold her legs like a pretzel. She used her arms to hold herself up in the wind but slowly she began to drift down again, landing on the patch of grass below her on her bottom with a dull thud.

“Why do you get to float?” She asked with a pout.

Astra chuckled and closed her eyes once more. After a moment or so, she heard the girl’s soft footsteps on the grass retreating.

~~

Surveillance around the base was tricky.

Whenever Cypher found himself bored with scouring the dark web and following cold trails for Brimstone and Sova, he would look to the wall of television screens adjacent to his double monitor setup in his room.

He could count on it that at least once a day, Omen would send out his paranoia to temporarily incapacitate one of Cypher’s cameras. All in good fun, of course.

What wasn’t fun, however, was the flash competition that Skye, Phoenix, Yoru, Breach, and even sometimes Reyna participated in at least once a week in one corner of a random hallway in the building. He likes to think that it’s purely coincidental that they each take turns aiming in the direction of his lens.

“Hm. Brimstone likes dachsunds?” Jett asked, pointing to the camera just outside the Captain’s quarters.

His door, opened just so, gave Cypher’s cameras a nice view of the puppy pile he was currently viewing on YouTube. Floppy-eared mini hot dogs everywhere.

“Yes, although he does seem to be impartial to beagles- HOW DID YOU GET IN HERE?” He shouted.

Jett shrugged. “Skye beat Breach at wrestling again.” She pointed to the two initiators in one of the television screens on the top right. The lens gave a perfect view of the indoor gym; they were sprawled out on a foam mat in the middle of the room, and Skye had Breach in a headlock.

“She always beats him.” He mutters. “Listen, Jett, surely you have something else better to do than bother me?”

Again, she shrugged, shifting her weight from foot to foot. Well, at least she had the decency to act sheepish.

“M’bored.”

With a sigh, he pushed his rolling chair back and turned to regard the other.

“I torrented The Sims 4 for you. Would you like to play?”

At once, she breaks out in a grin and nods.

~~

Jett spent three hours of the afternoon playing the Sims. Soon, she was summoned by Sage to the community garden.

“You wanted to see me, Doc?” She asked, strolling up to Sage who stood by a table in the corner of their expansive greenhouse.

“Well, I heard that you were quite bored this morning and I figured you might want to help me propagate–”

“Pass.” She’s out the door before Sage can finish her sentence, the healer only catching a glimpse of white hair before it disappears behind a sea of foliage.

~~

Viper watched slowly as the mouse fell over onto its side and began to convulse. It was only when the electrodes on the rodent’s tiny body gave out a steady beep that she pressed her stopwatch and scowled.

Slowly, she raised the recorder to her lips. “15.3 seconds. Pathetic.” She muttered before pressing the stop button.

“That’s mean,” Jett says, causing the black-haired woman to turn to her.

“How did you get in here?”

She shrugged. “I’m bored.”

Viper, having nearly reached the end of her rope far too early into the day, squinted at the woman behind her before turning back to her work. Though she continued her experiment, she kept an ear out for the wind girl behind her.

Slowly, the tension in her shoulders began to dissipate until she relaxed into her research completely. Thirty minutes passed by, and Viper perked up once she remembered that she wasn’t alone in the room.

Faintly, she heard a giggle in her periphery. Once she turned, she saw Jett hovering over the unoccupied metal slab a few feet ahead of her. In her hand was one of the many live mice Sabine kept in a cage, cleaning itself furiously while Jett pats its head with the pad of her pointer finger.

“PUT!” Viper yells. Immediately, Jett begins walking over to the cage. “IT. BACK!” She places the mouse down gently, shuts it, and begins to fast walk towards the exit.

~~

Sometime after the adrenaline wore off and her borderline sprint slowed to a walk, she stumbled across Skye in the ‘backyard’ of their floating fortress. Her Tasmanian tiger and bird ran around freely, antagonizing each other, the cacophony of screeches bringing a smile to the Aussie’s freckled face.

“Yo!” Jett greets, and the tiger ran up to her. With its grand paws planted on either of her thighs, the animal pushed itself up just enough to get directly into the wind girl’s face, full jowls on display, and lick her chin.

Jett chuckles happily at this, wraps her arms around the beast, and gives a light squeeze.

“Been tryin’ to calm them down enough to eat for the past fifteen minutes!” Skye says, wiping beads of sweat off her brow with a sigh.

“I know a great way to burn off some of that energy!” Lowering the tiger down to its feet, she takes off in a mad dash with the animal nearly half a step behind her. This, of course, causes the bird to go soaring after them as well, nearly screeching all the while.

Ten minutes later and Jett stands with her hands on her knees, panting, as Skye sets about preparing each animal’s meal.

~~

“And that is the story of how Deagle the Beagle found his furrever home.” Came the announcer’s voice from the speakers of Brimstone’s computer. With a snail’s speed, the captain reached out to grasp the mouse and click the next recommended video underneath.

“Aww.”

Brimstone swiveled around in his seat to find the familiar white-haired girl standing in the doorway of his office, arms tucked behind her back. Swiftly he took up the pen and pad abandoned on his desk and pressed it into the blank space.

“Need something?”

With a long, drawn-out sigh, Jett stepped into the room. Slowly, she made her way around – touching the various awards scattered on shelves before taking a seat on the folding chair just in front of his table.

“M’bored.”

“Really?” He spoke, eyebrows arched so high they nearly disappeared behind his hairline. “This is one of your only days off after working the entire week… and you’re bored?”

She nodded.

“Surely there’s something you’ve been wanting to do all week but haven’t had the time to?”

She shook her head.

“Or maybe something you needed to do? Like laundry? Clean your room?”

She shook her head again.

Leaning back in his seat, Brimstone stared off at the picture frame sitting on his desk whilst scratching his beard.

“I’ve got an idea. Follow me.” He rises from his seat with a grunt.

Almost instantly she jumps to her feet, a wide smile on her face. “Lead the way!”

~~

“My eyes burn!” She whines as he places another white onion on the cutting board.

“Just this last one and you’re all finished.” He promised, turning back to finish peeling the corn from its stalk to wash.

With as much expertise as she could muster with her eyes half-closed, Jett finished chopping the onion into fine cubes. Using the edge of her knife, she scraped it into her bowl with the rest of the prepped veggies and smiled.

Only to groan when Brimstone began placing potatoes on the board next.

“All you have to do is cut and peel, and then you’re all finished.”

Grumbling all the while, she slowly began to work the knife against the surface of its tough skin.

~~

“Dinner!” Astra called into the common room at Brimstone’s request. She maneuvered around Phoenix, Killjoy, and Raze, who all began whooping and hollering at the prospect of a hot meal. She smiled at Sova and Breach, the two men debating heavily on the topic of dark liquor versus light on the way to the dining room. Yoru, Viper, and Reyna were not far behind the pair. Sage was setting the table. Cypher and Chamber were off in the corner somewhere arguing over a chessboard.

And now, the only person that was missing, is…

“She’s here,” Omen says quietly.

Astra finds the pair by the couch. Jett sat with her head thrown back against the worn-out cushion and arms outstretched. Omen was busying himself unraveling his yarn and laying it evenly against her arms; this way, he could turn his scrap materials into a new cover for Killjoy’s turrets.

“Jett?” She calls.

“Hm?” The girl stirs only a fraction of a centimeter, arms lowering just slightly before Omen stops and reaches down to pull them level once more.

“Dinner’s ready.”

“M’comin.” She yawns. “Just… gotta help Omen out… with his yarn.”