NOTES:
———-
HI! IM ALIVE. I AM SO SORRY ITS BEEN HALF A YEAR BRO. TO THOSE WHO'VE STUCK AROUND AND WAITED ILY MY GENDER NEUTRAL PENELOPES

Editing some of my first few chaps nearly had me questioning if I should keep writing this fic because I was reading as I edited and YEESH some of it was not my best work in my own opinion.

Also lowkey I find this chapter might be a tad boring but then again I can't write peace and joy and fluffy fun times to save my life so here we go anyway.

To those who read the last chapter, I did some editing to it, so this might not make sense unless you read the new ending to that chapter! Yippee!!

Lets go!!
________

Seeing it was just Deuce and Vyr, she calmed a little, slightly humored by Onyx also holding the ladder with his tiny little raccoon paws from where he rested on her fellow brunettes shoulder, as she doubted that the resident trash panda was actually helping.

Her attention was brought back to Vyr as he drummed his fingers on the metal.

"Hey, so, uh, I'm guessing you didn't look at the groupchat yet?"

𝑪𝒐𝒏𝒔𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒖𝒔 𝒊𝒔 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒎𝒂𝒊𝒏 𝒂𝒓𝒆𝒂, 𝒅𝒊𝒅𝒏'𝒕 𝒆𝒙𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒍𝒚 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒌 𝑰 𝒏𝒆𝒆𝒅𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐.

Slowly retreating off the ladder, Ophelia quickly went to grab the glowing blue object.

"Thats a correct guess. I was kinda focused on not falling to my death."

After straightening some of the decor, Heartstabyls Housewarden crossed his arms, unamused.

"I think you were much more focused on attacking the balloons than you were your safety."

"Balloons are met to be sieged against and swatted."

"Absolutely not. They are met for decor."

"And to be swatted."

"Are you some form of feline?"

While the two bickered, pure relief passed over Vyrs face, while Deuce seemed to calm a bit, releasing a deep breath.

"I knew you weren't ignoring us..."

The Alchemists drumming turned into fidgeting with the side of his bag.

"Ace told us to meet at some arcade in an hour. Which is a terrible idea, likely weather considering, but it is his birthday, so....."

Riddle practically whipped around, scrunching his face in rage infused disbelief.

"In the middle of an storm? Thats beyond risky!"

"In the middle of a what."

————-

Given the last four days of pure inside time, she hadn't even thought to look at the windows or check the weather.

It was Riddles idea to take a look in person, since apparently the weather reports don't cover rainstorms probably caused by a dragon having the big sad over his father figure being on an unforeseen vacation.  Surprising.

She was hit with the regret of following the group the second she stepped outside.

It was downpouring, very few cars dared to drive, water practically layering the roads, not to mention she could hear small crackling pieces of hail landing on the concrete.

Vyr squinted at the sky as if it personally offended him.

"How is it still raining after five days?  There is no way this is scientifically possible for a normal weather state unless the condensation is—."

His reaction was similar to Riddles, who scowling  somehow reminded her of a hedgehog bristling.

"Exceptionally high, but theres a possibility this a magic induced storm. Infact, I'm almost certain it is, considering there is no such thing as an off and on hurricane."

𝑹𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕, 𝑻𝒆𝒏 𝒃𝒖𝒄𝒌𝒔 𝒊𝒕𝒔 𝑴𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒖𝒔 𝒊𝒏𝒅𝒖𝒄𝒆𝒅 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒂𝒏 𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒓𝒆 𝒂𝒔𝒔 𝒄𝒚𝒄𝒍𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒔𝒑𝒊𝒏𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒂𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒏𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒃𝒚 𝒐𝒄𝒆𝒂𝒏 𝒊𝒏 𝒂 𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒑 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒊𝒕𝒔 𝒂 𝒇𝒖𝒄𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑩𝒆𝒚𝒃𝒍𝒂𝒅𝒆.

——————-

Rapidly eyeing between the water draining down the street and the ex-delinquent, he noticed she held her tablet closer.

"Are we possibly close enough to just book it when the time comes?"

"I don't think so."

"Damn."

In all honesty, he was relying on her to have a better strategy than his, which was to book it to the nearest convenience shop to buy umbrellas.

A part of him noticed Ophelia seemed much more herself than she had recently now that it was just the few of them, which was a good sign (?)

Practically spitting her hair out of her face as it fist fought the wind, the brunette weakly smiled.

"Well the good news is, we have...two hours right?"

"Yea. Wait...No, Yea, two hours."

"Thanks Vyr. Two hours to figure out a solution."

Sighing, Deuce moved a tad further from the street as a larger chunk of hail barely missed him.

"Or maybe convince Ace to go with a safer idea."

"Yea, that too."

"I'd hope so. It'd be foolish to do anything else."

"Riddle. Its Ace."

Turning on his heel, the housewarden swiftly reopened the glass door from which they came.

"Unfortunately, I am well aware. Wait here for the time being, I will discuss the change in plans with Cater."

With that, four became three.

Rapidly eyeing between the water draining down the street and the ex-delinquent, he noticed she held her tablet closer.

"Hey Deuce, I haven't had the chance to say it, but I wanted to apologize for practically disappearing before we got the chance to discuss what happened the night we got h-"

It must have fallen from her mind that Vyr was also present, as he looked to the two, now very confused.

"Wait, what did I miss?"

Deuce glanced to the prefect, who was already looking back, gauging if he felt comfortable discussing it with Vyr, and immediately registered the mild panic in his eyes as a no.

Flipping from a serious tone to a light, airy one, she waved her hand dismissively.

"Just something that happened the night we first got here. It'll probably be better to talk about it tomorrow anyway."

The other brunette scratched his neck, eyebrow raised in suspicion, but chose not to push the topic, instead changing it as his notebook near materialized into hand.

"Well, moving on, I wanted to ask you if you're ok with being experimented on, since Old Sollune is only an hour or two from Fleur City, we can use my lab-"

"Pause, WHAT?!"

"I didn't word that well, let me explain-"

A part of him noticed Ophelia seemed much more herself than she had recently now that it was just the three of them, inserting witty remarks here and there, making sure to include Deuce in the conversation and teasing Vyr a bit for his delivery of the request. 

It was...really nice, actually.

Her teasing was much different than Aces, more meant to make you laugh at the situation rather than rile you up over it, making sure to avoid sensitivities and leaving obvious openings for you to shoot right back at her.  Deuce knew that from now a month's worth of experience.

At some point their conversation, Vyr got a text from someone about the change in plan, and went to grab an umbrella he had lent out to Lonnie.

Luckily, this reminded Deuce that he forgot to grab Ace from their room, so he checked in with Ophelia to see if she was fine waiting alone, then followed suit.

_______

The two brunettes turned to see Deuce bolting back inside, Vyr taking the moment to follow as to check the room for his missing item whilst Ophelia sighed and sat on a dry bench.

𝘌.𝘛 𝘚𝘦𝘦𝘳:

𝘏𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘰𝘶𝘵𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘵, 𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘦.  𝘞𝘦'𝘳𝘦 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝑑𝑖𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡.  𝑅𝑖𝑑𝑑𝑙𝑒 𝑛𝑜𝑝𝑒𝑑 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑎.

𝘔𝘦:

𝑂𝑛 𝘮𝘺 𝘣𝘪𝘳𝘵𝘩𝘥𝘢𝘺? 𝘞𝘰𝘸. 𝘐 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝑔𝑢𝑦𝑠 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘮𝘦.

𝑆𝑜 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘨𝘶𝘺𝘴 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘦?

𝘌.𝘛 𝘚𝘦𝘦𝘳:

𝘚𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘵𝘰 𝘏𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘥𝘢𝘺 𝘥𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺.

𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘧𝘳, 𝑖𝑑𝑘, 𝘢𝘴𝘬 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑠.

𝘔𝘦:

𝘕𝘢𝘩. 𝘐'𝘮 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥.

𝘌.𝘛 𝘚𝘦𝘦𝘳:

𝘋𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘥𝘰 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰. 𝘐 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘐 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥.

𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘵 11:35 𝘢𝘮

——————-

He had simply been scrolling through Magicam when he noticed Ace slip into the room and seem to have a hush hush conversation with Lilia, who then walked over to Kalim as the birthday boy hid off, the fae having a quick convo that somehow ended in him receiving what looked like a very credit card looking object from Kal, then passing it off to Ace.

Yikes, they were definitely up to something.

With a three second scouring of the room, he spotted Deuce and Vyr running back to their room, and Ophelia sitting outside with her tablet.

Ace definitely noticed this aswell, and wrote something on a napkin by Vyrs bag before disappearing down the hallway.

A few minutes later, he couldn't see what, but it looked like Ophelia noticed something on the ground and go to grab it, only to be unceremoniously yoinked off by a very Ace looking hand from around the corner the second she did.

Bye queen, You'll be missed.

About, like, 12 or so minutes later, Vyr came out from the elevator with Ophelias tablet (which made no sense, maybe Cay-Cay was seeing things?) and found the note, and now from where Cater was standing, he could see the guy fumbling around with his bag as the spade of their group who dashed out from the kitchen where he had gotten sidetracked into helping out Trey.

Considering how Deuce was practically hauling ass, he gave Ace five minutes before he caught up, eight, tops.

Cater did notice the Vice Housewarden do his whole turn-into-bat- yea-i'm-definitely-not-a-vampire thing and sneak into Vyrs pocket when he was on the way out, so that explains why he left a note instead.

Yeesh, these freshies have no chill, huh?

—————————

"What the hell, Ace?? Where are we even going?"

"Oh, well theres this really nice seafood spot i've been dying to try~"

One could practically touch the sarcasm in his response, starting up the tempo for the bantering that always followed.

"I know you're lying."

"Let me guess, you know I hate seafood even though I never told you?"

"You're the one that told me you hate oysters!"

"Oysters aren't all seafood, besides, when exactly did I tell you that?"

"At that weird sentient oyster ringtoss during the Unbirthday! Maybe if we just stopped and went back, we can ask Deuce if he remembers it too!"

For all her verbal lashback, she didn't do much in retaliation other than purposefully slow him down abit while staring at the water ways crossing through the street, and the small crowds of tourists as she huddled closer to be further under the umbrella.

"Seriously, why did you drag me into this stupid storm?"

"Did you guys really expect me to stay cooped up in the room all day or something while you all set up?"

"Well, no, but I told you they already had something prepared, you couldn't have waited, I dunno, four seconds for those two to get back?"

"So you can just clam up when we get back to everyone else? Yeah, I'll pass."

"I hate you."

"Sure you do."

Ace hummed as he pulled her along, his self satisfied grin to her lackluster response, her scowl contrasting her obvious growing antsyiness.

Eyes flitting back and forth, she turned to him, pushing back enough to stop his movements.

"I don't want to freak those two out. We really should go back."

Ducking under a small abandoned storefront tent, the redhead raised an eyebrow.

"Sure. How are we gonna do that?"

"We have legs and I'm assuming you know the route back to the hotel."

"And what if I don't?"

"I regret to inform you, Ace, that you do, infact, have legs, and ones that capable of this crazy new concept called walking."

"Wow, shocker, but it's a shame I conveniently don't know the route back."

"Then I can pull up a map."

With a snort, Ace swerved around a bench moved by the storm.

"Yea, you and your map reading capabilities of a lizard."

"Ok, fine, then how about this: The hotel is gigantic. I'll be able to see it from far off anyway. We can guess the route by how close we are."

"Can you see it right now?"

One swift look back through the blinding rain later, and Ophelia grumbled.

"Fuck you."

She attempted to stop him (again) but the wind forced them to keep moving, whether they liked it or not.

He did see her message Deuce the street they were on, but who knows if the guy would see it.

Moving around the town as the storm began to let up, he started glancing around for first off, somewhere to get lunch, and second, something to do on this suffocatingly small island in the rain.

In all honesty, it was nice to get to see the town, even if he had seen it before in the last few days.

He spotted a few RSA students around, some flirting with the tourists, or just chatting.

He snickered at Ophelias comment on how stupidly inconvenient their uniforms were. She was totally right too , a full white uniform? At school and events? The stains had to be endless. Losers.

Did she notice he was watching her reactions to everything though? No.

In his defense, they were extremely entertaining. Whether she knew it or not, her face could be REAL expressive when she wasn't honed in on putting on an act, like creasing her brows in confusion when they passed by a mage gear store, or laughing to herself when a pelican made a getaway with a fish stolen straight from some guys cooler.

Unfortunately like the bleeding heart she was, she pulled them over a few times to do shit like retrieve a wind swept umbrella for an old woman and pull two different RSA idiots back from being hit by a car.

It reminded him that she had never actually been physically outside of NRC. 

She didn't know jack shit about the world outside of it, other than whatever research nonsense she'd done and weird whatever the hell she'd seen.

Glancing at the credit card in hand, he had an idea.

Why not drag her around sometime in the next few hours to see things she'd NEVER seen before?  I mean, how many chances do you get to mess with someone your age by making them try to figure out the most common things in your world for the first time? That was a one time chance kinda thing.

But right now, he may or may not have been trying to scope out the most expensive diner he could find. In his defense, he was paying with a billionaire's credit card for a whole day. Which is also definitely a one time chance kinda thing.

"ACE!!"

From way down the block, he spotted a familiar flash of blue heading towards them quickly, followed by a telltale massive bag hanging off a shorter blur that faded off into a different direction.

Ophelia whipping her head around with wide eyes when she saw the speed he was approaching them at, as if trying to find the best direction to dodge a raging bull.

Never a dull moment with these guys.

And thats just how he liked it.

Grasping onto the brunettes wrist yet again, he waved, then cupping the free hand around his mouth, yelled out to other with a grin, drawing the attention of passersby as he began to run.

"Catch me if you can, Juice!"

With that, he then fully booked it, still holding Ophelias wrist as he pulled her along, laughing at her pure confusion as they raced through the street, down the boardwalk, around the corner, and onto the beach. After that, he barely paid any attention to where he was running.

Soon enough, god knows how, they end up farther down the coastline then probably safe in this weathsr.

Ophelia managed to pull the ginger backward enough to give Deuce the chance to close some of the extra distance from the head start Ace got.

The Spade caught up pretty quick, he barely expected it when he got tackled to the ground, unintentionally taking Ophelia down with him, who fell out of his grasp, and let the other two roll for another minute.

Ace failed to contain a grin even as Deuce had the troublemaker pinned down (on moss, thankfully) below him, both out of breath.

"Took you long enough."

"Are you kidding me? Don't just run off like that!"

"Why were you following us anyway?"

"Because you both disappeared! I thought something bad happened!"

Snorting, he rolled out of grasp, dusting himself off whilst throwing a grin the bluettes way.

"You could have just called me instead of chasing me down and pinning me to the ground if you so were worried about me. If you ask me, thats kinda-"

"Shut up!!"

Laughter echoed through the cave, pausing them both. A full on cackle from Ophelia, trying to contain tiny miniature snorts and tea kettle like sounds in between as braced against the cavern wall for stability.

"How did we even—...I just-!?"

It started out as a normal, happy laugh, and she seemed pretty happy, but her eyes slowly seemed to glaze over.

Deuce broke the non-verbalness of it pretty quick out of concern.

"Are you..ok?"

Calming down slowly, she dragged a hand across her face, attempting to pull herself back together.

"Yea, sorry, it's just....I can't believe all this is real."

"What do you mean?"

"Its....uh....nevermind...Wait, wheres Vyr? Wasn't he with you?"

Brushing off the dirt from the fall, the brunette made her way to the crash sight of her companions as the Heart stood, grinning victoriously.

"I think Deuce may have left him in the dust."

"What? I thought-"

The eyes of the track club member in question widened, turning on his heel to stare down the coastline, and was bracing to speed off when Ophelia cut in, giving his shoulder a sympathetic squeeze before pulling her tablet in hand, looking strangely translucent in the sunlight.

"Hey, it happens. I'll tell him to meet us at the boardwalk."

"Sure, whatever. Let's go get lunch first. I'm starving"

"We're finding Vyr first, he's probably wondering where we are."

"Well, I'm Birthday Vetoing you, Deuce. Any good places you saw while trying to catch up?"

—————-

Vyr Ambrose was a scientific prodigy, a guy who got a PHD at 15.

A guy who was also, unfortunately, very fucking lost right now.

Since his noodle nerd legs could not keep up with the anomaly of physical strength and speed that was Deuce Spade, he had ended up somewhere(?) in town in the with Onyx and Ophelias cat.

Originally, he had just put on his goggles to block out the rain, and in his worn out-ness, forgot the several hundred modifications he had made it them, including one of his pride and joys of accessory modifications that he in all honesty had a loose memory of ever making:  an Illusion Desaturater.

See, it didn't exactly desaturate anything chemically, but it saw through certain levels of illusions, curses, blessings and magic based creations by blocking and adjusting the frequency of the illusion from the outside to make it visible to the lense, and by proxy the wearer.

So far, it was still in testing, with about a 80%-20% ratio in success with minor illusions and 52%-48% with bigger ones. Nothing all too fancy, really.

Now, if you're someone like Bastion, you may be asking: "Vyr, why don't you sell this or reveal it to the public?"

And the answer is: 1: Its a Prototype, and 2: Because he would probably get hunted down by the thousands of criminals who use illusion magic to commit their crimes.

Either way, its not exactly worth if he doesn't tell anyone, considering he lives in a middle of nowhere village and his current closest friends can't even understand half the equations on a basic alchemy textbook.

Enough about that, it'll be important in a second.  As he was catching up, he spotted something really weird.

First, Onyx found a stack of shiny tickets and nicknacks, soggyish ones now, but the shininess seemed to be enough for the raccoon, who promptly