Hourglass [Turtle&Spidey]

Mel cursed out loud and hopped up onto one leg, alleviating the pressure off his kicked shin. It was all automatic, a reflex. And out of reflex he almost took off after Vera and the girl as soon as he put his leg back down. He stopped himself before he took off though; somebody had to keep their head on right. They needed to get the hell out of there and they still didn't have the fuel to get them anywhere.

As he turned to take care of the ship a second explosion vibrated the ground under his feet and his head turned toward all the hubbub. The turtles all hustled as fast as they could hustle toward the explosion sites, their weapons at the ready. Mel arched a brow, could it be that the sloths finally decided to make a move? Had the Slow War finally came to a head right when he was in the thick of it? That would be just his luck, but for the moment the explosions worked well enough as a distraction that he could fuel the ship without interference.

Meanwhile, Mina was still running pell mell though the outskirts of the turtle city. Signs were plastered across every available space written in an unintelligible language. They looked like propaganda, and they probably were considering the turtle society had been at war for as long as anyone could remember. But Mina wasn't paying attention to them. Nor was she watching behind her at all. She was a girl on a mission. What that mission was, she didn't know, but she did know that as long as she kept moving the headache was kept at bay. It was like a magnet had activated in her head pulling her along toward some unknown destination.

Mina's feet beat against the concrete ground almost rhythmically. She made her way through the outskirts into the city proper as if she had grown up there. She knew instinctively where to turn, and after several turns it almost felt as though she was going in a circle. In a way she was, but she was circling the spire, moving closer to it with every rotation.

Her heart beat frantically in her chest as she neared, and her feet skidded to a stop. Gasping, trying to catch her breath, Mina stared up at the strange building. She'd never seen anything quite like it before, but she just knew that she needed to get into it. Her feet pushed off the ground, launching her small frame at the building, but as she neared a bright blue field of light became visible. Something told her that she really didn't want to touch that light and she slid to a stop at the last second.

Cautiously, she held her hand out and a gentle warmth spread across her palm as it neared the field. It wasn't quite uncomfortable, so she kept pushing. She was up to her elbow and she felt safe enough to go ahead and push through the moment she increased her speed was the moment that the warmth became more. It was hot. The little hairs on her arm sizzled and Mina stopped dead in her tracks. She trembled with the need to continue on. She felt the headache building behind her eyes. The pressure increasing in her skull. She couldn't afford to stand still for long. She thought to get it over with, and just jump through but the smell of burnt hair still hung in the air and was enough to warn her off such an attempt.

Her arm was still in the field, there had to be a way through. The longer she stood still the cooler the field felt against her skin. She sighed. It would take forever to get through, but she finally thought she figured it out. She inched forward, bringing her other hand up against it and gently pushed through. The warmth spread out across both arms and the more she moved the hotter it got. She pushed until it was uncomfortably warm and then stopped. Both arms were inside the field.

Waiting for the heat to leave she sighed and for the first time since she took off from the ship looked back over her shoulder.
 
Vera had lost sight of Mina. The girl had turned a corner, and Vera had felt like her lungs were about to burst and had had to stop. Once she'd stopped, the sensations had all come back to her. The pain in her feet, in her lungs and throat, and the fatigue and stress of the day. She came to a full stop. There were't really any turtles around anymore. Those who were out to deal with the problem had long since passed her, and the rest were likely staying inside, preparing themselves for the worst. She couldn't see Mina, and she couldn't keep going. So, she stopped. Slowly, ever so turtle-like slowly, Vera leaned down and picked her shoes off her feet. She pressed her toes against the ground and tilted her head up to the sky, closing her eyes and breathing in the unfamiliar air.

In the last month, she had been so scared of letting Mina out of her sight, she had only done so to run specific errands. Vera let out a pained breath that was half a laugh. She was losing her mind. Everyone said that was supposed to happen to you when you first had the baby. They cried too much to let you sleep, and they pooped and drooled and risked their own lives constantly. You never got any privacy, peace, or sleep. All of that was true, and it had been even harder than she'd expected as she'd been a single mother occasionally dealing with the biological mother popping by and making a nuisance of herself, but she had always managed to give herself some time and space. She'd stopped herself from babyproofing every corner in the house, and managed to maintain a level-head as much as possible with her daughter. Or so she liked to think, anyways. This was different. She didn't want to tell Mina this, but she had not been prepared, and she did not know what to do. A month of trying to figure a permanent way out of the situation they were in had proven fruitless, and it was wearing her down.

Another rumble of the ground caused Vera to open her eyes and cast a glance backwards. She took a breath, then, and set out for the spire it had seemed they were heading to with renewed determination. It was now abundantly clear that they had to get off this planet, but the first step to achieving that was getting Mina back in the first place.

~~

All three of the explosions that had hit the planet of the turtles had failed to land on any major landmarks or villages. It was almost as if the attackers were missing on purpose. The leader of the turtles could only hope that really was the case. The wrinkles of his face seemed carved there by the grave expression he held while one of his younger generals sent a probing message to the ship that had fired on them. They were now tensely waiting for an answer from their assailant. If it was who he thought it might be, their uninvited guests had had more severe consequences than he had expected.

A message arrived in response to his general's message, and he opened it up to see, just as he had feared, the head of the sloths, war paint under his eyes. There was something wrong with the image, as well. The picture was perfectly clear but something nagged at the edge of his brain, as if he'd noticed something misplaced on his desk. The sloth slowly adjusted the camera and began to speak. "Old....... friend." His speech was just as slow as the turtles, but that didn't bother either of them. "Did you not say that this war would protect us both? As we fought slowly, we would not lose many lives. But we were protected from those who would come to take from our lands. As our fathers have done before us, so we decided to continue for the good of our people. Yet it seems it is time for this tradition to end. Call peace, or be prepared for us to destroy your planet." The head of the turtles did not respond, and it did not seem the sloth wanted him to, for he turned off his message as soon as he was done saying it. That had been an ultimatum.

The ship in the sky withdrew. Today had been a warning, it seemed. They had some time to decide. The turtle shook his shell slowly before turning to face his men. Before saying anything, however, he realized what had bothered him. He hadn't seen the sloth for a very long time, but he knew for certain that the sloths kept to themselves and discouraged outsiders just as much as the turtles themselves did. So. Why had there been a golden-haired woman standing in the very back of the room, mostly concealed by the shadows, staring through the camera with gleaming black eyes?
 
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There was nothing behind her. It was completely quiet in this section of the city, which was unusual in that the rest of the place was in chaos. Sure, there were sounds in the distance. Orders being called out and answered. The distant sound of boots on concrete. A scream or two. But it was all so distant that Mina was able to drown them out with her own thoughts and relax against the blue wall of light--to keep pushing forward. The pace she was moving was, well, a turtle's pace. Slow and steady. It was hard for her to keep it slow but once she was completely surrounded by the light it was easy enough to remember. The feeling of her arm burning was in the forefront of her mind the whole way through. And after what seemed like forever Mina emerged on the other side of the light in an alcove that harbored the door to the spire.

Once she was clear she was moving at a run again. She all but flung herself at the door, yanking it back and throwing herself into the spire proper. The room was strange looking. Everything was rounded, not a corner in sight. Even the staircase that was tucked up against the back wall was round and the stairs like bubbles. Mina didn't have time to ponder the purpose of the circular theme. Her body was propelling her forward as if she had no choice in the direction her feet were headed.

What she was looking for was up. She'd have to climb the wonky stairs. And climb them she did. Once she figured out she wasn't going to slip off the strange shaped stairs, she was taking them two at a time. She needed to get upstairs. High above her, like a magnet guiding her actions, was something she needed to have.

Climbing up and up through the other six floors Mina didn't even stop to catch her breath. She bounded her way up the stairs to a locked door. She grabbed the handle and shook it hard. The heavy door didn't budge. With a cry of frustration, Mina threw herself at the door. Not being able to move forward the headache began to come back to life. It throbbed and threatened to bring her to her knees if she couldn't figure out a way forward.

Beating her fists against the door didn't seem to do anything either. And there were absolutely no locks on this door; it just wouldn't open for her. With a cry she turned her back to the door and slid down to the floor. As she slid down though she noticed something she hadn't paid any attention to before. On the smooth wall next to the door there was a button. Her cry became one of relief as surged back to her feet and slammed her thumb against the button causing the door to creep open.
 
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((I don't know what I'm dooiiiinnnggggg. What's going ooooon.))

As the door slid open, a strange, and unrelated clinking noise could be heard from the other side, like gears turning slowly as bolts pulled away. When it finished opening, however, Mina would find... nothing. The room appeared to be completely empty, the walls made of some strange sort of tinted glass. It didn't suit the rest of the turtle settlement particularly well, but made it so that one could look out into the distance, where the smoke was rising from the attack of the sloths. The ceiling was made of a sort of plastic-like metal and glowed. It was so bright that one couldn't look at the ceiling without squinting, and the whole room was lit bright as day, but it wasn't so bright as to be intolerable, so long as one didn't look straight up.

The minute she stepped inside, however, the floor would pulse a flash of green, before shifting colors to match that of a turtle shell's pattern - rough hexagons painted with patterns like that of butterfly wings, but of an unusual color. The shimmery green shade was tinted with a golden yellow that the light of the ceiling seemed to glint off of it. With the change in color and pattern, the floor also adopted the rough textures, deep grooves taking on the hexagonal structure. The throbbing in her head would lessen, now, but drove her forward, smack into the center of the room. The door slid shut behind her, and a million voices echoed slowly throughout the room. "You.. are not... welcome.. here. Why.. are... you... here?" It was the sound of generations of turtle leaders, whose spirits now guarded whatever was housed there.

Something would catch her eye, one section of the glass wall slowly shifting to the right. No, not part of the wall, a swarm of tiny glass turtles, circling the entire room, sticking to the very edges. They didn't move any closer, at least. It was almost as though they couldn't. "You have not proven yourself. Human child." The floor rumbled and a hexagon in front of her rose up to maybe her chest-height. On top of it was engraved an green infinity sign, though it certainly hadn't been there before. The rest of the floor dropped away, though the walls and ceiling stayed where they were, a strange, floating enclosure. A cautious step would reveal that the floor was, indeed, gone. "Stay here and die a slow death, or jump and die a quick one. Your choice." The voice did not speak again, and the glass turtles on the walls stopped moving, though they were still, apparently, there.
 
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Mina tested the floor around her tile. A cautious step forward, making sure to keep her weight on her back foot, just in case. Sure enough the floor had actually fallen from around her. She was trapped. A strangled little gasp rose from her throat as she dropped to a crouch. What had she gotten herself into? Her arms wrapped around her knees as she tried to figure out what to do.

Her headache had faded to something close to a memory. A faint whisper of the pain still lingered just behind her eyes, but at least she could think clearly. Her bright blue gaze swept the room as she tried to think. Nothing was making any sense to her. The disembodied voice said she hadn't proven herself. Well, how would she do that now that she was trapped on this floor tile?

Mina's gaze settled on the turtles on the wall. They had to mean something. Everything in this room had to mean something. She needed to figure it out. Standing back up, Mina steeled herself and slowly spun in a circle. What if proving herself meant jumping. But then again, what if the voice was right and that was just a quick death?

With a groan she ran her hands through her hair and looked around the room again. What was she missing. There had to be something. She raised a shaking hand and touched the infinity sign on the pedestal before her. Holding her breath, she waited. Yet, nothing happened. She sighed, releasing the held breath and shook her head. There was nothing left to do. She had no other choice.

Mina jumped.
 
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((I'm sorry for this madness))

At first, she fell normally, ground seeming to rush up to meet her. Any screams she might have made were lost to her own ears in the scream of the wind rushing past her face. The further she fell, however, the slower she went, until she was floating above the air, simply hovering there in whatever state she had fallen, suspended by nothing at all. If she looked around her, she would find the ground much farther away than she had climbed, and no ceiling above her except for that single hexagon, so far away and yet so clear with that glowing green infinity symbol. This was beyond the ability of any technology she knew. She was not being transported anywhere, there was no wind holding her up, nor any hum or buzz of a machine whirring or suspending light. She was just... floating there. The glass turtles that had been circling the room before had now begun to swirl around her, each turtle now tinted a slightly different color.

Should she move, she would find it somewhat similar to floating in water, except with far less resistance and no chance of moving up or down. "You have touched it, and it has allowed you to pass." One turtle split from the pack, and floated in front of her. He was tinted slightly brown, but not an unpleasant hue, and by the voice it was a he. On its back glowed the green infinity sign, but only as it spoke and waited there in front of her. When it was done speaking, it moved back away into the little river of turtles. Another rolled forward, a dark blue color. It too had the green infinity sign emblazoned upon it while it spoke. "But that does not mean we will." Laughter rustled through the crowd, the voices of the many growing a little more distinct with each passing turn. She would realize then that the turtles did not seem to be speaking slowly, as they had before. She also discovered that she could not speak.

"A little human child," a woman's voice spoke derisively, "thinks she can go where we have gone, be tested as we were tested. What are you here for?" This one was a paler shade of blue, and looked a little bigger than the others, and then she realized it WAS a turtle, not a tortoise. Like a sea turtle. They all were, unlike the creatures they'd met earlier. A low, scratchy voice rumbled, but this one did not make itself known, and Mina couldn't be sure if it had the odd little symbol like the others had. The light blue turtle stayed where she was, but looked toward the crowd. "She does not know." The unknown turtle said, sagely. "She was not allowed here as our kind were for their skill and leadership, and she comes for a different cause."

That one turtle chuckled, but his words caused uneasy mutterings to run through. "She has come for what we protect." "The start of the Slow War." "It was the birthright of our eons, we were told. Do not let the spiders take it, they said. What do we care now?" "Who has sent her?" "The universe has spoken." "The universe will end." The words were echoed whispers again. They seemed to be arguing about something she wasn't privy to.

"If she proves herself, what does it matter?" This voice was oddly young and fresh, also the voice of a female. The turtle that popped out of the crowd then was a bright, vivid green, and moved in a lively manner. "What is the purpose in protecting something forever? It was always meant to leave this place. You old people are so quick to forget." She said cheerfully. "The relic does not give us power or strength. It has brought our people nothing but trouble since we were born as one, but we have not destroyed it. We have protected it so that one day it may serve its purpose, whatever that may be. I say let her be tested. The relic itself has always decided who is worthy to touch it. Why should it be any different for who also is worthy to take it, if that is what she has come for?"

"Quiet, Esselna." The pale blue one snapped, but the others were silent. There was a long, long, long silence. For a species that hadn't bothered being slow once since she'd fallen, they were being very slow now, but it was impossible to tell if they were deliberating silently amongst themselves, unable to speak, or just truly had not found anything else to say. The last option was rather unlikely.

The next words that came were spoken in absolute unison, booming, definite, and not a voice distinguishable from the other. "She will be tested."

Mina suddenly found herself on her hands and knees on the floor of the room she had been in, as if the whole thing about falling had been just a dream. That was yet another thing she had no way of really telling - whether it had been in her head, or had really happened. The room was empty and flat again, exactly as it had been before she had stepped inside. Where her hands met the floor, however, they seemed to set it aglow.

"The map inside your head will not help you, human child. Your decision must be good and true, and it must be yours alone."

It didn't specify anything about what map and what decision it was talking about, and the room went silent and dull for a moment. The turtles were gone. Another little hexagon traced itself around her in what appeared to be brown paint, and from the corners of it, stretched straight lines, splitting the room into six sections. This was all rather pointlessly complicated, it seemed, but at least there wasn't much more to go. Not that she knew that. Something told her not to step outside of the confines of her little hexagon. The six pieces began to change. The one facing the door turned a dull sort of red, and Mina could suddenly see on the other side of the door. The one next to it rose as a pillar of what appeared to be water, all the way to the ceiling. Inside was the still form of a human woman. From the curl of her hair and the striking blue eyes, it was clearly Mina, but older. She was sitting at a cafe on what was likely earth, across from an older woman who looked like Vera. Both were dressed professionally and they appeared to be frozen mid-conversation, a laugh in Vera's eyes. The third slice sunk into the ground, and from above she could see a planet slowly exploding, warships firing upon each other, and she knew she could stop it if she stepped forward into it. The wall of the piece opposite the door split apart, and a man was suspended on the edge of it, falling backwards, with a look of panic on his face, arm stretching towards her. The fifth rose halfway as a pedestal of grey stone, and a sword was set into it, clearly a weapon of some power, and the last fell away entirely to reveal a black hole of nothingness, somehow comforting in its emptiness, rather than frightening.

Before she could make any decision, however, a tinny voice echoed in through a speaker above the door she had not noticed before. It was Vera. She was at the door, speaking to someone Mina could hear but not see, who seemed to be... set into the wall on the side of the door?

~~

Vera had found her way to the spire just moments after Mina head disappeared inside. She had no idea how far behind her daughter she was, or whether the girl had made it inside alive, but she felt certain she was in the right place. The funny glow around it was definitely suspicious, though. She wasn't touching that for the world. Pulling a coin from her purse, the law- probably ex-lawyer now flipped it through the barrier. She waited with bated breath for the blaring alarms or the spikes popping out of the ground, but nothing much happened, except to the coin. The coin glowed a molten red as it went through, and seemed almost to sizzle as it hit the ground. Vera grimaced. She grabbed out a pen and tried with that, poking it tentatively through in the hopes that the barrier wouldn't electrocute her. Nothing happened. She pulled it out hastily and that was when it seemed to melt and burn. The coin had gone in one-sidedly, it wasn't the direction. The material shouldn't make that much difference, in her opinion, so the only real difference was... how quickly. It made sense. The turtles were some of the slowest of species. If they wanted to keep dumb, hasty people out, they'd make sure no one who could move faster than a turtle would go through it.

"I can help you, you know." Vera whirled around, but saw no speaker. It had seemed to come from the direction of one of the homes close by, as if broadcasted on a television, muffled through the walls. She didn't have time for this nonsense. Normally, she would've gone to investigate. But it was not "normally" right now. She was in the middle of a warzone trying to go through a weird barrier to retrieve her daughter from a weird looking building when she was acting odd and in pain. Gritting her teeth, she put one foot slowly, ever so slowly through the barrier. It had an odd coolness to it, so long as she didn't go very quickly. One foot in front of the other, bit of her body a little at a time. When she finally got through, she was irritated. By the Turtles, and Mel who had charted them there, and the bounty hunters and the whole damn Eahta cult. She pressed her lips together and went up the stairs with a determined step. Click clack click clack against the round stairs, until she made it to the top and reached the same door Mina had come to.

There was no handle, but she pressed her index finger against the button on the wall, almost expecting it to be a doorbell. Instead of opening, as it had done for Mina, a screen popped out of the wall and slid down right above the button. A woman appeared on the screen. She had lightly swarthy skin, with a sprinkle of freckles across her face and short ginger hair. Her lips were a dark, cherry red, and her eyes were black. An odd vision, indeed. "Who are you?" Vera asked, with narrowed eyes, suspecting it wasn't a turtle defense. She could not see her daughter watching her from the other side.

"Who I am does not matter." The woman's voice was light, but slightly husky. "What matters is who you are, Vera Vance."

Vera placed one hand on her hip, raising her eyebrows, showing off how little the woman fazed her. "That's a dumb thing to say, bitch. If you already know who I am, why ask?" She never swore at home, but she could hold her own with criminals and was paid a great deal to do it.

The woman was equally unperturbed by her display. "You are right that we know who you are, we also know what you are. You are afraid. And you are-"

"Quite right to be?" Vera cut her off with a smirk. "That isn't really the question. I'm always right, but am I afraid?" She smoothed her hair, calmly behind her back.

For the first time, the redhead showed a hint of a smile. "You would have made an interesting sister in another life. Unfortunately it is your daughter that we are concerned with, not you."

"It's a shame for you that spotting liars is part of my job." Vera shot back. The woman's eyes widened just for the briefest of moments in surprise, and Vera explained for her, in a condescending tone she had never even used with Mina. "You have never contacted my daughter herself. You have always done it through me, and I doubt it's just because I am her mother and make important decisions in her life. You've been watching us long enough, you should know she can think for herself and make her own decisions, sometimes regardless of my opinion on it. Yet you've made a point of contacting me. Using my name. Why would that be?"

She received a noncommittal harrumph to that deduction, but the smile hadn't quite left the other woman's face. " You're a mother." It wasn't really an answer to what she had asked. "We wanted what was in her head, we've been searching for it for a very long time, but many of us have argued that your child is not the fated one, that all we needed was the map. You were one reason. None of us ever had mothers. Not like you, anyways. The way she got it was the other. She did not find it, nor was it bestowed upon her by the universe. It was hidden there in her head. Against her will. It doesn't make sense for her to be the Next, they said. But I agree with the Lady. Your adoptive daughter is the one. It doesn't matter how it happened, what matters is if she is worthy to gather the shards. If she is... she will become one of us." The smile on her face now was a little sharp.

"No." Vera said coolly, but firmly. "I am taking her back with me. I don't know what you're planning, but she is my daughter, and I am going to protect her. Now open the door."

The woman laughed, then. "That's one thing I actually can't do. Even I'm not allowed inside or even close. But don't worry, Vera," the way she said her name was almost mocking, "it will open on its own when she's ready, and neither you nor I can change that." The screen slid back up and into the wall, leaving Vera alone to wait.

She swore and kicked the wall under where the screen had been. Staring at the door stubbornly she whispered to herself, "Everything's going to be okay." She balled her hands into fists. "Everything is going to be okay."
 
Mina's eyes closed tightly as she fell. The wind rushed past her face, and she was certain that she'd made the wrong choice, but the sudden stop at the bottom never came, and eventually she opened her eyes to watch herself fall. Gradually she came to a stop. Far below the floor she'd jumped off of and far above the floor she had been rushing to meet. Curiosity bubbled in her chest and she tested the waters, so to speak. It was a lot like water actually. She moved forward and backward, and swum in a little circle before she realized the glass turtles were circling in on her.

They spoke at her, not to her. Spoke as if she wasn't there. Part of her, the rebellious part somewhere in the back of her head, wanted to say something but she could practically hear her mother's voice warning against sassing the turtles while suspended so far above the ground. She had to think, and now that the headache was gone she actually could think without wanting to scoop her brain out with a spoon.

But unfortunately, nothing that was being said made any sense to her. What was she being tested for? What was the test? What was this stuff about a map in her head? None of it made much sense, and before she could raise the question about what was happening she was back on solid ground, her hands causing the floor to glow where she touched it. Rising up she watched as the room transformed, her little hexagon fencing her off from the vignettes that surrounded her. Was she supposed to choose what she wanted? Because to be able to go home and grow up sure sounded like a something that she wanted. She wanted that scene in the cafe to happen. But she wanted to stop the planets from being destroyed. She wanted to catch the man that was falling. She didn't want to be the cause of anything bad to happen. And she didn't feel like she had forever to make her choice either. With her mother right outside the room she needed to choose now.

Mina tried to ignore the conversation happening outside the room, but it was hard to. There was so much being said, and so little of it made any sense. What was the Next? Why would she be the one? What was in her head? Shaking the thoughts out of her mind, Mina turned back to the task at hand. What was she going to choose? The one that felt the most right was the black hole. The emptiness. She swallowed and began to take a step toward it when she changed her mind. It couldn't be that easy. It couldn't be the one that felt right. It had to be one of the harder decisions. Choosing the scene with her and her mother would be selfish when she could choose to stop a war, or save a the falling man. Idly her eyes swept over the stone and sword. She hadn't even considered that one. What if the power the sword offered would help her save both the man, and stop the war, while still getting her what she wanted?

It was too risky to choose that. Finally a thought settled in her mind. It wasn't up to her to save everyone. It wasn't up to her. She had no control over this, and with that she stepped into the welcoming embrace of the nothingness.
 
The void consumed her. It wasn't simply darkness. It was the embodiment of nothingness, and it made her one with it. Any sense she had of her own body, or of sight or smell or any other notion of existence faded altogether into the blackness that was not blackness but simply the absence of anything and everything else. Yet her consciousness remained. It remembered.

A voice spoke in the void. It wasn't like he other voices. It did not echo or boom or whisper. It was just the singular voice of some sort of man, no-nonsense and perhaps slightly amused, speaking just for her and therefore not requiring any sort of magnification. "Well." He laughed. "Of all my worlds posing that decision, you are the first to choose this. You rejected the grand ideal, and power, and the single act of heroism. You rejected the uncertain present, and the safe future, though admittedly no one's ever picked that one before, either. You chose: This. But what's more interesting, little girl, is that you chose the emptiness because you saw it not as an escape from your problems, but as an acknowledgement of your powerlessness. I don't know that I agree with it, and boy you and my daughter would not have gotten along at all, but it is... interesting. You will have to make a choice someday soon where not-deciding is not an option, but hey, I'm step one. I am simply here to assess your person, and your unusual choice gives me- would it be too far for a ghost to say hope? Yes, hope. That things can change."

The whoever-it-was chuckled. "Well then. On your way!"

In a flash, Mina was back in the room, landing roughly on her rump in the middle, facing the doorway. She was clutching a small glass turtle in her hands. It was colorless except for a vivid green infinity sign on its back, but thankfully it was not moving or speaking, so she hadn't brought one of the ancestors or something with her. The door slid open, and a worried Vera practically hurtled inside and began fussing over her, checking for bruises or burn marks or any other kind of injury, but she was completely unscathed. The headache was gone altogether, leaving her head clear and refreshed. She didn't know now any more than she had a moment ago about what was going on, but it looked like she'd gotten what she came for.

Vera had managed to refrain from squeezing Mina to death or crying. That was good news. And then the ground rumbled beneath them. That was definitely bad news. She turned her head to look out the window for signs of another attack, but there were none. Instead, something odd seemed to be happening. The ground was shaking more and more. The houses were getting shorter? No wait, the ground was risi- nope! Water was rising. The ground was being covered in water. And if they didn't move fast, they were going under with it. She smiled at Mina as calmly as possible. "We should definitely go now, darling." She said, cheerfully, before grabbing Mina by the wrist, careless of the prize she was clutching in her hands, and almost bodily dragging her daughter out of the building. They had to leave. Now.
 
The whole thing was surreal. After it was over Mina looked down at the curious little turtle in her hand, and that's where she was staring when her mother nearly squeezed the life out of her. She kept telling her that she was fine, that it was nothing. But somewhere back in Mina's mind she knew it was something Something profound had happened and she didn't have the words to share it with her mother. She wasn't even sure she wanted to share the experience yet.

"Mom, I promise, I'm fi--" it was at that moment that ground rumbled beneath her feet. She didn't have time to finish her sentence before they were moving back down through the building. All the security features had seemingly turned themselves off after Mina had made her choice and the path was clear. By the time they got to the bottom floor the water had pushed its way into the building and was splashing against their ankles.

Mina swallowed hard. What was happening? She turned to her mom, fear apparent in her bright blue eyes. "Um, what now?"

She didn't want to say it but she wasn't sure they could make it back to the ship before the water got too high. There wasn't time to talk though, they were out of the door and running down the street before. Their feet splashed through the water as Vera led the way through the city. It was for the best though, Mina had no idea how she'd managed to make it through the city the first time, but she was pretty sure that she'd get lost if she tried to find her way out of it.

The glass turtle was cutting into her palm as they ran as Mina clung to it for dear life. She wasn't sure why it felt so important to her, but she was comforted feeling it cut into her hand. Comforted to know that it was still there.

The air hummed with the sound of ships launching, the ground vibrated with whatever it was that was making the water rise. Mina's feet hit something slick and she stumbled forward, her hand ripped from Vera's as she went face first into the water. The turtle slipped from her fingers, lost under the water. Mina splashed around looking for it refusing to move from the spot when the air over them shook with the force of a ship's lifters. Mina spared a glance up. It was their ship. Mel had found them.

It was precious minutes before Mina found the turtle again, and this time she shoved it in her pocket, pushing it down to the bottom hoping that it would be secure until they could slow down. Mel was gone again though. The ship was gone. Wide-eyed Mina glanced around until she spotted the ship. Mel had landed in an open field just a few blocks away. The water was knee level now, making it hard to move with any sort of speed.

The water sloshed and pushed against their bodies as they made their way closer to the ship. Mel was in the doorway shouting something that Mina couldn't quite make out, but she imagined that it was encouragement to hurry. As they neared his words became clearer over all the noise.

"Hurry it up, come on now. Let's get going." It was more of exactly what Mina had imagined he was saying.

Gradually they made their way to the ship. The ramp was slick with water, but Mel held out a hand for each of them and pulled them inside pushing them back away from the door so that he could close it.

"We gotta get out of here," he muttered as he completely ignored the two of them and marched back to the cockpit. A sudden jerk knocked Mina off her feet. A larger wave of water had battered the side of the ship before they could take off. The sound of the lifters engaging followed and the ship rocked back and forth for a moment as though it was fighting against gravity and then all at once it was airborne and they were off.
 
Thank god for Mel. On her way to the tower, Vera hadn't completely been paying attention to where she'd been going. She'd been too panicked at least for the first portion to pay any attention to how she was planning to get back out. After she'd stopped for breath, she'd been a little more careful, so she had a fair general idea of where they were going initially, but the farther they went, the more she became worried that they weren't heading in the right direction. They were definitely heading out of town, but if they were too far from where the ship had been and Mel couldn't find them, she didn't know what she would do. Thankfully, the old man managed to find them anyways, just as the water was growing uncomfortably high.

Vera didn't need much encouragement. The minute the ramp was down, she was shoving Mina towards Mel and scrambling up herself as quickly as possible, so he could close it behind them. The entire bottom half of her body was soaking wet, and the same was true of Mina, but she moved instead to a side chamber where she could see the planet. The water buffeting the side of the ship seemed to be growing even more rapidly than before. As they'd moved past, she'd seen turtles exiting their homes, looking none too pleased. What surprised her was that they didn't seem frightened. Surprised and even angry, but not scared. The trend remained that way as she glued her face to the window, straining for a glimpse of the turtles.

As she watched, a group of the turtles wielding some of the cattle-prod spears approached them. They seemed to be moving as fast as they could, but it still didn't constitute as running. The one thing that was clear was that they were yelling angrily. The older woman glanced over at her daughter. Whatever had happened up there in that tower, whatever had caused Mina to bolt and get trapped in that tower, the turtles weren't happy about it. Vera was a facts person; she didn't put much stock in instincts without evidence. But something told her that this whole mess had something to do with why the Cult was after them, and it wasn't just her instincts. It couldn't be a coincidence that Mina had run off after Vera had gotten such a strange message. There were just too many coincidences piling up one after the other, if that was the case. A woman with a strange mark on her back visits the local madman who fears for Mina's safety. Within a month, they're on the run. The message she receives talks about a Glass Map, when the local madman always referred to Mina as "the Map of the Glass Heart." Suddenly Mina feels compelled to find something. The woman in the screen was just one more clue to a puzzle she didn't have even half the pieces for.

Vera didn't stop staring back at the planet until they were pulling away from it, escaping the pull of the water. She wasn't sure what was going to come of that. The turtles hadn't seemed scared, so she assumed they had some sort of contingency for something like this, for whatever reason, but they'd changed something big, and there was no telling what the repercussions of that were going to be. She let out a long breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding, and went looking for some towels.

After giving Mina a rough towel-dry, she gave her another frantic "are you okay?" lookover and made her way over to the cockpit. She didn't stop Mina from joining them. Quite frankly, this whole ordeal had made her even more antsy than before about letting the girl out of her sight. Mina still had yet to say anything about what had happened in the room when she'd been all alone. Vera hadn't asked any questions, but more because she'd felt like she couldn't than because she didn't want to know. She swallowed, and moved to stand over next to Mel, feeling like it had been an age since she'd done this same thing as they'd headed towards the planet of the turtles. She had dried herself off as best she could, but she was still probably getting water all over his nice old ship. "What next? We need some dry clothes and a destination, if the ship is even in a good enough shape to get anywhere." Her voice was calm and no-nonsense. No sense dilly dallying about the past. Even if it was the immediate past.
 
"Woman, this ship is is good enough shape to get us everywhere. She just needed a bit of fuel." Mel patted the console in front of him and smiled fondly as if the ship was a pet rather than a hunk of metal. "I don't really have clothes that'll fit ya either. But you're more than welcome to what's in my closet. We'll getcha some new shit when we stop next. I have a plan that just might work."

Mel looked over his shoulder at the two ladies and offered them a shrug before turning back to the ship and muttering something about coordinates. Mina was unimpressed, still. Even though Mel had really pulled through and got them out of such a sticky situation, she couldn't help but feel like they shouldn't put so much stock in this crack-pot old man.

With a sigh she turned away from the cockpit and made her way to the back of the ship. She wasn't too keen on wearing Mel's clothes, but she was even less enthused about continuing to wear the wet and filthy clothes that she currently had on. Part of her wished that they hadn't lost all their stuff already. She knew it was selfish, but she just wanted to go home and forget any of this had happened. Before disappearing into one of the rooms she gave her mom one last long look. She was trying so hard to keep her safe, and Mina suddenly felt the weight of that bearing down on her. She had just ran off, and nearly had got them killed. If it hadn't been for Mel they wouldn't have made it out of the city. She swallowed hard and turned away, tears burning in her eyes as she made her way to the closet.
 
Language... Vera thought to herself, but a little too much had happened and needed to happen for her to waste energy chastising him about it. Mina obediently headed to the closet when Mel offered his clothes as temporary replacements for their soiled ones, but Vera didn't move. She watched her daughter go down the hall, and caught the girl giving her a look, though she hastily turned her head aside so Mina wouldn't see her staring.

She wanted to know what had happened up in that tower. But having Mel suddenly to herself brought to the forefront of her mind a decision she had to make. Should she tell him what she had seen before Mina had run off? Or the interactions she had had with the cult? Or the fact that he- no, she wasn't about to tell him that Mina was his daughter. Not yet. Not before she got the chance to tell Mina herself. Explain why she'd never told either of them. Especially since trusting Mel was still a shaky matter in and of itself. Even if he didn't have any sort of malicious intent he'd been drunk off his ass not all that long ago. She couldn't distract him with news like that when she needed him to focus.

"So. What might this brilliant plan of yours be?" She asked, tone as imperious as ever, looking over his shoulder at the console. She was barely listening for the answer, though, questions swirling around her head. The Next? What did the woman mean, "none of us have ever had mothers?" That conversation had felt like a puzzle she had to piece together, except half the pieces were missing. "What am I going to do?" She whispered to herself softly out of the blue, still frowning over Mel's shoulder.
 
"Well, you see, they expect us to be hiding, don't they?" Mel began to answer Vera's question without much hesitation. It wasn't until she spoke again that he paused and thought about the answer. "Well, I imagine you're going to do your best for your daughter and not fall apart, woman. Now's not the time. You can fall apart after we're all safe."

He nodded, satisfied with his answer and gave Vera a smug sort of grin. "Now, back to your first question. We're going to go the biggest city we can find. There's two reasons why this might work for a while. One is that they'll have to be more careful because of the amount of witnesses that'll be around. Another reason is like I mentioned before, they expect us to go into hiding. They're going to be looking at those good hiding places closely. Plus, you two need some clothes, I can't have you wearing all mine."

Mel was pleased with himself, so pleased that he leaned back in his seat, his arms coming up to rest behind his head that same self-assured smug grin occupying his mouth. The ship's course was already set, now all that was left to do was to wait.

"I think that's a really stupid idea." Mina said, speaking up from the doorway. She was dressed in a much too large shirt that fit her more like a dress. Her dirty jeans still covered her legs, obviously not being able to find anything that would fit properly. "Hiding in plain sight doesn't ever work."

"Like you have so much experience here, little girl. I've been playing this cat and mouse game for a long time, and I'm used to being the cat. I know how the cat thinks. Hiding in plain sight is our best bet."

"Whatever. I knew you wouldn't listen to me. We'll just do whatever you want to do, I guess." Mina sighed and disappeared through the doorway again, making her way to the kitchen where there was adequate seating.

Mel grumbled quietly under his breath before turning back to Vera and raising an eyebrow. "Her attitude is not appreciated. I'm doing my best and I don't even know what exactly we're running from."
 
Vera started slightly when Mel essentially told her to get a grip. She hadn't really expected an answer, but he was right. She couldn't be falling apart now. It just felt like a long time she'd been keeping herself together by a thread. It was just a little unexpected that the words from a man she'd found drinking his sorrows away in a bar actually made her feel a bit calmer and more composed. She laughed lightly, a little at herself, a little at his self-satisfied grin.

He seemed altogether much too pleased about his plan, though. Vera had a little more faith than Mina that Mel knew what he was doing, but she had to admit she was nervous about trying to hide among the crowd as well. It didn't surprise her that Mina wasn't taking it well. It did surprise her, however, just how much Mel and Mina seemed to dislike each other. Mel was an old man, and a stranger who had smelled of alcohol the first time they'd been introduced. Mina was a teenager dealing with being hunted down for reasons even she didn't know. She supposed she should have seen their bad relationship coming, but it had caught her off-guard a little. It was like they were picking a fight with each other every time they talked. Mina had always been the sort to stand her ground, but this was pushing that boundary a little.

Vera pressed her fingers against the bridge of her nose, adding that to the list of things she had to find an impossible solution for. She knew it was hard for Mina to deal with losing her sense of freedom, and having her opinion pushed aside for a ratty-looking old man, but she couldn't let this go on the way it was, especially not when it meant her daughter might be reaching some kind of breaking point. Also it was giving her a headache listening to them bicker. "I'll talk to her." She said with a sigh. "I wish I knew what exactly was chasing us, too. And why." She grit her teeth, then, and decided to take a leap of faith, heart in her mouth. "I met one of them, I think. A member of the Eahta Cult. Not directly, but a woman showed up on a screen, saying the oddest things." She eyed Mel carefully, trying to judge his reaction to the news.
 
Mel didn't say anything, instead his smile faltered and he set about pressing a combination of buttons until a computerized female voice announced that the autopilot had been turned on. And then he rose from his seat and brushed past Vera towards the kitchen. He continued to not say anything as he opened a sealed compartment and grabbed a bottle of whiskey. Still silent, Mel grabbed himself a cup and settled at the table waiting for Vera to join him. He did not wait, however, to begin pouring his drink. He poured three fingers of whiskey into the glass and raised it to his lips. There was a brief hesitation before he finally tipped the glass back and took a sip.

Seconds more past, and then finally he spoke. "What'd she say?"
 
Mel's silence actually made Vera more nervous, and she stood there feeling like an awkward child, dripping wet and swaying on her sore feet. She wanted to make a comment about his drinking habits, but considering how badly she herself needed a damn drink, she decided to keep her mouth shut and sit down. She grabbed her own cup from the compartment, poured herself a little, and downed it in one shot. It burned down her throat, but it gave her a welcome, restorative buzz. "She said a lot of things I don't understand." Putting her cup down on the table with an intentionally sharp click, Vera started from the beginning. She'd explained a little of this earlier, but supposed she owed him the full explanation. She took a breath and began the story. "Before Mina was born, one of my neighbors brought home her brother. I hadn't even known she'd had a brother. She never talked about him, but apparently he used to be an OB-GYN, you know one of those reproductive doctors for women. I found out later that he used to be a certified genius. On top of his medical degree and years doing surgery, he'd gotten two PhD's, one in Organic Chemistry, one in Engineering. When I met him, none of that was apparent. He was nervous, shifty, and treated every casual question about himself like an interrogation."

She shrugged with one of her hands, pouring herself another glass of whiskey, but just morosely observing the amber liquid swirl around her cup. "He seemed a little pathetic, but with his credentials, he at least got a job as a nurse mid-wife in the local hospital. Mina was the first child he delivered, and it must have done him some good to see a child after... whatever he'd been through, because he was different after that, calmer, more coherent. For a time, anyways. Since we were neighbors, and I was on good terms with Carol, his sister, it wasn't uncommon for the family to come see me. I was a single mom unprepared for the strain a child would put on my busy schedule. When Carol died a year later giving birth to her own son, her husband, Doctor Frasier, and I turned raising the children into something of a collaborative effort, so that Mina and Garrett had at least one of us around at all times. Doctor Frasier loved Mina like she was his own daughter, and I got so used to it that it stopped feeling strange after a while.

"And then it started to get odd. It happened so gradually that I didn't realize it at first, but even when the play dates got less frequent, he would come visit us by himself. When I stopped welcoming those visits, I noticed he would follow us. I would open the curtains to find him staring intently through the window of the next house over. Or I'd bump into him every time we left the house to go grocery shopping." She grimaced and took another drink. "It got so freaky, that I told him directly to stop all of that, and I guess he really is a harmless old man, because he backed off of the weird behavior for a while. That was when the ramblings started, though. He lost his job, from what Garrett told me spent most of his time locked in his room, and on the rare occasions I saw him, he would talk to me for as long as he could about... odd things, almost all concerning Mina. The ramblings got worse, sometimes they would turn almost into trances, and he would shake me or shout at me for not listening to him. Naturally, I assumed he was delusional, and possibly even a danger to my child. I looked into his background, asked Garrett's father to get him into therapy, even considered a restraining order. I tried to ignore what he said as much as possible, but there were a couple things he would repeat that I couldn't help but remember. She is the Gift of the Ancients. She holds the Map of the Glass Heart. I couldn't let them find her. They were going to torture him to find out where he'd hidden it. If they found out, they'd kill her for it. Even if they didn't kill her for it, if they found it, they were going to destroy the world." She shivered slightly, trying not to think about his dire predictions. "I never found out what he meant by 'them' or what this 'map' he was talking about was. Nor why he thought Mina had it."

"The woman I met at the door- or, saw, I guess. She didn't look anything like the description Garrett gave me of the woman who had visited his uncle, but some of the things she said..." she pursed her lips, keeping the message she'd received on the holo-em to herself, "she said Mina would prove if she was worthy to gather the shards. She knew my name, and kept saying something about Mina being 'the Next' and eventually joining 'them.' Whatever that means. I think it's the Eahta Cult Doctor Frasier was so scared of. Mina's behavior was so odd. She's not the sort of kid to just... run off like that. I don't really know what happened, but for a few minutes at least, she was stuck in a room and the lady said she couldn't get in or open the door. It would open when Mina was ready. She hasn't talked about what happened up there. It's completely crazy, but I've started to think that Doctor Frasier knew something." She curled the fingers of her left hand into a fist. "I don't know how much of it was delusion, and how much legitimate, but it's like the Cult is manipulating us. Like this whole bounty was just a ploy... but I don't know for what purpose. What it has to do with this Map of Glass. Maybe they're leading us to glass shards to build something, but I don't have any idea what, and it's not like they convinced us to come here. None of it makes any sense." She didn't meet Mel's eyes, opting to stare down at her glass in frustration. Vera stopped herself from voicing the giant string of concerns that had run through her head over and over again in the last couple months like a broken record. She really didn't want to show off just how lost and tired and hunted she felt.
 
Mel silently listened to Vera's story, careful not to interrupt her train of thought at anytime. He didn't want to disrupt her story and end up missing something important, but he continued to drink until his glass was empty, and then he promptly filled it again. He had a feeling that he was going to need the calming effects of the alcohol before this conversation was over.

After she was done, Mel waited for several moments, making sure she was really done, before once again opening his mouth. Her little speil had left him with more than enough questions, and he wasn't sure she was going to be able to answer them. So, he started with the question that had been bothering him since running into Vera again.

"Where's the girl's father?" he asked, cocking an eyebrow and taking another sip of his drink.
 
Vera was glad she hadn't tried to take another sip of her drink, because she was fairly certain she would have choked on it and spat it all over him at his question. Her blood ran ice cold, and even still staring down at her glass morosely, barely moving, she for a moment entertained the idea of telling him. But she couldn't do that to Mina, and what would it accomplish, really? So instead, she sighed, finally, and took another long swallow of her drink before responding. "What does it matter, Mel?" She asked tiredly. "We were only together for a short while, and he doesn't even know he has a child." Technical truths. Implied falsehoods. "It's better off he not know, anyways. Better off nobody knows, so the Eahta Cult can't target him, too. He's not on the birth certificate, either. I'm the only one who knows." Technically Stephie sort of knew, too, but the woman wasn't exactly bright and as far as Vera was concerned, she probably didn't understand that Mel was the only person who could be the father. She'd barely understood that she'd had a baby, poor chit. Vera didn't look him in the eye, keeping her gaze on her drink.
 
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