Shattered Time Capsule

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"Yep." The man nodded. "Do you want to sleep outside? Your little green friends seem to follow you everywhere, and I do like my floors intact," he suggested with a tired smile as he pointed toward her feet. "I can nap on the roof with you, or we can find a friend to stay with you in the yard, at least until we figure out a good way to make sure your friends don't cause an accident. I'm sure they aren't trying to hurt anyone, but they maybe don't realize that my floors need to be flat for safety." As ever, he took a friendly tone with the girl, eager to be a gentle voice in her life.

"I'm no stranger to sleeping outside, so if you want, I can stay with you," Michael offered, thankful that Monty didn't plan to toss them out.

The doctor nodded. "As long as you two don't wander into any rooms that say staff only or the neighbor next door's room, you two can explore or sleep wherever. Just be kind to this place. It's the only home I have left." Monty grinned, but a trace of sadness made the expression falter slightly before he moved on. "How was the meal? Get enough?"

"She didn't eat any meat, but we all ate," Morella offered. "Michael has a stomach like the desert: holds a lot!"

Michael flushed. "Hush." He shook his head. "I got plenty. Thanks."

A brief nod, and Monty's attention was focused on the girl as he walked closer. "What's this about not eating meat? Do you know if you're supposed to eat meat or not? Growing kids need protein to build muscle and strengthen minds." He chuckled. "But we have vegetarian options for that, so it's not a big worry." An absent hand rested on Lizzy's head, and his grin this time was real. "Gotta keep people healthy!"
 
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Lizzy looked down where Monty pointed and flushed a little. "Oh, I'm sorry," she said sheepishly. She would ask them not to do that, but she couldn't help it when she was asleep. They always seemed to want to protect her. "Yes... outside is good." She smiled up gratefully at Michael, hugging him. She was glad that he wasn't going to leave her alone.

She looked back to Monty then, when he said meat was important, rubbing her eyes a bit as she said, "Can't, not good," and punctuating with a soft yawn that left her with a crooning sound. She giggled a bit as he pat her head, nodding. "Yes," she agreed, "healthy."
 
Monty waved off the apology absently, then tilted his head. Meat wasn't good, huh? He'd have to ask Ziggy to check her digestive system specifically. It was very strange that someone so closely-related to plants could (or would) only eat plants. Still, he shrugged. "Yeah, we'll find somethin for ya."

She was a cutie, he had to admit that, even if she was strange and had a lot of weird needs. He doubted it would bother him unless she started destroying the hospital, which he doubted.

Still, he had one more question. "Lizzy, one question before you go outside with Michael? Did these plants here," he paused to tap where the plants had emerged, "Did they come up through the whole hospital to see you, or did they grow close to where they came out of the floor? If they came all the way from the ground, I might have to move you down to the first floor, but if they're not hurting the rest of the building, you can stay in this room."

Michael wrapped an arm around Lizzy and stood, slow so he wouldn't disturb her too much. Clearly tired, he saw no point in helping her get a second wind. Sleep was important.
 
Lizzy clung to Michael as he stood, blinking sleepily at Monty. "Um... from where there's dirt," she told him with another yawn. "Is there dirt up here?" She knew that her plants would grow in weird places sometimes, but usually there was at least dirt around, even if it was under the floor and they had to push through it, unless they could cling like moss. Since it was the vines that usually came when she slept though, she was guessing that they needed dirt, so unless there was dirt in the floor of the upstairs they had probably come through the building.
 
Monty swallowed. "Morella, could you please check the rooms below this one?" He shook his head, then ran a hand through his hair. "We can put dirt anywhere, though, so if that's all they need, just pick where you want to sleep, and we'll get it all fixed up while you're resting with Michael." He saw no point in panicking or freaking out, though he really wanted to. He kept his expression as free of worry as he could as he smiled at the girl. "So, where do you want to sleep after this nap? You can change your mind later—shouldn't be too hard to manage, I think."
 
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"Um," she said that a lot when she was tired apparently, "I don't know. Anywhere is okay." She nuzzled into Michael a bit, blinking out from the shelter of his arms at Monty. She looked endearingly tiny when held like that. She really didn't care where she was going to sleep later, right now she just wanted to go back to her nap, exhausted after the day's events.
 
"Whatever's easiest for you, Monty. It's your hospital. I'm thankful for any beds you have to offer us." Michael assured with a nod as he held Lizzy. "Whatever works best for you works best for us."

Monty raised an eyebrow, but shrugged. "This'll work then. Beats rearranging everything. Get going, then, and don't fret over the mess. Lizzy knows where the dirt is, and you can spread this on it." He tossed a folded sheet towards Michael. "None of the dirt up there will hurt her, but it makes me feel better if she's got at least this much."

"Thanks, Monty." Michael nodded and caught the sheet, then looked toward Lizzy. "Let's go nap, then. I'm pretty tired, too." Well, not as much as her, but he was. He carried up to the elevator and rode it to the roof with her, then carried her to the seat Monty'd been in when Lizzy brought the tree to him to see. He looked around, spotted a bag of dirt, then spread some on the ground under the hanging seat, then he lifted her to spread the sheet for her before he laid her down. "There ya go."

It didn't take long, but he was sure she'd be nearly asleep already.
 
Lizzy stayed clinging to him as they headed up, playing a bit with the buttons on his jacket to keep herself awake until they were on the roof. Almost as soon as he put her down she was fast asleep again, curled into a little ball with her snowy hair tossed around her face. It didn't take long for the slender vines to creep out from under the sheet and wrap around her again, this time not destroying any floors to do so.

She slept for several hours, peaceful and undisturbed, before she finally stirred with a soft yawn and stretched a bit, opening her beautiful emerald eyes. She sat up, the vines still clinging to her, and looked around a bit, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and smiling when her gaze landed on Michael.
 
Michael slept on the bare roof with his jacket splayed open as he sat with his back against a wall. His hands rested near his weapons at either side, ready to grab them the moment he sensed danger. His head rested back against his slouching back to bare his face upward.

This close, and this still, the burns around each of his piercings were easier to see, as was every tiny scar, including places where his hair parted because a scar permanently destroyed those pores.

A faint breeze blew, and his nose twitched while a name came to his open lips, the utterance barely a breath: "Jade."
 
Jade?

Lizzy crawled over to poke Michael's cheek, most of the vines releasing her, though they stayed wrapped in an almost nest around where she had been sleeping, easy to return to. A couple clung to her legs still. "Michael?" she asked softly, blinking at him and poking his cheek again. She looked curiously over his piercings and the burns there, frowning.
 
His eyes snapped open the moment he heard her move, and he watched as she came over and said his name, then poked him again. He watched for a few moments as she looked over his piercings, then spoke up. "Worried about something?"

With that question, he pulled his legs up and rested his arms across them, then arched his back until it pressed firmly against the wall. It was sore, but he was sure that would fade pretty quick, given he was not only young, but a Hunter with quick healing. "Like my jewelry?" He indicated one of the studs with a small smile. "Don't touch if silver hurts you."
 
Lizzy nodded obediently. "Do they hurt?" she questioned him, drawing back the fingers that had been about to poke at one. "They have burns." Her big, round eyes looked at him with concern, shimmering like polished emeralds in her heart-shaped face. She pulled her knees under her and perched on her heels, rocking slightly back and forth as she wondered why Michael put things that burned him into his skin.
 
Did they hurt? Michael nodded. "Yeah. They're reminders that I have a job I need to do, and each one is a year that I haven't been able to do it right. I have eleven, and I'm going to put in number twelve in a couple months unless I can do it." Only seven piercings were visible on his face: a bar with balls on either end was through his right eyebrow, a ring decorated his right nostril, he had two more rings on the outer edge of his left ear, and three studs in a row from the lobe and upward in his right ear.

Several scars decorated face as well, their sources difficult to pinpoint, since they looked like burns combined with cuts.

Still, even despite his piercings and scars, he smiled at her with warmth. "It's my way of saying I take my special job very seriously."
 
"What is your special job?" Lizzy asked him, propping her elbows on her knees and resting her chin on her hands. She watched him intently, smiling a bit as she waited for his answer. Eager as a child asking for a story. She wanted to know what was important for Michael, and why he had found her. Her energy shone bright and pure, faintly familiar yet totally unique.
 
Michael almost answered—almost told the gentle girl about the job he was given by the Multiverse herself. No, though. He couldn't tell her about that, not really. Too innocent, too sweet, he doubted she would understand that his special job was to kill the only surviving member of his family.

He came up with something: not a lie, but not the whole truth. "I have to find someone," he explained, "But I think she's scared, so she's hiding, and she's very good at it. Her name is Jade, and she's... everything. She's the Multiverse itself, placed into a person so it can experience itself."

Certain he was getting too close to the whole truth of it, he simply nodded, as though that was everything.
 
"Hm... Why do you have to find her?" Lizzy questioned, apparently not satisfied by the answer. She looked at Michael calmly, intently, those emerald eyes seeming to see through everything. Searching for everything; truth, secrets. All with the innocent face that knew nothing, yet wished to know everything, for no greater reason than curiosity about the world and those around her.
 
Of course she wanted to know why. He ran a hand through his hair. "She asked me to do something for her. It makes me nervous to talk about it, though."

It was true, the topic was an uneasy one. Jade was suffering, had been for as long as he'd been searching for her, since her screams of agony echoed through the multiverse as it turned into the fragmented landscape that became the current.

"I could tell you about who she is, though. That doesn't make me nervous," he offered with a smile. He knew every story: the Hunters who survived long enough to raise him told him about her glories as bedtime stories in that cold cave where his earliest memories began.
 
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"Please!" Lizzy answered eagerly, leaning towards him. Her excitement caused the plants behind her to dance, the nest of vines bursting into an array of colorful, many-petaled blossoms. She shifting to sit a bit closer to him, vines sliding down to curl around her ankles. Although their actions always seemed to be protective and affectionate... the image looked a bit too much like shackles to easily ignore.
 
Michael smiled and wrapped an arm around the girl, then shifted his legs and pulled her into his lap. For now, he chose to ignore the vines' shackle-like appearance and instead concentrate on stories for the girl. The vines hadn't harmed her at all that he knew of—no need to panic or freak out over it.

"Lessie. Well, she's my great aunt, and her name is Jade Jemson. She was in love with her twin sister, and they had twelve children together." That part was weird, her having kids with her twin, but from what he knew, they really had loved each other before Topaz was executed.

He pulled his mind from that. Happy stories: he had to think of happy stories. He remembered many stories told, and so many of them were happy, but he couldn't remember how those went. He remembered other things, but not those...

Phil! The story of how she saved Phil! That was a good one.

"Well, there used to be an organization called the Hunters, and there was a group that ruled them, called the Council. The Council, they weren't nice about it. They punished the Hunters for anything they did wrong and didn't accept apologies. One Hunter was sent to deal with a magic wolf and his pack, and they were in the lands of my great grandma Biocybera, who ruled that world."

He paused. "At the time, Jade was a little girl. She didn't like hugs, but the Hunter who came, his name was Phil, and Jade liked to ride in one of his big pockets and nap there. He stayed for years, but he never killed the wolf he was sent to slay, because they became friends. The Council didn't like that, so after ten years, they locked him up in their dungeons, and they were going to let him starve and die there."

For a few moments, he let the story sink in before he continued. "But Jade, she was smart. See, he left his jacket behind, and she dug through it until she found his phone, and then she started calling people until she found an old friend of Phil's who was named Kira, and together, they made a portal and went to save Phil. The dungeons were dark and quiet, and they smelled like dead people. Jade and Kira were both scared, but they snuck past the guards and they kept going deeper until they came to the darkest cells, and in the furthest cell, Phil sat very still and quiet, and he wasn't like how he used to be. Jade didn't recognize his personality, even though it was only a few days. She began to yell at him that he wasn't allowed to be a different person because he got in trouble, and Kira picked the lock. Phil told them they should leave him there, but Jade ran right into the cell and told him that he was hers, and she was going to keep him safe."

Silence fell for a few moments. There were a few versions from here on: all agreed that they got free, but none on how. He picked one at random.

"The shadows began to move rapidly out from the cell. Nobody knows why or what made them do it, but the shadows ate the Council, and the ground shook." He moved his legs to simulate it. "And Phil remembered who he was. He grabbed Kira and Jade and protected them the whole way to the portal, and when they got home, Jade smiled for the first time in her life."
 
Lizzy had been listening intently, but her brow had a small crease as she did. She wasn't sure really how the story that Michael was telling her answered her question, even though it was very interesting. "So is Jade who asked you to do something special?" She asked, leaning forward on her elbows, chin in her pale hands. She blinked her emerald eyes up at him curiously. She didn't question any of the interesting points of the story, either because she was remarkably accepting or just because she didn't know they were strange.
 
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