intraspective | ??????????, Gaia, Wednesday Late Afternoon

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??????????, Gaia, Wednesday Late Afternoon

She was never, ever taking any portal that had stopovers ever again. Sure, their hosts had been great, she now played one hell of a mean game of croquet (it would have been two-time world champion except Reno had stolen one title from her on a technicality, damn him), but really, all being stuck in croquet hell for three years the local time had done was kill any momentum she'd had for saving the world.

Iris still came out of the portal swinging her mallet, just in case. (Look, before croquet hell there had been some much less friendly worlds out there and old habits died really hard.)

Nothing attacked her, though she did startle a man feeding his chickens as she stepped out into his yard. Ignoring his yelp, she glanced around their surroundings, her mind reaching out to judge any potential threats.

"Oh thank fuck," she said cheerfully. "We're someplace peaceful. I demand a shower!"

Sure, they'd have to figure out where and what reality they were in. But this was a start.

[For that title-stealing guy!

NOTE: The second thread has talk of torture, actual murder, torture, and blowing up a building in it.]

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"He's going to love this," Iris said, amused. "Whether or not he knows me."

Honestly, she couldn't decide which scenario would irritate him more.

Still, she was calling him.

"Here goes?"

"Gods-speed, Rookie," Reno replied, smiling wryly and firing off a sloppy salute.

The phone rang.

The phone rang once.

Twice.

Three times.

And then, on the other end of the line, a faintly suspicious sounding but familiar voice picked up.

"Tseng."

Businesslike, as usual.

And she hadn't even done anything to warrant that tone of voice yet!

"Yo, boss!" Iris said cheerfully. "Just checkin' in to see if you know me."

What?

Tseng's voice was slightly terse as he replied, "Yes, Iris. We've met."

And then after another brief pause, added, to someone slightly away from the phone, "Continue your rounds, Iris. I need to take this call."

There was a tone underneath it all that said something he'd been thinking since the day he'd met Zack Fair: 'I really, really hate that island.'

Iris grinned at Reno as she fist-pumped. He knew her! Yes!

This was terrible!

And amazing!

"Got it," she said cheerfully. "Reno and I'll take Nibelheim then!"

Sorry-not-sorry, Tseng!

There was a long pause.

"Reno and you will take... Nibelheim?"

You could practically hear him counting to ten in his head.

"Yeah, sorry," she said, not sounding the least bit sorry about, well, anything. "We're a little temporally displaced right now, so you've got two of each of us running around—you lucky man! Be nice to little me, okay? She has no idea this is happenin'."

He could be mean to Reno, though, since it wasn't even the right Reno he'd be being mean to in… several other ways too.

Renos were complicated.

Renos were always complicated.

"Two of..." Tseng sounded a little like he wanted to just start pulling his hair out. "This is one of those... 'because of that island' things, isn't it?"

Hated that island.

So much.

"…I don't think we can really blame the island this time," Iris admitted, after a moment's thought. "Reno and I were tryin' to get back to our Gaia and it's turned out that the multiverse really, really does not want us to get back to our time. This is the closest we've got in months and we're still something like six years off."

But they were on the right planet! It was a pretty great step in the right direction.

"But, hey, it just means we're going to be workin' here a little. Consider this a heads up? And yay, you know me! We figured there were greater odds you didn't, which would have made things way more awkward."

"Things are already awkward," Tseng muttered under his breath. And then, a little more loudly, said, "By all means, then."

He sounded dubious.

"What, pray, are you working on?"

Iris hesitated.

Sure, she knew where they were in the timeline and breaking it was something she was entirely in favour of (those years thinking Zack were dead were not her best years in any sort of way) but at the same time…

"Oh, you know, we're workin' on saving the world," she settled on. "It all comes back to Nibelheim, time and time again."

Tseng hesitated for a few moments, himself.

"How soon can you have a report on my desk?"

Look, Iris, temporally displaced or not, he was the boss. If he wasn't the boss, he was dead.

Uh.

Iris glanced at Reno.

"We don't have computers on us," she admitted, "but if you're fine with a phone-emailed report, we can… work something out?"

Probably?

It was going to have emojis and chatspeak in it. 100%

"That will suffice," Tseng replied, tone clipped and still ever the picture of professionalism.

... He would rue the day.

She was just going to hope he was up on his slang from six years in the future.

"I'll let you get that other call then," Iris said. "And maybe we'll send you a selfie or something."

It would be when they were doing something stupid. Just because.

"And six years or so from now, you're going to look back on today and sigh."

"I'm already sighing," Tseng informed her. "There was no other call."

There was, however, a rookie Turk who had just been informed on their routine Sector Six training patrol that her boss needed to take a call from... her.

So.

At least Iris was more prepared for that sort of nonsense.

Fandom and all.

"It's better than dealing with me when I'm four, though, right?"

Tseng sighed.

"I suppose, at some point, I'll find out."

Zack was a menace at four. He could only imagine what Iris was like.

"Ohmygods."

He hadn't even met her when she was tiny, yet! The glee in her voice was probably not super reassuring.

Iris was adorable and precious at four.

"Indeed."

Tseng sounded pained. So pained.

"Will that be all?"

Hated. That. Island.

"For now!" she chirped. "I'll call you if we need you, but we're pretty used to running independently at this point."

So very independently.

"Stay out of trouble, yo." Then she hung up on him and burst into laughter.

Reno was just standing back and grinning.

"So," he said, "that went well?"

"He must have lost all sense temporarily," Iris confided, tucking her PHS away. "First, he knows me. I'm minioning for him right now. Second, he wants a report but he gave us permission to text it to him."

Tseng was never going to make that mistake again.

"And he's never met me as a four year old yet. Poor, deprived man."

"Poor bastard's missin' out, yo," Reno laughed, shaking his head. And then stretched his arms out. Looked toward the mansion.

Swore under his breath.

"... Bet we could spare everyone a lotta trouble just by hidin' a few books, yo."

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