White Knight

6

"Where is she?"

"CCH. Left Douglas with her. He sent me home to change."

"We'll, he was right to do so." After pausing for a moment, Devin continued. "And you should call Aaron in the morning."

"Yeah." I pulled off my pants as Devin finished with my hair.

"Hey, I'm gonna go grab some pajamas. You should take a shower and get this stuff off of you." She gathered up my uniform and as she left I could hear her mutter, "At least Cisco made these laundry safe."

Leaving me alone in the shower was a horrible idea. While my body was at home, my mind was still lingering elsewhere.

*******************

Coast City
Two years earlier

"Let's go guys! Let's go!" My team huffed through the circuit I had laid out for them. They had gotten better in the last few months, but there was still room to improve. I had to hand it to them. They each had their strengths and, as a team, were coordinated and efficient. There were a few exceptions, but teamwork was not our weakness. "You can't just rely on your powers to get your through. You have to be physically fit, mentally fit..."

"Emotionally fit!" Theodor, our resident tech wizard, quipped from where he was lifting weights.

"I bet the League of Assassins never made you run stairs." Sydney gasped from set of stairs on the corner. She had the ability to phase through solid objects, but the only thing that phased me about her was her attitude. It has gotten better since I had first started working with her, but every once in a while my patience would run out.

I scoffed at her remark. "Oh no, we did much worse."

"Like what?"

"I am not dignifying that with an answer."

"Oh come on!"

"Maybe she'll dignify this with an answer." Ayo sipped his water. "Why isn't she doing the circuit with us?"

"I can answer that one." Lily said, slipping down the stairs around Sydney with a pizza box. "She ran it this morning two..."

"Three!"

"...times. And I think you're grumbling because she made you do hand-to-hand instead of archery."

"It's not my fault I cannot miss. A particle acelerator made me that way."

"Anyways, I got pizza. That is if anyone is hungry?"

The team stopped what they we're doing and looked at me.

"Go ahead. You're almost done anyways."

Lily scooted towards me as the team rushed for pizza. "You really worked them hard today."

"Hence why it's pizza day."

"No Ivan, I noticed."

"Yeah, he had football today."

"And Darwin?"

"Oh, they're here." I motioned over to the pizza, where Darwin was gobbling away. "They were really quiet today. Honestly, it's a relief, with all the others yapping

"You'd think we don't feed them."

"Yeah, they're an interesting bunch. Still working on the attitude adjustment with Ayo," I huffed.

Lily placed a cautious hand on my shoulder. "We're getting there. I mean, look at all the progress they've made. Ayo is limiting his cynical snarkiness. Theodore has some muscle on him. And Bernice..."