My mom was Mexican...

"Okay, that's why I like you," Victor said, and rummaged behind the couch until he came up with a weapon. (What, like any superhero team didn't end up with weapons everywhere.) He wouldn't lie, the whole thing made him a little nervous, but he figured there was enough firepower on the team to keep Olive safe if need be. He also suspected she had enough sense to run if she had to.

"This shoots lasers," he explained, quickly showing her the controls on the laser gun. "Aim it at the thing's face or belly, don't hit Chase, and otherwise do whatever Nico says. Got it?"

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"Got it," she confirmed, now feeling a little uneasy -- it was one thing to say stuff, it was another to have a laser gun now. "Um. Be careful?" she added, glancing at him. Because, yes, she'd run away if she had to, but she knew Victor was going to be in the thick of it, and she got to play the worried girlfriend card for like two seconds here.

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"I always am," Victor said -- and that was even mostly true -- but if she was going to play worried girlfriend, he was going to lean in for a kiss before they went out. Just on that tiny chance one of them didn't come back.

From the beach, he heard the sounds of a fight in progress. Someone was saying something about a second snake.

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Olive was sort of scared, though she'd never admit it. If she was going to date a guy with powers and hang out with his friends with powers, she had to be willing to recognize that the stakes were real.

"Holy shit, did they just say there's another one?" she asked breathlessly, breaking the kiss in a panic.

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"Yeah," Victor said. "And that's our cue to get out there and kick snake butt."

If he was going to date a girl without powers and bring her to meet his friends with powers, he had to let her see how real the stakes were.

When they got onto the beach, one of the snakes was still holding Chase aloft as Karolina struggled in midair to get him free. From the way he snarked at her, it was safe to guess he felt more uncomfortable than truly threatened. Meanwhile, Klara had summoned vines to tangle around the second one, which Nico was blasting with magic that didn't seem to be doing much good.

"Split up," Nico ordered, with just the slightest raise of her eyebrows to show she was surprised to see Olive out there, but more people were always a good thing. "Vic, go help with the one who has Chase. Olive, back me up. Welcome to our world."

Edited Date: 2013-01-08 09:30 pm (UTC)

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"Thanks," Olive muttered, running over to position herself behind Nico, and aimed the laser gun at the snake wrapped in vines. "Jesus, the stuff you guys have to deal with really has to be seen to be believed."

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"Cookies, truth or dare, giant snakes," Nico sighed, before muttering another spell. "That's sort of how it goes around here. But at least we don't have homework."

In the background, Karolina and Victor had finally gotten the original snake to safely let go of Chase and go down, in that order. But the one in the vines -- though clearly losing strength from the blasts -- had laid another egg. The egg rapidly hatched into another snake, which scooped Victor up.

"If they keep reproducing like this, we're going to lose fast," he called grimly as he tried to shock the snake into dying or dropping him, preferably both. He was surrounded by the blue halo of energy that came with maxing out his powers.

Edited Date: 2013-01-08 10:00 pm (UTC)

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"We just have to move faster than them, right?" Olive said shakily, wildly trying to track the snake with her laser gun without, you know, accidentally shooting her boyfriend.

Never again was she going to complain about one of her boring, normal problems.

"Are they laying like, six? Or just one each?" she asked, thinking she could at least shoot dormant eggs before they hatched.

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"Just one each so far," Karolina called from her spot over the ocean. "They don't, like, keep birthing."

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"Hey, Victor," Chase yelled sounding as if he had an idea. "Truth or dare."

"What?" Victor had to wait until his feet were back on dry land before he could say anything more. "Are you kidding?"

"No. Truth or dare."

"Fine, fine," Victor grumbled. "Dare."

You could hear Chase's smirk. "So, I dare you to eat the next egg."

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"What?" Olive yelled, staring at Chase like he'd grown a second head. "Now's not really the time to be all hilarious or whatever, Chase. Why don't you eat the stupid egg?"

Again, not her best comeback, but Olive was stuck in a sort of panicky place and the quips didn't come easily there. She wasn't Jessica, okay?

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"I already ate the cinnamon," Chase reminded her, staring right back. "Too bad."

Nico was still fighting, but she turned away from the snake long enough to yell, "You were all in favor of these stupid rules when it was me. Do it."

[OOC: FUNNY STORY. I missed the first page of the story because it's placed a little oddly in the trade, which was of course the one that makes the whole plot makes sense. Karolina's dare was to steal a staff from Sons of the Serpent, which is why they were talking about it; Nico's spell bounced off the ground and hit the staff, which is where the eggs came from. Too late to retcon this stuff in, but let's pretend that's what happened.]

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"Fine, but if it comes out of my stomach all ~~meta~~ Alien I'm gonna be pissed," Victor said, and looked over to Olive. "Please never mention this to anybody at Fandom."

With that, he opened his mouth wide, announced one more time that he might just puke, and shoved it in. He let out a giant belch, the kind that about shook the sand.

And then .... nothing. Even Nico's snake, the last ne they'd been fighting, was down. The teenagers and a couple seagulls seemed to be the only living things on the beach.

Edited Date: 2013-01-09 12:27 am (UTC)

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"D-did it work?" Olive asked, much shakier than she would have preferred. She was going to go over there and smack some heads together for sheer recklessness and stupidity -- cinnamon couldn't potentially kill you, Chase -- just as soon as she found out... "Are you okay?"

[consider it handwavily handwaved! I followed along anyway. :-) ]

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"I'm fine," Victor said. He was pretty sure he was going to need to scour his mouth with a whole box of baking soda, but he was fine. "How ... did you even know it would work?"

"I didn't," Chase said, nonchalant. He was on his way over to Karolina. "But I figured you had a cast-iron stomach. Worst-case scenario, we could always rebuild you. Make you stronger ... faster."

"You're lucky you guessed right!" Victor said. "For a minute there we were all ... worried ..."

He realized nobody but Olive actually looked that worried; in fact, they were congregating by Nico to exchange high fives. Right. He was just the team robot. (The fact he could be rebuilt didn't mean he relished the idea, but no one seemed to care about that.)

"... about me."

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Olive watched the others with a frown, going from upset to downright angry. "Hey!" she yelled, striding over to Chase and reaching out to shove his shoulder. "You can't just do that -- you can't risk Victor's life without letting him on your total lack of a plan just because you apparently think he's like Mr. Potato Head, asshole."

So much for good first impressions. She was too mad to care.

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Chase's eyes narrowed as he stumbled back from the shove. "He's our teammate," he shouted back. "I know how much damage he can take, and it's a lot more than a stupid egg. And yeah, okay, maybe I didn't explain the whole thing, but we kinda had other things to deal with."

Edited Date: 2013-01-09 03:37 am (UTC)

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"And I'm apparently the only one who cares that your teammate is a person who should be allowed to make his own decisions about, you know, his life," Olive seethed. "I know he can take a bunch of damage, too, but you didn't know what that egg was going to do, and it could've ripped him open from the inside, and that's something maybe you should've maybe thought about for a second. Maybe gotten the guy's opinion on it. We all know he still would've done it, but he's not your disposable robot."

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Old Lace growled slightly at that, and Chase was still yelling. "Oh yeah, well why don't you take your attitude and Rusty and go --"

"Chase." Karolina's voice was firm and gentle. "She's right. It was messed up of us." To Olive, she added, "Believe me, I know seeing somebody you care about risk themselves is pretty much the worst thing ever."

Chase was still sulking. "Why are you taking her side? I'm the one who got rid of the snakes."

"I think Victor did that," Nico said briskly. "We are sometimes ... kind of casual about his safety. Maybe."

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Well, now there was a dinosaur pissed at her, so Olive backed off a little, but...still.

"Well, not that you have to do what I say, but maybe...cut that out," she said, losing a little of her heat. "Please."

That last was kind of an afterthought, and she shrugged.

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Victor hadn't been saying much; he was both still cruising on adrenaline from the fight and surprised Olive came to his defense.

"I can be casual about staying safe too," he said, and reached an arm around Olive's shoulders. "But yeah, I would have liked a heads up on why you thought it would work before I ate the egg. My mouth's the one that's gonna taste like evil serpent all night."

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"I could do a spell for that," Nico offered, to which Victor politely declined.

She sighed, looked at the group again. "Okay. New team policy: No treating Victor like a toy unless he's into it. And no truth or dare because it's stupid and people always get pissed. Now c'mon, let's get inside. Hopefully the tide will clean up the snake guts before we have to."

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Olive was now looking a little embarrassed -- she was the outsider here, and she'd just started yelling at them like she knew better than all of these guys. At the same time, though, at least it seemed like she'd gotten her point across, and she'd take being embarrassed for an outburst in exchange for Victor maybe being just a tiny tad bit safer.

"We're going to have to get you like a whole mouthwash-toothpaste-baking soda-gum kit before you're kissing me again," Olive teased him lightly, nudging his side with the arm that wasn't currently carrying her scary-ass laser gun.

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Victor snorted and nudged her right back. "Milk, right?" he asked softly. "You're supposed to drink milk to get a bad taste out of your mouth. Or tequila."

His eyes went briefly to the gun. "Are you okay? I know that was your first big fight."

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