((Continued from Fairest of them all))

If there has ever been an awkward plane trip for three, this was definitely it.

Maya sat in her seat, too hyped to sleep or read or watch the in-flight movie, and kept stealing glances at Maxine and Vicente. Those two made a weird pair without actually being any kind of pair, and the three of them together, well.

Once upon a time, a red-haired office supply manipulator, a hardened criminal and a pathetic half-lesbian mirrorwalker set out on a quest.

Accompanied by the redhead's trusty octoclip.

And as if all of that had not been enough, the flight was not going to land before midnight.
Which meant some extra in-flight entertainment.

Maxine took the window seat. Obviously. Maya sat in the middle, for safety reasons, and felt like she was taking a trip with an especially grumpy daddy and a wicked... umm, not mother. Sister? Maybe?

Midnight, EST.
Maya was still too hyped to sleep.

She knew this was going to happen (so she prepared: she was wearing Gawain clothes and had a few excuses ready if the flight attendants started asking totally justified questions).
But it still sucked.

Shifting awake was one thing; having Vicente and Maxine watching close up was another. Ugh. Maya kept her eyes shut until Gawain convinced himslef to open them.

The longest. Flight. Ever.

Vicente did not think it was possible for his stomach to do so many twists and turns. After all, he was a man who killed for a living and he consumed the raw flesh of animals in order to gain access to his powers! He should have a stomach of steel! Of tempered, unbreakable steel! But apparently that was not going to be the case here. BUMP! more turbulence from the air and Vicente closed his eyes as he massaged his forehead. He could practically feel his skin turning green due to the flipflops his stomach was doing.

A glance to the seat next to him and he saw that damn kid that hired him. The one who was continuing to pay him by means that Vicente did not bother to question. He knew that he was an X-Man, but he said the funds were not coming from them. This was more of a private endeavour. Either way, for making him take the plane he was going to slit his/her/whatever’s throat!

RUMBLE!

“Uugh,” Vicente growled as he closed his eyes and tried to keep his dinner down. This was getting ridiculous.

He took a calming breath as he opened his eyes and glanced past the kid. The redhead was the newest addition to their motley little crew. The most information he could find about her was that she was a reporter and one that had an irritating reputation at best. He had just met her when they had caught up with each other back at the airport and Vicente could already tell that she lived up to her name. Maybe with whatever happens on this little “quest” of theirs, she’ll accidentally stumble in front of one of his blades? He had a feeling he’d be doing the world a favor.

Vicente belched, groaned a bit from his upset stomach and clenched his jaw. He was so charging the kid extra for this trip.

Reaching into his pocket, Vicente casually felt about for his blades and they were still present. Though the airline tended to look down on a heavily armed man walking into their airports, he had managed to slip in due to some paying off and switching out his metallic blades for ceramic. Not as a strong but it would due to get them to Seattle where a contact of his would set him up with his standard weaponry.

A glance to the gender-shifter and Vicente arched a eyebrow at him.

“You do know I’m going to kill you for getting me on this airplane,” he asked. “Right?”

He had to be in his sixties. He was muscley, but wrinkly. Sour puss face, hair that needed a trim and a dye, and questionable fashion sense. At least he was old enough to dress himself; she’d been half-expecting some pimply X-student from one of the mirrorwalker’s Mansion classes.

Maybe Maxine should be more charitable. After all, the guy was clearly ill. He hadn’t looked half this bad back in the airport, and he’d probably be fine once they touched down again. She’d just... been expecting someone a little more... something. If kitty couldn’t handle keeping his dinner down, how was he going to handle watching their backs?

Well, at least she had some good footage. When Gawain opened his eyes again, he’d find a silver camera peering down at him.

“That,” said the redhead behind it, “was interesting. So that happens every day? Do you have to carry two different IDs?” Maxine hadn’t caught a good look at the ID Maya had used to get through the security check, but now she was curious: was it a Maya ID? A Gawain ID? Did it have a little “both” tucked up under gender? Just how does the average gender-shifter handle such things? Good thing Rex was already trying to pick his pockets. Maybe she’d get a peek before he noticed.

Maxine tucked her camera away, and peered around Gawain to—what was his name again?

“Do you want me to call over the flight attendant, Vince?” The redhead inquired sweetly. “Maybe some ginger ale would make your stomach feel better.”

The death threats were adorable, she had to admit. He really sounded like he meant them.

>>“You do know I’m going to kill you for getting me on this airplane. Right?”

"Coulda told me ya don' handle flying well." Gawain muttered, before he opened his eyes. Oh well, at least he was not the only one suffering. That was a comfortabée thought.

The camera, however, was not.

"Stop that!" he growled at Maxine, and the camera disappeared. One more thing to deal with. Eventually.

>>“That, was interesting. So that happens every day? Do you have to carry two different IDs?”

"Yes and yes" he muttered, trying feely to keep Rex away form his poskets. Shifting awake made him groggy and grumpy. Plus the camera.

"You'd better not put that online. Ever. People wouldn't believe ya anyway." he smirked "It looks like PhotoShop, and that's what I'm gonna stick to."

>>“Do you want me to call over the flight attendant, Vince? Maybe some ginger ale would make your stomach feel better.”

Gawain. Could have warned her.
He didn't.

Vicente did not hear the rest of the conversation that followed. He did not even care that sitting next to him was a boy now, instead of the girl he had walked onto the plane with. He knew of the mirrorwalker’s gender-shifting ability but at the moment he simply did not care. He was more irritated with the fact that his stomach was still doing twisty-turns. It took another second or so for him to come through this latest grumbling before his stomach finally began to settle down. Then was definitely not worth what the kid was paying him.

Though he did not hear the kid’s comment in return, he did glance out of the corner of his eye and saw the camera that glared at him from the girl, Maxine’s, direction. It was not pointed at him, but was instead focused on the newly transformed and grumpy boy. He apparently was also camera shy.

>> "You'd better not put that online. Ever. People wouldn't believe ya anyway…It looks like PhotoShop, and that's what I'm gonna stick to."

Vicente smirked and then immediately regretted it. His stomach did another flip before it decided to settle again. This was getting irritating.

He did not know why he had trouble flying. The few times he did it in the past he had issues just like this. This was why whenever he accepted a job outside of the state, he either drove or rode there. The few times his cartel actually sent him out in a mission that had to be reached by plane, Vicente would have to heavily drug himself in order to be okay by the time they landed. Unfortunately this development was so last minute that he had not the time to by the air-sickness medication he needed.

Now he was paying the price.

Later Gawain would pay the price.

For now…

>> “Do you want me to call over the flight attendant, Vince? Maybe some ginger ale would make your stomach feel better.”

Maxine would get the brunt of it.

His brow arched at her sweet voice mentioning “ginger ale”. In response to her kind advice, Vicente offered his own in the form of a single digit being flipped up into the air and poised directly at her. It was the universal gesture that, in a nice way, simply meant “would you kindly please stay out of my business?” She shouldn’t get offended by it, right?

He sighed as he turned away and watched a flight attendant go by pushing a little cart of drinks. As she passed he casually grabbed a can of ginger ale, cracked it open and took a sip. With that the assassin breathed a small sigh of relief as he closed his eyes and stared and the darkness within. All the while, he still listened to whatever the pathetic duo had to say…

Was that? Oh yes, it was. A smirk—a quick, quiet, fleeting smirk—from the lion man, for her video-taking habits. Or possibly for the grumpy Knight’s staring role in particular. She smirked back, if he caught it; a little don’t you love to see him suffer? twitch of the lips. Then she tucked away her camera, and smiled just for Gawain.

“You’re much cuter this way.” Whether she meant ‘as a boy’ or ‘as a grumpy pants,’ she didn’t bother to specify.

She didn’t take offense to any birds flicked by her other grumpy pants, of course. He was sick, and that’s what sick boys do: act like jerks. She’d taken care of her big brother when he was sick often enough to know. The important thing was that he took her advice.

That’s right, boys. Maxine knows best.

“We’re now approaching our final descent. Please return seat backs and trays to their upright positions. The local time is 10 PM. Weather is cloudy, 63 degrees...”

The seatbelt sign lit up above them; the clouds came up to meet them. Maxine let out a little whoop as the whole plane seemed to lurch, and peered out the window. She’d always loved take offs and landings: they were the time when you could really tell you were flying.

"We expect some minor turbulence..."

>>“You’re much cuter this way."

Leave it to Maxine to hit on him the moment he's changed genders. Gawain rolled his eyes. Was it going to be like that? Annoy Maya, hit on Gawain? Seriously.

"You are still the same."

He chuckled as Vicente flipped a finger at her. Oh this was going to be marvelous. They would cancel each other out. Hopefully only figuratively. As long as she keeps annoying him and he keeps threatening her, Gawain was fine being in the middle.

>>“We’re now approaching our final descent. Please return seat backs and trays to their upright positions. The local time is 10 PM. Weather is cloudy, 63 degrees...”

"Sh*t." the young knight muttered. 10pm. That meant he'd be shifting sooner than usual... another thing to spoil the fun...

>>"We expect some minor turbulence..."

"If you throw up on me, the deal is off" he muttered to Vicente. Because a half-lion old guy throwing up on you had that closure of nullifying agreements...

>> “We’re now approaching our final descent. Please return seat backs and trays to their upright positions. The local time is 10 PM. Weather is cloudy, 63 degrees...We expect some minor turbulence..."

RUMBLE RUMBLE!

Vicente clenched his jaw as he grabbed onto the armrest of his seat to keep calm. The rumbling of the plane as it hit turbulence, along with the rumbling that was going on his stomach made the man really want to rip someone’s head off. He was in no mood to be trifled with today and even as the plane began to descend he was only looking forward to keeping his feet on solid ground. From this day on, the man was done with airplanes, in every sense of the word.

He groaned once more as he forced himself to keep his food down. They were almost done. They had to be almost done.

>> "If you throw up on me, the deal is off"

Some colorful language was offered as a reply to Gawain’s snarky little comment. He was in no mood for his/her lip nor that of the redheaded journalist’s!

Vicente distracted himself with thinking about the next phase of this trip. They were here to “rescue” Gawain’s mother, but he could care less about her. He was only here because of the money that the kid kept funding him with. It was a job that he had to see through to the end, however inconvenient it continuously turned out to be.

Another sip of the ginger ale and Vicente simply closed his eyes and clutched the armchair, waiting for this nightmare to come to an end. Sure, let the duo make fun of him for now. But the second they were on the ground…he’d make sure to redefine why people needed to be scared of him…

Maxine saw their time at the baggage carousel not as a half hour wasted, but as a mercy mission: while they waited for her bag, Vince had the option to sit down on the airport’s vinyl waiting seats. When it was clear that the plane hadn’t even been unloaded yet, Maxine even ran back in the terminal to grab some saltines for him. He hadn’t asked for them, of course, but the young redhead was nothing if not attentive to the needs of her elders. Her grandmother got motion sickness, too.

A somewhat bumpy shuttle bus ride later, and they’d arrived at their hotel. The red head got them checked in at the counter. This was her business trip, after all. According to the Wolf News studio. Her very first abuse of corporate funds. It just sent a tingle up her spine; it really did.

Maxine came back to her traveling companions, plastic room keys proudly tucked in one hand. “We’ve got adjoining rooms on the fifth floor. Street view. You two don’t mind sharing, right?”

She handed the keys to room 513 to Gawain, and looked at the lion shifter’s bag. “Do you want me to carry that, Vince?” She offered considerately.

They made it to the hotel. Alive. All three of them. And Maxine was paying.
Life just suddenly got good.

>> “We’ve got adjoining rooms on the fifth floor. Street view. You two don’t mind sharing, right?”

Gawain smirked. Oh, all those ideas. And thoughts. She started it. She was totally responsible. For the guttermind.

"Sure. Sweet dreams, Maxine."

Sharing a room with a lion with stomach problems? Yeah right. Vicente looked like he was ready to sleep, and they had nothing else to do for the night anyway.
But.
Gawain had a hostage.

Knocking on Maxine's door a mere fifteen minutes later, the young knight held up the octoclip like a bouquet of flowers. Of wiggling tentacle clips.

"I think this belongs to you..."

Share a room with the kid? Was that damned little redhead completely out of her mind? Vicente had made it his personal purpose in life to run his knife through her heart the second he got a chance. She was irritating him beyond all possible belief. First she treats him like a feeble old grandfather: “Maybe some ginger ale would make your stomach feel better”, “Do you want me to carry that, Vince?” and then she has the complete audacity to book herself a room and have him share with Gawain! The…audacity! He was a feared man who could have broken her neck at any moment and she struts around with that attitude that made him snap his jaws!

Once they he had made it to his room, carrying his own bad of course, he eyed Gawain with a simple “No, you’re not staying here” look and waited for the boy to leave. It was the second that he was out, Vicente had locked and rigged the door so that he could not get back in. Besides, he doubted that the little X-man was going to wait to share the same room with him anyways. He was doing him a favor.

Also, with the amount of “tension” between Maxine and Gawain, he figured it was only natural that they would need an excuse to stay in the same room. After all, that would keep them both of his hair.

Once the door was locked, Vicente sighed as he set his bag in a corner and began to survey the room. His critical eye looked for every entry, every hidden spot, every weak area. Yeah, all in all, it was safe to say that this place was a deathtrap. But if anyone had the nerve to barge in, at least he knew which areas he could hide in order to surprise them.

He sighed. The assassin pulled off his heavy leather coat and draped it over a chair. This mission was going to drive him up the wall. But at least his air-sickness had finally stopped twisting his stomach. That had to be something to look forward to.

“Aww, you shouldn’t have,” the red head cooed sweetly, accepting Rex with both hands like a precious little parcel. She even stuck in her nose, like they were real flowers.

Real flowers wouldn’t have promptly latched onto her face and crawled up to sit writhing on top of her head, but she trusted that Gawain would appreciate the sentiment.

“You’re trying to get out of sleeping with your friend, aren’t you?” She said, with a grin that said good effort, but it ain’t gonna work. “We can talk again on a Maya night, but Gawain needs to keep himself in the little boy’s room.”

Nonetheless, she stepped aside to let the fair Knight in, and sat herself on the edge of one of the beds. Her suitcase was on the other, spread open but not unpacked; inside, a dressy sweater sat next to a beat up pair of jeans. In the entryway closet, a sharp black suit coat and skirt were hung up to get the wrinkles out. Not knowing what they’d encounter up here, or what she would need... Maxine had packed a little of everything. Hence her second suitcase, flopped over on the table by the TV.

“So, Sir Gawain. What plan you for the morrow?” She let Rex crawl down her back, and disappear under the covers of the bed. She’d dig him out before she actually went to sleep. “Do you have anything planned? Anything the Oracle showed you that could help?”

All she had was an address, and a feeling that her clothes really weren't going to help her prepare.

>>“Aww, you shouldn’t have,”

"I had to" Gawain smirked "Vicente was ready to go Humpty Dumpty on the little critter. I thought you prefer him whole."

>>“You’re trying to get out of sleeping with your friend, aren’t you? We can talk again on a Maya night, but Gawain needs to keep himself in the little boy’s room.”

Gawain frowned.

"I thought you liked Gawain better."

The line was a joke, the frown was real. He did not like reffering to himself in the third person, for one. Maxine had to lear that. Also, he was definitely not a little boy. She was getting on his nerves with that.

The lock on the door made a lound clank as Vicente turned it from the other side. Gawain arched an eyebrow. Trying to keep a mirrorwalker out? Nice try. But it might just work.

She sat on her bed; Gawain sat on the other one, next to the suitcase. They were going to have a conversation. Huh.

>>“So, Sir Gawain. What plan you for the morrow? Do you have anything planned? Anything the Oracle showed you that could help?”

"Not much" he frowned "That's the problem with fortune-tellers, never a straight answer... I know people are going to be shooting at us, but I only saw the one guy clearly, and Vicente already knows how he looks like, bless his lion heart. So." he sighed "I guess we just go and see."

He looked at the redhead.

"I know ya're gonna be there anyway, but... are you sure you want to come? I kind of feel bad for dragging you into this."

Vicente knew that the kid was a mirrorwalker. In his own research concerning him he had found out a lot of details. So even as he locked the door to the room, he knew that that would not keep the X-Boy out entirely. From what he found out Gawain could pretty much enter or exit through any reflective surface. That meant keeping the little duo-gendered roach out of the room would be difficult to nearly impossible. But the old assassin had hoped that enough of his glowering would keep the boy away. After all, even if he was paying him, Vicente had hoped the kid would know that staying away would be in his best interests.

If not, after that long plane and irritable plane ride, he would surely slit his/her throat in their sleep.

Vicente stood there, eyeing the door that he had just walked through to join the redhead and glared at it. He hoped the boy on the other side of the room could feel it his dagger like eyes burning a hole straight through his heart. If not, he would use one of his nice ceramic knives to do it.

A small growl and Vicente turned to his back and began to pull out his night gear, as well as pick a nice spot to hunker down in. First night in a new city, with an impossible enemy bearing down on him? There won’t be a full night’s rest. Instead some 10-minute micro-napping should do him just fine…

Did Vince just lock the door? He did know about Gawain’s power, right? God, she hoped he wasn’t going senile. Sure, he was old, but she hadn’t pegged him as that old.

“So. How did Vicente get mixed up in all of this? He doesn’t seem like the usual X-Trainee.” The redhead fished for a back story, one eyebrow raised. Not that Maxine actually knew many of Gawain’s friends, but Vince-y boy... didn’t seem like the usual teenager’s choice of buddies. Maybe he was a grumpy uncle that she hadn’t known about? It wasn’t like she really knew much about the mirrorwalker, when it came down to it. Just that he was cute, had a timeshare with estrogen, and turned to her for help. A woman he’d only really met once before all this got started.

What did that say about the rest of his friends?

Maybe the lion-shifter was someone he’d met while he’d been living on the street. The guy did give off ‘ungroomed and defensive about it’ vibes. Maybe she shouldn’t judge his fashion sense so harshly: maybe he was just a hobo.

>> "I know ya're gonna be there anyway, but... are you sure you want to come? I kind of feel bad for dragging you into this."

The redhead looked down at her socked feet. The socks were white, with pink hearts. The feet were tucked up against the bed’s side.

“I know you’re going to say no, but... would you let me go in first?” She looked up, meeting his eyes if he’d let her. “I am a reporter. I’ve made a big enough deal about coming here that anyone worth their investigative salt can find out that I’m in town hunting for an interview with these people.” She hadn’t exactly broadcast that headline on the air, but she’d filed all the right paperwork in all the obvious places. “Why don’t we try things from that angle, first? If I can get in for a real interview, then I might just be able to get a message to your mom. If we can somehow get her away from the rest of them... even if they’ve got her brainwashed or something, it would still be easier to deal with just her, minus the big bads who want to keep her around.”

It didn’t seem like Gawain had a better plan. Besides going in and getting shot at. As the responsible adult in this group, Maxine would like to veto that idea.