A Room at the Arms, Saturday night

[craftyladyparts]

Jessica wasn't feeling great. She'd spent days on a desperate search across dimensions, inventing on the fly, only to get her ass kicked all afternoon, have some life force drained, and lose an ally who was kind of a cross-dimensional brother. Ben Reilly had been through life as a clone and, apparently, had created a life for himself from that

Comments

[notconflicted]

After cleaning herself up at the dorms, Sia made her way back into town and up to Jessica's room, where she knocked on the door. And sure, bruises were already springing up all over and everything was achy but at least she wouldn't have to answer 'what happened' questions.

[craftyladyparts]

"Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow," Jessica whined as she got up to get the door. As soon as she opened it, she was already moving back toward the bed. "Come in. Have a seat if you need it."

[notconflicted]

"I suppose that answers the question of how you're doing," Sia said, but she was immediately taking a seat on the edge of the bed when she got there because it was close and yes.

[craftyladyparts]

"Have you ever had life force drained out of you?" Jessica asked. It was a legitimate question. "If not, it sucks. I feel like I've been sleepwalking for hours. While getting the worst ass-kicking of my life. Are you okay, relatively speaking?"

[notconflicted]

"Sort of, yes," she said. Though what Raven did was sort of different. "And I'll live. I can do a healing trance if needed. Are you all right, though? No need for the clinic?"

[craftyladyparts]

"A little bit of bed rest and plenty of orange juice and I'll be joining the rest of the Spiders in no time," Jessica said. She didn't know that to be true. She didn't know how life force worked.

[notconflicted]

"So you have to go back to dealing with those things?" Today was definitely not going to make Sia worry about her any less, no.

[craftyladyparts]

"Today was just about making it harder for them to take control of all reality," Jessica said. "They're still hunting Spiders. They're still looking to take control of everything."

[notconflicted]

"And after seeing one in person I understand what kind of job you have in front of her." Sia wouldn't tell her not to do it, of course, because she understood duty coming first, but there was always that need for her to be careful. "I underestimated them."

[craftyladyparts]

"I fought her briefly a couple days ago before portaling away," Jessica said. "And I still underestimated her. She killed Ben like it was nothing. All she needed was a second. If she realized she was on a time limit, I don't think we would have made it. Thank god for people cocky enough to play cat and mouse."

[notconflicted]

"I'm sorry about Ben," Sia said. Even if she didn't know Ben, or exactly how Jessica was or wasn't to him.

[craftyladyparts]

Jessica nodded her thanks. "He was a clone of Peter from his world. Spent some time here in Fandom years ago," Jessica said, answering the unasked question. "If he'd managed to avoid all of this stuff, it seems like he pretty much had life figured out."

"I'm not kicking myself, for the record. Verna almost got to him before I did a couple days ago. This way he got a couple more days doing what he did best before he went. He saved lives today."

[notconflicted]

"He did. You both saved lives today," Sia said. "And thank you for that."

[craftyladyparts]

"There's plenty of that to go around," Jessica said with a nod. "I'm just glad that our wacky portal stuff worked and blocked her from reaching the island itself. I'll be completely honest, I had no idea this was all going to work out as well as it did."

She laughed a little, and it quickly escalated. "Man, imagine if I was wrong. That would have gone badly!"

[notconflicted]

Sia had to smile a bit. A bit. Her face hurt. "Because we'd be dead and everything would be terrible?"

[craftyladyparts]

"Pretty much!" Jessica said with a sigh. "But seriously, thanks for being there. There's no way I could have held out for long enough to get the barrier up without you and that other guy there."