Darkswan… to the rescue?

“Hey Pyr, yeah, its Jinlan…”

“Aysel’s friend.”

“Yes the crazy one with the Robot fetish… good god, you’d think you’d know my name by now.”

“Riiight… anyhoo…Is Aysel there? I tried calling but she’s not answering her phone…”

“Oh…”

“Oh my… ok yeah, I’m sorry I asked slash interrupted… but would you mind not giving me specifics next time? I’d rather not know when Aysel is doing kinky things with her powers.”

“Uh huh.”

“Well… since she’s “tied up” at the moment, you mind just sending her over to the condo when you’re done?”

“Ok, great… Oh one more thing… could you call Dominus and tell him Day isn’t going to beable to hit up Kings Row today?”

“No, I’m not going to tell you why…”

“Damnit Pyr… just finish fucking your girlfriend so she can get over here to help us.”

Jinlan snapped her cellphone closed and sighed. “Men are idiots… yet another reason the robots have my affections.”

Nesrin laughed despite herself. “Is there really anything that would convert you to liking men Lan?”

“Welll… there are those cyborg guys… they’re pretty hot… except you know… for the fleshy parts.”

Rin rolled her eyes and stared at herself in the mirror again. When she had put on the gauntlets that morning after getting over her first shock of the day and getting dressed, the damn things had gone gold and the heat they expended burned her good clothes while converting any metal she had on her into a very revealing… well something… it wasn’t a suit of armour, but as much of her skin that was showing that she didn’t think it counted. “I don’t get it… Kyle never mentioned anything like this happening to him… its insane… and… I liked those clothes.” She mumbled.

“Well… maybe nothing like this ever happened to Kyle… he was a guy, you’re a gal. We’ll know more once Aysel gets here and we go see that ex-MAGI agent.” Jinlan took an appraisal of Nesrin’s current outfit. “We’ll have to go shopping too I think, you’re going to need new boots… and if you still want to use gold barbed wire for jewelry, we’ll have to stop and get some of that too.”

“Doesn’t matter… I’ll still look like a frakin’ stripper.”

“And you’ll beable to distract most if not all of the people you beat the shit out of before they even see the energy bolts coming.”

“Yea but…”

“Stop making a big deal out of this until we figure out what happened and if you can control it or not…”

“Yes mom.” Nesrin sighed. She just wasn’t having a very good day so far at all, and having Jinlan lecture her like her mother never had was not helping anything.

“Hey dear… its tough love time… it could be a million times worse so cut the crap arriiiight?”

The doorbell rang, sparing Day from having to come up with a response to that.

She wishes it had been the tequila…

It was early in the morning when Jinlan and Nesrin got back to the apartment. They had met Aysel at the Tiki Lounge of Pocket D, and Jinlan had her robots Eorindel Beta and Protheus 1.29 up acting as both buffers and cabana boys.

Jinlan and Aysel had done some of their graduate work together and Nesrin had met Jinlan during the breakout. Rin and Lan had decided to rent a condo together after realizing they were going to save for their bigger plans as they had talked on the helicopter ride to the Mercy Isles. (Besides, Jinlan hated for Nesrin to be on her own knowing what she had gone through.)

The three of them hung out together at the club on a regular basis, mostly for the fact that they could just sit back there. While pulling jobs was fun, it was also work… it was nice just to sit back at times and not think about who to beat up or rob next.

It was interesting listen to Aysel talk, she was originally from Ireland, of a minor lordship, so when she picked the alias “Lady Darkswan” it was because she was literally Lady Swan gone Dark. Between the clinical trials of a memory drug Crey was testing and her chemistry research work, her whole brain had upped activity, with the interesting side effect of having most of her inhibitions gone… so much so that when she told you a story of something she did and you thought it couldn’t possibly be, it likely was, add that to the fact her accent was something of a musical lilt and she entertained you for hours.

Add that to the fact that Jinlan would program her bots to do the strangest things, and the nights that they went were a load off of Nesrin’s mind, not to mention that she slept a whole hell of a lot better when she had alcohol floating around in her blood stream.

By the time they did get home though, Nesrin had about enough energy left to peel off her clubbing clothes, slip her pj’s and collapse into bed before she drifted into a dream…

She was in Stormbow’s tower, waiting for him get back and give her some good news about the heist… or at least she thought she was. The light shifted, and she realized she was the one on the throne, and it wasn’t his tower… it was hers.

She looked over her court, there was a second throne next to hers… currently empty but obviously used. To the side of the room in an intricate cage was her sister, hooked up in someway that was using her icy powers as defense of the tower. A wicked grin grew on her face and she could feel the unbelievable power of the gauntlets flowing through her.She closed her eyes for a moment and knew all of a sudden he was there. His power and his darkness boiled out of him, it was intoxicating and she knew she could drown in him. Her eyes opened, and he appeared slightly different then he actually was, but it was still him. He came to her and led her from the throne room into their bedroom…

She woke up with a hell of a headache and rubbed the grit out of her eyes before hopping out of bed and stumbling into the bathroom. One look in the mirror made her realize it wasn’t because she had too much tequila the night before. She was still staring at herself in shock when Jinlan got up.

“Hey Day, how’s…” She stopped mid-pun when she saw her roommate. “…the Hell!?!”

Over the course of the night Nesrin’s hair had turned a silver color with a bluish sheen, grown out to the middle of her back and a set of four small goldish horns had emerged from her forehead.

“What happened?” Jinlan blurted out after she recovered her ability to speak.

“ I… don’t really know… I… had a dream last night… I woke up in the middle and my head felt like it had exploded.” Nesrin replied sheepishly.

“…A wet dream gave you horns… oh god… I think I need to go lock myself in my room before you kill me…” The little chinese woman started laughing her head off and retreated before Rin could react.

She stared at herself for a big longer. “NOT FUNNY in the LEAST BIT!” she finally yelled back at her roommate before grumbling to herself and stepping into the shower.

A nice hot shower later and she was feeling a bit better, she was a concerned about it though, and kept thinking back to her dream… Did Dom have something to do with this? She sighed and patted herself dry then went into her room to get ready for Kings Row.

The next thing Jinlan heard was a very loud explicative coming from the general direction of Nesrin’s room.

Jinlan is the best roommate EVER.

Nesrin threw herself at her bed… it had been a long day, even if it had been a blast. Atlas Park had never been that fun or profitable. And Dom… he’d been fantastic, ‘course it was always entertaining when he broke people’s spines. Then of course he’d told her about how his brother was running around Paragon asking questions… and was seen with a girl that looked a lot like her. She was going to have to punch Ayla’s face in… gah. That part didn’t matter so much, if anything it meant they’d be spending more time together, that’d got her blood pumping. She still wasn’t sure she was ready for him… but she’d been thinking about it more and more.

She sighed and glanced at the picture she had of Stormbow and herself on her dresser. Damn. She missed him, but it was waning… would it be horrible if she moved on? She rolled over and stared at the ceiling for a bit, pondering it when she heard the sound of the door opening.

“Jinlan, that had better be you ‘cause I’m not getting up to blast an unauthorized intruder.” She yelled out the door of her bedroom.

The Chinese American girl stuck her head in the door. “Long day, Day?” She paused a moment and giggled. “Day, day…. Oooh ‘Rin… you’re going to have to put me out of my misery.”

Nesrin sat up and glared at her roommate. Jinlan winced a little. “Oh come on Nesrin… lighten up a bit. I heard you and Dom made a mess of Atlas Park, you should be estatic.”

“Yea… I guess.”

A concerned look came over Jinlan’s face and she came over and sat on the bed. “What’s wrong sweetheart?”

Nesrin glanced over to the photograph.

“Ah.” Jinlan bit her lip. “OK, you see… that right there? That’s why I prefer my bots… they get blown up, I can repair them. No need to worry about them being gone forever, cause even if their harddrives get fried, I have them backed up every 15 minutes through satellite to my computer.”

Day shot her a look.

“Riiight. Not helping.” Jinlan sighed. “Hun, it’s been a year since you lost him, and lots of things have changed for you since then.” She glanced at the picture. “I know you loved Kyle, but he’s not coming back… and even if you could make him, he’d be all rotty and gross and stuff.” She paused a moment. “Though I could maybe fix that and modify things so he’d be a cyborg… But I figure that’s not what you want.” She looked at Nesrin, shooting her a large grin, but not getting a response. “I was joking, sweetie… can’t you just give me a little smile?”

Nesrin had to admit Jinlan was right, and though she would have liked to be moody all night, she really couldn’t. She finally let out a laugh.

“There’s a gal.” Jinlan eased the grin into a smile and jumped up from the bed. “Now come on and get changed, it’s Lady’s night at Pocket D.”