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Jun. 6th, 2021 07:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
agentgymstudentMemory: The Birthday Deadline
Leo is in his secret room in the school, watching videos of Miya’s Make Up tutorials. Making notes on brands of what she uses, and doing searches to how they compare to various theater brands.
Then something beeps among his things. He looks up sharply and then he’s quickly scrambling to dig out a black bag, and digs a small device out of a hidden pocket. He quickly types out an email made of random numbers.
He opens up another window for the email he keeps on the screen as he makes various Make Up orders to go to a PO box. Credit card has the name John Banks. Then he moves into a website for what looks like a hospital and goes through screens that definitely aren’t normal. And runs a hacking program. Then an email comes through.
‘I’ve seen the symbol again. They’re following my family.’
Then there is a location in Venice.
He sends back ‘Understood. I’ll be there soon.’
The program is done and he sees a spreadsheet. He adds a name to a day and then leaves it.
He starts looking up travel info and….pauses.
He pulls out his cell phone. ‘I might have a lead on those guys I told you about. Headed to Venice. Tell me if you’re coming.’ He gets onto a plane, playing the part of a minor flying alone, and gets to Venice without any obvious hiccups.
Then he sends an email to someone who owes him a favor and he goes to an old, abandoned building to retrieve a package. It has….a number of guns and other tactical equipment.
Then he gets a message asking where they’re meeting up.
He gives a location, heading up along the coast outside the city to meet with Unisonya and Prisma Knight. He thanks them for coming and give them the run down.
He shows them pictures of the family. “The people after me wanted this little girl. Her mother is a journalistic activist, she’ll put out exposes on any corruption she finds. Obviously, not a lot of fans. Kidnapping the girl was leverage to get her to stop. Saving her is what got me on their list.”
He explains that she contacted him again, having seen the insignia for the group again, and if they can capture the agent, they could get much needed information. And of course, they need to keep the family safe. And they only have two days to do it.
Why two days?
“There’s an important deadline then,” is all he offers.
He asks for Prisma Knight to keep an eye on the family. If nothing else, the group won’t want witnesses so sometimes just being a person who could witness their actions could keep them from acting.
He was going to also keep an eye, but only so he could find the places most likely to house an agent and Unisonya and him could go after him.
He does say going after the agent is most dangerous. If they were going to kill the family, they would have, so lethal force was least likely to be used there without a lot of warning.
So begins their stake out, a tiny Unisonya riding with Leo. Over and over, as the family goes to places, Leo checks out where agents might be hiding. There’s not much luck for most of the first day. Much to his worry. He had a deadline he had to meet.
Its only when the family goes to a charity dinner the next night that he spots the agent.
He pulls on a mask for the approach to the car. With the party in full swing, there’s no one outside, so really, the simplest solution is to just take the car.
A suddenly much larger Unisonya pounces, grabbing the car with all four paws and taking off into the air. . By the time the agent is pulling a gun to fire, Leo is in place, holding his own gun to the agent.
The oddity of the situation is enough to give pause, between a dragon and a super short secret agent.
There is a demand why the dragon hero is helping someone else.
Leo shrugs.
"They owe me a favor."
"Out of the goodness of my heart," said Unisonya at the same time.
Leo fights off the grimace as Unisonya looks at him in confusion. "What favor?"
"The whole reason you agreed to this?" Leo said in the hope she'd getthe hint before it became an obvious ploy.
Unisonya tilted her head, ears perked up. "Oh! You're trying to protect me!" She said with too much amusement.
"Damnit Unisonya-" Leo said, resisting the urge to facepalm. He needed to keep his eyes on the agent, after all.
"Why is the dragon hero helping you then?" The agent asked in confusion.
"I think the better question is why you think you don't deserve to be eaten by a dragon, kidnapper?" Leo said flatly.
That seemed to shut him up, watching Unisonya with obvious caution.
The car gets dumped outside the edge of town and Leo is quick to get into the car and handcuff the agent to the steering wheel. He pulls out all the weapons he can find, tossing them into the sea.
The agent manage to pick the locks, but Leo warned Unisonya, who sits on him before he can get away. Leo them starts looking through the communication gear, tossing it all into his bag before looking to the agent.
He says he won’t talk.
Leo says he knows. And torture doesn’t do anything anyway. Just gets lies. Its only useful for intimidation. He does muse it might be worth something then. But no, he had what he needed. An agent who was working alone had his own means of contact, so all he really needed was time.
The agent scoffs, saying he can just warn his people to change everything. Which, sure, he could.
Until he takes his picture and sends it to the little girl’s mother. Who was going to be able to identify one of her kidnappers. A journalist who worked with the UN? That’s enough to get attention. Attention the people wouldn’t want to get on themselves.
They were gonna drop him off in front of the police station where the mother and daughter would be waiting, and him without any papers.
Unisonya off-handedly comments that Leo went easy on him, and he shrugs, saying that maybe they’re rubbing off on him. Admittedly, having her as back up gave him a lot more freedom to handle this gently.
The agent gets dumped in front of the police station with the journalist and her daughter.
Unisonya and Leo meet up with Prisma Knight and he thanks them, saying he’ll go through the gear, get as much current information as he can, and see what they can do for more to really shut these guys down.
But for now, he needs to get home and there is a worry about there not being a flight soon enough.
Unisonya asks what this deadline was and he finally admits it’s Amy’s birthday.
Well, they can’t have him missing that!
He gets to ride a dragon back home, going quite fast which is both amazing and absolutely terrifying.
There’s a stop at his PO box, picking up her presents and quickly wrapping them, and finally, finally making it to Amy’s birthday. Dropped off a bit away. He didn’t want Unisonya and Prisma Knight to take attention away from Amy, not today.
He arrives, about an hour late, and Amy looks surprised at his arrival.
“I thought you weren’t going to come?”
“I would never miss this,” Leo said, looking around. He sees his friends...and a woman who was serving them punch. “Your mom got today off?”
“Yeah! She’s not sure how, but one of her coworkers accidentally scheduled for today. He was nice enough to stay so she could come to my birthday,” Amy said, beaming.
Leo smiled and held out his present. “I’m glad. Happy Birthday, Amy.”
Memory: Parent Terrorist?
Leo is walking through the school halls after school and he sees Prama being cornered by a bully, roughly grabbing at her. Leo approaches, and reaches up, and hitting a nerve in the bully’s neck that makes him go down like a ton of bricks with a surprised squawk.
“Head home, Prama. I need to talk to Tony,” Leo said.
Prama looks between the bully whose trying to get to his feet again and at Leo, concern on his face. “Leo, he wasn’t hurting me that-”
“He’s not a gangster,” Leo said, unsurprised about this concern. “I’m just gonna talk, okay? Promise.”
Prama hesitates, before nodding. “Okay. I should get home anyway.”
Leo nodded. “See you tomorrow,” he said, watching her go and looking at Tony as he finally gets to his feet.
“What do you thin-”
Leo reaches forward, grabs his shirt, and tugs it up, looking at the bruises over his skin.
“What the fuck?!” Tony shouted, jerking back, pulling his shirt down.
“Tony,” Leo said, looking at his face. “If you need help, you should ask for it.”
Tony looked incredibly unnerved. “What do you know?!”
Leo shrugged. “I guess not much at all. But if you pick on Prama again, I’m doing that again. It is repeatedly,” he said, making a pinching motion.
“Fuck you! Get away from me, you freak!” Tony shouted, and quickly making his escape.
Leo watches and he sighs. He heads to his secret room in the gym and pulls out a book, looking through various student files until he finds Tony.
That night, he walks to his home. He watches it until all the lights go out, and heads to the car.
He slashes all the tires, keys the paint, and breaks the window.
He leaves a note on the driver seat.
‘Two months. You had been doing so well too.
Don’t think my threat is off the table. I still haven’t decided if I want to be nice and just call the cops.
Next time, I take a risk on the foster system.’
He then walks away, whistling to himself.
Memory: Its different when he's an actual child.
Regulus is having breakfast with what appears to be his family. He seems to be about twelve in this memory. There is a woman with red hair like him, and three sisters. One with eyes like his, and two who look nothing like them, possibly adopted. Names are Rachel, Isabella, and Daiyu. They’re talking about school plans and head out.
Though anyone observant and seen either Regulus, Miya, or Scone’s memories and know their connection, the technology….doesn’t match. The television and home computer are cluckier screens instead of the more commonplace flat screens of other memories, and Rachel has a cell phone, it’s a flip phone, and nowhere near a smartphone.
Also, there are times where people are clearly addressing Regulus. The name is staticked out. Unlike his other memories where he was addressed as Leo.
They get to school and it’s….just a regular day. Rachel goes to high school, Daiyu in elementary, and Regulus is with Isabella in middle school. They share some classes, don’t others, but when Regulus is headed to the bathroom, he peeks into a class on the way, ready to mess with Isabella….only to find she isn’t there. Nor is her stuff. Her desk is completely bare.
This sets off alarm bells in his head and he takes a detour to the exit of the school. He clearly knows some things because he heads to the back of the gym and he sees a boy demanding his homework from Isabella. Isabella says she doesn’t have it, she didn’t have time, and the boy grabs her and Regulus is aware that Isabella has had bruises lately.
She said from colorguard, hitting herself with the flag pole, and now he suspects its a lie.
He grabs a stick and snaps it loudly. That alerts the bully and Isabella and the bully gets out of there before a teacher can come. Regulus heads to class, but he asks around about the bully. Just where he is after school, he found something of his, but he needed to return it himself. It was private. People have various reactions to it, but he ignores it.
He finds out he’s on the soccer team.
After school, he waves Isabella off, saying he’s headed to the mall with friends, he’ll walk home. He waves her off and then he doubles back to the gym. He waits for the team to head to the field and he sneaks inside.
He has a talent for breaking into locks, going through each locker until he sees one with the bully’s jacket. Then he pulls out his clothes and bag, and starts scattering it around the locker room, some places harder to reach than others, locating a broom, throwing extra towels into the shower room, and keeping his pants, Then he hides in an unused locker.
Then he waits, and eventually the team comes in. He can hear the bully shout at people for messing with his stuff, but it seems he yells a lot by how the rest of the team ignores him. The rest of the team changes and leaves and he’s still looking for his stuff.
Regulus leaves the locker when he hears the door for the showers, moving over, and putting a broom over the handle. He then pulls out a notebook from the bag, and writing a note as the bully tries to open the door to no avail.
He slips the note under. ‘Maybe you should rethink your life choices before karma takes its due. This is a warning. Have a fun weekend.’
Was it more likely he'd be found in a few hours once he's been noticed missing? Yes. But Regulus was fine making him think otherwise.
Then he drops his stuff outside the door and walks out and heads home.
When he gets there, he finds Isabella, and hugs her to her surprise. When she asks what’s that for, he just says he loves her.
Memory: Dinotime
Leo, Amy, Ty, Connor, and Prama are at a natural history museum. They’re looking at dinosaurs, running around, having a time. Connor is talking about various conspiracy theories involving dinosaurs, walking as he reads off a blog. No one notices where he’s walking until he’s tripped over a velvet rope surrounding a display of old bones and fossils.
They do notice when he suddenly vanishes. Everyone shouts in surprise and worry.
Leo quickly jumps over the rope, landing where Connor did-and then he disappears.
The next thing he knows, he’s in a place with very thick, wild foliage, and there’s Connor. He rushes to him, checks him over if he’s okay, when suddenly everyone else shows up.
Leo is very upset very this, demanding why they jumped in after, and they said they couldn’t just leave them alone. Leo is very obviously frustrated, but then he calms down after a minute. They need to find out where they are. They check phones with no luck.
There is excitement as they move for higher ground, thinking they’re on a jungle adventure, Connor talking about how it might be a feather! Leo keeps looking at the various plants, picking up samples with a thoughtful hum.
He doesn’t recognize some of these at all and that concerns him.
They manage to climb a hill and Leo moves up a tree, Ty and Amy close behind. As they get above the canopy, they can get a real look around.
Amy and Ty are marveling that they really are in a jungle, they can’t see a city anywhere. Leo is scanning the area, looking at the sky. He knows something isn’t right. He checks his phone again, and there’s still no signal.
He spots a clearing and he says they need to make a signal fire. Its their best chance to be rescued. They head there, with Leo leading the way when Prama comments its strange. She’s done some study on plants, but she can’t recognize some of them.
That doesn’t reassure Leo.
Then they get to the clearing and see...a very dead triceratops.
They weren’t teleported. They time traveled. Ty, Amy, and Connor thinks this is so cool. Leo and Prama are more concerned. Prama pulls Leo to the side to talk to him. How are they going to survive, how are they going to be found. Prama knows some survival stuff, but not for this, and how to keep the others safe.
Leo says he’s got it and immediately says they need to get to work on a fort. He sends Prama with Amy and Ty to collect sticks and he brings Connor along to find a good place to build it. They eventually find a rock outcropping they can build a shelter and hide from any predators and that night, Prama shares all the things she knows about dinosaurs, with the others chirping in information because, well, everyone has a dinosaur phase.
The next morning, Leo slips out alone, heading for where they arrived, and he looks around, until he finds a tar pit in the area. He grabs a rock and begins carving in a message. ‘Stuck in time. Help us, Prisma Knight.’
Then he throws it in the pit. He doesn’t know if what happened was one of these Feathers, but at least he knows that Prisma Knight and Unisonya seem to be on the level of sorts. And if nothing else, he knows he has leverage.
He just hopes the message is weird enough to get attention.
When he comes back, it to Ty trying to make friends with another triceratops, much to Leo’s heart attack. He gets Ty away from the dinosaur. When they get to the fort, he snaps.
“Don’t you guys get it?! There’s no back up here. No hospitals, no cops, no one to help. We can’t take these risks! You have to be smarter!”
Prama looks away, understanding his frustration. The other three are surprised, never seeing Leo truly lose it like this.
“We have each other,” Amy finally said.
And like that, Leo’s anger fades and he drops to his knees.
“You’re….really scared, aren’t you?” Amy asked. “For us?”
“...everytime we got into trouble it was...it was always in the moment. We had to act because it was there. But after the moment, we could get help. There’s...there’s no help, no guarantee anyway,” he said quietly. “I’m supposed to protect you guys, how am I supposed to do that here?”
And then he’s hugged by Amy. “How about we protect each other?”
“Yeah dude. We survived mafias and gangs and fires, we can handle a little wild life,” Ty adds on.
“Yeah! Prama is really smart too and I know all the weird stuff,” Connor said, throwing an arm around a surprised Prama.
Amy pulled back, hands on Leo’s shoulder, her smile bright. “You’re the one always saying we’re a team, that we can be there for each other even if no one else will. Let us back you up. You don’t have to do it all yourself.”
Leo looks between them and then he laughs, a hand going over his face. “I really can’t win against you guys, can I?”
“Nope!” Amy said with far too much fondness and confidence. “You only have yourself to blame, getting in with us.”
“....yeah, I guess I did,” Leo admits.
From there, there are plans for their survival. They need to know what animals are in the area, hunting grounds for predators, best way to survive and hide and keep themselves alive. Hopefully this was a Feather and Prisma KNight and Unisonya would arrive. If not...well, they’d figure it out.
There are many dino shenanigans. They manage to charm some herbivores for rides and some chases by smaller carnivores, but overall, they’re okay.
Then Prama realizes they’re not far from the Isle of Wight, the place with the most dinosaur fossils in England. If they could get there, they could keep throwing messages in the hope that SOMEONE with magic will arrive.
So they make their journey, riding on a dino friend even. There’s more close calls, but they manage to survive between Prama and Leo’s knowledge and the others physical skill.
Until they get the attention of a T-rex. They lose their dino buddy and they go on the run, trying their best to hide their scent, but Prama gets injured, and the blood is harder to hide. They have to keep running and hiding, finally seeing a cavern that they could swing over.
Leo pushes the others to go, Ty first, Amy with Prama to make sure she keeps on. Its close though, the vine clearly strained under their weight, and so Connor and Leo have to go alone. Connor is getting ready to swing when the T-rex comes.
Connor shouts for Leo to come, to risk it….
Leo pushes him across. There’s a moment where he’s terrified, as the vine snaps, but the others grabs Connor before he slips down. He turns to the T-rex, picking up a spear he’s made along the way. He tells them to go, he’ll catch up. They’re screaming for him even as he charges forward.
He manages to stab the T-rex in the neck, angering it, but not really slowing it down as he bolts in the opposite direction. He’s looking for his escape, but the T-rex is determined, and he can’t get to the last hiding place.
He’s caught up in the jaws.
It’s not a pretty sight.
The next thing he knows, he’s on the ground, staring at the sky, getting up with a gasp. He looks himself over for injury, and sees nothing. He’s perfectly fine. And there’s no T-rex.
“....well. Would you look at that,” he murmurs. “I’m really not gonna die, huh?”
He heads back to the cavern, going the long way around, and following the tracks left by his friends. Only to find they lead right back across the other long way around.
He hurries them, worried they went back for him.
Only to find a very large Unisonya sitting on a T-rex, the kids talking to Prisma Knight.
"And you only saw him run into the jungle?" Prisma Knight asks, holding Leo's bloody wooden spear. It must have stayed lodge in the T-rex. At the nod from the kids, his brow furrows. "Is there anywhere nearby he could be?"
"We just got to this area today," Amy explains.
Unisonya is eyeing the T-rex corpse. "I can check for him, but the kids shouldn't be here, I don't think."
Prisma is clearly trying to look calm for the kids, his expression unchanging, yet his grip visibly tightens on the spear. "We’ll start searching, let us know if you find… anything."
“No!” Amy shouts.
“He wouldn’t give up on us, we can’t give up on him!” Connor adds.
“Leo is the most stubborn, crafty guy you’ll meet, he wouldn’t die that easily.” That was Ty.
“He wouldn’t leave us like this,” Prama finished.
"I believe you. I’m not saying he’s definitely in there." Prisma said, steady and firm. "We’re just checking.."
“You don’t actually need to,” Leo called out.
Everyone snapped to attention at his arrival. And then his four friends quickly bumrush him. He manages to keep up for Amy and Connor, but Ty and Prama knock him off his feet entirely.
There are tears, there is relief, there is a babble of gratitude that he’s there.
He does his best to calm them and when he looks up, Prisma Knight’s own relieved look is fading, replaced by surprise, then recognition in the look he’s holding with Leo.
He’s not surprised.
He gets up and approaches. "So….do you have a way home?" He asked.
"When we get the feather. We know where it is, we just wanted to find you first," Unisonya said.
"Yeah," Prisma said, looking between him and the kids.
"Can we head back?"
"Well….." Unisonya starts. "Snacktime first. It won't take long." She gestures to the t-rex with her wing."
"COOL!" Ty shouts.
"You're not watching that. Its not as cool as it sounds," Leo said with a sigh to Ty's disappointment.
They move away with Prisma Knight as Unisonya eats. Connor, with worry gone, is starstruck and asks Prisma Knight a million questions. Prisma Knight does his best to answer patiently and even engages some with Connor's wilder tangents, and freely admits when he doesn't know the answer to Connor’s more complicated theorising.
Leo is watching him, but he's doing well with the kids and it helps his own nerves.
The kids also sit very close to him. Amy hasn't let go of his arm.
There are a few questions for him, how he got away, what about all the blood. The lies come easy. He found a hole underneath a tree, too hard for the T-rex to get to. A smaller dinosaur got caught in the chase. He wasn’t even hurt now, see. The spear had gotten lodged early.
But finally Unisonya comes after her meal and they head out.
Prisma Knight and Unisonya are able to retrieve a feather and in turn, get them home. They’re even kind enough to make sure the kids get home, leaving Leo for last.
He’s still not surprised. “So….I guess we need to have a talk,” he says to them as the memory ends.
Leo is in his secret room in the school, watching videos of Miya’s Make Up tutorials. Making notes on brands of what she uses, and doing searches to how they compare to various theater brands.
Then something beeps among his things. He looks up sharply and then he’s quickly scrambling to dig out a black bag, and digs a small device out of a hidden pocket. He quickly types out an email made of random numbers.
He opens up another window for the email he keeps on the screen as he makes various Make Up orders to go to a PO box. Credit card has the name John Banks. Then he moves into a website for what looks like a hospital and goes through screens that definitely aren’t normal. And runs a hacking program. Then an email comes through.
‘I’ve seen the symbol again. They’re following my family.’
Then there is a location in Venice.
He sends back ‘Understood. I’ll be there soon.’
The program is done and he sees a spreadsheet. He adds a name to a day and then leaves it.
He starts looking up travel info and….pauses.
He pulls out his cell phone. ‘I might have a lead on those guys I told you about. Headed to Venice. Tell me if you’re coming.’ He gets onto a plane, playing the part of a minor flying alone, and gets to Venice without any obvious hiccups.
Then he sends an email to someone who owes him a favor and he goes to an old, abandoned building to retrieve a package. It has….a number of guns and other tactical equipment.
Then he gets a message asking where they’re meeting up.
He gives a location, heading up along the coast outside the city to meet with Unisonya and Prisma Knight. He thanks them for coming and give them the run down.
He shows them pictures of the family. “The people after me wanted this little girl. Her mother is a journalistic activist, she’ll put out exposes on any corruption she finds. Obviously, not a lot of fans. Kidnapping the girl was leverage to get her to stop. Saving her is what got me on their list.”
He explains that she contacted him again, having seen the insignia for the group again, and if they can capture the agent, they could get much needed information. And of course, they need to keep the family safe. And they only have two days to do it.
Why two days?
“There’s an important deadline then,” is all he offers.
He asks for Prisma Knight to keep an eye on the family. If nothing else, the group won’t want witnesses so sometimes just being a person who could witness their actions could keep them from acting.
He was going to also keep an eye, but only so he could find the places most likely to house an agent and Unisonya and him could go after him.
He does say going after the agent is most dangerous. If they were going to kill the family, they would have, so lethal force was least likely to be used there without a lot of warning.
So begins their stake out, a tiny Unisonya riding with Leo. Over and over, as the family goes to places, Leo checks out where agents might be hiding. There’s not much luck for most of the first day. Much to his worry. He had a deadline he had to meet.
Its only when the family goes to a charity dinner the next night that he spots the agent.
He pulls on a mask for the approach to the car. With the party in full swing, there’s no one outside, so really, the simplest solution is to just take the car.
A suddenly much larger Unisonya pounces, grabbing the car with all four paws and taking off into the air. . By the time the agent is pulling a gun to fire, Leo is in place, holding his own gun to the agent.
The oddity of the situation is enough to give pause, between a dragon and a super short secret agent.
There is a demand why the dragon hero is helping someone else.
Leo shrugs.
"They owe me a favor."
"Out of the goodness of my heart," said Unisonya at the same time.
Leo fights off the grimace as Unisonya looks at him in confusion. "What favor?"
"The whole reason you agreed to this?" Leo said in the hope she'd getthe hint before it became an obvious ploy.
Unisonya tilted her head, ears perked up. "Oh! You're trying to protect me!" She said with too much amusement.
"Damnit Unisonya-" Leo said, resisting the urge to facepalm. He needed to keep his eyes on the agent, after all.
"Why is the dragon hero helping you then?" The agent asked in confusion.
"I think the better question is why you think you don't deserve to be eaten by a dragon, kidnapper?" Leo said flatly.
That seemed to shut him up, watching Unisonya with obvious caution.
The car gets dumped outside the edge of town and Leo is quick to get into the car and handcuff the agent to the steering wheel. He pulls out all the weapons he can find, tossing them into the sea.
The agent manage to pick the locks, but Leo warned Unisonya, who sits on him before he can get away. Leo them starts looking through the communication gear, tossing it all into his bag before looking to the agent.
He says he won’t talk.
Leo says he knows. And torture doesn’t do anything anyway. Just gets lies. Its only useful for intimidation. He does muse it might be worth something then. But no, he had what he needed. An agent who was working alone had his own means of contact, so all he really needed was time.
The agent scoffs, saying he can just warn his people to change everything. Which, sure, he could.
Until he takes his picture and sends it to the little girl’s mother. Who was going to be able to identify one of her kidnappers. A journalist who worked with the UN? That’s enough to get attention. Attention the people wouldn’t want to get on themselves.
They were gonna drop him off in front of the police station where the mother and daughter would be waiting, and him without any papers.
Unisonya off-handedly comments that Leo went easy on him, and he shrugs, saying that maybe they’re rubbing off on him. Admittedly, having her as back up gave him a lot more freedom to handle this gently.
The agent gets dumped in front of the police station with the journalist and her daughter.
Unisonya and Leo meet up with Prisma Knight and he thanks them, saying he’ll go through the gear, get as much current information as he can, and see what they can do for more to really shut these guys down.
But for now, he needs to get home and there is a worry about there not being a flight soon enough.
Unisonya asks what this deadline was and he finally admits it’s Amy’s birthday.
Well, they can’t have him missing that!
He gets to ride a dragon back home, going quite fast which is both amazing and absolutely terrifying.
There’s a stop at his PO box, picking up her presents and quickly wrapping them, and finally, finally making it to Amy’s birthday. Dropped off a bit away. He didn’t want Unisonya and Prisma Knight to take attention away from Amy, not today.
He arrives, about an hour late, and Amy looks surprised at his arrival.
“I thought you weren’t going to come?”
“I would never miss this,” Leo said, looking around. He sees his friends...and a woman who was serving them punch. “Your mom got today off?”
“Yeah! She’s not sure how, but one of her coworkers accidentally scheduled for today. He was nice enough to stay so she could come to my birthday,” Amy said, beaming.
Leo smiled and held out his present. “I’m glad. Happy Birthday, Amy.”
Memory: Parent Terrorist?
Leo is walking through the school halls after school and he sees Prama being cornered by a bully, roughly grabbing at her. Leo approaches, and reaches up, and hitting a nerve in the bully’s neck that makes him go down like a ton of bricks with a surprised squawk.
“Head home, Prama. I need to talk to Tony,” Leo said.
Prama looks between the bully whose trying to get to his feet again and at Leo, concern on his face. “Leo, he wasn’t hurting me that-”
“He’s not a gangster,” Leo said, unsurprised about this concern. “I’m just gonna talk, okay? Promise.”
Prama hesitates, before nodding. “Okay. I should get home anyway.”
Leo nodded. “See you tomorrow,” he said, watching her go and looking at Tony as he finally gets to his feet.
“What do you thin-”
Leo reaches forward, grabs his shirt, and tugs it up, looking at the bruises over his skin.
“What the fuck?!” Tony shouted, jerking back, pulling his shirt down.
“Tony,” Leo said, looking at his face. “If you need help, you should ask for it.”
Tony looked incredibly unnerved. “What do you know?!”
Leo shrugged. “I guess not much at all. But if you pick on Prama again, I’m doing that again. It is repeatedly,” he said, making a pinching motion.
“Fuck you! Get away from me, you freak!” Tony shouted, and quickly making his escape.
Leo watches and he sighs. He heads to his secret room in the gym and pulls out a book, looking through various student files until he finds Tony.
That night, he walks to his home. He watches it until all the lights go out, and heads to the car.
He slashes all the tires, keys the paint, and breaks the window.
He leaves a note on the driver seat.
‘Two months. You had been doing so well too.
Don’t think my threat is off the table. I still haven’t decided if I want to be nice and just call the cops.
Next time, I take a risk on the foster system.’
He then walks away, whistling to himself.
Memory: Its different when he's an actual child.
Regulus is having breakfast with what appears to be his family. He seems to be about twelve in this memory. There is a woman with red hair like him, and three sisters. One with eyes like his, and two who look nothing like them, possibly adopted. Names are Rachel, Isabella, and Daiyu. They’re talking about school plans and head out.
Though anyone observant and seen either Regulus, Miya, or Scone’s memories and know their connection, the technology….doesn’t match. The television and home computer are cluckier screens instead of the more commonplace flat screens of other memories, and Rachel has a cell phone, it’s a flip phone, and nowhere near a smartphone.
Also, there are times where people are clearly addressing Regulus. The name is staticked out. Unlike his other memories where he was addressed as Leo.
They get to school and it’s….just a regular day. Rachel goes to high school, Daiyu in elementary, and Regulus is with Isabella in middle school. They share some classes, don’t others, but when Regulus is headed to the bathroom, he peeks into a class on the way, ready to mess with Isabella….only to find she isn’t there. Nor is her stuff. Her desk is completely bare.
This sets off alarm bells in his head and he takes a detour to the exit of the school. He clearly knows some things because he heads to the back of the gym and he sees a boy demanding his homework from Isabella. Isabella says she doesn’t have it, she didn’t have time, and the boy grabs her and Regulus is aware that Isabella has had bruises lately.
She said from colorguard, hitting herself with the flag pole, and now he suspects its a lie.
He grabs a stick and snaps it loudly. That alerts the bully and Isabella and the bully gets out of there before a teacher can come. Regulus heads to class, but he asks around about the bully. Just where he is after school, he found something of his, but he needed to return it himself. It was private. People have various reactions to it, but he ignores it.
He finds out he’s on the soccer team.
After school, he waves Isabella off, saying he’s headed to the mall with friends, he’ll walk home. He waves her off and then he doubles back to the gym. He waits for the team to head to the field and he sneaks inside.
He has a talent for breaking into locks, going through each locker until he sees one with the bully’s jacket. Then he pulls out his clothes and bag, and starts scattering it around the locker room, some places harder to reach than others, locating a broom, throwing extra towels into the shower room, and keeping his pants, Then he hides in an unused locker.
Then he waits, and eventually the team comes in. He can hear the bully shout at people for messing with his stuff, but it seems he yells a lot by how the rest of the team ignores him. The rest of the team changes and leaves and he’s still looking for his stuff.
Regulus leaves the locker when he hears the door for the showers, moving over, and putting a broom over the handle. He then pulls out a notebook from the bag, and writing a note as the bully tries to open the door to no avail.
He slips the note under. ‘Maybe you should rethink your life choices before karma takes its due. This is a warning. Have a fun weekend.’
Was it more likely he'd be found in a few hours once he's been noticed missing? Yes. But Regulus was fine making him think otherwise.
Then he drops his stuff outside the door and walks out and heads home.
When he gets there, he finds Isabella, and hugs her to her surprise. When she asks what’s that for, he just says he loves her.
Memory: Dinotime
Leo, Amy, Ty, Connor, and Prama are at a natural history museum. They’re looking at dinosaurs, running around, having a time. Connor is talking about various conspiracy theories involving dinosaurs, walking as he reads off a blog. No one notices where he’s walking until he’s tripped over a velvet rope surrounding a display of old bones and fossils.
They do notice when he suddenly vanishes. Everyone shouts in surprise and worry.
Leo quickly jumps over the rope, landing where Connor did-and then he disappears.
The next thing he knows, he’s in a place with very thick, wild foliage, and there’s Connor. He rushes to him, checks him over if he’s okay, when suddenly everyone else shows up.
Leo is very upset very this, demanding why they jumped in after, and they said they couldn’t just leave them alone. Leo is very obviously frustrated, but then he calms down after a minute. They need to find out where they are. They check phones with no luck.
There is excitement as they move for higher ground, thinking they’re on a jungle adventure, Connor talking about how it might be a feather! Leo keeps looking at the various plants, picking up samples with a thoughtful hum.
He doesn’t recognize some of these at all and that concerns him.
They manage to climb a hill and Leo moves up a tree, Ty and Amy close behind. As they get above the canopy, they can get a real look around.
Amy and Ty are marveling that they really are in a jungle, they can’t see a city anywhere. Leo is scanning the area, looking at the sky. He knows something isn’t right. He checks his phone again, and there’s still no signal.
He spots a clearing and he says they need to make a signal fire. Its their best chance to be rescued. They head there, with Leo leading the way when Prama comments its strange. She’s done some study on plants, but she can’t recognize some of them.
That doesn’t reassure Leo.
Then they get to the clearing and see...a very dead triceratops.
They weren’t teleported. They time traveled. Ty, Amy, and Connor thinks this is so cool. Leo and Prama are more concerned. Prama pulls Leo to the side to talk to him. How are they going to survive, how are they going to be found. Prama knows some survival stuff, but not for this, and how to keep the others safe.
Leo says he’s got it and immediately says they need to get to work on a fort. He sends Prama with Amy and Ty to collect sticks and he brings Connor along to find a good place to build it. They eventually find a rock outcropping they can build a shelter and hide from any predators and that night, Prama shares all the things she knows about dinosaurs, with the others chirping in information because, well, everyone has a dinosaur phase.
The next morning, Leo slips out alone, heading for where they arrived, and he looks around, until he finds a tar pit in the area. He grabs a rock and begins carving in a message. ‘Stuck in time. Help us, Prisma Knight.’
Then he throws it in the pit. He doesn’t know if what happened was one of these Feathers, but at least he knows that Prisma Knight and Unisonya seem to be on the level of sorts. And if nothing else, he knows he has leverage.
He just hopes the message is weird enough to get attention.
When he comes back, it to Ty trying to make friends with another triceratops, much to Leo’s heart attack. He gets Ty away from the dinosaur. When they get to the fort, he snaps.
“Don’t you guys get it?! There’s no back up here. No hospitals, no cops, no one to help. We can’t take these risks! You have to be smarter!”
Prama looks away, understanding his frustration. The other three are surprised, never seeing Leo truly lose it like this.
“We have each other,” Amy finally said.
And like that, Leo’s anger fades and he drops to his knees.
“You’re….really scared, aren’t you?” Amy asked. “For us?”
“...everytime we got into trouble it was...it was always in the moment. We had to act because it was there. But after the moment, we could get help. There’s...there’s no help, no guarantee anyway,” he said quietly. “I’m supposed to protect you guys, how am I supposed to do that here?”
And then he’s hugged by Amy. “How about we protect each other?”
“Yeah dude. We survived mafias and gangs and fires, we can handle a little wild life,” Ty adds on.
“Yeah! Prama is really smart too and I know all the weird stuff,” Connor said, throwing an arm around a surprised Prama.
Amy pulled back, hands on Leo’s shoulder, her smile bright. “You’re the one always saying we’re a team, that we can be there for each other even if no one else will. Let us back you up. You don’t have to do it all yourself.”
Leo looks between them and then he laughs, a hand going over his face. “I really can’t win against you guys, can I?”
“Nope!” Amy said with far too much fondness and confidence. “You only have yourself to blame, getting in with us.”
“....yeah, I guess I did,” Leo admits.
From there, there are plans for their survival. They need to know what animals are in the area, hunting grounds for predators, best way to survive and hide and keep themselves alive. Hopefully this was a Feather and Prisma KNight and Unisonya would arrive. If not...well, they’d figure it out.
There are many dino shenanigans. They manage to charm some herbivores for rides and some chases by smaller carnivores, but overall, they’re okay.
Then Prama realizes they’re not far from the Isle of Wight, the place with the most dinosaur fossils in England. If they could get there, they could keep throwing messages in the hope that SOMEONE with magic will arrive.
So they make their journey, riding on a dino friend even. There’s more close calls, but they manage to survive between Prama and Leo’s knowledge and the others physical skill.
Until they get the attention of a T-rex. They lose their dino buddy and they go on the run, trying their best to hide their scent, but Prama gets injured, and the blood is harder to hide. They have to keep running and hiding, finally seeing a cavern that they could swing over.
Leo pushes the others to go, Ty first, Amy with Prama to make sure she keeps on. Its close though, the vine clearly strained under their weight, and so Connor and Leo have to go alone. Connor is getting ready to swing when the T-rex comes.
Connor shouts for Leo to come, to risk it….
Leo pushes him across. There’s a moment where he’s terrified, as the vine snaps, but the others grabs Connor before he slips down. He turns to the T-rex, picking up a spear he’s made along the way. He tells them to go, he’ll catch up. They’re screaming for him even as he charges forward.
He manages to stab the T-rex in the neck, angering it, but not really slowing it down as he bolts in the opposite direction. He’s looking for his escape, but the T-rex is determined, and he can’t get to the last hiding place.
He’s caught up in the jaws.
It’s not a pretty sight.
The next thing he knows, he’s on the ground, staring at the sky, getting up with a gasp. He looks himself over for injury, and sees nothing. He’s perfectly fine. And there’s no T-rex.
“....well. Would you look at that,” he murmurs. “I’m really not gonna die, huh?”
He heads back to the cavern, going the long way around, and following the tracks left by his friends. Only to find they lead right back across the other long way around.
He hurries them, worried they went back for him.
Only to find a very large Unisonya sitting on a T-rex, the kids talking to Prisma Knight.
"And you only saw him run into the jungle?" Prisma Knight asks, holding Leo's bloody wooden spear. It must have stayed lodge in the T-rex. At the nod from the kids, his brow furrows. "Is there anywhere nearby he could be?"
"We just got to this area today," Amy explains.
Unisonya is eyeing the T-rex corpse. "I can check for him, but the kids shouldn't be here, I don't think."
Prisma is clearly trying to look calm for the kids, his expression unchanging, yet his grip visibly tightens on the spear. "We’ll start searching, let us know if you find… anything."
“No!” Amy shouts.
“He wouldn’t give up on us, we can’t give up on him!” Connor adds.
“Leo is the most stubborn, crafty guy you’ll meet, he wouldn’t die that easily.” That was Ty.
“He wouldn’t leave us like this,” Prama finished.
"I believe you. I’m not saying he’s definitely in there." Prisma said, steady and firm. "We’re just checking.."
“You don’t actually need to,” Leo called out.
Everyone snapped to attention at his arrival. And then his four friends quickly bumrush him. He manages to keep up for Amy and Connor, but Ty and Prama knock him off his feet entirely.
There are tears, there is relief, there is a babble of gratitude that he’s there.
He does his best to calm them and when he looks up, Prisma Knight’s own relieved look is fading, replaced by surprise, then recognition in the look he’s holding with Leo.
He’s not surprised.
He gets up and approaches. "So….do you have a way home?" He asked.
"When we get the feather. We know where it is, we just wanted to find you first," Unisonya said.
"Yeah," Prisma said, looking between him and the kids.
"Can we head back?"
"Well….." Unisonya starts. "Snacktime first. It won't take long." She gestures to the t-rex with her wing."
"COOL!" Ty shouts.
"You're not watching that. Its not as cool as it sounds," Leo said with a sigh to Ty's disappointment.
They move away with Prisma Knight as Unisonya eats. Connor, with worry gone, is starstruck and asks Prisma Knight a million questions. Prisma Knight does his best to answer patiently and even engages some with Connor's wilder tangents, and freely admits when he doesn't know the answer to Connor’s more complicated theorising.
Leo is watching him, but he's doing well with the kids and it helps his own nerves.
The kids also sit very close to him. Amy hasn't let go of his arm.
There are a few questions for him, how he got away, what about all the blood. The lies come easy. He found a hole underneath a tree, too hard for the T-rex to get to. A smaller dinosaur got caught in the chase. He wasn’t even hurt now, see. The spear had gotten lodged early.
But finally Unisonya comes after her meal and they head out.
Prisma Knight and Unisonya are able to retrieve a feather and in turn, get them home. They’re even kind enough to make sure the kids get home, leaving Leo for last.
He’s still not surprised. “So….I guess we need to have a talk,” he says to them as the memory ends.