Grind Part 2

Considering recent events, I thought that "him' of all people would have taken to training the most. But humans are habitual creatures after all, so I was exactly surprised. Despite his rather cavalier appearance, his presence alone was still more than enough to leave a thick tension within the room.

Though he didn't seem to care, as with his half-naked self, the man tried to get himself breakfast from the fridge with a beer bottle in hand. However, before he could even reach said fridge, Eternus intervened with a look that could kill a man. From there, the two men's auras clashed heavily, as Eternus sarcastically stated.

"Glad you gave us the present of your presence Ricochet, it's been a while," he said with venomously stinging sarcasm.

"Well, you know how it is, Eternus, I'm a busy man, but I'll be sure to squeeze you in when I have the chance," he said while trying to reach the fridge.

Before he could, though, Eternus grabbed his hand while squeezing his hand so hard it started to crack. Eternus collected weeks of unspoken tension into these last couple of words with steely yet fiery eyes.

"Look, I know your thing is to be the coolio deadbeat slacker, and frankly, you do it well, so don't you dare listen to me and to stop on my account. Nonetheless, I'm tired of all this passive-aggressive, will they won't they crap, so let's cut the bullshit. I don't care how much you skip practice; I don't care if you drink yourself to an early grave. Hell, I don't even care where this bipolar 180 time of the month attitude came from. All I'm going to say is that our missions are getting bigger, more frequent, and more dangerous. So if you even dare to try and pull any of the same dickhead stunts you did back at Scarlett, if you hold us back by one millimeter. I won't be there to save you. Do I make myself clear?"

"Crystal," he said as she pulled away from his hand from Eternus' iron grip.

With that, Ricochet made a hefty self-made sandwich before retreating back into his room. Upon his confident stride, I managed to look at him, realizing that he was very much different from usual, like Eternus said, but not in the way most think. Then, realizing that my mind had a small breakthrough, noticing the small piece of the puzzle that had eluded me till now: Ricochet himself. So with a hanging choice, I looked at the door with all my answers.