Everyone's playing Games

"Alright, alright, I'll stuff the idea so long as it doesn't make you two awkward," Constantinople looked between the two hoping that his good intentions hadn't once again ruined a bright future, even if it was just the chance of one. "So... Dark Night?"

Izime nodded looking back towards the table as he turned his glass, revealing his minor concerns over the heroic sleuth investigating him, "Not the worst issue I've had, I imagine he'll dig through my files and come up with a hundred or two ways to try and sanction me off planet."

"I'm hoping the Vidan Security Council just sticks with humans belong on earth as I don't exactly have records here." Giving a bit of a sorry look back towards the stage Izime spilled a little tidbit of information taking another sip.

Sure, Izime knew he'd claimed he was human and for all intents and purposes he was, he'd been certified and given the pedigree by the only authority he'd acknowledged on the issue. Though the fact that paperwork and professional opinion didn't extend to this reality was a bit of an issue he'd yet to manage.

"Y..." Constantinople was about to call Izime out, having just said he'd been from earth, instead only shaking his head. Already knowing the next words that would have come out of Izime's mouth if he'd finished that thought Constantinople dropped the issue, "never mind."

The man refused to share any information about himself so why bother asking for clarification. Constantinople recalling the vague wording Izime always used when it came to himself. It was entirely possible Izime was born off world and was only technically an earthling by abusing some loophole in galactic legalese. Abusing some gap in the red tape, keeping the Vidan from extraditing him from earth; sure, on paper it might very well confirm everything Izime said.

"Why don't you just get an I.D.?" Psyis asked as she was honestly curious as to why Izime hadn't just gotten some kind of non-driver photo I.D. or otherwise. They would surely be helpful if not necessary to have a decent time on earth; immediately rolling her eyes as Izime turned to smile brightly; Psyis knowing she'd been had.

"I don't sell information that goes double for my own," Izime took a smaller sip as he watched the psychic kick herself for not thinking of the obvious answer she would receive. "You should know that by now Miss Psyis."

Izime glancing over the rim of his glass at the two of them watching their reactions as the ice melted down slowly. Constantinople giving a short snort, cocking a brow at the mind reader who Izime had just used to shotgun down any further questions. The Psychic already having rolled her eyes at him Izime was a little taken back at the second less playful look. The alien giving him a sideways glance before huffing her own response.

"I told you too, it's just Psyis." Turning her red eyes away Psyis let Izime have his little victory, she was more upset by the way he was treating her. A heroine on second and just another person the next, she wished once again she could just peek inside to get a solid answer on just what Izime was thinking.

The woman giving the man across from her a bit of a cross look as she tried to make sense of him. Did he even respect her at all or was using her full title just to taunt her, and what about how casually he'd acted in the alley. Psyis already having her fill of being yanked around by Steven's mood swings let alone someone doing it intentionally. If it was intentional at all, the mind-reader suffering from this odd lack of knowing once more.

"Short answer is proving any form of citizenship." Izime decided to throw a couple chips down on the table, tossing the two a nugget of information they would discover later anyway. Hoping it would at least smooth whatever feathers he'd ruffled on the mostly purple alien Izime explained further, "Dark Night is going to eventually confirm I'm not from earth and not just suspect it, the Vidan's records are only going to confirm his suspicions."

Psyis giving a thoughtful sip of her own beer not wanting to reveal her contentment at Izime at least sharing something beyond the tired catch phrase. Ignoring the reaction of the usually more convincing exorcist next to her as she reveled in her little moment. The response obviously a reaction to the upset tone she'd taken with him just a moment before, Izime quickly backtracking at her words. The alien unsure of just how much she should allow her ego to grow.

"OK enough answers from me, let's all drink then the two of us go get a tank from hell so you can take it to hell." Izime took another deep swig sending few remaining clouds of dark and white mixing about further, returning Constantinople's curious look, "Never been to mercury?"

"I, ah, I'll head back to the Blane's afterwards then," Psyis glanced between the two men at the table trying to find her own plans for the night seeing as Izime had certainly just cut her out, "I can just meet up with you in Centropolis at some point afterwards, next year I think you said?"

"At least see if the budgies willing instead of lying to the lass, rude arse doesn't have any family." Constantinople wanted to try and kick Izime under the table, though just the thought was enough to clue in the psychic. The exorcist deciding to call Izime out openly for the lie, putting his foot down on the issue of who was going where. "She's coming I didn't cold shoulder a Blane for you to be anti-social, that's my gig."

"I didn't lie." Izime swallowed down the half the remaining alcohol at once, sitting the glass down a bit roughly. Refusing to acknowledge any look that would follow his revelation after the game Constantinople had tried to play earlier. Even though it certainly wasn't the nosy exorcist business what he'd planned with Psyis, he had to explain a bit, "I invited her to meet some of my family."

"Meet the family, Izzy's?" Constantinople looked over at the man who according to Lucy had no relation to this world. At least not when he had entered hell beside the exorcist to start dealing toxin, "You don't have family."

Constantinople watching as Izime nodded along with the beat, taking a moment to form a proper reply. The exorcist knew the question was loaded, as he already had a bit of insider information on Izime. His friend a look as if he was a bit regretful, Constantinople only wondering about what. If it was Lucy's words, the question in general, or his own friends coming response.

"The stuff in hell was just a technical truth," Izime spoke at towards the stage, finally looking back towards the exorcist wanting to put the incident he was recalling to rest, "I have people I care about who care about that's family enough outside of blood relations. One's a huge Miss Psyis fan anyway so I figured why not."

"I'm supposed to go listen to them play music, once it warms up enough that its worth playing in the square, I assume?" Psyis interjected, glad when Izime simply nodded along. Tilting his nearly empty glass towards the psychic who had spelled it all out well enough.

Izime nodded along as he considered his own parts to the planned meeting, like how it couldn't be raining but still needed to be busy enough that the celebrity heroine wouldn't stick around too long. Though not so busy that Shya couldn't say hi. Just arranging a quick meet and greet, he wasn't introducing Psyis to the two on any kind of personal level. Izime didn't want Shya to think this was something her Uncle Izime could pull off on the regular.

Just collecting the odd knickknack, a free pass to see Miss Psyis was available so he'd snagged one for his niece.

The three taking that chance to turn to lighter topics, talking until the drinks were finally finished. The minutes passing quickly with idle chatter until Psyis wound up reminding the two they couldn't spend the night away getting wasted.

The two magic users and psychic paying a pleasantly surprised Jessie before disappearing into the streets of Voltham. The group roaming around in the late night, looking for a decent place to set up a teleportation spell. Settling on a location they'd found in an abandoned parking complex; Constantinople began busily inscribing with the chalk. Psyis and Izime standing off to the side a considerable bit of distance between them as Izime muttered quietly at the bundle of feathered irritation in his hands.

"Miss Psyis. Come on Cradle don't be rude." Izime tried to hold the raven's attention, the bird scratching at the concrete and bobbing its head around to glance past him.

"Stupid. Purple." Cradle saw a bit of the gray hoodie standing a ways away, glancing up at Izime before trying to give a flap of its wings. Cawing out hoping to aggravate the alien once more, not giving Izime a reason to intervene. "Stupid purple! Stupid."

Psyis just smiling, giving a slight bow of her head. Not baring any teeth, hoping it came across as apologetic and not irritating or taunting towards the raven. At first using the excuse of an apology to meet now feeling a bit worried as the bird was very obviously upset at her still. Constantinople pushing the meet forward may not have been the wisest move, though he seemed unworried.

"Nope, now you're doing it on purpose," Izime tapped the raven on the nose as it seemed to calm down, happy that at least one of the two halves of this problem could behave like a reasonable adult. Izime glanced back, pointing at the alien trying to make headway with the childish raven, "She came here to be nice and if you accept her apology, she'll give you a treat."

Cradle looked under Izime's arm, glancing at the annoying alien that hadn't even waited a day before popping back up. Stupid purple was useless, and Cradle had decided it didn't want her apology after all. The female couldn't even put up a good show now, simply rolling over after all that spitting in its face earlier. All at Izime's request, the cowardly crowess was revealing her colors, Cradle had more fight when it'd been just a chick. Now she intended to bribe her way into forgiveness after not just being rude but failing Cradles most basic expectations for her. Flying hero's meant money and here she was once again with nothing to show for it!

Oh, sure Constantinople had sent them a transfer but that was for something else. Cradle knew they were going back to the ship to Izime's home, the Thessian obviously plotting to feed it from their own stash of treats. It was disingenuous at best and the behavior of a thieving crow at worst!

"Capabilities of a supercomputer and flying lawnmower combined with temper of a seven-year-old." Constantinople shot a look at the terrifying creature that was misbehaving in Izime's grasp before nodding towards Psyis and explaining, "I'd try pleading your case lass, sooner rather than later."

The exorcist was aware that every single safety feature on the device activated simply because the one handling the bird was Izime, the beasties bond. Any other being likely to start losing limbs quite quickly. Izime could treat Cradle like a raven because for him the bird was willing to limit itself to one, that feature was optional and dependent of the living machines own attitude towards anything else. If it chose, they could instead be facing a whirling free-form blender, that or the terrifying nanite cloud the raven was made of.

"I'm sorry for touching you without permission Cradle, and Izime. I just didn't know what you were," Psyis gave the exorcist a thankful nod as she tried talking to Cradle directly, the birds head still snaked under Izime's arm. The thessian trying to match her own speech to the ravens limited vocabulary, "causing a scene in the noodle shop wasn't very good of me. I will try to be good from now on.

"Not stupid?" Cradle decided it would play along, if everyone here thought they could talk Psyis through an apology they had another thing coming.

"Just purple." Psyis gave a little smile, a hint of enthusiasm slipping in as she thought she might be making progress in building a bridge with the bird.

"Not Stupid!" Cradle gave an agitated flap, wanting to hear the alien say the words properly. Glancing up at Izime both for reinforcement and to see if its bond had caught on to the clever trick it intended to play.

"Fine I won't be stupid anymore." Psyis rolled her head brushing her mohawk aside as she handed the raven the words it was demanding to hear, red eyes giving a sarcastic look at red lenses. "Not Stupid!"

"Purple!" Cradle looked back up at Izime, playing along happily with the thessian's silly apology. Cradles happily bobbing head looking at its bond in pride as it'd successfully trained the thessian.

"Are you going to behave?" Izime looked down at the raven, still doubtful for some reason. Though this did seem along the lines of Cradles typical upset little fit throwing.

"Cradle is a good birdie." Cradle gave a pecking nod of its head before hopping in time with Izime's new friends name. Izime could forgive the alien, Cradle intended to bide its time hopping along until it could spring its trap. "Purple Purple."

"OK well that's that cleared up," Constantinople gave a nod of admiration towards Psyis before looking at the bird that had always given him the creeps and asking about himself. "What about old fish and chips?"

"Con, Stain! Con, Stain!" Cradle puffed its feathers out, giving a grating croak of a cry with each syllable as its demeaned the exorcist that was always poking at Izime.

"Good Cradle." Izime nodded giving the ravens back an appreciative stroke smoothing out the puffed feathers.

"Bloody bird." Constantinople stood finally finished with his end of the teleportation spell. A circle etched with various runes and symbols. Its center a geometric ideogram of some sort, "Go and set up a portal on your end I'm not playing the guessing game with a tank that size under pressure."

"You guys haven't ever... you know spilled a bunch of that stuff, have you?' Psyis leaned away from the wall, idly asking the question that had popped into her mind aloud.

"No." "Yep!" "NO!'

The silence dragging on for a moment, finally looking up to see three sets of eyes looking at her. As if spurred on by her eyes three immediate replies came at once, two laden with guilt one happily hopping in truth.

"OK, first of all I'm a better psychic than that Constantinople so try harder next time," Psyis looked at the exorcist who had tried to block her with a mental image of a pint, before turning to thank the only honest person there. "And thank you at least for being honest Cradle."

"It got cleaned up... in a fashion" Constantinople stuffed a hand into his pocket while the other waved in explanation.

"It was a free sample, and the demons loved it." Izime crossed his arms defiantly still proud he'd managed to hit the portal at all.

"Constantinople you should know better and you, you... I swear," Psyis looked between the two as the excuse came flying at her, first admonishing Constantinople. Then turning and taking a couple steps towards Izime her warning cut short "I ever hear of something like this happening in Centropolis I wil-"

"Purple!" A raven's cry echoed in the empty parking garage as a red eye twitched.

Psyis looked at the bird that had just interrupted her biting her lip in frustration, they had just settled their own little spat. The bird needed to stay out of her business with Izime, "I-Cradle please understand, Iz-"

"Purple!" Cradle hopped up and forward as it cut her off.

The raven glad that it had a chance to play with the alien, Izime had told it to be nice fine, it would play all kinds of fun games with Purple. It would show them both how stupid they were, Izime for thinking he'd outsmarted Cradle and Psyis for thinking she could trick Izime. Cradle would show her all kinds of games, like the 'you can't talk' game, so many games she'd hated it and never bothered them again.

Psyis watched as the smile spread further on the man's face, one hand reaching up to slowly pat the bird that was still interrupting her, "Izime I'm just warning you don't pu-" 

"Pur!ple! Pur!ple!" Cradle gave a perfect example of the childlike mentality Constantinople had warned of as it sang out Psyis growing shade as a new chorus to some unheard rhythm.

"Cradle, Cradle... look at me, look!" Psyis clapped her hands trying to interrupt the little stomping strut Cradle was doing while chanting her new name, finally get its attention she tried to remind it of Izime's words earlier. "Izime already went over this I'm not just purple remember?"

"Just stupid?" Cradle cocked its head watching as the alien seemed to boil over her colors adjusting a bit as the blue ribbons slimmed, making her appear a bit brighter and all the angrier. The raven trying to keep its throaty chunking chuckle inside as it looked at the loser of its game, instead only managing to muffle a mocking squawk.

"This is why I'm glad Dark Night isn't here right now, I could imagine all the safety issues he would try and snag me on. Last thing I need is OSHA as an actual dark crusader and a literal mind-reader flagging every violation post-humorously," Izime rubbed his head not wanting the psychic breathing down his neck in worry of her city. While walking towards Constantinople to get the chalky spell component needed for the true teleportation gate Izime gestured towards Cradle accusingly. It was obvious by the thessian's shade she wasn't having nearly as much fun as Cradle was with their new game, "All while my work crew pisses them off."

"Who's OS-? Forget it mate, I'll chalk it up to forbidden knowledge." Constantinople brushed off his tan trench coat curiously asking about what sounded like the name of some elder god, Ousha. Standing the exorcist reminded himself to not ask, instead he lazily under-handed the chalk towards Izime. "Speaking of, catch"

"Close enough." Izime agreed, nodding as he reached out to catch the chalk. Instead stumbling to the side as a purple fist connected with his bicep, a delicate finger digging in through the leather to twinge the muscle a bit. Instead of chalk which she'd caught mid-air, she'd thrown a surprise punch for him to catch.

The chalk suspended in a light purple haze as the psychic took a only somewhat friendly swing at him her knuckle still digging further into his arm. Izime looked over trying not to appear surprised by her actions even though he could feel his ears growing warmer. Izime trying to make some sense out of the look on her face, irate and something along the lines of joking. A pair of white brows furrowing with cheeks slightly puffed purple in frustration with one purple and blue finger pointing accusingly at Cradle, Psyis tried to explain away her attack.

"Fix that if you want us to get along. The purple joke is fine, and I'm used to a little mouth but please respect Centropolis, it is my home." Ire fizzling out, Psyis averted her eyes as Izime silently demanded a reason for being accosted. However, she still refused to stop her twisting drill into his arm, pressing him for an answer.

"I will," Izime nodded and plucked the bit of chalk from the air, glad Psyis wasn't asking how exactly he had remained unaffected by the spill or any of the other thousands of questions she could. Simply assuring her with a reminder as he stepped away from the heroine who was apparently willing to consider having his business in Centropolis, "My family lives there too."

The heroine only caring they had cleaned up their mess, apparently not bothering to ask for further details about the spill. Seemingly occupied with whatever memory she had stolen from Constantinople or Cradle's taunting to continue antagonizing him further. Instead crossing her arms and turning away from him to examine the far side of Constantinople's work. Taking the moment of distraction to scoop the bird up, tucking Cradle on his shoulder Izime prepared to copy the rather large magical circle.

The bird settling down in a ruffle of feathers as a blue light began to sweep across the various runes. Taking exact measurements, locations in relation to stellar objects, every minor detail and adjusting them to cast the matching spell. Cradle essentially copying the entire thing so it could easily be pasted elsewhere; ready to use aside from the actual regents themselves.

"Absolute bollocks that, bloody hack!" Constantinople walked over to the alien, calling back to Izime as he stood on the far side of the circle before continuing, "If I hadn't made one first he'd be helpless."

"Everyone's a critique," Izime tucked the chalk in his pocket, brushing away Constantinople's comment as he raised his hand giving a sarcastic smile. His own warping spell far outmatching the ancient relic of transport on the ground before him. "Don't call me a hack just because I can do it faster. Now, I'll be back."

"He's lucky that spell doesn't kill him." Constantinople snarked at Psyis while he waved towards the few lingering sparks. For some spell used created by a supreme sorcerer it sure seemed malleable enough for Izime's purposes. The exorcist absolutely distrustful of the short-cut form that circumvented proper spell casting, "Its originally a janky bit of kit from Tibet used by the sorcerers over there, he tore it down and enchanted his hands with it so anything he's touching get snapped along with him."

Psyis simply nodding along as she considered just how Izime seemed to get under everyone's skin in a slightly different way. Constantinople's out of worry for him, the Blane's out of irritation and possible fear, even her own in some indescribably frustrating way. The thoughts she had on Izime lasting far longer than the sparks he'd left behind in the parking garage.