[Mushverse; for Tetsuya & Jou]

[greensai]

It's such a nice day outside that I can help fussing around in the garden. It's still too early to bring anything in for dinner, but I can keep the bugs off my young vegetables and the weeds away from my herbs. Tetsuya's beating on something out back; either he's chopping wood or he's murdering something, I can't really tell beyond the swing of an ax and his occasional curses wafting from the backyard to the front. I hope he doesn't aggravate his knee again.

Once the sun starts to think about setting I head back inside, pondering what to fix for dinner as I wash the garden from my hands. There's still some chicken that I should do something with before it goes bad, but I'd like to do something with the fish Tetsuya caught this morning. Maybe I can grill up an assortment of meats and vegetables, then we can have the leftovers for lunch tomorrow.

Comments

[greensai]

It pains me, every time, when I hear that yet another Sentai team - or Rider, for that matter - has been called to fight some great evil. Peace never seems to last long, and so many risk their lives...

I worry for Jou's family. Their children, if children are being called to fight.

Wait. Back up. "How do you just forget something like that?"

[blackbison]

Junichi's hurting. He worries so much, especially about younger kids fighting evil. He feels that hurt very intimately. He was so young when we fought. What were we thinking, anyway?

I hope these new teams are less motivated by revenge. It never ends well.

...Oh, Junichi has a point. I raise an eyebrow at Jou, and then my glass of wine too. "My head hurts." I add helpfully.

[yellowlion]

The two of them look tired. Hurt. Worried.

I don't like this one little bit.

"Mine, too," I say ruefully. "We haven't pinned down what happened yet. There have been all kinds of disturbances, including a strange bunch who dimension hopped to pick up Gai -- did I mention that the original Gai was GokaiSilver -- and maybe it was a side effect of the messing around they've done. I've had a few other weird memory gaps but I don't know if it's all from the same source."

[greensai]

I stop myself from laughing affectionately at Tetsuya's comment about his head hurting, instead just giving him a knowing little grin. He's not stupid, not by a long shot, but he's better with direct action, thinking on his feet, and all that.

I have to admit that I'm also having a bit of trouble following Jou's words. He seems to be talking about many things at once, all vaguely related? I sigh, and look down at the table.

"Do you know anything concrete yet?"

[blackbison]

"GokaiSilver?" I don't remember a damn thing about the pirate Sentai, so that doesn't really surprise me too much, except for the nonchalant way Jou says 'the original'.

"Doesn't sound good." I offer to Jou's apparently distorted memory. It's troublesome, to say the least. "Do we know who's on our side?"

[yellowlion]

"A few things, and yes," I say to one, then the other. On some level I'm both gratified and horrified by how easy it is to slip back into this kind of briefing with them. I'd near forgotten how information exchanges work with them. The give and take.

"Given how much we were messed with while we were active, it could be worse," I say philosophically. "And yes, the good guys are still the good guys, the bad guys are still the bad guys, but there are some who've most definitely made the jump across to join us. Kazari, for example, and the other Greeeds, though I don't know if they'd choose to fight the way I think he would. We're still holding out a hand to anyone who needs it, of course. Good or bad."

I'm silent for a moment, remembering Kemp. We helped him, went to find him with very little hesitation. All of us knew it could be a trap. It was, but it... essentially didn't matter, in a way. What mattered was that we tried.