Chase hummed casually, walking alongside Luna as they made their way back to the Tudor Home that they had caught quite a liking towards in the recent weeks.
"What's for lunch?" Lune asked, maintaining her giddy facade, even though Chase was well aware of how tired she had been since she had started doing the same ritual over and over again every night.
His heart throbbed in pain from both the corruption and the guilt weighing on him, but he had no choice but to hide his feelings as best as he could, even though it was practically no use.
Luna frowned, smacking him on the back of the head as they walked.
"Really?" He groaned, rubbing the spot she had hit him.
"Hmph!" She turned her head away, refusing to even look at him, then they eventually stepped into the decently sized home overgrowing with moss and were greeted with...
Yelling?
"Equan get the hell up! You haven't done jack shit this entire time! And now you have the audacity to slump out on the couch like a bum!?" Kaylynn yelled viciously, causing Gemini to step away, now hiding behind one of the wooden support beams in the living room.
Chase rolled his eyes, grabbing Kaylynn by the back of her collar and dragging her into the kitchen.
With a tired yawn, he ignored her complaints and grumbling as he pulled her into the other room.
"Context?" Chase asked, not really caring enough to ask with a full sentence.
"He keeps saying this old dude kicked him out of his room! But when I stepped in there! Guess what!? He is schizophrenic! I'm telling ya! Get him a job or something in the city if he's gonna be such a damn nuisance!" Kaylynn continued on, but most of it went in one of Chase's ear and out the other.
He glanced at Equan who's arms hung low as Gemini tried to consult him.
Realistically there was no job that Equan could possibly take at the moment, as his arms had only recently been shattered and mangled beyond human possibility. And nobody other than Chase, Equan, and Luna actually knew of Volaris joining their team, so it naturally made a situation like this quite unavoidable.
He sighed.
"Equan! Come here." Chase yelled, leaning against the marble island at the center of the kitchen.
Equan listened, casually strolling into the kitchen with an extremely tired expression on his face.
Chase didn't actually plan this far, and scrambled for something to say as Kaylynn glared viciously at Equan.
"Uh... Say sorry..." Chase tried not to laugh at himself at such a pitiful attempt at defusing the situation; however...
"Sorry Kaylynn..." Both Kaylynn and Chase were taken aback by such a feat, which naturally caused Kaylynn to sigh and stomp upstairs with a childish frown on her face.
"Well, that was easier than I thought it would be..." Luke chuckled, stepping into the room and interrupting the two of them.
Luna had already dipped, leaving Chase behind to deal with the mess himself.
Luke on the other hand, was carrying three large wooden crates in his arms with a smaller wooden box strapped to his waistband.
"Got you guys some new armor!" He let out a deep breath of satisfaction as he set the crates down, each one with a small nameplate with who the armor belonged to.
"Thanks Luke..." Equan mumbled, sitting down on one of the stools, while Chase smiled at the bandit with gratefulness.
"What's with him?" Luke asked, nodding towards Equan with a whisper.
"Long story..." Chase grumbled, narrowing his vision on the biggest crate with the nameplate that spelled out "Elite" at its corner.
"Oh right!" Luke gasped, reaching for a small bag hung around his shoulder, and pulling out what looked like matte black mask. It had a simple line cutting straight down the center, with simple symmetric shapes around the eyes and an even simpler flat surface where the mouth location of the mask resided.
"Here kid." Luke tossed the mask to the sulking Equan, who caught it easily and looked down at in confusion.
"If you wanna go into the city, wear that. You guys are too well known to be exploring highly populated areas nowadays..." Luke said with a regretful tone, but forced a smile as he turned away, heading towards the stairs as he began to whistle casually.
He stopped.
"By the way... You could probably get a couple of healing potions and speed up that recovery of yours kid, then you guys might wanna check out The Iron Coliseum... Might be able to make some easy coin there with your skills..." He yawned again, stretching his arms above his head as he made his way upstairs.
Chase mumbled internally, entranced by the idea of making some money.
"How bout it?" He asked Equan with the raise of his eyebrow.
"Uh..." Equan seemed to actually think about it, while studying the mask in his hands.
The arms above said hands... Were covered in scars and stitches that Kaylynn herself had used to piece back together his once shattered limbs...
"Come on!" Chase said with a grin.
"It will be fun. They might even have team fights we could sign up for, ya know? You back me up from range and I tank attacks!" Chase put a hand on Equan's shoulder gently as his grin widened.
After a few moments of thought, Equan sighed.
"Sure, why not?"