The Preserve, Sunday Afternoon

[carbsliftthespirit]

Raiden had arranged to meet Jane in a clearing in the preserve, but when Gray had shown up at his place bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and early, they'd decided to take advantage of it to do some sparring first. Gray had gotten tired after a while, though, and now they were cleaning their weapons while they waited for a physicist with a war hammer and whoever else decided to show up.

"You've been slacking," Raiden told Gray around a mouthful of trail mix. "You're getting lazy."

"I'm always lazy," Gray protested. "It's kind of my thing."

"Hm," was all Raiden said to that.

((For hammer friends, but open preserve is open, of course!))

Comments

[needsacatchphrase]

"Hi," Jane said, jogging on up. Which was A Look with that cape. "I'm not late, right?"

[carbsliftthespirit]

"Nah," Raiden assured her. "We were early. Gray was on a sugar rush." Which meant he would probably be crashing soon, but that was how it went with Gray.

[napking]

"Hi, Dr. Foster!" Gray said cheerily. Then he paused to eye her hammer. "Good thing you had Al bring you a shield," he told Raiden. Sword vs. hammer was tricky otherwise.

Especially with an enthusiastic amateur, sorry Jane.

[needsacatchphrase]

Oh, it was going to be a mess.

"Hi, Gray," Jane said with a wave. "Should I have gotten some practice weapons from Asgard? I could probably see if they'd give me some."

They would, but then she'd end up sparring there too.

[carbsliftthespirit]

"It's up to you," Raiden told her. "You said it's magic, right, so if you want to learn how to use the magic part you need to use that hammer."

[thatwaslucky]

Rey was not completely sure she was going to be needed here, but the way she figured, worst case scenario was she got to see some cool stuff.

"Sorry if I kept you."

[needsacatchphrase]

"Rey!" Well, her super cool laser sword was needed. Always.

[thatwaslucky]

"Hi," Rey greeted her. "I'm not late, am I?"

[needsacatchphrase]

"Oh, no no no," Jane replied. "Raiden and his brother wanted to spar first."

As either a warm up or an actual challenge before Jane was there.

[thatwaslucky]

Rey looked over at them. "Is that the brother?"

[carbsliftthespirit]

"Hi, Rey," Raiden said with a little wave. "Jane says you have a laser sword!" So cool.

[thatwaslucky]

"A lightsaber, yes," Rey said with a smile. "It gets a lot of attention."

[carbsliftthespirit]

"Well, I've never seen one before, and I've been around the block...several times," Raiden mused. "Then again, I just started meeting space people recently, so there's that. I've seen flaming swords before, of course...is it similar to that?" Ray, buddy, how would she know?

[napking]

"You're not late," Gray assured her. "Hi! I'm Gray."

Gray, Ray, Rey, and...Jane. Combo breaker!

[thatwaslucky]

"Rey," she said. Have fun, radio! "Raiden's brother?"

[napking]

"What?" Gray asked. "You can't see the family resemblance?" Then he snickered and said, "No, I'm just kidding. We're not biologically related, but yes, he's my big brother." His very big brother.

[pun_king]

Once Gray had told him about this that morning, Graham knew he couldn't miss this for anything! So hopefully, Jane and Raiden wouldn't mind a small audience in the form of a very excitable knight hopeful bearing flags and pendants to better cheer them on and his giant capybara of a mighty steed, who he felt also wouldn't want to miss people getting potentially clobbered by magic hammers, either.

[napking]

"Graham! Hey Graham!" Gray said with an enthusiastic wave. "I invited Graham," he told the group at large. "He's my roommate."

Also, he came with Triumph, who was the best steed ever. "And Triumph!" Triumph might be getting glomped.

[pun_king]

At this point, if Triumph saw Gray and didn't get glomped, he'd start to worry that something might be wrong. Triumph, for his part, let out several excited squeals and chirps to see him, bracing himself for incoming and very appreciated glomps.

And Graham, for his part, smiled almost sheepishly at the introduction, and waved one of his flags in greeting.

"Hey, everyone! Hope you don't mind me swinging by."

[needsacatchphrase]

"Hi, Graham!" Jane called, definitely waving with the hammer in hand. Look, sometimes she just forgot she was holding it.

[pun_king]

But the hammer was the whole reason they were there! Waving it around totally made sense!

"Hi, Dr. Foster!" he greeted back. "I'm really looking forward to seeing you give Gray's brother a few good wallops with that thing!"

No offense, Raiden.

[needsacatchphrase]

"He's pretty fast," she admitted. "I think he's going easy on me."

The shield was clearly a good source of target practice, though.

[carbsliftthespirit]

"So you're the roommate," Raiden observed. "And this must be Triumph." Was he delicious?...no, bad Gluttony.

[pun_king]

Very bad Gluttony!

"I am the roommate!" Graham confirmed, proudly, puffing out his chest like he'd actually done anything to have gained such a title? "And this is Triumph!"

The very non-delicious Triumph trumpeted out a few squeals of greeting.

"You must be the brother! Or at least one of them! The one with the pizza!"

[carbsliftthespirit]

But how did you know he wasn't delicious, Graham? What if he was amazing with barbecue sauce? Raiden was nowhere near hard up enough to start eating people's pets--or noble steeds--to say nothing of the "Gray would never speak to him again" factor, but...he did wonder. And possibly shove his next handful of trail mix into his mouth slightly more aggressively.

"I am a brother!" Raiden confirmed, and then laughed. "Definitely the pizza brother, yeah, that's me. I'm Raiden. Nice to meetcha."