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[sub][@Surtr Inc][@Ciaran][@Mike73][@Zombiedude101][/sub]
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[code]Cafe Sucre.[/code]
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Her Abstraction wasn’t strong enough. She should’ve practiced more; she should’ve pushed through the headaches and nosebleeds. If she had learned how to control her aim and if she had learned her limits then perhaps she would’ve gone about this all a smarter way. Penny realized, as she tried scrambling back up to her feet, that her approach had been a little more than haphazardous—it had been goddamn suicidal. Her life didn’t flash before her eyes as the monster towered over her. The only thing she saw was Henry, her younger brother, her (likely dead) missing brother, her biggest failure. Tears burned in her eyes. No, she couldn’t give up on him yet. Reese was just another bump in the road...an eight-foot tall, roid-raging, nigh indestructible and likely unstoppable bump in the road. 

And then he stopped, proving Penny wrong yet again. Out of her peripheries she could see one of the girls—Jasmine—that she had told to leave with her hand outstretched towards Reese. Penny wasted little time considering any other actions. She almost instantaneously jumped up to her feet, grabbed a fork from the countertop, and blasted it at Reese. It proved to be a mistake as he had began to move again, but it was one that didn’t come back to bite her in the ass. Within seconds Reese had fled, bolting from the Cafe and jumping to a distant rooftop. Penny dropped her pursuit once she had reached the street. There was no way she was catching up with him. Which, all things considered, was a good thing, because there was no way she would’ve been able to take him.

The world around her stilled. Penny walked to the street and half-sat, half-collapsed onto the curb. The other girls hadn’t even left yet, hell, the whole fight had lasted less than a minute, probably only even a handful of seconds, so they didn’t even have a chance. If Reese hadn’t have been spooked he likely could have bashed Penny’s brains in and still have time to make mincemeat out of the other four girls. She ran a hand through her hair and wiped the blood from her nose onto her wrist. Her head felt like a thousand hangovers had gotten together and decided to crash the pity party in her brain. She could feel the aches on her body; tomorrow she would be covered in the reds and blues of bruises. 

Justin had arrived with Nate and...fuck, he had brought Claire with him. Penny remembered what the God-Child had said about everyone needing to work together, link hands, and yadda-yadda-yadda, and after fighting Reese she knew it wasn’t incorrect. She also remembered what she had said about Claire and felt a tinge of guilt, perhaps even sorry that she had been such an asshole and had let her mouth runaway like that. She hadn’t even really been mad at Claire, at least not at the start. Her beef had been with Britney for some pettiness from over a year ago. The thing was—Penny caught Claire’s look of disgust. The thing was, Penny would never be able to get along with Claire O’Sullivan. She returned the look, hopefully that looking like such a hot mess would only make it more withering.

“Are you okay? Sorry we couldn’t get here faster…”

“I couldn’t stop him,” she said, her voice strained with defeat, her lips tensing in anger. “Fuck, fuck!” She hit the ground twice with her palm to punctuate her curses, and then buried her head in her hands. She emitted a groan of frustration and then rustled her hair again, grabbing a cigarette and dragging it down as quickly as possible. She had felt herself about to boil over again. The cigarette helped keep the lid from flying off the pot. She light another cigarette with the glowing butt of her last one and then flicked the butt, repulsing it to who-knows-where. 

“Like, I don’t know if I’m relieved that people even showed up or if I’m pissed that it was only so few,” she said before taking a deep breath and standing up, refusing any help that Justin likely would’ve offered. He was a good guy, really. She shouldn’t try to push him away like she did with everyone else. “To answer your question, I’m not too hurt. Most of this battering was my doing, anyway. I’m ready to go after him whenever you are or mastermind some great plan, but just…” She noticed Jasmine. “Just give me a second, okay?”

She walked over to Jasmine and gave her a sheepish look. They had mutual friends in Lynette and Aliana, but the two of them had never really talked outside of a few stilted conversations when one of the other girls had vanished and left them alone at a table somewhere. Yet, it was Jasmine who had stopped Reese, and Jasmine who had given Penny the second she needed to get up. Penny owed her and, well, Jasmine was likely very confused. For all the shit Penny had talked about the support group, it had cleared a few things up. 

“Hey,” said Penny. “I just needed to thank you. I know we aren’t really close or anything, but...I think you know me well enough to know how difficult it was for me to say that.” She gave a little awkward half-smile. Expressing actual gratitude was difficult; she rather face down Reese anyday. “I know you might be freaking out right now and, like, you totally should be, I get it, but you should come with us. We sure as shit don’t know what the fuck we’re actually doing, but we can catch you up to speed on what we do know. Which...isn’t much, actually, but it’s better than nothing.”

With that she turned to join back up with Justin and the others.