Chapter 2
Dave:
Because on some level you're still not totally sure about this whole situation, you text the phone number provided for Xavier Academy, rather than calling it. The fact that somebody texts you back more or less immediately (somebody who's not a robot; you check against that to the best of your ability) kind of steadies your trust that this isn't some kind of scam. You're not sure if it does the same for Hal or Davepeta—but then again, you're not totally sure that Davepeta actually has any doubts. It's totally possible that they're operating on some mystical feline, avian, or alien wavelength that you're never gonna be able to follow in a million years.
Which is totally fine. Hey, at least they seem fine with you going against their suggested course of action. Hal is maybe not so fine, but he keeps his mouth shut, so it's all good. Everything's fine, everything's fuckin' great.
You're just...not comfortable with being in a car without a weapon, is all. Ambrose being right there helps—not as much as having Wade across the seat from you would've helped, but you're focusing on the positive here. (Karkat would have also been a great choice, but last week's text messages made it pretty damn clear that whoever's gonna be interviewing you wants a parent or guardian present, not an foul-mouthed alien teenager whose idea of "subtle" includes a rock to the head of anyone who threatens him. Or you. God, you love Karkat.)
(You're significantly off topic.)
Anyway. The positive. Right.
Well, the big, number-one positive here is that nothing bad is gonna happen and that you have no reason for wanting to be armed, but that's a lil' more logical then your brain and nervous system (emphasis on nervous—okay that's not really funny actually) are prepared to process right now. So maybe look at the little positives—you've got your phone, so Hal and Dirk are basically right here with you in case anything does happen. Ambrose is more literally right here, although you do kinda wish the dumbass would put his seatbelt on instead of lounging across a seat and a half like the poster boy for a garage rock band. A somewhat slutty garage band. You're seriously questioning why he made the decision to wear what has to be the tightest black jeans that he owns along with a shirt that's got something close to a scoop neck...actually, the latter part makes sense, almost. It makes the collar around his neck look almost like a fashion statement instead of anything else.
...yeah, that's probably it.
"Ambrose?"
"Yep."
"Put your fuckin' seat belt on before I start thinking about what's gonna happen if you don't."
If you hadn't added the second half of that sentence, he probably would've given you at least a couple minutes worth of shit. As it is, all he does is mumble something vaguely irritated at you and grab for the belt, acting like he doesn't hear the half-muffled laughter from the guy in the front seat.
(Speaking of the guy in the front seat? You kind of wonder if he got picked because he's got shit in common with the Striders in general. Specifically the whole eyewear thing—like everyone on this side of the family excepting Ambrose, dude's got shades that he hasn't so much as reached for since he knocked on the door and Davepeta invited him into the house. His are either super fuckin' stylish or super fuckin' lame, depending on which category you'd put mirrored, red-tinted sports shades. Right now you're gonna reserve judgement.)
From the look Ambrose is currently directing at the back of the driver's seat, he's definitely not holding back on the fashion judgement, which is kind of hypocritical for a guy wearing nothing but black. Oh, shit, he's totally gonna say something one of you will regret, you can see him getting ready to open his mouth, you should—
Even when you're watching Ambrose, you're at least tangentially aware of what's going on in other areas, both inside and outside the car. Like, you're not reading road signs—hell, you probably couldn't say whether there actually are any road signs, honestly—but you're one hundred percent sure that there ain't any cars sharing the road. The straight stretch of road, for at least another half a mile or so. No cars, no downed trees or cows in the fuckin' road, no nothing to cause any kind of issue with the driving.
Nothing to explain it when the world flips itself head-over-heels with a soundtrack comprised completely of breaking glass and twisting metal. Well, maybe not completely, because you head Ambrose shout something that you don't have time to process, before your head bounces off something hard (maybe the ceiling?) and shit goes black and dark.
Head injuries leave you disoriented even as you heal. That's something you've learned a couple times in your life, but it doesn't really explain the fact that you open your eyes to a snapshot of an upside-down fence above a cloudy sky, close them again because you can't help it, the light hurts like hell.
Open your eyes and catch two second's worth of what looks like bad animation, the metal of the car warping around you like it's melting. Can't be melting, you'd feel the heat. You gotta let your eyes close again.
Your ears are ringing, but through that you can hear Ambrose swearing. At least you got some confirmation that he's (to some extent) okay. You catch your name a couple times; apparently, he's not so sure you're okay.
Turn your head. Open your eyes again, and you see a dark-haired woman crouched where you're pretty damn sure the driver's seat should be (it isn't. Nothing is there. You're hanging upside-down in the back half of the plain grey car that came to pick you up for the interview that you're almost sure ain't gonna happen; everything forward of the backseats is just...gone.) Maybe you make some kind of sound, because she glances over at you for a bare second before she turns her attention back to your bro.
Shit, there's blood in his hair. You don't know where the hell he's bleeding from, but red shows up really fucking well in dirty blond.
That's not good.
Then the woman reaches in to snap the release on the collar around Ambrose's neck, and everything abruptly gets worse. Maybe he knows it's not gonna be good, because you see his eyes go wide, see him start to jerk back, but he's not fast enough to stop her from getting ahold of the damn thing and hitting the release.
Shit. You should have been trying to get loose the whole time, and now it's too fucking late—yeah, you can upshift, watch the sparks jump between the tiny gap between the metal and Ambrose's skin. But you can't get the seatbelt loose, you don't have a fucking knife to cut it off, and you can't step up your passage through time enough to make the process of him seizing up from the shitton of voltage Dirk and Hal set the collar up to release if tampered with stop. Slow down, yeah, but that just means you get to see his face twist up in agonizing slow-motion instead of having it over all at once.
Which...yeah. You can handle a lot of shit, but this is...it's too much. You can't.
Downshifting is a fucking coward's move, but you do it anyway, and fast enough to send a spark of pain spiraling up between your eyes. Or maybe it's not that pain's spiraling up—you falling is also a damn good hypothesis, because everything is very rapidly going dark and silent again.
If you were anywhere close to fully conscious right now, you'd probably be thinking something along the lines of oh...fuck. But you're not. For the moment at least, you're fuckin' gone.