The fluorescent lights of the diner were busy searing Cormac’s eyes into complete awareness as he looked over the laminated menu that somehow didn’t feel completely clean in his fingertips. Ixia looked over her own menu with the occasional twitching eye, the very same fluorescent light buzzed and flickered to make determining what in the name of all things sacred a “touchdown mega platter” was. But this was a night of adventure, and she had come so far.

And also she was the last to give her order despite Cormac still scanning the menu like he might find something else to order.

“I will have this ‘touchdown mega platter’ with an extra large glass of water.” The dryad said to the waitress with empty hazel eyes staring back and a messy blonde bun.

“And how did you want your eggs?”

“Oh I don’t lay eggs I-” Cormac put a hand on her knee and leaned close to whisper in her ear. “Over easy!”

The waitress didn’t so much as raise a brow as she scribbled the last of the orders on her notepad, and informed the group that it would all be out in a bit since there was no one else in the diner at this time of night that was getting dangerously close to being morning. They all handed over their menus and thanked the waitress, waiting until she was gone before Abha spoke in an unknown tongue and moved her hands in a mysterious fashion to cast a spell.

“There, now all outside this table who hear us will be unable to hear anything but indistinct chatter.” The dark skinned mage covered in tattoos said while picking a bit of fuzz off her casual yellow blouse she had changed into back at the gloomfang’s house.

Cormac nodded, taking it in stride that of course that was a thing and focusing on how handy it was. “That’s…actually very cool. So how do-”

“Were you serious with that order?” Itra’s illusion of humanity was that of a woman of comparatively similar skintone to the twins yet looking indistinctly middle eastern leaning on the table with one hand propping up her astounded looking face. A black tank top and jean shorts were her go to streetwear. “I thought those menu items were a joke?!?”

The Guardian’s green eyes narrowed as he ran a hand through his red hair, desperate for that coffee to get here already. “Yes…? Not sure how this is important but-”

Ed shook his head, holding up a hand. “No, I gotta know too how you’re actually ordering those meme things. You’re positive you’re human?”

Cormac rested his elbows on the table, lacing his fingers together and covering his mouth with them as he glared at the man who might have been on the Wikipedia page for average white male. In red plaid of all things. “Yes. Yes to both- all of those things. We ended up here, I’m going to get the crazy things from the menu.”

“Bacon pancakes I can almost understand.” Itra shook her head in disbelief. “But bacon and maple coffee?”

The ginger human threw his hands up and rolled his eyes. “It’s got a good flavor and I need the caffeine right now! Ixia’s the one who doesn’t want me having energy drinks!”

“They are filled with evil, Cormac.” Ixia said as she rested a hand on his shoulder, recalling the time that she had tried one sip of the drink that went so far as to call itself Demon. While alcohol in moderation would be acceptable, she forbade her Guardian from drinking any more of the vile drink that she still insisted was being honest with its branding. “And we could start growing coffee and tea at home?”

“That’s a maybe. But for now I’m going all out on the bacon and maple flavored foods and drinks to celebrate not dying. And also a tentative alliance.” He said bringing things back around to why they had all agreed to meet up here aside from all of them being in desperate need of a meal. “Back me up here, Gene. Bacon is great isn’t it?”

“I am afraid I don’t have any strong feelings one way or another about it.” The massive metal man now merely appeared as a massive man of light olive complexion who still had not a hair on his head. Metallic silver eyes were now a mere steel gray that still offered a sympathetic look. “But I will not judge you for the food that brings you comfort after such an ordeal.”

The Guardian raised a curious brow then shrugged. “I will take the support!”

“I told you I’ll try it.” Ixia chuckled as she rested a hand on his. The uses for plants that the modern world had come up with never ceased to amaze her, including their uses in drinks that were said to be stimulating to both humans and plants. Even if such an interest in such a drink drew incredulous stares from their new tentative allies.They didn’t bother her in the slightest as her own curiosity was starting to get the better of her. “If you don’t mind me asking…you seem to be a rather eclectic bunch. How did you all meet?”

The group that had not agreed to a name shared a look between themselves before Gene smiled and sat up in his seat. “I suppose our humble story starts with myself, chronologically speaking. I never remembered waking up, into what some might call being alive. Only realizing I was naked and in the snow, cold but not feeling cold-”

As Cormac and Ixia would learn, the man was a golem made from titanium, had been around since the cold war, had frequent angst over his status as an imperfect recreation of a human meant to serve humans and the difficulties in doing so when The Veil must be maintained, and finally his meeting with Itra where the two founded the yet to be named group to work together towards a goal rather that be ineffective loners.

“He’s been helping to keep The Veil in place since before communism died and he still doubts himself.” Itra said with a chuckle as she clapped him on the back with a broad smile, producing a sound of flesh on metal despite their currently human appearances. She settled back down as her face grew serious and her eyes distant. Brushing a long silken lock of black hair out of her face she started on her own backstory. “I know the whole efreeti thing is obvious, and sure we can sometimes be…the exact kinda thing we fight against. And I know I can sometimes be a bit much but-”

The woman of fire was something of a cultural rebel. Rejecting the old ways of acting towards humans in a way that many would feel accurate in calling them demons, and instead choosing to take all of that love for order and destruction and turn it towards keeping The Veil intact and striking at those wicked individuals who may threaten it. Along the way through her tale, Ixia and Cormac started to get the idea that she came from either a notable family or some other organization of efreet.

The new couple were both having similar worries over the finer details of The Veil and who all may be threatening it which they both did their best to hide in their faces. Ixia as she wondered just what sort of developments had happened to the world at large in her slumber, and Cormac as he increasingly wondered just how the hell he was supposed to keep up when metal golems and fire elementals.had been at this far longer than he had.

“Our stories are of course intertwined.” Abha said at about the time Cormac picked up on the fact that Abha incorporated yellow into her attire while Akna focused on reds. It helped to differentiate the twins when their slightly differing tattoos weren’t a quick enough indicator. “It all started when we were born just as a solar eclipse was ending. The moon and stars were just right, and-”

Abha and Akna recounted the series of events that saw them being named as possible incarnations of legendary twins, and how the tattoos were meant to enhance their magic that was gifted to them by a powerful spirit in the form of a great gold eagle. A great golden bird that periodically appeared to them and gave cryptic instructions to prevent the forces of The Underworld from wreaking havoc on humanity. It was clarified that they still weren’t sure if The Underworld was the underworld they knew or a veiled metaphor for The Veil. The twins paths crossed with Gene and Itra as they sought to vanquish a bat monster that had been terrorizing towns, and they had heard of a man who had been rumored to be made of metal and may be resistant to the monster’s fearsom bite.

Which sounded to Cormac and Ixia like cooperation was still an option, as the redhead also wondered how far his highly questionable plans would get him in fighting monsters alongside what might actually be heroes of legend that he still made a terrible first impression on. All of whom were now looking at him with disgust at worst or curiosity at best as the waitress brought them their drinks and he took a sip of maple bacon coffee. He winced as the drink was as delicious as it was good at making others scorn him.

“We haven’t encountered any bat monsters yet, are they that dangerous?” Cormac wasn’t lying as he sipped at his delicious, possibly blasphemous caffeine and stalled for time as his mind raced on how he was going to get around admitting to just being some guy who was still stumbling his way through all of this. Without the blood gun, he couldn’t even claim to be the human expertly trained in a magical weapon like Ed was.

Ixia chimed in to help, keeping a bright smile. “We haven’t been to the kind of places where such monsters would be found, though it sounds as though we’ve been fortunate in that.”

“Indeed.” Akna said as she sipped her completely normal coffee. “This one was…comparable to the gloomfang in many ways. Though it did not disguise itself, anything that can fly presents numerous problems.”

The unnamed group all groaned their agreement, each of their faces flashing with one memory or another of frustrations brought on by flying monsters. Ed gave a bitter chuckle as he sipped at his coffee with cream. “It keeps me on my toes at least. Not easy to hit a flying moving target but Subetei is a very exacting teacher.”

Cormac and Ixia’s inquisitive expression had Ed raising a brow before rolling his eyes at himself with a shake of his head. “When you grow up as a medium, you forget that not everyone can see things like the phantom of a Mongolian horseback archer who won’t stop pestering you to improve your archery until you’re ready to help finally take Japan.”

The completely normal human archer explained how he had discovered he was a medium early in life while his father was in the military, and he moved around with him and had to adapt to seeing phantoms that no one else saw and doing his best to contend with them. He also explained how phantom was the preferred term and that the whole notion of ghosts was silly, and even went into detail explaining why as Cormac only caught a bit of the distinction as the completely normal human archer was revealed as really only completely human.

Maybe gulping down half a cup of maple bacon coffee in one go was bad for his nerves, especially on this little sleep. But he needed the caffeine coursing through his system to make sure he wasn’t imagining being the only completely normal human without any supernatural abilities to his name at the table of people who were under no circumstances going to take him seriously and even worse probably think less of Ixia by relation. Ixia, by comparison, had already taken notice of how her Guardian looked ever more worried with each backstory.

She recognized that look of self-doubt in his face as the archer recounted more of his exploits, before eventually detailing how he had met up with the others at the table.

“And there were no phantoms in that nightmarish pit of…victims?” Ixia asked her question both out of interest and a distraction as she gently squeezed Cormac’s knee.

Ed sighed, running a hand through his short brown hair. “Phantoms don’t always follow logic on where they will be, so it wasn’t too strange to not find any there…but then she was keeping them all alive so-”

“So I’m putting that bitch in a funny hat when we put her head on the mantle.” The Guardian finally spoke once more, his hand having found hers under the table and squeezing it as he stared at his coffee before setting it down. “Well…guess I should go next. Never liked going last during class presentations. Really my story is boring until I freed Ixia from a forest filled with evil-”

“He is far too humble.” The Dryad said as she sipped at the coffee, pausing as her eyes went wide from the wonderful liquid filling the plant woman with life. She gulped down the last of it and set the mug down with a renewed smile. “He would be so humble as to claim that he ‘merely’ freed me after taking an arduous trek into my forest that had been besieged by nefarious forces, sneaking in unnoticed, and making a fool out of all of them.”

Cormac raised a red brow as he once again tried to give his account of things. “Well…honestly it was just walking in and freeing Ixia-”

“From powerful magics as though it was the most casual thing, all without those nefarious forces suspecting a thing until I was freed and he undertook a daring plan to help me escape my forest that had been turned against me.”

The Guardian felt the corners of his mouth raise as he laced his fingers with hers. “See once she was freed, I knew we had to regroup as there was evil all around us.”

“And as he led me on a daring escape, an ash hound came after us after being enraged that all were fooled by my Guardian’s guile and wit. But it was no match as Cormac tricked it into charging face first into a tree of my own making, allowing me to extract its crystal heart and bind the beast through the power of our bond as Guardian and Dryad. From there, we escaped and plotted how we would retake my forest after gathering strength and defeating interloping monsters along the way. But that tale of retaking my forest will have to wait for another day.”

The waitress arrived with the first of everyone’s food, and all possible follow up questions were forgotten as the seven dug in with the ravenousness of those who had just almost died twice in one night. Just as they had all chowed down on their food without speaking for a good while, Cormac banished any other notions of digging further into backstories by strategically ordering a maple bacon milkshake.

“Hate all you want. But-” Cormac crunched through the last of his 3am milkshake monstrosity. “I think we should at least work together through investigating whatever the hell that gloomfang was up to.”

“A splendid idea.” Gene said with a smile and a nod, clasping his hands together. “I can understand your reluctance given our initially mistaken first meeting, but I do believe we can grow to be greater allies!”

Itra slouched back in her seat, crossing her arms. “Yeah, we can even find out who cursed his tastebuds afterwards.”

“They do not taste cursed.” The Dryad said with a raised brow as Cormac choked on a bacon bit and Itra snorted and failed to suppress a guffaw. “Though I suppose I could check again to make sure-”

“Later.” Her guardian insisted as he pushed aside the empty milkshake glass as well as other thoughts turning his face as red as his hair. “Speaking of later, can we agree to meet at the gloomfang’s house at eight tomorrow night…wait-”

He looked down at his watch as his eyes went wide.

“FUCK! Okay, eight tonight to investigate more? Since we’re cool now…cool-er, at least.”

The unnamed group shared a quick look between each other before all agreeing and shaking on it. Which the twins insisted was in no way a magical handshake, even as Cormac insisted right back that he wouldn’t have had that thought until they mentioned it but let it pass anyway.

Farewells were exchanged, the waitress was tipped enough to assuage all guilt of making her graveyard shift far more eventful than it should have been, and the two groups parted.

The Guardian and the Dryad sat alone in their truck for a moment before the ignition was turned. Cormac held her hand and smiled as he turned to her. “You’re a good storyteller.”

“That was a team effort, and I believe we did quite well.” Ixia leaned in to give him a peck on the lips. “Now, we must return home to get you to sleep. I believe you have a vile hag to contend with in The Place of Fear?”

Cormac was still smiling from the quick kiss as he turned the ignition over and sighed. “Yeah…yeah shift starts in a couple-”

The dim digital clock on the dashboard still managed to stab right into the green of the human’s eyes.

“...a few hours. And my bitch manager loves writing people up for calling off after your last day of vacation...you promise you’ll take a look and see if she’s not also a gloomfang or some other monster that feeds on human suffering?”

“If she is one then we’ll strike her down together.” Ixia said in a gentle, warm voice and matching look in her eyes as her full lips rested into a smile.

Cormac’s mouth hung open a bit as his mind raced and he tried and failed to not think about how weirdly arousing that sight would be. He leaned over in his seat to pull her into a longer lasting kiss tasting of honeysuckle as their tongues danced against one another before reluctantly pulling away.

“See?” She said with a giggle. “Not cursed.”