Frankie's Journal

## S4E21 - Arboreal Funk

"I hope you left the windows open or my landlord's gonna kill me," the vulture boy said as he entered his cramped yet immaculate apartment.
"Raye, landlords *suck,*" said Frankie as she screwed her face in distaste.
"Frankie." He gave her a stern look.
"Yeah, I got you dude. Same shit as with your parents."
"Oof, tell me about it." Raye set his things aside and sat himself next to his disheveled friend.
"Parents suck too. They're like worse landlords*,*" she said, gesturing broadly.
Raye snorted at that and plucked the cigarette from Frankie's fingers before taking a puff for himself. "So tell me about this Mel boy huh?" he said with a coy smile.
"Oh GOD, can't you ask me about the treequakes?" Frankie groaned.
"And miss your blushing?"
"I'm not--" she catched herself after feeling the warmth in her cheeks, then suddenly flailed at Raye until he retreated into the corner of his seat.
"It's just teasing, hun," he smiled, "Sure, gimme your tree gossip."
Frankie huffed a while before composing herself. "Right, so you definitely felt the quakes, yeah?"
"Mhmm, my work evacuated for it and it hecked my shift."
"The hell, they don't even compensate for Halcyon shenanigans?"
"Not there, but it's fine, I already got some overtime this week."
"Christ. Hang in there buddy." Frankie gave a couple pats on the shoulder.
"So did yall punch the earthquakes to sleep or something?"
"Kinda, actually? Anyway, so Mel and I were at the junkyard when we got a call to team up with Rat and the rest of the team."
A cheerfully smug grin came upon Raye's beaked face.
"Dude, we were hanging out!"
"Uhuh, continue."
Frankie gave a raspy sigh. "We gathered over at Tickletock's place. And before you ask, no I didn't have time to order a lemon tart."
"Oh I had one this morning before the quakes, don't worry."
"Of course. So we went to the zodiac stadium, cause apparently the quakes were stronger there."
"Was it the sports moles?"
"*No,* and I'm getting to it! We went down a secret elevator down to a secreter underground base."
Raye cocked his brow.
"It wasn't my idea to take the damn elevator during quakes. I was ready to rappel down under it!"
"Hun, that's even worse."
"But *way cooler!"*Frankie shot her arms up in exclamation. "And guess what, the fucking elevator broke. Then Mel started talking to it -- he has like machine-speak or something -- but then the elevator *dropped,*like, twenty feet or something. He almost got bashed against the ceiling of it but then Focus came in and pulled him down only to crack her skull on the safety rail of all things, and she passed out."
"Oh yikes, is she okay?"
"Yeah, I think so. I tried like... healing her?" Frankie seemed unsure of herself. "Yknow, like how you do it? I thought maybe ghost powers could do that too but I guess not. But I kinda panicked and let my mind-garbage slip through. It was like..." She started getting pensive and anxious. "Like our feelings started flooding into each other? And I couldn't stop it or control it or--"
Raye gave a gentle squeeze on Frankie's arm, pulling her out of her little thought-spiral. "You're here now, and you're in control. It's gonna be fine," he reassured her.
Frankie nodded, inhaled sharply, held it for a moment, and resumed. "Rat ended up clearing out Focus' concussion. Luckily she actually does have healing powers, or the rest of this bullshit would've been *way*worse. Okay. Secret base time. We find a fuckload of industrial drills down in a huge chamber, and a big tunnel driven straight through the big tree."
"Oh, god."
"UHUH. Turns out the tree wasn't too fuckin' happy about it either, cause some massive crystal bugs were crawling around in there breaking shit and mending the tree-bits. Including a big, ugly centipede that starting gunning for us."
"Even with Rat there?"
"I GUESS. I ended up pulling that trick that I did at the warehouse with the ghost slingshot so i yeet us past the centipede in our way. But it was coming at us too fast. So Mel ends up ditching the tunnel to try and distract this thing *on his own.*And that's like the opposite of what we were trying to do there? So I tried telling him off about it but he went with it anyway. And rather than just letting him off on his own with a giant fucking centipede, I joined him."
"You sure you weren't being overprotective, hun?"
"First off, *bitch.* Second, I appologized after cause It was definitely a bit of a dick move to try and provoke him. But I'm also not just gonna leave him behind to get his entire body cut off!"
"He is a bit of a soft boy, isn't he?"
Frankie made a flustered scoffing noise as basically the verbal equivalent of a keymash.
"At least you're starting to think about teamwork now!"
"Gee, thanks," she said sarcastically. "Anyway, it eventually worked out. We ran the bug in circles for a bit before taking it down -- *not* killing it -- and moving to catch up with the others. By the time we got there, fighting already started between a Bishop mech, a fuckload of crystal bugs, and the team over this glowing tree ... jewel ... thing."
"As you do."
"Yep. The fight was a bit hectic *and really cool.*It ended when this Bishop exec got tackled out of a mech and tried going super saiyan or some shit off of the magic tree-gem. Whiz has a bright idea, as he does, and Mel took the opportunity to jam a giant fucking drill into the gem. The gem, and the corp dude, fucking DISAPPEARED after a flash."
"Like, vaporized or just..." Raye made a noise and a gesture with his hands like a dissipating cloud of smoke.
"*Poof*."
"*Shit.*"
"Right?" Frankie held her arms out wide. "After that, the tree was cool with us for saving it and let us go. And then I... talked to it? I don't think it talks. It *felt* something at me in my brain."
"So you can talk to trees now?"
"I don't fucking know. You know this damn thing is some kinda fae bullshit, it's probably *alive* in a way trees aren't or something. All I know is it was... thankful? But after that it was done. No more quakes."
"And theeeeeeeen?" Raye said, leaning forward.
"You're such a slut for drama."
"I sure am one of those things," he said with a big grin.
Frankie let out another verbal keymash. "Fine, fine, you nosy bitch. I came here with Mel, as you know, cause he needed a ride home. That's when I appologized for my bullshit."
"Aaaand?"
"*And*I may have asked him out to a movie."
"Ooo, which one?"
Frankie hesitated. "Yknow, never thought that far ahead. I should probably text him about that."
"I'm glad you're getting into the swing of things, hun. You're not usually one for the dating scene."
"I don't know if it's a date?? He called me like 'dude' and stuff after I asked."
"Well he did say yes to the date, right? You sure he's not just casual about it? He seemed like a casual, if excitable, kinda guy."
"I mean, fuck, I guess? You know this shit's rough for me. I don't pick up signals well."
"Says the one with literal mind powers," he chuckled.
"Ugh, don't remind me."
"Chin up, hun. I'm sure things will go great. Also you know you can just *ask him* if it's a date, right?"
"*Oh fuck,* you can just do that?"
"Gosh, it's almost like communication is important or something."
"Okay fine. I'll try not to get in my head about this shit." Frankie sighed, "Thanks, dude."
"Not a problem. Hey, how's Billy's junkyard holding up after the quakes?"
Frankie suddenly shot up out of the seat. "Oh shit I should go help her out with that huh."
"Better hop to it before she gets too pissed off."
"Right, fuck. Cya dude," Frankie said as she started grabbing her things and heading out.
"See ya Frankie."
The door slammed shut behind her as she hurried out into the fading dusk of Zodiac City.

## Time Passes - Just Nova Things

The smell of rust and mildew filled the night air of Billie's junkyard. Moonlight breached through the sparse gaps in Frankie's cozy fort of scrap and trash. She laid within, curled up over a new notebook, struggling to find the words to scrawl upon it. Raye had left it by the house last week with a kind note. They hadn't hung out since Frankie's accident. He must've known Frankie's been on edge.
The journal started with a series of scribbles and pokes from Frankie's idle stimming with the pencil. Among these was a doodle of an angry bird face squawking the word 'feelings!' at her. But eventually she started putting down words.
"I don't know how to do this. -- Well, the diary shit I mean but I guess also in general? It's like... everything is so *loud* now, I can barely think. I can barely hear myself over everything. I can't even push it down like I used to, and if I try it just gets louder and louder until I can't even brea--"
The pencil snapped. Frankie drew hard breaths. For a while, she sat in the quiet alone. It was all she could do to keep from tearing up.
After some long moments, her breath stiffened and her face twisted into fraught anger. The trash fort wobbled and groaned of its own volition.
"I'm done with this shit," she whispered through clenched teeth, "I'm done with sitting around doing nothing, I'm done with being so fucking afraid I can barely stand, I'm fucking **DONE!"** As she cried out, the junk shelter burst open in shreds.
Frankie stood, her breathing turned to a rush of frustration, and her eyes smoldered in dim violet. She walked, marching beyond the junkyard. As she did, the notebook and the broken pencil rushed beside her through the air. Violet burned slowly at their edges as they started to write independently of her fingers.
**"If this is who I am now, I won't waste it. I am Whisper, and I was built to break shit."**
The text radiated with bright psionic energy. When the entry was completed, the book snapped shut and suddenly scattered into thousands of burnt shreds.
Whisper drew her hood over herself, walking into the night in search of trouble.