#tonix

Even if he was still relatively new to the warfront, Tonix was a brother-in-arms she’d known from the beginning.  He had his own work to do in the area: That evening, however, was a time to celebrate. It’d been ages since they’d last met up.  The agent glanced around the treehouse’s improvised mess hall until she noticed a familiar, tall, red hat sticking out from the crowd.  She smiled, walking over to the figure with a trayful of food in hand.

“Glad to finally get some real food?” she greeted, sitting across from him at a fold-up table.  

Looking up from his meal, the dark-haired young man flashed a grin of his own in pleasant surprise.  “Hey, you made it!” he cheered back, swallowing a hefty bite. Then he looked down, poking at some greens with a fork, “Yeah, sure beats the usual rations anyhow—or maybe I’m just that starved.”

“You don’t know the half of it until you’ve spent some time over at Townsville Park’s base,” Silya reached for a nearby salt shaker, “Let’s just say that the Scotsman and Max Tennyson aren’t two guys who should ever share recipes.”

She looked down at the spread in front of her.  Really, whoever’s turn it was in the kitchen had gone all-out: Rolls, brick-a-broccoli casserole, corn on the clob, roast meef, you name it.  Someone had even fried up cinnamon apples. Maybe it could be blamed on the season, but she was thankful for it nonetheless. One person could only stand eating MREs for so long.

“I thought you didn’t like Marzipanian food,” Tonix commented, pointing at her tray with his fork.

“I don’t,” she replied, biting into the corn, “but I can stand it—so long as it doesn’t talk back to me anyway.”  Really, she didn’t understand most of the strange foods that came from that place. Nevermind the borderline sentient stuff; the idea of burple nurples made her cringe, the gamble with crazy cakes wasn’t worth it, and soso souffle was just plain disgusting!  There were a handful of good desserts though, and a part of her actually wondered if there were any strudel doodles around.

“Do you still want to go out for ramen sometime?”

“If we could ever find the time.  You mean that hole-in-the-wall place you talked about?”

“Yeah, it’s close to Marquee Row.  Maybe we can drop by if we’re both ever stationed in the city together.”

Her smile turned bittersweet.  It’d be awesome if it weren’t for the war sending them both everywhere.  If a Fusion Fighter wasn’t stationed anywhere specific, it was easy to get caught up running from one mission to the next. The adrenaline was limitless, but all aspects of normalcy were pretty much gone.  Rather than say what they already knew though, she nodded, “You know, I get sent to Tech Square a lot as a research participant.  Maybe we can find a way to meet up then.”

After that, they went quiet for a moment, more than content with filling their empty stomachs.  Did she even eat more than a granola bar that day? Silya had started travelling around dawn and had only made it to Sector V within the past hour.  

She didn’t know when Tonix had arrived, but he seemed to be just as invested in his food.  Where had he been stationed last again?  She thought he was still assigned to the suburbs, and the locals tended to care for most of the Fusion Fighters’ basic needs when possible to do their part for the war effort.  Maybe it was partially all of the training keeping him hungry—and the running around on odd jobs for their commanding officers.  

When the both of them were halfway through the meal, Tonix asked, “Did you hear that the Morbuckses increased the storage limit at the banks?”

“Already purchased the gold membership.”  As if slighted by her own, small confession, Silya ripped a hunk of bread off with her teeth.  As much as she hated giving into the overall snobby family, they’d pretty much monopolized the banks—probably because there was nothing else compared to their systems.  Honestly though, she was desperate.  She’d made quiet a collection of armor, weapons, and data files during her travels as an independent agent: It was easier for her to bite the bullet and buy the extra space than to give up on what she’d earned.

He chuckled a bit at her short response, “This is what happens when someone wants every sword they find.  Don’t you use a shattergun most of the time anyway?”

“Keep my Scottish Claymore and Scythe Jr. out of this.”

Laughing again, he just shrugged, “Well, the Morbuckses aside, let’s take it as a good sign that the banks are growing.  Maybe it means that things are finally beginning to get back to normal.”  Tonix picked up his glass thoughtfully, then raised it toward her in a small toast, “To taking back our planet!”

Silya’s grin returned. She mimicked the gesture, clanking her cup against his, and recited a familiar line known to all of the soldiers, “Down with Fuse!”