With her hand in my face and her bubbly personality, I would ordinarily feel a bit overstimulated; however, for some reason, I felt none of that and instead felt inclined to respond.
I reached out and took her hand for a handshake and introduced myself.
"Hello Claire, I'm Max. Darren introduced me to the specifications for joining your guild as a potential Diver."
Her already broad smile became even more blinding, and she raised her hands in exaggerated excitement.
"OMG! Then I definitely have to show you to everyone else! Darren is such a gloomy and scary guy, and I think he would scare you off!"
She took her eyes off me and glanced at Darren for a moment.
"Sorry, Darren, I love you, but it's true."
She shows a sad puppy eye expression for a second, showing her endearment. Darren just responds with a deep pan rolling of his eyes. After she saw his reaction, she glared back at me and started to almost anxiously goat me towards the outside of the office with her hands waving towards the doorway.
"Come, Come! Marco would LOVE to see you! He's right there!"
She waves her hands, looking outside the office, apparently trying to get Marco's attention, whoever that is.
"Marco! Marco! Come over here! MARCO!"
Her attempts at trying to get his attention seemed to go unnoticed as she got louder and, at some point, bolted towards the direction she was yelling towards, leaving my eyesight and the door open behind her.
I was left in the office with Darren still seated. I took my eyes off the doorway and looked back at Darren, confused and surprised. He looked back at me with his face blank as ever; however, now I can read a bit of resignation at the situation.
I stood up from my chair and started to walk towards the doorway.
«Why do I feel so inclined to go along with her introduction? I came here for answers, not to meet people and play the name game. But I stood up before I even thought it through.»
I stopped shortly before leaving the office and looked back at the chair I was just sitting in, tempted to sit back down and finish my conversation with Darren. However, I felt a nudge in my brain pushing me to meet those outside, and I went along.
Once I got out of the office door, I was met with four people doing their own thing, mainly finding a spot to eat the food sitting on a table in the middle of the open area on the top floor.
"Newbie! Max! Over here, meet Marco! He is really nice, and I think you guys would get along!"
I looked over at where Claire's voice was coming from and was met with her dragging a guy by the neck, trying to push her hand away; he seemed unable to help himself from just following her steps.
The guy was in a black sweatshirt and basic levy jeans. Overall, his choice of attire did not stand out. However, the thing that caught your eye was his hair.
His hair was black near the roots but fiery red highlights near the ends, about halfway through. The hair itself was thick, straight hair that was kept high and tight, with the sides of his head kept short.
Once Claire was in front of me, she let up on his neck, allowing me to see his face, which, in the end, seemed around my age, maybe a bit younger. However, he kept a toothpick in his mouth—
«Wait, why is his toothpick on fire?»
"Marco, meet Max, Max, meet Marco! Max here is trying to become a Diver! Tell him that story about your first portal; I love that one!"
Marco swatted her hand off himself, looked at her sternly, and then glanced over at me; however, I was immediately met with a questioning face and a hand waving in front of my face.
"Earth bender Toph here wants to be a Diver? He looks blinder than my 17-year-old poodle—he would die to the first threat, being unable to see."
He looked at Claire again, asking her if I wasn't standing right before him. I stood there resigned to the fact that I still got these reactions occasionally with my eyes.
Claire brought her hands to her mouth as if astonished at Marco's question and then looked at me with almost watery eyes.
"OMG! Is that true? Are you really blind, Max? I'M SO SORRY!"
My face turned even more sour, and I just leaned forward to meet eye level with Claire and pulled down on my eye bags, allowing her to look better at my eyes.
"No. I am not blind. I was just born with unnaturally cloudy irises, but it does not affect my eyesight at all."
I looked at Marco.
"Nice to meet you, Marco."
Marco responded quickly.
"Nice to meet you too, Daredevil, cool eyes I guess then."
He looked left to right quickly as if searching for something to do.
"Want to see a trick?"
«Where did that come from?»
"Uh- yeah, I guess."
He smiled, and then, all of a sudden, I felt hot air rushing towards me. From the toothpick on fire, a spool of fire detached from the toothpick and then grew fivefold and then in the shape of a ball shot towards my face.
In shock and perceived mortal danger, I fell back, shooting my face out of the way of the trajectory of the ball. However, before the ball of fire even got to where my face was before, the ball of fire disappeared.
Sitting on my ass, looking at where the ball was last seen, I screamed out.
"What the fuck was that?!"
Instead of answering me, Marco folded in half about laughing his lungs out, as if he pulled the funniest prank instead of just sending a ball of fiery death at my face.
"HAHAHAHA—You should have seen your face, Blind Al! I guess you CAN see, welcome to being a Diver—"
Before he could continue to laugh, his laugh was cut short as a punch that could KO Muhammad Ali toppled Marco onto the floor from Claire.
"I told you not to do that shit, Marco! I told you not to use your fire manipulation on regular people!"
Trying to get up off my ass, I started to move. However, before I got up, I saw a hand come forward from my left side, half-covered in black leather with the fingers visible.
I glanced toward where the hand came from and was met with women who I would imagine were thinking of Emo hard rock women.
With spiky black short hair and enlarged eyeliner, her almost black eyes popped. She wore a black leather jacket with material similar to the gloves and a pink shirt underneath, showing from the unzipped jacket. She wore leggings that seemed one size bigger than needed but seemed to fit her.
"Sorry about Marco; it hasn't been long since he got his fire manipulation, so he still likes to show off occasionally."
She said in a dry, melodic voice that seemed rough on purpose as if deepened artificially.
I took her hand, leaning on it as I attempted to get up. I was surprisingly able to get up easily with the help of her hand; as adverse to what you would expect from a woman her size, her hand did not budge even when I put all my weight on it.
I thanked her as I got up, and as I got up, I could gauge her height better. I was surprised to see her being even taller than I was, almost a whole half a head.
As a guy about 6'2", I usually am taller than those around me; however, she could be around 6'4" or more.
"Iris, the current manager here until the other 3 Mid-tier Divers are here."
She introduced herself. And then glared at Marco.
"As the current only figure of authority here, I'm sure Marco here is properly sorry for this."
«Sorry, not sorry, Marco, who told you to send a fucking fireball at my face.»
Suddenly, a high-pitched voice called out from a couch near us.
"Sucks for you, Marco; I told you not to do that shit, fuckface."
I looked over at where the voice came from and was surprised to see the personification of a girly girl. Pigtails off the top, face full of makeup, a pink shirt, and a skirt. What made the sight even worse was her being perched up on the couch with her knees up to her chest and resting on her feet, even though she was on the couch cushion.
Being berated by everyone near him, Marco looked up, apparently decided this new girl was the easiest to fire back at, and pointed the finger at her as an accusation.
"Tasha! I don't want to hear anything from you! You scared the last one!"
Tasha, the perched girl, pointed at herself as if offended by his words and fired back.
"Me? Get your memory checked fuckface; that wasn't me! It was that bitch!"
Following her direction, I looked over and was surprised to see a girl who looked exactly the same as Tasha, from her facial structure to her clothing.
"Same fucking thing! Both of you are Tasha. Don't try to blame everything on your clone; it doesn't work that way!"
Marco screamed even louder at Tasha, and in response, Tasha just looked away.
"Everyone, just shut up. You're ruining my tea, and Marco, apologize to Max here."
I looked over and saw another woman standing there drinking from a teacup. She looked like an overworked mid-thirties woman—messy shoulder-length hair tied in a low, half-failed bun, dark circles under her eyes like she hadn't slept in a week, and wearing a faded maroon sweater two sizes too big. Her sweatpants were rolled at the ankles, mismatched with her plush slippers that had clearly seen better days. Despite the tired look, she held herself with a strange kind of calm—like she'd already processed the apocalypse and decided to just make tea about it.
Marco looked over at her and looked a bit angry at her.
"Don't tell me what to do, Andre. You're not my mom."
"Apologies."
Instead of Andre, the woman drinking the tea, responding, Iris forced him to apologize.
"I am sorry."
Max reluctantly apologized, grabbed his sandwich on the table, and walked away towards a seat. Leaving the conversation.
«Sure is an interesting crowd here. It definitely doesn't seem like there are any boring days here.»
Claire walked back up to me and apologized about Marco again.
"Sorry Maxy! I didn't think he would do that! He really isn't like that usually! Wait—maybe he is. But you get used to it!"
«Great, guess I'll get used to the fireballs sent to my face.»
I looked back at Claire and asked, "Is this the rest of them?"
Claire looked around and responded.
"Uh—Everyone else is in their office doing work, and the only Diver here you haven't met is in the gym named Naomi; you will almost always find her in the gym unless she has work to do. You can meet them later, though!"
«If later comes to happen.»
I looked around at the people around me, who seemed to have gone back to eating their food, and it suddenly hit me that I was asking questions with Darren before this.
"Well, meeting everyone here was nice, but I'm returning with Darren for some questions."
"Okay! It was nice meeting you, Max!"
I walked back into Darren's office and saw him scrolling on his phone. So I knocked on the door frame, got his attention, and closed the door behind me.
"Back?"
"Yeah."
⋆⟡⋆⟡⋆
The next ten minutes were spent wrapping things up. I asked a few more questions—and got some answers that cleared things up. I thanked Darren for his time, got his phone number to keep in touch, and made my way to the building exit without interruption, seeing as everyone seemed to have gone to their office or done something else.
I was walking down the stairs about halfway down when I heard a voice come out from behind me.
"Max."
I turned—and saw Iris, the standing manager, leaning against the wall near the top of the stairwell.
She looked at me, dead serious, with a face telling me the next thing she said would be weighty.
"I would stop now if I were you, being a Diver, I mean. If you want to be a Diver, go ahead. But... think more about it. I've lost four friends just in the last year from Fate Baths, even more to mental illness caused by them.
"If you want to join us. This place's real. It's glory, yeah. It gives you power beyond what you can imagine. But it also takes a piece with it and fractures your soul. PTSD. Friends you talk to and won't even be able to bury. Don't walk this path mindlessly. Really need it. That's all. Have a good day, Max."
Then, she turned and walked back into her office, not waiting for my response.
I stood there for a moment.
Then, I started walking back outside silently with nothing but my thoughts in my head.
Once outside the building, the air outside was chill, but my back was soaked with sweat.
I stepped out of the Sundown Guild—and didn't look back.
{---[==={}===]---}