Ida followed Darius into the small diner, carefully taking in her surroundings. It was fairly dim, but not so much so that one would be bothered by it. Just enough to keep the electric bill down. She'd sent Jase - Itera's boss - a message that morning asking about the meeting place, and he'd responded. It hadn't taken too much for Darius to find the contact info.
Darius told the waiter what their reservation name was, and she led them to a long booth that already had three people seated on one side. Willing to oblige, Ida hopped up and scooted along the empty side, motioning for Darius to sit next to her. The waiter left menus and water, then left them to it.
A stocky man covered in tattoos sat on the outside of the booth. Probably that Jase guy. Next to the wall was a bored-looking girl who resembled Mist. That meant the nervous-looking girl in the middle had to be the girl Itera had mentioned. The one who could erase Miracles.
Ida narrowed her eyes slightly, glancing over the menu. Nothing seemed overly good, so she just told Darius to pick something. Not that he'd be eating it. If he so much as tried taking a sip of that water in front of him, she'd smack him. Cleaning out his tongue from Cleo's birthday party had been bad enough.
Silence fell over the table as both parties waited for the other to speak. Darius stared at the menu, carefully deliberating over each and every cheap item. It was enough to make Ida roll her eyes.
Finally, Jase spoke.
"Are you the one who spoke with Aubrey?" he asked quietly.
"Yup," Ida replied simply, looking him in the eye. Was that anxiety in his eyes? The three opposite her seemed to change their demeanor slightly at her response.
"We are quite curious about your Miracle eraser," Darius said with a smile. The expression was one of those uncanny ones he would make that looked more frightening than reassuring.
"I'm assuming that's you?" Ida looked pointedly at the girl in the middle, deciding to leave Darius and his creepy face alone for the moment.
"Yeah." The girl nodded, staring at her warily. "You're really the person she was so scared of?" A quick flickering of her eyes in Darius' direction showed which one she thought looked like the bigger threat.
"I made him," Ida said with a chuckle jerking a thumb in Darius' direction. "He's kind of my masterpiece. Though the actual personality is because the gods decided to start messing around. Before he was just a super complicated AI who did whatever I told him to. Now he talks back."
"Are you still upset about - "
"I'll leave it be. Just explaining our situation a bit. Now, what is your name? We've already managed to get names for Rosales and Hudson, but he's hid anything to do with you." She noticed Jase's jaw clenched slightly when she mentioned their last names. Really, he didn't have to be so tense. It wasn't like she was going to mess around with his criminal enterprises unless they posed an existential threat, and from the records Darius had found he was fairly small-time. Sure, the Phalanx had caused issues, but Paris was the one she was most mad at for that.
"Before that, we'd like to know who we're talking to, miss," Jase said coldly. Man, he sure knew how to make a scary face!
"So sorry. It seems to have slipped my mind. Name's Ida Karimi. This is Darius. Just Darius. Or D4R1U5 if you want to use his technical moniker. We're the ones responsible for keeping this city afloat."
"Aila Day." The girl reached over the table to shake Ida's hand. Good head on her shoulders at least.
"Good to meet you. Aubrey informs me you can suppress Gifts?"
Before Aila could reply, the waiter came back to take their food orders. Ida just let Darius order for her without really paying attention to what he asked for. When the waiter left, Aila lowered her eyes and took a breath before responding to Ida's earlier question.
"I can. I can also erase them permanently." She glanced cautiously at Jase, who raised his eyebrows in surprise. Apparently this was new information to him too.
"That's better than I dared hope for," Ida replied with a grin. "Why don't you erase them permanently?"
"I have," Aila replied slowly. "Yesterday I took away Whiplash and Light Master's Miracles. The one who gave me the Miracle said he wanted me to take away each and every one on Arx Nubibus."
"Then our goals align perfectly," Ida said, clapping her hands. "I'll help you out however I can. Just do me one favour - don't take Darius' away on me. That would be the equivalent of killing him and I don't feel like doing that yet. If you want to erase my Gift, though, go right ahead. I might wait until the others have been dealt with, but I do intend to have you get rid of it eventually.
"What?" Aila asked, looking surprised. "You don't want your Miracle?" She glanced nervously at Jase and Mist. "I thought for sure if people knew I could remove them permanently..."
"What, they'd be out to get you 'cause everybody's all happy when the other guy loses his advantage, but aren't willing to give up their own? Nah, not me. I've lived longer than Arx has been flying. I'm done. You know how annoying it is to have to remain an eternal seven-year-old in a world where people constantly mistake you for a kindergartener? I wanna grow up, and I wanna die someday. Like a normal person."
None of the three of them seemed to know how to take that.
"So I'll be looking for proof that you've in fact cleaned the Gift from Hinton and Baby Schultz, and once I've got that, I say we're in business. Darius, I'd like a report on Ms. Aila Day here. What do you think suitable payment and support would be?"
"Monetary for the most part. Up until a short while ago, her family was deeply in debt due to Aila's stay in the hospital. Aila worked three jobs to make ends meet before an attack from Hot Rod and Cold Snap nearly killed her, after which point she was unceremoniously laid off from all three of her jobs. She applied to numerous places without any luck up until the debt mysteriously vanished.
"No one from the organization responsible looked into it too much, so they haven't suffered any backlash." Darius looked meaningfully at Jase. "I would guess the agreement with Jase Rosales includes some sort of monetary compensation."
"Rough story. Makes sense why you'd wanna delete every Miracle then. Actually, I think I remember hearing about your incident. Yet another reason we need to get rid of all these problem children. Anyway, how much is Rosales paying you? I'll do my best to shuffle budgets and get some moolah for ya." Ida put her elbow on the table and grinned. She wasn't sure where precisely she'd get the money - she barely made enough to maintain the Underwing and take care of her and Darius' basic needs - but surely it wouldn't be too bad.
"Actually, he got me a job," Aila replied sheepishly. "I won't take a handout. And a job that will pay me long-term is worth far more than whatever you're temporarily offering."
"Wow, someone up here with half a brain. I'm meeting more and more of you nowadays. Here I'd given up because of chumps like Achilles."
"Please don't ever compare us to the likes of him," Jase said with a sigh.
"Yet you hold the reigns on him, don't you?" Darius asked. "You've let him get quite out of hand. Almost as out of hand as Paris."
"Is that so?" Ida asked, raising an eyebrow. "He's the one sponsoring the Legion?"
"I had to do quite a bit of digging since he made it difficult to trace, but it was no match for me."
"Good job, kiddo. Then I have a proposal for you three." Ida leaned in more, grinning as things finally started to take shape and an end came into view. "According to my sources, Team Chaos has vanished without a trace. I have my clairvoyant looking into it at the moment, but after all the nonsense yesterday she's pretty tired, so she's probably still asleep.
"First, we take out Team Chaos. I've also got several more in prison for you to remove Miracles from. The sooner the better. Anyone in prison is basically free for me to get you to. After them, we deal with those small-time bandits people refer to as celestial messengers. Next come any civilians causing issues. Finally, once we've cleaned up all that, we clean up the Legion, your group, and my Underwing crew. Last but not least, you take away my Miracle. Then you've accomplished your mission. Darius and I will provide whatever support we can. This weirdo can trace anyone anywhere."
"Except the current whereabouts of Team Chaos. I'm hoping to get a lead from them later today, though," Darius said, still with that same creepy smile of his. Ida couldn't take it anymore.
"Darius, your expression's been sitting in uncanny valley territory this whole discussion. Fix it."
Darius frowned and tried moving various parts of his face, which ironically made him look even weirder.
"Is this better?"
"Worse."
"How about this?"
"For crying out loud, let me move it you idiot."
She poked his face a few times, carefully settling his expression into something a bit more normal-looking.
"So?" Ida said, reaching across the table to Aila once she was done with Darius. "Do we have a deal?"
Aila thought for a moment, then reached over and shook her hand.
"Tentatively."
"Great. Let's work out the rest of the details over breakfast."
As if on cue, their food arrived two seconds later.
