Day Four of the Wedding

SCHWNG-CHK

“Gah!” I recoil as my entire vision goes blindingly white.

As the world comes back, everyone around me looks equally dazed. What the hell was that? Thinking of yesterday’s events, I find myself searching for Abigail across the hill. There she is, next to Zara and Robyn, not having noticed a thing. Oh well, at least that means it has nothing to do with her. She’s okay. We’re okay. I go back to making possibly the worst burrito of all time from an assortment of leftovers and am just getting ready to take a big bite that I’m sure to regret when the strange phenomena returns.

SCHWNG-CHK

This time the flash comes at me from the side, and I swing my head round automatically to see if I can catch a glimpse of the culprit but I am hindered by the fact of like. I can’t see anything. Because of the flash. Stupid blinding flash. By the time I can see properly again there is no clear source of what could have caused it. So bizarre.

I tentatively take a disgustingly dripping bite of my creation. No blinding flash. The burrito doesn't even taste too bad either. Hmm.

I wander vaguely around the hill, taking bites that vary in taste and texture. There's nowhere near as many people here as yesterday - a lot of Alliance folks started the trip back pretty much right after the festivities ended, or made an early start this morning - but there's still a bit of a crowd. It's basically a gathering of all the people closest to us, plus a few randoms that it's cool to see anyway. I'm so glad Trista and Xeq decided to stay the extra day, it's so nice to see them! I wave at where they're sitting with the rest of the Rec Squad and Xeq waves her tail enthusiastically back. I smile, remembering the ridiculous dancing we were doing last night.

Yes, I think, Abi was right, this is the beauty of having a wedding, bringing everyone together. God it's been stressful but I like to think it's been worth it.

And the stressful stuff is over now anyway, now it's time to just chill and eat the insane amount of leftovers.

As if tempting fate-

SCHWNG-CHK

I flail around as I am, again, blinded. What the hellllll. By this point I’m actually losing my mind, and I excuse myself and run back to the house with spots dancing behind my eyes and dig through my half packed piles of things until I find my scanner, not my Alliance issued one that I wasn’t allowed to jailbreak but my old one, which I basically added anything I could to. Whatever device is causing these recurring flashes, it won’t be able to hide from this thing. My beautiful scanner.

Of course the moment I return to the picnic Robyn spots me immediately.

“WHAT are you doing with THAT thing?” she says disapprovingly.

“Robyyyn.” I whine as she tries to take it off me. “I just need to do this one thing.”

“What did I tell you about your souped up Earth technology? You can’t be bringing those into crowds, it’s completely irresponsible.”

“Robyn, it’s fine, shh.” I wave her off, still attempting to focus on my scan.

“Next thing you’re going to tell me you’ve got a plan involving the 'teleport watch'.”

“Just let me focus, okay, and I’ll put it away. There’s been these weird blinding flashes happening, and a weird noise. I just need to figure out what’s causing it.”

“Sophie don’t be ridiculous, we’ve done a whole security sweep, there aren’t any dangerous devices that could blind people here. All the dangerous technology in this town is no doubt in your bedroom.”

“Ha ha.” I say, and then finally complete my scan. I’m ready to shove the results in her face until I see them. Just like she said. Nothing. Darn it. Maybe I am going crazy.

Robyn sees me frowning and leans over to look at the scanner with me, and I’m all ready to listen to her smug I-told-you-so lecture when it happens again.

SCHWNG-CHK

Robyn’s sensors go completely haywire and she recoils more dramatically than I could have thought possible. By the time my vision clears she is still clearly struggling.

“See!” I say triumphantly, and after a few more moments she normalises and looks at me defeatedly.

“I do see.” she says tersely. “Alright, let’s join forces to track down the source.”

We are abruptly joined by Lexie, looking extremely concerned. She begins, “Have either of you noticed-”

“A recurring blinding flash?” Robyn finishes for her. “Yes, we were just discussing it.”

"Lexie, is this related to your vision somehow?" I ask her nervously.

She stares at me like I've grown a second head. "How do you know about that? Did Abigail tell you?"

"Nope. Mostly a guess. Was it this though?"

She frowns. "I don't think so. But this doesn't bode well. I don't think she's noticed yet, but that's not going to last long now we're all standing around talking suspiciously about it."

"Well I don't know what we can do about it." I say. "My scanner isn't showing up anything helpful."

"We can't be the only ones who've noticed this." Robyn says. "If we ask around we might find someone with more information."

"Alright, let's do it then." Lexie nods at both of us and we nod back and then immediately head off in three different directions.

I ask Jason if he's noticed the flash, and he says no while his baby waves its fist distractingly at me. Podric has seen the flash but didn't notice anything helpful about it. Steve tells me he saw it and assumed it was my doing. Hmmph. I hide the scanner under a fold of my skirt.

Robyn, Lexie and I rendezvous and share what we've found out.

"Akhi said that he thinks it was Beth who was the source of the flash. He said he saw them carrying a box and pointing it at people." Lexie says. Weird.

"Well," Robyn says. "Barharf says that Greg got an ancient human relic from Earth specifically for the wedding and he's been bragging about showing it off the whole week."

"Greg?" I do a double take. "I didn't realise Greg was here. I haven't seen him the whole wedding. Although he is a shapeshifter so I guess..." Robyn and I lock eyes, gasping as we make the same realisation. "Oh."

Lexie goes. "Oh?"

Robyn says, massaging the sides of her sensors, "Of course. Fucking Greg."

"He loves to wear Beth's body." I explain to Lexie. "But normally he has blue skin or something, but I'm guessing..."

"Oh." Lexie says. "He looks like Beth. And we wouldn't have realised because of the Beth doppelgangers."

"Exactly." I say. "Okay, let's go find any Beth we can, and get to the bottom of this. I need to know what this ancient Earth device is."

We are about to embark on this quest when Abigail appears, eyes flashing with interest. I grin weakly at her. "Hii Abi."

"Alright, what's going on?" she looks between us but her eyes linger on Lexie.

Lexie crosses her arms. "Well apparently, some guy named Greg is going around blinding everyone."

Abi's eyebrows crease together. "Oh. Okay."

"And he's wearing Beth's body." Robyn adds.

"Greg's a shapeshifter." I explain and Robyn rolls her eyes and says "She knows." at the same time Abigail says, "I know."

"Okay, well, we're going to find him. Or them. Whoever we come across first. Want to join?"

She nods determinedly. "Let's go then." She locks her elbow with Lexie's and we stride together through the crowd, scanning around us for any sign of Beth.

"There!" Robyn points and we scurry over to where A Beth is standing with Rojjel sipping Paladanian wine. They both raise eyebrows at us as we approach.

I almost stop short as I realise I recognise the clothes Beth is wearing. This is the same Beth I saw last week, post time displacement. "That's the real Beth." I blurt out.

"Yes it is." Abigail confirms, glancing at me suspiciously. "But how do you know that?"

"Paladanian intuition is obviously contagious." I joke, and she shakes her head at me with a smile.

"Come on then." she says as we reach Beth.

"Bethany." Robyn says shortly. "Did you know that Greg has been attending this wedding as you?"

"Greg?" they say groggily. "What." Their eyes go wide. "Oh... that means..."

"Yes, he's been terrorising people with some sort of device." Robyn continues.

Lexie grabs Beth by the arm. "If you come search with us, he'll be easier to find."

But this turns out to be needless because as we are all turning to begin our search there in front of us is Greg-in-Beth's-body holding a box up to his face and then-

SCHWNG-CHK

We all stumble into each other as the flash overtakes all our visions. Naturally Abigail recovers first with Lexie close behind her.

"Greg-" Abigail calls out and then Lexie yells "Get him!" and we all surge forward and surround him. He looks around at all of us, bafflement crossing Beth's features.

"Heya Sophie. Sophie's wife. All." He holds up the device. "Just wanted to get some memories for you from the special occasion."

"Greg surely you realise you've been half blinding everyone with that thing." Robyn says sternly. "Hand it over."

"Naw, what's the problem." Greg grumbles but complies. "I get it's weird old Earth tech but it couldn't hurt anybody. And once I get the photos developed you'll be happy for the flash. I bet it'll look be-au-tiful."

"Photos?" Rojjel says confusedly.

"Ohhh it's a camera." Beth says, then swipes it out of Robyn's claws. "I've heard about these. That's like... crazy ancient."

"Hmmph." Robyn says, grabbing it back from Beth, looking it over some more before proferring it to me. I look over the thing with interest - it really is primitive tech - and then give it back to Greg.

"I definitely want to see those photos." I say to him.

"Happy to oblige." he replies with a grin that looks wrong on Beth's face.

"Well that's one mystery solved." Abigail says. "But why do you look exactly like Beth? I thought you weren't allowed to mimic people perfectly, you had to be visually distinct in some way."

I have no idea how she knows this but I join the others in looking expectantly to Greg for an answer.

He shrugs. "That's mostly a work thing. This is a wedding! Time to relax! Let your hair down. You get it."

"I guess so." Beth mutters. "But we are having a stern talk about this when I sober up!"

"What ever you want, Beth." Greg grins.

Alright, so mysteries solved for real then. That's pretty cool. It wasn't anything bad at all. Now we truly can just relax and enjoy the rest of the wedding.

As if on cue, a blurred figure runs into Beth, completely on fire. The extremely flammable accents to their collar immediately burst into flames and they pop out of existence - back to last week presumably.

We all watch in shock as the flaming figure continues to run haphazardly through the crowd. From the grim look on Lexie's face I get the impression they knew something like this was coming.

I sigh. Here we go again.