Devolve 2.0 The Reboot

Lance had never been a great mechanic, and he hadn't really ever worried too much about it. It had always been enough for him to be one of the junior people at the shop, doing whatever jobs they gave him. There were a few times when he had screwed things up but never to the point where things were irreparably broken. All you had to do was teach Lance once, though. At least when it came to mechanics.

So Lance was more than happy to be doing whatever small things he could to the tractors. He was humming while he worked. Fortunately it wasn't Gaga; it was some Maroon 5 song, which probably wasn't much better when he asked some of the music snobs around here, but he doubted that Chase would care too much.

"Since your wife's mental T-Rex hasn't eaten me in the night, I guess I'm not being a bad enough influence on you yet, huh?" he asked with a wink.

Lance had put it off long enough, but now he was going to face his doom. Or, well, Raven. It was basically the same thing. So. Training. With Raven. It was like someone had just held a mirror up to his past and told him to look into it. Only Lance knew that the him from back then was a far cry from the person he was now.

Which meant that he wasn't gonna let Raven play any of her fucking mind games. She was still here. Maybe time had changed her for the better as well.

He wasn't gonna hold his breath, but it was possible that it could happen.

As he walked down the hall toward the Danger Room--weren't they all fancy schmancy here?--Lance rolled his shoulders and took deep, cleansing breaths. He had never been to actual anger management classes, but he knew some of the techniques.

When he got there, he knocked. Like a dumbass. But what else was he supposed to do?

Aprileen, so far, was a success. The younger kids had gone bouncing from room to room, collecting small sweets and little trinkets from the people who had volunteered. The costumes had been adorable, even under the somewhat limited circumstances. Once all of the children had had their fun and headed back to their rooms, it was time for the party to start.

The classrooms had been decked out in traditional Aprileen style, with greens and purples, and a small amount of alcohol had been procured from the stores. There wasn't nearly as much food as they'd had at the last party, but there were enough munchies to hopefully keep people happy. A playlist of carefully selected songs had been set up, though they fully expected someone to decide to step in and play DJ at some point during the party, and a dance area had been cleared in the first classroom.

People had started to head down to the party as soon as the last of the kids had cleared their trick or treat spots, and by the time nine rolled around, there were already a fair amount of people hanging out, in costumes that ranged from marker goatees to impressive works of art.

( First you wanna kill me, now you wanna kiss me )

( Bat outta hell and on its way )