Apocalyptic Rebirth: With a repairman system space, she rises again.-Chapter 512: Mixed reactions.

If looks could kill, Nimo was certain that she would be dead. The way Dwayne was looking at her was chilling. Like he wanted to grab her neck and twist it.

She shuffled her feet on the ground, torn between saying something flirtatious and dashing into the safety of her house. The door was three feet away; it was so easy to escape.

But it was Dwayne.

Dwayne, the man she was infuriatingly crushing on. Even that dark scowl on his face was cute. So cute that she wanted to poke his cheek with a finger and kiss it away.

"What were you thinking going out to the forest without telling me?" He barked.

Nimo flinched. No poking and no kissing. She peeked at the scowl which had deepened and winced. Yup, no kissing.

"I was thinking that my best friend had told me to show up and help her, so I followed her." She replied and shrugged. "It was no big deal. We had exo suits, we were very safe out there."

"Safe!" he growled. He grabbed her right shoulder and he winced. The scowl on Dwayne’s face was replaced with worry. None the less, it did not take away his fury and so he continued to bellow as if he was talking to his fourteen-year-old daughter that had stayed out for too long. "Do you know what dark times we are living in young lady?"

Nimo arched her brows and giggled. "Young lady!" She pointed to her chest. "I hate to break it to you Dwayne, but I am twenty-five, not five."

He clenched his fist. "It doesn’t matter. And I am not talking about your age. I am talking about your lack of proper decision making. How could you just follow Sunshine and Leah into the forest because they asked you to? Do you know what things live in the forest? Do you even remember that we are living in an apocalypse? Sunshine and Leah are superhumans, you are not. If they want to be stupid, they are allowed to. You are not."

Nimo huffed. This conversation had started out well perhaps. She had been touched by his concern for her safety and well-being. But now, it was beginning to irk her. She felt underestimated and she was not having that.

She raised her hand. "You really disappoint me, Dwayne. I would expect such rhetoric from Elio, not you. No... even Elio is better because even though he thinks women are the weaker sex, he acknowledges those that prove to be equal or better than men in combat. I am just as strong as Sunshine, maybe even stronger than Leah without her air control abilities."

"This is not about gender, and I don’t think women are the weaker sex." He quickly cut in to stop her from going with the wrong assumption. "I am just stating facts here. They are superhuman, you are not. Their odds of survival are greater than yours." He softened his voice. "Do you know how worried I was when you did not show up for our morning run? I almost lost it when I could not find you in the base. These are bad times for someone to lose their loved one because the loss tends to be permanent." He ran a hand through his hair and exhaled. Then, he muttered curses under his breath, turned and walked off abruptly.

Nimo watched him departing, a reluctance in her eyes that competed with defiance. As much as she liked his care and concern, she loathed his opinion on her strength. Just because she was not a superhuman did not mean she was less than others.

She marched into her house, ignoring the whining of her dog that was clearly making moon eyes at Dwayne’s departing back.

"You chase after him, I won’t." She opened the front door, entered the house and slammed the door shut with too much unnecessary force.

****

At Sheldon’s ice cream parlor, Dominic and Leah were shopping for frozen treats. They were each holding one of Ala’s small hands.

Leah had just finished narrating how they had kidnapped Amber and she was sharing her opinion on all the ways Sunshine could have handled the situation.

"I think she should have fed her to the fish and ended it. Or dropped her off in Silverdale in the middle of the mutated beast fields. Hell, even leaving her in the forest would have been a great punishment." She dropped five tins of Let it go berry ice cream in the basket. "Better yet, she should have tied that woman to a flagpole and let the sun roast her for a few days."

Dominic’s jaw dropped and his eyes darted to Ala. Their almost four-year-old daughter. Their impressionable young daughter who simply loved doing and repeating everything her mother said.

"Leah, Ala is here for God’s sake!"

Leah looked at Ala. "What do you think baby? I know Ariel must have mentioned to you some things about his birth mother."

Ala nodded. "She is not a good person."

Leah smiled victoriously at her husband. "See."

"We should tie her to the flagpole." Ala followed up with her opinion.

Dominic frowned.

"Daddy, what is the best temperature to roast a bad person?" Ala asked. "We can kidnap her again and roast her. Ariel will be happy. I will call him and tell him about this when we get home."

Leah laughed.

Dominic scowled. He decided to introduce more age-appropriate friends to his daughter. Friends that sung ’ABC’ and Mary had a little lamb.

****

Sunshine was also narrating the forest adventure to her husband and sons in the living room of their home. Only three people in the house were scowling. One robot dog that thought it should have been taken along for the mission as her guard dog.

One robot that thought she had wasted time on frivolous matters instead of joining him to research the ice moon which had been Sunshine’s idea to combat some of the heat.

And the last was one bear cub that had been denied the right to eat a third tin of ice cream because whenever he overindulged, he would get massive brain freeze and let out roars that rattled the windows.

Castiel had named them "ice cream thunders."

And there were the brain frees hug attacks. To feel better, the bear would insist on being hugged by everyone tightly until he stopped shivering. The hugs were not the problem. The burping was.

Those fish, cracker, salmon, chocolate and honey scented burps which made everyone groan and wave their hands dramatically to clear the air.

So, no matter how much dramatic flopping and groaning White made, there would no more ice cream for him today.

As soon as Sunshine finished narrating the story, she realized what she had forgotten.

She jumped up and gasped. "Hades, I think we left Amber in the forest." She looked at her husband and the boys, eyes wide with horror.

"A worthy accommodation for her." he muttered.

Ariel snorted.

Earl sighed. "Unfortunately, Major Elio found and returned her to Westbrook. She is in the medic bay. The nurses are gossiping about it on a text message chain. Why do good things happen to bad people?"

"Because karma is a bi...." Hades started,

Sunshine leaped and covered his mouth, sending Castiel’s melted ice cream flying. It fell on White’s head, trickling down to his snout.

As the bear licked it, everyone groaned.

"I am not hugging him." Castiel declared.