The next twenty-four hours dragged by without incident, and Elsie was discharged the following morning. As a parting gift, the hospital sent her off with a goody bag of medication, an arm sling, and roughly translated verbal instructions on how to care for her injury. During this ordeal, Elsie practiced her acting skills by pretending like she was paying attention since she knew Minyoung was already taking note of every single detail.

Afterwards, they were unceremoniously shuffled out of the hospital by the Embassy's loaned security team. Elsie had only seen them whenever they poked their heads in her room, since she hadn't been allowed to leave, so seeing the stoic group up-close was slightly intimidating. It was made worse when they ignored her feeble attempts to make conversation, and they only spoke when they were providing her with instructions or they were giving each other status updates. The lack of chatter made Elsie restless; Minyoung merely rolled his eyes at her misery.

They arrived at Elsie's hotel without catching the attention of a single photographer that Elsie knew of. From what she gathered, the whole journey was a tight-lipped operation, especially since no one knew anything about the attackers from the Games. It was surreal being in the middle of a situation she had only seen played out on a screen, and she honestly hoped she wouldn't have to deal with it for long.

Finally, after a brief security sweep of her hotel room, they left her alone to flop back onto her bed in peace. Well, alone with Minyoung, but Elsie was an expert at ignoring him.

"Hurry up and get packed," he nagged as he kicked the bed frame. "We have to be at the airport in an hour."

"Plenty of time for a nap," Elsie grumbled in reply.

As much as she wanted to sleep, she knew Minyoung would eventually take matters into his own hands and pack her stuff for her. While he was normally organized and neat with his own belongings, he tended to have no regard for Elsie's things. So when she heard him zipping open her suitcases, she dragged herself upright two minutes later and haphazardly threw her belongings into her luggage herself. Single-handedly, she might add, because she really did have only one functional hand, which she reminded Minyoung of multiple times.

A knock came at the door ten minutes before they were supposed to leave, and Elsie didn't feel ready at all. Thankfully, Minyoung answered it so Elsie could stress in peace. By the time he returned, Elsie had managed to squeeze all of her belongings into her bags, but she was pretty sure there was no way she could carry it on her own.

"It's fine," Minyoung said when Elsie told him her predicament. "One of the new guards outside gladly offered to help carry your things."

"Really?" Elsie was doubtful that one of those stoic characters would ever make such an offer. And to do so "gladly" was out of the question.

"They're guardians, and before you go off and embarrass me," Minyoung needed to add, because Elsie's eyebrows had already shot up in interest. "Remember, they are here to protect you from whatever shit you've gotten yourself into. They've just finished competing in the Games and are now being assigned to protect you, so don't think they'll be eager to sit around for a friendly chat. Just... don't embarrass me, alright? Or yourself, for that matter."

Elsie had been nodding in agreement the entire time. While she wasn't as obsessed with guardians as other people were, she could spot a rare opportunity when she saw one. And being able to chat with actual guardians while she was preparing for a movie role as a meta? The timing was absolutely perfect.

"I know, I know, okay?" she assured impatiently. "I'll behave. Now, what are we waiting for? Let's go."

The two guardians that were waiting outside greeted Elsie in the hallway, and she immediately recognized them both from the team battles. Quentin Juneau, the Class 3 liquids and air guardian, was the one who had volunteered to carry Elsie's luggage, and he shook Elsie's offered hand enthusiastically.

"Please, call me Quentin. And I'm a huge fan," he said excitedly with a huge smile. "I used to watch For the People all the time as a kid, and I wanted to be a guardian so badly because of it." He gestured to himself in his guardian uniform under his business-like jacket. "And now I am!"

Elsie couldn't help but return his smile with one of her own. She frequently heard that For the People was a fan favorite, but the compliment rarely came from actual guardians. It was rewarding to hear that her breakthrough movie was actually appreciated by a variety of people.

Quentin's counterpart was less enthusiastic, but from what Elsie knew of her, it wasn't anything new. Amira Pala was a Class 3 guardian that specialized in passive and active cell regeneration; that is, she was healer. She was known to be very serious about her position, and was one of the few guardians who didn't have a secondary job. Instead, she dedicated all of her time to serving as both a guardian and one of the Org's media correspondents.

Her stoicism and professionalism showed as she firmly shook Elsie's hand and immediately directed them to follow her lead. Quentin brought up the rear, and as Elsie walked by him to follow Pala, he shrugged apologetically and, with a slight gust of wind, lifted her bags with ease.

They had a car running and waiting for them just outside the hotel lobby. Again, there wasn't a single reporter in sight, but Elsie recognized the suited security that had escorted her to the hotel earlier as they stood at various locations to ward off suspicious characters and prying eyes. One of them had been monitoring the car and handed it off to Pala with a few brief words before leaving Elsie completely in the guardians' hands. As much as Elsie appreciated their work, she wasn't that heartbroken to see them leave.

The drive to the airport was thankfully brief, and her "high priority" status allowed her to use a private security screening, customs, and waiting room at the airport. As she handed her passport to the customs agent, Elsie was secretly glad she ignored Minyoung's advice to carry her passport with her at all times. Had she done that, she probably would've lost her passport in the attack.

But as much as she wanted to rub that in Minyoung's face, he looked stressed out enough as they simply waited for their plane that Elsie decided to keep that ammunition for another time. Instead, she and Quentin discussed the final teams match in great detail, while Minyoung and Pala silently ignored them.

This year's Games had been Quentin's first time participating. It was unusual for someone to be in the team battles for their first Games and, according to Quentin, he was just excited to be there.

"I was freaking out," Quentin said animatedly. By this point, Pala had quieted him half a dozen times, so he was compensating by speaking loudly with his hands. "The earlier matches were easy. I don't know if you could tell, but the others didn't even need me to win up until the semi-finals. And even after that, I'm pretty sure I was completely useless."

Elsie shook her head. "No way. That match against Australia? If you hadn't knocked that Class 4 back when you did, it would've prolonged the match by at least four minutes. And then who knows what could've happened?"

"You think so?" Quentin seemed so happy to hear Elsie's positive critique about his performance that he looked like he was about to cry. "That means so much to me, you have no idea."

"They couldn't have won without you," Elsie assured him. "Especially in the finals. Did you guys have that planned the whole time?"

"You mean the earthquake?" Quentin shrugged. "Sort of. We thought that if our guys could get close enough, then they would take out their base themselves and Wyatt would be more than enough to defend ours. But if they took too long, she said she would just end up doing it herself. As for me, Wyatt just told me to just do whatever she told me to do."

Elsie frowned. "That sounds about right," she said without meaning to.

But the statement caught both Minyoung and Pala's attention: Minyoung was glaring at her, but Pala seemed genuinely curious.

"You don't get along with Officer Wyatt?" she asked, probably remembering the media that surrounded Elsie and Camilla's strong friendship.

Yikes. Elsie silently chastised her big mouth and tried to think of a way out of it.

"It's not that," she said quickly. "She's just a little difficult at times."

Thankfully, her answer seemed to appease Minyoung who stopped glaring at her and went back to typing rapidly on his phone. It also gained an understanding nod from Quentin.

"You're telling us," he said, earning him a sharp elbow to his ribs from Pala. "Ow! What? They already know about Wyatt, and no one else is here."

Pala frowned disapprovingly before turning to Elsie. "I can't stop his big mouth, so whatever he tells you stays between us, understood?"

Elsie nodded, trying not to look too intrigued by what they had to say.

"Okay, so you know how Wyatt was initially kicked out from the Academy for not having meta-abilities?" Quentin began.

Again, Elsie nodded. Camilla's backstory of going from a powerless false-positive to becoming one of the most powerful guardians in the world wasn't a secret. In fact, it just highlighted her metaphorical "rags to riches" story. Unfortunately, it also gave some teenagers false hope in thinking that they too had dormant powers that would reveal themselves when they were seventeen, two years after the average age, but that was another issue.

"So I was just starting out when they let her back in," Quentin said. "It was already a weird time, with a bunch of the student body gone after the attack on the Academy." He stopped as soon as he said that, eyeing Pala tentatively.

Elsie understood his reaction immediately. Pala was maybe a year or two above Camilla, so she too must have been a student when an unknown terrorist group attacked the Academy. It was almost a decade ago, but Elsie still remembered how she felt hearing the terrible news about the attack and how students only a few years younger than her had lost their lives.

Pala merely pursed her lips a little tighter, but she didn't say anything, so Quentin continued.

"From what I heard, she used to be on the timid side, you know? More of a follower and not really a leader. But when she came back..." Quentin made an exaggerated confused face to emphasize his point. "She was like a completely different person. It was like now that she knew she could kick everybody's asses, she could walk over us all."

"Language," Pala scolded sternly.

"Sorry," Quentin apologized hurriedly before continuing. "And she wasn't even sorry about it. The upperclassmen go on the field for practical experience a lot, yeah? And whenever they did that, she would just go off and do her own thing. I mean, sure, she could always handle the enemy by herself, but it's supposed to be a team exercise, you know?" He turned to Pala. "That's how she was, right?"

"Don't ask me, I graduated by then," Pala said.

"Right. Anyway, that's how she was for a while. Or, at least that's what I heard.

"I think... at some point during her last year, she had some kind of epiphany and started being super friendly and all that. Like weirdly friendly. And now..." Quentin shrugged again. "I mean, sometimes she's like that. All friendly and stuff, I mean. But now and then there are times when she just goes off and does her own thing and doesn't even talk to us. She did that in some of the earlier matches, yeah?"

"I don't want any part in this," Pala said solemnly.

"She did," Quentin assured Elsie. "It's weird. Wyatt's kinda weird in general, but damn, she is super strong. Like, I don't know what it is, but even if other people had the same abilities as her, they wouldn't be as strong as her, I bet. Too bad her personality is sh—"

"Language," Pala emphasized again. "Or better yet, just stop talking."

Quentin shrugged helplessly at Elsie, and they all waited in silence until boarding time. Even though Elsie established not too long ago that she was keeping her relationship with Camilla purely professional and it shouldn't matter, she was comforted in knowing that she wasn't the only one that found her character confusing.

The four of them boarded before the other passengers for security reasons. While Elsie was accustomed to flying first class, especially if high-end Minyoung was traveling with her, Quentin was amazed by the expansive amount of legroom and the luxurious lie-flat seats. Even Pala appeared moderately impressed, but it was hard to tell with her poker face. Apparently, they had flown in economy class on the way to Japan for the Games, but since their assignment was to stick close to Elsie, the government splurged to purchase them seats next to her.

As much as Elsie wanted to continue her discussion with Quentin, she was exhausted. Plus, she had to fall asleep before take-off anyway, or she would have to consciously endure the agonizing process of feeling the plane lurch off of the safety of the stable ground. So after she quickly settled in with an eye mask and her new headphones from Jordan, Elsie closed her eyes and immediately fell asleep.

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