Xaviers!

Train rides, even relatively short ones, are boring and Shari's kind of restless, excited for a night out with Natalie. By the time they're getting close to London Shari is lieing on her back on her seat, legs propped up against the backrest, watching the people that pass by them through the aisle and has been turning her face into imitations once they've passed and making funny grimaces at Natalie.

Natalie seems torn between wanting to disapprove and snickering at the faces. She mostly settles on snickering. "Do they have the euphemism about 'keep making that face and someday it'll stick like that' where you're from?"

"Oh yeah. And it's true too!"

She looks a little shocked. "It is? Or are you just messing with me?"

"It's a little true. As kids you're not really in control of it as much and you can totally get stuck. The saying's not specifically about faces though, just, you know, in general. Don't snap with a Gramlokk's jaw if you you can't empty the venom sacs."

"I assume that would fit right in if I knew what a Gramlokk was," she says with a soft laugh.

"They're these weird little ambush predators that are, like, 80% pincers and they literally can't let go till they squirt their poison on whatever they got. It's a game to trick other kids into doing just the jaws and getting stuck and everyone gets to sock 'em in the arm until they get unstuck. It's real dumb but hilarious." she chuckles.

"I guess kids really are the same everywhere," she laughs. "Anyone ever get you to do it?"

"Ugh, yeah..." she begrudgingly admits, flopping over in the seat to sit properly again. "I was kind of the one everyone picked on the most."

"I'm sorry. That sucks," Natalie says, reaching out to put her hand on Shari's.

"Eh, they were assholes anyway and also a million bajillion miles away, so fuck 'em, right?"

"True. You're here and with me."

"Speaking of which, we're almost here." she says, glancing out at the lights of the city.

"Good," Natalie says, "I'm starting to get hungry."

"Excellent!" she says, hopping up and assuming her regular (non-alien) shape. It takes a couple minutes of navigating out of the train station and down a couple of streets but finally they reach their destination. Although it might not exactly match what Natalie was expecting. It's not quite a hole in the wall, but mainly because it sits on a corner, doubling it's meager front, most of which is plastered with fading stickers and writing. The flickering neon-panel sign simply proclaims it's name to be 'Kebab Grill'.

"This is an interesting place," Natalie says carefully. She tilts her head and, without thinking, mentally looks the place up on the internet.

"It's great, trust me!" she says and pulls Natalie inside. The place's internet footprint is basically non-existent. It has a listing, but it looks to be an automatically generated one and there are zero reviews and one blurry zoomed in streetview image. The inside smells enticing if you like unhealthy food or terrible if cholesterol is something you're concerned about. Several chunks of meat and, surprisingly, one Tofu, are rotating slowly and sizzling behind a counter with various vegetables and condiments. Two ancient-looking fridges full of sodas and water are audibly humming in the back. The place has a total of three tiny tables and a radio somewhere is playing pop-music with foreign lyrics.

"Smells good," Natalie says, inhaling. Unhealthy food has started to bother her less and less as she gets more used to not being meat all the time. "Got a recommendation?"

"Yes!" she says before turning towards the rotund proprietor behind the counter. "Two Chicken Kebabs with everything, extra-large for me and a little spicy."

Natalie chimes in, "And two soft drinks, please." She digs into her pocket and fishes out her wallet, "How much for the lot?"

"Eight quid." the man behind the counter rumbles in some indecipherable accent before turning around and starting to slice off meat from the giant skewer.


"Worth every penny." Shari nods enthusiastically.

Natalie pulls out the requisite cash and sets it on the counter, watching the man work as he preps their food. "Do you want to eat it here or walk with it?" She asks, looking around at the tables.

"Oh we should definitely walk. The food's great but the chairs are very sticky." she nods sagely.

"Walk it is then," she says, patiently waiting for the man to hand over the food and drinks before motioning to Shari. "Shall we?"

"Yup!" she says, taking her food and heading out the door with Natalie.

"Okay, so, I had a couple ideas for stuff we could do. I used the Google to tell me a bunch of things and picked the ones that sounded the coolest and then also I know you like the electronic computer music, so I looked up a place that has it."

"Maybe the music, but what sounds cool to you?" She takes a bite out of her food as they walk.

"There's something called Laser Tag. Not sure what exactly that is but it has laser in the name, so it's gotta be pretty fun."

"Oh! It's a game. You wear these vests and they give you these laser gun devices. You then run around and shot each other. If you hit the vest, you get a point. There's some variations, but that's the basics." Then she adds, "I've never done it, but it sounds like fun."

"Excellent! Then we will laser tag!" she decides before taking a huge bite of food.

Natalie took a couple of thoughtful bites in silence as they walked, occasionally glancing at Shari.

And to the Laser Tag place they go. It looks to be an old, renovated warehouse with bright flashing and oscillating signs. Underneath the large 'LASER TAG' is intentionally warped letters in purplish tint reading 'Alien Assault'.

Natalie makes a thoughtful noise when she sees the sign, "Looks like they may have gone with an alien theme for this place." She glances at Shari, "You going to be okay with that?"

"I think it's pretty funny." she chuckles. "Come on, let's see if they let us be the aliens!"

"Okay," Natalie says, taking Shari's hand and heading inside.

An enthusiastic Shari pulls Natalie along as they sign up and get ready, get their harness and gun along with brief instructions and then wait along with a bunch of other people on their team for their round to start. Shari is handling the gun with strangely practiced ease, even if most of what she's doing has no real effect on the mostly prop thing, like checking the magazine and peering down the sights.

"These are not calibrated very well." she points out.

"Well, they not really intended to be," Natalie says, checking her harness and gun again.

"I question their commitment to this combat simulation then." she decides, taking aim at the wall and 'shooting' the laser a couple times to test her aim.

"It's just supposed to be for fun," Natalie says, "They're not really trying to simulate..."

"I'm joking. Come on, let's do the clown on some people, as they say."

"I don't think they say that..." Natalie says as they're ushered into the game.