As we play, it starts raining a bit. Just a sprinkle. And I open my arms out wide, with my face to the sky, and I just smile and laugh. I take deep breaths, loving the smell of rain, and when I open my eyes, I gasp.

A rainbow! Right overhead!

I glance around to find James and see him with a small smile on his face looking at me.

"Want to go find the end?" I ask.

He grins and nods.

We start by walking, but it quickly turns to running. We must be a strange sight to see. Both of us, running to the end of a rainbow, soaked to the bone. I see some people staring, but I don't care, and I don't think James cares either.

We keep running, even when the rain stops, because the rainbow is still there.

The moment we see where it touches the ground, both of us start running even faster.

We get it there and it's a little disappointing because the rainbow just ... ends. I touch it with my finger, but it just goes straight through.

I look over to James who is grinning and breathing hard.

"What?" I ask, confused. There are many legends that say there's a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, but we found nothing.

"There's a story," he says, still panting, " that only the strongest, bravest, and most powerful can make it to the end of a rainbow."

"That's cooler than ours. Where I come from, they say that there's a pot of gold."

"There is?!"

"No, it's just a legend."

"Oh." James deflates a little. "That would've been cool, though."

"Yeah." I agree.

We wait there for a few minutes until the rainbow disappears, just watching the shimmering air until it fades to nothing.

I get up. "We should probably go back, shouldn't we?" I wring out my shirt, trying to get as much water out as possible, so there might be a possibility that I would be somewhat dry by the time we get back.

James stands too, not bothering to try and get the water off of himself. Instead, he closes his eyes, and becomes very still. All of a sudden, the water goules off him like a blanket, before falling to the ground. James stands there, completely dry, smiling at me.

"Can you get the water off me too?" I ask, feeling the weight of my water soaked hair under an equally soaked hat.

He nods and closes his eyes in concentration. 

It feels weird having all the water removed from your clothes. It's like the sun beaming on your clothes so hard that the water evaporates, just get rid of the fact that you'd be really hot. Once the water falls to the ground, I touch my head feeling the hat Charlie made for me. It didn't feel broken or damaged like some other hats and warm before. I felt fine.

James sees me touching it, and says, "Her hats, along with her clothes, are really high-quality."

I nod in agreement. I've been wearing her clothes all day, and I found that they're really comfortable, along with durable, including the fact that I went on a very long run. Or two, considering that both James and I had just ran from that basketball court.

Running like little kids, forgetting all our troubles like how everyone wants to kill James, like how I'm still technically on the run, like how I've got no idea how to survive the competition.

Before I can go spiraling down a rabbit hole, James looks at me and says, "We should get back."

"Hey! I already said that!"

I complain, but follow him anyway.

After a long while of silence, James starts up a conversation. "So, how are you doing?"

"Other than the near death experiences, I'm ..."I pause, looking for the right word. OK isn't exactly accurate. I settle for one word that describes it all. "Alive. For now."

"Are you ready for the next challenge?"

"Nope. Not at all. I have no idea what to do, and sometimes I feel so unprepared."

"I would too. I mean, if I just got dropped in a random place where everything is weird and different, then I probably wouldn't survive."

"Yeah. If you ever got to see where I'm from, I doubt you'd last long, especially without powers. Having to do everything manually makes everything so much harder."

"Well, what's the point of being like everyone else? I wouldn't want to be the exact same as Someone. I want to stand out."

Quote with that bright blue hair of yours, it wouldn't be a problem. You stand out like a sore thumb."

"A sore thumb? Wouldn't someone with a sore thumb try to keep it hidden, not make it stand out? It doesn't make any sense."

As I think about it, the more that makes sense, or doesn't, depending on how you look at it. "Huh. I never really thought about it. It's just a saying. Like some other ones. For example, happy as a clam. Clams aren't really happy, are they? Most just end up being eaten. I doubt they're happy about that."

"Yes, exactly! Whoever created that saying must've not known what clams are. Or maybe society was just really sad, and so the saying isn't how happy someone is, it's to show how sad they are. It sounds better than saying sad as a clam, anyway."

I nod in agreement. That could be true. I guess we'll never know for sure.

We reach the abandoned court and I follow James to one of the back doors, this one bright green.

He opens the door and calls out, "hey, Adam? Are you home? It's us."

I doubt Adam would know who "us" is, unless James has done this before.

Before I hear a response, James walks in, going to a room on the left. I follow in after him, not really knowing if it's all right, just knowing that it would be really awkward to wait outside.

James sits at a table with his feet on top, in the middle of a room that looks like a kitchen, and grabs himself an apple sitting in a basket at the center of the table.

I sit down next to him, not knowing what else to do. Thankfully I didn't have to wait long until Adam walked around the corner. He smiled and waved.

"He Adam." Says James, sounding as relaxed as ever. "How's it going?"

He gives James a thumbs up.

"Sorry if I worried you at all. I didn't kill anyone, I swear." Hearing him say that made me remember the competition. I completely forgot. I would've been a little offended that he'd taken this long to see me and say that, but in Adam's case, he just looked at James, then me, then back to James with a suggestive eyebrow raised with a smirk on his lips.

James blushes slightly and says, "Listen. The Beauty Pageant is going to start in a little while, so in the meantime, Scarlet needs to get some sleep. She stayed up all night watching the Hunting Range, so she needs some rest to be able to do well in the next competition. Could she stay here for now? Charlie's great and all, but she doesn't exactly work quietly."

Adam nods and beckons us to follow. I stand along with James and we walk to his spare room. Inside, there's a bed in the corner, a dresser at the foot of the bed, along with a closet, and a small desk across the room.

It's both sweet and cozy, but what really catches my attention is the walls.They have a beautiful scene of the sun shining on a forest with animals and a river, creating shadows along the path. It has all three houses. Nature, with the trees and animals, Water, with the river, and Shadow, with, well, shadows.

James sees me staring in all, and says, "I was also surprised and impressed when I first saw it. Actually, I went home to my mom and begged her to do the same. She said no."

"Aww. Why not?"

"Because Charlie uses the spare room as a workshop. Also because none of us can paint. Or draw, for that matter."

"Solid reason." I continue walking in a slow circle in the middle of the room, admiring the walls. I open my mouth to ask Adam a question, but quickly close it. Adam doesn't talk. He communicates with hand gestures and facial expressions. Why? I'm not sure. 

Yet.