Second Chances

February 19th, 2024 – Monday: 11:55 PM

Gryphon and Miss Amazing were making their way to leave the casino after Gryphon pleaded with the staff to at least let him tip those that made, served, and cleaned after the fact the meal’s cost so they can split it, if they won’t let him pay. Miss Amazing had never seen Gryphon happier and since his armor was not present his heroic form’s face was clear and present. If they ever stood side by side Gryphon would always be Garrick’s really hot looking, much taller, few years younger, brother. Only the handle bar mustache and eyes would mark them clearly as brothers. He walked up and thanked Jake for being brilliant and figuring out a way to cure the zombies, Granny2Good for packing a fast right hook, Zeau for being the most dependable support hero and strategist, and Beast for being whatever the team had need of him to be.

All this to a packed house and then he takes Miss Amazing’s hand publicly and bids everyone good night but his partner and he need to get their rest. They leave and once they reach outside they gently take off holding hands. Miss Amazing changes her outfit to black once they’re about 30 feet in the air. Gryphon pulls her close as she whispers something to him. They both wave with a free hand to everyone below and the pair then ROCKET UP, UP, AND AWAY!

Minutes later they are home and Katherine jokes that she kinda understands what Black Phantom went through with Granny2Good. Gryphon continued to smile and he bid adieu to the “Power of the Gryphon” and began to change for shower and then bed. Katherine noticed he was still smiling and asked what was the smirk for.

Garrick said, “Seeing second chances happen for people are nice. I remember my father read a lot of motivational books and when I asked him why he told me that motivation is only useful done often, like bathing if you stop doing it you’ll stink. Tonight when I saw what Jake was doing regardless of what he’ll tell you. I believe he was engineering hope. Most of you can’t see the spiritual orbs until they choose to manifest themselves. But his serum caused a faint light to come out of the mouth and eyes of the one I was holding for the live broadcast. I saw a single orb gravitate to it and realized no one else saw this. So, I made sure no one could see the serum pump he had installed the body’s back. That serum called the soul back to its body and allowed it to have a new shot at life! He gave those victims a second chance and the city gave him one in return!”

Blinking at hearing the very positive view from Garrick, it almost reminded her of his TED Talk self from almost a decade ago. He was animated and excited to the point of looking adorable as he continued, “My father and a number of wise people have said if you want things in life all you have to do is help everyone around you find the things they want. So I tried to just do my part and help his demonstration go off without a hitch. Sure it was a small thing, but it helped lead to our date night. I didn’t really do much in the fight,” Katherine furrowed her brow at that because she saw him do so much, “but what I did do led to others being able to do big things! Granny was able to wake up because I mastered my nausea spinning at 300 mph! Then I remembered which way to tilt the blade forcing the air up and away so Granny could not only wake up but it allowed her to see BP follow Papa Zombie and escape. I was even able to learn how to hit something and not loose momentum! Just because people weren’t forgiving me and giving Garrick,” pointing at himself, “a second chance does not mean I didn’t do my part to help the team win. Richard now has a win under his belt and maybe Xander will pause because they just got a win as well. A lot to be grateful for! My time will come in due course I just have to stay on this path.”

Very surprised that he rebounded to a very positive outlook on everything. Both of them were standing in their undergarments as Garrick walks over and took Katherine’s hand in his. “It’s you Kitty Kat that inspire me, stand by me, and support me. You’ve given me the freedom to explore what goals I want for myself, for us, and I only hope that I continue to be worthy of someone as amazing as you. Regardless of whether I develop relationships with anyone else, I know it is only possible because of your love and trust for me and my love and trust in you. Someday when you’re ready, because I learned that lesson with over sharing. I’m going to have to have Mrs. Falkenberg design you a glove so a ring will fit underneath it. That’s what you mean to me. I know its sudden! I know I sound crazy! Perhaps you and all of this is my second chance? I’m rambling now,” he sighed, “let’s just get in the shower.” He never even noticed Katherine biting her lip with the biggest grin ever. She looks stunned, but she quickly recovers. “There will be time for that, eventually. But for now…” She pulls out the card Garrick gave her with the information on who to reach out to for the Norwood Knights. With a mischevious grin she says, “Why don’t you invite your friends to join us tonight?”

February 20th, 2024 – Tuesday

When Black Phantom arrived the Norwood Knights were leaving! Garrick was not dead and Katherine, Tyra, and Ameera got him coffee with a kiss on the cheek from each! Tyra and Katherine winked at each other, and Ameera told him she see him for lunch.

He trained for an hour that morning after Black Phantom gave him his routine. Then he spent an hour working on changing the second bedroom around into a new office since he now shared his room with his girlfriend. Two months! Everyone has hopes and dreams when New Year’s Eve rolls around but even he could not believe what two months would have brought. He made a promise to himself to take a vacation soon for a weekend just so he could relax from all the changes. Maybe by then Katherine and Ameera will have become great friends. She and Tyra hit it off well though, she even signed her shirt. Hmmm, he thought that he’d have to plan different vacations so each felt special and Katherine didn’t doubt his intention to marry her one day. Once logistics settled into this he realized why the cartoon or anime style “harem” was a project planning nightmare. He decided then that there was no way he could feasibly balance more than four relationships. The best thing he could do was just keep his life as normal as that could be now. If he didn’t go looking for more relationships he should be fine, right?

Seemingly convinced he had figured out a working plan he looked at the clock and headed off to change for work. He fires off an email to Brandon Mallic about some changes and notifications he might be interested in. Checking in with his team they are on track and the Level 2 Server has not been broken. Brandon tells Garrick he’s got some great plans to put that space to use if he can make it available for that price! He looks at Garrick seriously for a moment and says, “Usually I’d tell a good worker like yourself to consider your morning appointment a ‘business’ appointment and not to worry about vacation or calling in. But you… I know you’ll just feel obligated to have to somehow do all your morning work anyway even while trying to fit in your meeting. Take the day off – that’s an order! Let your team take the load for you on Thursday.”

He mentions that Constance got back to him and they have a meeting scheduled to go over the HR stuff and ways handle his “potential” harassment issue from Blake in marketing. Since you didn’t give any details he just says, “Good, good,” he says, smiling. “She’ll know better how to handle your situation. She’s been pretty busy this trip so I haven’t told her yet about you. It’s just as well you’ll tell her personally.” He nods and doesn’t seem to give it much more thought.

A little after 9 AM Garrick called up the Giving Tree. The Gryphon of S.A.V.I.O.R. had wanted to stop by and was asking for Garrick to be a proxy to help preserve their anonymity. They had told Garrick that if the Giving Tree wanted to host a charity meet and greet where all the proceeds (money for autographs and pictures) would go to the Giving Tree they’d be happy to help. “Of course! The kids would love meet the hero of Norwood, and the friend of Jake Thompson!” Garrick mentions the Gryphon had wanted to check up on Julianna, the lady with the injured leg they carried over. “Juliana? The woman Gryphon rescued and was sent to Koan Medical? I haven’t seen her around. I don’t think she was one of the regulars here.” When asked if he would be in attendance Garrick mentioned there were plans regarding another trip out to California and he had to prepare for that. Gryphon volunteered to serve the food Garrick had prepared though. After hanging up Garrick shot a text off to Richard in case Spirit wanted to help or there was something Garrick needed to be aware of regarding a meet and greet. He also asked Richard to check on Koan Medical about the unauthorized cybernetic issue he was concerned with regarding Julianna.

As time presented itself during checking on his team, running reports for next week, working on coding and compiling future updates. He checked in as the Gryphon on social media under the hashtags #Gryphon #NorwoodKnights #PapaZombie #PapaZombieBust and finally #SAVIOR. Most of the posts and tweets also had #JakeThompsonLLC which made Garrick laugh because Jake had always appeared to him as though he wanted to be anonymous. The Norwood Knights are earning their relationship with Garrick. They’ve boosted Garrick on social media in a way that rides a bit on Jake’s fame. It’s all variations of “Without The Gryphon’s help, Jake wouldn’t have been able to work his amazing miracle!” Garrick was fairly certain Jake’s not seen any of this yet, but Garrick recognizes one user responding negatively – it’s one of the Shorty’s that lives with Jake (pretty sure it was the one scheduled to go to school this day). He laughs and texts him he’s sorry that he got stuck with class today. Still, what Jake said about having to defeat all those trying to come after him, and it making “him” like his “other him.” Garrick was convinced “his Jake” having access to dimensions once again has already visited Murder Master. Still, perhaps that made him wish to be known for doing something good? Garrick supposed all he could do was hope, since Jake wasn’t going to be honestly forthcoming about his quip, nor did he owe anyone an explanation.

All the NK ladies wanted to hear the details from Garrick. Last night was less about details than it was about Katherine learning what Garrick called a hall pass. Would they have to wait for his next art assignment? Desha and Antonia contacted him on his heroes’ Twitter @GryphonNorwoodKnight in PM’s begging for him to make some art of the fight. He replied he had some ideas and would see what he could do. He would do his best to meetup on Sunday for art class stuff and they could talk about it at length then. Ameera mentioned she was sorry, but got booked up with classes today. Tomorrow she would be thrilled to have him for lunch. He texted back that lunch with her on Wednesday at the same Starbucks they did before would be great!

Checking the search engines regarding Kizl, Garrick called later in the day about whether they could hold a delivery of flowers for a reservation if they were delivered the day of the reservation. They mentioned that would be no problem. When he tried to make sure they knew he would be paying today for whatever the meal would be. He found out Constance Mallic, had already reserved the table under another card, and it’s already the nicest table in the place – a private room, in fact, usually used for larger parties but set aside for the couple that evening.

He contacted a number of florists in Willingham and surrounding Midtown until he found one willing to make a Thursday delivery of Chrysanthemums with an assortment of colors. It was not late in the post lunch half of his workday. His compiling had completed and he was a almost five days early on these tasks. He emailed his results to QA, updated the various work tickets so all the departments would know where development was at with the new products from engineering.

Finally, the day was over and it was time to go and get ready to visit the Giving Tree check on Julianna. He asked Miss Amazing to come along because he had done so badly at reading signals from women. He made it clear he was not trying to date Ramona or Julianna. He did want to see how Julianna’s leg was doing since it was almost two weeks since the crazy adventure that brought those families to the Giving Tree. He also wanted to see if it would heal on its own or need one like Novia Nadez did.

At the Giving Tree, things went relatively well. The kids eat it up, the women are charmed, and it’s a good positive experience. Juliana isn’t there, and Ramona is there. She looks to the door expectantly on and off through the night, and she seems to not only eye Gryphon suspiciously but she also seems to take notes when she looks at him. She keeps her distance though, and does so naturally. He can’t seem to get close to her without being obvious to everyone that he’s trying to get close to her. When the night was coming to a close he found a note in his coat pocket below where his breastplate nearly covered it.

It reads: “I know what you and the ‘heroes’ of S.A.V.I.O.R. are doing. You won’t get away with this.”

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Art by: AZ_Artisan
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