Roses & Ferns 2: City Plants (An OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes Love Story Sequel)

Chapter 3: Origami, Nanobots, & Decisions

By Jen Joyce

   Fiona had been in the strange room filled with peculiar objects for about half an hour now, not moving from the spot she had been standing in -- just in front of the door -- just looking around with her guard up. Foxtail had said to her that she'll be in there for a while, but she never specified how long it'll be; maybe an hour or so? All that Fiona knew was that being stuck in a strange room without someone else being there means bad things. It's what Alex and Steve had hammered into her mind, after all.

   But...Foxtail...

   During the entire time she was with her, she hadn't once hit, raised her voice, threatened her to be quiet, or berated her for something she did wrong. She instead made her feel safe, something that she hadn't experienced in a long time. She only knew it was a thing from Alex and Steve's force lessons but had forgotten the feeling after so long. So, maybe being in this room by herself, along with the words Foxtail said to her just before she left, maybe she did mean them.

   "Nothin' bad'll happen in this room." Echoed Foxtail's words. "It'll be a while before we're done talkin'. But in the meantime, you just try ta keep yourself busy, Sugarcube."

   Fiona decided to take a step closer into the room, pausing for a moment in case something happened once her right foot hit the floor again; nothing did and she took a few more steps towards the table in the room, the anxiety slowly melting away with every passing second. Once she was at it, she sat on her knees and looked over its contents, which were very few. The only things on the black, mahogany table were some paper-back books with colorful pictures on the cover, a box of rainbow-colored "crayons" as the box had said, and a green and white box that was lying down on its face on top of a thicker paper-back book.

   That's the thing that caught Fiona's eyes the most; it was surprising for herself because Fiona had never seen any of the objects before and a green and white box was the thing that caught her attention. Fiona reached over to the box and propped it back up on its bottom, which was when she saw the name of the box. It had a blue, simplified-looking bird made of triangles on the cover, which was just below the title that read in bold lettering: ORIGAMI PAPER, in a font similar to Aster.

   "Origami paper?" Fiona repeated aloud, taking a moment and even darting her eyes around to make sure that action wasn't wrong either; again, nothing happened. Fiona looked back at the box with interest, the rest of the box's cover said that it had 750 sheets of paper, 25 colors, and 30 sheets of each color.

   With as much caution as she could muster from her trembling hands, Fiona opened up the box's top and saw the bright colors of perfectly organized pieces of square paper; the box looked like it was never opened before. Looking back at the book the box had been lying on, she saw that it was titled: "How To Make Origami For All Types of Learners". Opening up the book with her organic hand, she placed the origami paper box on the table and began reading the first few pages; she read them all within a minute, taking in every word.

   "Fascinating," Fiona commented, sitting down on her knees and setting the book down. Fiona opened an old and familiar window on her cybernetic arm, typing something down on it before saving and closing it. Fiona turned her attention back to the origami book and box, turning the page of the book to see a page entirely devoted to origami bases; the pages she was on were about common origami folds.

   "The Bird Base," Fiona began to read aloud. "Is used to fold a lot of different origami birds including the paper crane and that's where it gets its name from. It's a very common base though and can also be used to fold all kinds of other things." Below the short sentence was steps and pictures depicting to the reader about how to make said base. Not taking her eyes off of the book, Fiona reached over to the origami paper box and pulled out a random piece of paper out as she followed the instructions on it.