"No kidding." Rei grinned and headed back to the stream, taking her shoes and socks off before settling down with her feet in the water. Much better.

Faye sighed in relief as she put her feet into the water.

"Feels so good," she commented.

"I know," Rei said with a smile. "It's a good thing there's a lot of streams around. This is too nice to give up."

"The only thing better would be a full-on hot tub," Faye said. "Which, given the magical technology this place seems to have, might be entirely plausible. We should look into that." She grinned at her friend.

"Yes. Yes we should." Rei grinned. "Put one in a PD room or something. Oh that would be great."

"As soon as we can afford it, then," Faye said, grinning.

"Speaking of," Rei said, looking over at her. "Any idea how we should make money? I mean, should we try gym battles or those monster battles?"

"Uh..." Faye glanced at both of their bishi sets and back. "I think your two are more suited to regular fighting. You know, no suits to maintain or rage monsters to corral."

"I do box," Tony said with a shrug. "I can do that."

"Dunno how helpful that will be towards earning money." Rei tapped her fingers on her knees. "Well, what other options do we have?"

"Gyms might not be a bad idea," Faye said. "You know, once we know how things are run. Controlled environment and all that. It could be interesting."

"Yeah. And there must be other ways to earn money or newbies would never make it more than a month. We just need to figure out how."

"Random encounters and gyms sound like the quickest ways," Faye said, thinking. "Other trainers and all. But that's as long as you have fighters in the group. Totally possible with all of ours, but marginally easier with yours."

"Especially depending on Bruce," Rei agreed. "But what other ways are there? Working in shops is one of the more common ways I think, but I think that also needs some level of permanence."

"I think we're going to wander a bit too much for that right now," Faye agreed. "I mean, I don't know about you, but I don't feel like staying in one place too long if I don't have to. And finding work means staying in one place."

"Yeah. Although next time we're in town if we're going to be staying a few days, maybe we can see about helping for a few hours. Cleaning and stuff. That might work to get a bit of extra cash." Rei shrugged, wiggling her toes in the water.

"Sounds like a plan," Faye said, nodding. She leaned back a bit an sighed.

The rest of the day passed normally, although Rei did catch looks between Logan and Erik. They were clearly sizing each other up. So long as they didn't do anything about it, though, Rei wasn't going to say anything.

Faye caught Tony glancing at Erik now and then, though, and that was interesting. She had kind of always wanted to see what would happen if it was Iron Man versus Magneto, though, so she didn't stop him from looking.

Erik, of course, noticed the looks, but there wasn't anything to be done at the moment. Maybe he'd work out something with the trainers, a sparring or training program. Because he'd like to see just how well Tony boxed.

Plus it would be kind of hysterical to watch Logan put Tony down when the mutant got pissed off at the genius.

After a while longer of soaking her feet, Faye started to root around in her bag for something quick to have to lunch. That was part of the reason for stopping, after all.

Rei made sure her two guys ate before she found something for herself, settling down to munch for a little while.

Two more weeks of wandering about and Faye figured that she and Rei had a pretty good grasp on how things worked. They could choose not to fight other trainers they came across, the monster-fighting feature of their dexes was a fantastic form of stress relief for Bruce and his Hulk, and Faye managed to find a place in the last town for Tony to keep up with his boxing. All in all, a very good couple of weeks.

In addition to that, each girl had gained a good bit of money. Logan liked the monster-fighting, so Rei got a good bit of money from that.

When they got to the next town, though, they heard some disturbing news. Guards at the entrance of town were more wary and asked to see each bishi before letting them in.

"I wonder what that was all about?" Rei asked, glancing around.

"I dunno," Faye said, putting her dex away. There seemed to be a sort of tension in the town's atmosphere, and it made her a bit wary. "Maybe we should ask around? How about the diner? We can get lunch, and the waitresses and such always know what's going on."

"Sounds like a good plan." Rei headed over to the diner, taking a seat at a booth. Logan and Erik were both still out, so she sat between them so they couldn't hit each other.