"Hey Pooch."
Lenny sat on the floor of the kitchen, on the furthest corner from the refrigerator, sitting next to carl. One arm was wrapped around the dog, scratching behind his ears, and the other held a can of pepsi. Lenny wasn't one for ice-breaking, so he followed suit with his usual strategy at parties or gatherings -- going to the kitchen. Although he had been beaten there, it was large enough for him to sit at the other end unbothered. That, and Lenny looked far from friendly. Even if he was shorter and not as muscular, he would still wear his old neighborhood on his unsmiling face. Lenny wasn't angry at all, but he always looked like it. Carl whined lightly as he stared at Lenny's soda, before looking at him longingly. "Dogs don't like soda." He continued scratching behind his ears, pouring the rest of his can down his throat, and then crushing it triumphantly.

He burped and then stood up, tossing his can trashcan near him, not paying attention to whether or not it went in. "You gotta name, pooch?" He kneeled down to Carl's level, exaining the collar that rested above his vest. "C-A-R-L" Lenny sounded out, squinting to make out the tiny engraved letters. Although he would never admit it, Lenny's eyesight wasn't the best. He believed glasses were for nerds, and so he went without them. "Carl it is. I'm Lenny, Carl." He chuckled to himself, and then stood up to stretch. From the doorway of the kitchen, he noticed something interesting enough to take his already short attention from Carl.

One of his new roommates had run to a door, and was seizing up, almost twitching. Nobody else seemed to notice, having been preoccupied with their socializing, and so Lenny stepped out of the kitchen. Walking to the boy in quickened, long strides, he was directly behind him in an instant. He stretched out his hand to the boy's back, unsure if he should touch him.
"Yo, you good?"

Ming looked over to see that the other kid had finally left the dog alone. "So, Carl huh?" Ming said. She knelt down, rubbing his ears. Her hands were admittedly more rough than the others that probably pet Carl, the perks of having super strength, she guessed. "I'm sure there is dog food here somewhere, if they knew you were coming Carl," Ming at this point was acknowledging Carl as if he was a human and she had known him his entire life. She started pulling open cabinets and drawers in search for the dog food. Scratching her head for a second she looked down at the dog. "I can't find it Carl, how about some bologna?" She picked through the fridge for only a few seconds, no doubt she had at this point memorized after food item within, before pulling out a back of the lunch meat. "Here you go boy," she said holding out a piece of the meat for the dog, with little regard for the dog's diet.

At the piano, Feng looked upwards to the two new presences in the area, startled that they chose to come talk to him. Feng was never good at keeping his emotions well hidden, especially his nervousness. He focused his gaze straight ahead this time, catching a glimpse of a few of his other new teammates in the distance. "Yeah, I'm alright, just thinking, ya know? About, what the Commander said, not about the salute," Feng was always explaining himself, he always felt that everyone would take his words incorrectly, so he always ended up over explaining. "Just about us being soldiers. Forgetting about the past," Feng looked up again at the girl, this time his eyes held a sincerity. "I-I don't know," Feng sighed. He couldn't really describe how he was feeling, there was a rush of anxiety of course, and a fear of not knowing what to come, he had a lot of time to think on his plane ride here, but even now, especially after Commander Nunez's words, he found himself dwelling on it even more. Was he ready for this? Were any of them?

Cora wasn't impressed with how quickly the dumb AI had brushed her off after adjusting the lights. Cora had been about to reply, when it dashed off to the kitchen, where the pigs were digging their noses into the refrigerator. Cora elected to avoid the kitchen, even though her stomach complained about the choice. Instead she headed off for her room, deciding to see if her luggage had been delivered there. There was bag sitting on her bed, apparently they had taken it to her room. She quickly rummaged through it, checking to see if anything was missing. Nothing was, and it appeared that someone might have snuck in a toothbrush and toothpaste. Cora rolled her eyes and placed them apart from her bag. It was charity, and she was being forced to accept it.

When she finished that, she clicked off the lights in her room and took off her sunglasses. She liked it dark, and even though the lights being dimmed helped, she still preferred to be in as much darkness as possible first. She examined everything, laid on the bed, then decided to head back out towards the arcade. She'd never seen one before, but she'd heard about them. She put back on her sunglasses, flicked on the lights, and walked out towards the arcade. Her hands were back in her pockets, and her hood was up again. She was trying to avoid being seen by anyone else and being forced to join those stupid 'ice-breaker' activities. She'd also have to fix it so the robot wouldn't call her 'Coraline' anymore. She hated her full name, it sounded stuffy and unlike the her in almost every way.

As Press started to walk around, he wondered where Horus was. He opened a virtual keyboard on his screen and typed in a short command. Immediately Horus spread his wings and flew toward Press, past the piano, through the hall, and straight to Press. Press raised an arm, and Horus landed on his wrist, then walked up to his shoulder.

Smiling, he went into the hall to see someone on the ground, as well as someone behind the fallen person. Smile fading, he walked toward them, forgetting that he was wearing his armor, so his face was covered by his visored helmet. "Is he gonna be all right?" he asked as he examined the fallen person. He could tell there was something mechanical on the person's back, but not much else.

Kyle looked around the base as he wandered. He had no idea of what he was doing here. he did not know anyone and neither did they know him. Nor did any of them know him. So he figured he should explore his own way. By this he meant climbing all over the walls like a spider. Course spiders could not use static electricity to climb the walls. Kyle however could. Thus he was better than a common spider. Go him? He had such a strange mind to come up with something like that. He put his hands on the walls and instead of walking climbed all over like a mad man. It would look strange to anyuone looking as he clambered about. Eventually he was inside of his room hanging upside down with his door open. He figured someone would notice it.

After a few minutes he climbed over towards a few people standing around. One was on the ground, another was standing around, and the third had a bird on his shoulder. "Hey nice bird. I'm Kyle. Nice to meet you." He said reversing his shift to allow him to land next to the guy.

Nikolai stared ahead blankly, his face as still as stone. He had been lined up in a plain, unadorned room with the rest of the recruits, to await further instructions. Looking around him, he could see the shuffling of feet, the shortness of breath; those in this room were definitely nervous. The beginnings of a frown crept onto Nikolai's face. He knew that he too should be nervous, afraid, anxious, anything but emotionless. But he couldn't help it; he had oppressed his feelings for so long that the most he felt now was a twitch in his left eye. Shaking his head sternly, he dismissed the thoughts from his head. He had chosen his path, his destiny, and this was the sacrifice he had to make to follow it.

He wondered how his new teammates would react to his unnatural, robotic, state; the children in the old country had mocked and insulted him, in an attempt to goad a reaction from him. It never worked, but Nikolai knew that his old self would have been distressed by their actions. Still, he supposed, that was then, and this was now. Surely those around him would be more understanding; his mother thought so anyway. A memory of a few days before flashed across Nikolai's mind suddenly, and triggered a rare emotion. Sadness. He wrestled with the feeling, struggling to keep it under control. Letting it escape would only weaken him in the days to come; if he couldn't use his power then he was useless. Battling with his mind, he forced the feeling back, back, back into the dark corner of his body that he tried not to think about. Triumphant, he moved his hand to push his glasses back up his nose, and brushed against a lone tear on his check. He smeared the wet blob into his skin, knowing that he would appear weak if his superiors saw him cry.

Just as he finished the task, a new officer entered the room, and those around him saluted. Nikolai mimicked their actions, unsure if he was supposed to feel fear or respect for this woman. He listened closely as she spoke, only moving once to push a loose strand of blonde hair from his eye. Curiously, there was an AI named Vita charged with assisting the recruits. Nikolai had read about the new technology, and was not altogether surprised when he realised he seemed to be more like an AI than a member of his own species. Talking to Vita would be enlightening and a unique opportunity. When the speech was concluded, another officer began to lead the recruits from the room, striding with an air of authority. Nikolai decided it was best to follow him. As he walked, he couldn't help but notice his appearance contrasted with the others in the group. Quite a few of them seemed to be in full costume, while Nikolai was dressed in a simple hoodie and jeans. Why they felt the need to dress like something from a comic book was beyond him, when ordinary clothes served just fine.

Finally, the group reached their destination. The reading that Nikolai had done on the programme beforehand had already prepared him for what his living space would look like, but clearly the others were impressed. Their attention was quickly drawn to the kitchen however, and the previous organisation dissolved into controlled chaos. Nikolai stood still for a moment, merely observing everyone else, noting that the majority of them had ignored Vita's offer of a tour, in favour of petting an ordinary dog. Nikolai would not squander the opportunity to interact with an AI firsthand, by playing with a common pet.

Approaching the hovering blue sphere, he spoke, his voice flat and devoid of feeling. "Excuse me Vita, but would it be possible for you to show me around the facility? I would like to get to know my new environment as quickly as possible."

Press, startled, turned around to see someone drop next to him. Calming himself, he said, "Hi Kyle. Listen, I'd love to chat another time, but right now, we should probably get this guy here to an infirmary or something," gesturing to the one on the ground. "And by 'we', I mean 'you', so go help him, bye," Press said quickly, then ran off, quickly locating his room and going inside, locking the door. He never did like human interactions, and would prefer to stay away from them.

Vita's sphere shape floated around Nikolai for a moment, no doubt analyzing him. It only took a second, but Vita had to scan each person, so that her memory cache could identify them once combat and training began. This is why she had been moving so quickly from person to person. "Of course Nikolai, is there any location you would prefer to visit first?" Vita asked these questions with mimicked vocal inflections that would give off a caring tone,though of course how real these emotions were, was anybody's guess. Vita was still a relatively new invention, built around a year after the morph suits were created. Despite Commander Nunez's label as an "officer," upon analysis Vita knew that her role was much more similar to that of an assistant. However, analyzing further, she did realize that she was also a commander, her ability to delegate tactical advice was rivaled by no other.
Neither human or Titan could calculate and analyze as fast as she could. Analyzing further, Vita could only compare her analyzing to an artificial variant of the human "thoughts," Though, Vita was sure that her 'thoughts' held no emotional substance, only programmed priorities and protocols. Vita was certainly an amazing feat, no matter what she was, in just the time that it took Nikolai to respond, Vita had already analyzed and researched so much, including what was available to her on Nikolai's files.

As Nathan laid on the floor he noticed three things. One, there were thre-two people surrounding him. Two, there was too many sedatives in his system. And three, he still was thinking about that dog. With a giggle, Nathan said "Where the 'splosion come from? Made me go "Arrgh!" as Nathan continued to giggle his veins dimmed and the temperature went down to normal, but the flaming vomit was still a problem.

Looking at the two guys surrounding him, he found he recognized one of them. The one on his left was the funky hair guy and the guy next to him was someone he didn't remember seeing before. As Nathan silently judged them, he tried to stand but his limbs were too weak to do much from the recent surgery plus the untold cocktail of sedatives flowing in his veins.

Looking up to them, Nathan said " I need your help, I didn't get to pet the dog." and concluded with a giggle.

Bruce had had a nice little snack, but he was getting restless again. Nothing was happening. It would be nice to get to know his team, but those that weren't already petting a dog or having a physical crisis had left in a standoffish huff.

He heard someone talking to that floating AI thing, asking about a guided tour. That could be just the ticket. He dashed over in a desynced blur and stood next to scrawny Russian kid. "Hey!" he gave the kid a playful tap in the arm, "Tour sounds awesome, mind if I tag along?" He spoke a little faster than necessary, as he still hadn't gotten the hang of keeping his own time field in sync. "Do you guys have a garage? Or a sport field? Or a running track?"

Nikolai watched carefully as Vista flew around him. He knew the AI was advanced, but he hasn't expected it's analysing abilities to be so powerful. Watching the blue orb was soothing somehow; seeing something that was as emotionless as himself was unusual. Once Vita finished, she asked, with what Nikolai thought was concern, where he would like to visit first. Nikolai thought for a moment, and just as he was about to reply he felt a tap on his arm.

Turning, he saw a gangly blonde haired youth, who proceeded to unleash a torrent of questions that bombarded Nikolai's ears. Nikolai stared at him blankly; once such an interruption would have irritated him, but no more. Blinking slowly, he offered a reply to the fast talker, the only excitement to his speech being his Russian accent. "Hello, I am Psybeam, or Nikolai if you prefer. I would ask that you speak slowly, as I find it hard to understand your accent. The AI, Vita, was going to take me on a tour of the facility. You are welcome to join us, as I am sure your questions will be answered along the way."

Turning back to Vita, he responded to her earlier question. "You are more familiar with this facility than myself. My reading on the facility did not detail it's layout, unfortunately. I will follow you, as I am sure you can calculate the best route for us to take. From what I have read about your capabilities, you seem very...." Nikolai considered for a moment. "Impressive."

Now that Press had located his room, he got to work making it a bit more personal. He unlocked his storage cube and opened the menu. Everything he brought with him was inside that cube. He took 2 stands, one for his armor and one for his automation Horus. He had Horus walk onto his stand, then set him to keep watch. Then he removed his armor and set each piece onto its location on his stand.

When he was done, he reloaded his rocket launcher gauntlet, then looked around for the armor stand electrical plug, since the stand itself doubled as a charger. He found it, plugged it into a nearby power socket, and did the same for Horus' stand.

Now he looked inside his cube to see what he could use to deter people from entering his room without permission. He located a laser turret and figured it would do. It only had a single shot setting, but at least it needed no bullets. He set it to stun, plugged it in, turned it on, and linked it to Horus. Now anything that Horus didn't recognize as trusted would be shot. Satisfied, he grabbed his key for his room, and proceeded to leave his room and lock the door.

The time had arrived, the introduction from the drill sargents had been made and it was time to get unpacked and settled in. Honestly, Eve didn't expect much from BPAP in terms of accomadation, two rooms of with two rows of bunk beds each seperating the girls and the boys, a shared bathroom and a mess hall at best. It was much to her suprise then when it was much like back at Uni; a commonroom equiped with new furniture, a nice tv and a kitchen with a walk in fridge and a grand piano. Maybe a bit better than student digs, but it certainly wasn't boot camp. She was a bit thankful for this, while she was prepared to the harassment and mental torture an average soldier went through, it certainly wasn't something she wanted to be submitted too. You never know, tomorrows training might have been even worse to make up for the atomic-era accomadation.

Eve couldn't resist the allure of the piano, it was a beautiful specimen. She siddled up to the majestic beast and ran a gentle hand through its straight steel mane, examining its well formed hammers and real ivory keys. It certainly had pedagry, part of an exclusive, dying club. It was almost a shame she'd have to play it really, but its its own fault for leading her on like this. If she wanted to live forever she should have become a museum piece, not a late-teen common room toy. Yeah, it was definitely a girl-piano, so delicate and elegant in its design. It would be a pleasure to rest her fingers on the keys, to feel their fine balance to hear that quite ping of vibrating steel in a magnificent body of... was it spruce? It was gorgeous whatever it was, much nicer than the one she was used to playing. Not having a musical instrument to play was a large concern for Eve when registring for BPAP, music was an important of who she was, giving that up would be a big sacrifice. Her thoughts of future concerns brought her out of her piano induced daze and back to reality where three others stood at the piano, including the friend she made earlier in the line up. Aware she might be impeding someone else from playing she jumped away and apologised,

"Oh Gosh, I'm so sorry for getting in the way, its been a while since had the opportunity to play a piano as nice as this one, I guess I'll just have to wait my turn." Eve smiled to the mixed raced lady and continued, "I told you so, there was no reason to be nervous, looks like we're going to be really well looked after, Stitches by the way"

When Feng uttered those jumbled up rushed words Linn froze feeling her body run cold. Someone thought the same as her. Someone was just as bothered by it as she was; somehow it brought her comfort and a little sadness. She wanted to reassure him but she had no solution to offer. She sighed and hung her head lifting the piano covering staring blankly at the keys before her. Almost involuntary left hand began to play the familiar deep tune that she had made up a year prior. Its deep and soothing sound gave her comfort. She did not lift her head as she mumbled her thoughts “I don’t see myself as a Soldier either. Soldiers fight because of petty things between pompous leaders who can’t get along. Us? I feel as though we are the products of natural selection created to defend our race from all harm. Tell me I have a god complex or not it’s just how I feel!” She slammed her finger on a wrong key and she froze. Literally. Ice shot out from her hand and begun covering the white and black keys around her slowly bluing hand. She took her hand away immediately ignoring the liberating feeling going through her body and tried to rub her Ice Touch away.

She jumped when another voice came from next to her and she looked up to see a smiling girl next to her gazing at the piano. She had a hand out she wasn’t sure which and she was too afraid of letting go of her icy hand so she smiled back and nodded “I’m Linnette but call me Linn it’s nice to meet you.” She was about to talk to the girl she brought over but something rushing past them caught her attention. Not just the person but that horrible smell that she smelled earlier. It was like rubbing alcohol, cleaning fluid, and vinegar mixed together and it watered her eyes, but most of all blood.

She stood almost trance like following the body as it staggered, then collapsed to the floor in a heap. She could now visibly see the blood out of his hands and she winced. A boy walked up to him reaching out as if to touch him. She sped past him kneeling down to examine the boy. Under her breathe she began to mumble “I hate this, damn liquid sensitivity and the human body is mostly liquid…so much liquid.” She swallowed shaking off the thought as she lifted her hand over his body listening to the fluid patterns. She winced and pulled her hand back, he was a mess. He seemed to be coming too but he was lethargic almost druglike. That’s when she noticed the rig on the back of his neck with some white fluid in it and the Sanctum insignia on it. ‘That’s where the smell is coming from. Monsters.’ Slowly her ice hand reached to it but she stopped.

She turned to look at the guy hovering around the collapsed guy. “He can’t stay like this. This is no painkiller I’ve ever smelled before. It’s something highly sedative and probably very addictive. It could be killing brain cells.” She moved her ice hand over to the nozzle that was pouring the fluid into his body and touched it covering it in ice. “I’ll just stop the flow and see if he can tell us why he’s on this crap and maybe I can help..naturally.”

Press left the room and noticed that it hadn't been very long since he entered his room, judging by how the fallen boy was still there, along with others. He had heard the girl mentioning something about helping the guy, which was great, but she also seemed to have done something to the mechanical device on his back. Fearing the worst, he unlocked his storage cube and took out a stun gun and some tools. Re-locking it, he went over cautiously to the group to see if there was something he could do to help.

Hearing the rumblings from the hallway, Guardian looked over to Animal, who was still chatting it up on the couch. A quick nod from his peer, gave Guardian the go ahead to investigate. He made quick work of investigating the scene. He looked quickly at Nathan, and then at the recruits huddled around him. Quickly rushing to his side, Guardian knelt down to aid the boy. He had read up on Nathan, on all of them actually, but he could remember Nathan's abilities, how unstable they were. There was always at least one person like this in the group, and Sanctum handled it pretty well, so he was a bit surprised to see the malfunction. None the less, he knew it was nothing fatal.

"Alright, Nathan, let's get you up and rested for a bit." His Somali accent came through again, as he gently talked to the recruit before helping him to his feet, making sure to support him- one of Nathan's arms dragged around his shoulders. He looked to the other recruits who had been standing around Nathan, to see looks of confusion, and one of apparent disgust. Fearing, he'd make things worse, he simply looked away from them and was ready to help Nathan into his room. Put a gun in his hand, and Guardian could handle any situation, but make him speak- and well, things tended to blow up either way.

As the sedatives flowed through Nathans body time seemed to slow, not really but he just couldn't move fast. More than that he couldn't move much at all. The pain was gone though, so that was a plus. As he was lost in his reverie of thoughts, Nathan didn't feel the soothing cold that had blossomed on his back. Well, not at first. As the cool sensation drifted across his back, he started to regain his thoughts.

First off there were more people around him, which brought a feeling of both relief and dread. Did he light something on fire again? Did anybody get hurt? These thoughts flashed through his mind before they were annihilated by pain, someone was grabbing his arm and it was absolute agony. Realization dawned on Nathan as he thought, "If the skin split, than this is really bad." Too drugged to talk however, all he could do was weakly moan. With that said and done all Nathan could think was "Way to make a first impression you idiot." as he was dragged wherever the strangers were taking him.

"Well... seems like that mini-crisis is over," Press said, putting away his tools into his storage cube, which appeared to shrink them and vaccum them in. His stun gun, however, stayed out. Perhaps it was his paranoia, but something told him to keep it out. After all, this didn't seem like a normal event, even among people like them.

Guardian aided Nathan to his room, before setting him down on Nathan's bed. Some of his luggage was also on the bed, so Guardian made sure to move it out of the way. "Sorry, they said that you're pretty sensitive to touch, but you gave us a scare out there. The sedatives should be wearing off soon, they're designed to rapidly halt that temper of yours, and then retreat from the body anyway they can." At first, Guardian thought that Nathan probable couldn't hear him, but noticed the grumbling coming from the recruit. He stood halfway between the bed and the door.

"You'll probably be very thirty in a minute, but you should be alright. I'll have Vita report this incident to Commander Nunez. We'll get it sorted out..."Guardian looked to the boy for a minute, before extending his hand with a smile. "Nathan, is it not," he asked in a genuinely friendly manner, as if he considered the recruit his peer. "It's okay if you can't shake, just know that the offer is always there comrade."

Magara let the girl lead the conversation and bring her to the piano. She felt the girls emotions most acutely as she their arms touched. Linn was her name. Magara stood quietly behind the piano listening to Linn chat-up the boy, Feng, then listened to her beautiful woeful melody, all the while feeling the rapid turns in her heart. Magara liked Linn but wondered if she could handle the girl's soaring and dipping emotions. Perhaps the instability was only first-day-of-school jitters. Or perhaps Magara would grow accustomed to them. Magara was very surprised to feel the sudden stiff cold in her hand. She worried that being around other Titans would bring on a whole new range of unique and unpleasant sensations to detect.

It was just after this thought that Magara felt a sudden terrible pain. The pain was so intense that her knees buckled, she caught herself against the piano. She felt like she was on fire, or like she was about to explode. (She was so wrapped up in the feeling that she did not hear the explosions.) Then as the pain reached it’s peak it suddenly subsided. Magara was confused, and felt a bit light headed, almost as if she were drunk. She had kept her balance throughout the episode, and hoped that no one had noticed her fumble. If she drew attention to herself she risked drawing attention away from the one who was really in trouble. She was reassured as several other presences, including Linn, followed the one who had been hurt.

She wondered what had hurt him. They were they not inside a barracks of some sort? It made Magara concerned that this place was not so safe after all.

So, Magara found herself standing with one hand on the piano with the cutest boy, Feng, and another girl, Stitches, who had introduced herself just before Linn had run off.

“I’m Magara.” She responded quietly. “Linn is finished, I think, It could be your turn...” Stiches felt much differently around the piano that Linn had. It had made Linn sad, while it made Stitches very pleased. Still feeling jittery from the burning-man, Magara wanted to feel something more pleasant. “Unless, you were going to play?” She turned her body from stitches toward the boy, though her eyes never focused on either.

Meanwhile, Carl was enjoying himself and getting to know his teammates. He liked Lenny. This human was affectionate, but would not lend Carl his soda-bottle. Lenny was a good soldier, he left to attend a wounded soldier. Carl had heard the explosions a few rooms away, he had turned his head and given a single warning bark, then returned to the business of foraging. This was not the first time that Carl had been housed in base and forced to wait patiently while the sounds of war raged just outside. All the more reason to find proper food, he might need his strength if he was called into duty.

Then he met Ming, who was the best. This human gave him the most delicious bologna he had ever tasted. He would sit obediently, or even lay down if she asked it of him in exchange for the meat. Once the first piece was devoured he would wag his tail and implore her for seconds.