"And why," Dillon said, as she approached both Adrian and Khione with an inquisitive expression, "Would you want his attention?"

Khione turned to find a girl not much taller than herself. She had long, flowing red hair and bright blue eyes. She wore tattered blue jeans that bore plenty of oil and grime smudges and stains and a red tank-top that matched her jeans in condition. Her fingernails were painted red, but underneath her fingernails was the faint sight of dried oil. Despite only standing at 5’4 she stood proud with her shoulders back and head up.

Taking a step back, Khione looked Dillon up and down, "Who the hell is the human?"

"You might know her by Metallica," said Adrian.

Khione's eyes widened, “You're Metallica? I expected you to be..."

"A man?" Dillon asked rhetorically.

"Taller, actually," she retorted. "You always look so much bigger in that metal armor.”

“Answer the question.”

“She wants to form an alliance for the Exit Exam,” Adrian interjected, “And I told her I didn’t need any help.”

Dillon’s eyes narrowed at Adrian before she walked toward him and forcefully grabbed him by the arm, dragging him away from Khione. Khione stood there, puzzled and clearly unsure as to what to do, so she patiently waited for Dillon and Adrian to return.

“Are you crazy?” she said, hushed, as she looked at him as if he couldn’t tell her what the answer to two plus two was. “Soon we will be stepping into a ring where we will be facing off against fourteen other supes who are, in recent memory, the most consecutively powerful from Freshman to Senior this school has seen in a while. We really need allies right now.”

“You need allies.”

Dillon sighed in exasperation, as she face-palmed herself, “This lone wolf thing you’ve got going is getting really old.”

“And yet you keep trying.”

“I don’t see how someone so intelligent could be so devoid of logical thought,” she said, her squeaky voice slowly rising in volume at her clear frustration and anger.

Adrian stood there, calm and cool as he allowed her insult to slide off him. “Well, logically,” he began quietly, as he edged intimidatingly closer to her face, but she stood her ground. “In past Exit Exams, Supes have been known to betray one another at the first chance, especially freshmen,” he said as his eyes quickly flicked from Khione and back to Dillon’s face. “Do you really want to trust her?”

“Telepathically link with me,” she ordered him, crossing her arms.

Adrian looked taken aback by this, but was interested and complied. His emerald eyes widened slightly and took on a green glow as his met with her blue.

Khione looked over to Dillon and Adrian after briefly being distracted by the many Supes she saw as rock stars who fought in the ring, but now stood before her mingling with other people and casually milling about. She looked at the pair and quickly grew confused. Dillon and Adrian, from her perspective, were seemingly locked in a staring contest, but both blinked casually and stood firmly “The fuck,” she said under her breath.

“No, I don’t want to trust her,” she thought to him, confident in how Adrian’s powers worked and how to communicate telepathically, despite only finding out about them recently. Her voice resounded in his head loudly, strong and unintimidated by his intense stare and towering posture. “But we need to find out what Khione and Vulcans’ weaknesses are, make an attack plan for it, and when they’re of no more use to us, we get rid of them.”

Adrian took a step back, suddenly surprised by the cold and calculating girl that now stood before him. “My, my,” he thought back to her, slightly amused by the thought of the girl he thought he had all figured out proving him wrong. “The nice girl façade is slowly trickling away now, isn’t it?”

“You don’t know me as well as you think you do, Adrian. You don’t think I earned the number one senior minion spot because of how nice I was, do you?”

“… Flush,” Lydia lay her hand down, to the silence of the table, smirking to herself in triumph. She'd been doing decently. She would have thought that being more sober than them would have gotten her an advantage but it really didn't. The fact that she barely knew how to play was a handicap.
“Shit! Hell, I could have beat that!” Erin protested, his voice slurring just slightly. “I had a full house…” 
“Shouldn’t have folded. I got nothing,” Dynabane lay his cards down, resting his elbows on the table. 
“Ugh, that’s stupid…” One of the hero girls sitting next to Dynabane protested the result of the game. “Just ‘cuz she was really good at lying… oh! We'd already started, so- so she's got an ad... Advantage,” the girl in question was a medium-high rank hero Lydia had beat without much thought. Lydia didn't think about her much even now.
"She has no advantage," Dynabane muttered. "We'd only done one round when she arrived and we made her take a shot before she started. Don't cause problems, Lu. She's not even winning."
There was a pause. "She's not?"
"No, I am." Dynabane frowned.
"Oh... Kick 'er ass, J."
"He tried," Lydia couldn't help but grin.
"Those are fighting words, J!" Lu protested.
Lydia laughed, more honestly and deeply than she had in awhile. Dynabane shook his head, but he was smiling a bit. Once she'd calmed down, Lydia fanned her face, still grinning. "It's really hot in here... I think I'm done. Gonna go cool off..." She got to her feet, chair pushing out behind her.
Erin questioned, "Liquor getting to you, Lydia?" At the same time Lu blurted, "Forfeit! She's leaving the game! Yes!"
"Shut it, you two," Lydia said, not entirely unaffectionately.
They fell silent. "That was kinda..." Lu paused.
"Who are you? What have you done with the bitch?" Erin frowned.
Lydia burst into laughter again, unable to help it, her blonde hair falling in her face. She spoke again when she calmed down, "You're hilarious... Seriously though, I need some air..." She rubbed her face, feeling the heat off it. "Excuse me."
"I'll go with you, I need to talk to you anyway," Dynabane got to his feet.
"Uh. You be careful." Erin paused. "J, is that wise? You're not careful, you'll wake up with a demon to rival Lilith..."
"Erin, this is serious," Dynabane gave him a look. "I'm discussing serious matters..."
"Ehhh... Whatever, Jas. Go on."
"If you're implying anything weird, forget it. I'm not even interested." Lydia waved them all off. "Not even close to my type."
"Yeah... We know what your type is," Erin's voice was thinly veiled, alluding to something that made Lydia suspicious, as he gathered the cards up.
"The hell does that mean?" Lydia protested. Jas headed towards the door and Lydia followed, giving Erin a dirty look, as she headed outside.

Adrian smirked at this before thinking telepathically to her, ”Interesting how you’re so confident in how my powers work when it’s only recently you’ve known of their existence.”

Dillon reflexively began to smile back at him, ”You’re not the first telepath to be enrolled at S.U.P.E.S. And the ones to graduate have had their powers recorded in the school’s library. Unsurprisingly, supes’ powers vary in type and power, but the more common ones work similarly, as detailed in one of the books in the library.”

Adrian’s smirk broadened into an almost affectionate smile, and an appreciation for Dillon’s cold, calculated and well-prepared mannerisms began to take root. However, a realization occurred to Adrian, causing his smile to fade away, lips tighten and his green stare to bear more intensely on her, ”Who was the Super with telepathy?

Dillon’s smile stayed on her face, ”Malik Sumner. Your father, I presume.” She stared at Adrian, attempting to gauge his reaction, but his facial features remained unchanged, much to her frustration.

Adrian took a step back, “And you said this is in the library?”

“Yeah,” she thought to him with narrowed eyes. She felt as though there was something she was missing. Adrian’s curiosity seemed genuine, but he also seemed reluctant to ask. “Funny how few people know that, not that it’d help much. I found another name. Much, much further back. Like, during the very start of S.U.P.E.S.”

Adrian’s ears perked up at this, “Who?”

“Daimon Sumner.”

“Who the fuck is that?”

Dillon quirked an eyebrow, surprised at his reaction and attempting to decipher whether or not he was playing dumb. Dillon shrugged. “You tell me. His powers also included telepathy and telekinesis. Kind of looked like you to boot, but he actually seemed to smile more, she said playfully.

“Ahem,” Khione cleared her throat impatiently, snapping Adrian and Dillon’s attention back to her, “As interesting as staring at the other supes is, I’d like to know what your answer is. Are we working together or not?”

Adrian opened his mouth to decline, but was quickly cut off by Dillon who gave a final, “Yes, we are.”

She turned away from Adrian who stared daggers at the back of her head. She could practically feel the heat from his stare on the back of her head as she walked back over to Khione.

Khione fist pumped into the air at this, “Yes!”

Dillon smiled as Adrian rolled his eyes behind her. “You should probably go tell Vulcan about our arrangement.”

“Will do!” Khione said happily, as she skipped away.

"... Ugh so much cooler," she leaned against the rail, the gears turning in her head. /We know what your type is... Fuck that guy./. "... Seriously, what does he mean?" She frowned, turning to Jas. "That pisses me off... The unholy angel wants to say-"

"Never mind that," Jas replied, smoothly, derailing Lydia's oncoming rant, resting his elbows on the rail. He looked up at her. "I actually wanted to talk to you about the exit exam." Lydia straightened up, a bit annoyed, ready to tear a chunk out of him. "Woah there," Jas soothed, raising his hands up. "Take it easy. You're as difficult to deal with as a chihuahua crossbred with a cactus. I'm not trying to talk you out of it. I just want to know that you know what you're getting into..." He turned around, leaning back against the rail. "Because you're not a bad fighter, and you /seem/ to have a strong desire to do good..."

"What's that mean?" Lydia returned, a bit calmer, walking across the deck, the cool air blowing across her skin. "Exit exam, it's really serious. Um, big arena that's different every year. Power advantage is different usually. Last year was good for earth types... Dangerous. People get really violent." She paused, ruffling her hair.

"Did you know people have died?" Jas questioned. "I've seen it. And they don't show that on screen. Then they make you, and everyone forget that person existed... Except the people who physically see it... They can't make us forget that... Definitely not a game, Lydia."

"I didn't say it was! I'm taking it seriously..." Lydia muttered.

"No, you're not." Jas shook his head. "You've plateaued, haven't you?" Lydia stiffened, trying to figure out how he knew that. "Thought so..." When Lydia protested, he explained, "Before, when we fought, you'd improve at a scary rate. Last time, you didn't get any better... You're slow, Lydia, and not terribly creative. You have a short attack radius. A long distance enemy like Mythos could take you out easily... Have you considered anything to overcome these? Your strength, Lydia, is not useful to you anymore. The reason you've plateaued is because that's the only thing you work on... And that's great but you need other talents."

"Did you come out here to insult me?" Lydia asked, gloomily.

"No, I came out here to avoid forgetting you existed." He answered. "Seriously, though, I'm trying to help you, and you're still angry... You're a hell of a lot nicer half-drunk. Maybe you should stay half-drunk," Jas frowned. Lydia flipped him off. "No, seriously. You've been here four years and haven't even tried to associate with anyone, except Adrian... It's like you view us as your enemies and him as your ally..."

"You're all my enemies," Lydia protested.

"Lydia, whatever you have going on with him is kind of... Weird. It's unnatural." Jas frowned. "I'm just telling you, hero to hero, it's weird to be that close to your villain. Do you see me making lunch dates with Titan? Let me ask you this. After you won in the arena, who's the first person you talked to about it?" /Adrian.../ "Exactly, you went to see Adrian. I know you did because the whole school was talking about it. You left the arena without even a word to go tell Adrian," he replied, reading the slightly guilty look on her face. "The last big thing that happened?" Lydia recalled Thomas's attack, and how afterwards, she'd gotten consolation from Adrian. "I don't know the answer this time but I can guess. It's not normal. There's a crazy rumor that you and Adrian have always stayed the same rank, the whole four years, but I don't even believe that..." He shook his head. "Without planning it, it's impossible... And I can't believe that you'd be that crazy. No one is rooting for you to win the exit exam because of all this weird bullshit... I've had freshmen come to me to ask me if it's normal to be that close to your villain. It's confusing the freshmen, and embarrassing the seniors... You should probably get that settled."

Lydia reflected on his words. /Is he right? Are we unnaturally close? I mean, we didn't plan the rank thing... But it is really weird... I didn't plan to see Adrian after the last rank match, just sort of happened. He came to see me... The Thomas thing... I still don't know why I told him... He always saves my ass when I need it... Isn't that normal?/ she silently reflected on it. "It is kind of weird... Yeah, I don't know. Thanks, I guess. I'll think about it. All of it. How to get stronger, and Adrian..." /I wonder what he thinks.../ She backed away. "Excuse me." She headed inside, walking toward the living room, mentally confused by what Jas said. Realizing the temperature inside the building, she slipped her coat off, annoyed. /It's hotter than the fires of hell in here.../ She tied it around her waist, forgetting that the bruises on her neck were the reason she was wearing it, glancing around at the people she passed.

She spotted Adrian in the center of the same room he'd been in before, and she called out to him. "Heeeey! Adrian!" She hollered, waving. She saw that girl from before skipping off, and she frowned to herself. /Wonder what he's said to her to make her so happy...?/ She wondered. /Worry about that later./ "Adrian," she strolled toward him, moving past Dillon, grabbing Adrian's wrist, tugging on it. "Hey! Do you think our relationship is unnatural?" The question came out a bit louder and differently than she intended, the word unnatural drawn out, and she saw a few nearby heads swivel in interest, but she ignored them, looking up at him, deeply curious. Her cheeks were still flushed from the alcohol in her system.

“Adrian,” Adrian heard before turning his head to see Lydia quickly approaching. He reflexively took a step back, and somewhat frantically searched his mind for any and everything he potentially did to piss her off. But instead of delivering a punch to the face, she snagged him by the wrist, ”The hell is with everyone grabbing and pulling me today?” he thought.

“Hey! Do you think our relationship is unnatural?”

Adrian quirked an eyebrow at this, and briefly noticed that they had drawn the attention of other guests.

Taking a step back Dillon turned a shade of red upon Lydia deciding to point out the huge elephant in the room. “I’ll let you two hash this one out,” she said, as she slowly turned away from Adrian, Lydia and the growing number of supes training their eyes on them and made way for the villain and minion area of the mansion.

Adrian turned his attention back to Lydia, his eyes darting back and forth from her face to the supes watching them. “I’ve heard of weirder relationships,” he said, mildly bothered by the lingering eyes and ever present ears. “But are you sure you want to talk about this here?” he said, motioning his head to prying ears.

“… So you think it’s weird too…” Lydia frowned to herself. “I didn’t even think about it until someone mentioned it...” She thought a moment, before glancing up at the other people watching. “Whatever, ignore them… They’ll talk about it anyway…” She looked back at Adrian before remembering what she was saying. “I didn’t even think it was weird! Someone told me I need to think about it because people aren’t rooting for me to win the exit exam because of our weird thing we have. In his own words. I wondered if you thought it was weird too.” Lydia paused a moment, thinking.

She went on a moment later, “ I mean, yeah, the first person I talked to after winning first was you, but that wasn’t my fault, you sort of came to me, so that was /your/ fault… But, you know, I still look like the weird one in it anyway. That’s the way it works. Hero standards, I guess… but then, like, after Thomas attacked me, you came to me… again… and I crumpled into tears like some preteen who didn’t get asked out to the prom! I didn’t even plan on telling you… It’s stupid.” She reached up, grabbing her own hair in frustration. “It’s so warm in here,” she griped, but looked around again.

“And the rank thing, most of the students here don’t even believe it’s true!” Lydia frowned. “… I just can’t think very clearly right now, so I’m gonna need you to do the thinking for me. Are we weird?”

Adrian and Lydia

Just then the other supes around them broke out into hushed whispers as Lydia confirmed the startling rumor circling them both.

But at the time, Adrian was too preoccupied with looking at Lydia and he began to realize how distraught she was at this. Any sarcastic quips he had planned faded away from his memory and he grew serious, actually considering what she was saying, "No, we're not weird,” he said matter-of-factly. “As much as supes like to distinguish themselves from humans, their thinking is damn near the same. Which means they have the same silly notions that humans do. There’s nothing wrong with being close to one another, Lydia. Did I not make you feel better after what happened with Omnitrace?”

Adrian looked down at where she had grabbed him, and he felt a sudden yearning for her touch again. While he spoke of emotional closeness, he suddenly remembered what it was like to be physically close to her as well, and a hunger to be close to her again began to eat away at him. Adrian felt an uneasy tightness in his stomach, ”Am I going to be sick?” he thought. He then remembered what humans called this feeling, "Butterflies."

Dillon, Titan and Lilith

Dillon continued walking through the halls of Benjamin’s mansion. The rhythmic boom of the music that reverberated throughout the mansion shook the walls and floor the closer she got to the main hall. Looking through the door she spotted supes dancing on the dance floor and even the ceiling.

Passing the main hall, Dillon walked deeper into the mansion and away from the pounding music until it was a very subtle vibration throughout the walls and floor. She walked into a white and lavish living room where a loveseat faced a rectangular table and on either side of the table was a single seat sofa. On the loveseat sat Titan, who had a drink in one hand and his other rapped around Lilith who sat in his lap. Dillon shuddered at the sight of Lilith again. Despite looking quite attractive with the aide of makeup, Lilith's demonic face had been burned into Dillon's mental image of her.

The couple laughed loudly at something. The two were clearly enjoying the other’s company as they smiled brightly at the other. They suddenly stopped as Dillon walked in, both Lilith and Titan looking up.

Dillon froze as their eyes made contact. She could practically feel the heat from the gaze and the hatred the two showed for her. To them, she was the link to a common enemy who had humiliated and bested them in the ring in front of hundreds of spectators.

“Well,” she said, “this is awkward.”

Lydia tilted her head, thinking. “... Yeah… you did…” She was silent a moment, ignoring the buzzing of the people around them. “Hey, it’s hotter than the flames of hell in here…” she fanned herself. “Let’s step outside, and continue this?” She grabbed his wrist and dragged him towards the door, thinking about what he had said. She glanced over and saw Willow talking with Era, and she pointed. “I can’t forget that I need to take care of that.” She said, grimly, pushing the door open and exiting the room, dragging Adrian behind her. “I haven’t beat her ass recently.”

Once outside, she took a deep breath and walked over to the railing, leaning against it, soaking in the cool air. “... I’m glad that you don’t think we’re weird. I didn’t either but I guess the other students think something of us…” She rested her elbow on the rail, thinking to herself. "But yeah, you’re right… there’s nothing wrong with us… I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been there.” She said, glumly. “Dillon saved me physically. You saved me emotionally…”

Lydia was lost in thought, reflecting on her partnership with her enemy. He’s always there for me if I want him to be or not. We fight but then we forget about it… Geez, he’s more like a best friend than my enemy.

“What the hell kind of enemy are you anyway,” Lydia muttered. “I can’t even dislike you.”

Adrian chuckled as he intentionally placed himself against the railing alongside Lydia, a mere few inches away from her. He could feel the heavy bass of the music in the metal railing.

“Oh, really?” he said, looking out into the dense forest next to Benjamin’s mansion. “You could’ve fooled me. Here I thought you didn’t like me. You certainly wouldn’t be the first. I seem to have enemies all over this school. I certainly don’t need anymore.”

Lydia bristled and then suddenly relaxed, the tension falling from her shoulders. "Oh- geez. I thought you were going to pull your lone wolf act. I was all prepared for- you said any MORE," she shook her head, looking amused. "No you certainly don't need anymore... sounds like everyone here rather dislikes us. Very loved... Honestly though, I don't care a bit. I just wondered what YOU thought... And of course I'll deny all of this tomorrow." Lydia looked away from him. "People just get in my way. If I thought, even once, you were standing between me and success, I'd probably hate you too. No one else in this shithole gets it. I'm not here to make friends. ,,, Although maybe there's something to that. Because I know if you weren't here, I wouldn't be here. At the top, I mean... Geez, listen to me. I sound pathetic." A tone more like her usual one drifted in towards the end.