Chris entered the library door, wearing a winter jacket of dark blue fabric and a hoodie to cast over his face. Having grey black-striped sweat pants, his attire was more appropriate for a cold chilly day despite the mild weather of the day. It didn't seem to be bothering him though, as he looked around the building for different book sections. Some reading would do good to distract his thoughts, but he couldn't decide on what to read. Perhaps a book on biology, or some adventure novel. Without making a decision, he sat at one of the chairs to let out a sigh, deep in thought about what to waste his time reading.

Having been in the library since finishing her morning rituals, Siena had selected a wide number of books to spend her day perusing. Part of it was simply that she didn't know that her current pool would have been sufficient if it came to combat--but what about the ones she couldn't control?--but most of it was the sheer fact ther body was exhausted after training most of the day before. What muscles that didn't protest when the brunette performed even the simplest actions were still reluctant to do her bidding. With that in mind, the bibliophile decided that it was best to spend her way training in other ways. That said, she'd also been choosing smaller stacks of books to bring to and from her preferred reading spaces. Best to avoid anything too heavy. It was with that in mind that she picked through a shelf with nimble fingers and a keen eye.

She'd taken to the second floor, having hoped to find additional books for her arsenal, but was both excited and disappointed to find that the second floor had largely been filled with research materials. She'd taken only one book from the shelf, though she had every intention of checking it out rather than poring over the words as she had been doing with...well, every book she'd read that day.

It was just unfortunate that with that book added to the stack, it took both hands to carry what she wanted to read, really. As she descended the stairway back to the first floor, the brunette overstepped the edge of one step, her heel slipping on what little it had made contact with and sending her sprawling towards the ground. Of course, being a human being (contrary to what media might believe), the girl had flung one arm to reach for the railing, fingers digging in for purchase. It didn't work. At best, it slowed how fast her posterior hit the ground, but it had the rather unfortunate effect of causing the rest of Siena's selected readings to topple from their neat little stack.

To quote some old jingle that she was certain came from a show, "it all started with a big bang."

Chris's concentration was broken from the mistake of some poor lass. Investigating, he walked over to find a mess of book and a familiar face. As he recalled, she was the girl he jumped infront of towards the head of that fight, he remember his appearance seemed to give her a scare, unsurprisingly. Without a word he knelt down and offered his hand to his fellow comrade, though he didn't express any sincere emotion in his face. "I hope you weren't this clumsy when we were attacked by pasta.' He tried to muse, though he wasn't good at being positive, his cold expression made that clear enough.

'Ow...ow, ow, ow...' A bruising ache transitioned into sharp pains as muscles screamed in protest at being used vigorously without warning. There were a few stares and snickers, obviously, but it was the presence of someone before her that snagged Siena's attention. "Oh, um...thanks." Well, that was bound to be an embarrassing first impression. Gingerly, she took the offered hand, carefully--'Now, now, Siena. You really need to start acting more like a lady. Dainty on the outside, but you pull yourself up with your own strength.'--getting herself back to her feet. The boy wasn't familiar--light hair, casual clothing...an expression that could freeze water--yet somehow he knew about the events that transpired only a few nights prior. More importantly, he was evidently part of them. Confusion overtook Siena's features for a moment. She didn't remember seeing him, but it was clear that he had seen her. "Um...you were there...?"

Chris would give a bit of a grin at her response. Something about actually engaging in such a conversation had broken through his depressed spirit just a bit. "I was the monster that made you shit nearly shit yourself, based on the face you made, the dragon that got between you and a bunch of noodles." After she stood up to her feet he would begin to gather her fallen books. "What brings you to the library?"

"That was you?" The words were out before the realization had fully settled in. Well, that explained why the dragon had gone for the harder target. A spark of excitement flickered to life, the first real thrill since she'd come to the so-called school. "That's...actually really cool." Moving to begin picking up her lost reads, Siena paused to consider her answer. "Training, sort of. I need to read a lot for my power to work." Remorse. She could have done the reading before their first combat experience--maybe Padma wouldn't have died. "What about you? Research or recreation?"

Cool? That was a first. Chris never thought turning into a huge disgusting fire-breathing monstrosity would be cool, but he accepted the compliment. "You get powers from books?" He questioned. The concept of it seemed rather bizarre, but he handed her back the books he picked up ontop of the ones she recovered herself. "I'm here mostly for studying, maybe I can learn something useful here. I just don't know what book to pick up, or what exactly I should engage in."

A quick nod to Chris's question--better to keep the explanations simple as possible. Readjusting her grip on the books that she had gathered, Siena seemed to give the boy's statement some additional thought. "Hmm...I'd offer you some of my choices, but they're not very educational..." And there was probably mention of dragons in at least a few of the high fantasy novels, which would be especially useless for someone that could turn into a dragon. "But um...if you don't mind company, I can probably help you find whatever topics you wanted to read up on. I've...been here for a while." Internal grimace at her definition of "a while." More like since an hour from waking.

Normally Chris wouldn't have any interest in company. In fact it could be detrimental since she could die, just like his roommate. Hell he barely knew his roommate and he is still shaken up by her untimely demise. Still, it is that unshaken spirit that has sparked his inner longing to be social for once, so he accepted her offer. "Sure, I suppose it doesn't have to be educational if it can catch my fancy. A good story can always lighten the mood I suppose." He didn't mind her obsession with books, in fact it may even serve useful to his trivial plight.

"Hm...a good story..." Taking a moment to think, Siena peered over her selections. She couldn't say much about most of them, having chosen to forge her path into new grounds, but her comfort in familiarity had led her to pluck a few favorites off the shelves. Moving to set the collection on a nearby table, Siena selected one from the pile. This Savage Song. It had struck home with her before.

'Isn't that because you're a monster?'

"This one isn't a bad read if you're into urban fantasy." Despite her best efforts, Siena couldn't help but feel a swell of anxiety over offering suggestions. It had never been a strong point, really. Giving a half-nervous smile, the brunette pushed herself to keep strong. "Though maybe it just reminds me of arbiters and aberrations.

Chris pondered for a moment as he took the book and examined the cover. "Hmm." He thought allowed. "I think I'll give it a read, thanks....What's your name?" Chris asked as he took the book to his side. The girl didn't seem to acknowledge her own gifts of picking out good books, her obsession may have gone as far as saved Chris's own morale.

Acceptance. That sent a swell of relief over Siena, drawing a faint smile. "Oh! I'm Siena. How about you?" Despite her apparent first experiences with the boy, he seemed like a decent enough person. Perhaps a little rough around the edges, but that was nothing she wasn't used to.

"Chris." He tried to smile back but you can tell he wasn't good at it. His lips curled up but his mouth didn't open, as if it would hurt him to smile anymore than that. "Its good to see not everyone here is unlikable." He commented as he looked back to the book he gave her briefly. "Is there anything I can do for you to return the favor?"

"Bad experiences?" Odd, most of the people that Siena had met with were far from unlikable--perhaps she had just been lucky. "But it wasn't much of a favor...don't worry about it. It's nice to meet new people." Nice to have more friends than she'd ever had in her life, really. Brushing a few unruly bangs out of her line of vision, the girl decided to take a shot. "Though maybe one day we can meet up for a meal. It'd be nice to hear your opinions on the book."

"It was more like talking to dry walls and prissy little..." He paused, remembering the source of his recent despair. "Well..never mind that." Aside from that, was she asking him on a date? Even if it was a friendly gester Chris didn't know how to deal with something like that. Was it safe toi say yes. After giving it a noticable thought, he didhis attempt of a smile again and said "Yeah sure, next weekend I should have enough time to read a good bulk of it, if I don't finish it that is, so that should be a good time to go out."

Yikes, that did sound like an unfortunate experience. Deciding not to push on Chris's less-than-pleasant first encounters, Siena was thrilled to hear an agreement to a meal with her newfound acquaintance...though the expression on his face made it hard to tell whether it was a welcome invitation. Was...he smiling? It wasn't the first time he'd made the face, but Siena hadn't really been asking much prior...right? Distress tried its best to dig its claws in, but the mage stood her ground against it. "Next weekend sounds great. It's a date, then!" Shoving her own anxieties away, Siena paused for a moment in thought. "Ah, here, let me give you my number in case you need to cancel or anything."

Slipping her hands into the deeper pockets of her coat, Siena withdrew a small notepad complete with pencil on top. Thankfully she'd been taking notes on her reads, outlining events and plot for her own benefit. Scribbling the digits on one of the final pages before writing her own name in pristine print, the girl tore the page and offered it towards the boy. "Feel free to call or text if you need anything too. W-well, as long as it's not too late."

Chris nodded, there was a sort of shyness he started to take, as he was now completely uncertain on what did do. Normally he'd probably wouldn't care about these things but with the emotional rollercoaster this week has given him he was now unsure of his own interests. He took her number, nodding once. "Alright then, I guess I'll give you a text sometime later then if anything comes up, thanks." He said, this time he actually smiled, well to him it was a wide smile but in reality it looked nothing more then a small, casual half-smile. "Thanks again, Siena." He waved before going onto his business, he felt too awkward to deal with this anymore. He checked out his book and left the library. He was eager to shake off these bubbly feelings with brooding in his room alone. A place of mind where he was more familiar with and in comfort.

"Hey man, sorry about yesterday."

"I get it, stigma shit. It's cool. You saw him then?"

"Doc? Yeah. Same as usual, didn't even look up. Damned if that power of his doesn't work though. I haven't felt this calm in... well, yeah. Even a day later. "

"Yeah, so, back to that five bucks you owe me..."

6:00.

That was when she'd told herself she would be here. Hadn't she put this off long enough?

Before her stood the USARILN Library-- its massive windows a serene reflection of orange and pink streaks, dusted with shadow as the sun began its descent. It was a pretty sight to be sure, but did little to dissuade the queasiness from nestling in her gut. Every hour that she'd put off coming here had been a risk. She had no idea when they'd get sent out again and she needed a Plan B-- especially in light of that last fight. She only so far knew a handful of students here and what their powers were, but none had seemed to trigger as immediate a response as this "Doc" person she'd heard about over breakfast that morning-- if one could call ten hours 'immediate'. Of course, she had to go train and then finish up her exams-- Lord knows those took a while. And then there was lunch and dinner-- can't miss those. Doc probably wouldn't be in the library during mealtimes anyway....

With the day coming to a close before her eyes, Callan knew that if she didn't go see him today, she'd never muster up the nerve to do it at all. Upon entering, she scanned over the numerous tables and shelves. She wasn't entirely sure what she was looking for. She found the symphony of the library rather unpleasant-- turning pages, sliding chairs, tapping pencils and keyboards, coughs and sniffles, and hushed whispers. Maybe she was still just nervous and that was making her slightly more irritable. She kept moving as her head turned. She'd know him when she saw him, surely.

Lawrence was- unsurprisingly- in his usual spot. Tucked away in the far corner of the library. Immediately behind and to the left of him were bookshelves, and in front a six-person table littered with a small selection of volumes intermixed with small seemingly random assortment of snacks. Granola bars, a pudding cup, crackers, and three apples. All of it completely untouched. Nobody else was around him at the moment, although it was obvious that several of the chairs around him had been used- and none of them pushed back in afterwards.

Most notably though, in front of the young man that was absorbed in a book titled Swordsmen of the British Empire was a plaque. On it, displayed... not proudly, but almost sarcastically, the words: "Dr. Ellison" carved into a reflective gold background. It was the usual scene for him, in days when he wasn't being thrust into combat or taken with other plans. One he perhaps didn't enjoy, but had grown content with.

The scene drew her eye pretty quickly, though the plaque was a dead give away. She chastised herself for eyeing the snacks-- she'd eaten dinner barely two hours ago and that wasn't why she was here. Wasn't why she was here. Looking past the history book at the blond haired young man that was currently engrossed with its pages, she inwardly cursed. She knew him. That would have been awesome if she remembered his name and not just that she should. Lawrence? Lenard? One of those two.

She really didn't want to disrupt his reading, but she was already here. The chances were 50/50. If she could just remember his name, maybe....

"L-" the letter lingered betwixt her lips and the rest of the name came out as a bastardization of the two she had been trying to decide between, "ehh-awrence. Right?"

"Name hasn't changed, no. Have a seat."

He began, motioning one of the chairs in front of him when he finished up the paragraph he was reading. Seemingly finding a place where he was satisfied, he dog eared the book and closed it. Normally he would continue reading through one of these sessions, but the voice he heard was not one of his regulars. It didn't hurt to be courteous to new 'customers'.

Still, when he looked up he was surprised at what he found. Sure, it wasn't completely unheard of, but...

"Arbiter?"

She was one of the new arrivals, if he remembered right. It was odd how few of them had actually approached him with regards to his power this week. Although most of them had gotten to know him on the battlefield first rather than his little library clinic. He imagined it was only a matter of time though until word got out completely. Still, that didn't mean she wasn't here to use his power. Not having a stigma didn't exempt people from all of the mental health problems that existed before the world went to shit, and it wasn't unheard of for an Arb to ask for his help on occasion.

Still, she didn't quite look insane.

"What can I do for you?"

Taking a seat, Callan thrummed her fingers against her leg as she waited. She sucked in her lips and tried to find something else to look at while he finished reading his page or whatever. This was weird. It was weird, wasn't it? She felt like she was at a clinic. Though... for all intents and purposes it wasn't much different.

"I, uh--"

Probably should have thought about how to word this.

"--was hoping you'd tell me about... what you... do." Beautifully delivered. She'd have to remember to pick up her Emmy on the way home.

Lawrence fixed her with a blank stare for a few moment, before throwing back his head and laughing. This different, to be certain. Usually people had a pretty good idea of what he did ahead of time before visiting him. Still, she looked serious, so he shook his head and offered an apology:

"Sorry, you surprised me. Uh, short version is I calm people, or I guess in some cases DC creatures, down. Long version..."

He paused for a moment, looking at an empty coffee mug nearby for inspiration before continuing.

"Well, really I bring people in line with my mental state. So, the idea is to keep myself as calm as possible as often as possible in case some Abe about to go on a rampage stops by and needs to chill the fuck out until they can get ahold of themselves. Doesn't just work with being calm, but that's what's most useful most often."

With a satisfied nod at himself, he extended his hand after finishing.

"If you wanted to be fair, you could tell me what you do, and you seem to have me at a disadvantage in the name department as well."

An Emmy for comedy. "Uh heh..," she forced a laugh, missing the joke. It seemed this wasn't a question he got very often. She visibly wilted at his answer. Only in some cases with Dreamcatcher's creatures, huh?

She carefully accepted his gesture, surprised by the infectiousness his cordiality. She felt like she should respond with her full name for some reason.

"Callan Webb. Super strength... resistance... agility... speed--" ending the hand shake, she gripped her arm above the elbow tightly. Her breath caught in her throat, "--and something else."

He let out a long whistle at the list. It was rare for an Arbiter to get that much power. It was pretty much winning the superpower lottery, with no Stigma attached to it. Still...

He wasn't exactly the worst person in the world at picking up signals. She was here for a reason, and hoping that his day wasn't about to be ruined, Lawrence cleared the space in front of him and folded his hand on the table. Leaning forward, he'd gone dead serious.

"Go on."

Callan took a deep breath. Of course, she still hadn't told anyone about this. From the minute she'd been talking to him, Lawrence seemed generally trustworthy. Either way, she'd already decided that if she didn't get a handle on this, that wouldn't really matter anyway.

"I don't know if it's suppose to be a fail-safe or what, but I can't control it," she blurted, "This... thing... crawls out of my shadow. I can't explain it, but I know it's stronger than me. A lot stronger. And... angrier. And I have a feeling that if I lose my cool or get too hurt, it's gonna break out again."

The grip on her arm tightened as she continued, memories of that bloody afternoon bubbling to the forefront of her mind. "But I'm not really here to see if you can help calm me down, she added quickly, "I want to see if your ability would have any sort of effect on this thing. It's... basically a DC monster? So...."

"Comes out of your shadow you say?"

He asked, standing up and walking around the table, trying to get a good look at what the woman was referring to. In truth, he didn't like where this conversation was going- putting himself in harms way was always an unpleasant task. However, he was nothing if not helpful, much to his own chagrin.

"As in, something needs to happen for me to be able to see it, or is it there now, in this room? Do you think letting it out a bit would be dangerous even with the suppression cuff on? If so it might be better to do this somewhere less..."
He began, taking a look around the room as he trailed off.

"... Occupied. Unless you're sure you can control it while I test my power. You say it's angry, well, I think as long as there's emotion there I can affect it. It's things like that big lump of stone that was on the battlefield I'm uncertain about.."

Panic flashed behind her eyes at Lawrence's suggestion. She barely heard anything else.

"No," she said assuredly. Her voice lost some confidence, clarifying her sudden answer. "N-not here."

"I don't know how dangerous it would be with the suppression cuff, but I don't want to risk it. When it comes out, I lose everything. I wouldn't even be useful in clearing the way so people don't get hurt." She wanted to make sure Lawrence understood this. She was asking for a pretty big favor after all.

"I'm certain there's a way to control it, though," she continued, "Yesterday-- during the fight-- I was able to summon its arm and tell it what to do for just a moment. And that was without freaking out or almost dying."

"As for whether or not it's here--" she looked down at her shadow, "I don't know."

"No helping it then."

He reached over and flipped own his plaque before subsequently grabbing two of the apples on the table and tossing one to her, not even asking if she wanted it. With her now-free hand, he motioned her to follow behind him. This was very quickly turning into an eventful week, and he wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or bad thing. Suffice to say though, the women he was with were starting to make things a lot more interesting than they were a couple weeks ago.

"Let's get some fresh air, eh? I assume you have a bit of free time right now."

The implications were fairly obvious, and he didn't feel the need to explain himself further than that. He knew the look in Callan's eye, was extremely familiar with it. If she didn't follow behind him it'd be the most shocking thing he'd encountered yet.

Catching the fruit, Callan stared after him.

"Wait, that's it?" she gawked, "You'll help me out? Really?"

She'd heavily considered the chance that he might tell her no. So much so that she hadn't really counted on him saying yes. Though maybe she'd just been wishing he wouldn't-- another excuse to put it off another day. Part of her kept wanting to do just that, even with Lawrence being so willingly to help right now. Or did he miss the part where she said her shadow was dangerous?

She rushed to catch up with him, walking slightly behind, "Why?"

"Why?"

He let the question hang in the air for awhile. He wasn't exactly opposed to talking about himself, but also wasn't used to it. The Abes he met with often weren't interested in getting that personal during their sessions, and the Arbs rarely talked to Lawrence to begin with. He was tempted to answer with a simple "Because I feel like it." but that almost felt like a lie without context. Lawrence didn't feel like potentially putting himself in danger. Especially for a total stranger.

It was after they had passed through the doors of the building and into the outside air that he continued, finally having settled on his on reasons.

"You're terrified of your power, of what it means for what you are and what you can do, right? Well you've heard what I can do, I just told you earlier. There's no hidden caveat to that, no ocean lurking behind that puddle of power I possess. Still, when I arrived here a year ago, I was terrified of it, of that tiny amount that I could do. Back then I couldn't turn it on or off, so I lived in constant fear of manipulating those around me. As if that was the worst possible outcome in the world, compared to what some of us can do. Well. We'll just say one day I stopped running from what I was, and instead I chose to accept it, even if I didn't like it. From there I learned about my power, and from understand the fear went away. Once the fear went away, I could finally focus on controlling it, and earning peace for myself."

He paused only long enough to chew off a bit of his apple before continuing.

"If I can help you understand this power that has you terrified, find its limits and minimize its danger... understand it and how to control it, well, maybe it'll make my days spent as a coward worth something. Fear is the mind killer. You're stuck with whatever this thing is either way, worrying about it won't change that fact. If my power works on it, that should at least give you peace of mind enough to work out your own powers with a clear head. If it doesn't work- C'est la vie. You won't be any worse off than you are now."

Callan opened her mouth to argue the being terrified part, but that almost certainly would have been a lie. No point in hiding it. Listening to Lawrence as they walked, she started eating the apple in her hand-- chewing just as much on his words. He wanted to help her because he could relate. Acceptance... fear... understanding... it made sense to her in theory, but-- c'est la vie? She wasn't so sure about that. Especially with regards to his safety.

"Where are we going anyway?" she asked.

"Nowhere in particular, just far enough away that I don't think anybody would get hurt. Ground Zero would be ideal, but that takes a bit of setup beforehand if you don't go there all the time- and I think that's overboard as a precaution."

Anybody, of course, hopefully included him. By now they were passing the hospital, walking towards Ground Zero even if it wasn't their actual destination. Ideally he'd have his power suppression off, but in the end it didn't matter too much. It worked better at suppressing some powers more than others, and Lawrence's was effective at what it did even when reduced. Overall, the results from using it on the Eyepion a few days ago made him fairly confident it would work on... Whatever it was that this girl was scared of. It was just going to be on her to make sure it wasn't an incredibly dumb decision she was making.

Ground Zero... Callan wasn't entirely sure what that was, but overboard sounded good. Maybe Lawrence had done things like this enough times not to worry, but that didn't excuse her from needing to be careful. Had she somehow been dishonest by omission when explaining things? Should she have explained more about how this thing leveled her home and had already almost killed someone? She found herself wondering if doing this tomorrow wasn't such a bad idea again and brushed the thought aside. It was now or never.

"Want a bit of help relaxing?"

With another bite of the apple, he bathed them both in his faint white light, and let his power start taking affect on her.

The wave of calm caught her off guard, but surprise was quickly replaced with serenity. Her worries started to melt away, but even as they vanished, she desperately tried to hang on.

"No--" she said forcefully before she was too calm to care, "--thank you. I think I'm just the right amount of nervous right now."

"You know yourself best."

With that simple reply, the aura vanished, and he didn't push it further. Had she attempted some sort of macho "It's better that I do this alone." horse shit he may have argued further, but he wasn't about to assume being calm would automatically help her. It was a power he had never dealt with coupled with a mage he had never dealt with. Best to assume they knew what they were talking about.

By now the main body of the school was behind them, and Ground Zero was beginning to loom in front. A place Lawrence was beginning to see more and more often lately. Above, if you knew what you were looking at from this distance, the Ground Zero Ghost carried on her endless watch. Lawrence raised a hand to her in the distance and muttered:

"I know, I know, with a different woman every time these day."

Before finally turning back to Callan.

"I think we're about far enough. Are you sure you're fine without my power? Do you need some space? I've got some time to kill if you need to prepare yourself a bit more for this."

Callan observed her surroundings quietly, cogs whirling away. In the distance were some strange battered buildings, but they seemed far enough out of range-- as did the school. From her experience, the shadow could only go so far. This should be fine.

She took a deep breath, setting her apple core on the ground. She turned away from the sun to face it. It was long and dark up against the setting sun. Perhaps sensing her apprehension, it flickered suddenly, but otherwise snapped back into place. A harrowing chill ran up her spine. "I've only fully summoned this thing once before," she explained, looking at him over her shoulder, "My advice would be to stay close. It doesn't seem to bother me when it's out."

"I've don't know if it'll show up just because I want it to either...," she tried to smile reassuringly, "Hopefully it'll work... I'll be fine... it's fine." She faced the shadow again, staring at it hard. She was already getting goosebumps.

"You ready?" Callan stalled, a neurotic laugh tainting the question.

Stay close? It was the opposite advice that he would have expected under the circumstances, but he wasn't about to argue over it. As she kept talking, clearly growing in agitation, Lawrence moved behind her and kept a close watch over... whatever it is he was looking. Her shadow, that thing, something else entirely. As she continued speaking he couldn't help the growing feeling that this was a bad decision on his part, but if it was stupidity then it was stupidity he was committed to.

C'est la vie.

With that, he rested a hand on her shoulder, minding to refrain using his actual power to chill her out, and spoke.

"Try to relax. You said you managed to get just it's arm or something before? I only really need to see a finger, as long as I have something I can target with my power. Just do what you can- if you can."

Callan had been staring so hard at her shadow that the sudden pressure on her shoulder caused her to jump. The corner of her mouth twitched into a nervous smile and she nodded, taking another deep breath as her shoulders relaxed-- if only a little. She tightened her fists and focused. One arm. That's all she wanted to summon. Maybe that's all she needed. Maybe Lawrence's ability would work like a charm and she could finally figure out exactly what this thing was and why it was so hellbent on making her life miserable by destroying everything in sight. Maybe it would listen.

Maybe it wouldn't.

As her mind kept racing, her shadow began to flicker more violently-- like the flame of a candle battling with a breeze. All at once it was still, taking on a solid black appearance. The tip of a single claw emerged from the inky black, followed by a monstrous black hand, roughly half the size of a person.

Maybe Lawrence's power wouldn't work. Maybe it would crawl out of her shadow just like before. Maybe it would kill them both.

The rest of the arm stretched skyward, soon followed by a second. The claws hit the ground with immense force, leaving small craters where they tightly gripped the earth. A pair of inky black shoulder blades emerged next. Even the light of the sun refused to reflect off its ebony form.

"Back up," Cal whispered, taking a step back. Her eyes were wide; expression, vacant. The shadow bulged, stretching to accommodate the massive torso that was pulling itself out.

"Mmm."

First stay close, now back up. As the thing began pulling itself out, Lawrence was definitely beginning to be filled with... apprehension. Far more than he had experienced the day before at Ground Zero. Still though, he merely stepped back and flipped his power on, noting with satisfaction that it did indeed work on the creature.

And waited.

As it began to pull its torso out he was struck with the realization that while his power was targeting whatever it was, it seemed to be entirely unaffected. This was... both unusual, and completely detrimental to his own safety at the moment. With fear beginning to prick at him like on the battlefield days ago, he tried something new.

With his power he had always used it passively. Flick on, it's working, no need to do anything further on his part. This though...

Gripping Callan's shoulder harder, he tried to will his power to work, force whatever it was coming into their world to calm the fuck down and reconsider endangering his life. It was an interesting experiment to be sure, but one that was bearing no fruit, and he began to feel that sense of fear increasing. This was turning out to be one Hell of a week he was experiencing. He didn't even have a gun on him for all the little it would do.

"All right, well, good news is my power can target it. Bad news is that seems to be doing absolute jack. I'm open to suggestions at this point."

"What?" Callan spared him a fleeting glance over her shoulder. That was definitely something she didn't want to hear.

A pair of huge, jagged black antlers preceded the head as it emerged with its ears flat against the back of its head. The rest of the body began to follow, its anatomy resembling something of a stag/wolf hybrid with jaws that seemed to extend almost to where the ears began. Large white eyes narrowed into thin slits as the creature's tail appeared last, flicking back and forth. Its entire body shuddered with presumed rage, hunching its shoulders as if recovering from the climb. Although it was hardly cold enough, its breaths came out in visible puffs of hot vapor. It was roughly the size of a city bus, from its nose to the tip of its tail. Speaking of which....

They were still too close.

Cal whipped around and grabbed a fist full of Lawrence's sleeve, prompting him to duck as the tail sailed overhead. "Back up, back up, back up," she repeated in a whispered growl through her teeth. Her knuckles were white around the fabric of his sleeve and she was visibly shaking. This was definitely not going as planned. She'd only been trying to summon the claws, but the mere sight of them had screwed up everything. She probably should have let Lawrence use his ability on her, but it was a little late for that.

The monster flexed its claws, digging into the earth as it lifted its head in search of something to demolish.

Yep. Bad idea. Never going to try to help anybody again.

Silently hating himself as he was forced to duck under the creature's claw, Lawrence began looking for options. All things considered, it didn't look like Callan was in the right mind to plan, and Lawrence wasn't in the right mind to let himself get killed. Still though, he didn't try to envelope the girl with his powers- right now the adrenaline would probably do her good, and his own mental state was starting to deteriorate from it's former calm anyway.

There wasn't anything for the creature to target here except for them. The main buildings were a ways off in front of them, and behind them...

"Super strength and speed right? Any chance you think you can outrun it for a bit? We might be able to lose it, or at least distract it, in Ground Zero behind us."

A tinge of frustration momentarily overrode her mind numbing fear. "I told you I lose everything. No speed. No strength."

"Doesn't hurt to hope you were wrong."

She summoned a horrible excuse for a smile and attempted to laugh, "I would've ripped your sleeve off by now if I had any juice."

A crash sounded off behind them as the shadow discovered a few trees and tackled them, clawing the bark and branches into pieces with its hind legs like an enraged cat.

"Scared, yet?" Callan asked, exhaling sharply.

"Getting there, although I'm mostly happy to not be a tree right this moment."

Rip his sleeve off? Not like he hadn't had enough of that this week. Still, it did seem to be occupied with attacking things that weren't Callan. It looked as if, for now, staying close had been good advice. Perhaps the thing operated a bit like a stigma, where if it destroyed enough stuff it would settle down? It was a hope, anyway. As long as he and Callan weren't included in that stuff. He couldn't say he wasn't worried, but this wasn't exactly less danger than he had been in the other day.

"If we can't outrun it, or outfight it, best we can do is try not be noticed and think of a way to get it back where it came from. Do you have any clue on how you can do that? I don't exactly have any guns or anything to lend a hand with."

"Uh...," not having a definite answer allowed the anxiety to creep back in, "I don't know. I--"

The sound of more crashing cut her off as the shadow kicked the larger tree branches out of the way, moving on to another grouping of trees. The larger branches smashed into the ground in front of them, kicking up dirt and debris in a flurry of leaves. Callan covered her eyes and turned away to avoid the spray. She tried to push her racing thoughts aside and focus on the positive.

"Let me try something..., she muttered, turning back to face the shadow. It was a bit further away now, which made it a little easier to think. She thought about Lawrence's advice earlier and tried to concentrate on what she wanted the shadow to do instead of her desire to turn around and run away. That's when she noticed it; a pulling sensation like the air between her and it was elastic. Had that always been there? It suddenly occurred to her that if she stopped fighting so hard, even for just a moment, maybe it would-- Callan lost her grip of Lawrence's sleeve and her body lurched forward as if pulled by an invisible string. She lost her balance and fell onto her hands and knees. What the hell...?

The moment she fell, the shadow creature paused and turned, its ears perking up as if it had heard a sound. Its white eyes fell on the pair and it snarled sinisterly, flattening its ears as it lowered its head and began walking towards them, still bristling with rage.

--

All at once, she felt the same sensation she'd felt during the battle with the massive quadruped. Time seemed to freeze and it felt like she was falling through the ground-- surfacing in that mysterious place full of shooting stars and nebules and a vast sea, still as glass. She watched as another marble-like droplet rose to meet her.

Although she expected it to envelope her hand in white, she couldn't bring herself not to pull away, just as before. The second time she grasped it, the shadow across from her appeared-- more than just an arm this time. Though it was just a black shape, it was a perfect reflection of herself.

--

As Callan came back to realty, her ears were ringing to the point where she could hardly hear anything. She pressed her palm against her temple and tried to refocus on what was going on. Meanwhile, the creature crept even closer, eyes on Lawrence as it snapped at the air.

"You all right?"

Lawrence knelt beside her, hand on her shoulder once more. Although in truth almost none of his attention was focused on the girl. This... thing that could so easily kill him at the moment was his main priority. After Callan had fallen forward it finally took notice of the pair- or at least that Lawrence was a part of it. Now it seemed to have eyes for only him as it crept forward.

My advice would be to stay close.

If there was one thing you learned about mages, it was to trust what they said about their powers. There was that... instinct instilled in them from the onset, a subtle understanding of their new reality. So he stayed close, eyes fixated on the beast until it came to a halt in front of them, gripping Callan's should harder with each step.

And then all at once, relief.

The snapping jaws were intimidating of course, but it seemed the girl had been right about its limits. Whether it couldn't get within a certain range, or couldn't make attacks that would potentially harm Callan, Lawrence didn't know. At that moment he didn't particularly care either as he wrestled with the adrenaline pumping through him and the urge to fight or flee. Both would end in disaster, you didn't need a stoic mind to be able to reason that out.

So the two stared at each other as Callan recovered. Coming to an understanding that perhaps only Lawrence was aware of, but was the foundation of the brief relationship between the two beings.

I can't really blame you, can I? If I could, I would destroy you too.

Reality came back to her in pieces. Snarling. Lawrence's hand on her shoulder. The dirt, the grass, the massive claws and jaws before her. And above all else, an innate feeling of what to do.

Callan stood on her knees, breathing unevenly as she discarded the helpless fear that had been suffocating up until now. She got to her feet and extended both her arms out in front of her. She closed her fingers around two invisible cords. She exhaled, feeling a sense of relief even as she stared at the beast, which had since continued to nip at the air, pawing the ground anxiously. Slowly, she rose the cords above her head, narrowing her eyes as the shadow shook its head and snorted warm vapor into her face. She whipped the cords down sharply and the monster's head slammed into the ground with enough force to shake the ground beneath their feet.

It then began to melt. As it did so, the creature picked its head up and sat, gifting her with one last hateful glare until it too melted. The inky puddle shrank back into the shape of her shadow and faded back to its natural shade.

Callan blinked down at her shadow. It was gone. Suddenly her legs felt like little more than jello. She barely caught herself from falling forward again.

"Huh," she smirked, the corners of her mouth hesitantly rising. It was really gone.

Then she did the last thing she thought she'd ever do in a situation like this.

She laughed.

"Hah..."

As the thing melted away Lawrence let the tension flow out of him in a rush, falling backwards onto the grass as he exhaled. For a moment he lay there, watching a cloud pass overhead as he tried to get his bearings, before turning once more to the Ghost high in her tower nearby. He wondered, as Callan began laughing next to him, if one died in Ground Zero, whether they became part of the projection, fated to be killed by rampaging Aberrations again and again. That would not have been his fate if he died here of course, so far outside it, but death was on his mind.

"I think that's my excitement for the day. Laying here for awhile sounds nice."

Her laughter subsided into short bursts of giggling as she sat down, wiping a tear out of the corner of her eye with her sleeve.

She leaned back on her hands and sighed, "I'm sure you don't want to hear this, but-- I can't believe that worked."

"Honestly, compared to the sound of being torn limb from limb, I'm think I'm quite all right with hearing that."

Calming himself quickly was of course a talent Lawrence was well versed in at this point, so he folded his hands behind his head and closed his eyes, relaxing in his newfound peace. So, had she learned to control her power? It would certainly be a productive venture if that was the case, although he couldn't say for certain whether it was learning something she could already do, or...

"Good job though, Callan Webb. You're one step closer to showing whatever that is whose boss now. "

Her cheeks were threatening to cramp up at this point, but she still couldn't stop smiling-- especially at Lawrence's comment.

"Ya think? Maybe I'll have to enlist your help for round two." she joked, looking at him.

If they weren't closed he would have rolled his eyes at that one, instead he let out an exasperated sigh without moving from his position.

"Yeah, great idea. I'll help mill about somewhere while you get a water bottle to spray in its face and say 'Bad dog!' until it learns its lesson.[/color]"

Callan laughed and her hand flew to her cheek. Ow....

She massaged her cheek for a moment, observing Lawrence in silence.

"Seriously though... thanks for helping me."

He shook his head in response, opening his eyes this time to look at her.

"Don't kid yourself into thinking I did anything, you solved your own problems. Credit where it's due. Most I did was tag along here. Your problem, your idea to try to do something about it, your solution that did something about it."

Closing his eyes once more he took a deep breath.

"The fresh air is nice though, point to me for taking you to a spot outdoors for this."

With an incredulous scoff, she shook her head. He wasn't even going to let her say thank you after almost dying on her account? That made for two things she couldn't believe today. After all, Lawrence had still agreed to at least try and help-- even with the knowledge that he might not be able to.

"Well..." she laid back and shoved her hands in the pockets of her jacket, staring up at the sky, "I'm glad you were here anyway."

He chuckled in response. Glad he was here? There wasn't really a way to argue that without being a total asshole. So he didn't, instead content to take the comment for what it was.

"Thanks. Next time though let's just try to get the arm, eh? That was rather too intense to want a repeat."

"Agreed," Callan groaned, closing her eyes. With the melting of her shadow monster, she'd felt her strength return-- but with it came a good amount of fatigue. Either that, or there was something about the shade of the clouds and softness of the breeze that was compelling her to sleep. Or maybe it was the natural aura of calm exuded by Lawrence-- the biggest quandary of all considering what they'd just been through. Whatever the case, circumstances were ideal. Not that it mattered-- she'd napped for less.

"Well we should probably start head-"

Asleep.

Sure, Lawrence was relaxed, but he wasn't that relaxed right after risking his life. Asleep. Outside. In the middle of the day. Right after nearly dying.

What the hell?

Not knowing if he was looking at a narcoleptic or the next evolution of mankind, Lawrence sighed in exhasperation before settling back himself. Glancing briefly at a watch that didn't exist, he wished he hadn't left his books back at the library, wondering how long it'd take the girl to wake up.

Well.

It's not like he had anything better to do at the moment. With a shrug he placed his hands behind his head once more and looked at the clouds passing above.

Casting their shadows on the two figures in the grass.

---

𝕊𝕖𝕡𝕥. 𝟘𝟞, 𝟚𝟘𝟚𝟘 / / 𝕌𝕊𝔸ℝ𝕀𝕃ℕ 𝔼𝕒𝕤𝕥 / / 𝟚𝟚𝟙𝟞

---

A change in the temperature as a particularly cold breeze danced by finally stirred Callan from her nap. It was darker than it should've been for how long she meant to sleep. The stars overhead seemed brighter than they ought to be-- something that could probably be credited to her having never been outside of the city she was from. A second cold breeze told her it was time to head back to her dorm. She stifled a yawn and stretched.

"You always sleep next to a guy on the same day he learns your name?"

A startled Callan tightly collapsed her arms around her chest and turned to see a very dimly lit Lawrence-- still lying in the same place and position she'd last seen him. Had he fallen asleep the same time she did? But... he was very clearly awake right now. How long had he been awake? What time was it? Her cheeks burned and she sat up quickly. The mortifying realization that he might have been waiting for her to wake up this whole time left the delivery of her response lacking.

"Wh-- how... H-how long did it take you to come up with that?" she nervously chuckled, pulling her hair over her shoulder and hugging her knees to her chest.

Worth it.

In truth he hadn't expected her to sleep nearly so long as she had. An hour, two at absolutely most. It wasn't as if he had any particular plans for the day, and relaxing was as good of a hobby as any. Still.

Still.

He didn't have a watch on him, or another method of keeping time, but he knew what time the sun set this time of year in USARILN East, and she had been out for hours. Well passed what he had planned to wait. Well past what was reasonable to expect from a nap. While at first he was just content to relax, as the chill began to creep in it was purely stubbornness that had rooted him to his spot. By the point he had already wasted an hour on the task, what was a couple more? It was a pointless challenge, but one that he took up willingly.

"Just now, I was mainly thinking of remarks about the bed hair you'd have when you woke up, but it's gotten rather hard to see it anyway."

If her hair had been a snake, she would've strangled it. She hugged her knees tighter.

"You've been awake this whole time," Callan stated-- not so much as a question, though it was clear she wanted to know why.

"You've been asleep this whole time. You act like being awake is the weirder one of the two."

"Well..." she didn't really have a response to that. Her sleeping patterns had been off-the-charts-weird this past week. Effectively stumped, she remained silent.

He chuckled in response, finally standing up and taking a moment to stretch before offering her a hand.

"Don't worry about it, it was a good opportunity to relax and think for awhile. I'll just know next time to bring a pillow along."

She hesitated before taking his hand. It was cold. Now she felt less embarrassed and more guilty.

"Thanks," she said, "But next time you can just tape a 'Do Not Disturb' sign to my face and leave if you want. Sleeping in public is a bad habit I don't see myself breaking anytime soon."

"Seems like a waste personally."

He began, starting to step to the dorms where they both lived.

"Why would I tape the sign to your face then leave? I've got a pillow and a sign saying not to disturb me at that point, may as well get some shut eye out of it."

"Tch," she followed, slightly behind, "Unless you're coming up with one-liners the whole time."

"Would you prefer they were two liners? I'm not picky."

She scoffed, turning up the collar of her jacket and crossing her arms tightly, "I'm more of a three liner girl myself."

He shook his head in response, finally approaching the main compound once more.

"You're a woman of expensive taste. You should try to be a little less demanding."

"Uh... tch, no way. I've got standards," she responded lamely. The 'woman' bit caught her off guard. For a moment, the seventeen year old forgot that Lawrence seemed older than she was-- though by how much she wasn't sure. She again thought about how she'd been sleeping out there next to him for what had to have been hours and inwardly screamed. At least her face wasn't cold.

Lawrence simply chuckled in response to that, content to let the matter drop. There was a limit to how much teasing was tasteful, after all, and he could tell that limit had been reached. So, instead, he enjoyed the night air and the sound of their footsteps echoing across the quiet campus. It wasn't long before the two reached home- the Arbiter dorms. Sure, there was a chance she was confined to the Aberration wing, but from what he'd seen that day the possibility was incredibly unlikely.

Once inside he turned to her a final time.

"Well, unless you've become my roommate overnight I think this is it. I'm not the hardest person in the world to locate next time you need something."

Callan, the epitome of flustered in that moment, shoved her hands into her pockets as a last ditch effort to look casual. She nodded curtly, "See ya around."

Upon entering her suite, Callan closed the door behind her and lingered there with her back up against it. After a moment of letting her eyes adjust to the darkness, she stalked over to her bed and collapsed facedown into her pillow. Either this would help put out her face, which she was quite sure was literally on fire right now, or she'd suffocate and die. Either one sounded desirable.

Emma was rapidly becoming a rarer and rarer sight in Suite 318. After leaving with Brent the night before she’d arrived back slightly after curfew escorted by a guard and the following morning, she left at an unusually early hour. In truth she hadn’t even slept even after she returned, seemingly far too excited by something. Despite her unusual behavior she seemed inordinately cheery, a wide smile gracing her face that hasn’t seemed to disappear since she had disappeared with Brent. She’d been busy, oh so busy, since her discovery last night, trying to find out all she could about Hector, interrogating everyone she possibly could about him and the truth about Anima.

This made it all the odder that she had seemed to call her investigation off early, returning home while the night was still young. Of course she had her reasons: She wanted to know what Lawrence Ellision knew about Hector. As she opened the door to the large dorm she was delighted to find that her timing was correct and she had caught him while he was home. She had no doubt that the veteran student would know something about the room beneath the medical building and the strange boy that lived there.

She waved to Lawrence as she entered, grin on her face evident. Hazel was there too, but she clearly had a long day, fast asleep already.”Hey Lawrence, how’s it goin’?” Her voice was full of mirth.

Apparently she was having a good day.

Lawence, for his part, had just finished brewing his final cup of coffee for the day and cleaning his machine for the next day's use. In his hands was Meditations although quite clearly a different copy than he was carrying previously, and notably a new jacket was hung where his old one once was. Almost identical, save for the fact that this one showed notably less wear and tear. Particularly after the glitter bomb incident.

At the sound of Emma entering, he looked up from his reading and closed the book- not even bothering to mark the page. Out of his two roommates, Emma had certainly turned out to be the more normal one of the two, almost worryingly so for an Aberration. Hazel, of course, was Hazel, but the two hadn't spoken much since returning from Ground Zero earlier that day. A fact that wasn't unusual at all, all things considered.

Still, Emma was even more cheerful than usual- or at least what Lawrence assumed her usual was from the short time he had known her. So with a casual wave he responded:

"Hey, you get a date or something?"

Emma nodded at Lawrence’s question, ”Well… in a manner of speaking, yeah.”

Emma wasn’t talking about Marcus, of course.

She paused for a moment, fully entering the room and setting her things down on her desk. ”Actually, on the note I did have something that I wanted to ask you about. Some questions about some of the other older students. You gotta a minute?”

He raised an eyebrow at that,taking a sip of his coffee as she explained. In a manner of speaking. Questions about the older students.

"Uh, all right. So which of the older ones asked you out? I know some better than others, but not many are bad enough to prey on people in their first week."

At that Emma laughed a little, ”No, sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. No one asked me out, I was just curious about some people I met.”

”Clark, Miranda, and Hector. Sorry, I’ve only got first names, I know that’s not a whole lot to go off of but,” Emma wasn’t sure exactly how much Lawrence would know, but decided to try anyways, ”they hang around the medical building and Zhang seems pretty fond of them. Sound familiar?”

Lawrence nodded in reply, just hearing Hector and Miranda together were a dead giveaway to who she was talking about. As for Clark... just what had Emma been doing the last few days?

"What did you want to know about them? And how did you even meet them? It's not even Wednesday so I know you didn't see Hector wandering around unless something's changed."

Emma’s smile was oddly persistent given the tone that this conversation was taking. ”Ah, so you do know them. I was just wondering what their deal was and why Zhang is so protective of them. Oh, and as for how I met them…” Emma’s smile widened a little, ”I saw the room underneath the hospital, where Hector and Mirada live."

"Saw their room, huh? I admit I've never tried to get into the containment chambers, but it doesn't sound like a place that they give you a tour of on your first week."

So, the rumor that Hector lived underground had been true, interesting, but not as interesting as the fact that Emma had managed to go there in her first week at USARILN East. Lawrence had a bad feeling about this entire conversation, and hoped that he was wrong.

Unfortunately that was rarely the case.

Emma nodded, ”No, not exactly. The guards turned us away, but Clark was kind enough to take us in and show us what happened to Padma and Alexis.” Emma paused before adding, ”Those were the two that died during the last mission. But regardless, I was hoping to find out what exactly…” A look of thoughtfulness crossed Emma’s face as she tried to pick the right word to use, ”What exactly Hector and Miranda are.”

All right, so that was how Clark factored into it. The story was getting a bit hard to follow for him though, what with the introduction of Clark, the dead students being brought up, and the focus on Hector and Miranda in spite of that. He decided to try and tackle this one subject at a time.

"Well, Hector's a kid, Aberration. A weird one, even for his type. Miranda, as far as I know, is linked to his power. At least that makes the most sense from what I know about the two. Whether she's specifically some sort of DC creature he controls or what, I have no idea."

With a shrug he took another sip of his coffee.

Emma was starting to get a clearer picture, but she was left with one important question. Well, for her, the most important question. ”Hector is indeed an Aberration, but there was something interesting that he said before I had to leave: According to him he had no stigma. I’ve only taken a glance at Death and Taxes, but that would make him an Animus, no? You know anything about Animi?” Emma had her doubts that Lawrence the Arbiter would have any interest in Animi, but she hoped in spite of her doubts that he would know something.

"Hector an Animus?"

Lawrence didn't really have an opinion on that formulated ahead of time. The thought had simply never occured to him and never had a reason to occur. Still, though, he supposed it wasn't the most ridiculous possibility in the world. She said Zhang was particularly attached to him, which would make sense given the other info. His opinion on it was rather simple though:

"He could be an Animus, I don't know. You could always try to ask him on Wednesday. If he is though, I'm glad he's not out fucking the world like so many others are. Why he isn't though is beyond me I'm afraid."

Emma shrugged, ”Yeah, tracking him down on Wednesday was the plan.” At that point Emma gave up on trying to learn more from Laurence, clearly she would be able to find out everything else on Wednesday. To that end she moved onto idle chatter, ”It would be interesting if he was. There wasn’t really a lot about them on Death and Taxes, and… well, you know. Stigmas suck. The opportunity to live without one… well, if the rumors about how you get to be an Animus are true than I think I’d take a pass, but it’s nice to dream that I might be able to get rid of my stigma.”

He nodded.

"Yeah, I'm not sure how true those rumors are. If that's all it takes to become one of the animi, then why doesn't Zhang have all Aberrations at Ground Zero 24/7 until they get this magical switch flipped? Doesn't make sense to me. Still..."

He paused once more to take a sip of his coffee.

"I don't envy you Abes. Stigmas are one thing I'm happy to live without. As an Arbiter the worst thing you have to worry about is guilt."

For but a moment Emma’s smile faded. This talk of Stigmas was making her painfully aware of the fact that her own was acting up, even now when she was talking to Lawrence. Usually this would be distraction enough to at the very least calm it, but since the vision she had this morning the voice in her head had been louder than ever.

Or has it?

Even now Emma second guessed herself, for the most insidious aspect of her stigma was its ability to seem so much like her own thoughts. Emma rubbed her forehead as the beginnings of a migraine presented itself.

She snapped back to reality, ”Yeah.” Her smile was starting to return. ”That certainly does sound like something that Zhang would do if she could. After all…” Her thoughts turned back to her ‘visit’ with Hector and Miranda, ”I haven’t been here very long and I’ve seen her be party to much worse.” She shrugged, ”That’s the way things are though. I’m sure she’s doing what she thinks is right. Future of humanity and all that.” There was a noticeable note of bitterness in her voice.

"Zhang's not perfect, and I don't even really know if I support her or not, but I can say she's not stupid regardless of her morals. So... if she does something it's probably for a reason, if she doesn't do something it's probably for a reason."

With a shrug to finish off the subject, he decided to switch gears. Despite being roommates they hadn't gotten the chance to talk much since their first night.

"How are you adjusting to things? Everything going all right?"

Emma gave a small sigh, ”Well, given that I was taken from my home after developing superpowers and dropped into this nightmare, I’d say I’m adjusting better than expected.”

She decided to make not mention of what she had seen beneath the hospital, ”I think I’m past the point of worrying how things are going. It’s just about survival, at this point, isn’t it?” She remembered what Brent had said to her about survival, ”Survival’s winning. And that means we have to bear the burden of the dead.” She wasn’t exactly sure what had compelled her to quote Brent, and she wasn’t sure that she quite believed the words coming out of her mouth. ”Or something like that. I didn’t mean to get wannabe philosophical on ya.”

He shook his head, setting the coffee down for the moment.

"No, survival's fine, and ultimately you need to find a purpose to keep on until the next day. I don't quite agree with yours- I think looking for a way within the situation to actually enjoy yourself or find contentment is more important than pure survival. At the end of the day though a purpose pushes you forward, and it's your business what that is. Me? Sometimes I still wonder about my own."

Emma nodded, ”I get that. And I think I am able to enjoy things to a degree- it’s been nice getting to meet everyone, after all. But really, I’ve never felt a large sense of purpose in life. It’s a little scary finding something to dedicate yourself to, don’t you think? Fear of failure and all that. Survival’s easy. It’s always made sense to me. Live so you can live the next day. I guess that’s how I’ve been living for a while, but…”

Why was she spilling her guts out to this boy she barely knew?

Emma shrugged. ”My view on that is kinda shitty. A little pessimistic, I know, but it’s what’s comfortable for me I guess. Purpose does sound nice, but it’s not an easy thing to find.”

"Is it shitty though? If it's keeping you going until the next day where you have another chance to find something- it sounds fine enough for now. Just have to use that time you're buying instead of wasting it."

”That’s a nice thought. I’d like to believe that too, but sometimes I think living just to live is too hard. It’s draining to get up every day hoping that something new will present itself and just like that things would suddenly change, as if my purpose in life would suddenly be clear, especially now that we’re here. After all, we’re subnaturals, we’re not going to get many opportunities to find it, are we? There are times where you have to make the best of a bad situation but ours is a special kind of shitty. I’m not going to trick myself into thinking that I’ll save the world with my power or that I’ll be able to go back home and see my family. We live lives that are decidedly small, confined here, constrained to Zhang’s whims, constantly sent out to die… we don’t have much but each other, do we?”

He cocked his head to the side, picking up his coffee once more as she spoke. Resisting the urge to interrupt her part way.

"Wait for something to change? Hope something new presents itself? Emma, that's not making something of life, that's just living. Taking the situation you're in, and working to change it, working to create something new, and actively seeking out your purpose are how you end up improving your life. This situation is just the toolbox you have to work with. Adapt or work towards changing your circumstances, but yeah doing neither is going to make you miserable."

With another sip he added:

"If you end up investing everything in the people around you as your foundation instead of yourself, then when they die here it's going to destroy you. Yes we have each other, but more importantly you have yourself."

Emma’s smile had turned into a somber one. ”I won’t deny that you’re right, but it’s an undersimplification of the matter. People don’t live the way I described because they want to, they do it because…”

Emma found herself a little lost for words. Because they’re self-loathing sacks of shit? Because they thought they had figured out what their life was supposed to offer them but lost it? Because they’ve accepted the fact that they’re going to die and that their family will never know, and even if they did might not care?

She didn’t say any of that. ”It’s a vicious cycle, y’know? It’s near impossible to just make the decision to suddenly change the way you live your life, even if you know it would be a positive change. It takes a lot of work, and right now… the way I’m going works, even if it is hard. Of course I’ve looked and I will look to change it but it’s not that easy.”

He nodded in response.

"And I won't deny that you're right, and think it's an overcomplication of the matter. However, my oversimplification has largely allowed me to find peace, while you're still looking for it. I'm not going to say my way of thinking is for everybody, but it's food for thought."

For emphasis he held up the book he had been reading earlier.

"Not sure if you read in your free time, but it's worth checking out sometime and not that long. In either case- I'll do what I can to help you settle in and make some sort of home of this place. It's about all I can offer."

”I appreciate that.” Was all Emma responded with. She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t interested in the book since she’d seen him reading it so much, but upon closer inspection it looked a little dry for her taste.

That’s not to say that she wouldn’t take his advice, however.

For a moment Emma paused, and then declared, ”Well, that being said, I think it’s about time I got some sleep. I’ve been… I’ve been up for a while.” She turned towards her bed.

”Thank for entertaining my ramblings, though. And I will think about what you said!” She said, turning to flash him one more smile.

He shook his head in response, laying his book down for the night and draining his cup of coffee before standing and making his way over to his own bed.

"Don't worry about it, at the end of the day you Hazel and I have to see each other the most, least we can do is a lend a ear when someone needs it."

Taking a seat at the edge, he obliged a patient Lizzy- who had been waiting for him for some time- with a few attentive scratches behind her ears. Finally adding:

"Hopefully tomorrow things start looking up for you Emma. Eventually they did for me, that's all I can add. Goodnight."

She was alone again.

It didn't matter that there were other students in the truck with her (ah, so familiar. Twice in just as many days, wasn't it?), she was alone. Siena had never really done well being truly alone. No Marcus, no Maya. Just her and the high tide as her heart stampeded like a violent elephant. Softly, the child sighed to herself, fingers pressed tight against the cover of the sole paper-and-ink book brought with her. It was a minor comfort, but it was better than being left without the safety of the lightly aged papers.

The ride back was long and largely quiet, bar for a remark or two and the sound of the ground passing beneath t hem.

If only quiet was a state that existed for Siena's mind. Her head was still reeling, a mixture of vivid flashbacks and sickening churning failing to clear the state. She remained silent, withdrawn in her own thoughts even when the girl was herded none too gently into a long room. Many of them were moved like cattle into beds to have their injuries treated, but Siena found herself placed into what resembled a child's corner. Between the comics and the television, most people would have been able to keep themselves distracted, but Siena let herself get trapped in her own head, trying to no avail to assign the emotions to the person that they belonged with, steely eyes focused on nothing in particular--it probably looked like she was contemplating the existence of the wall to anyone around her.

It wasn't until Benediction came sweeping in like the magnificent butterfly he was that Siena was snapped out of her stupor. It took a bit of time for the brunette to realize exactly what she was looking at--he was actually there. It wasn't like Prism the other night, nothing but blasts, a threat, and a lifetime away. Benediction was there and present in the flesh...and he was healing them. Siena could feel her breath catch in the back of her throat, expression a mixture of starstruck and thrilled. Now that was something to update the blog about.

But just as suddenly as Benediction appeared, he left. Siena got to her feet as though the chair had burned her, the nurse barely clearing the group of students before the brunette was moving to see where Benediction had gone. There was no better source of material than an actual Precursor, after all.

Having successfully making it out of the door and avoiding any more walls, Lily looked left and right, trying to figure out where the Precursor headed off to. Silently, she reviewed what she knew about Benediction to prevent her mind from being occupied yet again by faceless people. Benediction, the Precursor that had the miraculous power of healing... similar to hers, in a way... Well, it's actually not similar at all, she corrected herself and let her thoughts drift to exactly what she can do as she randomly chose a direction to head towards. Can it be called healing? I can remove injuries...so that counts as healing right? But then..." her train of thought turned a corner and into that feeling of wanting to make others feel her pain. That invasive and malicious intent.

Wait. No, no," she tried to clear the thoughts out of her head as she almost ran into a girl staring towards the direction she was headed to, awe apparent on her face. She looked up and remembered that she was following after someone. Sebastian, the name involuntarily popped into her head. Sebastian? No... Benediction. His name is... she furrowed her brow, trying to remember what it was that she had read about the Precursor before. A bright smile settled over her lips when she was able to remember. Renard M...Malveaux. Benediction. Healer. Very handsome and... stingy. She blinked. Stingy? Was that how he really was? It'll be sad if he was. Well, I suppose if I'm fast enough, I'll be able to catch up and see for myself. Her footsteps quickened as he hurried towards the direction everyone seemed to be gawking at.

Siena had to make a few quick guesses to try and catch sight of the Precursor again, catching sight of a familiar blonde girl as she moved. Blinking, Siena gave a weak smile. "Are you looking for Benediction too?" Not that there wouldn't be others trying to mill about the Precursor, but it was nice to know that she wasn't alone in wanting to know more. Scanning the area, Siena caught sight of the man and gave a small nod of her head in his general direction, her feet taking her after the Precursor, her eyes only breaking their line of sight every so often to glance behind to see if Lily really was looking for Benediction.

Lily looked up at Siena and recognized her as one of her team mates. She was glad to see that she was unharmed. Oh, wait. Of course she would be if Benediction worked his magic... And if he did, then that's proof that he's really nice. Unless...unless he was just ordered to. Then, that'd mean that he's really not that nice of a person and... derailed again, she stopped and then turned her thoughts back to her team mate. It's nice that I'm not alone in following after him, she thought pleasantly and then realized belatedly that she had not answered the girl's question. She opened her mouth to say something but promptly closed it again when she noticed that Siena's attention was no longer on her and had started to walk away. She stood there for a moment, wondering if she should follow or just turn around and maybe go get something to eat. Her thoughts immediately became a confusing mix of food and strange dreams.

She was just about to turn away when Siena turned back to her. All thoughts in her head flew out as she made a split second decision to continue on with her original plan. With a grin, she jogged towards Siena and nodded her head. "Benediction. Yes. I wanted to see him up close," she said in an excited to as she stood on tiptoe and craned her neck, her short height obviously putting her at a disadvantage.

A sense of camraderie blossomed through the cracks that Benediction had formed in the thick slab of negativity that had been carefully cemented over the remainder of Siena's feelings. It was different from what she felt towards her servants--how could you feel the same about anyone comparatively?--but it wasn't unpleasant. "Heh...I've always wanted to see the Precursors. I didn't think we'd see them here though." Then again, Siena had thought that the Precursors were too important and too busy to be bothered with younger subnaturals being hoarded away into USARILN East, but apparently she was wrong.

Lily looked at Siena and nodded her head vigorously. "Me too, me too!" she exclaimed excitedly as she continued craning her neck. "He must be so cool, having a great power. And he must be preeeetty important to everyone," she gestured a little irritatedly at the multitudes of guards. "I think I can understand why he needs a lot of guards to watch over him but you'd think they'd just step aside for a bit so that we can catch a glimpse of him,"

Following after Benediction, Siena almost felt like she and Lily were on a covert mission, though it was hardly anything of the sort, given that there was hardly anyone that tried to be subtle about the fact that they were milling near Benediction. Starstruck as Siena was, she couldn't help but notice that...well, there was something about the man. She paused, her gaze fixed on what he was doing when he passed by the reflective surface of a window.

Was...was he preening himself?

With her brow furrowed, Siena couldn't help but stare. Certainly, there had been rumors after she went digging for research, but she hadn't wanted to believe that such a powerful healer could be so vain. "Unbelievable..."

"It's not as if we're gonna jump him or anything, right? I..." Lily was finally able to catch a glimpse of Benediction almost the same time as Siena did and her words trailed off. She stared at the Precursor, an awed look was on her face despite the things she read about him online. She jumped several times so that she can see him over the shoulders of the guards and the other people mulling around and was thoroughly disappointed when he disappeared into a door. An elated look crossed her face before she turned to Siena. "Wow. He looked so handsome and cool and..." Golden hair and golden eyes similar to hers flashed through her mind. He was handsome too. Perhaps even equally handsome as Benediction. "...he looks like Sebastian..." she said wonderingly. She stood there, looking distracted for a few seconds before she snapped out of it, the short lucid moment gone.

"Sebastian..." she repeated the name, a frown curving her lips down. Who is Sebastian? the question echoed in her head. She looked at Siena. "Do you know who Sebastian is?" she asked with a confused tone in her voice, her mood dipping down abruptly.

Something close to a smile crossed Siena's face as she glanced at Lily's attempts to get a better look at Benediction. Had she been more confident in her abilities to walk while doing so, the brunette would have offered to hold the blonde up for a better view. Eventually, the healer moved to an area with a number of guards--guards that didn't look like they were going to let any of the Benediction fanclub follow him further. A wave of disappointment crashed against Siena as she watched Benediction disappear behind the door. Turning to face her companion, Siena gave a faint smile. Well, Benediction did have a certain level of attractiveness, that was true. It was not until Lily asked about Sebastian that the brunette paused, her own smile fading. "Sebastian? I...I'm sorry, I don't think I know who that is..." Guilt traced over Siena's heart, defying her rationalization that it wasn't her fault.

"If I hear of a Sebastian, I can always let you know," Siena claimed. "I guess for now, we should go before these guards think we're up to something."

Lily frown stayed on her face. Who was Sebastian? Why does his name keep popping up in her head? Maybe someone from my past? Maybe I can do a search or something? Find out whatever I can about him... She looked at Siena and nodded her head, a little downcast this time around. "Thanks," was all she said before she glanced towards the guards. "Yeah, we might end up getting thrown in jail or something just for trying to get a good look," she said a little dejectedly. "I'll see you around, Siena," the golden haired girl muttered before she turned and walked away, her shoulder hunched forward.

With a sore shoulder from today’s earlier training with Lawrence about handling firearms, Angélique made her way towards USARILN East’s cafeteria. She was looking forward all day long to this afternoon, getting her old team all together for a dinner of her own design. Sure, what she intended to make didn’t quite fit together, but she’d rather make them discover a bit of dishes from her hometown rather than treat her friends to something ordinary.

As always, she was greeted by the nonchalant expression of the staff member labelled “Jason” behind his counter. Before even taking care of the ID formality, she jumped on the trigger with a question.

“Hey, you guys have kitchens at the back, right? Mind if I use them for the afternoon?”

“Uhhh, you know you have a communal kitchen in the Abes’ apartment, right?”

“No shit. I don’t have the ingredients.”

“Use your legs and your allowance to buy what you need in CC 1.”

“Well fuck you then.”

Angel stormed out of the cafeteria with a pissed off expression in her eyes. She really didn’t want to go to town and carry groceries from Crimen Culpae to the dorms.

“Hey Angel!”

Aaron called out behind the angry Canadian girl. She turned on her heels, visibly mad, which made Aaron back off a little bit while presenting his hands in a symbol of peace.

“Oh, sorry. Did I catch you again at a wrong timing?” Aaron apologized, remembering well what had happened yesterday when she crossed her during one of her bad mood days.

“No no. Quite the opposite actually. I’ve been refused access to this prison’s kitchen, so I need to run to town and grab some stuff to make tonight’s dinner.”

“Need some help? Four arms are better than two to carry groceries bag, am I right?"

“Hmm… Well I guess I can’t say no. I’d really appreciate it, thanks.”

“Alright then, lead the way.”

The two former members of Green Team soon departed towards Crimen Culpae 1 in search of a supermarket. Thanks for the power of the campus’ network signal, Angel managed to find - with the help of her trusty smartphone - a rather good-rated supermarket not too far away from USARILN.

On the way to the neighboring town, the two subnaturals discussed at length about what kind of music they preferred, bands and some well-known albums. Although the two shared a passion for metal music, it was evident their taste came from two different sources. Angel preferred mostly was came out from artists, while Aaron was very interested in covers made from video-games and/or the original soundtracks from those.

They’ve been killing time on the road by making listen each other listen to their favorite songs, Aaron lending his trademark headphones to Angélique while she handed her smartphone playing songs from her personal playlists.

It had been a good way to seemingly reach the store in the blink of an eye. Before they knew it, the musical duo stepped through the automatic door of the supermarket, greeting the two Mages with the fresh smell of fruits and vegetables.

“Alright, let me check what I need.”

Angel took her phone in hand and opened a note she had typed in earlier this morning. It was her groceries list, listing each ingredient she’d need to make her food.



Aaron looked quizzically at Angel when she was muttering out loud the list on her phone. He had absolutely no idea what most of what she read meant.

“Sorry, I don’t speak… French, was it? Tell me what you need, I’ll go get them for you.”

Aaron took a nearby shopping cart and brought to Angel while he was carrying a shopping basket for himself.

“Could you get… mozzarella cheese, onions, green peppers, blueberries, eggs, milk, and cream-styled corn?”

Aaron nodded, pulling out his phone and making a note of everything Angélique said. So far, he really had no clue what she intended to cook, and that seemed to be only half of her shopping list.

After writing everything down, the two split up on their own to fetch their ingredients. While the brown-haired Arbiter went to fetch his parts of the groceries, the raven-haired Aberration took her time to select the finest selection of food she could find. A 10 pounds’ sack of potatoes, oil, brown gravy mix, Italian sausages, lean ground beef, white flour, sugar, brown sugar, salt and finally corn starch.

Pooling everything together, the students’ duo went to the cashier to complete their purchase. While the two were emptying their shopping cart on the moving tray, the guy behind the counter seemed anxious, or nervous.

“Holy crap, you two are Subnaturals right? You two going out? On a date, perhaps? Oh, I know, you guys shopping for a romantic meal tonight, am I right?”

The cashier obnoxiously questioned as it was time to pay for the groceries.

“N-NO!”

“What the fuck man?”

The two Mages blurted out in answer to the sudden assault of erroneous assumptions the guy behind his counter shot at them. With an annoyed frown, the black-haired X-marked got her student ID card and shoved it in the cashier’s face.

“Just shut up and take the cash. I haven’t got all day to listen to your bullshit.”

Angel sharply added. At this moment, Aaron realized just how straightforward her friend could be to others when she wasn’t in the mood to mess around, especially when people were being stupid to her.

The cashier gulped and lowered his eyes, not wanting to aggravate the situation any further, knowing well what an angry X-marked could become. Yep, definitively going out, and the girl seemed to be the dominant one of the couple. He chuckled mentally at this fact.
Taking the girl’s card, he charged the card for the expenses by sweeping it in his machine before returning it to its owner.

“Thank you for your purchase! You two have a nice day together!”

As much as Angel wanted to shout his face off some more, Aaron gripped her arm, looking at her with disapproval eyes and slowly shaking his head negatively.

He was right, the guy wasn’t worth the trouble she’d get for sending the guy flying on his ass with his machine. They’ll just take their groceries and leave this store as quickly as possible to return to the dorms. It was getting rather late to make the dinner, but if they could hurry up, she’ll have time to prepare everything for this evening.

The road back to USARILN was less eventful. The two spent their time walking in awkward silence, Aaron carrying the heaviest bags and the 10-pound sack of potatoes on his shoulder per request, while Angélique was carrying the numerous smaller grocery bags.

“Did I do something wrong?”

“What do you mean?”

“Yesterday, when you stormed off the training grounds. Did I say anything hurtful to you?”

Angel stood silent, at loss as what to say. What could she tell him? That she was tormented by inner voices which drives her towards destruction? No, she didn’t want him to worry about her problems. It was her burden, she couldn’t share it with someone else, even if at times she would want to confess her worries, pain and sadness to someone else.

“I… just wasn’t in a good mood that day. I’m an X-marked, you know? They say that we simply have days we feel that way. I guess yesterday were one of those days.”

Visibly uncomfortable speaking about this subject, Aaron dropped the subject for the time being. Surely there was something deeper than that, like what exactly was her stigma that turned her into such a different person. But it wasn’t the time to pry further into her reasons. After all, they had just recently come into USARILN, who knows how recently she had to start dealing with her issues.

Arriving at the dorms, the duo took the elevator inside the Aberration apartments, bringing the ingredients to the third floor’s communal kitchen.

“Do you need help with the cooking? I can cut vegetables if you need me to.”

“No, that will be alright. I… need some time alone. Plus, I’m treating you guys to dinner, it wouldn’t be fair to have you help me now.”

“You sure? Okay then… anything I can actually do for you?”

“Well… if you could do me one last favor. I told everyone to meet me at the cafeteria at 5 PM, but I obviously won’t have time to go there myself. If you could just meet the others there and tell them to meet me here, or at room 300, I’d be much obliged.”

“Alright, got it. Anything else?”

“No… I think that will be all.”

“Alright then. See you later.”

“Yeah… later. Thank you for the help today. I appreciate it.”

“Eh, you’re welcome. It’s always a pleasure being with you- err… I mean… speaking with you. Yeah!”

Aaron started walking out of the kitchen, before slowly coming to a stop, realizing Angel had just given him the number to his room.

“If you need anything, my room’s 225 in the Arbiter dorms. Chris is my roommate… and so was Alexis.”

Aaron trailed off on his former roommate and teammate. Finally, he left quickly, calling himself stupid to have brought up Alexis’ name in this discussion. He had to move forward, no matter how hard it was to accept a fellow student’s death, but perhaps that deep inside, Angélique was still mourning the loss of their friend. That would explain why she was trying so hard to bring up the team together after that night.

In the kitchen, Angel had stopped from unpacking the groceries after she heard Aaron mentioning Alexis name. Why did that name affect her so much? Was it because she still blamed herself for her death, even though she barely even knew her? She didn’t know, or refused to acknowledge the reasons. All that she knew is that they had lost four people that night, perhaps four too many.

After a minute of lamenting herself for this loss, Angel started unpacking the groceries once more, looking somehow more determined than before.

She would not let their deaths be in vain. If needs be, she’ll use them to strengthen herself and the others. That’s the least she could do to pay homage to their sacrifices.

---------------------------------------------

I can't believe I'm bothering with this.

Zoe paused at the door of the cafeteria, feeling slightly irritated that she'd actually headed out for this. Of all the people in the school, these were the ones she'd planned to avoid as much as she could - even if she'd bothered sating her Stigma at any point, they'd probably still manage to annoy the shit out of her.

So why was she here?

Well, she had her reasons for turning up. Mostly to see if they'd actually given any thought to what she'd said, or if they were still going to bitch and moan at her for being mean to them. Not that it bothered her either way, but she wanted to see if helping them was even worth the effort. If it wasn't, then that just meant she was wasting her breath and she could move on to people that might at least try and help themselves.

In short, she was here to judge exactly how right she was about them. She certainly had no intention of making up for anything, that was for sure. As far as she was concerned, she didn't have anything to make up for and didn't feel any kind of obligation to these people after the situation they'd put her into.

She pushed open the door, expression shining with arrogance as she strode into the room and took a seat. Perfectly aware that she was being obnoxious about this, she sat with a taunting smirk on her face. It was more than clear that she wasn't here to apologize - if anything, the expression she wore made it seem that she was laughing at the situation. Daring anyone that might come in to confront her. At least she could have some fun with this.

When Chris had gotten an invitation, he was a tad surprised. He thought he made it clear he wasn't looking to make friends with his attitude prior to the fight. Then again, the tragedy of losing a few unlucky souls was heartbreaking to everyone, not just him. He definitely did not like his other roommate, but with the loss of Alexis he figured it would be best to just go ahead with it. Chris then took a nice hot shower, groomed his white hair back with gel, put on some generic white-boy deodorant, then proceeded to get dressed in his suit and tie he and brought with him as part of his clothes. A black trimmed heavy coat, with matching dress pants and a black tie. A fancy red shirt was worn beneath the suit, buttoned and folded collars all. Finishing his attire with white socks and black dress shoes he would look at the mirror one last time before heading out to the cafeteria.

When he arrived, he would sigh with his usual brooding scowl. Sure, he was willing to go, but that doesn't mean he was going to enjoy it. He was the second enter, just after Zoe. He took a seat himself, in his silence and away from Zoe and Aaron. Taking refuge in a corner for him to brood alone at.

Allison arrived quietly, pushed open the door to the cafeteria, and walked to the table where her former team mates sat. She was wearing some of the clothes that Angel had picked out for her. Allison sat down, looking around at those who had arrived before her. Aaron was there, Zoe seemed smug, and Chris was brooding and moody. Allison kept to herself, staring down at the table with her hands clasped together.

Once everyone had gathered at the cafeteria, Aaron had risen from his chair. Truthfully, he wasn't sure a lot of these people would've accepted Angélique's invitation. Well, not that she was hated or anything. There was something about her that tried to bring people together around her. The brown-haired boy wondered exactly how his former teammates felt about Angel, if they felt strongly about her the same way he did.

While he wasn't fond of having Zoe around with her challenging sly grin, he would do his best to ignore her smug attitude, for this dinner's sake, for Angel's sake who had poured a lot of effort to bring her former team back together despite what had happened on that night.

"Everyone's here. Good. Follow me. Angel told me to get you guys to her dorm, as it appears she couldn't use the cafeteria's kitchens."

Aaron said as he turned to the former Green Team, shortly leaving the cafeteria afterwards to head to the Aberrations' dorms.

Still playing at being a leader, are we Aaron? I thought we'd established how that one goes. Zoe had rolled her eyes as Aaron addressed them, making a point of basically ignoring whatever he said. Whether or not she could get a rise out of the guy, watching him try not to get annoyed by her was almost as entertaining as actually provoking him.

Once they reached inside and made their way to the third floor, their nostrils would be assaulted by the smell of various kind of food. Meat, stirred vegetables, pie? The mix of smells seemed kind of weird, but it made the whole dorm smell tremendously good nonetheless.

As they reached the communal dining area, they were greeted by the sight of Angélique just about getting something out of the oven, curelessly speaking with a few other Aberrations that she had drawn out of their rooms with the exquisite aromas escaping from the kitchen.

"Don't worry, Jake. I'll try to save you a piece of pie after our dinner. If not, I can just make another one with the leftover blueberries I have."

Angel chuckled as she brought the blue-filled pie out of the oven and onto the counter. Turning to bring her last cooked part of the dinner over to the dining table, her face beamed with a radiant smile as she noticed everyone from Green Team came.

"Guys! I'm so happy to see you all came! Here, take a seat, dinner's ready."

Angel motioned to the table with a swing of her head. The surrounding Aberrations that had been speaking with the cooking angel either dispersed back into their own rooms or went to use the kitchen now that the newly arrived Aberration finished using it. Even though some of them wanted to stick around, they all respected the girl's dedication to bring her former team back together, finding some kind of solace from seeing such a display if friendship inside these cold walls.

On the table, Angel indeed stood true to her words, as it was filled with meals typically popular or originating from her home country and town. On the middle of the table, there laid the two main dishes, one was a pot filled with... mashed potatoes? The other was a pot filled with fries topped with brown gravy and cheese, mixed onions, green peppers, ground beef and Italian sausages. At the ends of the table, two pies rested in their cooking plate. One seemed to be filled with blueberries, the other with brown sugar.

"Bon appétit!"

When Savannah had gotten to the cafeteria, no one from the former green team was there. Already exhausted from the frantic run across campus, the young girl sped back to Building B, panting. She was so late. Who knows if anyone would actually be there by the time Savannah managed to arrive at the building. Her shoes slapped the pavement hard; other students moved out of the running Aberration's way. It was clear she had somewhere to be, and that place was not here.

When Savannah got to the building, she sped up the stairs towards Angel's room. If they weren't in the cafeteria, they'd probably be there. Getting to Angel's room, Savannah stopped and banged on the door. She panted, her curly blonde hair stuck to her forehead. Damnit, it'd be extra frizzy in an hour or so. She just hoped that it wouldn't look like a fucking afro.

After about 45 seconds of waiting, no one came to the door. Agitated, Savannah decided to check the second place that they might be. The kitchens. She sprinted over there, and seeing them, she came to a stop.

"H-hello." she managed to gasp out while catching her breath. "It took me forever to find you, thanks for that.

Upon arriving in the room, Zoe really wasn't sure how to react. She appreciated the gesture, that wasn't an issue at all, but - well, she couldn't remember the last time she'd actually had anyone make her fresh food. Or eaten much of anything that wasn't from a can or a cafeteria, for that matter. It was strange, familiar and completely unfamiliar at the same time. Plus, she was pretty sure her table manners had all but disappeared in the intervening time. Smelled good, though.

Taking a seat with a yawn, she figured they'd just put down any faux pas to her being deliberately rude. Which, all things considered, was fine with her. Rudeness had always been the least of her concerns, and it was a problem that she didn't care to fix. If any of her teammates cared that much about table manners, then they could get the hell over it.

As Savannah arrived, Zoe looked over from her seat and spoke in a flat tone. "Sorry to inconvenience you. Must have been real hard figuring out people were making food in the kitchen, but I'm glad you were able to manage it eventually."

Savannah glared at Zoe, pissed-off ness radiating off of her. "Haha, very funny." Savannah said, sarcasm lacing each word. She really didn't like Zoe. Not one bit.

The scent alone was amazing. Allison hadn't smelled anything that good in a long time. When was the last time she had had a home cooked meal? Allison took her seat at the table with glee, hungrily staring at the food in front of her.

"This looks absolutely amazing! You made this by yourself?" Allison's focus flitted between Angel and the feast. "You've got to teach me how to cook sometime." The line came out of Allison's mouth faster than she could process it. Well, Allison didn't know how to cook, and Angel seemed to be pretty capable, and she had helped Allison out with other things already.

Allison's excitement instantly dropped when Savannah entered the room. Allison's eyes focused on the table, her hands clamped together. She stayed quiet while Zoe let loose an obvious insult.

"Hey, Savannah." Allison said, still focused on the table.

"Savannah! It's good to see you!"

Seeing Allison, Savannah immediately began to redden. When she took her seat, she took the one farthest from Allison as possible, looking at her shoes.

"H-hi, Allison." Savannah croaked out. Their meeting from yesterday still burned in her memory, much to the distaste of Savannah. No, she didn't want to think of lacy, erroneous underwear. That wasn't something she wanted forever ingrained into her memory, but alas, it was.

"Sure! Next time we get to have a good homemade meal, let's go shop and we'll spend an afternoon experimenting with food."

Angel answered to Allison, flashing a cheerful smile as she sat down at one end of the table.

By the time everyone sat, there was this awkward silence filling the dinning room. The only person who wasn't this silent was the one who had cooked this meal by herself, humming a joyful song from beneath her closed lips. Seeing everyone gathered here, no matter how awkward things may be, it filled her with pride and joy.

Well the food was good. That much Chris was certain just by entering the relocated room. For the others, well, he could tolerate them. However, it seems there was some tension between the others, which was surprising since he thought he would receive the most annoyance of for his cold and distant behavior towards them. The silence made it more obvious that nearly everyone had no interest in conversing. Music to Chris's ears. He'd enjoy his meal of Poutine and Pate Chinois, foods he had never experienced before. Chris may had no interest in the others, but he had to give credit where credit was due. "Well I appreciate the food, Angelique, I suppose that makes us even." It was only polite to accept the food, even an edgelord like Chris knew his manners. "Don't think that makes us friends though." He added before taking another bite of his selected serving. Chris's etiquette was professional. Napkin on lap, taking small bites of food, and frequently dabbing his lips with his napkin.

"Yeah, love you too, bro." Angel sarcastically answered back at Christopher.

...Jackass...

Cracks began to appear in Angélique's smile. She tried to maintain a friendly and positive attitude as the host of this dinner, but already the heated-up tension between Zoe and the rest of the teams, Chris being an ass and Allison and Savannah being awkward to each other, not to mention that suddenly her voices began creeping up the surface all of a sudden, all this started to twist Angel's smile into a more forceful one. In her life, the raven-haired Aberration wasn't known for having a lot of patience, and this situation really tested how far she'd keep up the good looks in order to bring some semblance of harmony into this team.

Savannah served herself a portion of poutine. Hesitant, she bit into it, and was immediately surprised. It was salty, almost greasy. The sauce covering it- was that gravy? There were also some various toppings on it, which she happily ate as well. Unlike Chris, Savannah was a messy eater. She ate far too fast, the occasional juice dripping down her chin, which she promptly caught with her napkin. Although, she did have the dignity to eat with her mouth closed.

"This is good!" Savannah said after swallowing a bite of it. "What is it? I've never seen this before."

"It's called Poutine. Usually it's just fries topped with gravy and cheese, but I went ahead of myself and added some more ingredients. I guess you could call it Lumberjack Poutine in English. Oh, and it's normal you maybe haven't had any before. I've heard this meal was exclusive to the part of Canada I live in. Have yet to confirm whether it's true or not actually."

-----------------------------------------------

Eventually, the meal came to an end when everyone had their fill or had enough of this foreigner's cuisine. Seeing how everybody seemed to appreciate Angel's cooking, it was to no surprise there weren't any leftovers from this 6-man servings, much to the chagrin of the few Aberrations who had asked the cook if they could taste her homemade dishes.

When it came time to bring out the dishes from the table, Aaron had offered to help cleaning the table, but Angel insisted doing it herself, bringing up the issue that she wanted some time alone to think while cleaning the dishes.

That dinner was more troublesome than she had expected.

Oh well... maybe one day they'll all come up together.

If they even live that long to see that day.

Chris excused himself once the meal was done. He would fold his napkin over the plate, carefully placing the silverware over it. Once doing so, he straightened his tie and turned to the door. "Thanks again for dinner, Angel." Chris said before taking his exit. That night, all he wanted to do now was get out of his fine clothes, shower, and sleep. However he made sure his attire was neatly hung by hangers near his desk before calling it a rest, making a mental note to get that cleaned somewhere.

"Oh, are we leaving? Well, thanks for the food, Angel. I can appreciate a decent meal, at least."

Zoe, having stayed quiet for most of the meal on account of actually wanting to enjoy the food, watched Chris leave with a grin appearing on her face. Sure, she could offer to help out, but that meant spending more time around these people - and if Angel wanted time alone, Zoe doubted that she'd be an improvement on that situation. Of course, Zoe being who she was, she wasn't about to exit without getting another shot in at the group.

Standing up, she started heading out of the cafeteria. "Well, I'm heading off then. You guys try not to get anyone killed while I'm gone!" Her tone was cheerful, enough that if it wasn't for what she was saying people would probably think she was being nice to the group. "I'd hate to have to clean up after any of you."

With a mocking salute, Zoe turned and headed out. She figured that would be enough for the day, anyway - and besides, she really wanted to get some sleep.

Allison wasn't sure how much she had eaten. The food was amazing, better than canned beans, that's for sure. Allison had been relatively talkative during the meal, moreso than most of her compatriots, but she had refrained from talking much to Savannah. Hopefully they would both eventually forget about what had happened.

"Thanks for the meal, Angel. That was the best food I've had in ages. I mean it." Allison wanted to help clear the dishes, but considering how Angel had already shooed away Aaron, it seemed that help wasn't wanted. Allison left right after Zoe and Chris, waving Angel, Aaron, and Savannah goodbye. It was time to sleep.

"Already? Damn, that was so good I lost track of time. Thanks for the food, Angel. It was awesome. Savannah said, smiling. The food had been good, Savannah had devoured a lot of it. Especially the pie. Especially the pie. What could she say? Savannah had a tooth for all things sweet and sugary.

She walked out of the room with a wave. It had been a good dinner, with the exception of the awkwardness between Allison and Savannah, and the hostility from Zoe. She headed to her room, humming.

Angélique waved goodbye to each and every one as they bid their farewell. Alone at last, the black-haired Canadian slowly cleaned the dishes from the table, before moving on to the sink where she took her sweet time cleaning everything up in pristine condition. In contrast to earlier, there were no songs, no joyful humming escaping her lips, no smile.

Truly, the dinner might've went well according to outside viewers, but in reality, it was a disaster. While Angel might have scored a few points in her teammates heart, this meeting wasn't to show-off her culinary skills, nor to gain more popularity. Sure, she could benefit from gaining her teammates' trust, but that wasn’t what she was going for. She had hoped this dinner would've eased the tension between everyone on Green Team. Hard truth was, the shades-wearing X-marked realized that this evening only cemented each other's hate or disliking towards each other, as Angel had to preemptively stop Aaron from shouting at Zoe after what she said before leaving the dining room.

"Pathetic..."

For once, Angélique's words reflected what her inner voices ushered, the façade she had built crumbling.

---

---

Renard--or Benediction, as everyone outside of his fellow Precursors called him these days--tapped a polished, black oxford impatiently against the parquet flooring of the Director's office. The administrative building had looked as modern and clean-cut as the rest of campus from the outside, but the Director's interior decor taste clearly veered towards the traditional.

Her office was a circular room jutting out above the building, ringed by a surrounding corridor paneled with large windows. The building segment was both her workplace and an entire floor for herself. And he could see why she needed the space.

Sweeping half of the office's inner wall was a curving screen displaying a gridless blueprint of the entire research facility-cum-school, the white lines thin and precise against a smooth, dark surface. On the screen were a myriad of green dots, with several (he counted about 20 or 21 at a cursory glance) dots marked in eye-catching red.

Her desk was two separated halves of a hollow circle, one half facing the screen, the other half facing the opposite direction, positioned to look towards two white velvet sofas lined in parallel, facing each other. Both semicircular halves of the desk boasted stacks of paper at varying heights, all neatly annotated with colored Post-It flags. Surprisingly mundane given the scale of what she had access to.

The opposite wall had vectorized decals of stylized trees to form a green-hued forest centered around a six-foot image of Hephaestus's dual stag horns signature. He mused at the artistry of the decoration, vaguely surprised the infamous Director Zhang had any notion of muted colors and composition. It seemed out of place in the otherwise pragmatic office.

Nearing afternoon, pale September sunlight seeped into the room from large windows, washing down the ivory walls to a clinical white. Tired of standing, Renard slumped into a sofa, his six bodyguards collecting around him. He shouldn't really be somewhere so targetable, but at the mention of Menagerie attacking, there was little choice but to come himself on the off-chance that it actually had been his former teammate. The variety of powers that existed offered the chance that Simeon could still be alive, as much as Renard doubted it.

The Director herself was still occupied elsewhere, despite calling him out of the safe room they had set up for him in the basement of the administrative building. Her balding secretary had allowed him through with equal measures of awe and terror and Renard now waited as patiently as he could manage for someone in his position.

Most people didn't keep borderline-Jesus waiting.

Not that his power was quite so simple. Powerful, certainly, and with a visual effect equivalent to the healing often seen in video games, but simple? No. Not by a long shot.

Within a short period of time, it was easier for him to heal up many injuries at once, instead of flicking his power on and off, left and right constantly on every nick and scrape. Vincent had explained to an irate Julia before that constantly healing everything was similar to turning on a computer just to type one letter into a text document and then turning it off. It wasn't an efficient use of Renard's powers, and it would only tire him in the long run. Media outlets had derided his haughty behavior on the battlefield, but of course he'd take care of serious injuries without waiting. The Precursors just rarely took any serious injuries where the media could see.

Beyond the rough hour of leeway in cherry picking his heals, the further the time difference between injuries accrued and his healing determined how draining it was for him to fix the person or creature in question. And to defy the permanence of death, his limit was two days.

And a week of debilitating exhaustion where his powers soundly failed to work.

He had tried pushing it, had tried urging his power to do more and recover faster, but it hadn't budged in that aspect. Where his barriers were once weak, he had made them nearly impervious; where he had once struggled to heal day-old lacerations, he could now heal stage four cancer; where his range was once a paltry 10 meters, he could now repair injuries within several hundred meters, so long as he had visuals on the target. But the one thing that would not change was the resurrection.

Youth, stupidity, and arrogance on his part had cost Simeon his life five years ago. In his bid for glory, Renard had dramatically resurrected a government official, recently dead in the wake of hulking monstrosities that had decimated the small island where the man had been vacationing. A truly unfortunate tale whose ending he had agreed to rewrite for the government's interests and for his publicity stunt.

The Precursors had never lost a fight. Had never even taken severe damage at that point. And between the amount of suppression and power Vincent, Timmy, and Annie could lay down coupled with Julia's shared invulnerability, there was little to worry about.

Or so he had thought.

He shouldn't have done it so publicly.

The power thief subnatural known only by the code name "Bogeyman" attacked several days later, hunting for Simeon with a puppet form that resembled a headless female torso on a grisly gown of human limbs, eyes, and mouths.

An ambush.

The sortied team had just fought off another of Dreamcatcher's larger terrors in an isolated section of Northern Canada. Their guards had been down. They had been tired. It was a calculated attack. All the reasons in the world, but not a single one had stopped the monstrosity from tearing through the remnants of Simeon's creations and crushing him underfoot. Vincent didn't have the time to lift something large enough to bury it, and it had still crawled dangerously fast even under Timmy's gravity fields. Annie's attacks had barely fazed it.

Julia had moved to pick up Simeon, but she hadn't thought the creature would grab her and, failing to crush her in its hand, shove her into the ground instead, heaping ice and dirt above her with its movements. She couldn't get close enough to Simeon. Couldn't extend her power to save him. Vincent had shorn away as much of the ground around her as he could, even pulling on her clothes to get her closer, but they had been too slow. They hadn't accounted for the durability of the creature. The way it seemed to heal and recover in ways that built up resistances to powers that could hurt it.

Simeon's body was barely recognizable as human within seconds.

As if that was its only purpose, the monster had disintegrated, leaving them as quickly as it had come.

Even then, they could have fixed it. Should have been able to. Renard was the fail-safe, after all. But they hadn't counted on their fail-safe, hundreds of miles away, to have failed as well.

And so he had traded Simeon for a few good words in cyberspace.

When the word had reached him that "Menagerie" was attacking USARILN East, he had insisted on going there. Either another resurrector existed or Bogeyman had stolen the dead Precursor's power, too.

Knowing Simeon, unless mind control was involved, Renard doubted the gentle young man would have attacked a school full of children for any reason. To make matters worse, Bogeyman had been disturbingly quiet for past the few years as well, instead of his usual M.O. of showing up suddenly with puppets wielding the powers of recently deceased subnaturals--usually ones that were powerful enough to warrant Precursor attention in the past--and destroying a particular site or locale. In his wake, the trend appeared to be more X's awakening.

If they hadn't caught the tail end of a fight between Cat's Cradle and one of Bogeyman's puppets before, Renard would have assumed the two parties were working in tandem.

The Director had mistaken the power for that of Menagerie's, and he supposed with what she knew it was a sensible conclusion. He had come looking for a body to revive and interrogate, if need be, only to find out that she had completely obliterated it with Sem's new weapon. Irritating. And so damn convenient for her case.

If her overwhelming (and rather exaggerated, in Renard's opinion) distaste for subnaturals wasn't famous countrywide, he would have suspected her of actually working with Bogeyman. As it is, the entire situation seemed to be a massive misunderstanding. They had been complacent with Bogeyman, taking his lack of action in the years following Simeon's death as some kind of indication that he targeted only the Precursors and that they could simply hide away their more vulnerable members--Sem, in particular. Now, though, they would have to refocus their efforts on hunting him down, among all the other duties the Precursors were required to handle constantly.

Then there was the potential matter of public distrust now that news of the attack had leaked from the Death and Taxes forum--something the Director had immediately shut down at the DoD's command. She had enjoyed keeping an eye on the more social aspects of her research subjects, but that, unfortunately, had to end. Of course they had reamed her for the mistake in preemptively and publicly announcing Menagerie as the perpetrator, but when she claimed to have seen the Precursor herself, they had quickly ended the conversation.

Now he was here, ready to revive his teammate if even a handful of flesh remained, ready to make up for his mistake five years ago. Only to hear from the Director herself that there was nothing left to bring back.

So she had directed him to the hospital on his arrival, urging him to heal her select group of 'promising students.'

He doubted her faith in them. They had looked more like promising letdowns, but he had humored her all the same. No need to start arguments with a Director known to shoot first and ask questions later--especially not now that she had Sem's latest weapon. That was another aspect that bothered Renard. How had Sem even managed to--

The door clicked open behind him and the crisp sound of heels tapping against the floor pulled him sharply out of his thoughts.

"Director Zhang," he greeted her, standing up slowly.

"My apologies for keeping you waiting," she took a seat at her desk, motioning for him to sit back down.

When she offered no further explanation, Renard glanced to the side in annoyance before taking a seat again.

"Tell me you didn't call me out here just to heal some minor injuries on a group of students who don't matter in the least," he clicked his tongue, leaning back against the soft velvet of the sofa.

"I hadn't expected you to come in place of a heavy hitter," she shuffled through several sheets of paper on her desk, adding colored flags to certain pages.

"Your rising star seemed to have handled the situation just fine."

"He's not in any condition to continue fighting. Wasn't in the first place. Neither is his team."

"So ask Sem to make the rest of them equipment as well," Renard examined the skin on the back of his hand as he spoke. Dry from the cold. Peeling ever so slightly. If he could fix that with his magic, he would.

"I intend to, but not for my 'rising star's' team." She tapped the stack of papers in her hand against the desk, aligning them and putting them aside carefully before pulling three thick sheets of lined stationery paper from a drawer below the desk. "And I believe the last set of requests were backlogged while Hephaestus produced more of the containment material."

He grunted in response.

"He's running short on supply, isn't he?"

Scarlet eyes narrowed in her direction as she said it.

"What makes you say that?"

"Just a guess," the Director picked through the pens jutting out diagonally from the rosewood pen stand on her desk, finally selecting a metallic ballpoint pen. "Shipments have been steadily decreasing."

"...What did you call me here for?" Renard tilted his head at her, eyes fixed on the rapid movement of her writing hand.

"I don't suppose you could be convinced to revive one of the two students who died yesterday?"

"No."

"Not even if I told you my new projects could become stronger than any Precursor?"

"Definitely no."

She smiled, pen still moving across the paper.

"Very well. You can head back to the Pentagon now. Let them know the situation was resolved quite neatly by the new students here."

"You mean your crystal manipulator."

"Officially? He only provided marginal help from the side. The majority of the battle was handled relatively well by the new students. I would say they're already proving their worth."

"...What are you planning? And why are you letting me know?"

"Because you're the only one we know who can fix an otherwise permanent mistake. If I call on you again to help them, I'll expect you to respond."

"You're resting a lot of hopes on me like I have the time to care about your personal favorites."

"You'll make the time, Benediction. I just thought it would be polite to let you know beforehand."

"I think you're forgetting that the USARILNs are just glorified prisons and you're just a glorified prison warden. Don't overstep your role, Director," he enunciated the last word distinctly before sweeping out of the room in a rush of guards and rapid steps.

Director Zhang didn't bother watching him leave, turning back to the three letters she was writing to the families of the deceased subnaturals. The soldiers would get military funerals and other officials would work with volunteers and law enforcement to notify their next of kin, but she couldn't, with respect to her position, devote a team to handling notifications of death for subnaturals. Word would spread. Her reputation would be ruined.

So she used more indirect lines, sending them anonymously through trustworthy contacts, all vetted by Fredric. Frequently.

And that was the extent of her current authority. It would have to do.

She abused the same template frequently--sincerely regret, killed in action, deepest condolences, necessary sacrifices--but at the very least she would see to it personally. As far as she could tell from outside contacts, the consensus was that a subnatural from campus sent the death notifications in secret, defying the Director herself and risking punishment. For the families that appreciated it, it was some paltry amount of much-needed closure. For the families that couldn't be bothered to care, it was just more spam mail.

Either way, it helped her cope with the decisions she made. It would have to do.

---

---

Brent Roless and Emma Halwell. The Director noted the two names, her usually busy procedure paused in contemplation at the latest series of events. She had sent Fedric to take care of the aftermath, but wondered at what Clark had truly wanted to do. How the USARILNs took care of subnatural corpses was generally confidential information, but certain solutions came to mind even without administrative knowledge--subnaturals weren't given graves or burials so it stood to reason that the bodies were either cremated or disposed of with methods to circumvent something like a corpse landfill--or Bogeyman.

It just so happened that her method empowered a particular student's pet at the same time.

Appalling, perhaps, but at least the bodies went to better use than ashes and maggot fodder.

She hadn't thought Clark minded the process so much that he would attempt to expose it--indeed, his impromptu tour of the containment chambers had seemed mostly pointless to her: the students knew the rooms existed, so that wasn't a secret to be revealed. They also knew Hector existed. The only true revelation had been the disposal of the recent corpses. And the disappearance of the marks on the dead bodies, which had certainly persisted. Until a certain point.

But even that could be explained away with a number of lies. The body disposal was shocking, but certainly not something worth incurring her wrath over if any student bothered to put thought into the potential ways the USARILNs could dump the dead.

So what had Clark been after?

The Stigma-eating subnatural had been showing signs of strain for the longest time, but she had believed him smarter than that. Smarter than the idiot who had shown two new and unsuspecting students a small fragment of the horrors that the Institute kept in check.

Now he was allowed to remain in Hector's containment chamber, since the room had already been modified enough to accommodate more regular needs. Soon enough, it would be further adjusted for two occupants, since Clark's body often required more careful upkeep. She wouldn't be allowing Clark out of the underground room for some time, given his behavior.

He hadn't taken the news well when Benediction admitted that Clark's condition wasn't one that could be healed--by the Precursor's power at least.

"It's not actually damage," the powerful subnatural had clarified. "Not to my power, at least."

And so the boy had watched as his last hope had shrugged and walked away.

She had expected self-harm or crippling depression. Had ordered the guards to treat him with utmost care and only to use force if he would hurt himself.

How that had backfired.

Now the placement with Hector was dual-purposed. Clark's movements would be restricted and if his condition progressed rapidly and without warning, Hector could handle him.

It wasn't an ideal situation. Without Clark, she would have to dispose of the 20 X's she kept underground. Their chances of progressing as successfully as Hector had--while remaining sane--were too low to risk the uncontrollable destruction some of them could cause, especially the ones that wouldn't die to normal means.

Hector had lied when he had claimed no memory of the moment he became an Animus, but his otherwise "helpful" behaviors convinced the Director that he was worth keeping around. Having an Animus under her control was something of an achievement, even if she couldn't publicly share it just yet and even if she had to expend far more resources and warm bodies to make sure Hector remained under her control.

Kardos had suggested torture, to get the answer out of the boy, but that would only incite him to turn Miranda against the Institute and they'd be forced to kill him before he could be forced to answer.

Hephaestus's gun was an option, but one she'd prefer to withhold for now. Its effects needed further testing and she didn't need to accidentally kill one of the rare Animi that could loosely be considered "on their side."

An impasse, then.

One she would find some way to deal with at a more convenient time, when there weren't transfer students to manage and sheer chaos to keep in check.

---

---

The Director's computer screen drowned in browser tabs displaying the latest headlines from different media outlets, all variations of "Precursor attacks USARILN East" with subtitles in shades of "What does this mean for the future of subnatural and human relations?"

She wasn't surprised that the government had run with the story of "Precursor rebellion" rather than admit they had been lying for the past five years--it always came down to petty politics in the end, even if the implications that they couldn't control their main team was, arguably, worse than the confession that they had lost a Precursor five years ago to poor planning.

On her current tab: a news report about protests breaking out across college campuses in defense of subnatural civil rights, decrying the summary execution of a Precursor known only to be endearingly kind. A photograph of bright-eyed men and women with Band-Aids across their right temples and cross-shaped tape or adhesives over the base of their throats accompanied a long article about the latest fashion trend in defiance of the law banning any "indistinguishable" attempt to imitate the markings of subnaturals.

After Wallace v. United States, a Supreme Court case that had decided the extent to which the law applied as far as "indistinguishable markings" were allowed, the court had ruled in favor of the plaintiff, allowing the young man's pink face paint as "distinguishable enough from established features found on lusus naturae."

That had set the precedent for several ways of circumventing the law, and now it was common knowledge that people couldn't be arrested for silly tape and adhesive gauze. Stare decisis applied for almost all cases involving the face and throat markings, with only permanent tattoos and careful replication of the markings grounds for punishable offense.

And so the world had turned, ever so slightly. The divide was blurred enough that protests were cropping up more and more frequently lately, and with the Precursor team the most obvious source of recent salvation, the initial hatred and distrust of subnaturals had simmered down to suspicious ambivalence.

Before the fear-stricken public could demand the genocide of all subnaturals held in the USARILNs in the wake of news about a rebelling Precursor, they needed to see an alternative solution--needed to see more potential "heroes" than just the weary ten. It was a way to dampen the uproar: losing one "good guy" when the world only had ten official ones to spare was worthy of mass hysteria. But what if there were more designated "good guys"? Enough to show the growing public interest in subnatural rights that there was something more to subnaturals than just dangerous monsters to lock up and murder. Something to work with.

It was a small turning point, but Zhang had never failed to strike while the iron was hot, especially not now that a group of exceptions had fallen so cleanly into her hands. She would use them until there was nothing left, and if they survived it all, perhaps the world could move past the dead end war it was currently fighting.

"You're not serious," Kleinfelder laughed loudly in her ear, the sound crystal clear and incredibly infuriating through her bluetooth headset.

"This is quite a proposal, Director Zhang. You might be jumping the gun here." Scoval, in a rare moment of agreement with Kleinfelder.

"A Precursor has rebelled. If there was a gun to jump, I'd consider this right on time."

"You don't really think I'm going to agree to this, do you?" Kleinfelder howled with laughter again and it took her every ounce of willpower she had not to cut him off. She had to humor him this time.

"Relying on just one team of subnaturals has cost us too much over the past few years. Officially sanctioning other teams under USARILN supervision would significantly alleviate the burden on the Precursors," she replied smoothly, the rebuttal prepared and practiced.

"What burden on the Precursors? They've been fine. Haven't failed anything yet. Sparrow just needs to keep them in the air forever and there's no way they'd lose. That screw up with Garrote was a one-time thing," the damn man dismissed the issue like he was talking about a minor itch.

She should have known. USARILN West faced measly threats and was overloaded with borderline useless subnaturals--the ones who got the shortest straws in Dreamcatcher's lottery. Abilities that couldn't even be put to use for utility purposes outside of some sad comedy routine.

"Even if Sparrow kept them 'in the air forever,' they can't be in every place that needs help at once, and this past year--"

"You're proposing an entire paradigm shift, Director Zhang. If a Precursor would rebel, what's stopping your 'officially sanctioned subnatural team' from doing the same?"

"Nothing. But I'm looking towards the future, Director Scoval," Zhang's hands slid over her desk towards the top right drawer, where her colored contacts lay in neat rows of circular, plastic packages. She flicked open a new pack, sliding the contacts onto her eyes, "And all three of us know this can't continue indefinitely."

"Oh? Care to explain your reasoning, Director?" There was a clinking of glass against glass on Scoval's end, a rustle of clothing, and the heavy creak of a sturdy chair. His voice was a touch louder when he next spoke. "If you want our consent to submit the plan to the DOD, you'll need to provide us with harder figures than the loose logic we've been dancing on for the past half hour."

"I could have my secretary forward you the number of students we've lost in just this past year compared to previous years. I could bring up the increasingly powerful monsters stirring all around the world and their rising frequency. I could point at the constant threats posed by the several category fours that persistently escape death to recover and resume attacking their respective territories.

And this is all without counting casualties from rogue subnaturals. Cat's Cradle. The Senators. Amigos. ...Fracture.

...You wanted harder figures? Look at the number of people we've lost ever since the Slumber. Over two billion dead in the span of ten years. And it's only getting worse. Kleinfelder would deny the Earth is round just to spite me, but even he can't disagree that the monsters have been slowly gaining the advantage. Their sheer numbers have been thinned down over the years, but the remaining creatures are the most tenacious."

"And you think officially sanctioning a team of teenagers under your command is going to change any of that?" Kleinfelder's scoff was a hair away from touching on a nerve.

"It would help more than holding back and sending out subnaturals only as a last resort. Use them as a first resort. We have the strongest weapons in our hands and the world is too prejudiced to see the logic in completely utilizing them. Don't kid yourself, Kleinfelder. We can't cuff every damn subnatural--and not only because some of them have powers that prevent it. There's a boiling point to everything, even with the relative freedom we give them at the USARILNs."

"If I didn't know better, I'd accuse you of planning this entire surprise attack for the express purpose of elevating yourself," a chuckle as Kleinfelder ignored her reasoning once again.

"I'm certainly taking advantage of the ramifications, but any half-wit could figure that out."

Kleinfelder's laugh stopped at that and he continued in a low voice.

"You want my approval, lady? Then tone down the attitude. You're asking us to use the freaks as...what...first responders? Fucking law enforcement when things go wrong? It's bad enough we have to rely so heavily on the ten original monsters, but you want to start ingratiating them with society, too? Where the hell does it end, then? Kadabra doing construction work with his powers next? Newton terraforming for new residential plots?"

Zhang paused at the thought of the almighty Precursors performing mundane tasks, surprise in the wide-eyed look she directed at the massive tracking screen on her office's wall. She stared at something beyond that, her gaze unfocused.

"Director Zhang?" Scoval's gruff voice reminded her that she had some rhetorical questions to deal with.

She took a breath.

"My apologies, Director Kleinfelder. That was out of line."

The stunned silence gave her the chance to try again.

"I am asking for my fellow Directors' agreement in establishing the USARILNs as more than just prisons for subnaturals. They can be used for more than just wasting resources in indefinite detention with smatterings of use as emergencies declare. The Institutes themselves can be more, but we have to start somewhere. I am willing to lay my position on the line to test what may be. If anything goes wrong, full responsibility lies with USARILN East.

The recent emergency has only provoked public apprehension and the belief that all subnaturals are not to be trusted, now that a tried-and-true Precursor has turned.

If we do not act to counter this while opinions have yet to cement, we lose our only means of effectively combating the creatures. The world will eventually call for their deaths or more permanent restrictions and in the face of mob mentality we will lose. So far we have staved off a two-front war with both subnaturals and Dreamcatcher's monsters by not pushing the subnaturals to a breaking point. But if the situation escalates to where they have nothing left to lose....

You imply that I'm suggesting a potentially harmful paradigm shift, but the far-reaching consequences of inaction here will prove infinitely more destructive.

I know you hate me, Director Kleinfelder, but just this once look past me and listen to what I'm saying. I don't want this world to go to hell any more than you do."

The two of them remained quiet for some time, and she heard the clinking of glass on Scoval's end again. The sound of liquid pouring. Kleinfelder crinkled something that sounded like a foil wrapper.

"You know, even if we agree that won't stop the DOD from shutting the idea down if they don't like it," Kleinfelder finally spoke after some time, his mouth full. "But I guess that's your hard work down the drain, not mine."

Scoval gulped down another mouthful of his drink.

"We'll send the paperwork over to you, Director Zhang," he clarified Kleinfelder's skewed admission of agreement before continuing, "I assume you have a group in mind for this already?"

"Certainly."

"Then good luck."

---

---

A ten-page report from Kardos sat beside the Director's computer when she arrived in her office that morning, reviewing in brief the powers and capabilities of the 17 students who had been sent to the battlefield on their first day, as well as an addendum on several others.

She flipped through the notes and charts, taking them more as snapshots in time for the relevant students. Some took years to develop more adept use and control of their powers and some managed it within weeks. It all varied so heavily on factors as unquantifiable as innate talent and the type of power granted that most of the USARILN researchers had stopped extrapolating too far into the future.

There was only so much control they could exert over how the students progressed. That much was abundantly clear in the heavily sedated students belowground.

When she placed the set of papers back down, something caught beneath the tenth page, preventing the pages from lying flat against the table. On the other side were several Post-It notes covered in carefully spaced, meticulously even handwriting. Two of them curled forward at the corners--the reason the report had seemed to prop itself upward at the center. She peeled off the notes, reading them in the descending order originally set by Commander Kardos.

"All that being said, Director, if you would be so kind as to take into consideration a more personal note: if Ms. Schur’s ramblings are to be believed, these students would be considered too dangerous to live by the Department of Defense. Ms. Schur has noted marked development of their powers in ways no other recorded subnatural has achieved before, and this from just one successful encounter.

Unless different measures are put in place to ensure they do not become targets of nationwide terror, I cannot foresee a lasting future for them, even under USARILN East’s relative protection.

My recommendation to form a government-sanctioned team stands if you are at all interested in preserving this group for future use."

A soft beeping from her phone alerted her to a message from the team in charge of keeping an eye on Death and Taxes. The administrators had moved the forum to a private chatroom instead, weeding out much of the original members and holding on to only a core group, clearly to avoid any further shutdowns from rapidly spreading news. Further, the scope of participants was now limited to USARILN East--a decision in line with the emergency.

Small movements, for now.

She turned back to the Post-It notes, face unreadable as she stared at the last message.

"Mr. Francisco found something per your orders. Another subnatural was interfering with his ability, but he managed to glean a recurring phrase: 'Unravel the dreams from their vessels. Call down Utopia beyond the sky.' "

---

---

How was he meant to just go back to his room with everything going on?

The September night air stung slightly as Aaron tread through the arboretum. The occasional rustling from the trees spooked him from time to time but he had convinced himself that the local wildlife was just very active at night. His gaming devices had been left back at the suite. Between all the grinding and exploring, there wasn't enough room to just think.

Angel was agitated as of late, despite the cheery dinner she had invited her team to. He'd only known the singer for a few days but he could see that it was a gradual descent. There was more and more anger bubbling under the surface every time they'd meet. Sometimes it came out in minor eruptions, like yesterday. But even if she lashed out at him, she was a friend. A friend he couldn't help but worry about.

He kicked a conifer cone away from his feet, trying to brainstorm ways to... He wasn't quite sure what he needed to do. Help Angel feel better? Try to keep his team from falling further apart? Move on from the death of his roommate?

A clockwork set of shifting armor plates connected by thin framing at the gaps hovered nearby as he fiddled aimlessly with the control panel floating along with him. Something to combat the fog in his own mind as he sifted through the avalanche of emotions and delayed reactions of the past few days. He had been ruminating on his battlefield mistakes, coming to terms with the necessity of preparation and forethought his power required and testing the limits of his constructs.

So far, a set of steampunk armor seemed to be a decent idea prior to a fight, though with the suppression cuffs on he couldn't quite get as many plates of armor up as he would like. One set to put on without needing further control, and it would provide him enough protection to focus on deterring threats with a second clockwork construct.

If he could make bigger things, Aaron would have considered a clockwork creation that could double as a roving, miniature bunker for him to command his drones from. He had a plethora of ways to utilize his creatures--he just needed to make sure he could manage the controls all at once, which shone light on the possibility that perhaps someone else could take command of a console. He had never tried the idea, but resolved to test at a later date.

His steps grew more agitated the more time he had to his thoughts, and his fiddling with the control panel of the hollow armor suit increased in response, the wires holding the breastplate in place shifting the piece up and down haphazardly and tugging on the entire frame of the torso section. A thin fog rolled at his ankles. The nights at East weren't like his town. They were windier, for one thing, more clouded than anything his town would ever go through. Much foggier now too. And there was none of that constant, infernal rustling.

Before he knew it, Aaron could see the distant city lights at the edge of the arboretum. He stared, transfixed by a memory of better times.

"We could help you go out there...freely," a velvety voice crooned.

Aaron jumped away, the clockwork creation latching onto his body with a few quick taps on the panel as he spun to meet the source of the voice. His instincts hadn't failed him this time. Within seconds, Aaron's upper body was encased in a golden suit of mechanical armour. His bulky, plated fists were brought up in a rough battle stance.

In front of him stood a man in dark, form-fitting body armour, tall and lithe. Dozens of throwing knives were strapped in belts crossing the stranger's chest. In twin holsters on the man's waist were two hatchets, the one on the right considerably larger than its counterpart. But his most striking features were the black and gold checkered mask on his face, and the dark X on his throat. The fog swirled around them, thickening as if responding to the incoming fight.

He was definitely an enemy. With a determined shout and a quick depression of one of the control panel buttons, Aaron surged forward, his fists flying forward from a combination of his own action and the rockets attached to the wrists of the armour. He was far from a trained combatant but hopefully the enhancements of the clockwork would provide him with enough speed to nail this guy.

Unfortunately not. The enemy was impossibly acrobatic, twisting and tumbling through the air as he dodged Aaron's blows with an effortless grace. And all the while the trickster seemed to be chuckling. Aaron felt rage flare up and he put more zeal into his swings. The one-sided duel continued a few moments more until a sharp pain in his thigh brought the student to the ground. The man had thrown a knife at him, catching flesh in the gaps of the leg plates. As he fell, more knives embedded themselves into his calves and sides, expertly thrown to wedge where armor didn't protect him. Aaron cried out in agony, reaching for the control panel to send the clockwork construct towards the man by itself, even as he realized the thin, wire frame supporting the construct's main body wouldn't yield any solid attacks. Another knife skewered his palm. With no options left, he attempted to crawl away.

"Th-there's someone here!" he coughed feebly, hoping, begging that whoever managed the suppression cuffs' controls would hear his pleas, "Aaron Erikson! Please help me, I'm in the--"

A different person stepped out from the shadows and blocked his passage. It was a woman in her mid-twenties with thick fog billowing out from underneath her deep red cloak. The black X seemed to be more pronounced in the moonlight that glanced across her pale throat. Her expression was solemn. Before he could say anything to her, Aaron was roughly kicked onto his back with a knife to his throat.

"Get rid of the machinery, child. Or I push a little harder."

The knife sunk deeper to support the threat, enough to draw a thin line of blood. Aaron didn't dare nod. The golden armour dissipated, drawing a wide smile from his attacker. The man addressed his partner, examining his new catch as he spoke.

"The boy is far too fresh to get any decent readings. But I believe Linus will be able to wring something out of him. Eventually."

The eyes behind the mask held a menacing glint as they gazed at Aaron's cuff. With his spare hand the stranger fiddled with a small hatchet. He turned to the woman and for the briefest moment Aaron thought he saw a minute tattoo printed on the back of the man's left auricle: a broken circle ringed by disconnected lines from which several arching tendrils spread. The longest of the tendrils hung downward, scooping towards the junction where the bottom of the outer ear cartilage met the thin flesh of the scalp.

"Hold him down, dear, there's just one more precaution we need to take."

Aaron's screams went unheard in the unnatural fog. The only noise heard by the guards was the screeching of a cuff alarm ten minutes later, the alarm of a suppression cuff attached to a cleanly severed foot.

---

---

---

"...so they had to keep throwing grass and stuff up there so the freakin' cow wouldn't die on them! In the end, it took like three days before the specialist came to get it down. Let's just say the steak that night was wayyy more satisfying than usual."

A pleasing chorus of laughter filled the truck. Ernie relaxed back into his seat, an elated expression lighting up his face. Another excellent story told. He wondered if he'd have time to tell the one about the lamb shank too. Or the one with the brick bat. The cow in the clock tower wasn't even one of his top twenty! Everyone in the convoy was chuckling along except for a notable few colleagues including Carlton, the freckled ginger kid cowering a few seats down from him. Man, why did stupid Carly always have to be such a bummer? Before Ernie could jab at the guy a voice rung from further down the row.

"Guys, we're here!"

Faces were pressed to the transparent sides of the truck; a rather unnecessary measure, Ernie thought, since every single wall was see-through. The excited chattering turned to disappointed mutters soon enough. It was plain to see why.

No outdoor vending machines, no chalked hopscotch courts, no funny hand-made posters advertising movie nights. Not a damn lick of color to be seen anywhere. All the buildings were 'modern' or in more accurate words, infuriatingly square and monochrome. It gave Ernie the impression of a robot village. God, did a colorblind funeral director design this place?

The dark-haired boy glanced around. There was another concern. Where were all the people?

That was actually one of the rumors flying around. East had tossed too many kids onto the chopping block and now they were desperately in need of cannon fodder, fodder that was to be supplied by USARILN West. A peruse of the establishment backed the claims up. Way more guards, way less kids here. The stats on DnT had spoken for themselves, with West outnumbering East's student population by the thousands. No wonder the campus was so small and bland. There were barely any kids to cater to.

Bad vibes all over.

The story getting thrown around was that East's resident overlord had ordered a bulk delivery of a few hundred of USARILN West's most combat ready subnaturals. Ernie bit back a giggle. Classic Kleinfelder. Instead of a small army, their ever-so-charming Director had sent...

He surveyed his transfer buddies.

Jess, who could breathe out a tiny plume of steam. Carlton, whose power was to change the colors of inanimate objects. Arpad, the idiot who nearly got himself shot a few months ago when he showed off his slightly better-than-average jumping skills and got stuck on the barbed wire fencing. And twenty or thirty other subnaturals as lame as these guys. Useless, useless, useless. A planned transfer of four hundred subnatural soldiers had been whittled down to a number of kids that was small enough to fit into just two military trucks.

Indeed, Kleinfelder's extensive rosters weren't filled with the 'combat ready' sort. Usually the hard hitters got poached before they could set foot in the vibrant corridors of West. Zhang must have been seriously desperate to have asked their star-spangled overlord for help and Ernie could only hope that her wrath wasn't going to be taken out on them.

The news had been quite surprising when it arrived. Not just the transfer itself, but the fact that his name was included on that list on the jumbotron. Ernie's powers were far from being as pathetic as his fellows. In fact he was one of the more capable mages on campus, not that it was a particularly stunning achievement when you lived at West. Guess his rather stingy habits in battle were what had tipped the odds against his favor. That was hardly fair. He was just a guy who had his priorities straight when it mattered. And if some poor sap got inconvenienced or even killed because of the order of that list of priorities then, well...

They wouldn't have lasted long anyways. They wouldn't have deserved to.

Although, if he'd known that he'd end up here he would have definitely switched around the order on that list. Now look at where that had gotten him. He could and would have given up a limb or two to avoid being sent to gallows like this.

He was scared.

No, that was a bit extreme.

He was jittery.

Apprehensive.

Huh, those vocab quizzes came in handy after all.

He was apprehensive because if East's reputation was anything to go by, it meant that he and the handful of other West transfers had just received an all-expenses-paid trip to the average mage's death row. Complementary free meals and accomodation to go with a spectacular death at the hands of Dreamcatcher's monsters. At least they had the decency to include in-flight movies.

So yeah, he was kinda bummed out. He was allowed to be. He'd had simple plans, a neat little vision for the future. And the only real requirement for these plans was staying alive. The barest minimum. Unfortunately the transfer had really shoved a steak knife into the garbage disposal. The forums had described USARILN East as the nightmare that held "the record for most casualties on campus as of this year." And that was from 2015. How much worse could the institution have gotten since then? Things were not looking pretty here, literally and figuratively.

Then there was that other matter to add to his irritation. A scowl began tearing its way through Ernie's pleasant-faced expression. It had only been a few days since he'd topped off but he was already beginning to feel the familiar scratching in his chest, the aching sensation of stolen warmth. Dammit, he should have taken care of it before the flight. His Stigma tolerance was getting crappier by the day. With a somewhat irritated huff, he leaned forward to get a view of his favorite freckled punching bag. Even with the smallness of the convoy he had a few helpers to choose from. Guess the transfer wasn't as bad as it could have been.

"Hey Carly!" Ernie called out, the standard pep flavoring his voice.

Carlton flinched in his seat and slowly turned to face Ernie's cheery grin.

"Wh-what?" the freckled teen whispered. The others had either gone quiet or started their own conversations, leaving Ernie to his own devices. Ah, these guys had learnt well. At least some people here knew how to act.

"I'm feeling kinda down," Ernie's smile didn't falter for a second, causing Carlton to shake even more, "Meet up with me after orientation?"

The hapless boy eyed the soldiers, garnering a tick of annoyance from Ernie. Like guard dogs had ever been a problem for him. And Carlton should have been the most well-versed with Ernie's stealthiness. Dummies like him were so irritating.

"You know I'll just find you later," Ernie pushed, "If you make this more annoying than it has to be, it's gonna..."

Dang. Threats, fancy talk in general, had never been his strong point. His actions had always spoken louder than his words ever could.

"It's gonna seriously suck," he finished rather lamely, "for you."

Luckily Carlton was spooked enough to catch Ernie's drift. Past actions louder than current words. Perfect.

The truck came to a stop as their conversation ended and the transfers were herded off. Carlton and Ernie were promptly pulled along with their row, once again separated. A soldier with a clipboard was waiting by the truck's door.

"Ernest Mars?"

The boy in question jerked his head to the call of his name. "Huh? Yep, that's me."

"Special arrangements. You'll be coming with us."

Ernie let out a nervous chuckle, eyeing his fellows. His buddies looked as befuddled as he was.

"I...I haven't even gone to orientation yet," he tried to keep his confused smile intact, "Am I going to a special dorm room or something?"

The guard with the clipboard ignored the student and nodded to his subordinates. Ernie was released from the chain. With a barrel to his back, he was escorted forward.

"You can receive your orientation in class."

"Class?!"

"Move it."

It was probably best not to annoy them any further. Without another protest, Ernie began walking. The unfamiliar hallways were just as bland as their exteriors. At least he couldn't fault East for consistency. Why the hell was he the only one forced into these 'special arrangements'? Was he finally gonna get that ass-kicking he deserved after all the shit he pulled at West? He'd heard East was borderline fascist with its discipline but going after him as soon as he stepped off the truck seemed a bit too hardcore.

Ernie was unceremoniously shoved into an empty classroom, a clicking sound from the door signalling that it would be a dumb idea to try to leave. Well, this sucked.

With nowhere left to go, he tentatively walked about the room. A quick inspection told him that it was just a normal classroom after all. Were they planning to interrogate or punish him in here? Or was he waiting for others with the same arrangements?

Argh, this was too much thinking for nine in the morning. Dejection clear in his posture, Ernie slumped into a seat by the window. He stared glumly out the window, watching the new world in front of him. Things weren't looking good.

---

---

Throughout the night, guards were reassigned to positions around the main dorm buildings, bulking up the security slowly and quietly. By the time the sun rose, there were enough guards in the main campus quad to look like a battle would break out.

Something was clearly wrong, and the evident tension did little to help the foreboding sensation.

At roughly nine in the morning, more guards swooped in on the new students, waking them from sleep and interrupting anything else they were doing. It was the customary escort method of USARILN East, again, and the guards gave the students barely enough time to get ready before the barrels of rifles were once again leveled at their heads.

They were led into a building across the street from the hospital sector, the plaque on the building's main entrance displaying a simple "Lecture Building Z" designation. Inside, several corridors branched off from the main hallway and several other students quickly ducked into those paths at the sight of the large group of students escorted by guards. It was treatment somewhat like a Precursor's, but for what appeared to just be regular subnaturals--an oxymoron in this day and age.

The other kids peeked curiously at the group, but ventured no closer.

As they led the batch of students towards the double doors at the end of the hallway, one of the guards busied himself checking and relaying information through his phone.

"We've got the rest of them here, sir."

"Yes, sir."

"No, sir. Response to the cuff alarm was immediate."

"Yes, sir. We have guards stationed around the site, but there's not much evidence. Several pairs of footprints, but we lost the trail beyond the city outskirts."

After a quiet response from the other end, he tucked the phone back into one of the many pockets on his slate-gray combat uniform.

Were anyone in the group awake enough to notice, they would catch that Aaron was distinctly not present.

The classroom was in pristine condition with higher-than-average ceilings and large square windows on the far wall.. Other than a paper detailing exit routes in case of emergency, the walls were mostly bare. In the far corner of the room across from the door was a large mahogany desk, a file cabinent, and a book shelf full of textbooks covering various different subjects. A white board on the wall nearly extended across the entire length of the room from the door to the desk. The desks were neatly arranged in a five by five pattern with each of them being fairly standard by design. A metal compartment for books and whatever else along with a smooth, thicker board covered in a generic fake wood design on top made up the body of each desk. A schedule sheet, two black notebooks, and several pens and pencils were neatly arranged inside each desk, prepped for the incoming students. The front board was covered in a large printout of the same schedule. The chairs were just as standard-- a dark navy blue seat with three long slits in the back standing on four silver metal legs.

Four guards stood in the room's four corners, guns out and ready, their expressions impassive as they trained careful eyes on every incoming student.

In the far front corner seat, a boy of relatively tall height sat staring out one of the large windows with a bored expression on his face.

A tall, lean figure leaned up against the mahogany desk donning polished dress shoes, dark khakis, a midnight blue vest, and a crisp white shirt. Draped over the man's shoulder was a brown suit coat, which he held by the collar with one hand while the other held a clipboard and open manila folder propped up against his side. The man looked up from the papers and smiled with a thin, toothy grin that wrinkled the corners of his stormy blue eyes beneath a casually slicked over head of thick, raven-black hair. A smattering of freckles littered the bridge of his nose. As he turned and nodded, welcoming each student as they entered, a splash of white beneath his eye became visible-- a staff mage. He patiently waited until everyone was seated.

Behind him, a mousy looking woman with muted brown hair and a seemingly never-ending compulsion to keep picking at what was left of her satin red nail polish sat at the desk. Every so often she left her nails alone to straighten the papers, binder, and mug full of pens laying out before her-- anything to avoid looking at the students or the man leaning up against the front of her desk.

"Good morning, beautiful young people," he chimed in a warm tenor once everyone had found their seat, "The name I'm s'pose to give you is Mr. Francisco, but feel free to call me Fred."

An inaudible whisper squeaked from the woman behind him. The man leaned on his clipboard to turn and face her, whispering something equally inaudible. When he turned back to face the class, the woman was visibly pale. "This lovely woman is Ms. April Rivera-- your math teacher. She's thrilled to be here, don't worry. Just a touch nervous, but I'm sure you all can relate," long legs carried him to the center front of the classroom before he'd even finished his first sentence, "Anyway, I know this isn't what any of you were expecting and I'm sure Lawrence here could tell you that this isn't how we usually set up our classes, but I'll get to that."

"Good morning all!" Rosa chirped as she strolled into the room, accompanied by a dozen soldiers carrying boxes of varying sizes, "I know it's a little early for Christmas, heck it's not even Halloween yet, but look at all these wonderful presents!"

A tablet was pulled from one of the boxes and Rosa began scrolling through her list.

"Well if it isn't Daisy," Fredric smirked, stepping out of the way. His eyes narrowed at her and the parade of soldiers that followed, "You're late, so we started without you."

"Aww. Ever the gentleman aren't you, Freddy?" Rosa laughed, unperturbed, "Ah, this is a pretty big list we've got here. Let's see if we can get through it all without missing anything."

"Electronics first."

Four identical boxes with HP laptops were handed out to Sander, Marcus, Sophia and Savannah. Five boxes containing black Samsung Galaxy S10 smartphones were also handed to Callan, Sophia, Brent, Savannah and Allison. Marcus was given the sixth phone, which was painted in a deep brown hue.

"Heard you like chestnut," the staff member grinned, before turning to the rest, "Waterproof and shockproof! Great battery life too, perfect for those long, tough missions you'll be going on. Complementary earphones and SIM cards are in the box with your phones. How about you guys share your numbers while you're at it, maybe set up a group chat? Don't text in class though." Rosa chuckled through the last part before walking over to Marcus.

She bent forward and spoke to the scarred boy in a low voice, with the intention of keeping some privacy.

"We've delivered your message and she's definitely received it. Since you have a phone now, why don't you try calling her in your own time?" she said and slipped him a piece of paper with a phone number on it, "Oh, and nice try with those extra funds, kiddo."

She returned to the front of the class.

"Gregory's stuff!"

A guard marched over to the blond and deposited three separate groups of items in three trips: a gig bag with a Fender Deluxe bass guitar inside, a bundle of ten 800g, 100M carbon fiber javelins and box of thirty carbon-shafted, 1500 grain arrows.

"This is the best we'll give you for now. Once you develop your abilities, we'll see if we can get you the more customised equipment you asked for. I asked a student for bass recommendations and she said Fender would be good. The Amazon reviews were very positive too! The amp, cable and other musical things should have reached your room by now. The sewing machine and bike too. Wait, one more thing."

From the same soldier who delivered Gregory's requested items Rosa obtained an eight-pack box of heinous rainbow guitar picks emblazoned with a glittery "COOL". She handed them to Gregory with a slight giggle.

Rosa checked her list again.

"Oh, the violin!"

A violin case was placed on Savannah's desk. Inside was the instrument and its numerous accessories, as well as the sheet music for a difficult looking song named Zigeunerweisen by Pablo de Sarasate. Scribbled in the top right corner was a barely legible "Hope you can learn this and play it for me someday! I love the Zig Zag Song!"

"It's a Cremona, good for intermediate players. The rosin and cleaning cloth is in the case. Sorry, we couldn't get a Stradivarius on short notice!"

"What's next... Right! Clothing, cosmetics and all that fancy personal stuff."

Eight suitbags were draped over Kusari's space. They contained her requested clothing items, expertly cleanpressed and neatly tailored to her washboard body. Emma was given a heavy duty backpack with a dull green exterior and a red shopping basket filled with the snacks she had requested, as well as an iPhone charger still in its packaging. Inside the backpack was a rather feminine makeup case that clashed with the muddy canvas of the backpack. She would find her makeup inside, as well as bottles of shampoo and conditioner. Zoe and Allison were given similar travel packs sans the makeup. If the girls were to compare their shower items they would find that they were all the same luxury brand. Zoe's backpack also contained her needle and thread, matches, a thick notepad and a box of coloured pens. Included in Allison's bag was a thin folder with a blank black cover containing the group's basic one-page profiles (just the bare bones of names, age, height, weight and a single photograph) including a page for the newest student, Ernest Mars.

Siena received numerous packs pens, stamps, and a pencilcase to keep them all in. Angel was given a thin folder similar to Allison's but with a blue cover. If she were to look at the inner cover she would find a sticky note that read: "No backgrounds or powers, sorry!!! It's all classified super secret stuff because I wrote in so many spicy notes. Try asking Freddy or your classmates. Build those friendships!"

A gargantuan package was plopped onto Sander's desk. From a distance it could have been mistaken for a large bulk pack of toilet paper. It was a pack of bandages. The outer plastic indicated that it was jasmine scented, an oil that was known for its calming and revitalising properties.

"Hope you don't have to use those too much," Rosa smiled, "Ooh, these next ones are fun. Pets!"

Three animal carriers were brought into the room; two cats and one dog. Sophia received a young female Tonkinese while Savannah was given a female American Shorthair. Siena's dog was a male Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. The paperwork attached to each cage listed personality traits, dietary requirements and numerous other pieces of information about the animals' conditions. Siena's paperwork mentioned that her new pet was also a trained therapy dog. The pets were named Billary, Spreckles and Chief Tater Tot respectively.

"Feel free to rename the little ladies. I would've given them to you without the cages but," the mage shrugged, "I didn't want to risk ruining your supervisor's nice footwear with animal pee. Right, Freddy?"

Hardly paying attention and totally engrossed with his clipboard, Fredric's voice was perfectly energetic. "A man is only as dapper as his shoes," he chimed cryptically.

Rosa returned with a solemn nod.

"Words to live by. Hm, the hardware for the girls next."

Sophia and Zoe were provided with a hefty survival kit each. In addition, the two girls were given survival knives, a Bushmaster for Zoe and a smaller folding knife for Sophia.

"I know you didn't ask for the survival kits but I thought they'd come in handy."

Rosa checked the tablet once more, eyes widening with delight as she read the next category.

"Oh my gosh, I think these next ones are my favorite part! Jasper, send in the Squishables!"

Three Squishable plush toys, a manatee, a Nessie, and a hamburger, were given to Christmas, Siena and Callan respectively. Rosa practically squealed in her joy.

"Aw man, I don't wanna let them go! At least I know they're going to good owners. I know only Christmas and Siena had asked for them but I saw the burger on the website and I just couldn't resist! But Cal, you wanted pillows and a Squishable's basically just a really nice looking pillow soo..."

Her smile suddenly grew mischievous.

"You'll find plenty of normal ones back at your suite. I made sure to get all sorts for you. Oh yeah, Blood Bag!"

The previously borrowed copy of Meditations was placed on Christmas' desk while Lawrence's stitched up jacket was tossed unceremoniously at the older boy. With the flare gun still in the pocket, the jacket was slightly weightier than usual.

"I meant it when I told you to take care of yourself, dear," she reminded the boy, casting the briefest of glances at Sander as she spoke, "Make good choices!"

As she passed by Hazel's desk, Rosa paused and knelt by the girl. She seemed apologetic.

"I'm really sorry, sweetie. Grumpy was kinda shifty about your request and..." Rosa sighed, "even if your armor got approved it would take some time to design and build. But I promise, I'll keep trying and we'll see what'll happen."

The staff mage's pep returned as soon as she saw that there was only one remaining category of items left. She looked towards Brent with a glint in her eye.

"Quite the aspiring little troublemaker, aren't you?" she mused.

A robust-looking sheathed machete, infra-red night-vision goggles, gas mask and body armor vest were dropped onto Brent's desk. Lastly, two holsters carrying a Desert Eagle pistol each were pulled out of the box and handed to Angelique and Brent. Two boxes of appropriate ammunition were also given to the two.

"I gotta say, they seem like pretty hefty guns for beginners. Ah, but what do I know? I just do the paperwork!"

Another round of chuckling before she turned to Brent again. If there was condescension in her tone, it was extremely difficult to pick out.

"When I read 'rail gun pistol thing'..." she shook her head, "For a second there I thought you meant one of those sci-fi railguns, not a pistol with a rail on it."

Indeed, the gifted Desert Eagles had a serrated-looking surface on the top and bottom of their barrels, signifying a 'rail' to attach sighting devices to.

"We could probably send that request to good old Hephy, but that'll take a long while--a long while. He's got...a lot of work on his hands right now,"she finished enigmatically.

A teasing smile crossed her expression.

"But maybe good old Hephy has made one before..."

She suddenly snapped straight, returning to her original task.

"Oh right! As for the rest of those requests..."

As she did a quick skim of her tablet, Rosa let out a low whistle.

"Semi-automatic rifle? Right off the bat? Not yet. Sniper rifle? Pending. No previous training in firearms anywhere we checked. Plus, I've got some other plans for how your firearm training is gonna go. Flamethrower? No freaking way, Jose. And a motorbike?"

The mischief returned to her face.

"A lot of requests are denied or put on hold for a period of time because sometimes handing a vehicle to a student who may or may not be able to drive one isn't the best idea. Just like how we turned down someone else's request some time ago for medieval torture instruments. Some ideas just aren't worth the trouble. We've poached a mage who can repair some things, but we already put the poor kid to work enough as is. Maybe you can ask Gregory to borrow his bike sometime?"

With that final note, she returned to the front for the class-wide announcements.

"To everyone here: the armory is off-limits for now. Nothing personal, it's just that almost all of you are really new and untrained and it's probably best to not trust these sorta things with newbies. After all, you're all collected here because Grumpy's got plans for you, and those plans involve a lot less dying from here on out. We'd rather not have you kids shooting yourselves in the face too easily with the grenade launchers and rotary cannons. Sorry about that. However you are totally allowed to visit the gun range at the training grounds and practice there with any weapons we've given you. Same goes for Ground Zero."

A glance at Lawrence and Angel.

"I noticed that two of your classmates were having some gun practice the other day. What a fantastic way to build camaraderie! Just take it with a grain of salt. A lot of DC's finest don't give two hoots about the weapons we're packing. Anyway, since big ol' Grumpy has put me in charge of this group's requisitions and I'm allowed to do whatever I feel like if I think it benefits the group, from now on Lawrence is your official firearms instructor!"

She did a small whoop and cheer before continuing.

"You'll have Nicholas on the side in case anything comes up with your gun training. Lastly, for those who requested mini fridges, you'll find them installed when you return to your dorms. If you requested any items to go in them, they'll be in there. That includes the second part of your request too, Hazel."

"Phew, that was a big chore! I guess it's time to get back to making sure Grumpy doesn't make another Precursor cry. If you guys have anymore questions about your requisitions I'll be in my office. Or somewhere else. Seeya!"

Rosa and the soldiers left as quickly as they had arrived.

"Alright then!" Fredric stepped back into the proverbial spotlight as the parade of soldiers marched out the door. "I know you're all stoked about your new toys, but try not to tune me out too much. I haven't got a whole lot left to say-- promise."

He pointed briefly to the large schedule on the board to emphasize his next point, "Your schedules should all say Experimental Unit B at the top-- most of you've already had the pleasure of seeing the former Unit A in action. You all met Mr. Alkana, of course. Yay high? Pink hair? Bit of a drama queen? He was from Unit A-- as well as Mr. Sonnino, Mr. Richardson, and Ms. Dalbesio and Ms. Harper. Cool cats-- the whole lot of 'em. That experiment sorta fell through, but 'if at first you don't succeed'-- right?"

A moment of silence passed as he flipped to another page on the clipboard, eyes sliding down the sheet rapidly before he continued.

"Even so, seeing them at work is a pretty fantastic sight to behold, as I'm sure you all noticed. Organizing and training capable teams and the like is something the lady upstairs has been trying to pin down for a while now. Speaking of training! You might want to reconsider skipping out on that afternoon combat training!"

"You'll be learning a lot of skills I'm sure you wish you had yesterday," he said, his voice softening slightly, though the words were still brazen enough, "If you'd like to survive and help ensure your teammates do so as well, I would suggest taking the time to show up. There aren't many students who get this sort of supervised training opportunity where we've reserved the entirety of Ground Zero just for you. Any Aberrations with problems will just get the tranquilizer shots during this period-- that's how much we value you guys."

The guards around the room noticeably bristled at the usage of more mage-centric terms, but a quick look and a quirked eyebrow from Fredric silenced any protests.

Sufficiently pleased with their response, Fredric smiled kindly at the most perturbed guard in the back right corner of the room, making sure he caught the man's eyes with a wave of his hand. The guard looked away, fixing his eyes on a desk instead--the one with the giant package of bandages, to be exact.

After a quick chuckle, Fredric resumed his explanation.

"Some of you may've also noticed there isn't a history class-- we had to cut something for that combat training block, so if that really bugs you for some reason, I'll be happy to point you towards the library."

"Today's combat training is going to be particularly interesting, so I hope you'll all be there on time-- and that you like Flag Football and Capture the Flag, because that's basically what it is. If you don't show up, your group is gonna suffer and that's no way to build camaraderie. If you aren't used to working with a team, you'll be the first to die against any serious threats."

As he finished, he gestured grandly at the large bookshelf behind him.

"Most of you soundly failed your placement exams, so we're catering to the lowest common denominator here. But anyone who thinks the material is too easy have free rein to self-study from any of the textbooks here. You're just not allowed to leave the classroom except for designated breaks and lunch. For reasons," he finished with another wide smile.

"I'll explain more about your training when you've all eaten and come back. No one wants to hear about exercise on an empty stomach, right? Do come back, by the way, or we'll have to resort to rather drastic measures...for your own safety."

Fredric bowed out of the room gracefully, but the lingering smile on his face indicated he wouldn't be leaving them alone for too long, if he was even going to be far from them in the first place.

With that, lessons began, with the trembling Ms. Rivera gesturing for a guard to hand out basic algebra textbooks.

"If-if you're interested in self-study, j-just grab a book," she squeaked, jerking her hand at the bookshelf in an awkward gesture.

As math class ended, the woman practically fled the room after grabbing her bag. Minutes later, the next teacher arrived, a pasty, gangly man sporting thick spectacles and thin, blond hair peppered with graying strands. He handled high-school level physics, opening with a chapter on vectors and scalars. His reaction to the classroom of guarded subnaturals was significantly less uneasy than Ms. Rivera and with an almost bored tone, he droned through the day's lesson.

The last class before lunch was taught by a small, unassuming Hispanic man in an argyle sweater vest and a neat combover. He rummaged carefully in his pockets before pulling out his own pens, apparently very particular about his choice in writing utensil. With a grimace at the prospect of needing to use something as inelegant as a marker and whiteboard, he started a lesson on sentence diagramming, measuring out lines slowly and carefully with his personal ruler.

None of the teachers had bothered becoming friendly with the students, launching into their lessons after they had introduced themselves while the guards handed out textbooks.

As the class before lunch ended, Mr. Lasseter seemed to be leading up to something as ridiculous as homework when Fredric entered the room again. The man's mouth, in the middle of a sentence, clapped shut.

A quiet chuckle from Fredric was all the acknowledgment he gave the reaction before he glanced at his watch.

"Aaaand," he snapped his fingers, "lunch. Off you go now. Eat things. But not the shrubbery. Landscaping is, not surprisingly, more expensive than just ordering more raw ingredients. I'll have something fun to announce to you cats when you come back."

Emma was still in the throes of sleep when she was rudely shaken awake. She was prepared to turn around and exchange a few choice words with her would be rouser until she realized it was one of the guards, not a roommate. She let out a heavy sigh as she rose from bed, "We're not going to have to go out and fight, right?" The guard shoved her along, "Doesn't matter. You're needed soon, so you better hurry up and take a shower."

At least she got to shower.

After a very brief wash and very little time to prepare Emma let herself be whisked away to a plain... classroom? Emma had been awaken at a time she would consider far too early, especially considering her lacking sleep schedule and then herded into a room which no doubt would hold something horrible for her.

This, of course, made her a very pissed off Aberration.

That was until she was greeted by a teacher upon entering the room. A teacher, she had realized. Instantly, it seemed, Emma's demeanor had changed. Yes! Fighting monsters isn't really up my alley, but this I can do! Emma indeed might have been the only on excited by the prospect of going to school, but that didn't change the fact that she absolutely reveled in it. While it seemed to her that Marcus had been born to be a smartass or Lawrence was born to be a therapist she was born to be popular.

Sure, that might sound a little vain, but really that was all she had. It was what she was good at- socializing, studying, doing homework, partying- it came naturally to her. Of course the game changed a little when she gained superpowers and ended up in a world that was fucked up beyond belief, but still, she brightened at the prospect of at the very least a semblance of normalcy. She realized that her classmates would likely be the people that she had came in with and fought with. She was excited at the chance to make a first impression with everyone, although a little disappointed when she looked down at her attire. Plain, boring. If she had realized it would be her first day of school she would've dressed to the nines but that... well, probably only mattered to her.

"Hi! I'm Emma, but I'm sure you already know that!" She greeted the teachers, giddiness in her voice evident.

She was enjoying this far too much. And she was the first to get there too! She practically danced to the desk she had picked, which of course was in the front of the class.

She seemed so peppy that it was almost comical.

She glanced around the room. She wondered who would sit next to her. Seating might very possibly be the most important thing that would happen today. Deciding where to sit- it was a very tactical game. Of course proximity would determine who you'd get to know most, so sitting next to an intriguing stranger might seem like an exciting prospect, but sitting away from a friend could be seen as a slight. When you had as many friends as she had it created quite the dilemma, as people were prone to see it as playing favorites, and Emma, of course, didn't like to pick favorites from among her friends. That made it all the more interesting that she would get to sit here and watch the game unfold.

Of course Emma overthought the matter, evaluating who she would've like to sit next to.

Of course there was Hazel, who insofar had been her best friend. They'd gone out together and Emma at the very least felt like they had bonded as roommate, but... Hazel was also Hazel, and more than likely wouldn't care in the least where Emma sat. She would probably have to explain the complexities of what would seem to be such a simple interaction to all but her, she realized.

Lawrence, of course, was a similar situation. He didn't care about something as petty as seating, at least that was what she had thought after there short time together... although Emma also would like to get to know him better. He seemed nice and also very reliable... but she had also felt super awkward about their conversation last night.

There was also Marcus. He was enticing. Funny, mysterious, and kind of cute. Scars, of course, make a man mysterious! And we have a date! Well... kind of a date! But would that be coming on too strong? She didn't want him to feel like he was being... well, stalked by her. Forced to sit next to her? Surely an awful fate, she decided.

Brent was another option. If she was being completely honest with herself she'd admit that the only reason she had even thought about him was because he was a complete hunk. He was almost too perfect. And he was also kind of an ass. He basically told me to kill myself... but given everything going on can I really fault him?

Emma also glanced at Kusari. Kusari... well, she was abrasive, to say the least, and she wasn't exactly sure what to think about her after the whole situation with Callan. Emma did get the impression that there was a little more to her than gloom and cynicism, but...

Speaking of Callan, she was another option! Emma didn't really have much of an opinion about her since she hadn't talked with her much, but she seemed cool enough. And her hair was cool. And she wore cool shirts.

There was also Lily and Grant, who she had seen at the battle, and her own teammates Sander and Christmas. She didn't have much to go off of when it came to them, since the battle seemed a poor metric of personality. Everyone kind of lost their shit, and she could hardly blame them for whatever happened. There was also the number of people who she hadn't met yet or had only met in passing.

Was she really this into it?

---

Eventually everyone filed in and the teachers began talking. That's Fredric!? She practically yelled internally. She had so quickly dismissed him as a goon when Sarah told her about them, but... but... him and Daisy....

They're so nice! And absolutely adorable!

It was almost impossible to think that USARILN staff could be so peppy and cheerful, even genuinely kind. So far they seemed like the coolest teachers Emma had ever had, which made it all the odder that they worked at a hellhole like this. There was a second of doubt. Was this some kind of trap? Were they just acting nice to get their trust?

Emma shook her head. She couldn't this place ruin her faith in people, could she? Her stigma disagreed. Was it her stigma, or her? She still wasn't sure.

While she was thinking things over they began handing out the requisition items. She was only brought out of her own head by a thud on her desk. It was a backpack filled with makeup and beauty supplies, and it came with all her snacks! Damn, I didn't actually expect them to go this far... She could just imagine some disgruntled guard out buying her beauty supplies and she loved it. She was surprised at the quality of everything that they had given her, This... this is actually good shit! Score! Suddenly she had been filled with doubt. Was USARILN really the prison she had thought it was? Was Zhang so evil? Daisy and Fred had seemed so nice, and... she'd seen horrible things here. More horrible than she could've imagined.

As she was thinking she realized that the pair were gone, and class had begun. This is way too much... She realized that she didn't even thank Daisy and Fredric as she walked away, and for that she felt awful.

---

Soon enough it was over. She'd opted for self study, since everything was so... basic. It seemed that the effort she put into her test had gone to waste, as they had just lumped them all together. As Fredric signaled for them to leave she sighed to herself. Him and Daisy had been so cool but everything else was so dry. She had though that they were her teachers and not the talking heads they had gotten. Self study, of course, was an extra sort of boring. Diving through books with absolutely no guidance didn't really help her much. At least she had lunch! Lunch was one of the most important times to cultivate schoolyard relationships, Emma had decided to herself. Deciding where to sit was an exciting prospect! Eating together was an important bonding experience, and of course she would have plenty of time to talk to everyone! She practically shot up from her desk, beginning to weigh the pros and cons of lunch seating.

Homeroom

An Autobiography by Marcus Howell

---

Marcus stood bleary-eyed at attention, having been rudely awoken by what he assumed to be standard operating procedure here. His shirt and pants remained wrinkled, a testament to his ability to sleep in everyday-wear, and a bigger testament to his lack of worry over appearances. If they were waking him up this early, they’d get over him being slightly disheveled. It’s not like he wasn’t usually somewhat disheveled.

He looked around the room a little bit, yawning and trying to get his bearings. School was in session, if the desks were anything to go by. The man who leaned at the desk seemed friendly enough; and the slight glimmer of white that Marcus’ eyes caught meant that he was a peer at least. A peer in the sense that he at least knew what they were going through. He sat in his seat, fiddling with one of the pencils on his desk as the man spoke.

He watched with child-like fascination as a woman came walking in through, with many guards behind her carrying boxes. He watched with slightly more fascination as he received a large box, apparently containing a laptop, and a phone, which was-

“Chestnut.” Marcus said in tandem with the lady, nodding and grinning slightly. Someone who could take a joke at least. His grin shone warmly, only pausing with curiosity when she leaned in towards him.

"We've delivered your message and she's definitely received it. Since you have a phone now, why don't you try calling her in your own time?"

He stared as she slipped him a small piece of paper, viewing the number that was written down on it. His heart skipped a beat as he gratefully accepted it, looking to the woman’s eyes and uttering a small “Thank you. M-ma’am.” His grin returned as his extra funds were denied, and he shrugged nonchalantly. “Never know unless you try!”

The rest of the requisition filling was uneventful for Marcus, he craned his neck to try and see what everyone else received. He silently mused to himself, happy that he hadn’t asked for much and didn’t have too many boxes to worry about. There were a few things that caught his ear: the first and foremost being…

“Pets!”

Marcus’ attention was immediately diverted to the three animal carriers that were brought into the room. Two cats…and a dog. A small dog, but a dog nonetheless. He doubted anybody was looking at him, which was fortunate because he tensed up ever so-slightly, his grin faltering. God, he hated the little creatures. Luckily this one seemed to be going straight to…Siena.

Betrayal

This could be slight problem, he reasoned to himself, trying to calm his breathing down ever so slightly from the more than slight problem he was faced with. A dog. Why did it have to be a dog? Of all the things she could have requested; a cat, a hamster…even a snake or something.

Marcus tried to forcibly tear his attention away from the small crate as the woman addressed Cal. A mischievous smile crossed her face; a smile that he, as a fellow mischief maker, recognized as nothing good. He looked forward to seeing what else this lady had done.

Finally, he mentally slapped himself for not requesting a firearm of some sort. He’d been caught off guard the first time, and probably would have spent the entire battle hiding behind a truck had there not been a spare. A pistol or something would have been nice; he made a mental note to request one later.

The rest of the requisitions and the classes went by without incident. His mind raced, mentally going over the numbers that were written on the slip in his hand. She’d gotten his message at least; and he had a viable communication relay with her. It had been a while since they’d last spoken; there’d be quite a bit to catch up on.

Another morning came to the horizon, this one however with a bit more purpose in the newly arrived student that occupied Room 300 in the Aberration dorms. Waking up once more in cold sweat from that same old yet newly reformed nightmare, Angélique got up from bed with the facial expression of someone who woke from the wrong foot. Her current thoughts were occupied by negativity, voices taunting her with how worthless she had been recently; how fleeting the bonds of friendship she made here were; how much of spineless cowards the humans around had been to her; how much pathetic beings her Subnatural friends and teammates were.

The raven black-haired student slapped herself out of it. She could not do anything about the voices in her head, but she could at least try and remain focused, shake off this anger building inside from the words whispered. Angel desperately tried to change her mind, thinking about what Lawrence told her the day before after they were finished with their firearms training. It was up to her to decide how her stay in this prison will be like.

As much as she did not accept the fact that they would most likely be spending their rest of their lifetime in here, she could not deny the truth in her veteran classmate’s words. She needed to plan ahead of time, make the most of this place before the opportunity arises.

With this train of thought in mind, Angélique dressed simply with a pair of skin-tight leggings, running shoes, a sports bra and her trademark shades; everything black in color to contrast her light complexity and complement her hair that she tied in a ponytail. She’d get a small breakfast at the cafeteria before jogging at the training grounds, to the track field.

Earbuds in place, plugged into her cellphone, the French-Canadian girl started jogging to the music of her playlists. She needed that much to distract herself from the ever-whispering voices pounding the back of her head. Jogging in itself was boring, and as such, after completing a single lap on the track field, she left the training ground to jog around the campus.

By the end of her cardio session, a guard had approached Angel. Initially, she did not hear a single word from what he was saying, with the earbuds blocking outside sounds and music already blasting through her ears. She was tempted to just jog past the guy and ignore him, but with a raised gun pointing towards her, she doubted it was such a good idea after all. She stopped and removed her earbuds when she got next to the guard.

“What is it, Sir? Didn’t know we had curfew during daytime as well.”

“Real funny… You have orientation to attend to this morning.”

“Woah there, cowboy. Would it kill you to warn us beforehand? I’m all sweaty and shit, can’t I just take a fucking shower before going to classes?”

“Then get your ass moving. You don’t have much time.”

This being said, Angel raced back to her dorms, grab her personal hygiene kit before quickly washing off the sweat and dust from her morning jog. While her inner self fancied a little touch of makeup, mostly eyeshadow, she had no time to prepare beforehand for such things. As such, Angel quickly dressed-up with skin-tight black jeans and a black cropped tank top, slipping into her pair of sneakers and taking off to the class where she was supposed to attend today’s classes. She wasn’t wearing everything she’d wish to, but that would have to suffice for the time being, she thought as she slipped her black opaque eyewear on her face.

---

As she reached the class, there were already a few people that had arrived before Angélique. She did not recognize one individual however that had been sitting among them. Eyeing one open spot at the furthest possible seat from the teacher’s desk, Angel made her way there, sitting at the back end of the class next to the wall. She would’ve liked to sit next to the window at the far end of the class, but that spot had already been taken.

Throughout the whole orientation process, Angel paid little attention to whatever the guy at the front - Frederick? - was talking about. He may have been a Mage(?) just like they were, but the fact that he was working directly under their supreme overlord made him no less than a lapdog to the metal-styled student.

It was but until the red-haired young woman who burst in the room with boxes and energy to wake up even the dead, things suddenly caught Angélique’s attention. So pretty much any kind of requests were accepted, on top of being dealt with quickly? From electronics to pets, musical instruments to firearms, most of the requests had been granted to the students.

Angel would have been damned if she expected her request to really be considered. But with the Desert Eagle being dropped on her desk along with a few boxes of ammunitions, she could hardly deny that those people were serious about it. Even the blue folder sitting in front of her was testament to that.

"I noticed that two of your classmates were having some gun practice the other day. What a fantastic way to build camaraderie! Just take it with a grain of salt. A lot of DC's finest don't give two hoots about the weapons we're packing. Anyway, since big ol' Grumpy has put me in charge of this group's requisitions and I'm allowed to do whatever I feel like if I think it benefits the group, from now on Lawrence is your official firearms instructor!"

Indeed, monsters were resilient to bullets, she seen it firsthand, but they would affect lesser creatures. Better using a bullet than a scream, in her case.

“Who said it’ll solely be used on monsters?”

Angélique slapped her hand to her mouth, her eyes growing wide when she realized what just came out from her mouth. Did she just really say that out-loud? Her mind had been nagging her at her with this idea as she had taken hold of the handgun and examined it. Surely, it was foolish to threaten the guards with it. But deep inside, she knew about herself, the danger Aberrations represented to others, what had happened between Zoe and Aaron. While bullets did no good against monsters, it was a whole another story for Subnaturals. At base, they were still humans, and if it wasn’t the case, why everyone here be so frightened about having guns pointed in their face. If one crazy Subnatural were to try and kill her, she would have to mean to lethally take that individual out, without resorting to her suppressed powers.

For the rest of the morning, Angel paid little to no mind about the classes she was having. Taking on textbook that had been distributed to her, Angel opened it and placed the blue folder she had gotten earlier from Daisy. She would pretend self-studying, all the while she was carefreely reclined on the two legs of her chair, back against the wall, with the allure of a slacker well experienced at what she does.

Her mind drifted to the profiles she read thoroughly about her classmates. Granted, she was pissed off by the post-it notes detailing that she didn’t have access to her classmates’ powers and background. Classified information, her ass. Was it just so difficult to save her time and write down their powers instead of just having her walk up to each and every one of them and ask about what they do?

---

When lunch time had arrived, Angel quickly got up her chair and left the class in a hurry. Something had been bothering her for a while, in fact throughout the classes. She had noticed they were one member short, seemingly replaced by an unknown dumb-faced guy she couldn’t care less about. Aaron was missing, and that bothered her immensely. She may have been an asshole to the boy for the past few days, but she still owed him much for what he did to her, and it was a lie to say that she didn’t care about him.

There was a single lead for Angélique to follow. Out of his three roommates, only one remained available. Christopher was there in class, maybe he knew what happened to Aaron. If she could find him during dinner time, maybe she could have a chat with him about her friend’s whereabouts.

---

---

---

---

It was a dream.

Christmas knew the unreality of it immediately despite the dense, waist-high grass and heavy stormclouds stretching across an endless, monochrome plain of muted yellow. The smell of rain clung to the air and a strong wind rattled the tall, rusty swing he sat on, bare feet dangling over the spears of grass bobbing rapidly in the breeze. Simple, iron beams specked brown and red with corrosion cut a rigid image of the swing set in otherwise uninterrupted grassland. His hands still gripped the creaking, cracking chains, afraid to let go in the face of the looming tempest. Beside him, an empty swing seat swayed wildly in the harsh drafts of air.

The storm was too much. Too far beyond him in his plain white T-shirt and gray shorts. And it was silly, but he didn't want to stand on his bare feet, afraid the grass and dirt would swallow him up before the storm could.

His left hand clutched the chain of the seat harder, fearing the compulsion to let go. As if in response, one of the fractured links near his white-knuckled grip crumbled to pieces, the scraps of tarnished metal floating upwards and away.

One end of the seat swung downward and Christmas tumbled to the ground, landing on his side in the shuddering waves of yellowed grass battered down by the violent air.

The rough texture of dry leaves suffocated him--pressed down on him, their lengths falling across his body. It was almost like drowning.

He snapped awake in much the same position, heaving breaths and the pounding of blood in his ears vivid and shocking enough to denote this as reality. Several steps of awkward stumbling took him to the phone on his desk, and a shaking finger turned on the lock screen to check the time. 0421. His roommates had, thankfully, not been disturbed by his sudden awakening and Christmas braced his unbandaged hand against the edge of his desk, breathing as quietly as possible in the aftermath of the dream.

It felt like he had lost something--though whether that something was good or bad, he couldn't be sure. A soft, faint sense of exhilaration danced in the farthest reaches of his thoughts as his mind automatically, almost without his consent, focused on a small ripple of difference in his power.

Confusion only lasted the barest moment before he just knew what that difference was. That was almost as frightening as not knowing.

Several long minutes of trying to focus on anything--anything at all--passed before Christmas tiptoed carefully back to his bed and settled in under the sheets. Another hour and he finally managed to doze off.

The prolonged sound of running water stirred him sometime later and Christmas took far too long to comprehend that it was now morning and that he still very much remembered what he had seen earlier in his dream. Hoping to forget about it had only cemented it in his memories. Both Sander's and Kusari's beds were empty and he blearily wondered if they were both showering together.

The bathroom was occupied and sleep still clung to him, heavy across his eyes and shoulders. He took that in stride, glad to soak in the haziness of waking up for a few moments longer before the silence of waiting bothered him enough to justify sliding out of bed and grabbing his Vita from the desk. Bare feet and the chilly morning quickly propelled him back, however, and he curled up in an upright bundle with the sheets, cozily tapping away on the console's buttons with his good hand while his mind fled far elsewhere.

---

---

It happened again.

Sander found himself kneeling in the water once more, an insignificant speck of dust in the face of the great beyond. More of that vast ocean dripped into him, and he welcomed it, revelled in that brief moment of strength. It felt almost like power. Almost like hope.

Until he woke up.

Sander blinked blearily, watching the faint morning light streaming in from the window. It felt far too early to get out of bed, but he sat up regardless. For the first time since that battle, he didn’t wake up shivering in cold sweat, so there was no point in wasting a perfectly good day in bed. He would save that for his worse days. With that in mind, Sander pushed the cover aside and headed straight for the shower.

As lukewarm water caressed his back, Sander stared at his hands, his mind faraway. The Change happened again. He knew it. He felt it. And he was sure they had ways of finding out as well. He knew the Change before, but it had never happened this rapidly. It shouldn’t. He was not sure how to feel about this. Parts of him were scared; he didn’t want the monster to become stronger. Yet, what if the Change strengthened his control? He remembered hope. He remembered power.

Back then, the prospect of control felt almost real.

There was only one way of knowing. But he didn’t dare to think about it. He couldn’t. He would fail, like all those times before. Just because he thought he could be someone else. Because he dared to want. Dared to hope.

His fault. All his. They died, and he did nothing.

He blinked, watching his white-knuckled fists slowly uncurled as he took in deep breaths. No, he shouldn’t. He didn’t want to shatter any parts of his arms, and he most certainly didn’t want to break anything in the shower. There was no point in making his roommates even more miserable. He would go the Ground Zero later. Soon. But it was disappointing. He was usually better than this when it came to his Stigma.

After his morning ritual, Sander exited the bathroom, a white towel draped over his shoulders as he headed back to his desk. Glancing in Christmas’ direction, he noticed that the boy had already awoken, and was currently playing on his Vita again. It was a few moments, before Sander realized he was staring, so he turned back to his desk, searching for anything to busy himself with. There was a spare requisition form at the corner of his desk, but hesitation still pulled at his mind, so it wasn’t long before he turned back to his roommate.

“Have you ever seen the ocean?”- He said suddenly, the question seemingly came out of nowhere.

Christmas blinked once at the question, pulling his mind rapidly from the depths of his daydreams as he struggled to both form a reply and process the query all at once.

The answer came out as a muddled "Huh--yes?"

As usual, questions and direct interactions caught him off guard. He was used to not having a presence to the extent that people could nearly step on him before they'd notice he was there. At the very least, that lined up roughly with what he consciously preferred.

“No. Um, not that ocean.”- Sander looked vaguely surprised, then frowned slightly once he realized how stupid his question was –“I mean, the ocean... space thing. In your dreams. Have you ever seen it?”

He stared at Sander, the mention of "dream" bringing back the visage of that endless, sun-parched plain blanketed in storm clouds.

For a long moment, he sat still, eyes fixed on Sander's face without truly looking.

"...I don't know if..." his eyes slipped down to the ground again as he furrowed his brow in confusion, "...What do you mean?"

“I mean…we see things. I see things when… the change happens, and…”- Sander let out a frustrated sigh –“You know what, never mind. I’m just not making any sense here, am I?”

“Anyway, how was your sleep?”- His eyes caught sight of the bandaged hand first, before the question popped into his mind –“Your hand is better?”

Christmas nodded, eyes still searching the ground for the answer to Sander's previous question. He could still see that landscape so clearly. It only took a glance in his mind's eye for the full image to return, clear and distinct.

"Sander?" he called out the name quietly, roving eyes locking on to a meaningless point on the Berber-esque carpet.

“Yeah?”

"Would you...would you tell me what you saw?"

“Um…”- Sander floundered, searching his vocabulary. Despite his tendency to mince words, he had never been very good with them. That much hadn’t changed over the years –“I saw an ocean. At least, I think it was an ocean. It was…vast. Went on forever. And it…uh…dripped. Then it was all over.”

It bled power into his veins and hope in his heart and for a moment he thought he could take on the world.

And he would have. But Christmas didn’t need to know that.

More silence spanned the gaps in conversation. Without noticing, Christmas picked at the edge of the bandage on his right hand.

"I saw a field," he whispered into the folds of the blanket wrapped around him, retreating into the cloth as he spoke.

“Then you have seen the Change, haven’t you?”- Sander watched his roommates, but his eyes were far from focused –“But it happened too fast. Not normal.”- The last part, he mumbled to himself, frowning.

Silence fell between them once more, before Sander decided to speak up, uncertainty laced his voice –“Do you think I can control, eventually?”

“They both think I could.”

"T-they? Control...what?"

“My…power.”

It suddenly made a lot more sense to Christmas why Sander had stabbed himself the other night. And it dawned on him that Sander...had already controlled it, right?

"...Didn't you already?" he voiced his thoughts, surprising himself in the process.

“I…appease it. Never control it.”- Sander drew in a breath of fresh air, trying to swallow the lump that had formed in his throat –“She thinks I could. She thinks I should try.”

“Should I?”

Christmas wondered about the "she" Sander kept referencing, but he thought it better not to ask. If Sander hadn't brought it up repeatedly, he might have missed it altogether in the flurry of thoughts the conversation was evoking. Beyond that, it felt too personal to ask about Sander's life--his circle of people included.

He breathed in the fading scent of generic detergent from his blanket, a simple answer coming to mind.

"If--" a pause to gather his words, left hand balling the blanket to give his mind some kind of focus "--I were you, I...I would be too afraid to try. And I think you're--I think you're stronger than that." Than me.

Sander let out a light chuckle at his roommate’s words, no humor in his laugh. He kept his head down, once again racking fingers through his hair, the movement uncharacteristically frantic. Before he could persuade himself to clam up and slip the mask back on, Sander stood up and walked over to Christmas’ bed. Lowering himself until he could look the blond boy straight in the eyes, Sander reached out for the healer’s injured hand and caught a loose piece of bandage between his fingers. Barely a moment later, he seemed to have thought better of it, and let go.

“…You offered. Twice.”- Sander’s tone was suddenly sombre-“I think that’s already very brave.”

The smaller boy looked away, shaking his head almost imperceptibly. Automatic disagreement. He didn't venture an explanation, however.

Instead, he closed his eyes and took a breath, ashamed of himself--nothing new--as he pulled his knees even closer to his chest on a reflex.

"I'd offer again." For all the wrong reasons. Christmas sighed to the air on his right, echoing his statement from the previous night. He couldn't bring himself to meet Sander's eyes.

“Even when it’s not safe?”- A frown creased Sander’s brow –“Why? You don’t have to do this. I’m…no one to you.”

The healer looked down at his right hand, swaddled awkwardly in bandages and made even worse by his fidgeting. Several layers of his amateurish dressing had loosened through the night, no doubt because he shifted often in his sleep to the rhythm of uneasy thoughts and uneasier dreams.

"Then I guess...I'm no one to me, too," he answered, hiding a blank smile behind a crease of the blanket around his shoulders. "Do you know my power, Sander?" he asked suddenly, voice muffled in the linen sheet.

Sander’s eyes caught the dishevelled bandages once again, and this time, he could no longer ignore it. He reached out once again with a tentative ‘May I’, and once the blond boy gave him the go ahead, he unwrapped most of the bandage and tried his best to re-aligned the strands of open-weave cotton. As he worked, he paused briefly at Christmas’ strange question.

“Yes?”

"...Then don't you already know 'why'?"

“Someone once told me”- Sander suddenly seemed very interested in Christmas’ hand, eyes glued onto the stained bandage –“that this power is just a part of us. It doesn’t have to be all we are.”

“It doesn’t have to be all you are.”

Whether Sander believed his own words or not, he didn't know.

Christmas lifted his right hand, the unraveled gauze trailing from it in uneven loops and lengths. Underneath, along the width of his palm and nearly dead center, was the wound he had made for himself. It was still raw and red, barely scabbing over.

"If this--" he tapped his left index finger against the corner of the injury "--was all I am, I'd still take it."

“Is that really what you want?”- Sander lifted his head to catch Christmas’ eyes, the weight of the question hung heavy on his tongue.

The blond boy shook his head in response, but he offered no voice to the honest "no." The corners of his lips trembled as he repeated, "I'd still take it."

Sander’ jaws twitched as his eyes hardened, whatever mask he let slipped before had clamped shut again. “I see.”- He let out the faintest sigh, then slowly straightened, pulling himself to his full height. Whatever topic they were delving into, the blond boy obviously didn’t feel very comfortable, so he decided to drop it. It hit far too close to home, anyhow.

“It is what it is, then.”- With that said, Sander slowly walked back to his desk, where he reached for a sheet of paper and began writing something down.

Oh, Christmas remembered that look. Something like disappointment and resignation all rolled into one. Nothing changed around him. Because he never changed.

He looked back to his right hand, where Sander had left the wrapping unfinished. It was true. Nothing changed around him even when everything was supposed to.

Not bothering with the gauze at the moment, his left hand reached for the Vita to resume progressing through another visual novel whose story he would only glean in part before losing himself to any train of thought that happened to branch from there. Before long, he was adrift in another daydream, diverting his mind from everything he'd rather not think about until he had to.

As the silence returned to their shared suite, Sander found it easier to focus on wording his request to the Director, and he did so gladly, eager to get his mind away from the recent conversation. His decision was still unclear, but he figured a bit of preparation couldn’t hurt. Really, after all that happened, he knew what his blond roommate would do should last night happened again. Still, a selfish part of him wanted to just try. He caught a glimmer of hope, and he found that he couldn’t let go. Maybe it could get better. Maybe, if he could just try hard enough.

Golden hair stained red and dead eyes looked at him, bloody hand extended.

His fault. He thought it could get better. He thought wrong.

This was a mistake. One he had made. One he refused to learn from.

Sander heaved out a quiet breath, loosening his grip on the pen. Its point had broken right off, leaving large ink stains and a puncture mark where the point broke through paper to embedded itself into the wooden desk.

He needed a new form.

However, before Sander could leave his dorm and headed over to the registrar’s office, guards poured in from the front door. At this point, Sander had become far too used to look at guns from the wrong ends. Funny how things had changed. Funny how they had not. Without a word, he followed them, but not before sparing the blond boy a glance.

Christmas was pulling on yesterday's socks and shoes, obediently following the guards after an initial bout of surprise. He held the drooping lines of bandages in his left hand, tucking them around his right hand and fingers as quickly as he could while moving. It wasn't that he didn't care about his injury, but more that he didn't think it would matter even if something did happen to the cut on his palm. His power, after all, necessitated wounds like these. Even more so now, after the dream of endless fields and endless storms.

---

---

Sander settled for a chair further from the board, contented to just fiddle with his newly acquired laptop rather than paying attention to the lessons. Half of the stuffs they were teaching seemed familiar enough, so he figured he could afford some slacking. Academic achievements had never meant much to him anyway, and he doubted it was any different with the Director. She said it herself; he was to be a combatant here. He didn’t think he would need extensive knowledge of algebra to do that. Instead of paying attention to Ms Rivera, he booted up the laptop and began to surf the web. The laptop had most of the basic programs installed already, but he figured he could get a few more. After all, this was his personal computer, or as personal as it could get here. While waiting for a download to complete, he decided to check on his old email address as well. It was one of the few last mementos he still held on to from his old life.

No new email in the inbox.

Right. Why would they send emails to a dead person? He should have known better. Silly thoughts for a silly boy.

Closing the laptop with a barely audible click, Sander returned his eyes to the teacher, but his attention was still faraway, chasing stray trains of thoughts into nowhere. Many of his fellow students had requested weapons, amongst other things. He thought about weapons when he was still filling out the sheet as well, but figured it didn’t matter. He already got a Glock 41 sitting at the bottom of his duffel bag; he didn’t need another firearm. Even then, he was better off unarmed. Ammunitions were not available in abundance, and he knew from experience that ripping into flesh with your bare hands gave off quite a visceral sense of satisfaction. Not that he would ever admit that to anyone, or even himself. He just liked to think that he wanted to keep things simple, and that was that.

But she wanted him to at least try. They both did. Maybe at least he should make the effort? A weapon sounded like a good point to start.

One mistake after another. When would finally he learn?

Sander blinked dumbly, before pressing a hand to his face. Right. No weapon. It was a bad idea. Ground Zero seemed to be a better one at this point. In fact, it would be better if he skipped the afternoon training session altogether and focused his effort sating the Stigma in Ground Zero. Alone. It was especially disappointing, considering he used to go at least a week without incidents before. But what else could he do?

He only had himself to blame, really.

He would double back to his room later, after lunch. They had already given out most of the requisitions; one day too late, but it was better than nothing. They must have leave the rest of his requests back at the dorm. Those were not things you carry around in public, after all. If he were more sensible, he would have left the classroom there and then, leaving for Ground Zero as soon as he was able. But he was stubborn. Deep inside, he still had that tenaciousness that she instilled.

Another mistake. Another choice he would soon regret. That was all he could do. Regret.

Hazel Baker

---

She couldn't move.

The large dining room, elaborate and elegant in its make and decoration, was cracking, water spurting from those cracks. The windows, somehow, still held up, though the only view out of them now is the angry depths of the ocean, roiling as if it was a living being. She could feel it rushing around the room, almost as if it was looking for something.

The room was still holding together however, and a feast was still heaped upon it, though there were water spurting from the cracks spoiling it. Her hand was still holding a teacup, though she could move it no longer. Her joints were solid, her skin porcelain, her eyes painted on. Yet she could still see, feel and hear.

And her cup was filling up, drop by drop, with tainted liquid.



She woke up stifling a scream.

For an instant, she was back. Back in that room that smelled of petrol and sawdust. Back to being tied up and gagged as she struggled beside her. Instinctively Hazel reached up to her neck and grabbed the collar, as if trying to ground herself back into reality with its presence. While the hallucination faded, her stigma didn't. [I[That girl[/] was sitting on Hazel's stomach, humming to herself nonchalantly as she grinned at Hazel. Hazel could feel her weight, her warmth, and even her hair on her arm. Even being this close to that girl was making Hazel's skin crawl, and irrational fear to fill her heart. But when she turned and grinned at her... .

Almost leaping out of bed, she pushed the girl off and grabbed the unmarked bottle, downing two of them immediately. Once again, she was reduced to huddling in a corner, closing her eyes and ears as she mumbled off lists, and facts, trying to fill her mind with nothing but pure noise.

Fortunately the drug took effect before any of her roommates awoken, allowing her to shower and dress up before them. There was no denying it, her curse was getting stronger and stronger. The collar itself wasn't enough by now. It was obvious to her by now, that every time she went into that dream, that nightmare, her abilities grew stronger, which in turn made the stigma worse. How much suffering would there be if she was to have powers to rival the crystal person? How would they react if they found out she was getting stronger and stronger?

The morning went on, and she as well as the others were ushered into a room, where they were given an introduction to some teachers before a very chipper person went in and started distributing items to everyone. Daisy, her name was. Hazel had not noticed any of bulky objects, nor had she expected such armor to be ready in such short notice, but it still felt slightly disappointing to not receive it. It was a bit disheartening to be denied what she had thought would be a reasonable request, but perhaps she didn't need it yet.

"Or they were afraid of your growing power."

The voice echoed in her mind, silent to everyone but herself, a whisper so quiet she could almost fool herself into thinking she imagined it. Both the collar and the drugs combined was barely enough to contain her stigma; every now and again it arose to the surface of her thoughts. It was just her stigma acting up, but she could not shake off the feeling that it might be true. It could be wrong, but it could be right as well. What would they do if they were really afraid of her? What sort of punishment would she get? It was a train of thought she was quick to abandon, but something that never quite left her mind.



The classes were certainly eye opening. She had no idea what most of the lecturers said, though she did learn quite a few things. The concept of taking notes was foreign to her, so she had to resort to focusing her attention to the people in front. It wasn't unpleasant. It was certainly more comfortable than running another experiment. She half expected one of them to start an experiment right there, but nothing of note happened until Fredric came back to tell them to go to lunch.

Standing up and dusting off her dress, she set off towards lunch, wondering if they'd get mad if she deviated from her usual diet a little bit.

---

---

Zoe was grinning like a lunatic as she woke up.

And then she wasn't. It wasn't a dream, not really. A memory.

Unlike most people, she hated it when she woke up on the right side of the bed. The memories always reminded her of her Stigma, of how good it could feel to stop fighting it. The equivalent of waving a bottle of wine right in the face of an alcoholic, except with more collateral damage. It wasn't her that got hurt if she was weak, she couldn't afford to think about it. No, she could forget about it. Push it to the back of her mind. She didn't have to remember the freedom that came with letting go, the thrill whenever she was able to-

A knock on the door thankfully took her off following that train of thought. Getting up and blinking sleep from her eyes, she opened it to the sight of a rifle pointed at her face. With an irritated sigh, she glared at the guard, blue eyes flashing with anger.

"Morning to you too. Can I at least get dressed before you point that thing at my face?"

"...You have two minutes. Don't waste time."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

---

Once she arrived in the classroom, Zoe decided it would be a good idea to just sit down wherever there was space - ending up somewhere in the middle of the desks that had been set out. Despite her putting conscious effort into hiding it, she was noticeably jumpy, eyes darting around the room and very specifically avoiding looking at anyone when she could. If anyone actually looked her in the eyes, they'd be confronted with a dangerous mixture of hunger and aggression that hinted at what was going on in her head.

It wasn't uncontrollable, not yet. Rather, she'd just be a lot easier to provoke than normal - which, considering her usual temper, meant it really wouldn't take much. Besides, being taken to class at gunpoint wouldn't have done wonders for her mood at the best of circumstances. These were not the best of circumstances.

Risking a quick glance around the room, she at least noticed that Aaron wasn't present. Which was a relief. She already wanted to strangle him anyway, and if the sight of anyone was going to make her snap, it would have been him. She didn't give much thought to it beyond that. She was curious about his disappearance, but she wasn't about to spend time trying to figure anything out about it. She wouldn't have been too surprised if some people thought she'd gone and killed the guy. Not that she had, obviously.

Don't think I'll miss him either way. Wonder if he has anything to do with all the guards?

Lost in thought, she didn't really register much else of what was going on in the room until the man started speaking to them. Mr. Francisco - or Fred, apparently - was oddly warm in how he spoke, considering that they'd been forced to class at gunpoint and all. The math teacher, on the other hand, seemed to be about as keen on teaching them as Zoe was on learning math.

Speaking of staff, the introduction had barely finished when another woman walked in, one that Fred referred to as Daisy, who was almost unnaturally cheery for the time. It was too early in the morning for anyone to be that happy about anything, as far as Zoe was concerned. Still, she was saying something about... Presents? Raising her head, Zoe looked at the soldiers filing in behind the woman with slight suspicion.

Thankfully, Zoe's suspicions were unfounded. Seemed like the 'presents' that the woman was talking about were their requisitions from the forms, at least judging from the items that were dumped on her desk. After a quizzical glance at the woman and hearing confirmation that the survival kit was actually hers, Zoe gave a thin-lipped smile, picking up the knife and turning it over in her hand, testing the weight. It felt sturdy enough anyway. Yeah, it'd do.

Absentmindedly playing with the knife as she leaned back in her seat, Zoe directed her attention back to Fred as he resumed his speech. Apparently it was important. Trying her best to take in what he was saying, she nodded along with the talk.

So we're getting special treatment, huh? Gotta wonder what everyone else on campus thinks of that.

Somehow, she doubted many of the resident Aberrations would appreciate having to get tranquillised because the new kids had to do combat training, but hopefully they wouldn't go picking a fight over it. Or if they did, hopefully it was with her - she could handle it if she needed to. She'd have to watch out for anything being directed at the others so she could deal with it though, which was a pain in the ass.

As far as classes went, Zoe swiftly decided she wasn't that interested in most of it. Keeping up with an education had seemed worth a try when she had some choice about her future, but DC monsters didn't give half a shit how good she was at metaphors. Saying that, if they were going to be given study time, she'd probably grab a biology textbook at some point. Considering her ability, learning more of that stuff could actually help her be a lot more efficient, especially if she ended up fighting other people.

She didn't need the warning about skipping training, though. If there was one thing she didn't want to end up doing, it was to fall behind the others. Any chance to practice with her abilities was one worth taking. If she was really lucky, it'd help her to deal with her Stigma as well, but she wasn't counting on that. Ultimately, she couldn't afford to skip it. People might question that, and she couldn't let them figure out she was struggling - that would make her vulnerable. She couldn't let them see her like that.

But that was all after lunch anyway. For all the classes up until lunch, she just sat staring at her desk, breathing slowly and trying not to think about attacking anyone. Not succeeding completely, as evidenced by the slight smile that never quite managed to leave her face, but enough that she didn't risk actually doing anything to anyone unprovoked due to the Stigma's effects.

Not that it ever forced her to do anything regardless. It was always a choice, just one that got harder and harder to resist over time. She was always at least somewhat conscious of what she was doing. Could always stop herself if she really tried, if it really wasn't what she wanted to do. If anything, that knowledge just made things worse, feeling that not all of what she did could be blamed on her Stigma. That at least part of the normal her wanted to lash out too.

Once they were told to break for lunch, she was noticeably quick to leave the room, although she figured she could pass it off as just being bored out of her mind. While she still wasn't far off doing something she'd regret, her thoughts were at least coherent right about now. Having made it through the morning, Zoe was pretty sure she could keep it together over the next few hours. As long as no-one went and pissed her off, anyway.

---

---

---

---

Callan stared at the massive hamburger plush that had been placed on her desk alongside the phone. Falling asleep after her heroically embarrassing adventure with Lawrence yesterday night hadn't been as easy as she'd hoped. Her attempt to fill the sleepless void ultimately undermined her plan to fall sleep at a reasonable hour.

She'd awoken that morning with even less grace than usual and would've gone about her day with her hoodie on backwards if Siena hadn't commented on it. Slumped in front of the bathroom mirror, Callan glanced at the simply stylized print on her new cool gray hoodie. In simple hipster-esque font, there were three large Z's. If only. Evening out the pant legs on her black leggings, she'd proceeded to the hallway.

The guard had prodded her in the side as she shuffled out the door. For the briefest of moments, she considered snatching the gun out of his hands, snapping it in half, and trudging straight back to her bed. Of course, that wouldn't have been the heroic thing to do, but her commitment to that mindset would fair much better after breakfast. A meal she would soon learn wasn't on the agenda for the day.

Callen immediately found an indistinct seat in the second to last row, in front of Siena, diagonal from Marcus, and far enough away from the windows that she wouldn't have to worry about the sun blaring at her. Barely processing anything in her morning haze, she did manage to feel genuine excitement upon seeing that Siena had requested a dog, but her mind shunned the emotion almost instantly. It was too early and she was too tired for 'excitement'.

She returned her attention to the plush. Two black eyes with little sewn-in white twinkles and a happy little smile. It was soft as all get out, she observed, running her hands over the top before picking it up. Eight little yellow corners of fabric stuck out above a strip of brown and red wrapped around the entire plush-- cheese, the burger, and tomato. Were they trying to butter them up after having put them through that terrible fight? Or maybe they were just trying to make them feel better about it? Perhaps it was both? Regardless of the reason, she was ashamed to admit how nauseatingly cute the gift was... she loved it.

Holding it out in front of her, Callan felt her stomach rumble. Her lips pursed into a straight line and she slowly set the plushie under her desk.

No, Cal. Not food.

Mr. Francisco's speech turned out to be the only thing she heard in its entirety before lunch time rolled around. They would all get to train together? The idea sounded like a good one to Cal-- up until she remembered how her fight with Kusari had gone. How were they going to train someone like her? Noting the conceitedness of the thought, she wondered if there was anyone here that could go toe to toe with her in a fight. She was strong for an arbiter and she knew it-- maybe not as strong as Shane Alkana, but still.

Remembering her run in with Brent and Zoe at the gym, she wondered if they'd have things heavy enough to test herself. Flag Football and Capture the Flag... fun games for normal people. Or... more normal people anyway. So far she'd been able to mostly keep her overabundance of strength in check when it came to interacting with others-- even in regards to Kusari, who had told her not to hold back before she punched through her guts.

Callan frowned and buried the bottom half of her face in her arms on the desk. She didn't want to think about that disaster again. As Mr. Francisco exited the classroom and the much less interesting (and tall) Ms. Rivera took over, Callan sighed through her nose. Why hadn't she requested snacks on that requisition form? Hunger and exhaustion permeated her mind as the teacher droned on. Unable to satisfy the first, her body was more than willing to humor the second. Within seconds, Callan was rocking in and out of sleep-- only lifting her head long enough to accept a paper passed to her by a guard or catch the name of whatever new teacher came scuffling through the door.

---

---

---

---

The Squishable manatee worked wonders for Christmas's mood. He had been less than thrilled at the prospect of being left to his own thoughts without the distracting comfort of his Vita, but now, staring at the ridiculously soft stuffed toy on his desk, a lot of his worries--well, he wouldn't say they melted away, but they certainly didn't drown out the 38-centimeter plush staring back at him.

He gave it a long hug, reminded of the one he had left behind.

Mr. Chair.

The old Mr. Chair was probably gone now. His mother wouldn't have kept any of his stuff that hadn't gone with him to USARILN East.

He had been quick to comply with the entourage of guards escorting them all to a classroom, some of his fellow students' faces he vaguely recognized from the first day and the battlefield, though both events had been a confusing jumble of terror and screaming. Worried that they would be sent out again? Yes. Scared that he would pass out and wake up only to find the battle all over again? Absolutely. Panicked at the thought that he could die in so many ways and that his power only exacerbated the issue? 100%.

And then there were the whispers and chatter about new students having already died. He couldn't even remember who had been where in that fight to identify who was missing. If anyone asked, he'd be scared to admit that he had no recollection of the deceased students. Not good, to be the only one who didn't know the details. He regretted not asking for specifics, but given the events of the past few days maybe he would rather not know.

So it was a bit of mood whiplash, then, that they were taken to a regular classroom to attend regular classes. The sudden nostalgia of being treated somewhat normally in the blur of adjusting to his new environment gave Christmas some traction on the downward slide of his thoughts. He was okay here. He was okay in this moment, in this classroom, in this place. Or perhaps despite this place.

A subnatural seemed to be leading the class, and it had surprised Christmas how the man had undeniable command of the regular staff around him. Almost as surprising as the man being the same one he had encountered in the hospital before. Someone important, then. And he was overseeing their group.

But before Christmas's thoughts could start hobbling towards another series of conclusions he'd really rather not think about, the sudden entrance of yet another person he had encountered before startled him. The lady from the dining hall. And she came with a group of guards bearing gifts like a demented version of Santa Claus and his reindeers.

Now a Squishable manatee was parked on his desk, beside Lawrence's worn copy of Meditations. Meanwhile, quiet yips and mewling came from various corners of the room, courtesy of the students who had requested pets.

The woman (Daisy?) had told him to make good choices, and he had only blinked stupidly at the order (suggestion?). The choices he made weren't usually because he wanted them, but because he had to make them in some capacity.

His gaze had followed hers when she had glanced at Sander, but the moment had passed quickly enough.

And then classes had begun in earnest, and he realized belatedly that he couldn't write with his right hand in that state. He considered just ignoring class and hugging Mr. Chair for the rest of the duration until lunch, but the need to follow regular procedure compelled him to pull out the notebook and pen from the open drawer below the desk's surface.

Meditations perched on a corner of the desk and Mr. Chair sat snugly on his lap before Christmas started taking notes--or trying to take notes. Writing with his left hand was bizarre. Lettering came out as deranged scrawls rather than the tiny handwriting he usually commanded. By the time classes ended for lunch, Christmas had filled up a good 15 pages of his notebook with large, uneven scribbles, taking up far more space than he truly needed, especially with the lesson on sentence diagramming.

He took his time huddling in his seat: second to last row in the back, furthest on the right. If possible, he would've remained in the classroom, but he didn't really want to stay behind by himself. Gathering his Squishable up in the fold of his right arm and grabbing Lawrence's book with his left hand, Christmas edged towards the exit, pressing his hip against the push bar handle to nudge the door open before slipping out.

---

---

---

When lunch break arrived, Sander was one of the first to leave the room, but he monitored the coffee scent as he walked. After realizing that his roommate hadn’t moved yet, he decided to wait outside, leaning against the patch of wall right next to the exit. It was long before the scent drew closer, so he switched his ability off, then turned to the door, greeting the blond boy with an easy smile as he emerged.

“Hey, Christmas. Want to get lunch?”

Laden down with a Squishable manatee almost as large as his torso and carrying a book in the other hand, Christmas started at his roommate's waiting presence and fixed his eyes on the floor to stymie any further reactions while considering the question.

"Um," he finally answered, "is it okay if I put...uh...this back in the room?" He moved his right arm to wiggle the plush creature.

Sander stared at the stuffed manatee for a few moments, eyebrows raised, though he quickly schooled his expression back into neutrality.

“Sure. Need a hand?”

The question was like a pop quiz. Was it okay to say he'd rather keep hugging his stuffed animal? Maybe it was rude to refuse.

Deciding on a compromise, Christmas tentatively handed over Mr. Chair with a soft "Sure" and "Thank you," figuring Sander could hold the more comfortable of the two items.

Sander took the stuffed animal, then mirrored Christmas’ action, tucking it under his right arm. With that done, he turned and headed back to their shared dorm. Once they arrived, Sander’s eyes immediately came to rest on the mini fridge set up right next to his bed. Almost as if he was in a trance, Sander moved toward it, nostrils flared as he extracted the scents from the air. It felt cold and unappetizing, like days old leftovers, but he didn’t find the gamey, earthy undertones of animal blood. Placing the manatee on his bed, he leaned down and opened up the fridge, rummaging through its content. Bags and bottles of red liquid greeted him, and he could tell from scents alone what they were. Some were not like the others though. Sander reached out to grab the lone red canister, then tentatively gave its exterior a sniff.

Definitely not animal blood.

Biting down on the urge to crack the canister open there and then, he placed it back and retrieved some other bottles, which he proceeded to open up and sniffed.

While Sander sniffed the contents of the new mini-fridge, Christmas left Meditations on his desk and carefully retrieved Mr. Chair from his roommate's bed, settling into a seat on his own bed while he waited for Sander. He snuck a few curious glances at the bottles and bags, but didn't stare, preferring to repeatedly pet his stuffed animal instead.

Whoever gave him the fridge had some sense of humor. Sander remembered correctly he did not ask for tomato juice or kool aid. Regardless, they were already delivered, so he might as well make use of them. Casting a glance at Christmas, he realized how unusual his actions must have looked, so he quickly regained his composure and grabbed two bottles, one tomato juice and one kool aid, before shoving the rest back in the fridge.

“Sorry about that.”- He walked over to the blond boy –“Would you like some drinks? I have tomato juice and…strawberry kool aid.”

"Oh--um, thank you," Christmas set the manatee aside, looking at the drinks Sander offered. "The tomato juice...then?"

“Good choice.”- Sander handed over the bottle to the healer, before opening up the kool aid for himself and taking a gulp. It tasted just as horrible as he remembered, but he swallowed his grimace, opted to simply walk back to the fridge and place the bottle back inside. His fingers brushed the red canister though, and after a moment of hesitation, he grabbed the thing. He needed it later, anyway. For Ground Zero. The canister felt like it was the same type they gave him back in the Facility, so he figured it would be fine out in room temperature.

“Do you need anything else?”- He hefted the canister in his hand, feeling its content sloshed about. Fortunately, the metal shell muted most of the scent, unappetizing as it was.

Christmas shook his head, giving his plush one more squeeze before standing up with the bottle of tomato juice in hand. If he was being honest, he was grateful Sander took the time to...invite him to lunch? Bring his Vita to the hospital? Talk to him?

But it felt strange. Between his vigilance against what he knew would eventually become his dependency on someone else to take care of his problems yet again and his selfish need for companionship, he hadn't considered why Sander was going so far to oblige him.

Now that the thought had surfaced, though, there was no quelling it. At the same time, there was no way to ask without seeming ungrateful. As Christmas shuffled out the door behind Sander, he ruminated on his roommate's reasons for--he'd like to call it "putting up with him."

The dining hall was quite busy at this time of day and the usual receptionists at the lobby scanned their cards through without protest. Inside, Christmas looked around for an empty table, spotting one in the far corner, close to the bar in the back. He didn't bring it up, yet, waiting on Sander's decision for which floor and which seats to take.

Sander glanced around the dining hall, searching for an empty table until he found one near the bar. Which did bring back some memories of his talk with Zhang the previous night. He looked almost lost for a brief moment, staring down at the red canister, then at the blond boy by his side. However, reality pulled him back soon enough.

“There’s a nice spot in the back.”- He gestured toward the empty table –“You go on ahead. I will get the food this time. What do you want?”

"Uh, whatever you get is fine--probably," he mumbled the last part, waiting for Sander to move towards the trays of food before making his own way towards the corner table. He was careful to skirt and avoid people before they could bump into him, eyes frantically darting around as he tried guesstimating where someone would go from their direction of movement. Nothing as precise as math. Just his usual trepidation when he actually had to navigate a crowd on his own. Bumping into someone was a veritable nightmare, after all.

He practically fell into the seat with relief when he got there, wishing the dining hall wasn't quite so boisterous but simultaneously grateful for the liveliness surrounding him. Settling into the mixture of chatter and laughter going on around him, Christmas left the bottle of juice on the table and absentmindedly fiddled with the gauze on his right hand, wrapping and unwrapping the strands as he tried not to think too much on the disturbing sense of gratification he felt from someone taking care of him again. Unpleasant, and he swallowed like it would make that bitterness go away.

Sander spent the first few minutes just staring at the food displays, pondering his options. Admittedly, he had never been particularly great with choices. Meals, to him, had been neatly portioned trays of food slid in underneath the door of his room for the longest time. Even now, he had trouble recalling what his favorite dishes were, before all of…this. His gaze drifted aimlessly, before he settled on a plate of spaghetti with meatballs. The choice would have been rather odd, considering the enemies they faced in the last battle. Then again, if Sander were being honest with himself, that violent experience felt hardly unpleasant to him. Quite the opposite, actually. The blood high painted every frame of his memory with a golden hue, and they easily entranced him like some helpless moth.

For Christmas, Sander grabbed a sizable piece of steak and some kale salad with apple and cheddar, mostly because he thought they would help with flesh wounds and blood loss. After gathering all the food, along with two cups of coffee, he squeezed them all onto a single tray and headed back. The coffee sloshed a little bit on his spaghetti when he finally got there, but Sander didn’t really care. He took the seat opposite from the blond boy, before pulling the spaghetti and coffee toward himself. The rest he pushed toward Christmas.

“Here you go.”

"...Thank you," Christmas murmured at the plate. Leaving his right hand at his side, he prodded the kale salad clumsily with the provided fork, his left hand still proving repeatedly that he would likely never become ambidextrous.

“Yeah. That sounds great.”- It didn’t take a genius to figure out the conversation was once again drying up, and Sander wasn’t sure how to keep it going. He was so used to being the one answering questions, not asking them. Silence stretched between them as Sander continued picking at his plate, half-hearted waiting for Christmas to say something more.

The timid blond would have picked at his plate in silence, too, except there was nothing left to pick--there hadn't been for quite a few minutes now. He was unsure how to hold a conversation, and Sander seemed unsure about what to ask. And somewhere in the gap between their misunderstandings were the real questions both had awkwardly chatted around.

"Can--may I ask something...?"

"Sure. Go ahead."- Sander looked up, an encouraging smile on his lips.

"Um," he swallowed, gulping down air and saliva to assuage the nerves. The tactic had never worked before. Christmas wasn't sure why he thought it would now. But the words had somewhat aligned themselves on his tongue and he let them fall before his mouth could decide on something entirely different. "Earlier you...said it doesn't--it doesn't have to be all I am. But--uh," he almost lost it, but blurted out the rest just in time. "But what about you?"

"What about me?" -The smile lingered, but the blood mage's expression was unreadable.

"...Would you..." the shuttered expression could have been enough to deter Christmas. Would have, under other circumstances, but he had already traipsed into that landmine they had danced around for the past ten or so minutes, and there would be no leaving unscathed. "If that was all you were, would you still take it?"

Sander worked his jaws again, barely-there movements that he had the habit of making before he chose his words. However, minutes passed and still, no words came out. He found himself glancing sideway at the bright red canister, its obnoxious colour taunting him.

“It is all I have left.”- He mumbled, voice low and gaze steely as he stared the blond boy down. However, he diverted his eyes soon enough, expression mellowed into a mix of shame and resignation.

Of course Christmas shrank into his seat at the glare. Of course he was afraid. But this he understood. And it was like catching insanity together.

"Then use me. It's all I have left, too."

His voice was quiet--that much would likely never change. But it was firmer than anything he had said before.

Sander’s only response was to let the fork in his hand drop, silverware clicking against porcelain. He lifted his gaze to look at the blond boy, but still didn’t say a word. What there was to say? His head was in turmoil, trains of thoughts fought to stop and go, and his words just failed him. So for the longest time, he just stared, looking, but seeing nothing.

“If that’s what you want, then why me?”- Eventually, he asked –“You can heal others.”

“It doesn’t matter to me where it comes from.”

Christmas looked away, eyes roving across the other tables of seated subnaturals and staff members. Some looked immensely carefree while others sat with harrowed eyes and gaunt expressions.

""Because we are roommates and you have been nothing but nice so…" he repeated Sander's reasoning from before in a soft voice.

A moment as someone nearby swore, scalded by hot coffee. Christmas's gaze flicked to the injured party sitting two tables away before he turned back to Sander. It was easy to ignore little things like that around him. Also easy to notice if he looked for them. It was true. He could heal others. The doctors had wanted to decide that much for him, anyway.

"If...." Always conditionals. Never certainties. "If I wanted to start somewhere, I think...I'd want to be the one choosing." He didn't clarify if he meant only his power. He wondered if he needed to.

“So you chose me?”-The failure. The mistake. His mind helpfully supplied, but Sander finally settled for the familiar term he was used to –“The violent X.”

“You are not making this easy for yourself.”- He shook his head, but knew well enough that it was not his place to tell Christmas what to do. Others were entitled to their own choices. The only ones he questioned were his own.

The least he could though, were making sure he would not endanger the boy anymore than he already was –“If you are not doing this for yourself, do this for me. I only ask that you don’t offer it to me so easily.”

“This school has resources. They can get me what I want.”- He reached out for the canister, holding it out in front of him –“Don’t worry too much about me. I can heal on my own.”

"I...chose the roommate who..." Christmas placed his right on the table in a splay of loose bandages "tried to fix...this," he nodded at the hand, and meant something beyond that. "I think you're...probably stronger than--"

He breathed out slowly, stopping himself mid-sentence and settling back into his seat, eyes fixed on the empty plate in front of him.

A lurking, feverish emotion hummed at the bottom of his frayed nerves and Christmas closed his eyes, good hand clutching his stomach on instinct as a familiar sensation cropped up there, too. "Just butterflies in your stomach," he had once been told. He had never worked up the voice to tell them it was more like hornets.

The dining hall's analog clock ticked towards 12:44.

"I-I'll head back in a bit. I'm sorry. You can--you can go ahead."

"Are you okay?"- Sander stayed put, eyeing the healer carefully, noting the hand on his stomach.

Christmas took a shuddering breath. "I'm sorry. For--um--" he winced as a small pang of stomach pain jolted through him "--bringing it up. I'll--I'll head back in a bit."

Sander glanced at the clock on the wall and moved to stand up, but he didn’t leave just yet. Christmas seemed suddenly unwell, and he was concerned –“The infirmary is not far away.”- He said, half a suggestion and half an offer.

Another harsh breath in as Sander stood to leave. Christmas shook his head to the comment. "Thank you for--" a short exhale "--lunch."

"Don't worry about it."- Sander recited once again, the courtesies were second nature to him -"See you." - Reluctantly, he gave the blond boy one last worried glance, before heading back to the classroom, taking the red canister with him.

Once Sander had left, Christmas checked the time on the clock again. If he remembered right, they were expected back at the classroom by 1300. It would probably be enough time for his reflexive stomachache to ebb, though he might just barely make it. A barely audible groan escaped his lips as he leaned his head against the wall next to their corner table, waiting for his pounding pulse and hammering heart to slow down.

When Chris was abruptly taken out of his room, his first thought was that he was going to be shot against a wall like some war prisoner execution. However that idea wavered when others began to join in. As they walk, Chris began to think why this was happening, but it may had something to do with the fact that he had yet to see Aaron since dinner.

After the admittedly intimidating method of transportation he along with the rest of the carried off students were seated in a classroom, left to the devices of two adults he assumed to be teachers. What a shocker, they were teachers. Chris leaned back at his chair watching the rest of his comrades receive items they requested. It was childish to request such things, especially stuffed animals, but we all need something to cope with in this world. Well, except Chris. At least, that is what he tells himself. His bored expression however changed into a murderous scowl when he spotted the boy that decided to punch his rib cage on the battlefield.

While he listened to the teacher give them his words on how class will work and such, Chris's eyes frequently went back to Sander, giving him the classic look of I'm going to kill you. There was definitely a deep, roaring hatred within him. Maybe it was the dragon form that had somehow slipped into his mind, preying at the negative emotion, but more likely it was the fact that he felt because of Sander's friendly fire lives were lost. Even when lunch was called, Chris did not initially get up.