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[IC] —(••[ 𝕎𝕀𝕊ℍ𝔼𝔸𝕋𝔼ℝ ]••)— Page 20

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Hidden 8 yrs ago → 8 yrs ago Post by Bubsy 2
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Bubsy 2

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Hidden 8 yrs ago → 8 yrs ago Post by Chasers115
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Chasers115 The FatCat

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Marcus | Siena

𝕊𝕖𝕡𝕥. 𝟘𝟟, 𝟚𝟘𝟚𝟘 / / 𝕌𝕊𝔸ℝ𝕀𝕃ℕ 𝔼𝕒𝕤𝕥 / / 𝕊𝕠𝕞𝕖𝕨𝕙𝕖𝕣𝕖 𝕐𝕠𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕣 / / 𝟚𝟚𝟛𝟘

Collab with @Chasers115@PapiTan


It was later that night when Marcus excused himself from Suite 430. While he wasn’t too concerned about Siena and Callan eavesdropping, there were other reasons that he didn’t want to have his roommates privy to his conversation. Max was family, probably the closest he had anymore, and there were just some things that he wasn’t willing to talk about to anybody else. Questions he didn’t want to have to answer – and he wasn’t sure if he just wasn’t ready, or he was actively avoiding them.

He sat on one of the couches in the library, typing out a quick message on his phone:

Alright! Long night, but I’m free for a call now!

He sat there for a few moments, thinking, before mentally kicking himself in the head. He’d meant to ask Emma about drinks at dinner, but it had completely slipped his mind. Wouldn’t hurt to send out another message while he waited on Max.

So, I'm willing to bet you'd really be appreciating that drink right about now; got any place and any time that you prefer over any other?

…

Should he have mentioned who he was, just to be clear? Would it seem weird to text twice in a row? All he was doing was clarifying his identity, so it wouldn’t be super awkward? Right?

This is Marcus, by the way. The super not-smooth one. Just in case you have a million guys knocking down your door for drinks!

It had been an eventful day. Siena couldn't lie about that to herself, much less convince herself otherwise. She'd trailed after her roommate's exit shortly after, bringing her phone, the wallet containing her I.D., and the smallest of her e-readers, tucked safely away in one of the carefully stitched pockets of the beige coat that she'd decided was more comfortable and distinctly less smelly. Opting for a pair of flats that hadn't been dipped in sewage, the girl had settled in a spot of her own. Too tired and too overwhelmed to check the blog, but at the same time too occupied to do the smart thing and just sleep.

So she settled, flicking through the applications on her phone despite not having any reason to. Contacts, music, call history, then in reverse, then back.

The girl barely even realized her eyes flicking away from the screen whenever her "call history" came up.

It wasn’t too much longer before his phone started vibrating. The number on it was one he recognized, but he’d neglected to actually put a name to it in his haste to punch it in before something terrible happened to his only method of contacting Max.

“Howell residence, Marcus speaking!” He said, putting the phone up to his ear.

“Marc! What’s been going on you little dork? Gain super powers and suddenly you’re too good to talk to your big sister?” came the familiar female voice. Upbeat and cheerful, much like his own, with a slight firmness to it that would be expected from her background.

“Oh, you know, abducted by the government, put into a special little school facade, same old same old!”

“Oh yeah, business as usual, I bet. Alright you sarcastic little punk, serious talk: what happened since last time we talked?”

So, Marcus explained everything that had occurred over the last week or two, about the ride over, the little escapade that had happened upon arrival and his two roommates.

“Ooooh, little Markie’s stuck with two girls! Are they cute?”

“You can shut up right now, you hear?” came the reply, and although Max wouldn’t be able to see it, his face did flush slightly. He paused for a moment, as one of his aforementioned roommates came walking through the building with impeccable timing. Callan, with Sander in tow, shortly followed by Kusari. This was not a safe place for him.

“Hang on a second, an ass-kicking conga line just went past, and I’d like to move before it gains momentum.”

He stood up, zipped up his hoodie and strolled out the door. Callan and Sander stood in the courtyard, which meant that Marcus was going to walk in the opposite direction. Curiously – Kusari was nowhere in sight. Probably a good thing, considering the righteous beating he assumed was about to happen.

It was Marcus's voice that snapped her out of the mechanical daze that Siena had let herself settle into, a sidelong glance enough to tell her that he was on the phone. On the phone and she probably shouldn't be eavesdropping.

But didn't she want to know with whom?

It would have been easier to ignore the gnawing feeling in her gut if the procession of other students hadn't come and gone. If there wasn't a curiosity that started to burn hot enough to sear the edges of her usual rationality. Maybe just for a moment--just until she knew it wasn't something fishy! No...that was a poor excuse, but that didn't seem to matter to the bookworm as her feet took her after Marcus, ears straining to catch even the faintest traces of her roommate's conversation. Probably someone familiar with him? The thought buzzed faintly, like thin vibration that tried to make itself noticeable.

He continued telling Max about the week; the battle they’d been shipped out on the first day, the horror that had been Padma – a topic that brought only sullen silence from both of them – and the raw power some of the other kids had.

“See!? I knew that teaching you how to shoot was going to be a good idea! Bet you’re happy I gave you those lessons now, huh?”

“I was perfectly fine with the lessons when you gave them. Of course, you did bribe me…”

And finally, Marcus told her about the training game: How he’d been savagely beaten by Kusari, and dropped into sewage (accidentally!) by Siena.

“You know, I expected a little bit of sympathy from you!”

Nothing on the other end but stifled laughter. Why didn’t anybody show any compassion for the poor sewage lad?

“Well…” came the reply after a long pause and the sound of Max collecting herself. “…sounds like you’ve had quite the eventful few weeks!”

“More exciting than that shithole town of ours, that’s for sure.” Marcus said, a slight hint of sadness in his voice.

“You been feeling better, Marc?” There was no humor in this statement, just a slightly softer tone.

Marcus paused for a moment, trying to find the words. He certainly thought he felt better, but his inability to get a good night’s sleep, and the realization that he was still anxious around Siena’s dog had shaken that thought. Still…it was nice to have people around him again, a chance to socialize and get back onto his feet, supporting himself on the others that surrounded him.. He felt like he could count on Callan and Siena wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon – probably the reason he’d grown emotionally invested so quickly. They could certainly take care of themselves, but he still wanted to be able to help; just to make sure nothing would happen.

“Marc?”

“Yeah. I’m…I’m okay.”

Another long pause, before Marcus spoke up.

“But hey! What about you? Have you done anything interesting lately?”

'You shouldn't be here.' And she knew it was true. She shouldn't have followed as far as she had. It wasn't just how wrong it was to eavesdrop to begin with (it was, wasn't it?), but the feeling of a weight pushing in her gut. Of something dangerously close to pain as she caught the tones, if not the words.

He was probably talking to family, and the thought left a gaping burn in the pit of Siena's stomach when it gave way to comprehension.

She hadn't listened because she was curious, she had because she was desperate.

So Siena turned on her heel, less cautious about hiding her presence as she beelined her way back to the dorm, her mind suddenly catching fire from the flash of lightning, her hands buried deep into her pockets, slender fingers gripping her phone until the buttons were sure to leave deep grooves in her flesh.

“God no. DC isn’t interested in dog-fighting; at least not the ones we’ve been sent after. Hit the thing a couple times, make sure it stays down, and then we go back to the hangers! Been pretty quiet around here, at least.”

“Hey, no news is better than bad news, right?” he said after a moment. He'd thought for sure that he'd saw something out of the corner of his eye, but there was nothing when he turned to look at it. A trick of the breeze, he convinced himself.

“Yeah, whoever made up that phrase never had to listen to their copilot bitch about ‘wanting to see some action’ every time we go out.”

“Tell Sammie she needs to shut up before she jinxes you guys into biting off more than you can chew!”

“I’ll make sure to pass along the message! But, it’s getting to be late here and people are going to start complaining. It was good to hear from you again, snot! I expect weekly updates from now on!”

Marcus chuckled, turning around and heading back for the dorm. “Oh don’t worry, you’ll get more than that!”

A moment passed as they both laughed, before a thought crossed Marcus’s mind.

“Hey sis, can you do me a favor? Do you remember that picture we took at the beach?”

“Oh; you know I hate that picture!”

“Yeah, only because I actually look older than you in that one! I think it’s cute, so suck it up and send it to me, you pain in my backside!”

Pictures. The easiest way to store memories, and the little things that you didn’t want to forget about.

“Yeah, yeah. I can do that. Talk to you later, then?”

“Count on it!”

He lowered the phone from his ear and looked up at the sky. It was nice to talk about some of that stuff at least – made him feel better than he thought it would, at least. He missed Max, and as much as he didn’t want to admit it – he’d started to grow homesick. This little chat was enough to at least alleviate that problem, for the time being.

He looked down to his phone, realizing that he’d gotten a text message sometime during his conversation with Max:

Oh, hey Marcus. I sure do have tons of guys flooding me after a week in this hell hole, but I guess I can make time for you. /s

I haven’t really been into CC1, so I don’t really know any places… aaaaand I don’t really have anything going on, so I can go pretty much whenever…


Hell, wanna do tomorrow night? Gotta capitalize on those free in-between days they're giving us! I don't know anywhere on-site other than the cafe, unfortunately.

No sooner had he sent the message to Emma than his phone buzzed again. This time it was from Max: a single image attachment.

Little things that you didn’t want to forget about.

The room was empty, bar for the presence of Chief Tater Tot, when Siena returned, blood pulsing in her ears and her grip on her phone tight enough by then that she could feel her case trying to give way.

'Shouldn't have eavesdropped, stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid...!' But still she tore the phone from her pocket flicking through her cycle again. Contacts, call history, music, camera, then all the way back until she hit call history the third time around. All outgoing. Maya, Gerwulf, Maya, Gerwulf. Then four more to Gerwulf. She tapped the number to send another call to him, a sense of dread and trepidation washing over her as a faint static filled her ears, an now-familiar tone, and then...

"We're sorry, that number is no longer in service."

She tried three times more, as if trying to overwhelm that simple fact with effort was going to change anything. When the words taunted her the fourth time, Siena took a deep breath. It was fine. Gerwulf lost his number all the time, and Maya didn't even like to answer her phone. It was fine. Absolutely fine.

She whipped the phone across the room, only feeling a faint twinge of satisfaction when it crashed against the wall by her bed before falling out of sight.

'Temper, temper, Siena. You really shouldn't be taking names like that anymore...'

Chief Tater Tot gave another whine, this one piercing through the frustration and bringing the appropriate levels of guilt to the surface. Releasing a soft breath, the brunette knelt to pick the canine up. Soft and warm. "Sorry, Chief Tater Tot...I didn't mean to scare you." A whine and a small tongue that reminded her where she was. More real than disconnected numbers and radio silence.

Just as real as the exhaustion that was relentlessly trying to eat away at her.

"C'mon, Chief. Let's just go to bed."

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Hidden 8 yrs ago → 8 yrs ago Post by BayRat
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BayRat Oh No

Member Seen 22 hrs ago

Chris|Siena

𝕊𝕖𝕡𝕥. 𝟙𝟚, 𝟚𝟘𝟚𝟘 / / 𝕌𝕊𝔸ℝ𝕀𝕃ℕ 𝔼𝕒𝕤𝕥 / / 𝔹𝕦𝕚𝕝𝕕𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝔸 / / 𝟙𝟞𝟘𝟘


Collab with @Papitan

Chris let out a sigh as he approached Siena's dorm. He had been sure to wear his black trim suit with a blue shirt that matched his eyes, and for once he even combed his white hair back for sake of formality. His blue eyes looked to his phone to confirm this was the right room number. He was nervous, he still didn't quiet understand this girl or her attention. Perhaps though, this could be the start of making connections with people again for once. Hopefully it doesn't end up like...last time. Numerous times he thought how likely it was for any friends he'd make here would just die, he's seen enough death already. However, he had finally realized that at the very least, companionship can make the present a bit more enjoyable. He didn't have much to lose either. After having built some confidence, the youth knocked on the door three times and awaiting patiently.

After an eventful week, Siena was satisfied to remain in her dorm until her planned excursion with Chris. In fact, she'd spent most of it updating her blog or simply browsing through a few fresh releases from her preferred publishers. Part of her made mental earmarks on titles and summaries that struck her as potentially useful in a combat situation--should she have felt so comfortable with the idea of combat already?--while she consciously made the effort to pick out a few to add to the ever-growing "things to read later" list. There was a comfort in the familiarity of a slow day that the brunette did her best not to acknowledge, her eyes glued to the words on the screen.

Was this why she'd come?

The sound of a knock pulled the girl from her inner world, causing her to sit up in her seat, eyes darting for the door. A moment passed before Siena realized that she should have answered it. No Maya, no Gerwulf. Grounding herself, Siena brushed out the superficial wrinkles of the beaded halterneck dress she'd chosen before opening the door. As expected, Chris was there.

And he was...very nicely dressed?

Shoving the faint level of confusion that threatened to rise down to the furthest pits of her thoughts, Siena masked the uncertainty with a faint smile. "Oh, that's a nice fit for you." The hazy image of a memory came to mind. Familiar. Uncomfortable, but familiar. She pushed it away in favor of the present. "Let me just grab my purse, and we can go."

Chris nodded once in agreeance, the book she had given him was held casually in his left hand. "Alright." He mimicked a small, barely noticeable smile. With the youth left to his own thoughts again, he was once again reminded of one of the scars in his past. For a moment, he thought Siena had sounded like a small blonde girl he once knew.

Jesus Christ Chris, keep it together. He had thought to himself. While waiting for Siena to return he placed a hand on his forehand as if to comfort a headache.

Fortunately, Siena had thought well ahead of time on preparations for an outing--courtesy of a lecture she remembered about foresight from Maya--and had her purse prepared a few hours prior. Taking the moment to slip a bolero over her shoulders to ward off the potential cold--it wouldn't be enough if there was an actual chill, but there was pain in beauty--the brunette stepped out, her eyes trailing towards the book in Chris's hand even as her mind registered something else entirely--the position of his free hand. To the forehead--the same kind of motion that Gerwulf would make when warding off either a headache or unwanted topics of discussion. A conditioned response reached her lips before the mental filters could stop it. "Is something wrong...?"

Chris Shuddered when he heard Siena's voice again. As if he was surprised she was there. "Y-yeah, I'm just...Still caught up with whats been happening lately.." He muttered towards the end of his sentence, his tone as broken as his spirit seemed to be. "What part of town did you want to go to specifically?" Chris immediately asked, as if cutting himself off of his own thoughts. He couldn't allow his issues to catch up on him here, hell if all things went well this could be the best thing to happen for once. His dress shoe was tapping on the hallway floor, either from mere impatience or to continue to distract himself. EIther way it was clear he was eager to leave these dorms with her.

'Not okay.'

The thought fired off like a signal flare, telling Siena the obvious at Chris's reaction. She knew she should have expected as much, given the events since their arrival. Logic dared to present her with two options, but already she was moving away from the topic of the past. There would be time enough to look back on it with a level head. "Hm...well it seems like a waste to be dressed this nicely and then go to a diner..." Not that she would have known, but she assumed that a suit wasn't typical fare for most. "Maybe we can find somewhere a bit classier than what we'd get at the cafeteria."

"I don't mind the idea, do you know any in town?" He inquired, the conversation had seemed to cause him to relax a bit. Already he had stopped tapping his foot, and his hands had slid into the pockets of his dress pants.

"Hm...I've only been to a few places in town, unfortunately..." And none of them had been especially classy if the general attire had been any indication. "I guess that means we'll have to do some exploring, then." Despite herself, Siena could feel the mischievous tint leak into her voice. She berated herself mentally, but allowed her smile to lean towards the tone. She had been curious about town...

Chris didn't mind the thought of that, he really hadn't been to the town that much himself either. This was a good opportunity to be more acquainted with it. "Sounds good to me." Chris agreed, already he had turned to the hall and began to walk. He looked back to make sure Siena had started to follow, as to avoid seeming rude. He thought for a moment that it may have been polite to hold her hand, but upon further thought that was probably a bit much.

Making sure that the door was properly closed behind her, Siena only had to take a few strides faster than her typical pace to catch up with her fellow mage, her mind suddenly incredibly aware of the fact that she still wasn't accustomed to the idea of heading into town. A pang of anxiety echoed in the pit of her stomach briefly, and for a moment, the would-be heiress wished that either of her caretakers were there. 'Stop that. You're here now.' It had been her choice. Her problems, not theirs. Once again, the girl pushed herself away from the past with a smile for the present. "Any preference on dining? Or um...preferences on not dining?" ...that sounded a lot less clumsy in her head. She felt her arm twitch towards her hair, and with a surge of conscious effort, disguised the action as simply brushing a few stray locks behind her ear.

Chris continued to move down the hall as he looked to her. "Not exactly. I'd imagine if you wanted something fitting for our attires we'd go to some cliche italian restaurant. However, since neither of us seem to know a good place, why not just have a little adventure in finding something exotic or interesting?" Chris suggested, though a moment ago he had been dreading this very situation with anxiety and past scars, but now he had the chance to loosen up for once, and being a bit more open on his opinions. His casual tone was made apparent with the way he moved his right hand as he had spoke.

"Sounds like a plan!" The words were more genuine than expected, and Siena wasn't entirely certain that she liked that. She did appreciate it, there was no doubt of that, but it was the fact that it was comfortable that made the girl uneasy. A faint, fluttering feeling of anxiety--the same type she got when she knew she'd done something to disappoint Maya. But why...? "Hmmm, well I don't remember anything exotic that way." Here, a quick motion of her hand in the general direction that she'd followed the last time she'd wandered into town. "So any other direction seems like a good bet."

"Well you know this place better then me." He said as he followed the motion of her hand. He took a moment to think before he spoke again. "So how have you been holding up, y'know with all this hell going on?" Chris asked his excitement died down a bit as it shifted into a bit of melancholy. He didn't need to go into detail, and he was thankful of that. Perhaps seeing someone else who's going through the same shit he is to some degree, and being able to smile through it, could have given him some encouragement of his own.

How have you been holding up?

She should have expected as much, really, but that didn't make the question any easier to answer. Countless answers threatened to make themselves the first. Badly. Not well. Okay, she supposed. 'Exceedingly well?'

"Honestly, I'm not sure." A more honest answer than most. Since their flag-and-seek excursion, Siena had found that her emotions had been difficult to categorize--Serena was a mistake--and that had left her with more on her mind than she'd really been prepared for. Aaron was missing, Rain was gone. "I've never had to process quite so much at once. Not with other people, at least." Truth. "What about you?"

Chris didn't answer at first. He had now been looking straight ahead, and one could sweat he had the expression of a soldier's 'Thousand yard stare.' The returned question briefly reminded him of the dead students, the missing students, and.."Tara..." The word barely escaped his lips, as if he was mumbling to himself just for a moment. The trance was broken when he was immediately brought back to reality. "Well, in all honesty I just hope tonight cures me of something thats been itching on the back of my head for a while now." he answered, honesty in his words despite the vague meaning. He did not want to go into detail, such could drag this whole night down into flames. "I don't say this often but..."He had bitten his lip, as he was trying to choose his words carefully. "I'm..happy you invited me to hang out today."

A mutter that she didn't quite catch. Too short to be more than a word, but too soft for Siena to understand. Curiosity sparked in the back of the girl's head, threatening to use every thought as kindling for an inferno she knew would not be stopped. Control snuffed the ember out before it had the chance to catch, replacing it instead with the concern Siena expected to feel. "Well, I hope I can help you with whatever you need."

Because you can't help otherwise? Or because you want to feel better about yourself?

"I guess falling down some stairs was a happy coincidence for us then." Something felt off. The familiarity was fading. The comfort that made her uneasy slipped through her fingers like sand, and with its absence, a different sensation threatened to fall into place. Relief and dread created a thick concoction that tried to clog her throat, but she smiled through it all. Her problems, not his.

Chris..laughed. Yes he laughed, it was a small chuckle, nothing special to most. How long has it been since I had.. He shook the thought away. It didn't matter. He couldn't let that drag him, he was being happy. "Maybe this school is good for something after all." He mused, thinking that could have been something Gary would have said.

Gary...

The youth tried to look around to see anything of interest, or perhaps think of something else to say to keep him from those damned memories. "Eh..See anything interesting yet?"

'Well, his laugh is a little better than his smile, at least.' An oddly light thought graced the reader's mind as she sent a preliminary glance around the area. There weren't any particularly overpowering smells, as far as she could tell, but there were a few restaurants--no, not really. Cafes and coffee houses, maybe, but not actual--

"Oh?" Grey eyes trailed over a faded name that would have been brighter in the dark. Unlike most of the surrounding establishments, there was a sense of decor that stood out even without the need for flashy nighttime lights. "How's...Rio Grande sound?"

Chris followed her attention to the restaurant. "Seems like a good idea." He had a smile on his face, this time it was less strained, and seemed natural. Though it was a small facial expression, Chris felt light. He couldn't remember the last time he let himself truly smile.. "Lets check it out!"
Having slarted to slowly lose his fears of the pasts in the moment, Chris lead the way into the building. His eyes slowly traced the array of lights and decor the building offered.

At such an early hour, the restaurant wasn't exactly crowded, but that wasn't entirely unusual for Siena. On the rare occasion that she did head to a dining establishment, it was typically done through private rooms and reservations that kept immediate company to a minimum. Part of her was aware that those weren't normal circumstances, but it had never really been a concern. The restaurant was dimmer than the outdoors, providing an atmosphere that felt almost closed off from the outside world. The decorations were vibrant, the furnishing giving an almost premium aura...a voice in the back of Siena's head told her that while it was no Michelin star restaurant, it was not somewhere that just anyone went. Maya might even have approved.

Though the scenery seemed a bit overkill and expensive, Chris didn't mind spending his money. Still he could feel an awkward tension that the scenery provided, as if this was the start of some overly romantic date. Even though Chris figured this was technically a 'date', or at least a friend-date or whatever, what was implied with there little meet up definitely did not fit the atmosphere of the establishment. The teenager dreaded that this may influence awkward interactions just as when they were at that tower where they watched flag football. Chris hoped for a less uncertain event.

He had politely pulled out Siena's chair once the waiter directed them to the table, before having taken a seat himself, and then proceeded to observe the menu as the waiter poured water for the two well dressed arbiters.

With a small nod of thanks in her companion's direction, Siena took a moment to glance over the menu. Nothing entirely familiar, but at least she could recognize enough to come to a quick decision. 'Nothing too difficult to eat. Definitely never chicken, and no messy food like pasta.' Allowing the silence to linger a bit longer, the brunette glanced at her white-haired companion, eyes drawn to the telltale mark on his cheek for an instant. While she hadn't done anything to cover hers since arriving at USARILN East, Siena couldn't help but feel the faintest sense of unease. Gerwulf and Maya would never have allowed her out without taking a cosmetic kit to her face. The former was atrocious with a brush for all his other skills.To see it on other faces was interesting. To think that there was no need to cover it up was unnerving.

But that wasn't what they were there for.

"Were there places like this where you came from?"

The question had hit Chris like a truck. He had never talked about his hometown before, thinking about it only helped bad thoughts resurface. Although his face had been somewhat hidden by his opened menu, it didn't complete hide his expression. Once again, his eyes had grown distant to reality, as if they had been staring at an empty space where the menu was. It took Chris a few seconds to reply. "T-There was one sort of like this, but I never got the chance to go in." Even after having answered her question, the thought of abandoment still clawed in his head. "Have you been in a resturaunt like this before?"

"A few times, but never just to spend time with people." Brushing a few locks of hair behind her ear, Siena gave a faint smile, her mind churning through thoughts with an intensity that she refused to let surface. "It was always a big ordeal to arrange for it, so on a whim was never an option."

Chris gave a nod. "I have to thank you for picking out that book from the Library, This Savage Song, its been a good help in distracting me from..y'know." He had left the book on his lap while he considered what to order. The first thought was some type of pasta or steak. However he dismissed those choices as they were both a bit too messy and cliche for the evening.

"Oh, I'm...I'm glad you've liked it." A throb of anxiety sent a spire of ice into her chest. Nothing to be nervous about, she knew, but...

'Afraid you'll have to answer for it?'

She kept smiling. "It's a little cliche, but I used to read it just to get away from reality." At least until it had become too close to what was real for her. Siena left the statement out. Her problems, not his. "Any thoughts on it yet?"

"I haven't read a lot of novels so I am not sure exactly how to feel about it. I liked the dynamic between Kate and August. The plot itself however does seem to be well..I mean the monsters in the book seem more human compared to the monsters in reality." He mused, but there was a hint of uncomfort in his smile.

'Plenty of monsters play at being human.'

"That's true...compared to what we've seen recently, the ones in the book aren't too intimidating." Putting some distance between thoughts of their first battle and thoughts of what might be next, Siena felt her energy flag for a moment. The smile she wore faded slightly, as if dimming with her focus on the present. "Unfortunately, we got the short end of the stick there."

Chris sighed. "If you don't mind the question, What was life like for you before you became a mage?" He asked as he placed his menu down. He had now decided on what to order, and had taken a sip of water as he waited.

Siena should have been expecting it, but the forward nature of the question had taken her off guard. Long enough to let the mask slip by the faintest amount, a dim light of confusion peering through for an instant before Siena regained herself with a silent breath. No tricks, no turns. Just a question. It was a little offsetting. "Oh, um..." She ruminated over her answer for a moment. "Lonely, I guess? I wasn't a perfect darling, so I didn't get much spotlight." It was hard to leave out words about the sister that didn't exist. A hazy figure that she swore was more than just a construct made to alleviate not knowing why. Making a motion to the white mark on her own visage, Siena gave a faint smile. "Probably not as lonely as after this showed up though."

Chris paused, having acknowledged that same feeling of loneliness. "At least all of us mages can hang out with each other here." He said returning a faint smile to try and lift mood a bit. Not long after the waiter had arrived for their orders. "I'll have the dozen steamed clams."

"The ceviche for me." Not exactly the easiest dish to eat, but it sounded like it would be something familiar if the faint buzzing in the back of her head was accurate. Waiting for the waiter to leave, Siena returned her attention to the boy across from her. "I hope I'm not being too forward, but what was it like for you? Y-You know, before becoming a mage." It wasn't just the curiosity that drove her that time. As far as she could tell, most of the mages around her had grown up with a sense of normalcy, and with some sort of reference...well, at least her own fuzzy thoughts would be easier to parse through.

Once again he had froze. Chris had expected to be asked this, and in a sense he wanted to tell someone of his burdens. However when he had finall gotten to that moment, all that pain had walled up his insides and caused him to reconsider his desire. "I-it was OK, I had a few friends..." He stammered. He had regretted asking her the previous question.

Unease. Not hers. Perhaps she was too forward? Certain topics were best left untouched, certainly, but usually... 'Not everyone thinks like you do.' The thought berated her, not quite her own voice, but not quite Maya's either. Hiding her internal grimace, it occurred to Siena that she had made a mistake. She should have considered that avoidance might not have been how Chris kept unwelcome topics at bay.

But still, she smiled. No teeth, just a smile.

"I bet they miss you, now that you're stuck here."

At that moment, the world began to spin before Chris's eyes. He could hear there very words moaned by his dead friends, 'You left us.', repeating in his mind. His head and heart were pounding. Though he was already pale naturally, Chris's face looked more like snow. It was as if he had just seen a ghost. "I, uh." He corrected himself as he stood up. "Sorry I need to use the restroom." He explained before he fast-walked away and into the restroom in the back.

He was gone. Siena barely had a chance to register his expression before he had vanished. She recognized it--of course she did. After so many mistakes, were there emotions she failed to?--and knew that she had made a mistake. The smile faded, dropped away as she watched the white-haired boy disappear into the back.

And then she was alone again.

'Stupid, stupid...should have said something else.' But what could she have said? Her fingers dug into her dress, past the layers and into her skin. A harsh, bruising sensation in five neat little points. Past tense. Had. That meant more than what she had assumed. The familiarity slipped, returned, slipped again--shaken. With a shaky breath, Siena tried to tame the storm again. One piece at a time. Baby steps.

She told herself to feel worse.

Chris looked into the mirror, his breath was shaky. The youth rubbed away the sweat that had formed at his brows, and tried to bury the past back down into his subconscience.
Its over now, its all over now.
He took a deep breath. He couldn't let this get to him. This has been the happiest he's ever been since he was a child, despite the night itself being lackluster. After a few minutes of fixing his broken emotions, he was confident to return to his date. But not before washing his eyes.

"Hey sorry about that." Chris returned with a faint smile on his face.

After a few minutes of regaining herself, Siena was relieved to see that Chris had returned, looking no worse for the wear. She gave an apologetic look, but followed it with a faint smile.

This time, she left the topic alone.

"No worries." And I'm sorry. But she couldn't say such things without bringing the topic up again, could she? Instead, she moved forward to lighten the topic. Easier to make fun of other people than to think of one's self, right? Painting a nervous tone onto a light laugh, Siena took a lock of hair and twisted it around one of her fingers, finding satisfaction when she heard a few strands give way to the force. "I'm not the best at social convention, but I'll say that the fact you came back instead of climbing out a bathroom window is a good sign."

He had let a bit of a blush from his embarrasment form on his face, which was made especially apparent from how white his complexion was. "I'm not gonna leave a friend behind." Chris said. 'I'm never leaving anyone behind again.'
"Besides I am having a good time otherwise."

Through the haze of her typical thoughts, Siena felt a flash of concern when she saw the flush on Chris's face. Was he feeling alright? Before the words had a chance to form into a question, the boy was quick to respond. A friend...? The word felt almost clunky in her head. It wasn't really one that she'd used frequently. Callan and Marcus were her roommates, the others her peers and classmates."Friend" had never really crossed her mind as a word to describe her relationship with anyone on a personal level.

Perhaps it was a better word...? The edges of the word smoothed out as it rolled about her head. The concept was...nice.

'You haven't said anything in a bit.'

"O-Oh! I um..." Again her hand reached for her hair, and again she caught the motion before it completed. An awkward flick of a lock not really out of place was all that she could disguise the tic with. "Me too." And here, despite her usual reservations, Siena gave a reserved glance away. "It's nice having an actual conversation."

"Yeah I have to thank Angelique later for inspiring me to being more social." Chris admitted, before changing the subject. "So your power is from reading books? Can you basically become any fictional character?" He asked, curious of the powers of his fellow mage.

The name of the familiar dark-haired arbiter brought a flurry of memories. Not hazy, but not comfortable ones. Siena brushed it aside and considered the question that her friend posed. "Just...just ones that I can understand." No, that was broader than the reality, but it was easier to declare. "Though I guess I don't really become the character either. Not...not in the same sense as your power, at least."

"So its more or less gaining their abilities or skill?" Not a moment later from his question did their food arrive. The waiter placed down the dishes of the two mages with delicate care. "Enjoy." The waiter bowed before leaving the two alone.

The stifled sound of a dish lightly appearing on the table wasn't enough to take Siena's attention off the conversation. With Gerwulf and Maya, conversations about Siena's abilities as a subnatural had been strained--mostly confined to how to hide her abilities. Both had made it abundantly clear that she wasn't supposed to flaunt it, but...that rule didn't apply with other mages, did it? Without so much as turning her gaze to the dish before her, the brunette gave a hesitant nod. "Something like that, yes. It's a little muddier than that, but that's the gist of it..." Giving a shadow of a nervous smile, the Arbiter tested the waters herself. "What about your abilities? Does the power only go one way?"

Chris was just as drawn to the conversation, there was some interest in considering these abilities to be something more intriguing then being cursed. "Not exactly. In the state I'm in now, I can still breathe fire and even grow scales as a sort of armor, though I am in no way close to the power resulted from...transforming." He seemed to have a pause in thought as to what he'd call it.
"I can't exactly explain the whole detail but there is a bit more to it then just transforming the body. Its...well, its almost as if it has a mind on its own, or rather my own conscience changes a complete perspective." He paused again. "Well maybe that's over dramatizing it, I'm not sure what it is, but I know that I tend to get dangerous in that state. I've been thinking about using that form less and perhaps start using the minor powers I already have. Though I'd need some kind of weapon for me to feel comfortable doing that." Once being finished with his explanation, he took a sip of water Already he had emptied a single clam shell.

As Chris spoke, Siena allowed herself to eat, finding the flavors only slightly more overpowering than she had expected--given her current distraction, it was fine. "Oh I...I think I know what you mean." More than just thinking that, really. Siena thought about their brief training session, about the connection she'd borrowed, and about the faint storm that lingered beneath every thought and action. It had been familiar to her, but she didn't want to admit it. "I can understand preferring a transformation too. If it were me, I'd probably feel safer as a dragon than I would as a person." Or really, as anything that wasn't her, but that was another matter entirely.

And then another thoughtful pause.

"...er...speaking of our powers, um...about the other day..." There was a sense of discomfort that rose like bile. This wasn't a topic she'd really wanted to talk about, but...she had to know. "When I was using the connection, how...much could you really uh...feel?" It was hard to find the correct words for it. "I-I mean, emotionally. From my end. I...I hadn't really realized that using that kind of communication would go beyond forming words."

Chris paused, having thought of his words carefully. "W-well at first you felt really happy, when we were flying all that. After that though there were movements were you seemed stressed.." He bit his lip as he looked over to her. "D-did you feel anything from my end?"

So she was broadcasting more to Chris than she had been to the others. At least that was something she could confirm about the situation--but the question that the boy posed was...harder to answer. There were things she could have said, countless things that would have been at least partially the truth. That she had felt something there, and something familiar. That she'd had trouble figuring out what was coming from Chris and what was her own emotional comparmentalization failing her at the moment. That there had been...something that was unfamiliar, and that it had scared her more than the primal fury that simmered like a pot waiting to boil over in the background.

But those were all too difficult to approach, so she lied.

"W-well, I don't think it was quite as much. I got that you were excited, and I er...I think there was concern when I panicked a little." A pause here as she pushed her food around. "And at the same time, something else? It was...harder to figure out. It might be what you mean when you say you see things from a different perspective."

Chris hid a blush from his face as he had figured what she might have been talking about. "Y-yeah, I guess? I don't think it was too important...I-if you don't mind me asking though, why do you get so nervous? If you don't want to talk about it that's fine but thoughts like that can distract you in dire situations, you know?" He fumbled a bit with his words as he tried to grasp for confidence. Another empty clam shall stacked on his plate.

"Oh..." Well, she supposed that had to come around eventually. She pushed a pile of rice into the corner of her bowl before lightly flattening it with the back of her spoon. "Really, I don't know. I think I've always been anxious." A brazen lie, but nobody would have doubted that, right? The anxiety was what she remembered more than anything else, certainly, but it hadn't been present until...

...well, those were thoughts she knew were best left pushed to unknown depths.

"I guess it's worse now that I'm not familiar with where we are or anything."

Chris nodded. "Well if you need help adapting to this new 'life', if we can even call it that, you can always ask me for company." He gave a smile to Siena, the sound of it filled his emotions with a warming happiness, something he had never felt firsthand in a long time.
After speaking he had consumed a couple more pieces of his seafood. It was delicious of course, though perhaps clams weren't the best option at this restaurant. He just figured that such a simple dish wouldn't be messy, and he was right.

"O-Oh, well...that sounds nice."

Lie. That was a tremendous lie.

She was relieved, on one hand, to know that Chris was a willing companion. A friend--the word still rolled through the mind at a clunky pace--that she could count on the presence of, and almost everything she had been trying to build since she'd surrendered herself, but at the same time, the knowledge fed into the fears she'd tried her hardest to ignore. That something that frightened her more than almost everything else that had happened in the week. Between her increasingly dampened emotions and her own thoughts, Siena was surprised that she was able to keep the mask on. All she'd wanted was something more familiar, but the only way she knew how to do that was to keep smiling. So she did, with warmth and familiarity bred from practice more than heartfelt emotion.

"The same goes for me, though...I guess a nervous wreck isn't exactly the best company you could ask for."

He chuckled. "Well I suppose not, but despite that you're one of the few others here that I can genuinely enjoy spending time with. Don't know why exactly that is.." He shrugged, not wanting to spend too much thought on the idea of a 'crush'. "Its been a rough week anyhow, I don't blame you for being..well..in unfamiliar territory. I just hope that within some time we can get used to this whole ordeal. You and me both." He had taken a small sip from his drink.

"I don't know if I want to get used to what we've been through, but...at least it'll be more bearable with a friend." Finally, she settled for another bite of food, her thoughts still churning like wildfire. This seemed about right--much more successful than her last several attempts, but perhaps it was because she knew there was something familiar lurking beneath the surface? "Who knows? Maybe we really will get used to it all."

"Lets hope so."

After a short while of dining, the waiter brought the two their bill. Chris took out a 50 dollar bill from his pocket and placed it over the tab. "You ready to go?"

As the bill came, Siena blinked in surprise when Chris set his own funds over it. "O-Oh, I invited you out, you shouldn't pay for this..." Giving a faint smile, the girl picked through her purse, fingers deftly removing a few bills from her wallet--best to avoid the long route of credit for the moment. "It's only fair since I chose the restaurant." Sort of. Good enough.

Chris retracted his cash at her protest. He wasn't one to argue. He had let out a sigh. "I suppose, I'll pay for next time then." He spoke as he stood up and adjusted his tie. "Shall we?" He had walked around the table and offered his hand to his fellow arbiter.

"Let's."

There were plenty of thoughts that told her to get up on her own, countless more that told her that she was doing the right thing earlier. That Maya and Gerwulf would both have been displeased with something as innocuous as accepting a helping hand. Still, between the disconnected numbers and the anxiety at the unknown emotions, it was hard to keep playing both their games while trying desperately to upkeep her own. Smoothing out the skirt of her dress, Siena gave a careful smile to her companion.

Then she took his hand.
Hidden 8 yrs ago → 8 yrs ago Post by Baklava
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Hidden 8 yrs ago Post by Snagglepuss89
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Zoe Fletcher & "Doc" Ellison

Collab between: @Lasrever@Snagglepuss89


To the surprise of absolutely no-one, Zoe really wasn't much of a bookworm. There'd been more important things to worry about than stories over the past couple years, and she'd fallen out of the habit. Standing in the library, she looked and felt thoroughly out of place as she browsed the books, eventually plucking one out at random without even looking at the title, absentmindedly glancing at a couple of pages.

Obviously she wasn't here to join the reading society or whatever people did in these places. She'd have enough of that to deal with once they actually made her go to class. As it was, she'd come here looking for a conversation. To clear things up. Tucking the book under her arm, she glanced around the library, catching sight of Lawrence. And suddenly feeling a lot more worried about all this. Assuming he'd seen her already, she gave him a nod of greeting.

"Hey, Lawrence. You, uh, busy right now? I was hoping we could talk."

Lawrence hadn't seen her, in fact he was trying to ignore his surroundings and relax with his nose shoved into "The Founding of Byzantium, 600-1050", having just seen off an aberration who was in need of a quick fix. Had he not recognized the voice that had interrupted him so soon after his last meeting it would have been difficult to mask his irritation, but as it was one of his new classmates he closed the book and gave her his full attention. He couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at "Fists to Friendship - Anger Management for the Antisocial" that she was carrying, but decided to let her control the conversation.

After all, she came to him. He was sure she had a reason besides just wanting to talk.

"Take a seat if you want, I have some free time."

"What? Oh, right. sure." Zoe appeared slightly surprised at the lack of hostility. Then again, Lawrence did always seem like the levelheaded type, so maybe it wasn't so surprising after all. Nodding, Zoe grabbed a chair, sitting the book down in front of her. She wasn't sure where to start with this, honestly. Apologizing wasn't one of her strong points. In fact it was right up there with diplomacy on the list of 'things Zoe never liked doing'. Eventually, she looked across at him, speaking abruptly.

"Sorry." She paused for a second, trying to figure out how to put it. "I mean, for Monday. I screwed up, right? Seriously screwed up."

"Yeah, I'd say so."

Lawrence wasn't quite expecting this situation. If anything, he figured she'd come here to deal with her stigma- something she clearly seemed to have issues with. Monday had certainly irritated him, although he already had enough time to cool off. That, and he hadn't been particularly mad at any one participant- save maybe Allison- over every other member of both groups. It had been a clusterfuck by all involved. Still, even if he wasn't bothered by what had happened, it was clearly on her mind enough to seek him out.

"You already did it though, so there's no point in dwelling on it. Best apology would be trying to make sure it doesn't happen a second time. And it looks like you're already trying to make that happen."

He nodded towards the book she was holding for emphasis after he finished speaking.

"Huh?" Noting Lawrence's gesture, Zoe finally took the time to properly look at and read the cover of the book. "'Fists to Friendship'... You're kidding me." She muttered. That was certainly a title. Maybe she should have actually looked at it before she'd picked it up. "Gonna be honest, I did not look at this thing. Who names their book that?"

She laughed uncomfortably. "Anyway, not the point. Point is, I guess I wanted to - to explain myself, I don't know." She shrugged. Was that all of it? She wasn't sure. Part of her wanted to ask what she was meant to do about any of this, but that felt like admitting she couldn't deal with this on her own. Which people had been trying to tell her anyway, but she had her pride to think of.

"You didn't..."

She didn't look at the book she picked up? He had yet to encounter a woman from this class that he could call normal, and using magic and stigmas as an excuse was starting to sound a bit hollow.

Still, she had finally gotten around to the reason she was here, so instead of pressing her on her poor library habits, he flipped down the plaque that read "Doc Ellison", and leaned his chair back until it rest against the corner of the book case behind him. Folding his hands behind he head, he offered:

"All right then, if you want to explain then I'll listen."

"Okay. Right. So," Zoe frowned, clearly not confident with the whole subject. "I've read up on the mental stuff. You know, with being an X-marked and all. We're all different or something, though, right? 'Cause the way it was all described sounded like stuff I could deal with." Her expression darkened. What had it said again? Bad memories, worst moments? Stuff to torment them? That would doubtless be completely awful, but she could deal with it.

"I guess I don't know how I'm supposed to fight mine. So I didn't, and I got carried away."

Lawrence nodded in response, not being told anything new but still listening attentively. That she hadn't found a way to control her stigma was pretty obvious from what had happened Monday. Still, this was the sort of thing that people came to him for regularly, and if he could be of help then Lawrence was going to try.

"Not to be a bearer of bad news- but I've never met an Aberration who was able to "deal with" it. What I can do for you-"

He didn't pause, but a glowing light enveloped them both mid sentence, beginning to affect Zoe almost immediately.

"Is only a temporary measure. Keeps a freakout from happening until the storm lessens. The only thing that will keep your stigma in check is destruction Zoe, for better or worse. It's not something you can fight with your mind alone. Ground Zero exists so you can do that safely, and I can provide some temporary relief."

With a sigh, he added:

"If there's anything else that works, it hasn't been found yet."

Calm washed over Zoe with the light, the girl visibly relaxing and suddenly a little less anxious about the discussion. "So that's it. I've been to Ground Zero, and it did help, but what happens if it starts to affect my normal mindset? I mean even when my issues aren't flaring up." It was probably irrational. Almost definitely. She wasn't worried about the whole idea of hurting people - certainly wouldn't hesitate if it was necessary. But the idea that she'd start to like doing so on her own, not for her stigma, scared her.

But there she went being selfish again. Her fears weren't Lawrence's problem. This was why she didn't like asking people for help. "I shouldn't bother you with this. You've probably got enough to deal with, I'm sure I can figure it out."

"I don't have any more to deal with than you do. We live and work in the same place. Probably less without a stigma breathing down my neck."

With that he set his chair on all four legs again and leaned forward on the table, hands clasped together in front of him. Serious for perhaps the first time in the conversation as the light faded from around both of them.

"So I think bothering me with this is exactly the sort of thing you should be doing right now- because if you can't figure it out, it could kill you. It could kill me. It could kill everyone on this team they've decided to put together, and I hope you don't want that to happen any more than I do."

"Of course I don't want that!" Zoe snapped, shooting out of her chair. What was that even supposed to mean? Part of her understood that it was just a statement of fact, that Lawrence was probably just trying to help, but she couldn't stop herself from taking things personally. It was a touchy subject, and a whole host of emotions sprung forth, but she clung to anger. Anger was easy, and let her ignore everything else.

She lowered her voice, glaring down at him. "Just because I've lost control before, doesn't mean I don't want to get a handle on it, Lawrence. Don't talk to me like I don't know how bad things can be if I screw up."

"Then don't hit me with the 'Shouldn't bother you with this' crap and act like you know. My point was that this is too serious for you to try and hole up and handle it alone. So if you do know how bad thing can be, you should let someone offer to try and help you."

Lawrence held her gaze with little difficulty. He, of course, didn't want to provoke a potentially unstable Aberration, but was pretty confident if she took this encounter to blows that he could fight or get away without too much of an issue. He certainly wasn't intimidated by her compared to the horrors he'd faced since arriving at USARILN East.

It was simply a matter of being "too old for this shit". From their encounter on the streets after their first battle he expected Zoe to be more of a plain talker. Confident and direct with what she wanted. This conversation was taking a direction that was too wishy washy for the impossibly direct Lawrence. There were reasons he wasn't known for having friends.

Oh, so that was it. Just get everyone else to help with her problems! If only she hadn't been told that fifty times already! "So what, I let myself get close to all of you? Maybe sit around and talk about my feelings? Here's some news for you, you know-it-all prick, that makes it worse." Zoe practically snarled back at him, not really paying attention to what she was saying at this point. Her emotions had more than gotten the better of her judgement.

"A brush of my fingers and you're disfigured. A second of pushing, and you're dead. And I'll like - no, love every fucking moment. But sure, let's just make that more likely to happen."

"What do I care if I die because of your fingers when the alternative is being killed by a monster because you never figured out how to be stable enough to not botch a mission? "

Standing up himself, Lawrence hit Zoe with his power once more, this having gone far enough with giving her the courtesy to be an irrational bitch.

"I'll say this as plainly as I can, I want to help you, not get close to you. You think I want to get close to a bunch of people who are going to be ripped apart in front of me? I've been there Zoe, and I don't care for it. So you can keep your distance and I can keep mine and it'll be fucking dandy, but we're being forced into a partnership along with everyone else on this team and you need to work together with at least some of us. Whether it's me or not."

Zoe felt her anger fading as the light reappeared, the harsh words on the tip of her tongue disappearing to be replaced by a sigh of exhaustion. "Yeah, it's on me. I know that. People die. I know that too. That's why--" She almost appeared to crumple at the loss of her anger, sinking back into her seat. "I'm scared, okay? Is that what you wanna hear? I'm scared that I'll get one of you guys killed 'cause I lose it."

She chuckled drily. "And now here I am taking it out on you when you've been more generous to me than most anyone else here." So much for telling herself there wouldn't be any more tantrums.

With a sigh Lawrence ran a hand through his hair and took his seat as well.

"Look, when I got here I felt the exact same way you do, even without a stigma stuck up my ass or the power to melt people's faces off. So I do get it, really. I don't want to hear that you're scared, what I want is to see you determined. Feelings are fine, and I'll lend an ear if you want to voice them, but what I want Zoe is to find a course of action to solve this problem before these fears of yours are realized. So will you let me?"

Zoe was silent for a long moment, trying to gauge how she felt about this. She had the feeling this would have gone a very different direction if he hadn't calmed her down. She was also pretty sure she wouldn't have admitted to feeling how she did about all of this either. Wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not, but it'd have to do for now. Whatever she felt about it, what he was telling her did seem to make sense. She nodded her head slowly. "Fine. I can do that. Or you can. I'll listen."

Lawrence nodded in response to her, pleased at making some progress. It always felt dirty using his power without consent, and probably always would, but practicality came before morality sometimes. He didn't want to have to kill Zoe for going psycho in the future if he could prevent it.

Or be killed by her.

For now though at least he had something he could work with even if it didn't lead to anything productive.

"Let's settle on "we" for now. What can you tell me about how often that bloodlust of yours spikes to what we saw on Monday? Or what we saw just now even? Was this an issue before your stigma became a thing?"

Whether it was to make a point or not, Lawrence flipped the plaque upright once more as he spoke. Still serious, but with an edge taken off his look.

"I've always been hotheaded, but the bloodlust is definitely a new development, if not a great combination. As for frequency," Zoe shrugged, thinking the question over. "It builds up, I suppose. Monday, I hadn't done anything to deal with it since we fought the monsters. So that was a pretty bad day. I went to Ground Zero yesterday - It wouldn't normally be doing anything at all yet."

But it was, if only a little. She would have probably still gotten annoyed without it, but maybe not quite to the same level. Kind of confirmed her suspicions about the vision after the fight, which wasn't exactly reassuring. If her stigma could get worse as her powers grew, then her chance to learn self-control was on a time limit.

"It sounds to me we have two issues then. You were hotheaded before the stigma, and now you have your stigma as well. There's no reason we can't try and tackle these problems separately before they become too hopelessly entangled."

After a short pause, he added:

"Do you have unrestricted access to Ground Zero yet? Not every Aberration needs it, but it sounds like a good idea in your case."

Shaking her head, Zoe replied. "Not yet. I just have to put in a request for that, right? Shouldn't be too difficult." She hadn't really thought about it too much. What with everything else that had been happening with the whole group, she guessed the idea had just slipped her mind.

"Well, do you have someplace to be?"

With that Lawrence picked up the plaque and set it on she shelf behind him before standing up and tucking his book into the pocket of his jacket. After this encounter he was done dealing with Aberrations for the day anyway.

"I've had it for ages, so I can walk you through the process. I think it's a good idea for you to visit there a few times a week to keep that stigma of yours quiet while we try and work through your other anger issues. At the very least it'll reduce the chance we run into an emergency deployment before you've had a chance to let off steam."

"Nowhere else right now." Zoe smiled appreciatively. She figured Lawrence's actions were out of practicality more than anything, but she couldn't help but be thankful that he'd actually help her out like that. He would've been perfectly justified in not giving her the time of day after her outburst. Maybe he was just used to that kind of thing by now.

"I suppose me learning to keep a level head is probably best for everyone. Especially if we're some sort of unit. Lead the way."

With a nod he made his way around the table, before pausing and turning to Zoe, scratching the back of his head sheepishly. With that the light enveloping them vanished once more.

"Guess it's my turn to apologize- I prefer not to do that without consent. Even if it is a handy way of not getting punched in the face."

As the light faded, Zoe felt the strange calm disappear. Luckily she'd cooled off by this point anyway - if he'd stopped earlier the power usage would have probably made things worse. As it was, she frowned. "I'd rather you don't mess with my head without my permission, but I guess I did blow up on you there. Just don't do it again unless I make it necessary, alright?" She shrugged, looking away as a slight smile returned to her face.

"Let's just call it even for now. I owe you for sticking around after anyway."

"Yeah, but if I wait until the punch is already flying at my face it's a bit too late- We may have different perceptions of necessary is all I'm saying."

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Hidden 8 yrs ago → 8 yrs ago Post by banjoanjo
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banjoanjo Still likes pistachios

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『𝔼𝕣𝕟𝕖𝕤𝕥』 『𝔸𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕤𝕠𝕟』


𝕊𝕖𝕡𝕥. 𝟙𝟚, 𝟚𝟘𝟚𝟘 / / 𝕌𝕊𝔸ℝ𝕀𝕃ℕ 𝔼𝕒𝕤𝕥 / / 𝔹𝕦𝕚𝕝𝕕𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝔹 / / 𝟙𝟘𝟛𝟘
Collab with @VarionusNW and @banjoanjo


The week had been a pretty mixed bag for Ernie. Plenty of ups, thanks to new friends like Brent and Angel. Far too many downs though. Ernie was fine with forgetting those more negative moments. Completely erasing them wasn't possible, but drowning them out certainly was. So it was on this fine Saturday morning that Ernie plugged his Karcher CV 30/1 into his room's power socket and began his weekend cleaning routine.

Ah, what a calming yet powerful roar this machine produced. Ernie could feel his spirit lighten as dirt and grime werelifted from the disgusting berber carpet that occupied his dorm. Within minutes, the small dorm was freshly cleaned, with a stripe pattern decorating the carpet of the room once he finished. Good god, he really was in denial. Or he was just bored. He really needed to make some more friends. All these aimless days were going to get to him before long.

Ernie glanced at the power socket, lamenting the briefness of his cleaning time. Urgh, these East dorms were so stupidly small. There was barely anything to occupy his time. Unless...

The Aberration peeked out from behind his door. The hallway was empty. And carpeted. That was the important detail. Ernie felt anticipation build, an excited smile slowly creeping up his face. This would be a worthy time-waster.

The vacuum was quickly plugged into one of the hallway's outlets. His noise-blocking headphones were worn this time. Such lengthy tasks demanded some sweet jams.

He vacuumed as he sang, completely uncaring of anyone he would be disturbing. It was 10:40am anyway. What kinda loser would still be snoozing in their room at this time?

Allison mumbled in her groggy state, the sounds of the previous night replaying in her head. She had been up late into the night with Angel, re-learning how to play the guitar. Allison didn't remember when the stopped, just that she had walked back to her room tired, with aching fingers, and collapsed into her bed. She was now slowly waking up, the sound of the guitar still humming in her ears.

As the girl continued to lay in her half awake state, she began to notice that what she was hearing sounded less like the familiar miserable strumming of the guitar at her fingertips, and more like a constant hum, aided by some other loud, obnoxious noise. Someone was singing. The obnoxiousness grew louder and louder as she regained consciousness, finding it more unbearable as time passed. She threw her pillow over her head and tried to lull herself back to sleep to no avail. Allison's peaceful rest had been stolen from her, and there was only one thing to do.

Allison rose from the covers, mournfully wiping the sleep from her eyes. She put on the first clothes she could find, a sleeveless purple shirt and jeans, and shuffled her way to the door. She felt gross and uncomfortable in her lack of sleep, which only helped to worsen her mood. She was ready to destroy the property of whoever decided to vacuum the hallway of the aberration dorms. Who in their right minds would thing such a thing was a good idea? And whilst singing, no less. Allison threw open her door.

The obnoxious singing and constant hum of the vacuum cleaner only got louder once Allison stepped into the hallway, the culprit in clear view, though facing away from her. Long hair, relatively tall, and clearly smug despite his face not being visible. Ernie Mars. Of course it would be the guy who stabbed her in the eye, no one else one floor would have the complete lack of concern for others required to fill the halls with such pointless noise. She had half a mind to walk up and smash the machine, but the reasonable part of her told to at least give the monster that was Ernie a chance to prove himself to be not a complete asshole.

"Ernie!" She spoke up, too tired to force a full yell. "Hey Ernie, can you quiet down, please?" Despite her attempt, Ernie kept on vacuuming, his music probably drowning out Allison's half-hearted call. "Ernie!" She called again, her voice still not piercing the boy's ears. Allison, having given up on calling out to Ernest, walked over with all the grace of someone who had just woken up and tapped him on the shoulder.

"I tidy up your room! You tidy up my-- huh?"

At the sudden tap on the shoulder, Ernie turned to see a rather irritated girl. Allison, the girl he'd kinda accidentally stabbed on that first day. That 'accidentally' part was debatable. He'd definitely meant to stab someone, just not her. And he'd tried to apologise--uh, sort of. Okay, he might have been a bigger dick than he needed to be on Monday. Ernie tugged his headphones to his neck, shouting over the roar of the vacuum.

"Allison, right?" Ernie was barely audible, "Did you need something?"

"Could you not vacuum the hallway in the morning, or at least get a quieter vacuum? Actually, why are you vacuuming the halls in the first place?" Allison's assumption was that Ernie was just being a dick, but there were much more affective ways of being a dick than vacuuming the hallway. Allison found herself both tired and confused.

"Uhh, cos it's super dirty and gross?" Ernie answered like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Dozens of Aberrations would have tread this hallway daily, and Ernie didn't trust anyone to keep things clean better than himself. Really, the school should be compensating him in some way, having him do the work for whatever poor excuse the USARILN janitorial team was. Besides, Allison's complaining made no sense. Ernie switched his machine off to better talk.

"What kinda slacker is asleep at almost 11 in the morning anyway? And no, I'm not gonna pull out the quieter one. It doesn't have the power to get the shit out of the carpets like this baby does," Ernie tapped the side of the vacuum fondly.

"Fair enough" Allison said to the comment on the floor, staring down at the ground around her. It really was rather gross. It wasn't cleaned all that regularly, and the janitorial staff was likely too underpaid to care. "It's 11 already? How late were we up?" Allison mumbled to herself. She stifled a laugh at Ernie's fondness for his vacuum. "Alright then, Ernie the janitor. To think there'd be a student here willing to vacuum the miserable floors, and the guy who stabbed me in the eye, no less." Though Allison was still angry about being stabbed in the eye, she mentioned it lightheartedly, her overall mood seeming to lift at the strangeness of Ernie's character.

"Oh yeah, that," Ernie cringed at the memory. Guess it had been too much to hope that she'd let go of it easily. Still, he'd prefer to minimise the number of people who hated him in this new environment. Now that his Stigma was cleared and he was lucid enough to think things over, Allison didn't seem like someone who deserved to get temporarily disfigured like that. She'd reacted reasonably enough to his cleaning ruckus. For starters, she didn't try to destroy his vacuum unlike some people he could name at West. He'd realised a lot of the wrong things he'd done this week. So even if he didn't mean it (though he probably did), a proper 'sorry' was what she deserved.

"That was a really shitty apology I did on Monday. I shoulda put a lot more effort into it," Ernie scratched his head. Apologising was... awkward, "Me with the table leg... That was just a really stupid overreaction and I got caught up in the fight and lost my cool. It's a pretty obvious rule to not stab classmates but..."

Geez, this sounded really bad out loud.

"It was a dick move. Way outta line. Sorry for hurting you like that."

"Thanks." Allison, though she didn't let it show, was shocked that Ernie could actually seem sincere, considering her last encounter with him. Of course, some part of her still thought he was lying, but she pushed that down as much as the thoughts that permeated the back of her mind. Maybe Ernie wasn't as bad as she originally assumed. She remembered her conversation with Zoe from Tuesday, how she had given Zoe a second chance in her mind, and refrained from just calling her a monster outright. How could she not give the same treatment to Ernie. Maybe there was some good to Ernie. Allison knew for certain that truly good people didn't exist, maybe the same held true for true evil. "I think I can understand why you did it, and while I'm still angry about being, you know, stabbed in the eye, I don't hate you. I certainly can't hate a guy who vacuums this disgusting floor, even if he does it without regard for people sleeping in late." She let off a light chuckle with the last line.

Ernie smiled gratefully. So Allison wasn't going to stab him in his sleep. Wonderful! He could definitely use more friends in this new environment. However, he had no sympathy for late sleepers. Ernie was tempted to call her out but settled for a milder approach.

"Yeah, you might wanna get that sleep schedule checked out. You never know when you might get sortied so you don't wanna be fighting monsters on only a few hours' sleep."

"Alright, alright. I'll tell Angel that I can't hang out with her at night by authority of a janitor." Allison remarked. After she said it, she wasn't sure if Ernie knew who Angel was, realizing it was probably dumb to drop her name.

"Oh hey, you're friends with Angelique too? We should all hang out sometime! There are still some places in town I wanna check out," Ernie beamed excitedly, "And yeah, janitor's orders. Don't want any pesky kids dirtying my floors at 3 am."

"I'm surprised you know her. Yea, I guess we'll have to hang out at some point." Allison laughed at Ernie's last comment. "Well, Ernie the Janitor, I guess I should leave you to your work. You don't get payed to stand around talking to people. Well, you also don't get payed to vacuum loudly and sing, but that's besides the point." Allison stretched her arms, realizing that she had completely failed at what she had come to do, and ended up completely awake as a result. She wasn't getting her beauty sleep, it seemed. "Oh, and your singing is absolutely terrible. You sound like you're choking on a dying cat. You're not choking on a dying cat, are you?"

"Getting paid, huh?" Ernie rubbed his chin, considering the possibilities. He'd done something like that at West, helping people clean their dorms and such. Whether or not he had their approval was a different matter. But when they did ask him to do it, he usually got paid in snacks or cakes and such. It wasn't like he was short on cash or anything, but the thought of hoarding favours did appeal to him. Allison's next comment caught him off-guard, leaving that train of thought for another day.

"Aw man, you're hurting my feelings!" Ernie shook his head ruefully. He didn't know he sounded that bad. Ah well, he wasn't aiming for a music career or anything. It was all in good fun, "Ew. No cats here, they shed like crazy."

"Would just mean more for you to vacuum up." Allison shrugged.

"Not just vacuuming, clothing too! I don't wanna have to buy a bunch of lint rollers for my shirts just because of some nasty fluffball."

"Alright, second decree of the janitor, no cats allowed. Do you want me to write that down? How many decrees should I expect? Will it be 'Ernie's 10 Janitorial Commandments'?"

"What, like 'Thou shalt not leave your washing machine unattended'? Stuff like that?" Ernie laughed, "I could think of a lot more than ten in that case."

"Guess I should ask for a really big stone tablet, then."

"It'd be pretty easy for you, yeah? With your power and all," the boy nodded, "A really big rock. You'd have to update it often too."

"Alright, guess I'll carve it into the side of a mountain, then. Will Everest be big enough?"

Another round of laughter. "Hahaha! Hopefully!"

Man, this was an important lesson he learnt today. Don't stab people before you get to know them. He didn't think that Allison would've been so fun to talk to. He hadn't thought anything of her, really. He was glad to have been mistaken. Ernie glanced at the ground, reminded of his earlier chore.

"Yeah, guess I really should get back to work. I might do the other floors of this building too, if this one goes quickly. Talk again some other time?"

Ernie paused briefly, thinking.

"Can we swap numbers? I was serious about hanging out. You seem alright."

"Yea, sure." Allison said, realizing that her phone was still in her room. She had barely touched the device all week, spending very little time aclimatizing herself to the strange thing, and even less memorizing her own number. "I'll have to go get my phone, though, be right back." She went to grab her phone from her room as quickly as she could, returning just as fast.

"Sweet!"

The two Aberrations exchanged contact details. While he could, Ernie snapped a picture of an offguard Allison for her contact page in his phone. Hm, he'd have to do the same for the others too.

"I'll see you around then?"

"Yea, see you around. I'll let you get back to work." Allison walked away, leaving the strange boy to his vacuuming.

Ernie waved the girl goodbye, getting back to work like Allison had suggested. Ah, he would have never expected mornings at East to be so refreshing. He restarted the vacuum, popped his headphones back on, and began singing again with even more vigor than earlier.
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Hidden 8 yrs ago → 8 yrs ago Post by Vox Angelis
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Vox Angelis Dust in the wind

Banned Seen 9 mos ago
Angélique's Week

Part 1



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Hidden 8 yrs ago → 8 yrs ago Post by Vox Angelis
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Vox Angelis Dust in the wind

Banned Seen 9 mos ago
Angélique's Week

Part 2



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Hidden 8 yrs ago → 8 yrs ago Post by Vox Angelis
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Vox Angelis Dust in the wind

Banned Seen 9 mos ago
Angélique's Week

Part 3






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Hidden 8 yrs ago Post by banjoanjo
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coGM
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banjoanjo Still likes pistachios

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『𝔹𝕣𝕖𝕟𝕥』 『𝔾𝕣𝕒𝕟𝕥』 『𝔼𝕣𝕟𝕖𝕤𝕥』 『𝔾𝕣𝕖𝕘𝕠𝕣𝕪』



𝕊𝕖𝕡𝕥. 𝟠, 𝟚𝟘𝟚𝟘 / / 𝕌𝕊𝔸ℝ𝕀𝕃ℕ 𝔼𝕒𝕤𝕥 / / 𝔹𝕦𝕚𝕝𝕕𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝔸 / / ~𝟚𝟘𝟘𝟘
Collab with @ERode @Deathmyster @banjoanjo and @Zombehs

Was five pounds worth of wings enough for three people? Though he had already finished cooking at this point, with five different platters of wings arranged on styrofoam plates, Brent couldn't help but wonder if they were better off with ten pounds instead. Or maybe he should toss up a salad...but who even ate salad? The arbiter tapped the back of the knife against the counter. The 'buy big save big' package of chicken wings he had purchased from the supermarket looked big, but now that they were crispy, sauced up, or what have you...

"Too small."

A part of him wanted to cheat and just steal a ton of wings from the cafeteria, but cheating was for losers. Maybe the problem here was not taking advantage of those party-size bags of Lays that were on promotion? That would be something nice to munch on after the real meat ran out. But fries were a nice option as well. Would give him a chance to practice julienning potatoes as well, and the batter shouldn't take too long to prepare. Salt and pepper were in abundance anyways. Hm...

"Yo, Grant," Brent called, turning to face his perpetually bedridden roommate, "Chips or chips?"

While Brent was busy struggling over his enigma, Grant had been spending his own downtime comfortable in his bed, his back turned toward his roommate. Only when his name was called did Brent elict any movement from Grant, who turned his head just enough to look back at him for his question. The said question was met with silence as his mind chugged along before he finally just answered simply with, "...Chips." After giving his answer, Grant laid his head back where it was previously, closing his eyes once more.

...well, that was awkward. Expected of Grant, but still, awkward. And now even more awkward was trying to explain the joke to the ever-impassive youth. "I'll rephrase that. Potato chips or french fries?"

Another question from his roommate, but Grant didn't turn around again. Just as it seemed as if he had probably just fallen asleep, the eternally tired boy spoke up. "Chips. They'll last longer." Was what he answered with.

"Practical," Brent remarked, "I like it." Made sense as well, having food that didn't go bad once it got cold. Same logic as popcorn and all: if you were in for the long haul, it's better to have temperature-neutral food. "By the way, couple of classmates are coming over tonight. Movies and chill and all that. Think you can sleep through that?"

With Brent's remark, Grant shifted to get into a more comfortable position, thinking that'd be the last of his questions. Little did he know, his roommate asked another question just a little after that. "Don't worry about me." As long as there was no direct disturbance to him, he'd be just fine with the coming company.

"Cool, give me a shout if you want something to eat." Brent paused. Grant shouting? What alternate dimension was this? "Or just say something."

"Understood." Grant said lastly to that before going back to his usual silence, but he still couldn't bring himself to fall asleep at the time.

A loud knock sounded from the door. "Brent?" Ernie called out, "This is your dorm, right?"

"No," Brent replied flatly, "It's Bob's. I just tied him up and tossed him in the closet. Dude's got a killer kitchen."

A pause.

"Door's unlocked, by the way."

Ernie peered in, glancing around the room. Once he noticed Brent, he exhaled a sigh of relief. The Aberration walked in, carrying a rather noticeable canvas bag with the top full of chip packets, the ones you could get from vending machines. He looked ready for a sleepover, trackpants and a comfy jacket worn for maximum comfort. His hair was also tied up.

"Let's hope Bob won't be making too much noise in the closet tonight," Ernie quipped. He noticed another boy in one of the beds, sending a small "Hi" his way.

"Spent all morning practicing how to gag people. Shouldn't fail me now," Brent grinned, glad that he didn't trigger some PTSD episode from Ernie with that joke. Motioning towards the granite counter on the kitchen, the amethyst-eyed youth grabbed a large plastic bowl, intending on popping open all the bags that Ernie brought and tossing them in.

"Hopefully Greg brings soda or something. All I have stocked up is milk."

"We could make smoothies or something. You can do a lotta stuff with milk." Ernie opened the packets one by one, flattening and folding the emptied ones as he went along. They created a neat pile when they went into the bin. "So where we sitting?"

How neat. Mimicking Ernie's meticulous chip-packet disposal method, Brent glanced over to the living room. "Probably by the TV. Already got food prepped over there, as well as movies other than 'Hazel vs The World'."

The bowl was rapidly filling up. Perhaps another one was needed.

"By the by, didja smooth things over with Angelic?"

Ernie spun to meet Brent with a dazzling smile. The goofy expression of innocent delight seemed so deeply engraved on the boy's face that it seemed that he'd forgotten to answer. When he finally did, his tone was quite excited.

"More than smooth, bro! We talked things out and I think we're kinda friends now. I even got her number!"

"Dude?" Brent raised out his fist. "Niceeeee."

Ernie completed the fistbump with a laugh. "Right? This is, like, a dream! I didn't think I'd ever be in the same class or even the same school as Angel. I've been having some kinda weird, happy freakout all day."

"She used to be a rock star or something, yeah? Guess you can live the fanboy dream now." Brent emptied another bag in the slowly-growing pile of assorted chips, before looking up at Ernie once more. "So, what's up with Montreal anyways?"

Was it a smart thing to do, to gossip about another person's trauma behind their back? It wasn't really the moral complications Ernie was worried about, rather the chance that Brent would do the same thing as he did and go blabbing it right to her face. Sounded like a recipe for scream-scrambled brains, for both boys. But in the end, Ernie decided to just go for it. Brent was a cool guy, right? Plus, all the information was there on the internet. Anyone with the sense to google the name would have easily found an article on the concert, probably as one of the first results.

"Her last concert on some Homecoming event thing. She kinda outed herself as a Subnatural during a song and well, you know how her power works. Didn't get to hear the close details but a lotta people got messed up."

A pause.

"Guess it's a sore point for her. Makes sense. Definitely a can of worms to avoid, when we hang out again. Don't wanna be scream-shouted across campus, yeah?"

"Ah..." So that was the landmine he had avoided when he went shopping with her. Considering all the other bombs he totally stepped on, that was probably a good thing. Still, a lot of people got messed up? How strong WAS Angelic back then? Gained her powers a couple weeks ago, but the scream she had there in the gym, during her breakdown of sorts, didn't even manage to knock over any of the objects, while the screams she had against the dragon were meant to intentionally damage.

Huh, what the hell happened during that concert? Brent visualized the chain of events. Gained powers before the concert, KNEW about how her powers worked, and then went on for her concert regardless? He narrowed his eyes slightly, before nodding.

"Yup. Definitely wouldn't want to get blasted by our resident dragon-slayer." He dusted off his hands, before lifting up the almost-overflowing bowl, a couple of chips tumbling onto the counter. "At least subnatural life means a second chance, eh? Can only go up from here!"

Debatable. For Ernie, 'subnatural life' had consumed the last seven years of his existence. Everything before that...

Ernie frowned. He hated thinking about these things. Hated thinking about-- wishing for-- things that could've been. What was the point? He was here now, at USARILN East. Far from the safety and casual luxury of West. Far, far from Reno too. His subnatural life was likely to end within the next few weeks. Then nothing could go up. Nothing would matter. Memories flickered in the corner of his thoughts. Despite having his Stigma sated by his morning encounter with Angelique, Ernie couldn't help but feel a longing for home, whatever that meant these days.

He hated it. Hated feeling this way, hated having to think, having to remember. So he stopped thinking. He shoved the intrusive thoughts into the back of his mind once more, far too eager to put it behind him.

Subnatural life, huh? It didn't go up. Not for, well...

Ernie wanted to say Aberrations, but he knew it would only be a part of the truth. He had known formidable X-marks, mages who were stronger than he ever would or could be. Aberrations weren't the missing part of that statement. Subnatural life didn't go up for people like Ernie. That was the answer.

"Well, y'know," the longer-haired boy responded vaguely, "Life's what you make of it. Going up is... something we gotta work for, I guess. But if there's anything that helps with that work, it's optimism."

He took a chip and ate it, ignoring the hypocrisy of his words. A memorised smile worked itself back onto Ernie's face.

"That, and knowing how to handle yourself and your powers. But that's a buncha stuff for some other bummier time. What are we watching tonight?"

Tink. It sounded like a rock had thunked against the kitchen window. Tink. Tink. If anyone bothered to look outside, they'd notice Gregory standing below with a few more rocks in hand and his phone in the other.

A few moments later, and the text showed up on Brent's phone. "Guards won't let me in without one of you vouching for me."

That smile. Dislikeable. Brent suppressed the bitter taste in his mouth, really wishing that he had something sinfully sweet to drink now. Thoughts drifted towards that drugged up x-girl that he had met in the hospital during his first 'real' day in USARILN, but he found himself nodding to Ernie's words anyways. As the topic of movies came up though, he chuckled.

"Yeah, sounds like a topic that'd be better brought up while getting hammered," he replied, "And I got a whole bunch of nature documentaries lined up tonight. The entire uncut, uncensored, remastered version of Planet Earth: Awoken! Education and entertainment, all documented in super high risk environments! Also got stuff like Mad Flaps: Yuri Road and the live action for Metal Smear Avengeance, but think we're set f-"

A tink on the window, and then Gregory's text, brought Brent out of his own bit of gushing.

Kk, I'll pick you up from the lobby then.

"Looks like Grego's here already. I'll go fetch him."

Ten minutes later, the door to the dorm opened up once more, revealing Brent. "Welcome to Bob's place," he gestured with a grin.

Blinking a few times as he took off his shoes, Gregory wasn't too surprised at the difference in living accomodations he supposed. The dorms here were supposed to be shared right? "Huh? Your roommate's name?" If there was a joke to be got, it cleared his head without any trouble. A few metallic clinks came from his backpack as he finally noticed Ernie and raised his hand in greeting.

"How many others are coming?" he asked as he unzipped the backpack and began to pull cans of soda out.

Man, what a weirdishly convenient turn of events. First with Ernie bringing in chips and now with Gregory bringing in drinks? Was there some sort of cosmic force influencing everyone's decisions, ensuring that no one had any sort of overlap despite the fact that there had been zero communication? How strange. Maybe subnaturals had some sort of sixth sense for these events.

"Bob's the dude in the closet," Brent replied, bringing the cans to the table by the TV, "And naw, everyone's here now. Only bothered inviting team 4 peeps. Sav was PMSing and Emma was 'busy'."

One by one, those assorted soda cans formed a pyramid.

"Ooh. We haven't met yet," Ernie chirped, extending his hand, "Ernest, but everyone calls me Ernie. You were hardcore in the game, man."

Blinking a few times, Gregory glanced towards the closet with a dubious expression before he muttered, "Riiight." Tossing aside the backpack once it was emptied, he turned his attention to the other boy in the room. He frowned a bit at the mention of yesterday's shitshow, but otherwise didn't seem to let it bother him too much as he shook Ernie's hand. "That's one way to put it... Gregory, but Greg is fine."

"Yeah, your power was hella interesting. Just that Hazel hard-counters literally everyone else here," Brent replied, before motioning for the blond to sit down, "Anyways, I got like, one disc for every continent for Planet Earth. Where y'all wanna start?"

"I'm voting Africa," the dark-haired Aberration plopped himself on the far end of the couch, "I wanna see those crazy giraffe-lion fights!"

'Wasn't that the truth...' Clicking his tongue, he took a seat on the other end of the couch and then shrugged. "Sure, let's go with Africa. Australlia afterwards?"

"Oho, Australia with the illegal kangaroo baiting rings?" the arbiter nodded with approval, "Sounds like we got the first three hours lined up!"

With that, he slid the disk in, before popping back onto the floor. As cameras panned over desolate landscapes and drones flew over mutated monstrosities, a baritone voice waxed poetic on the glories of the landscape and the savagery of DC's creatures. Soon, the orchestra crescendoed, 'Africa' popping out from the screen.

Brent grabbed a chip.

"So, one-line impressions of Hazel vs Everyone?"

Ernie began working through a chicken wing. "Kinda glad I was too tazed out to get strip-smacked by her. Looked rough."

The can hissed before Gregory took a sip, and it was hard to tell if he was frowning from the burn or question. "A shitshow of bad decisions?"

"Yeah," Brent laughed, "Doomed from the start."
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Hidden 8 yrs ago Post by VampireOracle
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VampireOracle 100% Certified Introvert

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Sophia Lemane
Building A: Suite 226, USARILN East
September 9th, 2020 - 8:00 am
Opening her eyes, Sophia wondered what had woken her up, for her alarm clock was silent. Grabbing the clock from off the floor, her eyes widened. She had overslept a lot, and she didn't even remember turning the alarm off. But at least... it wasn't past nine yet. Even though she didn't have to go to class, she still wanted to. She needed to learn that stuff, for it seemed that she was pretty much the youngest. Everyone else probably already knew what was being taught.

Though she had less time than she would have liked, she didn't exactly hurry. An hour was plenty of time to eat and get dressed, she'd done it in less than half the time before.
Ten minutes before nine, Sophia was seated at the same desk as on Monday. The materials provided for her that she had forgotten to bring back to her room were still there, waiting for her to use. She had the electives sheet with her, so she was all set for class.

Or maybe... she wasn't set for class. She felt tired even though she had overslept, and though she normally liked math, it didn't seem so appealing today. Physics didn't seem appealing at all either. One could say that she was missing her motivation. She was telling herself that she needed to know that stuff, but for what? Her future, at the moment, was feeling very uncertain. How did education exactly work around here? Class was only every other day, and half the class had been allowed to just ditch class for winning that game. It didn't seem that the "school" cared too much about the students learning things. Just from the three classes she had taken so far, Sophia hadn't been liking it much. The first teacher had seemed far from eager to teach. The second hadn't explained things clear enough for her, and the way that man had talked had just bored her. The third hadn't been any better.

Interrupting her thoughts, the math teacher entered, looking no more enthusiastic as she had been on the first day. Class began.

Though she tried her best to pay attention throughout all the classes, Sophia was rapidly failing. Math, done by self-studying, went slowly and the section she was working on wasn't easy. By the time the physics teacher arrived, Sophia was frustrated and beginning to feel drowsy. The droning on about one of her least favorite subjects didn't help, and she found herself tuning the teacher out for almost all of class. And then by the time it was time for English, Sophia just wanted to go and sleep. English was a subject that she liked sometimes, especially if it was writing, but she wasn't in the mood for all this stuff about grammar and specific little details. That class, she tuned out too. By the time the last class before lunch ended, all she just wanted to was go lay down and rest.

Picking up the elective sheet, she handed it in on her way out.
She would not be coming back into class that day. Sometime during the morning, she had decided to skip the rest of the classes after lunch. None of them seemed like they would be spectacular anyways. Okay, she did feel a little guilty. But she probably wouldn't be able to pay much attention with how off she was feeling today. So it would just be wasted time sitting in class, right? Really, she didn't need to attend class anyway. Even though she really hadn't done anything during the game, luck had assigned her to the team that won.

She exited the room for lunch.
6:45 pm
Sophia came back from combat training exhausted. She wasn't exactly out of shape, but she was far from strong. She hadn't been able to do all that the exercises set out for them required, especially when it came to using weights. She rarely had used them when exercising back at home, for her parents hadn't let her lift more than a few pounds. Something about not being fully developed yet.

Glancing around her room, she sighed. There were still items lying around from what she had been doing before a guard had come to fetch her to the training, for she had totally forgotten about it after skipping the second half of class. She'd lost track of the time and it had slipped her mind, being occupied with setting up her phone to her liking (something that had been done with much trial and error due to her lack of experience), looking through the evaluation packet that had been brought to her room, and working on training Heidi.

Ignoring the stuff around the room, she made a little list in her head. First, shower. Then, put away the stuff. Feed Heidi, write in her journal, then go have dinner.
8:35 pm
Sophia was having another one of those silent debates inside her head. Though she had been trying her best to keep herself from thinking about her family, it was hard. She missed them. She had never been very capable of talking to any of them, but they had always been there. Now, all she had for a companion was Heidi.

But when she thought about her family, she wasn't just missing them. She was worried especially about how her siblings were doing after she was gone. Her little sister would be alone at night, with no one to read her a bedtime story or reassure her that no monsters or ghosts were going to come while she was asleep. Her older sister would have no one who would be able to listen to her and actually understand, or give her advice or reassure her...

Sophia looked down at the phone laying beside her. Should she call? What if her sister hung up on her once she found out who was calling? Matilda had never struck Sophia as that sort of person, but how would Sophia know? What would Matilda think if Sophia called her now? Would she be relived upon getting the call? What if Matilda broke down and Sophia couldn't cheer her up? What if Sophia accidentally showed how she didn't like it here, and Matilda began worrying about her? Something like this had never happened before.

Call Matilda now.

Call another day instead.

Call another family member instead.

Never call and forget about it all.

There were so many pros and cons that she could come up with for each of the options. She could feel herself begin to overheat, her palms became sweaty, her heart was beating so fast. She didn't know. She couldn't decide. It was so hard. Her head seemed to be ringing faintly. She felt detached from everything around her.

She sat there for what seemed like ages, unable to get a good enough grip on herself to draw herself back to the room she sat in. A few minutes later, she became aware that something warm and heavy was in her lap. Slowly, she moved her head to look down. Her right hand came up to gently stroke Heidi, feeling the vibrations as the cat purred. Her left hand released its grip on the arm of the chair.

Running her hand over her face, she let out a long breath. She hated when she got so worked up over such little things. Except it wasn't a little thing... anyway. She made up her mind to call another day. She certainly would call, but not when she was feeling like this. She needed to be happy when she called her older sister, to show her that everything was okay and that she was doing fine.

Deciding to go to bed early, she got dressed then crawled under the covers. Hopefully, sleep would come soon.

But probably not.
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『ℤ𝕠𝕖』 『𝔸𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕤𝕠𝕟』


𝕊𝕖𝕡𝕥. 𝟠, 𝟚𝟘𝟚𝟘 / / 𝕌𝕊𝔸ℝ𝕀𝕃ℕ 𝔼𝕒𝕤𝕥 / / 𝔹𝕦𝕚𝕝𝕕𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝔹 / / ~𝟙𝟠𝟛𝟘
Collab with @Lasrever and @VarionusNW


Standing outside Allison's dorm room, Zoe was surprised by how uneasy she felt about this. Honesty was always something she stuck by, but there was a difference between that and actually... Well, actually looking for the discussion. But maybe Fred had a point this morning, about needing to trust the others, needing them to trust her. Didn't change the fact that it was a massive pain in the ass. And that she wasn't sure about being strong enough for it. But trying to fix things a little seemed like a good middle ground.

Still, she wasn't too bothered by what this one thought of her. Well, she was, but she figured it couldn't get too much worse in terms of making an impression. When she thought of it like that, it really wasn't too tough to deal with. After all, out of all her classmates, Allison had ended up in the same group as her twice when she'd lost it, even if she had barely been conscious the first time. So it made sense that Zoe owed her an explanation. That, and being in the same building meant that she was easy enough to find. Her expression serious, Zoe knocked firmly on the door and waited for the girl to answer.

Allison sat quietly at her desk, staring intently at the small brown notebook, worn with age and full of ripped and torn pages. She re-read the section she had just added over and over again, as if trying to eek out some secret meaning from the series of words. She closed the notebook suddenly, placing it on top of a similar small notebook, though with a black cover, next to her phone in the middle of the desk. Her eyes glanced down beside her, to where a box sat, containing the new pair of shoes she had bought earlier. They were cheap, and much the same as the pair she had before. It was a shame that her shoes had been destroyed by Hazel's power, but at least getting a replacement pair came cheap. Allison could've probably requisitioned a new pair, but by the time she thought about that, she had already bought the shoes. A knock at the door interrupted Allison, who quickly got up to answer it. Allison had no clue who it could be.

Allison opened the door slowly to see Zoe standing in front of her. Images flashed in her head of the girl unconscious on top of Gregory, who's face she had melted. Why was Zoe here? The sensible part of Allison said that Zoe was probably just here to talk, though somewhere in her mind she cooked up the idea that Zoe could possibly be here to melt her face off. As dumb and unlikely as the latter prospect was, Allison was afraid of it. She looked visibly nervous, giving herself a moment to compose herself before speaking.

"Oh, hey Zoe. What's up?"

"I'm not here to attempt a murder, so you can stop that." Zoe looked slightly irritated at Allison's apparent fear, though most of it was just frustration. Zoe realized that it was probably a reasonable reaction, but was she that much of a loose cannon? Well, probably, but that didn't mean it wasn't annoying. She sighed. "I just wanted to talk things out. After Monday, and I guess the first day too. You know, 'cause I keep flying off the handle."

After a moment, she gave Allison a questioning look, sharpness returning. "So can I come in, or would you rather I just stand out here and do it?"

"Oh, right, of course." Allison moved to the side, ushering the other girl into the disorderly room. She shut the door as soon as Zoe entered, and offered Zoe the chair by the desk, before taking a seat on the bed herself. "Alright, what's up?"

Taking a seat, Zoe frowned. Part of her figured the girl wouldn't bother confronting her about anything, so she decided to just get straight into it. "First thing's first, I'm here to apologize. Which isn't something I do often. I screwed up yesterday, so I'm making an exception." Leaning back in the chair, she glanced over at Allison, seeming almost irritated as she continued.

"That, and apparently I need to trust you guys more or help you trust me - something like that. So here I am. If there's anything you want to ask about, I'll answer. To an extent." She looked away from the other girl - considering they weren't friends, this whole idea wasn't exactly comfortable for Zoe.

Allison wasn't sure what to make of the girl. She seemed irritated, uncomfortable in the situation. Allison assumed that her guest wasn't exactly used to apologizing, and respected the gesture, despite the strained air she felt still lay between them. She knew that Zoe didn't hate her, but Allison still felt nervous talking to the girl, not because of what Zoe was capable of, no, but just some odd feeling.

"I'm not really the one you need to apologize to, but thank you." Allison looked Zoe over, trying to figure out something else to say, letting the room fill with silence for a moment. "For those first few moments yesterday, I thought you were a monster. Something unfeeling and horrible, willing to kill anything and anyone for any reason. Exactly what USARILN would want, right? I don't know when I realized I was wrong, but I think it had something to do with Ernie stabbing me in the eye. At that time I thought we were all monsters, ready and willing to play a sick game for selfish reasons, justifying anything we did. But... maybe I was wrong on that, too. Maybe there is something redeemable about us. We aren't just tools for killing. We're people, and that alone makes me hopeful. I don't know why you did what you did to Greg, and I don't think I want to know, but I think I can understand on some level."Her hand rose, fingers brushing against the X marking on her neck as she spoke. "I want to trust you, and I think I can. I know you're capable, and I don't think you're a bad person. Even then, I don't really know much about you. The only times we've been around each other has been in battle. Not too great for first impressions. I guess what I want is to know you better, Zoe."Allison looked into Zoe's eyes, staring intently, unwavering. "The you that isn't fighting."

Zoe watched Allison with a wary expression as the other girl started to speak. The first part was what she'd expected, and to a certain extent what she'd wanted, but still wasn't exactly nice to hear from somebody else. More because of the idea that she was what these people wanted her to be - though maybe there was an element of truth to it. It was the last part that gave her pause.

"Me? Okay, not what I was expecting." Well, she had said she'd be honest. Couldn't really take that back after making the offer. "I wouldn't mind. Ask away. Don't know that you'll get all the answers you're looking for, but I'll try."

She shrugged, figuring she may as well attempt. Wasn't sure where to start. "I'm not sure the me that's not fighting is that different. Well, I am, but not-" Zoe frowned again. Yeah, she really sucked at this. For someone that thought of herself as honest, it was almost embarrassing how bad she was at being open with people. "I've got a pretty short fuse anyway. And I won't lie, I've done some things I'm not exactly proud of before this. Obviously never melted anyone's face... Listen, is there anything specific you want to know about me? Or do I just, like, ramble until you're happy?"

Allison looked on as Zoe tried to speak. The girl clearly wasn't used to talking about herself. Allison guessed that she wasn't much of a people person. "No, no, sorry, that's not what I meant." Allison shook her head as she spoke. "I don't want to force you to tell me your life story, or anything. especially if you don't want to." Allison spoke tenderly, aware of Zoe's clear short temper. She came her to work things out, and setting her off was the last thing that Allison wanted to do. "I just..." She paused, thinking on her words. "I want to get to know you, slowly. Maybe we could hang out and talk, or something? I don't want to force anything on you, obviously, and I don't want you to be more open than you want to, but maybe we could be friends?" Allison stared down, kneading her hands as she spoke. "When I say I want to get to know you, I don't mean just having you list off facts about yourself. I want to talk to you, and learn more about you through interacting with you. This is the longest conversation we've ever had, and the second time we've actually spoken to each other, right? We are strangers." She rose her head, looking at Zoe, letting silence hang for a moment. "You know what.? You're definitely a better fighter than me, maybe we could do some training at some point, teach me what you know, make me a little less incompetent, or something." Allison added that last line suddenly, though she felt good suggesting some way to hang out with Zoe.

"So that's it." Ah. Zoe wasn't sure if she'd been hoping she could just answer a couple questions and that would be it. Not that she particularly minded the idea, but it wasn't the easy, immediate solution she'd been hoping for. And there was always the risk of losing it which was just as terrifying as ever. After a moment, she nodded, smiling slightly. "Okay. I think I could deal with that, on one condition. If I tell you I'm having a bad day with the whole stigma thing and I want you to back off, you do it. For your own safety and mine, especially if you actually plan on being friends. That sound fair?"

"Sounds fair." Allison let out a sigh of relief, happy to have established a chance at friendship with Zoe. "I guess we can out some time later this week, or something, maybe? Whenever you want."

"Sometime, anyway. I'm kinda trying to figure some things out this week for, uh, obvious reasons." Zoe paused, still conflicted. Turning down a chance at friendship seemed like it'd raise more questions than answers, but she couldn't help worrying about her own control. Had to be cautious about this. "Pretty sure I might need to go into town and get stuff at some point, so I can tell you whenever I decide to do that." Town was safer. There were people there, enough that she'd be stopped quick if she lost it. But until Zoe was sure of herself, she didn't want to risk it quite yet.

"Alright, sounds good." The room returned to silence, and Allison made a half-hearted attempt to fill it. "Well... anything else you want you talk about?"

"I was going to offer you some advice. About the fights." Zoe paused for a second, before continuing. "It's gonna sound like stuff I need to learn for myself, too, but there's some subtle differences. I'd wait, but you never know when we're gonna get dragged out again. Shouldn't take long." She looked straight at Allison, appearing confident for the first time since entering the room as she tried to gauge whether the other girl was willing to listen.

"I definitely need some advice. Advise away." Allison leaned forward, listening intently.

"At the start of both fights you've not really been doing much. You look around the battlefield, see everything that's going wrong, and it seems like you're not sure what to do. Experience fighting should help with that, but you could stand to keep it simple." Zoe sounded matter-of-fact as she spoke, although most of it was only based on what little she'd seen of the girl. Two fights didn't make a strong base for any argument, really, so there was a pretty good chance she'd be completely off the mark.

"Don't try to sort out everything at once, you won't get anywhere. One thing at a time. Be aware of what's going on around you obviously, but focus on doing your job properly first. Better to do one thing well than to try and do ten and fail every one of them. Make sense so far?" From what Zoe had seen, Allison took a while to do anything in their fights - most of this was based off of the first one. She'd had a lot of time to actually think about what went on out there.

"Yea." Allison kept listening. She didn't have any reason to interject, and was enthralled by Zoe's advice so far.

"Second thing. Stop running off alone. In the first fight, you ran off and almost got eaten - which isn't fun, speaking from experience - and from what I saw on the video of the second fight, you jumped down by yourself at two people whose powers you didn't even know. If that was a real fight, you would've gotten yourself killed." It took a lot of effort for Zoe to try and be civil about this kind of thing. Just had to think about it a little more. Seeing how close the others came to getting hurt frustrated her, knowing that there wasn't much she could do about it.

"You're reckless. I get that it sucks feeling like you can't do anything, but the solution isn't to give up on self-preservation just to try and make a difference. Again, it's a case of actually thinking things through. Your ability can be useful without throwing your life away." Zoe was aware that this all made her sound like a massive hypocrite, but she ignored it. Wasn't quite the same situation anyway. "That's all I've got for now. Any questions?"

"No. You have some good points there." Zoe was right, and her advice definitely made Allison think. Allison had been reckless in those fights, and in her attempts to do something, she ended up nearly getting herself killed. She acted in the same pattern, standing around panicking, and then almost dying trying to actually do something.

Though she tried to focus on the advice, Allison's mind suddenly began to drift to the items she had left on the desk.

"Thanks for the advice, really. Though, I've got some things I need to get back to." Allison stood up, slowly moving towards the door. "Talk more later?"

"Sure, no problem. I'll leave you to it for now." Zoe grinned, standing and turning to walk out of the door. As she opened the door to leave, she glanced back. "Thanks for hearing me out, by the way. I didn't really expect it."

With that, Zoe walked out, her smile fading as she headed back to her own dorm. For now she still had to be careful, and there were too many things she didn't understand about herself. But if nothing else, at least that had gone a lot better than she'd hoped.
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『𝕄𝕒𝕣𝕔𝕦𝕤』



𝕊𝕖𝕡𝕥. 𝟘𝟠, 𝟚𝟘𝟚𝟘 / / 𝕌𝕊𝔸ℝ𝕀𝕃ℕ 𝔼𝕒𝕤𝕥 / / 𝔻𝕠𝕣𝕞 𝔹𝕦𝕚𝕝𝕕𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝔸: 𝕊𝕦𝕚𝕥𝕖 𝟜𝟛𝟘 / / ~𝟙𝟠𝟘𝟘


The mood he was in had been completely ruined.

When he had begun his journey back into his own dorm, the sight that met him was unnerving to say the least. The 430 door (and he knew it was 430 because he'd looked to the number three times desperately hoping it wasn't his) had apparently exploded. The door that he was pretty sure was strong enough to keep the young subnaturals inside. He approached cautiously, peeking his head in to see what the situation was like.

"Hey cuff guy...we've got a little bit of a situation at Suite 430." Marcus said quietly. "The door's in like, a million pieces right now, but I don't know if anybody's inside."

He bent down to the rubble, picking up one of the larger splinters and standing with his back flat against the wall. He strained his ears to see if he could hear anything but the blood that was thumping in his ears. He tried to ignore the cold, empty feeling of fear as he looked back into the room, holding the splinter of wood in one hand, and flicking on the flashlight on his phone with the other.

The shadows that he cast across the floor were silent, twisting and turning as Marcus nervously stepped into the room, looking around and illuminating the corners and crevices first. He stopped, flipping the light switch next to the empty door frame, eyes darting around as the rest of the room lit up. The living room seemed to be fine - which made Marcus relax a little bit. Maybe Callan had just sleep-walked out the door or something, or maybe Siena took a strong name and underestimated herself when she was leaving.

His calm immediately shot back to hesitation as he walked into the rest of the suite. His gaze immediately focused on the deep claw marks in the carpet. Those were a little harder for his brain to rationalize, and he wracked his mind trying to figure out what could have possibly made them. Not either of his roommates...and as furious as he thought Siena's dog was, there was no way it could have done this.

A quick look over the rest of the room showed that everything was still in its proper place - at least, all of his stuff was. None of Callan or Siena's things looked like it had been moved, it even looked like one of them had got some new things, but he didn't memorize the layout of the room well enough to know for sure. The only other thing of note were the shattered bits on the floor near Callan's bed. They looked electronic, whatever they used to be.

What he didn't see was signs of a struggle. Besides the door, the claw marks, and the shattered thing, there was nothing to suggest anything bad had happened here. He wasn't quite sure how to take the bit of logical deduction - it was either a good thing, or a very bad thing. He sat down on his own bed for a moment, trying to gather himself as he involuntarily began to panic slightly. He pulled out his phone, quickly selecting both Callan and Siena.

Hey...quick question: where are you right now?


Hopefully, if they both responded, there was nothing really to worry about. Apart from the clawed intruder, of course.

His phone buzzed, and he let out a sigh of relief.

Heading back now. Did you need something?


That was at least one accounted for.

"Hey there, Mr. Howell!" Fredric's familiar voice chimed from Marcus's cuff, prefaced by a loud beep, "Sorry for the late response. Pretty busy today! Uhh, don't worry about the door there! We'll have it fixed in a jiffy!" Beep.

His good buddy Freddy. The guy who he could count on to always irritate him when that cuff beeped. As far as Marcus recollected, Freddy had not been helpful once during all their lovely conversations. Even now, it seemed like he was missing the point by a mile.

"While I appreciate that Fred, there was definitely an intruder in here. Something tore up the carpet, and I've only been able to get a hold of Siena so far."

Saying it outloud certainly didn't help him to calm down. Some big monster was roaming around somewhere on campus, and he couldn't get ahold of one of his roommates. By this time, he was starting to slowly pace around the room, his brain already coming up with worst case scenarios that he had to actively try and ignore.

Several more seconds passed before Fredric answered again. "Nope! No reports of any intruders in Suite 430, Mr. Howell. Which is remarkable considering how long your door's been like that, huh? Really gotta fix that. Anyway, I can assure you that both your roommates are perfectly fine."

Both his roommates were fine. That much was enough to alleviate his worry. Normally, he'd be kind of creeped out that Fredric could tell him that so quickly, but right now he was more converned about other matters.

"You're positive? And what do you mean, 'no intruders'? There's huge claw marks in the carpet, Fred...did the dog do that? Does he have super powers too?" Marcus said, a hint of bitterness surfacing to replace the anxiety. Something here wasn't adding up, and the gears in his mind hadn't even skipped a step between worry and trying to solve this enigma.

When the cuff beeped again, Fredric could be heard sighing into the reciever, "Mr. Howell, forgive me if I sound discourteous, but I am quite busy. I don't have time to entertain your weird questions or repeat myself."

"You're right. My bad. Didn't mean to take up so much of your time. It's obvious, isn't it? Should have figured out that the huge beast marks came from one of my roommates." Marcus said, rolling his eyes despite the fact that he doubted Fred could see it. "Thanks for your help, Freddie." While delivered in a sarcastic tone, the statement was half-genuine at least; Fred had answered fifty percent of his worries, but now he had more questions than answers.

『ℂ𝕒𝕝𝕝𝕒𝕟』 『𝕄𝕒𝕣𝕔𝕦𝕤』



ℂ𝕠𝕝𝕝𝕒𝕓𝕠𝕣𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟 ℙ𝕠𝕤𝕥 / / @Baklava@Chasers115
𝕊𝕖𝕡𝕥. 𝟘𝟠, 𝟚𝟘𝟚𝟘 / / 𝕌𝕊𝔸ℝ𝕀𝕃ℕ 𝔼𝕒𝕤𝕥 / / 𝔻𝕠𝕣𝕞 𝔹𝕦𝕚𝕝𝕕𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝔸: 𝕊𝕦𝕚𝕥𝕖 𝟜𝟛𝟘 / / ~𝟚𝟛𝟛𝟘



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