[IC] Your Friendly Neighborhood Government Sanctioned Superheroes

[Blazion]

It didn’t take long to get dried off, gills having faded to smooth skin once more, and redressed in the New Horizon issued suits for Tower-use. After the time spent in the pool, as well as her field doses from the Zookeeper encounter having settled to a manageable level, Valora was feeling much better about the day. Even descending to the cafeteria level where others mingled about as well didn’t seem as awful as usual, though the scent of one man’s cologne got caught up in her noes as she passed him. Egh.

It was while rubbing her nose to try and rid herself of the smell that Valora caught sight of the two men exiting the cafeteria in front of her, and like a deer in the headlights the shapeshifter felt herself freezing to the spot. A single grey eye darted between Joseiah and Ricardo, only relaxing minutely when the latter disappeared back into the cafeteria. The puzzled look that crossed the Frenchwoman's face was obvious before she finally focused back on Joseiah, offering him the slightest of smiles.

”Good afternoon, Joseiah,” She finally greeted. ”It is... ice to see you?” Yes, that was correct. Of course before Valora could even so much as get a response Ricardo was back before her. Strangely, despite his usual demeanour of being a storm of energy trapped in a man’s body he was oddly contained. When his head dropped Valora could only stare at him quizzically, one foot planted back as though to run and fingers nervously intertwined.

Was that... a cupcake?

”It is the cupcake of apology.”

It took a few seconds for Ricardo’s words to penetrate, but when they did Valora couldn’t help but melt. It was true that her insides still twisted and some part of her wanted to nervously fidget in front of the beast of a man, but as he continued to speak that soft smile came to her lips once more. Taking a careful step forward one hand reached out to take the cupcake, her other landing on his arm.

”Thank you, Ricardo. That is very sweet of you,” The shapeshifter murmured, before leaning in to kiss his cheek in thanks. It was a bit more uncommon to be so touchy in this country, but Valora could only hope he didn’t mind the expression of gratitude. A warmth had settled in her chest seeing his restraint in order to ‘right his wrongs’, so despite the fact she wasn’t actually looking forward to it...

”I ... will join you for training in a few minutes, if that is alright? I must eat first.” Stepping back from him, now cupping the cupcake in her own hands, Valora offered Ricardo and then Joseiah a slight nod of her head. ”I will see you both soon.”

It was only as she was entering the cafeteria that Valora tensed once more seeing the mass of people, and a slight sigh escaped her lips. What had she just agreed to?

---

As much as she wanted to draw her lunch out to delay the inevitable, it would’ve been extremely rude to do so after agreeing to join in on Ricardo’s training. It helped that the crowd of people seeking lunch in the cafeteria made Valora uneasy, not just because they were all evidently New Horizon employees. As such it was a short affair before the shapeshifter was taking the elevator back upstairs, rubbing her thumb against its opposite palm in a nervous gesture.

”Someone must’ve brought their pet in to the office today,” The thought absently passed through the blonde’s mind feeling the prick of her own unusually sharp nail against pale skin. It did nothing to comfort her, but at least she was safe in the knowledge that she had no business in the offices of the lower levels.

Valora hadn’t even reached the gym before Ricardo’s booming voice could already be heard. He was back to booming, of course, his words rattling clear through the hallway as he called for Draig. It didn’t help that the distorted echo of his words burst out of her comms, making her flinch and rub at her golden-furred ear.

It was simple enough to slip into the gymnasium with Phoenix Dawn’s presence encompassing so much, though Valora wasn’t proud to admit she nearly backed right back out seeing the small crowd that had gathered inside. Slowly she edged inside, her single uncovered eye darting about nervously. She didn’t think Ricardo’s training sessions were this popular, but even Alice had shown up! Were people this interested in that debilitating exercise routine he was describing?

Taking a shuddering breath and squaring her shoulders Valora gave a smile and tiny wave to Ricardo in greeting, and a nod to Joseiah.

”Good afternoon,” The Frenchwoman nearly whispered to her Team Leader, offering a weak smile as she slipped passed her. Valora was nearly sure her words were swallowed by the noise in the room. However the woman’s comment drew Valora’s newly slitted pupils up, settling on Elliot and Silas. Immediately her eyebrows furrowed seeing the way Elliot was ... well, it wasn’t flattering, but the way she hung off Silas. The blonde tilted her head, casting a questioning gaze to her friend, a silent question if he needed help.

That was when Valora first spotted him.

Black fur, a hint of white. Long ears – her own strangely elongated ones flattening into her hair. A flicking tail – thankfully she lacked that. Most pressing of all, however, were the claws and teeth. Valora’s nails dug into her palms, feeling her hands shaking as her tongue touched her teeth, sharp and capable of tearing through flesh easily.

Her pupils dilated to slits.

”C...Ca...” The word stuttered and whimpered against her tongue which felt clumsy and heavy. Valora’s back hit the wall with a small thump as she attempted to back track to the door without actually turning her back to the five foot feline creature. What was it?! Why was it here?!

When Valora half-tripped over her own feet, catching herself on the wall a panicked hiss escaped her lips before dissolving into a pathetic, choking half-whimper. Her flight or response was in full swing, screaming in her mind. Escape, leave, danger!

Why was no one else weirded out by this?!

[Metronome]

Once the fight was over, Wraith had returned to the tower for rest and lunch. He phased through the wall of the building, into the window that he had memorized as his own. His apartment, bare and mostly untouched, wasn't very welcoming. He had kept the default decor, not caring to personalize it. What was he going to do? Put up family photos?

Ka'van shifted back, his grey cloak disappearing and the black that engulfed his body fading to the normal grey. He headed quietly to the bathroom to take a quick shower and change jumpsuits. He pulled off the tacky unitard they were given to wear and placed it on the counter. He got the hot water going and stepped into the shower stall.

As cold natured as Ka'van was, he loved the feeling of warmth. His bed had a heat blanket on it all year round, and he was known to enjoy the hot tub by the swimming pool. He stood in the shower for a moment and just let the hot water run over him before he seemed to remember why he was there. He seemed distracted. He couldn't stop thinking about that kid he'd saved; how things like that almost made this whole captivity situation worth it. At least he was still saving people, right? Ka'van scrubbed up with the Horizon issued shampoo and body wash, then, eventually, got out.

Once he was dry, it was right back into another jumpsuit. Ka'van headed out of his apartment and to the cafeteria. He rarely ever cooked for himself. Ka'van was still unfamiliar with Earth food, and learned the hard way that many of them didn't agree with his digestive track. Meat, for one.

He collected a lunch of hummus, pita chips, and fruit salad. Ka'van ate the fruit, except for the grapes, and about half of the hummus. He was never too hungry anymore. It was somewhere about the time that he was dumping his tray and heading out that he got the call from Ricardo. Which he ignored. Ka'van was known for ditching training sessions a good 95% of the time. He really only ever attended the Horizon mandatory ones.

Speaking of mandatory, it was time for his monthly physical. The heroes at Horizon always received physicals, but how often tended to vary. Seeing as he was an alien species that they knew almost nothing about, he got them fairly frequently. It was the usual affair: Weigh in, blood drawn, eyes checked, ears checked, a quick questionnaire.

"You've lost three pounds since your last exam. Are you trying to lose weight?" The doctor asked, peering over his clipboard.

"Not really."

The doctor wrote something down on the clipboard, then flipped the page. "You'd lost two pounds at your last physical." The doctor peered at him again, accusingly.

Ka'van shrugged. It wasn't like he was doing it intentionally; how was it his fault?

The doctor wrote again. "I'm going to suggest a daily routine of protein supplements, one at breakfast and one at dinner. You can have either drinks or bars as long as they have at least 20 grams of protein each."

Ka'van nodded. 'Suggested' usually meant he didn't have any say in the matter anyway. The doctor wrote the instructions down and handed them to him, like he was an idiot or something, and sent him on his way. Ka'van headed out, stuffing the paper in his pocket. He was a bit peeved at the situation. Maybe if he wasn't caged here like some sort of servant, he wouldn't have these problems. He'd been perfectly healthy before Horizon snatched him up.

He realized that his emotional scale was teetering towards anger. Perhaps he should meditate some more. Ka'van changed his course towards the rooftop park. That was his favorite place to spend time when he needed to center himself.

[Shard]

@Blazion@ShwiggityShwah

The feline creature was self-aware. He understood that there was a large difference between himself, and others. One would also be wise to note that he was read up on the concept of pets. Of course, that might have been a slightly misleading term. The information was granted, one might say. As the cat giggled at Dawn's statement, he winked at the massive man with a prevalent, somewhat mischevious grin making itself visible upon the feline's fanged snout. "I'm the best ninja, like, ever!" Onyx giggled, motioning to himself with a thumb, "but it's real easy to catch me if ya' got milkshakes." He nodded. Indeed, the cat had gotten quite addicted to sweets, and who could fault him? 

All the same, turning his attention to Silas, the feline blinked in confusion for a moment, "Woah, this one's popular! If they're gonna' make kittens, I've learned that they should find a private spot, first." Onyx noted, tapping his chin. Though, he quickly found himself pulled from the thought, his mind dispelled when yet another girl entered the gym. It was getting quite crowded, one might say. 

She appeared uncomfortable, to state the least, and this disturbance found itself fixed on Onyx, himself. With a curious tilt of his head, the cat locked his gaze upon this girl, her scent somewhat different from the rest. "That female thing is afraid of me, I think," Onyx motioned towards Shift, a clawed hand reaching towards his snout as he scratched an itch. There were countless variables to take into consideration, around these people. One man seemed to be made of light, another appeared to be in a constant state of fatigue. A girl was quite obviously in heat, and this new addition found herself in the position of fear, amongst those of a feline heritage? It was difficult to keep up. 

"Hey, you look like someone ran over your kibble!" Onyx stated, moving past the crowd which had gathered around him, and leaped towards Shift, almost a pounce, before landing next to her. His hands by his paws, the cat remained in a crouched position, his tail slowly swaying from one side to the other, "did someone run over your kibble?" He asked, with a soft frown. "Cause'," Onyx continued, "that would suck!"

Dropping to his backside, the cat perked at a thought creeping into his mind, "Oh! I know what'll fix this! A song! Let's see..," the feline needed only a moment, before proceeding, "I can't think of anything," he sighed, shaking his head. "Oh well, if life gives ya' lemon, and all that!"

[Prosaic]

---

LOCATION; THE TOWER - GYMNASIUM.
INTERACTIONS; RICARDO FENIX - @ShwiggityShwah & JOSEIAH KIMBELL - @Crazytazer & ONYX - @Shard & ELLIOT REIDER @Delta44 & ALICE JEFFERSON - @Zoey White & VALORA BEAUMONT - @Blazion

---

When Ricardo responded to him over the ear piece, he had noticed something in his tone that had struck him as odd. Sometimes he thought that his teammates and even he forgot that Ricardo took a lot of responsibility for the people that he shared a home with. It was hard to separate the man from the legend sometimea, Ricardo Fenix was a person and people had feelings. They had a tendency to joke about their little justice family, but in a way, it was like they were actually a family. The amount of support that went into taking care of each other on and off the field, it was familial.

He forgot sometimes that Ricardo could get worried too, that he wasn't just the shining example of poster-boy heroics that New Horizons painted him as. Phoenix Dawn was as big as his name, larger than life, and emblazoned in gold and fire but he was a person before all that. He was a person that was feeling guilty for his family getting hurt, and that made Silas worry for him. This small exchange had safely secured that Silas was going to be pulling the glorious Dawn aside for a nice brotherly talk very soon.

When he'd entered and greeted the two, they greeted him in turn and despite what Ricardo had asked of him, he was still too exhausted to train. He was about to find a place off to the side to settle down, and he was immediately stalled in place as a cat person? entered the room. He immediately broke into song, his voice was seductive and so was his body language. It was absolutely insane. He was stunned into silence and he watched as the kitty boy made direct eye contact with him.

There was something incredibly flirtatious about the whole display, this kitty boy didn't want to flirt with just one boy, he wanted to flirt with all of them, all at once. He had never seen anything quite like it before and he wasn't exactly sure how to process it but when the display had ended, he didn't know whether to clap or to exit the room as quickly as possible. Kitty boy introduced himself as "Onyx" and Silas could see a kind of charisma to his nature.

"Silas, I'm Silas-"

He was cut off by the entrance of Elliot, a much different Elliot than the one that he had departed from earlier. She was moving with a confident stride and greeting everyone eagerly. When she got to him, she did something that caught him off guard, she threw her arms around his neck. He rocked back slightly, only barely managing to catch himself and support her weight.

He couldn't help it, he was getting overwhelmed and flustered. The girl had her body draped against his and she was talking to him in a way that was making him blush to the roots of his hair. He needed to evacuate the situation or else he was going to have a panic attack, he was looking around for help but Ricardo seemed to just find it funny. Alice entered and inquired about his wellbeing.

"I'm- I'm fine, if Elliot would just uh..... um... perhaps give me a little breathing room? Nothing personal, of course! I just- I- uh... I-"

When Valora entered the room, she did exactly what Silas expected of Valora seeing a walking, talking cat. She began to panic and he could feel himself wanting to help her somehow but he had to disengage Elliot before he could do that. He couldn't just throw her off or step back, she'd fall over, he didn't want her fall over. He also didn't want Valora to bolt out at top speed.

He gave Elliot a little nudge, trying to indicate for her to release his neck and free him. His heart was pounding, he was sreadily turning red and he was about to start hyperventilating but he forced out a few words to Valora.

"Valora, it's going to be-"

He was cut off when Onyx decided address her instead, he couldn't help but feel like that was a terrible idea. The kitty boy was only friendly, he didn't have any ill will towards Valora but Silas knew that she wasn't going to ease into their knew teammate that easily. "O-Onyx, she's uh, she's not a fan of animals. It would probably be preferable if you weren't so close to her- It's- It's not just you, it's all animals. Elliot, can you please let me go over there?"

[Metronome]

Ka'van arrived at the park silently. He didn't have it to himself anymore, but he didn't particularly mind. The alien found a nice, quiet spot to sit and took up his meditation pose. It help, for a while, to just tune everything out and re-focus himself. He had been meditating more frequently now, struggling to keep himself in check. It seem that, with each passing day he lost a little bit more of the battle to keep the wretched demon bonded to him down.

A little while passed, and Ka'van could feel himself getting tired. After the trials of the day, he needed a nap. The alien stood and headed back down the stairs. His apartment was several floors down, but he could always use the exorcise. It took a while for him to arrive at his door, as he wasn't in any particular hurry. He began his usual pre-sleep routine: turn on the heat blanket, turn off the lights, close the curtains, and turn on his soothing white noise machine. He liked the ocean sounds the best.

Ka'van changed out of his jumpsuit into a pair of flannel pants he'd been given as a Christmas gift from one of his teammates. They had little purple devil emojis on them; very fitting. He crawled into his nest of blankets and pillows, and dozed off fairly quickly.

It didn't take him long to start dreaming, as it rarely did. This one started off fairly normal...

He was in the tower, on his way to Ricardo's room to pick up some sort of new team gear. Why? He wasn't sure. It seemed kind of out of place for their team leader to be giving out gear. Usually Horizon gave it to them personally. He took a deep breath before he knocked on the man's door. He really didn't want to be here; Ka'van didn't like being alone with their leader. He didn't like being at the center of the man's attention. One could say he was...intimidated by the man's loudness and aggression, even if it was unintentional.

Ricardo swung the door open and greeted Ka'van with a typically loud and brash voice, making the alien internally cringe.

"I'm just here to pick up the new equipment," Ka'van said, his own voice almost immediately drowned out by the other man. Typical; he rarely got a word in edgewise. At some point, he'd just stopped responding to him.

Ricardo beckoned him over to his kitchen table to give him whatever this new equipment was. Ka'van tried to look around his massive form to see it, but was unsuccessful. It seemed to him like Dawn was intentionally trying to block his view. Then, the team lead spun and attempted to grab Ka'van. The alien flitted away just barely, phasing defensively to avoid his touch. Ricardo held two power dampening bracelets, which he was attempted to slap onto Ka'van's wrists.

"I can't wear those, you know that." Ka'van could feel a bit of panic welling up. He tried to phase through the wall, but couldn't. New technology to keep him from escaping? He wasn't sure. The look on Ricardo's face was becoming ever more twisted and demonic. He was spouting nonsense about how Ka'van must yield to JUSTICE and therefore must be controlled.

As a last resort, the alien began grabbing whatever items in the room he could find with his telekinetic powers, throwing them wildly at the man. The room was quickly trashed, comics and booze splayed out everywhere in broken disarray. During the whole frenzy, a dark shape lurked in the far background. It was pitch black, two red dots representing beady eyes. The thing was, however, very blurry. As if it was out of focus or something. Neither hero seemed to even notice that it was there. It watched the scene silently, seeming very satisfied by the general chaos.

In his bed, Ka'van was twitching and developing a cold sweat. Little to his knowledge, his powers were reaching out and actively reenacting his actions in his dream. Down the hall, Ricardo's room was actually getting trashed.

[RumikoOhara]

---

Sydney was thrilled when her packages arrived even though the minders had muddled up the temporal stream; she had learned how to deal with that since coming to the Tower Prison.

Today’s packages contained a vial of sand from Waikiki gathered by a couple of girls who’d become fans of her’s and had sent her other trinkets of their trips so Sydney could enjoy little vacations away from the entrapping walls around her. Another was made of pressed rose petals from a wedding, and then still another which contained an odd billet of metal from a member of the international Space Agency which came from the Station orbiting high above the earth; the later she’d asked for when she had discovered that Jean was a payload specialist.

So she lay them each on neutral clothes she ordered from a manufacturer who made them for surgical use and were untouched by people which helped to shield her from the temporal interference of the living but before she could begin her Minder chimed in and interrupted her.

It was the Shrinker Doc Myers and she said she wanted her to come down to her office immediately.

“It figures” thought the tall teenager. She knew that the shrink knew she’d just received packages and could hold over their purity as a leash under threat of quarantining them and muddling up their timelines with the local ones.

For a brief moment she thought of heading down in her micro Boxers and Bra but knew such a display would only make the session drag on as the shrink delved into her sex life or lack of one. So she threw on her drab prison coverall and gave her new treasures a longing look before heading out.

When she arrived outside of the shrinker’s door Sydney knocked then waited for the buzz of the magnetic lock then stepped inside.

Behind her desk sat Doc Myers who looked up with a polite smile saying [b]Please have a seat Sydney[/url]

Sydney complied sitting with a sort of flop one gives the nosy school guidance counselor and as much enthusiasm.

What’s up Doc? she asked with a sigh her body language displaying her annoyance with the whole visit.

Sydney I know you’d rather be doing anything else but this but you know as well as I that it is something we need to do; after all you watched 5 girls about your age raped, mutilated and tortured along with having their bodies disrespected even in death. said the older woman with genuine concern in her tone and body language.

Doc it's not as if it were my first time or will be my last; it's what I do, what I want to do.

Because of me they will hunt a catch or kill the sicko who did it and other girls won’t need to worry about the creep who did it. Frankly I was surprised by how sloppy he was and the unit’s inability to read basic clues.

I worry that their dependence on me is making them sloppy said Sydney leaning forward placing her elbows on the edge of the doctor’s desk so she could rest her chin on the palms of her hands as she looked into the shrinks eyes.

Doc looked a little annoyed when she made contact with her desk knowing that even such casual contact would allow the Meta girl to read her office and become privy to everything that had happened in there.

Sydney please don’t lean on my desk; we’ve talked about this.

It's not fair that you read the private thoughts and confession of your teammates who I chat with. said the woman in as authoritarian a tone as she could muster.

Still mad that I know how hot you think Ka’van is and how you… she said not finishing as she could see the danger in the shrink’s eyes.

[eclecticwitch]

It was so relaxing and warm to be submerged in the bath. Around her candlelight flickered, giving the darkness a chance to dance. Bronzed fingers moved through the soapy water, ensuring her whole body would be clean. She lifted them, scooping up some of the bubbles and held them up to her lips. She blew causing them to either raise into the air or fall about in frothy disarray.

Breaking her silent requiem the stupid watch thing beeped from a nearby counter. It was calling her to action. Excitement gripped her stomach as she quickly raised herself from the bath. Lifting it up and fiddled with the object. Despite years of using it she still did not have the hang. She pressed a couple of buttons until she found the right one. "I will be right there," she said. Her accent was thick sounding similar to a Spanish accent but her 'S's were elongated and emphasis was put into 'K' and 'CH' sounds. Her vowels were rounded and lyrical.

"Oh... No, that's okay Yatzil." A voice came through the object. "You just.... relax today."

"Relax?" she demanded of the watch. "My help is always needed."

"Well, you see..." There was silence for a moment. "They are fighting robots! Technology. Its okay we understand, just... stay home." She wrinkled her nose and growled softly.

"Fine." Fighting whatever robots were sounded terrible. The only way she knew this was because they said the dreaded word. Technology. She tossed the watch aside and took the time to rinse off the bubbles from her body. Since she had nowhere to be she styled her hair in its usual loose waves and applied some eye make up. She suspected it had something to do with her last mission. It wasn't her fault she had decimated that cute little pharmacy down town. If that blaggard hadn't moved out of the way and let her hit him she would have never hit the building! What was she supposed to do with her time now?

Yatzil decided, even though she had just taken a bath, perhaps she would train. She blew out her candles and exited to the main part of the room. It was simple and surprisingly neat despite her energetic and chaotic nature. There were colours everywhere. In throw rugs of a tribal design, wall hangings and decoration. There were also candles placed about the room. When the hum and buzz of electric light became too much she would light these instead. For now, she used the lights normally. The only other technology in the room was a flat screen television she was supposed to use to watch the news. It had recently been changed out from her old tube television that she had just started getting used to. The flat screen was covered by a blue and green mandala decorated sheet. She had also recently received a new computer. From her old, big fat monitor style from the 80s to this flat, this thing she was terrified she would break. This too she had been hesitant to use and remained on a desk without having been turned on in months.

She threw on a pair of very small black shorts and wife-beater style tank beneath her Tower Grays. From a closet, she grabbed her oversized composite bow. It was nearly as tall as Yatzil. She had decorated it with coloured threads and feathers hung from either end. The arrows she made herself, slim wood and falcon feather. While Yatzil was conservative about new technologies she loved her composite bow. With a large grin on her face, she left her room and entered the gym.

Since the heroes had left, she could have full access to the space. She set up a couple of targets at one end of the gym and she stood at the other. Her first shot was off the mark, just outside of the center. The next hit dead center. Yes. Pulling back her bowstring again, she breathed in, breathed out, and let the arrow fly. It pushed the arrow at the center through the target and shattered it in the process. Beautiful.

Since she felt suitably warmed up she removed the grays and tossed them to the side. Her practice consisted of rolling, jumping and climbing things while loosing arrows at the targets. Most hit their marks. A couple had embedded themselves in the walls. Oops. Unfortunately her practice was cut short as Dawn called together a group of people for practice. The cat danced and Valor got scared. Typical. The whole thing looked like a zoo. She loved sweet, sweet chaos but this was too much. She sighed setting aside the bow and approached her fellow heroes.

"What is it that be going on here? Looks like party." A feral smile spread across her face as she tilted her head up toward Dawn. She placed her hands on her hips, cocking one toward him. "Want some help?" she inquired in a light, teasing purr.

[Shard]

One often wonders where the ever stretching pavement of a passing day will take you. It was, however, a thought which had left a certain absence in Willow's mind. This was just another prison, a statement he proceeded to chant within the recess of a flayed soul. "It's not that bad, now is it?" A voice echoed within the walls of Willow's sanity, the young man's slender fingers digging into his scalp. "Just kill them all!" Came another voice, "no! Don't put yourself at a disadvantage! Not yet! Wait until they are sleeping. All these 'heroes'," a third joined him, each a ghostly string of words as if formed by his very own lips. "What do they know of suffering? Of anger!? Show them, Willow!" Clenching his teeth, Willow breathed a sharp breath, his body tensing as a bare foot felt the cold, metallic tiles against its sole. 

"Willow?" This time, one was sure to note that words came to greet his wears from an external source, the nurse. "I believe we should raise your prescribed medication," she continued, taking notes. 

"What does she know!?" The wrathful words were a scream, "she wants to silence us, Willow!" As if a screeching banshee clawing the sides of his skull, an older voice came to accompany him, "we are your only friends, Willow." This one was was somewhat softer, no, quite notably so. "We were with you when your parents hurt you," it proceeded, "in the asylum, during your beatings, when you tried to jack off..," it chuckled, "we're you. We are all you. That will never change." 

"Thanks," the young man finally spoke, his silent and raspy voice a mere whisper as he stood, leaving the hospital bed vacant. "I'll be fine." 

"We'll make sure to keep it, that way," the nurse smiled, allowing Horizon's new addition to step out of the medical examination room. 

"You're no fun, Willow," a voice bellowed, "you didn't even make her your puppet," it instigated. "Idiot, if he did that, we'd be in deep shit!" Another responded. Indeed, in a way, it was quite entertaining to listen to these conflicting opinions. As if every feeling within the boy's heart had been given a mind of its own, each in constant argument with the other. He was well aware that these voices were mere fiction, something brought to life through the fractured pieces of his sanity. Even so, the voices actually looked out for him. They never wanted him to hurt himself but rather aimed their wrath at others to prevent Willow from being hurt, yet again. 

One would be a fool to dismiss their insanity. Willow's extremes, every emotional turmoil which would otherwise boil over had been given a tune to sing, and for him to hear. "Shut up," he spoke, out of earshot of anyone else. 

"There he is!" The internal tormentors responded, "we missed you, Willow!" 

"I worry," the boy spoke, dropping to a sofa in the shared common room. It would appear that most inhabitants were present at the gym, a place he wouldn't be caught dead in. "There are at least two people here with the ability to hear you."

"Exciting, isn't it!?" A response came, "we all look forward to meeting them," it continued, "greeting them," a second voice pitched in, "feeling them," a third came, "killing them?" A fourth asked. "Why do you always have to ruin it!? Piss off!" 

Slipping a headset over his ears, the troubled young man turned some music on, and made sure to raise the volume. This was perfect. The music always drowned the voices out, and it allowed for a moment's rest. Others might have considered the volume quite high, but for Willow, it was quite perfect. Sometimes, however, listening to a relaxing tune worked, as well. The voices were part of Willow, they were the fractals of his mind. Sometimes, they were quiet and simply listened, other times they sang along. It was difficult to count exactly how many voices were within his head but Willow had been able to dot an angry voice, a sultry one, and a careful tune. It varied, with those three being the foremost and prominent contenders. 

Running a hand up his scrawny torso, a gentle breath managed its way out of his lips, large, black eyes turning to look at the television. He could not hear what the characters were saying, but subtitles were enough to dispell the issue. How often would he need to head out and fight crime, along with the others? How often would he be placed in front of a fanatic with a gun? Willow's ability was unforgiving at its most merciful of levels. Horizon would undoubtedly wish to show him to the world, at their own peril. Horizon's heroes were colorful, they were spectacular, and none of them was a Reaper. Even the darker heroes were heroic. That was not Willow. The boy was not afraid of getting hurt. He was not afraid of others, not in the slightest. In fact, he had reached a level of apathy where external conflict barely even affected him. However, he was quite terrified of what would happen, if he unleashed his powers. The last time it happened, he left mutilated corpses in his wake. It happened with his parents, and it happened at the asylum.

With that in mind, Willow's voices were not evil. They were psychotic, but not evil. As if beasts of the most fundamental emotional streams, they were driven by passion. "You guys won't break me," he spoke up, lowering the volume of his music. 

"Break you?" A voice responded, "we would never do that, our dearest, most precious Willow! We're here to protect you!" It spoke, "to love you!" Another added. "Maybe you should as one of those mind wizards to put you inside your head so we can really pleasure you..," a chuckle emanating from within his skull.

"Piss off," the boy sighed, sinking down in the sofa with an arm covering his eyes. 

[Zoey Boey]

Alice Jefferson

"Okay, if you say so." Alice responded to Silas, raising an eyebrow. She hadn't been paying too much attention to anything else, which is her face made a half confused, half disgusted look at the sight of a person in a cat suit. But, then, of course, that wasn't true, was it? It was Onyx. Mmmm-mmm. No, that ain't good.

"Valora?" She searched for her communications device to let Valora know not to come-.

Too late. Too, too late. Poor little darling was having a panic attack and that fool cat was all over her!

"You're gonna be all right, Val!" Alice stood from her chair and quickly jogged over to the situation, putting herself between Onyx and Valora. She grabbed Valora by the arm and put a small Hard Light wall between her and Onyx, more for Valora's comfort of having to move slightly closer to her phobia in order to get away from it. Hopefully, with a wall interplaced she could get out of there and be appropriately prepared next time.

"Okay, it's okay. Look at me. You're all right, you're okay. Let's get on out of here, all right? He ain't followin' us, sweetheart." She cooed, attempting to lead her away from the wall and out of the gymnasium. As she whispered, she briefly looked over her shoulder at Onyx, raising her eyebrows as a silent command to stay put. Hopefully, Valora was going along with Alice as the doors to the gymnasium slid open and closed behind her.

@Blazion

[Duoya]

Alkaline

Interactions: @Zoey White, @ShwiggityShwah, @Crazytazer, @Shard, @Delta44, @Blazion, @Prosaic

---

The conflict had only grown as time went on - Jane was in total confusion as she simply stood still, frozen. People were yelling, the giant monsters were far more intimidating than she thought they were, and if she had a stomach, it would be turning from the nerves. Luckily, she didn't have to think long about her nervousness.

Because quickly, she was gripped in a large, powerful hand, and after instinctively rounding herself out and forming a sphere, she was quickly thrown with incredible force at the mechanical rhino. Well, Jane had no idea what was happening - she simply stayed silent as she slammed against the rhino, coating it in her body, still rigid in fear. Jane could feel the internal mechanisms, desperately resisting her restraining form - but by now, the mighty Alkaline knew what to do! Covering parts of the limbs, Jane quickly made herself like liquid cement, and the effect was obvious due to the rhino's slowed movements.

Staying still and doing her best to restrain the rhino's movements, Jane only was reminded of the others from Pheonix's screaming of his special move. Quickly looking, She was instantly covered in dust, which she rapidly began to dissolve. By the time it was cleared, she simply saw that the entire block was destroyed... Along with most of the robots. In fact, she was shocked to realize that the rhino wasn't even active while she was still restraining it. Jane immediately sloughed off of the rhino's underside, slamming into the ground with a loud "Splash."

"That was amazing Phoenix! Great JUSTICE!"

Jane quickly moved the headphones upside down, before positioning them near the edge of her form - an impromptu smile. Even though she was a distance away, she liked to think that hero's were meant to smile...

Well, real heroes. Jane didn't do anything really - but hey, it was her first mission, right? She'll get better! Yep, optimism was the best way to stay liked - especially when you looked like a puddle.

---

Upon making it back to the tower, Jane quickly made her way to the bottom floor sink, before drinking heavily - that special move, while effective in taking the rhino out of combat, splattered her a fair bit. Upon getting to normal size, she quickly dripped from the counter. Upon finally landing on the floor, She quickly began to make her way out of the kitchen, passing another pair of heroes as she left. She had been rather silent since the mission ended, having felt rather useless during the whole thing. She tried to cheer herself up, but it was really embarrassing that she let the veterans do all the work - after all, she wanted to help lessen their burden, not make it even harder. She planned to talk to Victory and Phoenix about it later - preferably one on one. That way, it'd be less awkward for them...

Who was she kidding - it was so she felt less awkward.

She quickly did her little ritual - roaming the halls. She adopted it a week after joining, and while it was a little childish, she enjoyed exploring the massive tower. It was seriously huge! At least, compared to the crappy apartment she grew up in, this place was paradise. Jane also liked to clean up the halls, picking up loose debris as she passed and quickly dissolving it - a cleaner named Miguel even bought her a movie from outside the tower as thanks! Well, the tower has a ton of movies, and she really couldn't even push in the disk for obvious reasons, but it was the thought that counted!

After a good 30 minutes, she easily managed to complete the first 3 floors, and after informing another staff member that they wouldn't need cleaning, she made her way to the gym. She knew more than anyone that lifting weights was pointless since she didn't have any muscles, but she still couldn't get over the fact that she could pick up super heavy weights so easily - just changing her density let her move weights off the ground and to the top of her body. She always felt like a super hero when she picked up a barbell that was bending from the weight with relative ease. It was kinda dumb, but she found it really fun, even after doing it for a week or two.

By the time she showed up, there was someone just finishing up singing a song she couldn't hear due to the door being closed, opening it to reveal Onyx, Silas, Joseiah, Eliott, and even Phenoix were already there! She greeted the group, doing her best to stop from bubbling in excitement - it was so exciting, they could all work out as a team! That would be great to build trust, and not to mention it would be super cool to eat after with everybody after they were done. Jane quickly snapped herself to attention as Phoenix described the workouts they would be doing, before immediately collapsing when he brought out the robots.

She quickly reformed into her sphere, albeit a little shaken. She HATED the training bots - after a certain difficulty, they were strong enough to break through her restraints, and she couldn't really do anything to stop that. Not to mention, they were really scary looking...

Valora and Victory entered, but very quickly they left, leaving Jane rather perplexed - didn't they want to hang out and exercise? Maybe they got scared of the robots - If it was possible for Ms. Victory to be scared of anything, that is! Quickly turning her attention to Phoenix, she moved a pool of water upwards, and formed a small thumbs up, showing her enthusiasm the best she could. She then yelled out, doing her best to replicate the enthusiasm that Phoenix usually had.

"I am ready to exercise at once, Mr. Phoenix!"

[RumikoOhara]

---

”I know you’re hurting inside Sydney, you’re lashing out at me to vent your pain.

I know your position her in the Tower is brutal on you mentally and no one here to share the burden but I am here for you and if it means you use me as your punching bag then I’ll be there for you. said Doc Myers her eyes filled with sympathy and the hunger of her profession to crack open the heads of their chosen subject of interest.

Sydney thought of screaming to shock her but kept it mostly to herself as her body gave her annoyance away letting the doc know she’d got to her so instead she went confessional.

You think you know why I’m mad and you are so far of base Doc, you think all your books and lectures have given you magical powers to understand people like me and its ticking me off.

I was attacked today by a Metal Snake after I fell into a concrete shaft then discarded or forgotten in that same stinking hole while the people better suited to fighting such monsters finished the mission. says the Pink haired young woman standing abruptly because if she doesn’t move she will scream.

Her blue eyes lock on the Doc’s with palpable fury hitting the older woman almost like a physical blow so focused is her body language her muscles in her neck standing out like cables of stainless steel.

Then to top it off a Minder team finally comes looking for me and when they do I am threatened with bodily injury by their commander for wasting his time, accused of trying to escape and in hack because his anger was so strong it set off my probability guardian. He was clearly going to make me feel pain or cause me harm because that’s all I’ve ever known to set it off so quickly.

Why am I angry you’re wanting to ask I’ll tell you why; “No one asked me if I wanted to join this circus act, no one gave me a choice and when I am done doing my duty as I always do and i will admit grudgingly. I can’t unwind like you and everyone else not so cursed by going out, maybe to eat, maybe to window shop or some other normal thing.

No it’s right into a patrol car and over to a college to see the deaths of several girls and not even a thank you for my efforts. Says Sydney her eyes now almost seeming to blaze with her anger as she leans close to the Doctor across her desk.

I would have gone to the crime scene even if no one asked if I had of been given the choice but I am not afforded such a privilege.

No I’m caged, ordered, threatened, and put in here because I’m dangerous because of my biology but the murderer I was asked to help catch a genetically normal human was free to commit his crimes and there are still others out there not just murderering but raping, molesting, and abusing fellow normals.

I assure you that I am able to remove myself from the effects of my observations of such horrors because i have a higher calling, I am the witness, the speaker of the dead so that they and their families know closure. But you still think watching him cut open those girls as they screamed and begged him to stop is where you should focus your efforts.

You want to know what else really pisses me off?

I am 18 years old and I have no friends my age, I am used as your snitch because the interrogators can read me. Add to that I am forced to Fallback my teammates rooms to see if they’ve hidden anything in them or asked to fallback their private conversation because you and the OLs know how wrong what you are doing is and you’d rebel yourselves if under the same yoke you were placed.

Now if you don’t mind Mistress this slave girl wants to no longer look at or hear you! she snaps then is out the door and stomping down the hall to the elevator knowing later she’ll be made to pay for not being a good little girl

[Shard]

'Good evening, Mr. Creed.

I have been studying your most peculiar case, and I must say, I find it quite intriguing. You are not the first victim of such traumatic effects, but surely, you are the latest. Indeed, from what we have been able to gather, your voices vary quite drastically in amount, and strength, yes? Filtering through the various forms of medication you have consumed throughout the years, I have not yet witnessed a lasting effect. I will be frank with you, Mr. Creed. The medication you have relied on up until this point has left me rather unsatisfied, given the results.

Despite my inquiry to keep you from field duty, it has been decided that you shall indeed join your comrades when the time comes. However, this letter is not solely a means of negativity. No, what you have in the accompanying box is an experimental drug. I repeat, Mr. Creed, that it is experimental. Needless to say, the medication now in your possession is highly radical and not quite approved by medical peers.

What it aims to do is to stabilize the voices, repairing the various fractals of your mind into a more bearable foe. Use the drug at your own peril. However, if you choose to indulge, be sure to pass on the results.

Signed, Doctor Campell.'

It was a highly unexpected delivery which graced Willow's company, as he stepped into his room. A letter from the Horizon head doctor was surely an event worthy of praise, no? Though, the young mutant would be a fool to disregard the contents of the letter he had just read. Use at your own peril? An ominous statement, to be sure. However, it was quite clear that Doctor Campell wanted to maintain total transparency. If taking the drug he had offered would make a difference, it was worth it, wasn't that right? Though, it could just as well go terribly wrong, and everyone involved was aware of such a result. "Don't do it, Willow!" Came a voice to deter him, slender fingers going to gently open the small, metallic box offered alongside the letter. "It will only hurt you more, Willow!" Came another. 

With an obsidian gaze fixed upon the drug neatly packaged into the foam interior of the metal box, Willow was unable to tear his sights from the single, black pill contained within. How could it get worse? His voices never stopped, they never left him alone. There was rarely ever a moment's silence. How could it get worse, from here? 

Releasing the pill from its foam confines, Willow felt his heart rate accelerating. A glass of water had already been prepared for him, as if Doctor Campell knew the outcome long before it came to pass. What exactly was the alternative? Was Willow going to maintain a state of perpetual limbo where he was slowly torn to pieces by the insanity which had plagued him for several years, now? "We'll never forgive you!" The plastic pill was quite a contrast from the boy's pale skin, a dark swirl of blackness coating its shape. "After everything we've been through together, dearest Willow? Would you risk it!?"

Silence struck, for a brief moment. A gulp came to travel down the mutant's throat, his determination wavering for but an instant before being replaced by a steadfast endurance. "Yes," Willow answered, a short reply which would proceed to surely affect the rest of his existence before he placed the pill on his tongue, and flushed it down with a glass of water.

Struck by an immediate sense of fatigue, Willow felt an immense pain echoing throughout his head. The voices were screaming, never letting up. He was unable to sift through the words now blasting the walls of his sanity, shattering what felt like the last bastion of his strength. Before long, Willow dropped to the floor, his consciousness fading without pause. 

"My, oh my," a voice came to pierce the veil of silence. Indeed, silence. Was it truly so? With nary a droplet of strength remaining within him, Willow forced his eyes open to greet the dim light of his room. How long had it been? It was impossible to tell. "You actually did it," the voice continued with a soft chuckle, a pair of pale, bare feet visible at the edge of Willow's sight. 

"What the fuck..," the mutant groaned, rubbing his forehead before clumsily stumbling to a sitting position. It did not take long, once his eyes adjusted, to widen at the sight. Grinning back at him, Willow saw none other than a perfect reflection of himself. Repairing the fractals of his mind? Yes, he recalled the letter. "Holy shit..," the boy groaned once more, still feeling the pain emanating throughout his head. 

"Oh, come on," the reflection rolled his eyes, a hand reaching out for Willow to pull him towards his feet.

"H-how the hell can you touch me!?" The boy stumbled back towards his bookshelf, his heart beating against his ribs with such force that he nearly felt it shattering his ribs. "You're not real! You're me!"

"Congratz'," the reflection clapped his hands together with less than ample enthusiasm, "by that logic, what would asking me lead to? I'm you, obviously," he motioned towards Willow, "I'm even dressed in the same, sad, bullshit clothes you got going." 

"What the hell happened?" Willow tried, extending his hand in disbelief, feeling his palm connect with the full shape of this creature. 

Grinning back at the boy, his reflection teasingly flicked Willow's nose, "is it really that fucking inconceivable, Willow? The voices in your noggin' were always you, I'm you, get it? They were all made more bearable by making it one voice." The reflection smirked, "me." 

"But you're here! How the hell can you be here!?" The boy motioned towards his mirror image.

"Remember those side effects? I think, well..., you think, that your fucked up head manifested me as a way of coping with all your bullshit." The reflection tapped his chin, in deep thought.

"But you're physical!" Willow was clearly unable to get past that specific issue.

"Well, to you I am," the creature vanished from sight, only to appear behind Willow in an instant, his arms lovingly draped around the boy's shoulders, "we're gonna' have so much fun together, Willow!" 

"Holy shit..."

[Delta44]

Eliott didn't seem to be paying much attention to anything in her vicinity, even Silas. She was just enjoying being a complete idiot as she loosely clung to his frame, completely unable to support herself. He gave her a nudge, but that only seemed to make Eliott want to be more of an idiot.
His request for her to get off, however, seemingly got through to her.
"Aww man. Fiiiiine. Boring."

She didn't even try to right herself, her body sliding off of him like it had suddenly become slippery. There was a loud slap as her hands and arms hit the ground to catch herself. Eliott's body was still as a plank, though given a few moments, she got to her feet with a groan. "Ow." Her arms and hands were red from the collision, and she dusted herself off, despite not collecting any dust.
She looked upset.
"Lemme fight one of them bot things; I can rattle it apart, watch!" Announced Eliott confidently, walking over to Dawn and the two robots. She gave one of the machines a firm kick, digging her heel into the metal, not that it was leaving any sort of mark. "Get these bracelets off and I'll win five out of five, and turn these guys into scrap metal."

She'd already begun stretching. She was going to fight one of these things at some point, it was just a matter of when she could get the bracers off.
If she could get them off.
She'd fight them with them on, at this point. She wasn't especially livid or angry. Just really, really salty...

[Prosaic]

---

LOCATION; THE TOWER - GYMNASIUM.
INTERACTIONS; KA'VAN SOERAY - @Metronome

---

Freedom.
Elliot had released him and he was already reeling backwards as quickly as possible. He didn't like to be touched unless he initiated it and he had certainly not initiated that. It was in his best interests to evacuate the gym as quickly as possible. With an apologetic wave at Ricardo, he quickly beelined out the door and didn't look back. He'd help Elliot out later in her dreams but he wasn't going to subject himself to sexual harassment in his work place.

He liked Elliot, sure, but he wasn't comfortable with all this flirting. He needed space to breathe. When he entered the hallway, he drew in a breath of air to clear his lungs. It was like exiting a burning room, he immediately started to feel better. Alice had taken to helping Valora, he didn't want to interrupt them so he made a plan to catch up with Valora later. He worried about her nearly nonstop, and he was sure that Onyx must have dealt a great deal of fear to her.

As he was walking, intent on returning to the safety of his room, he was getting that nagging feeling that made him aware that someone was dreaming nearby. It wouldn't have stopped him normally, but normally there wouldn't have been someone dreaming in the Tower during the day. It was odd and that oddness was enough to make him reach out for the person, and he slipped into their dream seamlessly. In the real world, Silas' body had just hit the ground like a rock, but in the dream realm, he was standing outside of Ricardo's bedroom.

He stepped through the door, letting his body phase through it, just in time to see chaos ensuing.

...The alien flitted away just barely, phasing defensively to avoid his touch. Ricardo held two power dampening bracelets, which he was attempted to slap onto Ka'van's wrists.

"I can't wear those, you know that." Ka'van could feel a bit of panic welling up. He tried to phase through the wall, but couldn't. The look on Ricardo's face was becoming ever more twisted and demonic. He was spouting nonsense about how Ka'van must yield to JUSTICE and therefore must be controlled.

As a last resort, the alien began grabbing whatever items in the room he could find with his telekinetic powers, throwing them wildly at the man. The room was quickly trashed, comics and booze splayed out everywhere in broken disarray. During the whole frenzy, a dark shape lurked in the far background. It was pitch black, two red dots representing beady eyes. The thing was, however, very blurry. As if it was out of focus or something. Neither hero seemed to even notice that it was there. It watched the scene silently, seeming very satisfied by the general chaos.

Silas was like that watching creature in a way, just here to see and not to directly act. He was unlike that watching creature in the way that nothing about this was satisfying for him. He was actually becoming increasingly anxious at the dream incarnates of his friends and how they were seemingly locked inside of a sort of battle. This was all a part of Ka'van's psyche, obviously, but it was still very scary. It was also worrisome.

If Ka'van was dreaming that Ricardo was his enemy then that meant that there was some sort of unsettled feeling there. Maybe he thought that they were all against him or maybe he thought that Ricardo specifically had done something to slight him. Nonetheless, it was bad. So, Silas did what any good dream manipulator would. He voided the dream completely, scrapped it like a bad word document.

Whatever watching force that had conjured this dream would be watching their work crumble right before their eyes.

He quickly freed himself from the dreamscape, scrambling to his feet, and hurried towards Ka'van's room. He knocked on the door avidly, perhaps a bit too avidly. It sounded like a police raid and it was just as insistent.

[ShwiggityShwah]

"Work it harder, makes us better, do it faster, makes us stronger!"

@Prosaic@Delta44@Duoya@Zoey White@eclecticwitch@Blazion@Shard@Crazytazer

---

Having assembled the team Dawn had to essentially learn first hand what herding cats was all about. He was proud, but then, little by little things took a turn for the weird.

First, Shift made her appearance, something Dawn would have been right happy with since it would be their second time to try and hang out. Then- the cat. Suddenly there just had to be a cat in the mix which caused Shift to summarily flee. Dawn, being always of sunny disposition, could neither blame Onyx or Shift for what happened. So instead Dawn called out after her. "We're supposed to run around the track! Around it!" He tried calling after her with cupped hands over his mouth. He then stroked his chin. "Hmm, maybe she is going the long way." He stuck his thumb up with a big smile. "Good thinking!"

And then Victory. AGAIN! Another hero he would have thoroughly enjoyed to train, sweat, and encourage in the activities of sportmanship. "Greetings Victory!" He grinned happily with a wave. Then Victory chased after Shift, leaving the room. "Goodbye Victory!" He grinned happily with a wave, a slight twitch in his eye.

And finally Silas left, after being attacked by Decibel. Detecting Silas' reaction. Dawn did mildly come to his compatriot's rescue. Maybe only slightly. "Decibel, give the man some air, and bring all that energy down here!" She finally did let them go, and he could see a very scared Silas taking his cue to exit. Dawn pouted his lips before he raised a thumbs up and a smile. As if to say, Don't worry, there's always next time. I got you bro. he made sure to get all the attention on him, he nodded and took one of the bots. "Alright, I guess we can start with the fun first. What level Decibel- four, f-?" There was a maximum 10 levels and while he wanted to push them, he didn't want them to get hurt either.

Then he had a bit of good news, from two places.

For once, Yatzil had shown up, her lithe form approaching the group and offering her hand. And it looked like she was ready for a go. Dawn turned on the dime, seeming thrilled. "Yatzil! Aren't you a glorious site to behold!?" He made a fist pump. "Sorry you missed the action earlier. Just some robots. Big heaping piles of GARBAGE before our unbeatable might! Figured we celebrate a little bit by getting a celebratory work out in! Thankfully we got the fun ones here so it's all we need!" He threw his head back. "Decibel wants to take on a rust bucket, so I suggest we get a nice big three way bout of unbridled JUSTICE between you, me and Blizzkreig here! Free for all!" He pounds his fist and looks to be ready for action. "What do you say? Last person standing gets favors from the other two! Get that blood really boiling." He was flexing by how excited he was. Adrenaline pumping, sparks of fire coming off of his arms, the gold from his fists growing over his forearms and biceps as he got into a mutai martial art fighting style-

And then, came the voice of excitment.

Jane had made her way, offering a thumbs up just like he did. Dawn's determination and fighting poise wavered as he looked near his feet at his fellow comrade at arms. "Alkaline you made it!" He smiled, his teeth shining as he returned the thumbs up. He then looked up and put a fist in his hand. "This might be the best time-" Dawn turned back to Yatzil. "I apologize my fellow heroes, but I have been developing a training program for Alkaline that I need to mentor her on." He made a motion as if moving glasses up his nose, he didnt have any. In fact he did a lot of over the top movements as he attempted to show how cool and proud of himself that he was. "Ladies and gentlemen. I PHOENIX DAWN! Have studied for days through over a thousand books!" No one knew if he read any... I have developed the perfect routine to make Alkaline, our Alkaline, the GREATEST of SUPERHEROES!

When I am done, NO EVIL CAN HIDE! NO FOE CAN RUN! NO VILLAIN WILL ESCAPE HER JUSTICE! He spread his arms and flexed with all the might in his massive form as he address Alkaline. "ARE YOU READY!?" He asked, his face full of rage and conviction and RIGHTEOUS FURY!

He then simply held his hand out into the air. She'd have to stretch up 6 feet! "Touch my hand!"

[RumikoOhara]

---

Sydney practically ran to her room then once the door is closed she screamed and she ripped the drab gray cover off her body then flung it at the wall. Once she was wearing at least under garments of her choosing she activated her sound system and video monitor with a vocal command bringing up a Taekwondo kata set to music and began mirroring the girl centered in the video her lean lithe form rippling with genetically enhanced muscles.

Her body another aspect of her curse didn’t even need stretching or warming up as she performed the war dance almost perfectly and should she have been entered in the competition would have garnered at the very least a bronze. Her kicks and hands snapped with the authority of a mistress of the art as she went through smooth transitions from spinning back fist to somersault kick then into a rapid combination of jumping kicks and slashing fists in the leopard style used by the olympic team performer she mimicked.

It is the ultimate expression of violence and anger displayed in the powerful body language begun 2,300 years ago on the Asian peninsula thrusting like a lover towards Japan its hereditary enemy and cousin and she uses it to let her body scream at full power and fury. She knows they had offered to teach her such arts but she’s witnessed their sessions and was afraid her probability effect might lash out mistaking focus for intent opening the floor beneath their feet and swallowing them in an avalanche of concrete and steel so she had been trying to learn on her own by copy catting what she can observe.

Her training as a dancer and her body’s natural grace made such things possible but even she knew it was mostly useless in actual combat because it taught no lesson in hand to hand tactics meaning only her Black cat guardian could help her win against an experienced and high ranking normal; against a meta she’d only survive by those whiskers.

Practice was not why she did what she did, she knew if she stopped she’d cry and the idea made her boil to know that she’d let things get to her. Sweat began to coat her body and fly off her in a fine mist with each move staining the wall and making the monitor look as if had being caught in the dew. Her skin shimmered with the oils released with her sweat and more viscosus her breathing was smooth despite her effort her cardio barely topping 95 but even then she began to feel what people call the burn as her body tapped its fight or flight reserves.

---

Doctor Myers office

---

The Doctor sat at her desk amazed at the fury of her favorite subject and it pleased her that it showed how right she was about the murderer scene affecting Sydney and wondered if she should have her placed on mood stabilizers. She was not one of the fighters in the Tower but the pink haired girl was still a meta and her body still developing. The Guards took a more relaxed pose around her than they did the others but they were just being sloppy; Sydney’s power physically was more than a match for them and exceeding them in endurance fueled as it is by her youth.

Still as disturbing the display of anger she couldn’t help but admire her body and even feel a twinge of jealousy over her youth and grace and was shocked when she sees one of those long legs suddenly lashed forward crushing the 60” monitor screen causing the fire alarm to go off instantly because of the toxic smoke issued by the abused electronics.

---

Sydney’s room

---

Sydney dropped to the floor less than a second after she kicked the screen her ankle throbbing in pain and then she cursed for dual reasons the first because she knew the Minders would burst in and see her on the floor in her underwear and the second because she’d cut her foot.

She had twenty seconds of peace if it could be called that before they rushed in with fire gear and power damping equipment in case they needed to subdue her; she just held her wrists out knowing as a precaution they would cuff her with the power dampers and waited.

[Blazion]

The cat was speaking. It was speaking! Amazement should’ve been the emotion any other person would feel, yet instead panic thrummed through Valora’s veins, in time with the pounding of her heart like a beating drum. Every time the creature spoke her slitted grey eye could only see the hint of white from his teeth, sharp and evolved to kill. The graceful movements of a predator, the easy confidence of a killer. She couldn’t even register what he was saying as all the blonde could focus on was how every single nerve in her body screamed danger!

Some part of her recognized that Silas was speaking, trying to garner her attention or perhaps even draw the cat-creature away. The major part of her didn’t care. She had to escape, but to put her back to the ‘Onyx’ was inviting doom. Feeling cornered, trapped, a low hiss built up in her chest, bubbling on her already choking breaths.

He was so close.

Another voice in the ruckus, another body in front of her – taller than the cat, shorter than her. A hand on her arm. Valora’s eye darted left and right as though making sure the cat wasn’t sneaking around before finally settling on Alice. It helped to focus on her, pale fingers reaching out just for claws to dig into the other woman’s shirt. Some feral part of the shapeshifter just wanted to climb on top of her to get above everything and hiss at any threats.

She was being jostled into moving. Another hiss, interrupted this time by a hiccuping sob that caught in her throat and made it harder to breathe. There was a wall of light keeping the creature away, though Valora’s claws still dug in as Alice manoeuvred them by. Her gaze kept straying, wanting to keep the creature in her sight lest it attack, but one ear kept twitching hearing the voice of her Team Leader talking, soothing. Despite her hesitant steps and tense movements it was hard not to follow the promise of getting away.

Then the creature was gone, the doors closing with a resounding thump and Phoenix Dawn’s voice ringing in her ears. Valora let out a shuddering breath, feeling some of the tension easing out of her body with it. It wasn’t complete relief of the panic that assaulted her system, as her hands still shook and she could feel a cold sweat against her skin, a faintness in her head.

It was only when the shapeshifter managed to take a few gulping breaths of air that no longer felt constricting and limited did she look to Alice, and some of that alarm returned.

”I’m – I’m –“ Valora’s voice stuttered badly, worse than her usual fear response. She carefully drew her hands back, careful of the claws that had been digging in. She cast her hands that alarmed look, flexing her fingers only to wrap her arms around herself instead and drop her gaze. ”I’m sorry,” She finally managed in what was no more than a faint whisper.

The door opened once more, causing the French woman to flinch. A grey eye flicked up, spotting Silas as he, too, retreated. He seemed to hesitate on seeing her, but vacated none the less. Valora was grateful, feeling crowded and cowardly. None of the others had reacted so badly. Even if the thing was a predator.

The shapeshifter leaned against the wall, resting her weight against it as she slowly gained control over herself. The feline ears on either side of her head slowly unplastered from pressing into her hair, one of them flicking as she took in the noises still coming from the gym. All she wanted to do was hide in her room once more – Valora was lucky her Dampening Bracers were already put back on. Her panic could’ve led to so much worse otherwise, and in the gym full of other people... heroes though they may be, she could’ve easily hurt one of them had they hesitated at restraining a ‘friend’. It made her sick.

”I ...I should go.”

[Shard]

Pacing back and forth, Willow fingers nearly dug through his skin as they remained firmly holding the adjacent arm. How could this be? For the first time in eons, Willow was struck by a lingering string of silence. Yes, the medicine had worked. It completely silenced the voices, by placing them elsewhere. By containing all the voices in one entity, and giving it shape, Willow was dumbfounded by how a medical drug could manage the feat. "Don't hurt yourself," the reflection sighed, resting on Willow's bed. 

"You don't get to say that," the boy pointed accusingly at his phantasm, who raised an eyebrow in response, before it was replaced by a smirk. 

"Come on, Willow," the shade returned, vanishing from the bed before appearing with his arms wrapped around Willow's waist. "We're best friends!" 

"Ugh..," the mutant tensed, feeling his reflection's hands tightly pulling him into a hug. "Get off me," Willow spoke, a silent string of words as his hands met the shade's, gently pulling them off. 

"Ignoring all of that sexual tension, eh?" The reflection giggled, vanishing from behind Willow, only to appear in front of him, playfully tapping the boy's forehead, "c'mon, it's literally considered masturbation," he shrugged.

"What is wrong with you!?" Willow snapped, throwing his arms up before they were crossed in a huff. 

"Not a single thing going on in here," the shade tapped his temple, "isn't going on in there." He echoed the motion, on Willow. As much as the mutant wanted to deny that very simple reality, the shade was right. He was but a reflection of Willow, a dark, twisted reflection, but an echo all the same. They were the same person, and while every physical interaction between them was as real as the beating of Willow's heart, he knew that it was all a trick of the mind. No one was there, and for everyone else, except perhaps those with power over the mind, Willow was talking with himself. More oddly so, he was interacting with thin air. 

"I don't know whether I prefer you, or the voices..," Willow uttered, dropping to his bed with a groan, soon joined by his reflection who remained as clingy as previously displayed, his arms tightly wrapped around the host of this insanity. 

"Don't you feel better now?" A voice playfully cut at the back of Willow's head as he walked down the Horizon corridors, a heavy sigh escaping the boy's lips. 

"We need to find the doctor..," the mutant spoke, avoiding his shade's gaze before the creature appeared in front of him.

"The fuck are you ashamed of?" It raised an eyebrow, "you've gotta' learn to chill, dude." 

"Shut up..," Willow retorted, slipping his hands into his pockets as he proceeded to walk. He hated this outfit he was forced to wear. He hated this place, Horizon. He was unsure of how to react concerning anything, anymore. This freakshow sometimes made him, of all people, appear normal. There were aliens here, something Willow was unsure actually existed before arriving at Horizon. Needless to say, he hadn't had much access to the news, throughout his life. There were people with immense power within these walls, him being one of them. How did Horizon intend to contain all of them? Anything could go to hell, at any moment. Indeed, Willow wore a dampening bracelet if he ended up falling off the deep end, but then there were those without. The mutant was unsure of how this would work out, in the end.

"Where is everyone?" The shade spoke, a bored tone to his voice, "geeze', this place is boring as all hell." 

"I don't know," Willow responded, "they were at the gym, last time we checked."

"So let's go there," the echo spoke.

"Let's not," Willow sighed, "we need to go to Doctor Campell."

"So he can do what? Feed you more meds? Come on, be honest, you like me," the shade grinned, poking Willow's chest. Admittedly, there was a certain charm to this creature. As if a friend who never stopped being annoying, and always brought you into trouble. "I mean, especially after just now," he smirked. 

"Congratz', you're better than psychotic voices in my head," the mutant finished, placing a hand on his echo's shoulder before moving him aside, making way to keep walking. This had been an eventful day, to say the least. 

[Metronome]

Silas and Ka'van's Super Sappy Feelings Jam 2k18

Ka'van awoke with a jolt. As he bolted upright, a lamp tumbled off of his side table from the leftover force of his powers. His red eyes darted to the door where the pounding that had woken him up was coming from. Alien was so shaken from the dream that he took a moment to get on his feet. Ka'van silently crept towards the door, terrified of what would be on the other side. What if it was the Dawn from his nightmare?

He reached out and grabbed the doorknob, slowly turning it. Ka'van just about jumped out of his skin when he opened the door and was face to face with Silas. He looked like shit: hair a mess, grey skin flushed, eyes wild. His heart was just about beating out of his chest. He knew he needed to calm down, but he just couldn't.

"S-Silas," He spoke softly, clearly shaken. "What're you doing here?"

"Ka'van, I-"

He wasn't usually embarassed of dream scoping but then again, he didn't usually confront the person after he'd scoped their dreams. This was completely new territory for him, it was like eavesdropping on a private conversation and then confronting the talker afterwards. Dream scoping was inherent of him though, he couldn't really help it at times. His brain was constantly shooting up warning signs that people were dreaming in the area. It was only natural that he'd look into some every so often.

He couldn't help but worrying for his teammate. Ka'van was a friend, he was someone that Silas looked up to in a way. He was someone that he respected. He knew that the alien wasn't the picture of happiness and sunshine but he really wanted to help him get through this at least. "Can we talk? I know that's... different but I have my reasons."

Ka'van's mouth hung open a bit. He looked slightly dumbstruck that anyone would come to his room for the specific purpose of talking to him. It had happened approximately zero times in the three years that he'd been at the Tower. In fact, he could probably count on one hand the amount of times his teammates had ever even been inside his apartment.

Ka'van looked behind him, as if he were afraid that the room would be in shambles, giving away his frayed state. But the only thing even slightly out of place was the lamp on the floor and the rumpled bed sheets. Everything else was practically immaculate.

"I...uh, yeah." He stepped aside to let Silas in. Ka'va closed the door behind him and awkwardly followed the man into his own apartment. He clearly wasn't used to company.

Silas stepped past Ka'van, taking in the sight of the room around him. He had never really visited this room, but to be fair, Ka'van had never really visited his room either. They weren't best friends or anything, but they were close enough that Silas wasn't uncomfortable here. He could see the lamp on the floor and the skewed bed sheets. He took a seat at the foot of Ka'van's bed and drew in a deep breath to settle his frayed nerves.

"Ka'van, I. . . This is going to sound cheesy but I worry about you a lot." said the boy, idly toying with the hem of his shirt. "I try not to change your dreams when I'm in them, but-"

A pair of earnest brown eyes and a very concerned expression, the boy looked like he wanted to do nothing more than to save Ka'van from something and maybe that something was himself. "You had a dream just now, one that worried me so much that I had to void it. It's part of why you woke up so suddenly. Ka'van, did something happen with Ricardo? Maybe something you're afraid to talk about?"

Ka'van shuffled behind Silas and slowly sat down on the bed as well. It was a bit odd to have someone over, and even more odd to be this vulnerable in front of his friend. Ka'van wasn't really the type to open himself up to others. Silas asked him about the dream he'd just had, and the alien felt ashamed. Oh...he'd seen that?

"No," He spoke just as softly as before, but was a little less shaky. Ka'van was coming down off of the fear from the dream, and was now sliding into the shame of being confronted about it. "It's nothing like that. I just..." He paused, not sure how to put it. "I don't know. It's fine. You don't have to worry about it."

Withdrawing was his best defense. Ka'van didn't know how to explain how he actually felt without somewhat offending Silas as well. He didn't know how to say that his life on Earth was miserable. How being at this place made it worse. How he harbored lingering fears of his human cohorts, especially those that were famously loyal to Horizon.

"Ka'van, I. . . I understand nightmares better than anyone, you know? Nobody really knows much about my past because it's boring to talk about but I had severe nightmares as a kid. I couldn't even control them then, it was just an endless cycle of bad dreams." his mouth quirked up into a hesitant smile, "Experiencing that and developing my power, I've kind of learned that dreams are rarely just surface level."

He knew that Ka'van was drawing into himself, content with not opening up. Maybe he genuinely felt safer that way, maybe talking to someone was such unfamiliar ground that he didn't know what to do. Silas wasn't someone who considered himself hard to talk to though and he wasn't going to let Ka'van pull away that easily. He was going to press as best as he could. "This is unbiased territory here, Ka'van. Anything that you have on your mind, I want to hear about it. Maybe I can help you work it out, I'd really like to try."

He was silent for a while. Ka'van stared at his hand, picking at his nails. This side of the alien was rarely seen. Typically, he was cool, calm, and unreadable. But now he was nervous and vulnerable. He almost seemed more human this way.

"It's not that I'm not grateful for everything Horizon has given me," He started, "It's just...I never chose to be here. I came to this planet because I had no other choice. I'm at this organization because, again, I don't have any other choice. And a lot of time I feel like I'm not...like I'm not heard. I'm not the picture of bright, colorful, human justice that Horizon wants their image to be, so I'm just put in the left over bin. It's nothing against you personally, but when I came here and learned about all the wars your planet has seen, I was shocked when I found out that it was always other humans starting them. It seems like whenever we go out and save the day, it's always from other humans. If your kind does such terrible and heartless things to each other, what would they do to someone like me?"

Ka'van lifted his eyes up to glance at the man beside him. He knew Silas wasn't like Dawn. He wasn't loud or violent, and he wouldn't rat Ka'van out for saying how he felt. He'd kept these thoughts to himself for so long that they sounded strange leaving his mouth. "I guess I'm just afraid of what they could do to me. And this thing inside of me knows that, and it's using it against me."

"Humans are fickle creatures, Ka'van. I can't remember the source but I believe there's a quote somewhere that says "humans are flawed but in that flaw is their beauty" or something of that nature. We're not perfect, we start wars, we drive other species to extinction, we destroy beautiful things. Humans are messy and stupid but they're not all evil." he said, tilting his head slightly, thoughtfully. "Valora is one of my favorite examples of the good in humanity, she's been through so much and yet, she's still trying to do good things. She's still fighting with us. I think that's amazing and there's thousands of other humans that are constantly doing great things because they refuse to fall into the flaw that, I guess, mankind kind of is. We're one big flaw. Perhaps it's important to remember that one rotten egg might not be the bunch."

The boy did smile then, a smile that made his cheek dimple and amusement glittering in his eyes. "Given what we see every day, maybe I should edit that quote. Five eggs out of twelve ain't bad."

He sobered quickly though, "I noticed that," he said quietly, "Ka'van, this entity is manipulating your dreams in a way that's very similar to my own power. I can combat it because I think it's under wraps when you're in control but dreams have a kind of profound effect over people sometimes. If this continues, I don't think it'll be a venture to say that you'll be feeling very unsafe with your own teammate. Is it targeting Ricardo because he's New Horizons golden boy?"

Ka'van shrugged. "I don't know why it singled him out. I guess out of all of our teammates, he's the most...intimidating." Ka'van looked back down at his hands, ringing them. There was always so much going on inside of him that he never shared with his team. He always felt like, if they knew the nature of his powers, he would be shunned. He drew his powers from the demon bonded to him, but in turn, it also drew power from him. If he let it get the upper hand, as it had slowly been doing, he wouldn't be able to stop it's rampage. He'd tried telling his doctor about it, like there was anything the man could do, but he got the feeling that Horizon didn't believe the demon existed at all. They thought he was making it up so as to not have to wear dampeners. He only wished that were true.

The grey alien sat silently for a bit, trying to reel his emotional torment back in. He could feel tears pickling in his eyes; he hadn't cried in so long.

"I've been losing more control over my emotions lately," He admitted, "And so the demon has gotten stronger, and I can't do anything to stop it. More often I think it might be easier if I...if I died, it would die too, and then everyone would be safer."

Silas listened as Ka'van talked about the entity that plagued him and he could hear his voice starting to crack. It wasn't normal to hear his stoic teammate start to break like this and it was kind of heart breaking. He could feel every instinct driving him to wrap his arms around him. He hugged him tightly, practically tucking the alien against his chest as if he could protect him from his most internal, intimate foe by holding him close enough.

He did believe in Ka'van's demon, even if the rest of New Horizons had their speculations. He had seen it after all. "Don't say things like that," he said seriously, pulling back to look the alien in the eye. "I know you're not happy here, but Ka'van, you're an extremely important part of this team. When I first joined this team, I was looking for guidance because I was angry and confused but you were this. . . This standing pillar of strength, you were unflinching. I've always wanted to be more like you."

He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully then, his brows furrowing. "Your demon, there's got to be some way to challenge it, right? Some way to show it that you're in charge?"

When Silas wrapped him up in a hug, Ka'van couldn't hold back anymore. He sniffled quietly, tears streaming down his face. It had been three long years since the last time he'd been able to open up about anything even remotely personal. He leaned into Silas, letting the humans hold him tightly. Although he was wary of them as a species, human did have one thing going for them: their warmth. Ka'van's own, cool skin was drawn into it.

It had never occurred to him that his teammates may actually look up to him. He'd always just assumed he was in the background, lurking like the demon in his dream.

"I don't know," He said softly. "I just wish I could contact my people, for some sort of guidance. It's not like they gave me a manual for this."

Ka'van was surprisingly cold in contact with him but that was fine, he could keep him warm for now. He could feel that familiar aching in his chest at the sound of his friend crying, it almost made him want to cry with him. He had always been hyper sensitive to the emotions of people around him and seeing Ka'van in pain was enough to make him wish that he could draw that pain into himself.

He nodded understandingly, "Maybe. . . Maybe, I'm only going to say maybe, but maybe there's something I can do to help."

He had an idea, another very reckless idea. "I don't know the full range of my abilities but. . . I might be able to try to contact one of your kind. I might be able to help sort or project them into your dreams. It would probably be a brief meeting but you could ask them questions."

Ka'van sat up to look at him. "I don't know if that's a good idea. You'll hurt yourself. Not only that, but if the demon catches you in my dreams, it may hurt you too. Maybe even kill you if it gets the chance." Ka'van's expression turned to worry. His friend was willing to risk himself for him, and Ka'van wasn't comfortable with that.

"Ka'van, I'll be fine, he assured him, he offered him a smile that he hoped was assuring. "People barely notice me in dreams, sometimes it's like I'm not even there. If your demon sees me and I get into it with him, I'll be able to handle myself. Dreams are probably the only place where I can make that assurance."

He let his smile brighten a bit, "Plus, I love a good challenge. It'll help me figure out just what I'm capable of. Most importantly though," he leaned back, unraveling his arms from his alien friend. "I'll be helping you. That's what matters to me most."

"You're a very good friend, Silas." Ka'van sniffed and wiped his eyes on his arm. "Thank you for this. I should...probably let you get back to what you were doing." He looked a bit sheepish.

"Tomorrow night, Ka'van." he promised him, smiling. "Tomorrow night. I've got to go check on Valora but... if you ever need to talk again, come see me. I'm always free."

The boy stood and gave the alien a wave before, exiting his room.

[Zoey Boey]

Valora and Alice's Super Sappy Feelings Jam 2k18

"You're right, Val, you're right. But would you mind if I went with you? If you wanted to talk about all this, that is." Alice asked, hoping to try and uncover some of the issues plaguing her friend. Her eyes glanced away from Val’s eyes and too her ear, which was becoming that of a cat.

Valora's grey gaze flicked to Alice at her question, then back down the hall. She was back to nervously rubbing her thumb against its opposite palm, careful of the clawed tip. One of the feline ears that had overtaken her twisted and flicked, hearing something in the gym that had her quickly nodding.

"That's, that's fine." She finally responded, a hint of relief in her voice. No doubt at the thought of distancing herself from the cat.

Alice nodded, glancing down both corridors. "Where do you want to go?"

"My room," Was the immediate response, the shapeshifter seeming to cringe at her own abrupt words. She quickly added on, "If that's - that is, if it's all right. We can go somewhere else if you prefer!"

Alice smiled reassuringly."'Course. No problem, sweetheart. Lead the way."

A short nod was the only response Alice got before Valora began to lead the two of them down the corrider, to the elevator. As soon as the heavy doors closed behind them the shapeshifter let out a shuddering sigh of relief and her shoulders slumped. Yet the tension was still obvious, even when the elevator reopened to one of the residential floors. It was only on unlocking her room and inviting Alice inside that Valora relaxed, , with the door firmly closed and locked. The blonde rested her forehead against the cool material of her door, gathering herself, before suddenly jolting upright and turning to her Team Leader.

"Ah, I'm - sorry! Sorry. Can I get you anything?"

”No, thank you, I’m fine.” Alice said trying to reassure her. ”Mind if I sit down?” She asked.

”Please,” Valora responded, gesturing to the maroon garbed living space in her small apartment. She seemed to hesitate a moment, wringing her hands once more before cautiously moving to sit on the end of the couch.

Alice followed suit, thinking about what she should try and say. Onyx was going to be a part of their little team...would Valora just have to avoid him forever? Alice hoped not, but she intended to find out. Valora’s aversion to contact with Onyx was justified somewhat due to the nature of her emphatic powers, but Valora has a deep rooted fear outside of that.

Alice sat and crossed one leg over the other once more. After a brief moment of silence, she thought of something to say.

”You know,” Alice began, ”I used to be afraid of locusts.” She said, recalling a childhood memory. Valora glanced up, having been staring at her hands and the claws that tipped them.

”Unlike with your situations, locusts really were harmless to me. I never saw a big swarm a’ locusts, or got attacked by any, nothin’ like that. The little things just creeped me out.” Alice slightly smiled.

”I was walking home from school one day- I was around twelve at the time- and one of them had planted themselves right in front of the door. Just sittin’ there. My parents weren’t home, they never were when I got back, and I couldn’t bring myself to scare it off. Nope. Couldn’t move. Like there was a glass wall or somethin’.” Alice raised an eyebrow knowingly at Valora after she said her little joke that wasn’t much of a joke at all. Still, the girl quirked a small smile at it anyway.

”I tried throwing my lunchbox at it. It didn’t care- just buzzed towards me which ran me off for sure. So I scaled the side fence. I wasn’t...terribly athletic at the time. I used the trash can to climb over the fence, gave myself a cut on the leg for my trouble. I went to the back door- it was locked. I only had the key to the front door. Then- and this is true- it started raining.” Alice laughed quietly, Valora chuckling nervously with her.

”That was when I decided I was tired a’ being scared of some stupid little bug.” Alice continued.

”I read books about ‘em. I learned about ‘em. I looked at ‘em long and hard whenever I saw them, daring myself to get a little closer each time. They were just bugs, you see? They made sense when I learned about ‘em. They weren’t...mythical. Or supernatural.”

”Before I knew it, I had ran up and kicked at one. Sent it buzzin’ off. I’m still nervous around them sometimes- but not enough to let that old fear control me.” She looked up at Valora, briefly pausing, trying to read her emotions.

”It’s okay to be afraid. Fear can keep you alive. But it can also keep you from living.”

For a long moment Valora didn’t say anything, keeping Alice’s gaze with her own one eyed one. Finally however she dropped her head to look back at her hands, once more rubbing her thumb against her palm. Her teeth began to worry at her bottom lip only to stop abruptly feeling the point of fangs, and finally she took a deep, shuddering breath.

”I don’t…” The French woman trailed off for a moment, the feline ears peeling back against her head before she finally continued, her accent heavy. ”I don’t want to live in fear, Alice. No one does, I think. But I am not as brave as you. Everytime - everytime I see so much as a little bird, it makes my chest tighten and my blood freezes, and all I can think of is how dangerous they are … and how dangerous I am around them.”

Valora swallowed heavily, finally stopping her fidgeting to touch the dark black bracers that adorned her wrist.

”Even today, if it weren’t for these, I would’ve been nothing more than a mindless beast due to being so close to that … creature. I have no doubt all of you can defend yourselves, but all it takes is one split second…” A full body shudder coursed through the blond, and Valora reached up to touch the cotton patch that covered her maimed eye. Abruptly she laughed, shaking her head.

”I suppose that is silly, yes? In a room with not only Victory but Phoenix Dawn.”

Alice shook her head. ”It’s not silly that you’re worried about your friends, Val. But it is silly to think you’re not as brave as anyone else ‘round here. You were right there, besides- no, in front of everybody in that fight this morning. That’s courage.“

”But if they were real animals then I would’ve been close to useless! This-” Valora spread one arm to the side, showing the black device that was always strapped to her inner arm. ”Is the only way I can even function on some missions. I do not … I don’t want to be afraid but I don’t even remember a time I wasn’t.”

Valora lapsed into silence, drawing her arms close once more. Her eye focused on the table in front of her, spotting the book she had left there after receiving the call to arms this morning. Her pointed ear flicked, before she almost absently reached out to push it off the edge.

Alice looked at the power dampener strap around her arm. ”We all need our armor, Valora.” She said, trying to be reassuring.

“I will literally eat your face.”

”No, Valora, you won’t. You’ve gotcha armor on. And if something does go wrong, we’ll all be there to help, okay? Because we want too- because you’re our friend.”

There was no response at first as Valora seemed to be considering her words. Finally she shook her head and closed her eye, and after a moment the sharp claws on her fingers recededl. On their disappearance she let out a shuddering breath of relief, lifting her head to catch Alice’s gaze once more. Slowly, hesitantly, she let a small smile cross her face.

”... And even though I am not comfortable with these powers, I will be there to help you all as well.” Valora finally replied. ”Just do not expect me to be comfortable around ‘Onyx’.”

”Thanks, Valora.” Alice said, pausing, before continuing. ”Don’t tell the others this, but Onyx doesn’t sit right with me either. I guess we’ll both just have to try and get used to him.”

Valora couldn’t help but laugh at that, brightening a tiny bit at the confession. ”Okay, but you get to deal with him. I have an excuse.” The blonde reached out, laying her hand against Alice’s arm in a mirror of what she had done earlier for her.

”... Thank you, Alice.”

”No problem. We’re all lookin’ out for each other here.” Alice replied. With that said, she stood up, feeling better now that she made someone else feel a little better. It was all anyone could do, right? As she opened the door, preparing to close it behind her, she stuck her head back in. ”I’ll be in the gym if you need me. I’ll try to keep Ricky from levelling the tower.” The door slowly closed behind her.

Valora gave a slight wave, calling out a simple good luck after her Team Lead. Once the door was closed she let out a sigh, retrieving the book from the floor to replace on the table and feeling a little lighter after the encounter. It was good to be reassured, though she made no intention of having it be common place if she could help it. Though, she wasn’t sure if she would be able to stop herself with Onyx...

A small ‘thump’ alerted her to the fact she had absently shoved the book off again.

”Merde!”