[IC] Commencement: A Foundation Institute RP

[Zoldyck]

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_{Location: Canis Dorms, P.R.C.U. Campus - Dundas Island, Pacific Ocean}

Take On Me #3.053: Strife

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_{Interaction(s): Amma @Rockette, Rory @webboysurf, Harper @Qia}

Previously: aqua regia.

Katja closely followed Amma as they strode towards the Canis dorms. Any group of students that were in their way quickly dispersed at the intimidating sight of the determined pair. Katja rolled her wrist a couple times, the one Amma had touched a few moments ago. Katja had felt a cold shiver crawl up her spine at the first moment of contact. It had been the first time since that night in the tent that she had been truly exposed to the awesome powers of the Raven haired girl. But the sensation had felt off this time. Katja still felt the anger and hate in the energy, but it was different. There was no malice this time around. And so the damage had been negligible, with only a few hairs singed but not enough to leave a permanent mark. The sensation of grazing Amma’s powers like that felt weird but paradoxically also reassuring to Katja. It made her feel more at ease with her friend’s powers, almost back to the level it had been back on the beach.

She didn’t reflect too much on that though. She didn’t have the time.

They reached the Canis dorms as fast as they could without breaking out in a run. As they approached the building they could see Harper and Rory step out. It seemed that fortuitous timing for once was on their side. It was the first time she saw the two of them since the Trials, so it took Katja a moment to adjust as she was greeted by the scars and the new hairstyle that her two teammates now bore.

With Rory leading the pair, Katja immediately thought about how distraught he must be. He was probably most affected by Haven’s disappearance. Katja wanted to walk up to him and give him a reassuring embrace. Tell him that everything was going to be fine. That they’d find Valkie in no time. But as she tried to walk up to him and meet his gaze, she saw his eyes flick away from her the instant they met.

Seeing him like that, Katja’s step faltered before she aborted the movement all together. She had no idea why, but Rory’s refusal to even look at her harmed her much deeper than she thought it should have. A feeling that was only exacerbated when his only recognition of her presence was when he walked up to Amma, purposefully keeping her in between himself and Katja as he started whispering something to her.

Katja cast her gaze downward, away from the pair next to her. That feeling of loneliness she had felt for days before talking with Amma slowly came back to her. Crawling back from the recesses of her mind that she had thought she’d banished it to. Loneliness that she had felt for years before finally coming to PRCU. A loneliness that she was sure to experience for the rest of her existence when the truth came out and be thrown in a deep, dark prison cell while she would be rejected by all of Blackjack for aligning herself with the Children of Hyperion splinter group.

She attempted to rid her mind of these depressive thoughts, not wanting to inexplicably break down in front of everyone. But it was hard as she could feel the tears starting to sting in her eyes, fighting with all the strength she had to keep them from spilling out. She had to focus on something else, think about something different. So she rolled back to the start, to what Amma had said earlier, to where Haven could be. It helped little, instead different thoughts intermingled. One moment she thought about Haven, the next about her own future, then to the words spoken by Amma before suddenly thinking back to her past.

Deep and dark…

Lowest rooms imaginable…

Children of Hyperion…

Where no light would reach…

Katja’s eyes widened while a shuddered breath escaped her lips as all her thoughts suddenly aligned and led her to a revelation. There was a place she had heard about while at Orcinus. One that had been used as a hideout by one of the more infamous members of the Children of Hyperion back when Hyperion still walked this Earth. The area had been off limits for years, before she had even joined PRCU. So it’s likely none of the current student body would even know it existed. Though she had never been there herself, she knew of its existence through the reminiscing of older members. And through them she also knew how to get there.

Katja closed her eyes for a brief moment, taking slow, measured breaths as she quickly reflected on what she was about to do. Speaking up would put her at risk. But, burying her nails into her palms, it didn’t take her long to at least utter a single phrase. One she knew might very well doom her.

“I might know of a place.” Katja said, her voice a strained whisper only barely audible to those around her. She swallowed once before looking up, meeting those eyes she knew would be judging her if she told the truth. But now was not the time to dread about what they might think of her past allegiances, even if she had been betrayed by Orcinus. Haven’s life was on the line and her knowledge might lead them to uncover her location and save her. So she took a deep breath, cleared her throat, straightened her back and spoke up once more.

“I don’t know if it’s where Haven’s currently held but, I’ve heard of a place that fits Amma’s description. It’s been long abandoned, but deep under the Quadrangle there’s a place large enough to base some sort of operation from.” She paused for a moment, feeling the eyes of her fellows upon her, and with them came a last shudder of doubt. She risked exposing herself, exposing her secret. Risked burning it all down. This was her final chance to step away, to cover her tracks. But that would mean abandoning Haven to her fate and to betray the one group of people she cared about the most for the sake of her own safety.

And that was a sacrifice Katja was not willing to make.

“And I know how to get there.”

A sense of relief washed over Katja as she uttered those words. As if a colossal weight was finally lifted off her shoulders. And it was at that moment that Katja realized something.

It was that, perhaps on an unconscious level, she wanted them to find out.

[Melissa]

^{| Summer 2027}

A familiar crackle and static rang through Lorcán’s garage, indicating the end of yet another record. Aurora, having anticipated the last song on the album, didn’t hesitate to jump up from where she had been lying on the worn leather couch and rush over to the player, gingerly lifting the needle and moving the arm to rest on the side of the machine.

She and Lorcán had been cooped up all day, the only other sound as prominent as the music they were listening to was the air conditioner working overtime in the corner. The Northwestern part of Canada had been hit by a massive heatwave, the highest humidity and temperature seen in years. Heat lightning illuminated the sky in sheets, which meant no surfing was to be had, and dark clouds rolled in, threatening to pour across the Island. With not much else to do around campus during the Summer months, they found themselves doing basically nothing on an otherwise dreary Tuesday.

The redhead carefully removed the disc from the platter, slipping it back into its proper sleeve before adding it to the growing pile of albums they had made their way through. She approached the milk crate in the corner which housed most of the Roth’s LP collection and let her fingers dance over the records, examining them one by one.

“How about this one next?” She held up a colorful-looking jacket even though she didn’t recognize the band name, the art having caught her eye. “Is it any good?”

“You like don’t know that one? Brah,” Lorcán asked, taken aback, “Lady Dude, we’ve got to get you an education, that was the album that totally got me stoked about music. I can’t believe we’ve totally never listened to it before. It’s so rad.”

Picking up his Rickenbacker, Lorcán sat back down before plugging in the patch cable and adjusting a few dials. His fingers flew over the strings as he quickly tapped out a familiar riff before looking at Aurora.

“You don’t know that? Like that doesn’t ring any bells?”

The redhead raised an eyebrow at the series of notes he played, racking her brain to try and think if she’d heard it somewhere, but came up short.

“Nope, never heard it before,” She replied with a shake of her head, examining the record once again before setting it off to the side, a viable option for their next choice. The girl had an eclectic taste in music, listened to mostly everything under the sun, but often found that her repertoire and Lorcán’s differed from time to time, especially when it came to what they grew up with.

Aurora leafed through more of the assortment, perusing the titles, “Hmm…” A lot of the records she didn’t know, most of this collection having been curated from since before she and Lorcán were born. “What about…” Another record stuck out, this one with a fiery looking design that was reminiscent of a certain someone’s abilities.

“This has your name written all over it.”

“Oh you can’t go wrong with that one,” Lorcán smiled, his fingers pressing down on the strings as his thumb slapped out a beat. “You can just feel the rhythm of the music vibrating along your bones, it’s like catching a wave and just letting it take you away.” He continued to slap away at the instrument, minding his thumb around the pickup cover, all the while getting lost in the groove.

Music and surfing were two times Lorcán let it all hang out, they soothed his soul, and lowered his inhibitions and while he was always seemingly chill, it was in these moments that Aurora could truly see just how much he was enjoying himself. He wasn’t suppressing any emotions, or repressing a comment, he was losing himself in the same way some people did while drinking or dancing.

With a board beneath his feet or his bass in his hands, Lorcán was the happiest he could be, except for when he was with Aurora.

Shimmering sapphires gazed intently as the boy played the instrument, letting the rhythm whisk him to some far off place in his mind, and a smile graced her lips. There was truly nothing that Aurora loved more than watching Lorcán in his element, whether it was here in his garage or out on the beach. It always amazed her how easily he was able to pick up a tune after only hearing it once, or balance on his board in the roughest of conditions.

“We’ll put this one on for now then,” The redhead took the record out of its sleeve and placed it on the machine, gently dropping the needle on the grooves and letting it start to spin. She moved back to sit down on the couch, “How do you do it?” She asked inquisitively as she watched him, “Play like that. You always make it look so easy.”

“Practice,” Lorcán replied modestly, “Like, anyone can do this if they want to, I didn’t really have anyone for a long time, but I’ve always had music and I had this bass.” He recounted,

“As long as I’ve been big enough to reach, I’ve been playing and listening. Once you get the basics down, the rest starts to totally fall into place and then pattern recognition starts to kick in, listen,” Lorcán paused, letting the record play before turning to the instrument.

“Every song is going to follow a pattern and that pattern will correspond with a scale, so you can hear the root, the fourth, the fifth.” Lorcán placed his left hand on the neck, barely moving it while the three notes rang out.

“So you can hear how that pattern was right, but the key didn’t match,” He moved his hand again, playing the same pattern as Aurora heard the dissonance disappear and the instrument blend into the melody of the record.

“Once you train your ear, you can totally just pick up and know where to play, then you can really start to noodle,” Lorcán explained, now playing the pattern but his hand moving around more, throwing in more notes but never straying from the rhythm. He stood up, lifting the bass over his head before sitting down behind Aurora, his legs straddling her own as he placed the bass in her lap.

“Hold it like this,” He instructed while gently moving her arms into position and using his own hands over hers to help her play. “Wait for the chorus, relax and then,” Lorcán instructed before gently moving Aurora’s hands to the music, tapping her fingers with his own as they played along together, albeit a bit more delayed and clunkily than if Lorcán himself had been playing.

But that didn’t matter in that moment as they moved together, laughing as one. Eyes meeting a moment, while beads of sweat formed on both of them. Lorcán stared at Aurora’s lips, thoughts racing through his mind before he suddenly stood.

“It’s frakkin’ hot,”

Aurora had felt herself melting into him as his arms surrounded her, large hands enveloping hers as he gently pressed down her fingers on the fretboard to play the strings. She relaxed, letting the music wash over her and allowing him to lead, butterflies soaring in her stomach at the amount of contact, the warmth of his skin matching the flush that now graced her face. She could have stayed like that forever, relished in the feeling of him and didn’t want it to end, noticing the way he hesitated as his eyes dropped down to her lips.

She was tempted to close the distance between them before he moved.

“Yeah,” The redhead handed him back his bass, bashfully looking up at him from underneath her lashes. “Sure is.” She swallowed and quickly walked back over to the milk crate of records to hide her face until her blush disappeared. But as she approached the stack from a different angle, she noticed a record that was still shrink wrapped and sealed hiding in the back. Curiosity getting the better of her, she gripped onto it and removed it from the pile, and upon seeing the cover art her eyes instantly lit up.

“When did you get this?!” Aurora squealed, her bright smile growing as nimble fingers traced the familiar list of songs on the back of the LP. “This is her new album, the one I was telling you about a few weeks ago!” Her baby blues darted back to Lorcán, seeming to sparkle in her excitement.

“I’ve been dying to listen to it!”

Lorcán rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, he did his familiar wry smile, flashing a row of perfect, white teeth before tousling his hair again and answering.

“I had Cass ship it in a care package while he’s home for the summer. I was going to surprise you with it as a sort of early birthday present.” He replied. “You seemed so excited about it, that I knew I totally had to get it for you.”

Aurora’s smile only grew bigger, childlike glee radiating off of her as she raced over to Lorcán to hug him. “Thankyouthankyouthankyou!” She beamed, tilting her head to gaze up into his molten eyes. “That was so thoughtful of you,” Squeezing tightly before she let go, she quickly made her way back over to the record player to swap out what was currently playing for the album in her hands, dancing happily as she did so.

“I can’t believe you remembered!”

Lorcán was at a loss for words in that moment, his heart racing from the hug to a feeling of pride and satisfaction from getting Aurora something she wanted. Seeing her light up like that, he’d have marched into hell and back and all he did was procure a vinyl. He sunk happily into a chair, watching her dance and listened to the music, the beautiful composure of the melody bringing his thoughts right back to Aurora.

He could get lost in that smile forever.

The redhead continued to move her body, carefree and elated as the song flowed through the garage. She was sweating from the heat externally but also still feeling warm and fuzzy inside just thinking about Lorcán’s gesture. Aurora didn’t want to ever forget this feeling, the happiness he brought her, the way he heard her, saw her.

She saw him sitting there, that goofy grin plastered on his face as he watched her make an absolute fool of herself, and shook her head playfully. “Come on, Hotstuff, don’t make my dance by myself!” Aurora exclaimed, approaching the boy and tugging him out of his chair with all of her might. She intertwined their hands and forced him to move, giggling as she did so.

Lorcán laughed, letting Aurora pull him to his feet before following her lead, extending his arm for her to twirl. Unfortunately, he had two left feet when it came to moving on land and so he awkwardly swayed while trying his best to keep up with Aurora and imitate what he thought dancing ought to be.

The redhead couldn’t help but sigh amongst her laughter, beholding the boy’s sad excuse for dance moves.

“We’ve got one year until the big senior dance, don’t worry, we’ll work on it.”

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_{Location: Infirmary - Pacific Royal Campus}

Take On Me #3.054: Arcade

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_{Interaction(s): @Lord Wraith}

Previously: Blue

Cass slowly made his way back through the winding hallways to Aurora and Ripley. His feet felt like lead bricks as he struggled to find the motivation to walk down the hallway. His chest ached, and his eyes were burning, but most of all, he just felt defeated. His emotions had been ebbed away leaving only a raw, dull ache. An ache that constantly pounded at the back of his head while tears threatened to stream down his face at any moment.

It’d still be a kindness to kill him now, the death he’s going to experience is far more painful than the transformation ever would be.

They couldn’t kill Lorcán, he wouldn’t. There was no way his Aunt or Uncle could ever forgive him if he did, nor Aurora or Ripley. The loss of Bridget had devastated Tori and Aiden, they poured everything into Lorcán.

As he approached, Cass offered a weak smile before speaking to his sister.

“Hey, uh Rippers, why don’t you go and grab a snack for Aurora and I?” He asked. Ripley took one look at Cass and quietly nodded her head, knowing better than to protest as she moved down the hallway before Cass opened the door back into Lorcán’s room and held it for Aurora.

“You should, uh probably sit.” Cass suggested before doing so himself.

Aurora had returned from Amma's room only a few moments prior, their interaction and her words replaying in her mind. But the redhead saw Cass’ red eyes and knew that whatever he was going to say next wouldn’t be good.

“Okay,” She followed him back into Lorcán’s room and took a seat on the sofa across from him, placing her hands in her lap as she picked nervously at her nails. “What’d you find out, Cass?”

“That ‘doctor’ was Ellara,” He started, “That same woman from the forest, she went on about a bunch of hoodoo I didn’t really understand, something about under souls and over souls, but essentially she said Lorcán’s soul is going to be devoured,” Cass said, swallowing hard to suppress the lump in his throat.

“She said he’s as good as dead, Aurora, and that if we don’t kill him now, then his body is going to become host to something so much worse.” Cass couldn’t stop the tears at this point.

“Damnit!” He yelled, shoving his hands into his armpits as he jumped to his feet. Two small explosions were muffled by his own body as he winced in pain from the detonations under his arms. “Damn you and your wanderlust!” He cursed at Lorcán, kicking the bed.

“Why couldn’t you just stay to the beach?” Cass asked, his voice turning to a plead as he repeated the question, “Why?” Turning back to Aurora, he asked one more time, his voice becoming almost feeble.

“Why? Why did he leave us here to pick up the pieces, Aurora?” Cass continued, “Why didn’t he leave a clue, like how could this thing have attacked him and no one else? How has this never happened before?”

Aurora froze.

He's as good as dead.

She was too late.

Your tears won’t save him.

The girl didn’t move a muscle, even as the blonde boy began to create chaos around her with his words and actions, she sat on the couch completely still. Trancelike, she stared out into space, the light of hope behind her eyes slowly fading as Cass asked questions he wouldn’t get answers to. She felt numb.

Even as the inevitable tears welled up in her eyes, her body acting out of instinct, she didn’t raise her hand to wipe them away. The redhead just sat on that couch, unmoving, and let the weight of the words hang in the air.

Lorcán was going to die.

Every other thought in Aurora’s brain had quieted, her normal internal monologue utterly silent, as she tried to make sense of this information, grappling with not knowing where to go from here.

Her best friend, the boy she loved.

She was going to lose him.

And then breaking her silence, she sobbed, a guttural sound that you could almost feel the pain of. She finally moved, her palms coming up to cover her face as she broke down, her chest shaking with the vigour with which she cried.

Sitting down beside Aurora, Cass wrapped his arms around her, embracing the woman his cousin loved and letting himself mourn, the tears falling from his own eyes as the pair jointly wept.

“This…” Cass croaked, “This can’t be how it ends.”

“How what ends?” Ripley stood in the doorway, her eyes wide as she saw the pair sobbing, “Did h-h-he?” Her lips trembled as she struggled to finish the question, her eyes darting to the monitors connected to Lorcán seeing his heartbeat still active.

“W-what did you not tell me?” She asked, her knees weak, knocking together she took a cautious step forward. She braced against a wall, almost dropping the snacks as Cass wiped his eyes and raced to his sister’s side. Helping her to sit down, he took a chocolate bar and opened it, snapping it in half and handing a piece to Ripley before extending one towards Aurora.

“Eat,” He ordered, “The sugar will help with the shock.”

Aurora lifted her face from her hands to meet Cass’ gaze, shaking her head profusely. If she ate something right now it would most certainly make a reappearance shortly thereafter. Her lip quivered as she continued to cry, her previous quiet strength evaporated instantaneously. But even in her sullen state, she had half a mind to know that Ripley should not be present to witness this turmoil. She was too young.

“Cass,” She rasped, “Get her out of here.”

Clearing his throat, Cass put a steady hand on Ripley’s shoulder while nodding to Aurora.

“Ripley, can you go and get Uncle Aiden and Aunt Tori,” Cass asked, clearing his throat with a small cough. “I need to talk to them.” Ripley nodded silently, picking her things up gently before rushing out the door as Cass let out a heavy sigh.

“I think I need some air, are you going to be okay if I leave you alone with him for a few minutes?” He asked, turning back to Aurora.

The redhead sniffled but managed to nod. However, before the blonde had the chance to leave, she found the words that fueled her anguish and spoke them aloud, almost in disbelief, the ones that had been eating at her for the last few days. The ones that would seemingly now find no resolution.

“I didn’t get to tell him.”

“He knew,” Cass replied, pausing in the doorway, “He always knew.”

Left alone in the room, Aurora continued to let her tears fall, the sound of her distressed cries echoing off of the vacant walls of the suite. The beeping of Lorcán’s monitors kept cadence with her own heartbeat as she managed to stand from the couch on shaky legs and move to sit next to him on the edge of his hospital bed, Cass’ words hanging over her like a knife threatening to drop.

He always knew.

He’d hoped she’d find peace in knowing that her affection had been clear, but all it gave her was more grief and guilt.

Cautiously, she reached out her hand towards Lorcán’s, squeezing it.

He didn’t squeeze back.

His skin was colder than it normally was, not radiating warmth like it always had, and that was enough for the redhead to understand that this was real and this was truly happening. She cleared her throat, “You promised you wouldn’t leave me.” She managed to say in between gasping breaths. “I’m so mad at you, it’s not fair.”

She dissolved into another fit of cries before continuing, the silence beckoning her to speak without interruption. “I think it was always supposed to be you and me.”

“I love you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, I’m sorry it took me until now to realize it.”

Aurora cradled his limp hand in hers before releasing her grasp, bringing her palm up to caress his face, stroking her thumb across his cheek. She’d give anything to see those sunset-colored eyes one last time. “You always talked about all of the places I could go, how I could be anywhere I wanted to in a heartbeat.”

“But the only place I ever wanted to be was where you were.”

Each word she spoke killed her just a bit more, but it was worth it to get it off her chest. Lorcán might not have been able to hear, but knowing she was finally saying those things aloud, the feelings she had kept to herself for all these years, brought her some semblance of comfort. It was likely the last opportunity she had.

She delicately pressed her lips to his temple before standing from the bed and moving back to the couch to wait for Cass to get back with Tori and Aiden. Curling up, she let her cries rock her into a restless sleep that provided no reprieve or mercy from her grief.

The door opened quietly sometime later as Cassander returned with his Aunt and Uncle. Walking into the room, Aiden put a hand to Lorcán's cold skin and watched how slowly his son's chest had begun to rise and fall. He was starting to lose the fight. Tori kissed her son softly on his forehead and then his cheek, her emotions threatening to bubble over at any second.

“Stay with him,” Tori said to Aiden, “I’ll take care of Aurora,” She motioned to Cassander to give her a hand as she wrapped Aurora in a blanket and helped Cass pick her up gingerly. The sleeping girl was nearly weightless in Cass’ strong arms as he gently carried her out the door.

“She’ll stay at our house for tonight, put her in the guest room and then you can take the couch.” Cassander only nodded in response, words were too difficult for him right now as he took one last look at Lorcán before Aiden closed the door on their way out.

Another stifled sob echoed out in the hallway, prompting Cass to hurry before he lost control of the tears welling up in the corner of his own eyes.

It was only upon emerging outside, that Cass noticed just how dark the night truly was.

[Hound55]

- - -

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_{Location: Various P.R.C.U Campus Locations}

Welcome Home #3.055: Anger Management

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_{Interaction(s): Lillian Morse - Webboysurf's NPC}

Previously: So, Are We Done Yet?

"Well. That was a lot."

Banjo sat and thought about everything that had just poured out of him.

Mad. Anger. Rage.

Not really descriptors he'd viewed himself as, or emotions he'd ever really felt he'd ever held on to.

"Hmm. When you've had incidents. Been disruptive in class. Undertaken... some of the disruptions which I've read about in your past... do you think that those moments have been lashing out with these kinds of angry outbursts."

Banjo sat, staring through the floor, his eyes looking through it. His prolonged comments had clearly taken himself by as much surprise in reflection, as they had Lillian. Now he seemed to be scanning through his own comments and trying to take meaning from them.

His eyes drifted to the right and he shook his head gently.

"No, no. Nothin' like this. I've never been mad like this. I'm not normally angry when I do stuff like that anyway. Stuff-- If it's somethin' big I generally plan through enough that it'd be impossible to hold it as an emotional response."

"That's why..." He realised. His brows lowered and his eyes flicked back to the here and now.

"Well, there are things that we can do. Techniques that can be learned. For anger management. If you feel it starts to interfere with your life and want to try to move forward through it."

"I've been bottling everything up. It's never come to the surface, because I'm never this repressed. This stifled. These Foundation fuckin' flogs..."

"Perhaps next time you're here, we can talk through some of these techniques which might help you, after I've had a bit more time to look into it..."

"Eh..? I thought you're a therapist..?"

"I am."

"Well, why'd'you have to 'look into it'? You've never had anyone with anger issues before?"

"Not every patient--" His brow furrowed at the word. "--is the same. Not everybody's issues with anger stem from the same places. Taking the time to look into things which might be more pertinent and helpful FOR YOU might mean, you're not trying to work with less helpful, or potentially even harmful, more general, broad advice."

"So yer just gonna tell me I'm angry and send me on my way?"

It was clear he wasn't going to be comfortable without hearing something general, even if it would be limited in how helpful it would be.

"Well, first, 'Think before you spea--'

"Wow. What part of anythin' I say, gives off the impression that I don't think before I speak?"

Lillian fought off the increasingly strong, yet unprofessional, urge to respond with a sigh. Replying crisply when she spoke again.

"In the heat of the moment, it is very easy to respond with something you might regret. By taking a few moments, it can prevent this AND ALSO lessens the chance that the person you're talking to, will do likewise."

"So basically, be fake and self-censure."

She chose to ignore this.

"Once you're calm. Express your concerns. State your concerns clearly and directly, so that they can be understoo--"

"Not an issue."

"--in an assertive and non-confrontational way."

"Some problem. A smidge of a problem. Some work required. This doesn't apply when the other person is confrontational first, does it?"

It was becoming increasingly difficult to not sigh.

"You could try exercise..."

"Oh come on! That's part of the problem in the first place!"

"Like I said... giving broad general advice, may not apply, and its why it would have been best to look further into it."

"No, no... Fair enough. Ya did say. What else have you got?"

"You could try taking a timeout."

"Nope. Not runnin' from conversations. What else have you got?"

"You could try 'Identifying Possible solutions'--"

"Well, that's what I'm tryn' to bloody do here!"

"--instead of focusing on what makes you mad, try to--"

"Oh, I see. You're rollin' off a list you've got from memory, and that was just one of-- Fair enough. Sorry."

"FOCUS on resolving the issue at hand, and understanding that you can only change what you can change and that some things are out of your control." She could feel her blood pressure rising, and some small part of her wished he'd go back to being non-verbal in sessions, now that he'd at least provided her with a direction to address.

"When feeling these moments rise, you could try focusing on using 'I' statements."

"Well, now what's the bloody point in that?"

"Well, criticism and the placement of blame can only raise tension. Using 'I' statements removes that direct blame appropriation and instead gets people to consider perspectives. For example, instead of an accusatory 'You keep interrupting me during this session', I could instead offer an 'I find it difficult to properly assist you in my role when you are interrupting me'."

"Well, what's the fuckin' difference?" He asked. Sitting up and leaning in.

"What do you mean? One removes the placement of blame and instead gets you to try and see the perspective of my side of things."

"Well, not really, 'cos it's already implied by virtue of the fact that you're the one sayin' it."

"How so?"

"Well, if you say something which isn't an objective fact, I'm already going to assume it's just something that you think due to the fact that you're tellin' it to me. Like, if you tell me a political opinion, I'm not goin' to take it as gospel. I'm just going to hear it as 'this is some shit that she thinks'. Likewise if you say 'you keep interrupting me during this session'... the fact that you're finding it difficult is implied."

"Don't hold grudges."

"Again, not a problem. What else've ya got?"

"You could try using humour to release tension."

"Not a problem."

"Hmm."

"What? I'm hilarious."

"From the brief times we've spoken, you've seemed to make more pointed jokes at people, and sarcastic jibes at situations themselves."

"Yeah, and..?"

"Well, these aren't really the kinds of ways of displaying humour that generally alleviates tension. In fact, it can heighten it..."

"Well, yeah. I mean, I dunno... It is funny."

"You mean you find it funny."

"Well, yeah. Like I said. It's implied. Hey, now you can see what I meant!" He snapped his fingers and pointed at her.

"Hmm." The therapist murmured, regretting lending more credence to his point.

"I'm hesitant to suggest this to you, with how you've taken the rest, but you can try relaxation techniques."

"Go on."

"Deep breathing exercises--"

"I'm angry. I'm not givin' birth..."

"Meditation or, even simpler, just imaging a relaxing scene. A soothing mantra. Finding some time for yourself in some kind of a peaceful, relaxing activity that lets you express yourself in other ways. Even if it's just listening to music. Some people write in journals. Some people try yoga."

The gears in Banjo's mind churned and spun, thinking about something he did happen to do before everything started to bottle up on him.

"Well, now... Now you might be onto somethin' there."

"Really? Okay. Well, I actually have some pamphlets on yoga--" She pulled a few from a rack on the wall.

"Wha--? No. Not the yoga. That was daft. But the other thing. Relaxing activities that let you express yourself. That bit. Maybe that's been it with the lifestyle thing. I've stopped doin' stuff that lets me-- y'know, get the creative juices flowin'. So I just need to fill that hole and she'll be right!"

"Well, there's not usually a panacea for these things, and it's rarely as simple as just--"

"Nup, I reckon you've just knocked this one for six, Doc. Kickin' goals. Just have to get back in that groove, and then all of this'll just fritter away to nothin' like before. The hour's up. So we're done here, right?"

She couldn't tell if she'd just made things better or worse.

"Hmm. Well, that IS the hour, you're right. But we'll speak more about this with our next session, and like I said, we'll address possible solutions which might be a bit more specific to you and your own situation, rather than broad vagueries which might lend themselves to quickfix solutions without really add--"

"All good, Doc! Next time! Catchya later, Rory'saunt!

Even with only one good leg he was gone before she could get another word in.

Getting to her feet she could have sworn her own blood pressure had noticebly increased, and her heartrate had quickened.

She threw one of the yoga pamphlets in her bag for later.

[Qia]

Though not known at the time, her prayers had not been ignored.

With a heavy sigh, Harper returned to flipping through the pages of her father’s sketchbook, her fingers tracing the worn edges of the paper. Her eyes scanned the drawings, but her mind was elsewhere, lost in a haze of nightmares and heavy emotions. The familiar scent of old paper and graphite enveloped her, a bittersweet reminder of countless hours spent watching her father bring his visions to life. Each page revealed a new masterpiece: distant mountains kissed by the first light of dawn, serene lakes shrouded in a mystical fog, and bustling city streets alive with the energy of countless stories. The intricate details and delicate strokes spoke volumes about her father’s passion for capturing the world’s fleeting beauty, something that not even she felt she could do.

Except with people. There was always beauty, even if small, to find with those she loved.

She paused on one particularly captivating sketch: a bridge arching gracefully over a vast, serene sea. The bridge, rendered with delicate pencil strokes, seemed almost ethereal, its elegant yet oddly designed structure giving it a dreamlike quality. The sea below was depicted in a state of perfect calm, with gentle waves lapping against the shore and reflecting the soft, silvery light of the moon.

The scene stirred a flood of memories within her, transporting her back to countless beach visits with her father. She could almost feel the warm sand beneath her feet and hear the soothing rhythm of the waves, their shared moments of peace and joy by the water coming to life in her mind. Each detail of the sketch spoke to her father’s intricate artistry and his ability to capture the essence of their cherished times together. It was more than just a drawing; it was a portal to the past. A past that could never be again except in her dreams.

Perhaps that’s why she’d missed it at first. The bridge, though undeniably beautiful, seemed imbued with a quiet melancholy, its lines slightly skewed as if burdened by invisible weights. The sea beneath, while tranquil, held an eerie stillness, as if it were holding its breath, waiting for something to break the silence. The delicate details of the scene—the subtle shading of the moonlight on the water, the gentle curve of the bridge—hinted at a profound sense of unease and emotional depth. It was as if her father had poured his soul into this sketch, capturing not just a serene landscape, but the very essence of his inner turmoil.

His guilt. His regrets.

Harper’s heart ached as she traced the delicate lines of the drawing, her fingers lingering over the intricate details. “You beautiful, torturous soul,” she murmured softly, feeling the weight of both her father’s and her own pain woven into the sketch. The emotions were almost tangible, pressing down on her chest. She turned the page, hoping to escape the heaviness, and stumbled upon a new image.

This time, it was a building, its sturdy brick walls partially obscured by creeping ivy that seemed to cling to it like memories. The tall, narrow windows cast long, haunting shadows on the ground, adding a sense of mystery to the scene. In front of the building, two girls sat on a weathered bench, their faces alight with joy and laughter. Their expressions were so vivid, so full of life, that Harper could almost hear their giggles and feel the warmth of their friendship. The contrast between the lively girls and the sombre building struck her deeply, her finger tracing one of them in particular.

If you wanted me to be happy, why would you risk losing it all?

^{_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}

_{Location: Canis Dorms-> Academic Quadrangle - Pacific Royal Campus}

Take On Me #3.056: Finding Haven

^{_{___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}}

_{Interaction(s): Katja-@Zoldyck, Amma @Rockette, Rory @webboysurf, Calliope (indirectly)-@PatientBean}

Previously: You're So Vain

In the common area, Harper and Rory spotted Amma and Katja waiting. The archer’s eyes darted between the two, her gaze sharp and alert, capturing every subtle gesture and expression. Amma’s intense presence drew immediate attention; her raven hair cascaded around her shoulders like a dark waterfall, and her piercing gaze fixed on Rory’s arms. Harper looked down, taking in the faded scars marking his skin. They must have been acquired during the gruelling trials they had endured, as she would have noticed them before. She instinctively brushed her sleeved arm, eyes following the hidden scars beneath.

Amma chose that moment to speak up.

A cold dread settled in Harper’s chest at her words. The description of the dark, isolated rooms sent a chill through her, evoking vivid images of confinement and despair. The suffocating darkness alluded to a place devoid of hope and light, where the walls seemed to close in and every breath was a struggle. It made her skin crawl to think of Haven being held in such a place, subjected to unimaginable horrors. Clinging to the glimmer of hope from before, she reminded herself of Haven’s resilience and strength.

Resilience and strength they both possessed.

There had to be a way to reach her, to bring her back from the brink before….

Her hazel eyes landed on that same shade of violet from before, now wrapping around Amma in a suffocating yet oddly comforting embrace. The colour pulsed with a life of its own, creating a cocoon of connection in solitude, a paradoxical blend of warmth and isolation. It was as if the violet hue was a tangible manifestation of the unspoken—a silent understanding transcending words.

“I don’t know the campus like most, and I can’t go far without being with one of you, and they don’t want me gone long from the infirmary, but I will offer my power to you to help find her.”

“Thank you…Amma,” Harper began, her voice soft and sincere as she met Amma’s piercing blue eyes. For a moment, her gratitude was palpable. But as quickly as it appeared, her expression hardened into a familiar steely resolve. Her lips curled into a scowl, her tone shifting.“But Haven isn’t just another statistic.”

The unspoken words hung heavy in the air: I won’t let her become like you.

Amma met her eyes with little to no reserve, unrelenting, that gaze which made her think of Haven and the defiance nestled there in swathes of green and brown, bisected with the bonds of kinship that inspired their resolve.

"No, no, she won't."She slowly dropped her palms, splaying them open, scars surrendered and mannerisms lax and poised despite the glare that sheered over her features at the words left unspoken."I made a promise I would never let someone suffer what I have. To become..." she paused, spindles of red bidden through the air left betwixt them, those decaying pulses of black minute as it warped over her scarred body.

"The world has enough monsters."

Harper sucked in a breath, chest tightening as she opened her mouth to respond, but the words lodged in her throat, refusing to come out. Thankfully, before the silence threatened to stretch into awkwardness, Rory stepped in, his response positive and perfectly aligned with the unwavering optimism she had come to associate with him since joining the team. A wave of relief washed over her, grateful for his timely intervention and the comforting consistency of his character.

However, as he stepped towards Amma, Harper observed their interaction with her usual nosiness, eyes narrowing as she tried to piece together the nature of their discussion. She couldn’t help herself, attention drawn to the subtle cues in their body language. Rory’s posture had shifted noticeably; his shoulders squared, and his movements became more deliberate and controlled, all suggesting a confrontation or at least a serious discussion. Harper’s gaze flickered to Amma, noting the way her lips moved as she spoke. Although her ability to lip-read was limited due to lack of practice, she managed to catch a few keywords like “promise,” “saved,” and “mask.” These fragments hinted at the intensity of their conversation, though they left much of its context shrouded in mystery.

And for the better. It doesn’t concern you, Harper Baxter, the internal reprimand sharp and unyielding, like a teacher scolding a student for peeking at answers they weren’t supposed to see. Her cheeks flushed slightly, the heat of shame creeping up her neck as her skin prickled with the uncomfortable awareness of her curiosity. Yet, the more she tried to pull away, the stronger the urge became, leaving her caught in a web of her own making. She only managed to overcome this internal conflict when Katja also announced her presence, breaking the spell and allowing Harper to finally step back from the edge of her inquisitiveness.

“I might know of a place. I don’t know if it’s where Haven’s currently held but, I’ve heard of a place that fits Amma’s description. It’s been long abandoned, but deep under the Quadrangle there’s a place large enough to base some sort of operation from.”

Harper’s vision, still attuned to the little details around her, caught subtle shifts in Katja’s demeanour. As the blonde paused, a flicker of tension around her eyes, the slight tightening of her jaw, and the way her fingers twitched ever so slightly at her sides. These small, almost imperceptible signs hinted at an underlying anxiety or determination, though Harper could only speculate about what might be going through Katja’s mind. Then, as if she’d read her mind, Katja continued.

“And I know how to get there.”

This brought a slight frown to Harper’s mouth, her brows knitting together in contemplation. Even if Katja had a really good conjecture as to where Haven was, was it really worth deviating from the trail she had painstakingly uncovered? Still…. the practicality of having someone who knew how to navigate this mysterious place was not lost on her. If they did end up at the location Katja mentioned, her knowledge could prove invaluable.

But where had Katja even attained this information? In the entire year she’d been here, this was the first time Harper had ever heard of the existence of a place like this at the school. Her eyes narrowed as she scrutinized the tall woman, searching for any telltale signs that might hint at the source of her knowledge but finding none.

“I think…we should follow the tangible lead we already have,” Harper said then, a small smile forming on her lips as she tried to convey both confidence and reassurance. “But if it turns out to be the same place, you can lead the way. How does that sound?” Her eyes met Katja’s, searching for any sign of agreement or dissent.

“Of course,” Katja said, a shaky breath escaping her lips as any tension she might have felt seemed to leave her body. “We can’t be certain my idea might lead anywhere and time is of the essence.” She paused for a moment as her brow furrowed before continuing. “What lead do we actually have though?”

“We have a trail from Rory's room that leads away from the dorms,” Harper explained. “It’s faint, but something I can definitely follow.”

Harper glanced around at her teammates, her makeshift family, her eyes lingering on each of their leftover scars, each mark serving as evidence of how they had fought and survived something unexpectedly thrown at them. The unknown had shown itself to be a formidable enemy, and they had no idea what they were walking into this time. But what choice did they have? Haven needed them.

So, belief and trust in her team, at this moment, came naturally to Harper, as instinctive as breathing.

Taking out her phone, she shot a quick text to Calliope, promising to keep her updated as they moved. The blonde was sure to join them after all, but Harper could not wait any longer. Every minute felt like a drop of sand in an hourglass she could not see, each second ticking away the precious time they had to save Haven.

“Alright, let’s get moving.”

---

“I guess your hunch was right Kat.”

Harper’s face took on a sullen look as she led the others through the Academic Quadrangle with a determined stride, her jaw set and eyes narrowed in annoyance. Just yesterday, she had walked these very paths, oblivious to the sinister plans unfolding beneath her feet. The thought gnawed at her, a bitter taste of betrayal and anger rising in her throat.

How dare they? The nerve, the audacity to think they could take one of her most precious people away, right under her nose. She could not let whoever this person was get away with this. Not now, not ever.

As they reached the entrance to what looked like an abandoned maintenance shaft, Harper’s eyes scanned the surroundings one last time, ensuring they were not being watched. The entrance was inconspicuous, almost hidden among the overgrown shrubs and ivy that clung to the building’s exterior. A rusted metal door, barely visible behind a tangle of vines, marked where they could enter. The door, though old and weathered, was still sturdy, its surface mottled with flakes of peeling paint and patches of rust.

“Alright, the trail ends here,” Harper said, her voice steady despite the tension coiling in her chest. She reached out, pushing aside the thick vines that partially obscured the entrance, the rough tendrils scratching against her skin. As the foliage parted, a small, rusted sign came into view, its faded letters barely legible: “Maintenance Access - Authorized Personnel Only.”

The door creaked loudly as Harper pushed it open, revealing a narrow, dimly lit stairwell descending into darkness. The air that wafted up from below was cool and damp, carrying a faint musty odor mixed with the metallic scent of old machinery. The walls were lined with pipes and wires, some dripping with moisture from long-forgotten leaks. A single flickering light bulb hung from the ceiling, casting ghostly shadows on the cracked and stained concrete steps.

Harper’s heart pounded in her chest as she took in the scene, the oppressive atmosphere pressing down on her despite not having stepped inside yet. Turning to her team, she forced a wry smile to take over her features, trying to inject a bit of levity into the tense moment.

“So…who wants to do the honours?”

[Lord Wraith]

^{________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}

_{Location: Southern Forest - Pacific Royal Collegiate & University}

Take On Me #3.057: Scar Tissue

^{_{____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}}

_{Interaction(s): None}

Previously: Temper Temper

An alarm interrupted the Fist as Jim flipped his right forearm over, a compartment on the bottom of his artificial arm opening, ejecting his phone. On the screen, a proximity alarm was going off from one of the more sensitive locations on the campus. The sub-basement under the Academic Quadrangle had once been the lab of Isabelle Chrisitanson, a co-conspirator of the late Yakob Kowalski. The lab had been abandoned and closed off to students even before the flooding that ultimately led to its removal from the base of the academic building above it.

Buried under the new basement by some of the school’s most powerful earth movers, few knew it still existed, and fewer still knew how to breach it. Jim had had sensors installed in the perimeter to monitor any activity in an out, but had opted not to monitor the interior due to rodents and moving

“Emergency?” Miguel asked, eying Jim with interest as his keen eyes studied the mechanical arm. “Quite the souvenir, who gave you that?”

“Hyperion.” Jim snapped, “Didn’t see the Foundation swoop in to save the day then, could have used the Force on our side.”

“The Force was created as the answer to Hyperion and his legacy.” The Fist responded in kind, “But that’s neither here nor there at this moment, we can’t change the past,” He allowed himself a small smile, “We can’t at least, though I would love to know where you’ve stashed Miss Parker,”

“Nakamura sure does trust you with everything,” Jim retorted, “But I’m not privy to any information about Miss Parker even as the Chancellor, and I sure as hell don’t want to be. Less I know about time travel, the less ibuprofen I have to mix in my whisky.” He waved a hand motioning for the Fist to follow as Jim walked back towards a majestic black stallion.

“Come along, you’re going to have to ride on the back-” He was interrupted as the Fist held up a hand before de-cloaking a nearby motorbike.

“Tell me where to go and I’ll meet you there.” Miguel smiled. Jim tipped his hat before mourning the beautiful horse.

“The Academic Quadrangle, there’s a maintenance shaft to the basement around the North West corner.” Jim ordered, “The hallways will lead to the breach into the sub-basement, it used to hold Christianson’s lab, but it’s supposed to be abandoned.”

“Then hopefully that’s where we’ll find your missing students.” The Fist replied, climbing onto the motorcycle and tossing his long coat over his arms. Pressing a decorative stud on the collar of his shirt, a helmet appeared over his head and face as the ablative plating rapidly expanded from the back of his neck.

“I still want to know everything about Amma,” Jim yelled over the roar of the First’s engine. Miguel offered a cold smirk from behind the tinted glass of his helmet.

“Then we best hope for a happy ending to cheers over a glass of your finest bourbon.”

[Zoldyck]

^{________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}

_{Location: Academic Quadrangle - Pacific Royal Campus - Dundas Island, Pacific Ocean}

Take On Me #3.058: Abyss

^{_{____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}}

_{Interaction(s): Amma @Rockette, Rory @webboysurf, Harper @Qia}

Previously: Strife

Katja had been walking at the tailend of the Blackjack quartet as they followed Harper’s trail. Deep inside Katja hoped she had been wrong, that whatever trail there was wouldn’t lead to the old maintenance shaft. But she soon realized that with every corridor they entered, every corner they rounded, every step they took, the group got closer to that sub-basement.

It was hard to make out from a distance, being covered by overgrowth and all, but if you knew where to look then it definitely stood out. Harper struggled slightly with opening the access hatch to the shaft, but she had managed to pry the door open before Katja could step in. She then turned around and asked for any volunteers. To Katja, there was no question who should go first.

“I’ll go first.” The tall blonde said as she cracked her knuckles before taking a step forward. “I’m able to take a lot more punishment than the rest of you, no offense intended. So if there’s something down there waiting for us, chances are I’m standing the highest chance of being able to tank it.” She said with a rueful grin.

After waiting for Harper to step aside, Katja set off onto the staircase leading down into the dark unknown. The flickering lightbulb provided barely enough illumination for the staircase, and it didn’t even light up the bottom. So she might as well have been walking into an endless void. That did not deter Katja though, who’s steps left small stomps whenever she walked, as she activated her powers in anticipation of anything.

And yet, despite that preparation, she was still caught off guard when something did hit.

A series of sudden tremors violently shook the shaft as muffled explosions could be heard coming from down below. A decades-long collection of dust fell down from the ceiling and the flickering lightbulb finally gave out, plunging Katja in almost complete darkness, save for the light coming from the entrance hatch. Yet the lack of light was of the least concern to Blackjack’s giant, as the tremors had caused her to miss a step.

And thus, cast in total blackness, Katja fell down the remaining flight of stairs. The suddenness of it made her yell out in surprise, followed by a few swears in Afrikaans. Luckily it turned out that she had almost reached the bottom anyway, so at least it didn’t take long.

“I’m fine!” She yelled up the stairway as she slowly got to her feet with a groan. While none of this was planned, at least she was glad none of her teammates saw her embarrassing tumble. Fishing her phone out of her pocket, she activated its flashlight to quickly survey her surroundings before waving up the staircase, to signal that she was indeed safely down there.

“Coast seems clear, there’s nothing here that seems out of the ordinary-” Katja interrupted herself as she heard a noise that shouldn’t be here. The sound of rushing water.

Katja turned her flashlight around, pointing it into a long corridor that undoubtedly led towards the main room of the sub-basement. And as she did, the thing she feared turned out to be a reality.

Water was rapidly spreading over the corridor’s floor. In fact, by the time Katja had turned around the water had already reached her, and it seemed like the level was going to be rising at a terrifyingly rapid rate. Alarmed, Katja swore once more before she yelled out back to the rest of the group.

“Guys! Unless any of you can breathe underwater, we’re gonna have to hurry!”

[Roman]

G I L G A L A H A D // B A N J O O L Y P H A N T
G I L G A L A H A D // B A N J O O L Y P H A N T

_{Location: Infirmary Wing - P.R.C.U. Campus}

Take On Me #3.059: Sing Sing Tommy Shay, boys

---

_{Interaction(s): Banjo // @Hound55}

The final healing session had been…fine. Gil was still uncomfortable with the feeling of bone splinters actively moving and settling beneath his skin, shifting between strings of muscle sinew as they righted themselves. It was refreshing to have the cast off at least, even if it had revealed further ugly, deep-purple stains that served as a reminder to the damage inflicted. Much of the gauze had come off too, though again splotched bruises marred his person all across the body, and likely would for the immediate future. ‘Cosmetic damage’, the ward staff had referred to it as, to which Gil remained steadfastly silent in his response despite a rather strong disagreement boiling within him.

The boot was no more or less uncomfortable than the cast had been; shorter on the leg but heavier, and the padding on the bottom made for an awkward gait. Still, it was different, and that was almost enough. Novelty was hard to come by in a hospital wing. He was escorted via wheelchair to physical therapy, the irony not lost on him but not commented upon, but when he was pushed through the swinging double doors to the small makeshift gymnasium, the sight that greeted him elicited the first audible reaction of the day: a brief, quiet tut of anticipated irritation.

Banjo was here.

The shooting pains in his leg had begun a half an hour ago. He was due another pill but was pushing back on them. After all, it was one of the few things he could control - albeit with discomfort - without risking permanent damage. So he gritted his teeth and pushed through. When it hurt, he pushed through. When it felt numb, he pushed through. And when he could see and sense the fasciculations as his leg seized and twitched against the resistance training, he pushed through.

He still couldn’t walk without the limp. Movement didn’t bother him, it just wouldn’t be smooth motion. The hitch was another thing he couldn’t control and as such another thing that pissed him off. Weakness. And weakness due to his own stupidity, no less.

He welcomed the distraction of the Pommy performer who rolled up in his new fresh wheels, and responded with a sneer for the soapstar that suggested something about the current situation amused him greatly.

The reticent pair worked with their mismatched attendants in a pregnant silence, each limping along on their injuries, learning how to walk again. Neither seemed to fair any better or worse than the other; Gil noticed Banjo’s hitching limp and the furrowed brow that indicated stubbornly-masked pain, and was sure that Banjo, in kind, noticed his shadowed eyes and awkward, boot-hindered gait. It was arduous, and boring, and Gil struggled, through the various tempests whirling around his head, to engage properly, despite the rational mind accepting the necessity of the work. From what he could see, it didn’t seem that Banjo found it any more enjoyable.

There was a buzzing in Gil’s pocket that snapped him out of his tedium-induced haze, and he paused in his exercise to fish his phone from his trousers. His nurse raised an eyebrow at the interruption but said nothing, and Gil paid them no mind regardless - instead, his eyes and attention were fixed on the screen, the bright letters spelling out the name of his most persistent phantom.

Elenora Baines was trying to reach him again; it had been several days, and Gil was yet to return either her calls or a single text. Unconsciously, his mind elsewhere, he shifted his weight, forgetting that his imbalance was due to the boot, and that the boot was supporting a still-healing ankle.

Gil collapsed to the ground, the ankle giving way beneath him as he adjusted his stance in a way he shouldn’t have, and the phone tumbled away from him as his hands shot out to catch his fall. He swore, loudly, and the nurses were quick to attend and help him back to his feet, checking his injury and steadying him again.

Banjo picked it up with a quizzical expression, holding it out for him, and then flipping it back up his wrist as Gil reached out for it.

”Ah ah, hold up now… Elenora? Where’ve I heard that name before…”

”Baines? From that thing you two were in together? A Midsummer Nightmare’s Dead?”

Gil sighed and rubbed his eyes, his ankle aching and his patience thin. He didn’t bother trying to snatch the phone, knew Banjo would be quicker than him; instead, he just held out his hand, waiting for Banjo’s whims to align.
”Romeo and Juliet and Zombies, as if you don’t know that anyway. Yes, that Elenora Baines. We’re still in touch.”

”Maybe I got a lot more than your filmography rattlin’ around upstairs…” He said, tapping his temple before glancing at the screen, as he flipped it back down his wrist and into his palm.

Elenora - 4 Missed Call(s)

We’re still in touch, huh..? He thought. More surface BS. He thought about calling him out on it… for less than two seconds, before immediately deciding to call him out on it.
”You’re screenin’ her calls. Mad ex, or just tryin’ to get away from all the fake-ness..? –ery? Fakery?” He furrowed his brow trying to think of the term. ”Phoniness. Hollywood phoniness. That’s what I was lookin’ for.”

Gil pinched the bridge of his nose, furrowing his brow.
”She’s more damn authentic than you are, Mr. Omni-Anti. I just don’t want to talk to her right now, is that alright with you? Things are difficult and I don’t need the extra headache.” He snapped his fingers and splayed his hand again, demanding without speaking. ”From her or you, if it’s all the same.”

A flash of teeth as the Australian's lip peeled back revealing a wide sneer.
“Authentic AND you don't want a bar of her… no, surely not.” His tone dripping with glib sarcasm. “Story rings true from what I know of ya, so colour me surprised. Ever asked y'self why the first honest thing ya said to me was in a fake simulation where nobody else was around to hear it? I like this new flavour to ya though. Bought y'self a backbone.” He handed over the phone.

Gil flashed hot. ”And what do you know of me, Banjo? You trawled through some tabloids and fan blogs and think you got the whole picture? Yeah, I got a bit tetchy when our lives were at stake, and seeing as neither of us got out unscathed-” he shot back, pointing at Banjo’s own injured leg and subsequent limp- “I can’t say it was entirely unjustified.”

He sighed, his ankle aching and his mind foggy and, honestly, too tired to keep up this kind of animosity. Gil decided to extend an olive branch. He lowered his tone, continuing to talk as he shuffled around at his nurses’ behest, restarting his exercises.
“Let’s just agree that between the two of us, neither’s had an honest word with the other in the year I’ve been here. You wanna start now, I’m game. But that means you gotta come clean with me if I’m gonna come clean with you.”

“I'm plenty honest. Mean as a cut snake, sure. Subtle as a sledgehammer, maybe. But honesty I've got in spades. Don't need tabloids or blogs. You're right there in 4K with Dolby Surround sound, and I'll tell ya the plot’s thin and the characters are wanting. And as for this…”

He slapped at his leg.

“Well, that's life, ain't it? None of us are gettin’ out in one piece. So try and have a laugh on ya way. I'm not the one desperate to hide anything. Least of all me.”

Right. Well, if it was like that, Gil could go on the offensive too.
“Calliope came to see me. If you’ve nothing to hide, why’d she clam up as soon as I asked about you? What’s she got to be cagey about? Trouble in paradise?”

His smile widened as the smirk leaked out once more. He'd struck a nerve. People always go on the attack when he'd hit a raw patch, and it made him more comfortable to deal with them when they did. He knew what he was “looking at”.

“She probably did. You're busted up like a crook dog and she's got a kind soul. But she's probably not itchin’ to talk about me, rather than to me, with someone like y'self. When she's ready to talk to me, she will.”

It scraped against him. Slightly. But he was damned if he was going to show that here.

“Nice of you to ask about me, but. I had no idea you cared… Although I'm not at all s'prised you'd pretend to.”

Gil shook his head. He knew better than most when someone was holding back. Years of practice afforded an amount of recognition. Pointless to chase it - Banjo clearly wasn’t interested, and the longer it went on the less interested Gil became, too.
“You came up in passing, don’t flatter yourself. Still, I’d have sworn Calliope ‘switched on’ the way the temperature dropped when I mentioned you. How long do you think you’ll be playing the clown and laughing off your limp before she’s ‘ready’? Before or after your nurses let you juice again?”

He chuckled. “Steady on, mate. This ain't one of your soap operas. Now am I supposed to gasp and stare off into the distance here..? Tell me if I miss my mark.” He held a hand to his cheek in an overdramatically shocked expression and held a stare into the distance for an uncomfortably long time.

“Is that where the challenge of acting comes in? Trying not to laugh as you deliver the most hokey dialogue imaginable? How'm I doin'? A natural, right?”

“Yeah, you’re the perfect comic relief bit-part. I’ll get my agent to call you next time Crestwood Hollow needs a class clown type for their victim of the week.” Gil said, his voice tired and his expression withering. “Not that I’m speaking to him right now either. I’m over it, I think. Over all the…how did you put it? ‘Hollywood phoniness’? And that includes from me.”

He realised he’d been walking without assistance and was silently grateful for the healers’ work over the last few days. His limping gait matched Banjo’s, but the pair of them were upright, standing under their own power, walking and trading barbs. God, it almost felt normal.
“So call it hypocritical, but I don’t want it from anyone else, either. We could all use a little more…honesty.”

“Well… welcome to the wonderful world of ‘Being a Person’, Gil. We've been waitin’.”

“It’s exhausting. Or you are. Or both!” He said, laughing in coughing, stabbing chortles at his own jibe. He sighed, thinking of the only person it hadn’t been hard to be honest with, reflecting that it hadn’t ever been hard. He felt wistful. That kind of ease-of-being was so rare and comfortable in this new, post-Gil reality. He considered that he should probably try to hold onto it, or at least learn from it. “Have you seen much of the rest of the team since…since we got out?”

“I haven't seen much of anyone. Haven't really wanted to. The leg aside, I've kinda felt I got off light.”

”I thought we might…pull together a bit more, as a team, a group of ‘survivors’. But I think we’re more splintered than ever. Most of us, at least. I’m as guilty of it as anyone. Pulling back from people - doling out spite to the undeserving. And now Lorcán’s halfway in the grave and…I don’t know how much more we can take. I don’t know how the girls do it. They’re so…united.”

“I’ve just figured its people processing what they went through. It’ll just take time. Doesn’t really help that it was Lorcán who’s doing it so rough afterwards though… he was always kind of central between you and Rory. How it looked from the outside lookin’ in, anyway. Everythin’ will work itself out though. Give people time and space, they’re generally pretty resilient.”

He hoped. He didn’t much care for uncomfortable silences and pained looks away either. Time was he’d do or say somethin’ just to get a rise, or rip strips off of Tad. But he couldn’t do either right now, and he suspected even more people than normal would disapprove and view it as ‘too soon’ if he did. As if ‘too soon’ was a thing that really existed.

He could certainly do without Calliope hurting enough to go talkin’ with this– Nah. That had been just to get a rise out of him though. Surely…

She’d talk with him. They were fine. He never made himself unavailable. Shut himself away. He was alway there throwing the odd wisecrack to make her laugh. If she wanted to talk, she’d talk.

Surely.

“Speakin’ of time. How long they gonna shut you in your box up here?” His smile then widening, as he added. ”With ya face lookin’ like a slapped arse?”

Gil’s head snapped to, with a deeply furrowed brow and his mouth opening about to let him have it.

“Eeeeeasy. It’s a slang term.” He rolled his eyes, despite knowing full well it was probably needlessly provocative. Or at least his therapist would probably view it as such. “‘How long are they gonna shut you in here, lookin’ miserable?’ Another words. A few years back, before you got here, I got shut in here too and I know it sucks. Next to no sunlight, unable to really see anyone… they fast track your healing, but its still no picnic.”

”Depending on this session, I’m looking at being discharged tomorrow. I’ve had visitors, but I’ll admit I’ve not been in the best mood to receive them. Amma’s the only one I’ve not given both barrels to…” his eyes went wistful again as he cast his mind to nights shared, bereft of nightmares, merciful rest coming through a warm, inky void of pure unconsciousness. ”I don’t know if ‘back to normal’ is on the cards anymore, though. Feels like everything’s…shifted. Like we’ve all taken two steps to the right, looking at ourselves from a different angle. Everyone’s shaken up.” He paused, wincing, his last few steps slightly too brave and his ankle shooting a single klaxon of ‘don’t try that shit again’ up his leg. ”Apart from you, apparently. How long until you’re cleared for ‘active duty’?”

“How long til I walk like I don’t have one leg twice the length of the other, ya mean? I got told from anywhere up to three months, up to… the rest of my natural life. So yeah. Just sucks cos it was my own stupidity more than anythin’.”

”Mostly doesn’t hurt… Mostly. When I’m well overdue the painkillers, yeah. But I’m tryin’ to wean myself off of ‘em. They go nuts with the dosage up here on the wrong side of the Pacific, apparently, and I don’t want to get myself hooked on anything, not when I can’t flash-fry the imprint off my synapses with the ol’ solar cleanse. So… I ride it out, and then after so many hours, bite through the last few like you just did back there, and stretch ‘em out. They had me on em four-hourly, now I’m down to three or four a day.”

“But that’ll just be time as well. Normal just takes time.”

He wasn’t sure if he was saying it for Gil’s sake or his own, or how much of it was a statement of fact, or a need to be convincing.

Gil didn’t answer - just held out his hand for a shake, a silent offering for armistice, a truce between feuding parties.
”Well - here’s hoping ‘normal’ gets here as fast as it can. For everybody.”

Banjo stared at the hand for a few seconds, as if struggling to recognise the offer in the present situation with the present company, before wiping his hands on the back of his shirt and taking Gil’s in kind.

“Whatever normal may well be.”

They spent the rest of their shared session in silence, a new understanding born between them.

[PatientBean]

^{________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}

_{Location: Southern Plateau, Dundas Island - Pacific Royal Campus}

Take On Me #3.060: Let's Give 'Em Something To Talk About

^{_{____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}}

_{Interaction(s): Banjo (@Hound55)}

Previously: Scars and Bruises

Calliope had an interesting week. Classes were essentially a blur. She was sure she participated; at least none of her teachers appeared to worry. But her mind was racing. The events of the Trials still fresh, as well as her conversation with some of her teammates. It all blended together into an interesting smoothie.

She also kept hearing that inner voice in her mind, questioning every move. Every night she worried she would have nightmares about her appearing. Therapy was also going….she wanted to say well, but she knew she was keeping a lot held back. On purpose though. She knew she needed to get it out. But she didn’t want to in some office. She needed to speak to the one person she hadn’t yet ‘confronted’.

She needed to speak to Banjo. There was nothing else to be said about it. They needed to have a conversation. It would be tough. It would be hard. She was sure she would probably cry (and a small part of her hoped Banjo did too, though she would not hold her breath).

She made her way to his dorm, hoping he was there.

Banjo stood in front of the open refrigerator running his eyes over the same shelves again and again.

His shelf had three different meals he’d picked up from the cafeteria which had been ‘diet approved’. None looked appealing.

He’d never seen so much flaxseed in his life.

He poked at one, and then slid it aside to get a better look at another plate. He stuck his tongue out. He was only days in and he’d had more than enough tuna for the month. He nudged that plate away to view the third.

It didn’t look recognizable as food.

He growled out a long low sigh, as his stomach joined him with a low gurgle.

The door knock broke the drudgery of a life of peripheral neuropathy-friendly nutrition. He got up a half-hitched gallop and got to the door just before Alex Zimmerman, who was eager as always. Or maybe just jittery. Hard to tell. He thought to himself.

Her appearance drew a broad smile across his face until her expression made it clear that her purpose wouldn’t be all fun and games.

”Alright, eyes back in ya head, y’ dag. This one’s here for me.” He shoved Zimmerman back playfully, as he stretched an arm across the doorframe.

”Take it ya here for more than just a friendly chinwag…” He said, picking up on the level of concern that creased her beautiful brow, and the slight pout that suggested everything was less than ideal. He looked back in his dorm and surveyed the conditions. Big Steve was stretched across the entire lounge. They didn’t talk as much as he did with Zimmerman, but something about his omnipresent nature suggested that this wouldn’t be the place for private conversation.

”I could do with a feed anyway. Walk to the Mess?”

Calliope had not expected him to answer the door. Hell, if she were being honest, she sort of hoped he wouldn’t be home so she could put this off for a minute. But it was important. ”Sure.”

She waited until he was ready and out before she started walking toward the Mess Hall. She looked down to see her rubbing her wrists and stopped it immediately. Bad habit. Once they were a bit away from the dorms, she decided to bite the bullet. ”We need to talk.”

She mentally chastised herself. We need to talk? Who the hell starts a conversation like that? ”No that makes it sound bad. I mean it is bad, but it isn’t that level bad. I just…we just…” She felt a rising panic in her chest. God, how was she supposed to get through this?

One look into his eyes though, that centered her. ”I think we need to talk about stuff. Stuff that hasn’t been said but needs to be. I know you feel it too.”

Banjo double-checked his pocket for his keys, and upon confirmation pulled the door shut behind him.

”Must be big, if it takes a preamble and opening statements.” He quipped with a widening smirk, as he hobbled along.

”S’alright, hon. Whatever it is. We’ll figure it out. Now what’s got ya knickers in a twist?”

”Banjo, that’s part of the problem. There’s time for joking and there’s time to be serious. Your girlfriend telling you she needs to talk about something important is not the time to be joking.” It was one of the things she loved about him, but it was also a crux for some of the issues they were having.

”We haven’t talked much after the Trials. We haven’t explored what happened. What I saw, what I went through, it was hard, but a part of me got through it because of you. That doesn’t mean the things I heard didn’t strike a nerve. They knew what buttons to push because they were thoughts I had been having for a while.”

“And I continued not saying anything to avoid pressuring you, but I need to talk about it. And I never got the sense you wanted to listen. You made jokes or waved it off. After we got out and we were being checked out you left me to go check on Haven. Admittedly, a sweet thing to do, but part of me hated it. I needed you there with me and you left. And in the hospital when you were being checked out and told what you needed to do to get better, you seemed to not care. Like you wouldn’t listen. And I need you to listen, Banjo. We all just went through hell and your demeanor makes it seem like it was just another Tuesday.”

“I don’t believe you think that, but I need to you to know it has impacted me and hurt me. And apart from therapy, I’ve had no outlet for it apart from speaking to Haven and Harper. But as nice as it was to speak to them, I needed you. And as hard as it is for me to admit, you weren’t there. Physically, yes, but emotionally….no.”

”I just… don’t want to push you and figured you’d talk when you’re ready. I could tell you probably needed to process things. I’m not tryin’ to remove myself or make myself unapproachable to talk to. You need to talk now, I’d love to listen.”

“If you need me, I’m here. If you’ve EVER needed me, I’m here. I don’t plan on goin’ no place, you’re not. So I guess it’s just findin’ the words. Til then… I can wait.”

”That’s another thing though. The pressure to not be the type of person that constantly needs you to keep things to yourself for my benefit. I want you to tell me when things bother you or upset you. Even if it seems like I am processing my own stuff. That’s how relationships, partnerships, work.”

“On top of that I have been pressuring you into things you may not want. I want a family and marriage and all the things with it, but I never once considered what you might want. And there’s still an underlying anger at our chosen careers. I thought I was over it, but you remember our fight about you waiting to be a public defender. That resentment I had I held on to.”

“You never did tell me what you saw in the Trials. I don’t want to push you, as I said, but I want to be there for you like you are constantly to me. We can lean on each other.”

”But I’m not feelin’ any pressure. Not from you anyway. You’re the part of my life that’s goin’ sweet. I mean, am I scared of the possibilities which could come with ME havin’ a family. Yeah. But it’s not something that I don’t want to do with you. Every concern about it that I have has nothing to do with you. Hell, the way I see it, the only people who go into parenthood without at least a little bit of fear are people who haven’t given it real thought.”

He kicked dust as his leg jerked through on their walk. ”You’re probably right. But I know you did it tough, and I didn’t want to pile onto your stuff before you’d had a chance to talk it out. Mine’s not much, it’s just… more. And you’ve already been doin’ it tough. As for my bein’ a defense attorney. Well there I can’t help you. I mean, I get why it might be an issue for you. I get the public stigma as well. But that’s kind of just me. Part and parcel. But I get that it can be botherin’ you.”

”I mean, if you want me to give you a complete rundown play-by-play of what happened in there, fine. The one thing that that probably would have messed me up and stuck with me, wasn’t true anyway. That’s what the thing with Haven was about. It was relief. But you want to know everything that went on in there, that’s all good. It’s no secret. The one thing that’s botherin’ me, that’s makin’ me feel fenced in is this stupid bloody leg. And you’ve been there for me with that as well. Without even bein’ asked. I’ve got no issues, I know you’re there for me if I need. To me, it’s just about patience and time for when you’re willing to talk.”

There was a lengthy pause.

”Oh, NOW..?” He burst out in sudden realisation.

”Well, my leg being like this bothers me more than I might let on. And not because it hurts or anything, or regarding the trial. I just don’t like bein’ boxed in and told I HAVE to do stuff. HAVE to eat right. Have to exercise. Have to stop smokin’, drinkin’ and coffee. It’s all lifestyle-based. All of my problems with it. I might have LOOKED like I wasn’t listening, but it's more I just didn’t like what I was hearin’. That’s all. I mean, this is all just whinin’, pissin’ and moanin’ on my end. There’s people with ACTUAL genuine problems comin’ out of the trials. Mine… I’m pretty much good now. The one holdover which would’ve sucked… Didn’t happen. Haven’s still alive. So, I mean, I’m golden.”

”Long story short; it said it was goin’ to make me watch as it killed off all of you one by one, where I couldn’t do anything about it before I’d bite the bullet. Showed me Haven’s… bloody horrific death, then that made me realise I had to go and find you right-quick. Other than that… claustrophobia… bunch of other stupid fears and insecurities I have, that seein’ them only showed me even more how stupid they actually are. And I found you and we’re out.”

”So… How ‘bout you?”

Calli could understand somewhat over being told what to do. Granted, in Banjo’s case, it was for his benefit. ”Banjo, I love you dearly, but that is the dumbest thing I have ever heard. Being told to do things for your benefit so you heal faster might suck initially, but at least you’ll get better quicker. I get coffee and alcohol, but you should also quit smoking anyway. Also, if you do eventually want a family you are going to have to make sacrifices like that anyway. But it’s also cute how rebellious you are. Sometimes. I think that’s part of my worry. I know you are serious when you need to be, but sometimes you push that boundary and I hope our kids inherit some of that. Except towards us. They should listen to us.”

Then Calli listened as Banjo spoke about his Trials experience. She couldn’t imagine seeing the horrific deaths of your friends and teammates and then expecting to be okay. There was more surely, but he was at least being open.

”I was put in what they assumed was a perfect world for me. My father was dead. My mother actually gave a shit. And my brother was around and needed me. I knew it was fake and fought against it because I knew I needed to push through. Eventually they attacked me. Turned into some black ooze monstrosity. Taunting me and ridiculing me and my choices. Basically hitting every insecurity I have. I fought them off but I got hurt. And when I came out I was met with Butler who told me we shouldn’t be together. And then he shot my leg off. Or at least it felt like it, obviously.”

“But their words still had some truth to them. The feeling of always needing to be saved. The worry I am not good enough. The concerns over the future and how I expect myself to be perfect because if I am anything less than I am not living up to the potential afforded to me when I came here but also the need to fight back over the boxes people keep putting me in. I mean the only reason I was put in charge of the upcoming dance was because they said I was used to that type of thing. I don’t think they even considered that I was all but forced into being that type of person growing up and how I was expected to be what my father wanted, which put me in tough and potentially dangerous situations. And yet I have Harper coming to ask me to fix her hair because I surely know how to do it. And I don’t blame her, but I wish sometimes the others looked at me like more than some pretty face with an upper-class background. Plenty of others would say I am blessed and, to some extent, I was. But those blessings had a toll that, if I hadn’t gotten out, would have cost dearly.”

“Yeah, I– I think I saw some of that. Somethin’ horrible grabbed you by the leg. I didn’t see enough to know exactly what though. It just– It wanted me to see people at their most vulnerable. When it looked like they mightn’t make it. I heard Katie scream out… I don’t know what caused it, but I’m tellin’ ya. NOBODY should ever have to hear Katja scream out… Bloody chills you to your core. But as for Butler, you mean Old Mate? The bloke who’s been watchin’ over me? That doesn’t check out. He’d probably give you his boat as thanks and payment for takin’ me off his hands.” He chuckled.

“I’m sorry you went through that on your own.” He said, not lifting his head, his leg dragging through the dirt, kicking up dust. “And I’m really sorry, I got outsmarted by three doors with our bloody names on them, particularly when the name outside of mine isn’t even the one I think of myself as…”

“Not because you need to be saved… but just because a lot of this stuff… I wouldn’t want you to have to feel like you have to face it alone. Y’know?”

“I’ll tell you though… the thing I figured out from mine. I saw through it a bunch of times, and it was easy to tell when I figured it out. It was targeting our fears and insecurities. And the reason I cracked it was because it hammers them, whether or not they actually make sense. I used to be scared that I’d– well, that I’d eat the sun, and kill everybody on this world, as I turned it into a frozen wasteland, and could even cause the heat-death of the universe… but that’s because I was young and dumb, and trying to come to terms with these new strange powers and also coming to terms with weird astrophysics notions I was learning at the time, and my powers were opening new neural pathways… Anyway, it’s not a thing I could actually do, not in the way it was showing me. But it was still a fear that I had– well, have. Even if it doesn’t make any sense…”

He raised his head to make eye contact with her.

“Well, hon… I think it did a bit of that with some of your insecurities which don’t entirely make sense as well. Worryin’ that you’re not ‘good enough’, worrying that you’re falling short of someone else’s notion of ‘perfect’. Because neither seems to hold any merit with me. I get that your father did a number on you… But you’ve never been less for as long as I’ve known you.”

”But I don’t want to diminish any of what you went through either… We should probably actually get in touch with your brother. It’s been too long.”

Calliope felt warmth fill her chest. Her insecurities and doubts felt miles away in that moment. She could almost picture her inner voice stomping around having a temper tantrum. It was incredible to hear Banjo open his heart. She knew this was a moment to be cherished.

”Yeah, I’ve been meaning to call him. Plan a visit. His wife and child could come too. I haven’t seen them in so long.” It brought a smile to her face, knowing that despite everything she had gone through then brought her here. And while there would be many tribulations in the future, from The Foundation, from her father, from any other enemy, she knew she could face it down so long as she had her friends with her. And especially Banjo.

She felt tears form and quickly wiped them away. ”You’re incredible. Every inch.”

“Well… you’re alright too.” He said, once again mastering the understatement. “I just… don’t want you to feel you have to worry about me. I love ya.”

Before she could speak she felt her phone buzz. She had felt it before but had ignored it to focus on the conversation. She took out her phone and read the messages as her face fell in realization. How could she have been so stupid?

”It’s Haven….” She looked at Banjo, panic in her eyes. ”She’s been taken! Everyone has gathered and are on their way to where she might be. Harper just sent it. We need to go!” Calli put her phone away and stopped. Banjo was injured. But she knew him. He’d want to be involved. ”You okay to go?

The trials were over, but the Foundation and its influence remained. And with that, Haven had once again gone missing. His mind went back to everything he’d heard around the campfire. Her screams. The dramatic splash of blood as the saw found flesh.

“Couldn’t imagine anyone stoppin’ me.”

[webboysurf]

^{________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}

_{Location: Academic Quadrangle, P.R.C.U. Campus - Dundas Island, Pacific Ocean}

Take on Me #3.061: In Too Deep

^{_{____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}}

_{Interaction(s): Harper @Qia, Katja @Zoldyck}

Previously: Say Your Prayers

Rory felt his heart race as he stared into the abyss. Compounding fear around Haven's fate and suspicion of Katja swarmed in his stomach. In that moment of hesitation as they stood in front of the door, Rory's eyes briefly glanced towards Katja. Unless she had been invited to secret campus raves he hadn't heard about... he was unable to come up with an explanation for why she would know this place. When Katja volunteered to go first, he had no objections. If they were walking into a trap, Katja could take it. If she was the trap... he'd rather her be in front of him than behind. He knew how fast she could take him out of she really wanted to, and he'd take every advantage he could.

Rory gave Harper a quick look, eyebrows raised with a nod in Katja's direction when her back was turned to them. He didn't want to risk whispering, and he didn't have enough time to explain. He was just banking on the resident smartass to be able to pick up that he didn't feel quite right about their resident tank, in the event something did happen. Out of those gathered, Harper was the only one he was confident would be able to come up with a clever solution. Or, god-forbid, find him if he went missing next.

Haven would know what he meant.

Rory's fists clenched as he stared down the abyss. They were walking into the lion's den. He slung his duffel bag off his shoulder, tossing it at the side of the entrance. He considered bringing the bat... but odds were his hands were going to be full helping Haven out of this mess. He had Blackjack at his back. If things went south he could borrow their strengths. Hopefully that would be enough. He took a step towards Harper, taking a breath as he focused his efforts on sensing the field of energy around them. It was always easier with somatics, isolating the HZE ions just enough to borrow the right one. The transformation was quick, and he made sure to keep his eyes closed as he felt the odd sensation in his skull. The pressure behind the eyes would be excruciating if it weren't for the numbness of his nervous system. When he opened his eyes, he squinted a little. It took him a moment of blinking to remember how to switch between the different types of vision, grunting when he accidentally shifted to night vision while looking towards the sky. Once he had his vision back, he stepped into the spooky stairwell.

She had to be there. She had to be ok.

Nightvision made watching his step far easier in the low-light. It also helped him to settle on firm footing when the world around him shook. He immediately crouched low, rocking his weight backwards a little to prevent himself from toppling forward. Most of the quaking shot him into the wall, which proved a less than pleasant sensation. He fared better than Katja, however. It took him a moment to recognize the sound. It sounded a bit like something falling... but that wouldn't...

Explosions.

Katja called out from the bottom, lighting up a flashlight. “I’m fine! “Coast seems clear, there’s nothing here that seems out of the ordinary-”

Rory took the remaining stairs two at a time, practically tripping his way down the remaining steps. As he reached the bottom, his foot splashed into water. He looked about, his vision catching reflections of light in the ground. That didn't seem right... this wasn't a natural cave, this was a hallway. It took his eyes a second to process that it wasn't just standing water... the water was moving. “Guys! Unless any of you can breathe underwater, we’re gonna have to hurry!”

Rory looked up in the direction Katja was looking, and quickly slipped past her. His feet splashed with every step, his running shoes and socks soaked through in seconds. That didn't stop him as he charged through the water as it began to reach his ankles, and then his shins. He didn't care about being cautious anymore. This place was flooding... and if Haven was still here, it meant she didn't have much time left. Rory rushed his way down the hallway towards the closed door, water rushing through the cracks between it and the door-frame.

Rory dipped his shoulder towards the door-handle, tilting his head away from the impact as he dived forward. Wood splintered and cracked, groaning as it was forced between rushing water and over 200 lbs of athlete. It cracked open part-way, enough for Rory to stumble through before slamming shut behind him. Rory didn't bother looking back, accidentally catching a mouthful of grimy water as he scrambled to his feet. He spat and spluttered, his eyes looking around wildly. The ceiling looked like it had already been water damaged for quite some time, though more fresh cracks and fissures in the ceiling poured water into the rapidly filling room. It was nearing his knees by the time he managed to get a better sense of where he was and what was happening, the sound of his teammates splashing down the hallway behind him.

A couple small objects brushed up against his legs as he took a step forward. His looked down, catching a glimpse of what appeared to be bottle caps. He watched them ride the currents of water past him, before he felt something much large and more firm slam into his knee. He fell as his leg buckled, water rushing up over him and into his face. Rory instinctively lifted his arm to try and block the water from getting into his eyes and mouth. When he looked up at what had hit him, he felt his stomach lurch at the sight. Blood still oozed from a hole in the head of the deranged, smiling corpse.

Rory screamed, panic and fear radiating out as he blinked to switch to thermal vision. He scrambled back up to his feet, fighting the waves and corpses flowing in his direction, as he desperately scanned the room.

"No, no no... HAVEN!"

[Lord Wraith]

^{________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}

_{Location: The Sub-Basement - Pacific Royal Collegiate & University}

Take On Me #3.062: High Water

^{_{____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}}

_{Interaction(s): None}

Previously: Scar Tissue

As the water level continued to rise, the already sinking structure groaned under the increased weight. The springs that filled the pond in the Quadrangle’s courtyard continued to flood the abandoned sub-basement, filling it with ice-cold, fresh water. Fractures appeared along the ceiling and the walls, chunks of concrete splashing into the water as it fell away from the rebar supporting it.

Girders shifted and walls began to crumble, collapsing entire corridors and limiting the path the Team was able to take. In the main lab, sparks began to arc through the air, the rising water level threatening to short circuit the now defunct teleportation pad. Even inoperable, the device was still coursing with higher than normal voltages that would no doubt end the lives of any who came in contact with it.

A block of concrete plummeted from the ceiling, landing on the body in front of Rory, covering the twisted grin of Daedalus’ former host before Haven’s nearby body was stirred by the frigid water brushing her wingtips. Another arc of electricity illuminated the room like a strobe light as the basement’s lighting flickered rapidly while power lines were strained.

Suddenly the entire structure shook.

The soft ground beneath the sub-basement sank, the entire abandoned structure sloping to the side. The force of the flooding waters pushed it deeper beneath the campus as metal protested before letting go with a deafening snap. Waves washed over Rory and suddenly Haven’s gurney was rushing towards him, heading towards the deeper water.

Another blinding flash of light erupted from behind the athlete as he sat locked in shock, his muscles frozen. Time was running out and those inside had better hurried lest they find themselves in a watery grave, buried beneath the falling rubble or electrocuted.

[Rockette]

_{Location: The Sub-Basement - Pacific Royal Collegiate & University.}

Take On Me #3.063: the undone.

^{_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}

_{Interaction(s): the fist & jim. - @Lord Wraith}

Previously: survival.

First Katja, then Rory, and then Harper next. Amma witnessed as they braved the unknown, tendrils of ivy mocking at her presence as it meshed and wove over crumbled brick and forgotten remains. A breeze swept through the tumble of curls tossed over her spine, smoothed against the planes of her back where a sphere of unholy terror bunched and swelled, feathering anxiety through her limbs and corded through her belly that seized at the turmoil of the dark lain before her. She could not catch her breath, harsh as it was through her nasal with every attempt to breathe, the weight fell to her chest an excruciating pressure that cinched her throat and pinged through her ribs with trembling exhales as panic maliciously held her fast and immobile. Her lips parted around a choked sound that fell away into nothing, stolen by the exclamations coming from the corridor that taunted her, not unlike the simulation that had shown her the truth of all that she could have been and was not, the oppressed halls and the depths of Hell where she reigned true.

Amma may not have been a stranger to pain, but horror, the minute and silent kind that sheered through her body as frigid claws of a lamented creature of dread, was an entirely new concept she could scarcely even begin to decipher.

That sphere of influence she commanded swelled with the awareness of others, figments of sounds and pinging eyes that swept down her spine wound tight and bound. Chains of fears, chains of the past that writhed against her as demented vipers of the hated dark she refused to venture into. Electric fragments of red slid through every splayed gesture, nails arched through the fabric of reality, threatening to maim at the dominating presence looming through the shadows of forgotten, overgrown shrubbery. Scarlet coils manifested upon the fringes of the world beholden to her hesitating fears, risen high over her lithesome shoulders as she said:

“Who is there.” Not a question, but a demand, one drenched in a silver glow that fell through her glare.

The steady hum of the motorcycle was the first to answer Amma's question, her eyes drawn to the gleaming black vehicle before it came to a sudden halt. Its rider dismounted in one smooth motion, his helmet retracting within his collar as the long coat he wore splayed behind him in the September breeze. His eyes locked onto her own, meeting briefly, holding as they each studied the other. Colour drained from his face as he looked upon the girl he knew so much about but had yet to see. Amma wore the face of a ghost, the past embodied in her form.

"Charl-"

Thundering hooves broke the moment and colour rapidly reappeared in Shiv's face before he turned to greet Jim who quickly jumped to the ground before approaching Amma.

"Cahors, did you open that door?"

Was that – No. No. Amma’s eyes rounded out, the crimson powers churning away at her palms immediately snuffed out into plumes of obsidian smog that slid betwixt her lungs with the sharp inhale that whistled over the pout of her lip. Taint writhed through the chasm of her heart, sired by the name unspoken, the first curl of an annunciation that would’ve shattered her world stalled by the arrival of Jim. If it had been anyone else, she might’ve had more to say- to demand. To finish that name that listed through her hellish memories as both god and the ultimate betrayer.

“I - no.” She uttered, regarding them both with a shuddered breath. “Katja did… Harper and Rory are in there with her. We followed a trail here.”

Her glare of blue once more landed on the first arrival: the man on the bike whom she did not know, but familiarity still bloomed there, his likeness spoken to her once whilst in attendance at The Foundation.

“Haven was kidnapped.”

"Haven too?" Jim replied looking towards Shiv, "Boy, ain't y'all just fine and dandy for bringing your screwed pooch over to my island."

"Then we must hurry, though if the building is compromised Daedalus would have already fled. Pray your student is both still inside and alive."

"Amma," Jim turned back to the girl, "I can push the water back and give us a fighting chance, but can you ease the process by destroying it?"

"You'll need to ensure you don't take any thing along with the water," Shiv added, his keen eyes looking down the narrow corridor. "That building is one misfire away from being gone completely along with those inside."

“Yes…” Amma answered, a peculiar haze filtered over her gaze, a sheen of silver courtesy of her powers now posturing over her arms, careless whorls of scarlet that threaded down ridges of scars and raised ink. Betwixt her ears there laid a voice, a terrible and guttural fury that sheered against her mind, fixated labels and darling phrases to her temple, dug deep into the recesses of memory gone shadowed and dead and forlorn. A name that pinged away through the wall of obsidian and scoured thick lines against the fortress of her soul, spelling out the herald of all her pain and her rage, a cruel sire that haunted her dreams now given new life.

Daedalus.

Her entire body seized on a phantom tremor, unease spindling out onto the ground in fissures of red that she struggled to contain, the world at her reckoning trembling with the influx of her power unbidden and yet foretold. Amma carefully sunk her nails into her awaiting palms, her only method for control, knowing not what that name meant to her, but knowing it nonetheless as an eternal reaper through her life undone. Within and without, she pleaded and turned at the approach of others, noting Calliope and Banjo next that stumbled upon the scene. She spared them little acknowledgment, fixating the intensity of her gaze back onto the dark, unable to vocalize so much as a demand or response before she finally stepped into the corridor- mindless of the screaming child within long thought dead that cried and wept as she vanished into the shadows.

^{_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}

She tells herself that she’s fine, that she doesn’t care. She tells herself that she’s okay- over and over and over again. She convinces herself long enough to at least make way further within, erratic pulses of red danced over her lithe frame in tandem to her heart with that ebb and flow that struggles to maintain the composure she’s fighting for. The walls are groaning, breathing, a tomb that she is willingly wading into, down and down, that oppressed feeling crushing her ribs and puncturing her lungs over and over again. Her breath comes out in quick gasps that tumbled over the pout of her lip impaled by a ridge of bone, so hard she tasted copper on her tongue and welcomed the distraction of pain with it. She can hear the others, but dare not call out, wary of the screams that bunched and wedded to the confines of her chest that rose and fell on shuddering exhales. The water touches her first and Amma is taken back to the endless depths of the ocean that pulsated beyond slivers of glass and sterile panels. They dragged her down into the dark so often that she knew the way through every line of her heart and soul, down and down.

Downdowndowndown –

– down within the confines of the ocean, no one can hear you scream.

I’ll lock you down here so they can’t find you.
So they can’t have you.
You said yes, you gave yourself to me.
You can’t take it back.

This cannot be undone.

The water rushes ever higher and for a split second Amma contemplates surrendering herself to the depths below, if only to silence that voice in her head. The roars, the wails, the eternal bellows of esoteric nightmares and fiendish replicas of what lay dormant and hidden within. The monster that swore vengeance and demanded it be paid in blood.

And death.

“Amma!” His voice cleaves through her mind, enough to sunder her from her awakening panic, eyes gone wide, lashes fluttering in the dark as the structure quakes and lists to the side. Concrete fell, chunks of it plummeting into the rising waters that stole warmth from her entire body, it felt like ice floes in her veins, chips of death that threatened to drag her under as metal snapped, groaned, the entire structure weighted under the rushing waters that surged and parted around her hips. It pulled against her entire frame, pushing her farther back until she braced her weight forward, her ankle protested against the adjustment, tender still in its brace, but Amma pushed through it. She would not be undone, no matter how encompassing and overwhelming her fears.

Violet energy spun through the spring water, the power immense as it was suddenly forced and manipulated back, a shield of psionic capacity that did as commanded and pressed the water farther away until walls of frothing depths shimmering in purple hues yielded around them. Amma carefully glanced back towards Jim, the other man who she could only acknowledge as The Fist, and yonder where Calliope and Banjo made up the end of their group, her eyes carefully swept over each of them as Jim came up at her side, a subtle nod all that was spared as the building shuddered and quaked once more. Katja and Harper were somewhere up ahead, Rory too and Haven somewhere lost within the confines as this freshly marked hell that had lurked below for a time unknown.

“Stay back.” Amma advised with a commanding ease, knowing time was not in their favor, not as the entire structure groaned, as if wary of her approach as she strides forward and suddenly fell to her knees, palms upon the ground and nails against the concrete as sudden swells of scarlet manifest razed through the world on a roar of power. A droning resonation shattered through metal and the fortifications that blocked some of their way, a radius of thirty-three feet all that could be spared until she stood and walked forward, palms thrust out to carry the angry tendrils of scarlet that snapped and struck and wrent through the violet barriers holding the waters at bay. She surrendered it all into the void at her eternal beck and call, the feathering lines of silver that slid through her lashes and alighted her eyes, the barriers falling away as she thrust out her arms and willed her might to reap and destroy. Amma commanded and manipulated the depths to vaporize, waves shuddering and hissing with her hellish manipulation, slowly whisked away into nothing, molecules all for naught and helpless and yielded to the nihilism of her waking world. She walked through the corridors, into the depths of her own hell, Jim mindful at her side as he continued to spell out violet barriers to maintain her path of destruction until they caught up with Katja and Harper, a door splintered and cracked that too fell away at the mercy of her power that wrought through the wood and willed it into nothing.

She knew it would not last long as she gasped and turned her splayed gestures into fists, immediately sundering that connection to the world that wailed at her manifest. Amma nearly fell, the amount of HZEs toiled about her person abundant and tangible, pulsating black and crimson in her wake as she struggled to breathe. An opening had been made, one of limited means, but one none the less that cost her precious resources, all of her time spent healing affording her just enough ability to allow them to finally reach Haven- if she still lived.

“Hurry...” She bid them, gaze aglow in silver and blue, locked ahead and within as shadows amalgamated and swarmed through her vision, tendrils of black that speared through her mind that suddenly screamed. An unknown barrier that prevented her from going any further into the dark unknown, memories lain there that would have wrought her spirit asunder- a block. One carefully constructed so that she may never venture unto the hell of her true past. Amma’s lashes fluttered, a seizing tremble that shook her lithe body until she suddenly fell back, lids shuttered over the veil of her intense eyes as she suddenly fainted with a final swirl of scarlet energy that shot off into the darkness as the entire building shook once more.

Shiv’s arms came around her immediately, catching the body of Amma Cahors as she fell, the might of her power undone spent through the traumatic experiences he knew she had endured for so long. He lifted and held her with ease, unable to shake the phantoms of the past that illuminated her face with the likeness of a woman that haunted him to this day.

[Skai]

---

_{Location: ?? - ??}

Take on Me: #3.064 Wet Feathers

---

_{Interaction(s): N/A}

Previously: Two in the Bush

The harsh prick of a needle sent a fresh wave of terror through Haven as she realized that her time had run out. Her muscles locked up, eyes flinging open wide in one last bleary look at the man who would undo her. The mercifully cold liquid traveled through her quickly. It calmed her racing heart, relaxed her tense body, and she felt her breath finally return to her. Any traces of fear, grief, or anger slipped from her grasp as she felt her eyelids grow heavy. She thought of Rory’s blue eyes. How they reminded her of an open sky on a cloudless day. It brought her peace until the sedative rendered her unconscious.

…

A cold sensation lapped hungrily at her feathers. The sound of groaning metal and rushing water reached her ears while her mind fought against the growing feeling that something was wrong. She wondered if she was waking up in the middle of the procedure. If the warmth being sapped from her wings and back was what it felt like to lose a limb.

Lights flashed against the dark of her eyelids. She heard the crackling of electricity nearby. Her body twitched uncomfortably beneath the leather straps that still held her down. She didn’t want to open her eyes. She didn’t want to witness the gore of her body being torn asunder. There was no pain. There was no fear. She was still under the sedatives influence, and now she hoped it would last a little longer. She wanted to remain numb until the monster had finished the job. Or at least until he killed her trying.

Against her wishes, her world was undone as she felt gravity tilt on its axis. The groaning noise overwhelmed the room as the gurney beneath her shook. It felt like she’d performed a backwards loop in flight and was caught in the middle. She remained stuck in the free fall, her eyes squeezing shut against the nauseating sensation. Her body tensed as she prepared for the crash that would inevitably follow, and it found her quickly.

Her cry of shock was muted by the gag that her teeth found purchase in as the table beneath her shuddered. Her body jerked backwards but the restraints held fast. The joints where her wings met her back felt like they’d been jolted free of the sockets. She felt her cold feathers bunching beneath leather. The twisted grimace on her face soon vanished as a thought struck her. She could feel her body again. She could feel her wings.

Green and gold eyes finally opened as a wave of shock and relief coursed through her veins. The dark room that greeted her was nothing like the lab that she had last seen. She scanned the fissured and dripping wet ceiling above her, her eyes following a particularly large crack down the wall that loomed overhead. She hastily looked to her right, eager to confirm that what she could feel was real.

Her eyes looked over the wet feathers of her wings and the sight of them brought tears to her eyes.

She didn’t know why… or how… or what fresh hell she was in now…

All that mattered to her in that moment was that she hadn’t been undone.

---

[webboysurf]

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_{Location: Escape Room from Hell, Academic Quadrangle, P.R.C.U. Campus}

Take on Me #3.065: I Just Want to Save You

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_{Interaction(s): Haven @Skai}

Previously: In Too Deep & Wet Feathers

The only good thing about nearly drowning in shitty, disgusting water was that it all muffled the sound of a body being crunched under concrete. Not that there were many things good about the world crumbling around Rory. More corpses, cracking architecture, electrical lines, and a sinking floor... he had better days. He had managed to fall on his ass again, and watched as a gurney began sliding through the rushing water his direction. He blinked, steadying his vision and focus. He'd recognize those wings anywhere. He moved in its direction, but the waves and unsteady flooring kept fumbling his movements. It crashed into the wall, eliciting a small unintelligible cry from Rory.

Of course, the water seemed to surge a little behind him. He heard noise coming from the hallway, past the door. It could be help. It could be a trap. He didn't care. He scrambled through the water towards the gurney, vision blurred from water clinging to his eyelashes. As stone fell from above, Rory braced himself and kept moving. Every shift, every change in environment, was but a momentary obstacle in his path. Loose debris and old medical equipment battered his skin and tore through his clothes, but he hardly seemed to notice. He only stopped when he heard the doorway into the room seem to crumble and collapse, along with a major shift in the water levels. He turned back, wiping droplets from his eyes, to see Amma and Jim enter into the room. The familiar tendrils of Amma's destructive power coursed through the waves. Rory braced himself up against the wall, the sensation of her powers decimating the water molecules around him unnerving to say the least. The sudden change in pressure caused him to lose his balance, catching himself at the last moment. His eyes met the dragon but briefly, his expression grateful.

She upheld her part. He needed to uphold his.

Rory turned his gaze back towards the gurney, rushing to Haven's side and immediately giving a quick scan. Her eyes were open. She was awake. He opted to quickly move his hands to the leather restraints, fiddling with the buckles as his panicked questions poured out of his mouth. "Fuck, fuck... Haven, Haven, are you ok? Did they hurt you? They didn't hurt your wings, did they? Are you awake? Can you walk? We're going to get you out of here. I've got you." His hands shook as they worked the restraints, wildly flinging the straps out of his way once they were clear.

The sound of heavy footsteps nearby wrenched Haven’s momentary relief from her. She flinched where she laid on the gurney, fully expecting to see Daedalus as she turned her head towards the presence beside her. Fear and pain melted into shock as she quickly looked Rory over, as if she couldn’t believe he was standing next to her. Her eyebrows bunched together, and then rose as her relief returned to her.

Each strap undone from her body felt like a fresh breath of air. Her eyes followed him as he moved, tears beginning to slide down her temples. With her wrists freed first, Haven hastily moved her heavy arms to claw at the back of her head. She tugged at the strap that held the gag in place, eager to remove the rubber from her mouth . She tried to remain patient as Rory began to work on the leather that held her wings but her frustration soon boiled over as more tears ran down her cheeks. She covered her face with her hands as she laid her head back against the table once more. So many emotions were passing through her at once. It took all of her will not to break down as she waited to be freed of the horrid gurney beneath her.

Rory's heart broke at her reactions, his jaw clenched tight as he did his best to compose his emotions. He had work to do. He took only a moment to breathe, steadying his hands. He had to focus. He quickly released the remaining straps with a fervor. Once they were freed, he immediately lifted his hands up to touch the sides of Haven's face. ”I'm here… but we need to leave, ok? We don't have much time.”

Haven removed her hands from her face as she felt Rory get to work on the gag. She first took a deep breath as her jaw was finally allowed to relax, and then she worked her jaw around as she tried to relieve it of the feeling. His touch against her cheeks grounded her, keeping her emotions from taking control. She looked into those clear blue eyes and found momentary strength within them. He was here. She was safe with him, no matter what circumstance they were stuck in now. She gave him a small nod before she sniffed as she tried to compose herself too. She’d have all the time she needed to cry and scream and rage once they escaped.

“I still have my wings,” Her voice was quiet, her throat and mouth dry and sore, but she wanted him to know. “I’m okay.” She looked between his eyes once more before she took one of his hands into her own. She used her other to slowly push herself up from the table. Her body ached with each movement, her wings once again feeling like dead weight along her back, but she eventually swung her legs over the side of the gurney. Her feet, wearing only the socks she’d fallen asleep in, barely grazed the slanted concrete floor.

She didn’t waste a moment as she slid off the side. Her balance wavered as she placed her weight onto her legs, arms reaching to Rory as she tried to stay upright. “Why?” Haven asked, her eyes searching the debris that gathered along the wall beside them as she tried to figure out how the room had come to be this way. The bottom of her socks were becoming wet from the still damp floor. She thought about her wet wings, and the cold sensation that she’d felt. None of it made sense.

”I… I don't know. Just watch your step.” Rory swung his shoulder under Haven's arms, giving her something to lean on as he took a cautionary step forward. The ground felt unstable, and he knew he didn't have a lot of time left with his vision. He just had to make it to the stairs. He called out. ”I've got her… let's go!”

[Lord Wraith]

^{________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}

_{Location: The Sub-Basement - Pacific Royal Collegiate & University}

Take On Me #3.066: The Black

^{_{____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}}

_{Interaction(s): None}

Previously: High Water

As Miguel caught Amma, Jim was forced to push forward, using his abilities to drive the remaining water back and secure it at the source. The room continued to shudder, gravity pulling the weight further down into the earth while the redirected water was forced under the crumbling concrete as it sought a new point of entry. Fissures exploded through the floor as the clear spring water dropped the temperature.

The ceiling above Jim began to crumble but before he could make a move to block it, Katja was there beside him, holding the ceiling in place exchanging a grim nod with Jim. Amma had cleared the way and Rory was rescuing Haven, the couple exchanging a few words before Rory managed to hobble past the pair that was Katja and Jim and make back towards the entrance. The Foundation’s Fist had retreated ahead of them, taking Amma along with him as Shiv carried the raven-haired girl outside and called for a medical transport to their location.

Emerging from the rapidly deteriorating tunnels into the cool September night sky, medics greeted Rory and took Haven from him. Behind the pair Jim’s voice boomed through the din of the rushing water.

“Everyone else, out! Now!”

Emerging triumphant and just in time, Jim watched the stairs behind the door suddenly crumble as the sinkhole swallowed the rest of the sub-basement, water slowly filling the void left behind. That accursed laboratory finally gone for good, and the teleportation pad along with it. Turning to Rory, Jim placed a hand on the dark-haired man’s shoulder before speaking at a low volume, so only Rory could hear him.

“Go with Miss Barnes to the Infirmary, but Mr. Tyler, make no mistake, we will be having words about your decision-making today and how you were able to find this place. Perhaps I misjudged putting the burden of leadership on you so soon.” Jim’s tone was weighed in disappointment, releasing his hand from Rory’s shoulder as he urged the younger man to climb into the back of the Minotaur with Haven.

Turning to the remaining team, Jim opened his mouth to speak before his phone began to ring. Moving his hand to ignore it, he saw the name on the screen and excused himself before placing the device to his ear.

“Hello?”

“Jim, it’s Tori, Lorcán’s not going to make it through the night, I just wanted you to know so you can prep the team. Aiden’s staying with him, Aurora’s with me at the house sleeping.” Her voice cracked on the other side of the line.

“Tori, I’m so sorry, is there anything I can do for y’all?”

“Pray for a miracle.” She replied, her voice quivering, “At this point, there’s nothing else I can ask for.” The line went dead as Jim hung his head, blinking away the tears forming in his eyes before turning and approaching the rest of Blackjack.

“I’m afraid,” He cleared his throat, fighting the lump forming, “I’m afraid I have some bad news about Lorcán.”

[Lord Wraith]

“You’re so motivated by your feelings for these women,” The shade taunted pacing back and forth with its weapon as it was joined by other psychopomps. Two more ravens landed beside her, one assuming Aurora’s adult form, while the other became Amma.

“But she controls you the most,” The psychopomp stated gesturing towards the shade of Aurora with a small sneer.

“This form however broke your heart first,” Ryan taunted, “I can see your tear-stained face as you stumbled upon her in the arms of another in the shed beyond your parents’ house. You had gone to pick her wildflowers, thinking there was something special between you, but you were just a kid and she was already a woman.”

Lorcán felt the repulse of embarrassment, looking down at the wilted bouquet in his hand. He could see Ryan in front of him, her jeans undone, the boy’s hands intertwined with the red strap riding above her hip bones. Black lace peeked out from a shirt nearly completely discarded as Ryan’s tongue darted in and out from between the older boy’s lips, her hands firmly clenched around his jaw while their hips gyrated together.

A laugh from the pomp brought Lorcán back to the dimly lit clearing.

“You’re embarrassed by how this one makes you feel,” The psychopomp continued. The fires were subsiding on all sides and shadows scurried to and fro behind the treeline. Lorcán could feel the hairs on the back of his neck beginning to stand on end. Roars of hunger echoed through the air as some of the braver creatures tried to push through the flames before retreating again.

“You can’t find comfort with her because you feel guilt for wanting it. But she’s already part of you. She’s been inside you and marked you as her own. Can’t you feel your toes curl as she pulses inside of you, making you feel whole again? Just let yourself feel the release.” Ryan continued while Amma approached Lorcán, a smile starting on her lips, her tongue slowly tracing along her bottom lip as it pouted outwards.

Like a lioness about to take down a gazelle, Amma pounced forward, a hand running down Lorcán’s chest before she ripped his shirt open. A nail dragged along where the scar should have been, a gasp of agonized ecstasy escaping Lorcán’s lips before fresh blood flowed freely from the wound. With a bat of her dark eyelashes, Amma withdrew her hand and sucked on the crimson-stained finger.

“And then there’s Aurora.” Ryan stated, “You really just can’t spit it out? You’ve spent all this time chasing after her, but you can’t, how was it Ripley put it? COM-MUN-I-CATE?”

Lorcán staggered back from Amma, reaching his hand out as he tried with all his might to summon his own powers but they were gone. He couldn’t even feel the dull ache of being drained, it was as though he had never had his abilities.

“Every fiber of your being calls out for her, your soul seeks her out and yet the words ‘do you want to go to the dance with me?’ are foreign to you?” Ryan laughed as Aurora began to approach Lorcán.

“Everyone knows it too, your stolen glances are painfully obvious, the lingering touches, the constant mention of one another.” Ryan smiled,

“Just bang already.”

And suddenly Aurora was on Lorcán. He could feel his fingers tracing her body, the memories of intertwining in the tent. His hands on her hips, his lips reaching for hers. Hot breath brushed against his neck as delicate fingers traced his chest reaching under the ripped shirt and coming to rest on his belt. Her breath danced around down his chest as Aurora invited herself to explore every inch of his body and Lorcán felt his pulse quickening. It was everything he had ever wanted.

But it wasn’t right, it wasn’t real.

It wasn’t Aurora.

Lorcán suddenly pushed her back, stumbling before both Aurora and Amma took steps forward in pursuit. Lorcán looked from one shade to the other, here he was trapped with Aurora on one side and Amma on the other.

“If you stay, all your wildest dreams will come true,” Amma purred in his ear, her tongue warming his ear lobe as Lorcán suddenly began to feel very warm again. Her nails clawed at his back and side, sending a shiver of anticipation down his spine.

“I’m sure we can all find a way to get along,” Aurora whispered in the other ear, her teeth gently nibbling it while her hands slowly massaged his bicep, wrapping around it before her grip turned to steel.

It was wrong, this wasn’t what he actually wanted but Lorcán felt powerless to resist as he found himself unable to move. Turning his head from one girl to the other, feeling himself beginning to melt, his inhibitions, his will drifting away as Ryan stood triumphantly. Darkness overtook the clearing as the fires suddenly extinguished, the fight leaving Lorcán’s body.

Innumerous rows of needle-like teeth suddenly appeared on the edge of the thicket, their yellow smiles nearly glowing in the dark as the lanky corpse-like creatures lumbered into the clearing. Sickly long tongues lapped at their chins while drool dripped from their eager maws.

The shade wearing Ryan’s face slowly approached, cracking her jaw before it began to unhinge, extending as she was flanked by the wendigos hungry to devour Lorcán’s soul.

“You could have chosen comfort, you could have crossed over without a fight, but instead you ran and now,” Her teeth elongated creating an unnerving smile. Her voice became a chorus of baritones and scratching whispers.

“Now you’ll suffer.”

Lunging forward, the psychopomp suddenly was blasted backward, Lorcán feeling strength coursing through his body as tendrils of silver and red wrapped themselves around his limbs, cleaving the shades from him. The charging wendigos were turned to ash as flames erupted from the ground, the burning chasms claiming their twisted bodies.

The shade’s face twisted as it angrily began to shriek protests as the flames multiplied, amplified by a familiar force as Lorcán felt his powers returning. His mane-like hair fell on his shoulders while a voice rang out out.

“You’ve got a lion inside of those lungs.”

Taking a deep breath, Lorcán exhaled a gout of flame, igniting the forest and further repelling the army of spirits and undead.

“You’re not welcome here!” The pomp screamed no longer bothering with appearing as Ryan, Aurora or Amma as she stood defiantly between the growing walls of flame and Lorcán. Slivers of silver explode from within the crimson flames before they completely engulfed the shade. The fire rose higher as Lorcán found himself alone. Like a baptism of fire, he spread his arms wide, shutting his eyes and gave himself over to the inferno.

^{________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}

_{Location: The Infirmary - Pacific Royal Collegiate & University}

Take On Me #3.067: You Could Be Mine

^{_{____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}}

_{Interaction(s): @Rockette - Amma Cahors}

Previously: Think About You

In moments of chaos and heartache, situational awareness is all for naught, and in the secure wing of the infirmary, Amma Cahors’s spine is rigid in the gloom of filtered sunlight and shadow where the wall at her back supports the tremors that loop and canter through her entire body. The news of Lorcán’s condition had all been second-hand, traded words of disbelief as she struggled with an internal bought of what lanced through her heart at the mention of his looming demise. The reaper heralded itself over her spirit eternally and within the sweltering darkness of her soul there bloomed a thread of fire that corded through the scarlet tendrils of her manifest, a harboring wealth of power so miniscule it went unheeded through her waking world until this very moment. He was going to die, and she knew naught how she felt about it at that moment, could not decipher the catches upon the rungs of her ribs and the aching hopelessness that spooled through her trembling gestures as she lifted scarred palms to her eyes spun wide and aglow in the tremors of HZEs suddenly gone manic and crazed through the fringes of her reality.

Memories of youth spindled through her mind, a melodic voice of both keeper and mother and protector hushed and caressed against her hair, trembling fingers through the locks spun in the likeness of she, the damnation of fallen stars and cosmos eternal in the eyes of god.

Ünterseele – Überseelen and devour. The concept of heart and soul, the unification of one, as we all are.

These terms rang in familiarity, unbidden through her mind, things she had heard long ago and had forgotten in the leagues of trauma endured. Her mother saw All, knew things others did not, and contained those secrets well in life, had given and forsaken All even then for the welfare of her beloved daughter: she who was the purest form of love and meaning of life, the child of two individuals who never would have met under normal circumstances if not for the intricacies of fate. Those particular words of Limbo and Wendigo meant something, Amma was certain, but whatever translation was to be had was immediately lost as the conversation lulled and ended with such a ring of finality that she felt the conspiring funeral toles vibrating down to her bones.

Lorcán owed her nothing and his family even less so, but she could not shake the timbre of his voice: You inspired me – There’s like, totally nothing ugly about you.

Confessions she has heard before, admissions on whispers and shy breaths, things proffered to Amma that she easily dismissed that now resurfaced upon the lapping waves of humanity unbidden and at the moment, unwanted. The last few days had exposed more perplexities to Amma’s emotions than she was prepared for and even now took her unaware as she carved her fingers back through her mass of hair and sunk the heels of her palms against her brow to reign in some of that control that had been evading her since the Trial had taken all that saw was and could have been and turned it against her.

Your powers have always existed on a different level, possessed of such high-energy particles that encompass many things of death, but also life. We can make you even stronger, you’ve only to say the words.

Yes.

Amma slowly unveils her eyes, lashed framed around a tumultuous blue as unbound as the sea, voids of the deep peering through the darkness as the sun slowly begins to set, bathing her in hues of twilight. The in-between where her powers had once bidden and took life, where she had been donned the harbinger of ruin in the confines of an old cathedral.

She did not know what she could do, but she knew she had to do something.
She could only hope it would be enough.

^{______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}

She waits as a spectre, watching the time flit on by, every breath all the more critical and felt all the more through her body as she gazes outward towards the moon suspended above in a silver glow. Wreathed in a halo that seemed to mock her with every hour she stalled for, uncertain of what she could do in this damning situation that stroked well past midnight, encroaching upon the haunting hour. Amma pulled in a shuddering breath that danced over her ribs, sleeves dropped from her shoulders and exposing the line of her scar where her power churned into a red whorl as the illustration of her emotions still manic and barely contained. Perhaps it was the shadow of death that called to her, haunting lyrics of the end that even spun from her throat as she stood from her bed and carefully exited her room of solitary where her guards were conveniently absent.

It would seem her new development of humanity did not go unnoticed.

She carefully navigated her way through the infirmary, fate would have it seen that she go unnoticed as she had a few nights before when she had visited another, but this was different as she turned right, her chest rising and falling on quivering exhales, this was all intentional and purposeful. Her palms ghosted over the hallways as memory guided her through the night. However, it sufficed to say something else led her steps too, for the crimson pulsating at her front immediately spooled away from her flesh, tendrils yearning and seeking through the dark, drawn hopelessly through the corridor as it had been during the simulation and many nights before.

Amma knew then as she knew now, the compelling strength of his powers that had woven together with her own, unifications of scarlet and silver and vermillion, hidden tinges of blue like the hottest of fire that seduced the chaotic whorls of her unknown strength. The closer she came to his room, the more she felt the leagues of dread and decay that pulsated just yonder his door, the eternal end rising against her power in defiance. Cords of crimson snapped and pulled, harmonizing through her gestures as she batted them away and finally entered Lorcán’s room as the hour stroked three times. The power of three, the power of many, the power of three names that bloomed through her soul on a roar as she beheld the state he was in.

Her eyes rounded out, death and despair sang through the dark, the shadows of the night smothering the edges of his room and challenging her glare that raked down his entire body gone pale, the once golden hue to his skin drawn and spent, the signs of his torment and maladies draining all life from his spirit.The smell of rot, an offense she knew intimately, as her powers were capable of the same damage that expelled through these walls and caught her breath in a choked gasp. Amma’s lashes and brow plummeted, expressions of sorrow and pain bidden to her visage as reality settled upon her heart and painfully made known the denial of her affections. The facade of the beast fell away to the girl, the girl who could not deny that she cared.

Amma Cahors cared for Lorcán Roth.

And perhaps it was that dawning realization that made her acknowledge that she cared for the others too. She cared for Katja and the pain she inflicted. She cared for Gil who had been a victim of his own darkness and despair. She had cared for Haven and the memory of the only friend she had ever had in the world that she conjured, and she even cared for Aurora, the girl she had given the last pieces of her power to so that she might survive and find him.

At his bedside, Amma laughed: a quiet trill that spun from her full mouth drawn at the edges in the most dejected smile imaginable.

“Damm you. Damn, everyone.”

Somewhere in the distance, perhaps somewhere not of this world, a terrible bellow sounded through her lobe, it rang betwixt her ears and nearly brought her to her knees. It was a warning, the call of a terrible creature that promised her end and lay claim to their prey, it commanded her to flee, but Amma’s answer was one of a challenge as crimson waves bid over her drawn shoulders, heralding the true calling of destruction and chaos. That monster that churned away at her heart and soul rose upon the chains of destiny and fate and rejoined that screech of death with one of ultimate nihilism. Her gaze is drawn down to his forearm where she feels the heralding of death sing, it reaps through his entire body in fiendish lines of black that crawl upon his flesh unchecked and without, and she feels every darkening whorl of rot, similar to her powers that continue to climb ever higher, a gauntlet thrown to the very reaper that had purchase of Lorcán’s soul.

“I won’t let you die.” Amma breathed and with trembling hands, she laid her palms upon his mutilated arm, her scars immediately aglow with scarlet that churns away from her pores, arachnid gestures turning vice-like upon the HZEs that were banked deep within, his power sputtering away into nothing and gnawed upon by whatever infection sluiced away through his veins. Lashes sundered over her glowing eyes, concentration turning her face strained as she compelled her power further.

"I am the advocate for the depraved and the unhinged.
I am rage, I am pain.
I am the unknown."

Like vipers, her powers lanced through his body, feathering edges of silver upon every ridge of muscle beneath her grasp, highlighting his nerves. Her breath came out in harsh pants, drawn from her throat in an exhilarating gasp as she spooled more of her energy through his wound, the marks marring his body aglow in hated red.

And there, she felt it, death and hunger. Amma coaxed it to her liken to a lover, bid the infection closer and closer until she struck, her nails spearing into his arm, her gestures turning rigid as scarlet cords snapped and pulled and spun intimately through everything wrong and not of this world and whisked it away into nothing. The void welcomed the horrid manifest, spent away into eternity, her own appetence fluttering low in her belly as Amma immediately relinquished her hold of his arm. Sparks of red pulsated around them, wreathing each in a scarlet glow that spun away into silver, black feasting upon the feathered edges of her power as she struggled to breathe around the sudden emotions that spooled from her heart in shuddering gasps that wrecked through every link of bone and nerve.

Colour began to return to ahsen flesh as the man before her stirred, a wave of heat washing over the room as fever dispelled and molten-hued eyes fluttered open, a glance of brief recognition washing over Amma before he, Lorcán, uttered a single groan and eyelids extinguished flame. Guttural utterings turned to serene snores, a smile spreading across the slumbering student’s face.

“Thank you,” The voice of an older male caught Amma off guard, the raven-haired femme fatale spinning around, her ocean eyes rising to meet ones that so reminded her of Lorcán’s own but instead of molten, were hued like sapphire.

“I don't know how you did it, but my family owes you a debt of gratitude that I could never repay, thank you for saving my son's life.” Aiden said, reaching down and embracing the young woman.

“From the bottom of our hearts, my wife and I thank you. You are always welcome at our table, Amma.”

This sort of gratitude was such a spell of kindness unknown to her, her spirit and soul wailing at the touch of another, at the embrace that spindled leagues of warmth down her entire body. The swell of heat through the room, bidden by Lorcán perhaps, or the returning of his HZEs that battered and tugged at her rigid spine. Amma would never forget those eyes dawning upon her; for eyes of that molten hue were the sort that kindled slow and steady - a churning core of vermillion banked within a sea of flame; scarlet fringes and the tiniest slivers of resplendence that burned as hot as the sun. Sunbursts, she names, the cosmos wreathed with an eternal star that sires breadths of comfort through her entire being.

She doesn’t know what to say, for words could not be spared as the haunting hour slowly came to an end and here she simply nodded, the closest Amma could bring herself to acknowledge, unknowing if such a grace could be granted to her if she had been lost in similar circumstances of death. She disengages herself from Aiden’s embrace and steps back, unable to resist casting her eyes back towards his son, lids draped over her gaze, and there, unbidden and with little command, a single thread of her power blooms from her chest and lazily churns, attaching to the energy particles awash through the room in hues of red and silver, and eagerly seeks him out where it coyly hovers above Lorcán’s chest before sinking betwixt flesh and bone.

A small boost, a figment of herself proffered silently before her expression lapses into something solemn and with little ceremony, Amma simply leaves.

[Lord Wraith]

As dawn’s first light stole away the darkness in the infirmary room, Aiden sat beside his son. A book was in his hand as he continued to read aloud. It had been a tradition that started when Lorcán was young. If his son was sick, Aiden would sit by his bedside and read. He had loved doing all manner of voices for the young boy, watching Lorcán’s eyes light up and his smile widen as Aiden switched from deep baritones to high squeaky voices that were so obnoxious but always got a laugh out of his son.

Now, he sat there reading from ‘The Three Musketeers’, Lorcán’s favourite sick day story. While his son might have normally outgrown this sort of treatment, Aiden didn’t mind indulging some nostalgia while he waited for Lorcán to stir.

Finding Amma in Lorcán’s room had been a surprise, what she had done was a mystery, but the fever had cleared and his son’s wounds were responding to treatment. After four agonizingly long days and a rollercoaster of emotions, it was finally over. Beside Aiden, Tori had fallen asleep against her husband’s shoulder, a smile on her face as she sat comforted with the news of her son’s recovery.

Soon they would call Aurora, Cassander and Ripley, but for just a few moments more, Aiden wanted to enjoy the time with his family. Turning the page, he continued to read aloud coming to a familiar line that caused him to pause. Hesitating, Aiden swallowed hard before reading.

“Never fear quarrels, but-”

“-seek hazardous adventures.” A voice croaked from within the bed as Aiden stood and lifted a glass of water to Lorcán’s lips. He drank eagerly and with unspoken gratitude, the rejuvenating liquid washing away the dryness of his throat. He opened his mouth to speak again before Aiden raised a single finger to his lips.

“Rest, son. You may be out of the woods, but you’re not home yet.” Aiden brushed Lorcán’s wavy hair back away from his son’s molten eyes, watching them flutter open briefly before relenting against the strain and closing again.

“Welcome back, Lion Lungs.”

^{________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}

_{Location: The Infirmary - Pacific Royal Collegiate & University}

Take On Me #3.068: November Rain

^{_{____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}}

_{Interaction(s): @Melissa - Aurora Mitchell}

Previously: You Could Be Mine

“He’s still heavily sedated while we finish patching up his arm,” The medic stated, looking at the gathered members of the Roth family including Aurora. “But otherwise he seems to be making a full recovery. There’s no trace of the foreign infection, we honestly can’t be certain what changed, but life signs are stable and increasing rapidly. He should be waking up later today.”

“Thank you, doctor.” Tori smiled as the medic gave a small nod of their head before leaving the room.

“I can’t believe I cried for you,” Cass snarked towards Lorcán’s still unconscious body.

“You wept like a baby,” Ripley teased, tears of happiness welling up in her own eyes.

“Ripley, hun?” Tori started, “Why don’t we give these two some privacy with Lorcán?”

“Why does everyone keep making me leave?” Ripley asked, letting out an exasperated sigh as she followed her Aunt and Uncle out of the room leaving only Cassander and Aurora standing over Lorcán’s bed,

“You must be pretty happy?” Cass asked Aurora with a small smirk, “Naturally this guy would start to heal just in time to pick out a tie to match your dress, you’re still going to the dance right?”

Aurora was still in a state of disbelief. This morning when Tori had woken her up, excitedly telling her Lorcán’s fever had broken overnight and that he was on the mend, she thought she had been dreaming, especially since she had to take a minute to orient herself to her surroundings, not remembering how she’d gotten to the Roth’s in the first place. But after realizing that she was indeed awake, she instantly burst into tears of relief.

The redhead could only laugh at the blonde boy’s correct assumption as they stood there, elbowing him playfully. “Yes, Cassy, of course I’m happy that my best friend is going to live.” She shook her head, “The dance is the last thing I’m concerned about right now, I could honestly care less about some trivial dance. Lorcán’s going to be okay, that’s the most important thing right now.”

She hesitated, but voiced what naturally came to her mind next, “What I told you stays between you and me, though.” Aurora let her gaze fall back to Lorcán, “Until I get the chance to talk to him myself.”

“I’ll run my mouth all day long if you call me ‘Cassy’ again,” Cass smirked, “Otherwise, mum’s the word.” He took a step forward, a slight wince of pain crossing his face, “I think I broke my toe kicking his bed though.” Cass shook his head at himself and sat down on the nearby chair.

“I’m still at a loss what changed,” He replied, “Aiden really didn’t say and Ellara was dead certain Lorcán was gone,” Cass tried not to let his mind wander to some of the racing thoughts brought on by Ellara’s words. His leather jacket squeaked against the chair as he shifted uncomfortably.

“I imagine Ripley must be running around the infirmary doing cartwheels at this point, I still can’t believe Aiden and Tori were able to get her to leave.” He added, shifting the discussion away from the how lest he put a damper on a mood that should be nothing short of celebratory.

“Still, the damndest thing,” Cass shook his head again before looking at Lorcán, “And knowing you when you wake up, you’ll tell everyone and none of us will understand a word of it.” He laughed.

Aurora shrugged, a smirk tugging on her lips, “Must have been all those nice things we were saying, my guess is it all went straight to his head.” She laughed, such a foreign feeling to joke after days of hardship, but she was not planning on taking it for granted anytime soon. She also didn’t want to question his spontaneous recovery.

“I can only hope that Ripley is cartwheeling right now. This was a lot for her to wrap her head around, especially given the circumstances.” She gave Cass a knowing look, a silent understanding floating between the two that the younger girl had grown up very differently than them. “I’m just glad she still likes me after yesterday.” The redhead added, her evidence being that when she woke up this morning, Ripley was curled up right next to her, the brunette having snuck into the guest room in the middle of the night to keep her company.

“As for him,” Aurora gestured to Lorcán, “He can say whatever he wants from now on, I won’t question a thing.”

“You want to give him that much power?” Cassander asked, “You know he thinks pineapple on pizza is good and I’m pretty sure he tried to convince me once to put peanut butter on my hot dog.”

“On second thought, I’ll still question some things.”

A groan interrupted the playful conversation as Cass looked over to see Lorcán turn his head.

“Whoa, buddy!” He called, a smile crossing his face, “About time you woke up.”

Aurora did not restrain the wide grin that instantly formed on her face, happy tears pricking at the corners of her eyes as Lorcán stirred. She didn’t hesitate to step closer to his bed, stand closer to him, making sure he knew she was there.

“It’s a miracle.” She breathed, placing her hand near him. It was surreal, this moment, this second chance he was given, they were given. And she definitely wasn’t going to waste it.

“mMmm,” Lorcán murmured, patting his hand forward until he found Aurora’s, his eyes still firmly shut. She relished in the familiar warmth of his skin.

“Mmma.” He slurred and Aurora leaned in closer, knowing he was trying to say something, tell them something. He coughed slightly before finally managing to speak.

“Amma.”

Aurora’s eyes went wide, shock etched on her features.

Of all the things he could have said, the people he could have asked for in his first moments awake… the color drained from the redhead’s face at the name he spoke. She’d sat by his bedside for nearly the entirety of his stay, praying to whatever god she found herself believing in that he'd be okay. She’d finally come to the realization that her life would be nothing without him, she’d professed her love to him.

She felt like a fool. A complete and utter fool.

Aurora tried her best to maintain her composure, blue eyes darting from Lorcán up to Cass, who stood beside her having witnessed the whole thing. She withdrew her hand, nimbly slipping it from his weak grasp.

"I-I..." She stammered, her eyes instantly beginning to water, but for a different reason entirely. With a sniffle, she managed to speak coherently. "You should go get Tori and Aiden, tell them he's awake. Ripley too."

"I need a minute."

Without another word, she teleported out of the infirmary.

[Roman]

G I L E M O R Y G A L A H A D
G I L E M O R Y G A L A H A D

_{Location: Infirmary Wing - P.R.C.U. Campus}

Take On Me #3.069: It's so hard to be

---

_{Interaction(s): N/A}

Gil sat on his dorm-room bed, his ass marveling at the stark differences in mattress comfort, his mind marveling at how keenly aware of those differences he could be after only a few days in the infirmary. He was showered and re-dressed and he felt refreshed for it, like he'd shed the skin of the last few days; he might even consider himself in a good mood, despite the lingering bruises and the booted ankle - but his head was a storm, gloomy and thunderous and looming darkly over him. Even despite the good news in the last few hours, the breaking of calamitous waves against the bough of hope, it felt bittersweet. Buoyant ends to tragedies that never should have occurred in the first place. Gil attempted optimism, tried to be grateful that Haven and Lorcán were recovered, each as unharmed as all concerned probably could have hoped for; but there was an inalienable sense that none of this - nothing at all - should have happened at all.

He stared at his phone; the missed calls from Elenora still haunted his lock screen, but beyond that there were just texts. Texts about Lorcán's declining medical status, texts about the discovery of Haven's kidnapping, texts about the aftermath of the Trials. Gil's mind whirled with the compounded events of only the last fortnight. The first fortnight of the new term! It seemed only yesterday they were catching up on the shores of the island, enjoying the last of their summer freedom before the semester began; yet at the same time, that lingering evening felt nearly half a year behind them.

The foundation intruding on their opening ceremony, and their general foreign presence at the university was an early imbalance; the invalidation of degree accreditation that threw so many futures into question; Rory and Haven's reified romance pushing Mei to flee the campus entirely; the entire sabotage of the Trials, pushing Blackjack to the very limits of both their bodies and their psyches, leaving irreversible damage on both; Hyperion's Children being discovered under the academy's nose, and Blackjack's own Pallyx a mere imposter posing as one of them among their ranks; Tad wounded and hospitalised like so many of them; Haven kidnapped from Rory's dorm, ripped from the supposed safety of a lover's embrace; and Lorcán, mortality terrifyingly clarified in a single stroke from an unknown - unknowable - assailant.

Lorcán. He had recovered, thankfully, through some manner of miracle, though not much was understood - or at least, not much was being said - of what happened to allow such a remarkable pivot. Gil wrestled with conflicted feelings; relief, obviously, and an abating sadness adjacent to grief, the anguish of a friend almost lost. But there was also anger there, seeding viscous roots through otherwise pure emotions. Lorcán had been attacked on the north side of the island, from what little Gil had been given and been able to piece together; it was untamed land, far beyond the bounds of the campus and, for that matter, far beyond Lorcán's usual haunts as well. Why was he there at all? The only three witnesses were all as reticent as each other, something oddly impressive for the Firebird girls who'd only arrived after-the-fact, considering the third was the academy's resident dog. Bafflement gave way to frustration and frustration muddled with relief to alchemise into misplaced fury. What was he doing? Days out from the disaster of the Trials and the damage it had caused, and Lorcán had taken a jaunt to an uncharted area of the island, and had suffered dire consequences for it. With Haven's kidnapping it was clear their enemies still lurked among them; had he not considered that caution may have been prudent? That Blackjack, robbed of Tad, would need a new leader, an anchor to rally around and set against their demons?

But no. Lorcán had, again, lived without consequence, his unburdened attitude lacking the tempers of real-world repercussions, and he had narrowly missed a mortal reminder. He'd forced his family, already far too familiar with death, face to face with the reaper once more; Aurora too had been completely unseated, and Blackjack at large felt the ripples. He'd left the team to scramble after Haven. He'd left Gil to pick up the pieces of himself almost completely alone...

...except he hadn't been alone. Calliope and Harper both had visited him, and while he'd rebuffed their apologies and their sincerity, he couldn't deny that the implication - that they'd thought of him at all, both reeling from their own experiences in the Trials - had touched him deep down. To be cared about was an enervating warmth. Elenora's calls, though difficult to face (and indeed, Gil continued to choose not to face them), sparked further fire within him, evidence of remaining connection he hadn't completely snuffed. And then...and then there was Amma, initially melting out of the dark that she seemed to simultaneously inhabit and embody to soothe him in nightmare hours, offer conversation on things he found himself unable to address elsewhere, and then quietly returning on subsequent nights. No promises, no sentimental words or intimate movements; just an implicit understanding, and the stilling of a disquieted mind.

And what of Haven? Traumatised by her own experiences within the sabotaged Trials, she had sought refuge in her fledgling romance with Rory, but even this was not guaranteed safe harbour. More injury, more torment, more shared woe among the team for another comrade-in-arms set upon by evil they neither understood nor knew how to combat. How would she feel safe now? How would any of them?

Everything was different now. A couple of weeks ago he'd been sat on the beach with his compatriots, discussing with no small amount of levity and hope his return to Hollywood after the year was out, listening to the planned futures of his teammates, his friends (did he dare consider?). Such aspirations now felt dashed thoroughly as driftwood against that very same shore. Hollywood was no place for him now, this post-modern Gil, a self that still asked what the self was, but nonetheless knew what the self was not; it was not Gil Galahad, Actor Resurgent. He was tired. He was so, so tired.

He looked at his phone again, navigating to his contacts, beginning to delete old networks. Three names seemed to burn brighter through the OLED display, and these names are the ones his eyes keep returning to, the ones his fingers keep hovering over.

Harper Baxter.

Amma Cahors.

Elenora Baines.

The sun is almost setting by the time he decides upon a name and holds the phone to his ear, half his body rigid in terror that they may not answer, the other half petrified that they might.

The call was picked up; he was greeted from the other end by a questioning utterance of his name, and he paused a moment too long before answering.

"Hi."

"...I'm sorry."

"I need to see you."

"Tonight."

[Zoldyck]

^{________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}

_{Location: The infirmary - Pacific Royal Campus - Dundas Island, Pacific Ocean}

Take On Me #3.070: Every Rose Has Its Thorn

^{_{____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}}

_{Interaction(s): Amma @Rockette sort of}

Previously: Abyss

Katja had woken up early this morning. She’d been stirring all night in bed, unable to sleep in the unfamiliar confines of the infirmary. During Haven’s rescue she had taken quite a blow to the head from a chunk of ceiling as she’d tried to keep the way open for the rest of them to escape. And so Katja had been asked to stay the night there as they were trying to make sure she didn’t have a concussion.

She was up and about right before the sun was about to rise over the horizon. Gazing through her window, she could see the dimly lit garden and was reminded of her conversation with Amma a few days prior. It had been hard to overstate the effect that conversation had had on Katja’s mental wellbeing. She had been on the precipice of the abyss, to the point she had even been contemplating death, only to be pulled back from the brink. Offered a small ray of hope by that girl who had so wounded her days prior.

That girl, Katja realized, whom she still cared for so deeply.

She had been wrestling with her emotions for days now. The whole affair with Haven’s capture only preoccupied her thoughts momentarily. And even then her feelings towards the team as a whole and her fears of exposure hung over her like a sword of Damocles. And yet now, in the silent halls of the infirmary, she kept seeing that broken girl sitting on the stone bench. Feeling emotions she thought had been consumed by wicked arcs of red lightning.

But the more she thought about it, the more she realized that hadn’t been the case at all. Even during the Trials, when the wounds were still fresh, she had felt the need to comfort Amma when the girl displayed fragility for only the briefest of seconds. The traumatic events experienced during the Trials had just overshadowed her feelings, consuming most of her mind with dread for her future. That fear was still there. In fact, she imagined she’d never get rid of it all together. But at least her mind had been distracted enough that different thoughts could be formed again. Or rather, be confronted by them again.

Feelings she couldn’t ignore.

---

Eternity.

That’s how long it felt like Katja had been standing in front of Amma’s door. It had probably been seconds, a minute at most. But still, time seemed to slow in front of that seemingly imposing doorway. But eventually, finally, she mustered up the courage to knock on the door. With no reply forthcoming she figured Amma must’ve gone on a walk similar to the one she made only moments ago. With that in mind, Katja opened the door, as she had something she wanted to give to the girl.

In her hand was a bouquet of flowers, freshly picked from the gardens. Katja wouldn’t say she had any skills in flower arranging, but she’d like she did pretty well with this piece. It consisted of ten flowers in total, each of a unique type ranging from a fiery Dutch Carnaval Dahlia to a large King Protea. A beautiful black rose served as the centerpiece of the bouquet.

But as Katja walked through the door she saw she had made a terrible mistake.

The open curtains cast the entire room in the morning glow of the rising sun. Katja immediately noticed the damage done to the room, reminding her of how their tent had looked in the aftermath of that fateful conversation. There was only one bed seemingly occupied in the room, betrayed by a lithe shape covered in blankets with a small light on the nightstand next to it that burned brightly. Katja considered turning back for a moment, not wanting to disturb the sleeping girl. But given how she was here now anyway, the least she could do was bring the flowers to Amma’s bedside.

After carefully pouring water into an empty vase from one of the unoccupied nightstands, making sure she wasn’t being too noisy, Katja made her way over to Amma. The girl’s back was turned towards the entrance, but the raven hair made it no secret as to who she was. Having approached with as soft a footstep as she could manage, Katja turned the nightlight off after putting the flowers next to it, given how the sun was now fully illuminating the room anyways.

Katja was about to turn around and leave when she spared a glance at Amma. Seeing her like that, being so close to the smaller, it made her heart beat faster. She did not know why, but she felt compelled to stir her. So she reached out to the girl’s shoulder, stopping only an inch away as she suddenly felt the raw HZE energy of Amma touch her palm. Katja was no stranger to the sensation of Amma’s powers, far from it. But in this moment it felt different. As small sparks of red and silver bounced back and forth between the girl’s shoulder and Katja’s hand. Katja wasn’t sure if she was being repulsed by the energy, or if it actually attempted to drag her closer.

She sat there for a few seconds, contemplating what to do, whether she should actually wake her. But in the end she decided against that, opting to close her fist, breaking the momentary connection with Amma’s stray HZEs, and step back to face the window.

She was greeted by the sight of a beautiful sunrise. The dawn of a new day, a new beginning. With the thoughts stirring through her mind at that moment, she couldn’t help but feel emotional. Overcome by them, she couldn’t help but feel the need to air out her thoughts, even if it was just to herself. Or perhaps in the hope that Amma would hear them.

“I was in a dark place the other day. When we met in the gardens.” Katja glanced down at the bouquet of flowers she’d brought, a wry smile on her lips. “But talking to you got me out of that mindset. Or at the very least, you set me on a path to heal my scattered mind. And for that I wanted to thank you, Am.”

She paused, a fragment of doubt seeping into her mind questioning whether she should continue. But she felt a need in her heart to come clean.

And so she did.

“Back at the beach I had wanted to ask you a question. One that I had later wanted to ask you in the tent too, before…” She winced for a moment as red arcs of violent lightning flashed before her mind. “Well, before that happened.” Katja chuckled softly at her understating that terrifying moment. Taking a breather for a minute before circling back. “Back then I actually wanted to ask you to the dance, Am. Not as a friend, like I offered to some others, but because I…” Katja paused, contemplating on whether she was ready to open this can of worms.

She considered that she was.

“You were different, Am. Different from all the others. You were unique. A challenge!” She hesitated for another moment, a shaky breath escaping her lips as she was reminded of the nature of her next words. “An objective.”

“You were never meant to be more than that. An objective, a task, a mission. But as I hung around you, doubtlessly annoying you at every opportunity with my sticky determination, I couldn’t help but be drawn to you. You truly were, are, a different breed from the others. And I don’t know why but, you made me feel things I can’t quite explain. Even though you never particularly tried anything special to elicit those emotions.” Katja’s voice croaked for a second, forcing her to clear her throat with a soft cough before continuing. “And yet, here I am, struggling with these emotions just the same.”

She could feel a sting in her eyes and a tremble in her chest. She could see her reflection in the window, the image that of a girl shaken by her emotions. She couldn’t bear to look at it and so she averted her eyes, eventually landing on the black rose in the center of the bouquet. It had tilted slightly, making the whole arrangement seem off. So Katja reached down to correct it, but in doing so she got stung by one of its thorns. Looking at her thumb, she could see a tiny amount of blood pool out of the pinprick. Katja couldn’t help but smile at the irony that out of all the things, this flower would be the first real thing to spill her blood after that night.

Having fixed the bouquet, Katja decided that it had been enough and made her way back to the door. Door handle in hand, it was only then that she spared a brief glance in Amma’s direction with a sad smile on her lips.

“Rest well Am. You deserve it.”

[Qia]

^{_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}

_{Location: Strigidae Dorms - Pacific Royal Campus}

Take On Me #3.071: Crash

^{_{___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}}

_{Interaction(s): N/A}

Previously: Finding Haven

Harper trudged back to her dorm, her vision flickering erratically. The world around her transformed into a disorienting dance of vibrant hues and shadowy voids. The chaotic blend of heat signatures and sharp details created a surreal, almost nightmarish landscape. Each step felt like a monumental effort. Her thoroughly wet sneakers squelched on the carpeted floor, making her feel like a swamp monster stalking its prey in a horror movie. The adrenaline that had once surged through her veins was now a distant memory, replaced by a bone-deep weariness that gnawed at her resolve. She longed for the sanctuary of her room, where she could finally collapse and let the exhaustion consume her.

However, she was afraid. Very afraid of what was happening to her.

Harper had never experienced pain when using her ability before. Her enhanced vision had always been a reliable tool, a gift that set her apart and made her invaluable to her team. Now, it felt like a curse. The erratic flickering of her vision was accompanied by sharp, stabbing pains in her temples. Each flicker sent a jolt of agony through her skull. She was terrified to turn it off, fearing the unknown consequences. What if the pain didn’t stop? What if it got worse? She couldn’t even recall the last time she’d felt this out of control, or what she’d done to regain that control. Now, it was all slipping between her fingers, and she was helpless to stop it.

Harper’s fingers shook as she finally managed to grasp the handle of her door. Her knuckles were white with the effort of turning it. Her breath came in shallow, ragged gasps as she pushed the door open and stumbled inside. Yet, the familiar surroundings of her dorm room offered little comfort. The posters on the walls, the neatly arranged books on her desk, all seemed to blur together in a haze of pain and fear. She leaned against the door for support, her legs threatening to give out beneath her.

Taking a few shaky steps forward, Harper’s hand trailed along the wall to keep her balance. She needed to get to her bed, to lie down and try to make sense of what was happening to her. But each step was a struggle. Her body felt heavy and uncooperative. She finally reached the edge of her bed and collapsed onto it, her head pounding with every beat of her heart. The room spun around her, the familiar surroundings now a blur of colours and shapes. She closed her eyes, hoping that the darkness would bring some relief from the relentless pain and confusion.

As she lay there, the sounds of the dorm filtered through her haze of pain. The distant hum of fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, a constant, low drone that seemed to amplify the throbbing in her temples. Footsteps echoed faintly in the hallway, accompanied by the occasional murmur of voices, muffled and indistinct. Somewhere down the hall, a door slammed shut, the sharp sound reverberating through her skull like a gunshot. The rhythmic ticking of her bedside clock was a relentless reminder of each passing second, each beat synchronized with the pounding in her head. Even the rustle of her own clothes as she shifted on the bed seemed unbearably loud, a cacophony of noise in her hypersensitive state.

Harper knew she had to turn off her ability, but the thought of doing so filled her with dread. The pain was already unbearable, and the idea of intensifying it felt like willingly stepping into a fire. She took a deep breath, trying to steady herself, but her hands trembled uncontrollably. The room seemed to close in around her, the walls pressing in as if they were alive. She could hear her heartbeat pounding in her ears, a relentless drumbeat that matched the throbbing in her temples. The air felt thick and heavy, each breath a struggle against the weight of her fear. But it was now or never. And never wasn’t really much of an option.

Summoning every ounce of courage, Harper kept her eyes shut, focusing on the familiar process of shutting down. The world around her faded into darkness, and for a fleeting moment, she felt a flicker of relief. But then the pain surged, a searing wave that threatened to overwhelm her, crashing through her like a relentless storm. She bit down on her lip, tasting the metallic tang of blood, as she fought to stay conscious. The darkness, which was supposed to bring solace, instead enveloped her in a new kind of torment.

It felt like peeling her eyes back layer by layer, each one more excruciating than the last. The pain was searing, a white-hot agony that made her cry out. She clutched her head, tears streaming down her face as she fought to complete the process. All the while, various images flashed through her mind: her hovering the scalpel near the clone’s face, her holding Aurora as she cried into her shoulders, her hugging Haven in her room, not wanting to let go but unable to say more. Her hand brushing the window sill, feeling her heart drop into her stomach upon finding a golden strand of hair there. Haven, safe and sound, clutching onto Rory as if her life depended on it. Jim informing them of Lorcán’s condition, of his impending death. Of yet another loss she’d been powerless to stop.

And then, finally, her looking up at her father with stars in her eyes, the words “Hey, it’s just like mine! That’s how you know it’s meant to be!” tumbling out of her mouth.

Her vision continued to flicker behind her eyelids, the vibrant hues and shadowy voids giving way to a blinding whiteness that consumed her entire field of view. It felt as though she was being torn apart from the inside, the pain radiating through her entire body in relentless waves. She gasped for breath, her chest heaving with each desperate inhale as she struggled to maintain consciousness. The familiar sounds of the dorm faded into the background, replaced by a deafening roar in her ears, drowning out everything else. Her surroundings blurred, the once comforting space now a distant memory as she fought against the overwhelming agony. Each heartbeat sent a fresh surge of pain through her. All she could do was beg for it to be over and done with already.

And then it was. With one last, agonizing effort, Harper felt the world around her dim. The pain in her head reached a crescendo before slowly beginning to subside. She lay there, panting and trembling, her body drenched in sweat. The tank top beneath her hoodie clung uncomfortably to her skin. The relief was fleeting, the pain still a dull throbbing in her temples, but it was enough to allow her a moment of respite.

Her breath slowly steadied, and she dared to open her eyes, the world around her a blank canvas, an endless expanse of darkness that offered no comfort or familiarity.

[Lord Wraith]

^{________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}

_{Location: Pacific Royal Campus - Dundas Islands, Pacific Ocean}

Take On Me #3.072: Crawling

^{_{____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}}

_{Interaction(s): None}

Previously: The Black

“This is the first time he’s left a subject alive.”

Miguel nodded on the screen as Torres spoke into the microphone.

“He’s relying less and less on help though, we only found three other bodies. There are still at least two other students unaccounted for who were identified as members of Hyperion’s Children. But overall, Daedalus is simultaneously getting bolder and sloppier.” Shiv reported.

“He’s devolving then.”

“It would seem so, which means next time is going to be even messier.” The Foundation Fist replied before taking a sip of the black coffee in front of him. On the screen, Torres mirrored him, drinking her own coffee from her hotel in San Francisco.

“Daedalus’ entire mission has been about pushing the Hyperhuman gene further, making it stronger. He’s trying to create something.”

“The perfect host.” Shiv replied as Torres quietly nodded in agreement. “Which means he’s dying.”

“So he’ll have an accelerated timeline,” Torres responded, “I know we have our differences, but I think you’d be wise to bring in one of H.E.L.P.’s H.I.T. units, they specialize in this kind of stuff. The Force isn’t trained for the kind of mind that Daedalus has and you simply don’t have enough resources.”

“How are they coping with the loss of Tawhiri?”

“The boosters have left most of them emotionally stunted, they’re barely reacting to his death. Worse still, some of them are forgetting he’s gone.” Torres replied, “I want them off these boosters, but I’m afraid the psychosis will set in. Despite Montgomery’s adamant denial of such things.”

“Why Nakamura got into bed with that madman, I will never understand. But it is not my place to challenge the Master.”

“Then I shan’t tempt any further slander from your lips,” Torres stated, “Though I do worry about Nakamura’s decision-making more and more each day. He expects the Force deployed to find Tawhiri’s killer; he believes a show of force is what the assassin needs. I’m worried, we’re putting our best and most valuable assets directly in harm’s way.”

“I shall talk to him.” Shiv nodded, “Hold the Force back, see if you can get them each submitted for a full psych evaluation. Hunting down the assassin will fall firmly on his Eyes and his Ears. When the assassin is found, then I shall strike.” He added, his stoic expression unflinching before uttering one final bone-chilling statement.

“There is no mercy for those who meet the Foundation’s fist.”

“I don’t like fighting a war on three fronts, Miguel. I need you on campus while we have to deal with Daedalus. Spreading you between him and this assassin weakens us in both investigations and we’re still trying to make headway with H.E.L.P. regarding P.R.C.U.” Torres rubbed the back of her neck, trying to ease the stress settling into her shoulders.

“Then perhaps, the enemy of our enemy is our ally. An olive branch to H.E.L.P., in addition to bringing in one of their investigative units, we could give them some good publicity and turn over the arrest of the assassin to Director Caspian.”

“It would certainly strengthen our position.” Torres agreed. “Say nothing to the Chancellor though, I’ll deal with Jim personally.”

“As you wish.”

^{_{__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}}

The steady beep echoed through the infirmary room. Outside, medics moved to and fro, the start of the semester keeping them busy between Trial injuries and early adventures in the Augmented Reality Center. Minor burns, sprained ankles and jammed fingers all took time to reset and heal, but thankfully kept students out of beds.

The monitor in this particular room continued its steady chirp. It had done so for nearly a week now with no change as the dark-haired young man lay motionless in the bed, a breathing tube coming out of his mouth while an intravenous drip supplied him with everything needed to sustain him day in and day out.

Suddenly the beeping increased as bloodshot eyes opened wide, panic setting in before he clawed at the breathing tube occupying his throat. Gagging and choking echoed through the room before his jaw suddenly unhinged to make the entire process easier, a separate set of breathing orifices opened on his neck before Thaddeus Finch suddenly sat up in the hospital bed he was occupying.

Dragging the breathing tube out of his throat, he dropped the saliva-ridden piece of plastic to the floor, gasping for breath before splitting a wad of mucus and phlegm onto the tiled floor beside his bed.

“Tad!” Jessica cried excitedly jumping up from the chair she had been reading in and rushing to her fiancé’s side. Her eyes glowed softly as she used her powers to induce a sense of calm over the panicked man. Tad’s breathing began to slow, his body relaxing before gently slumping back into a sitting position on the bed.

“Jess… No, I-” Tad tried to say, as Jess just shushed him gently.

“I missed you, let me go grab a doctor.” Jess stated, as Tad fell complacently into the bed. “I’ll be right back.” She said, running into the hallway, “HE’S AWAKE!” Her shout echoed as Tad looked up towards the ceiling, any fight in his body gone from Jess’ abilities. His mind was racing.

He remembered trying to tell Jim something before he had slipped into the coma. Blackjack, Hyperion, Katja. What was the connection, why those three words?

“You’re awake?” A foreign voice asked, as an unfamiliar face filled Tad’s vision, examining his eyes and pupils. “That wasn’t supposed to happen,” She muttered before raising a syringe. Tad watched, confusion rapidly spreading across his face as a vial of his blood was extracted. The woman softly hummed to herself before singing aloud as Tad’s eyes went wide in horror.

He would never forget that damned melody. Those damned lyrics.

“Down in the valley,
valley so low,.
Hang your head over,
hear the wind blow.”

“No-” Tad croaked as another syringe was injected into him. His eyes rolled back before heavy eyelids closed, disjointed thoughts racing through his mind, attempting to outrun the inevitable darkness that was quickly consuming them.

He had to tell Jim, Katja was with Hyperion’s Children, he needed to fight, he needed to adapt. Why did Jess have to leave?

A small giggle echoed distantly in his eyes as a whisper of hot breath tickled his ear lobe.

“The winds are blowing.”

^{_{__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}}

A man sat slumped over in his wheelchair, the lights on numerous screens flickering while a wicked smile slowly spread across his face. Beside him, hanging from a hook was the body of his former host. His eyes fixated on a single flashing red dot located just off the coast of British Columbia.

A laugh caught in his throat quickly turned to a blood and spittle-laden cough, but despite his ailment, the smile never vanished. A bony finger scrambled for a button on the arm of the wheelchair before a suppressant was pumped through the mask, calming the barking cough.

Continuing to stare at the screen, Daedalus managed to croak a few haunting words.

“I won’t let anyone take you from me.”

“Haaaveeen.”