[IC] Commencement: A Foundation Institute RP

[Rockette]

_{Location: Southern Plateau - Pacific Royal Campus}

Hope In Hell #2.0033: feathering the storm.

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_{Interaction(s): haven. - @Skai}

Previously: asunder & put through the winger.

Her whispered words of gratitude fell upon deaf ears as Amma regained her sense of self and what minuscule portions of reasoning she could bear. Her power continued to pulsate in tandem with the incredible pressure betwixt her ribs, her heart looped in red threads that cinched tight with every breath. Her fingers twitched, her palms burned, every scar laden there thrumming with whorls of scarlet as she carefully lifted her gestures and poised her nails to sink, reap, and claw through the space between them.

"I suppose," she began, wrist rotating, flesh burning, and bones cracking. "These trials have us facing against our would-be selves," Amma whispered, voice wreathed in a hoarse utterance as her glare of blue fixated upon Haven, every flicker of her lash raking her eyes over her wings, every feather, and every drip of sweat that beaded her skin. "So I'll ask: are you the real Haven Barnes?" Her inquiry speared through the operating room with a string of crimson power striking the ground at her feet where ashen remains stirred from the impact.

Gratitude began to wane into apprehension as Haven noted Amma’s movements. With her heart still fluttering in her chest like a frightened fledgling, she couldn’t help but begin to wonder the same thing about the Amma before her. The muscles in her back ached as they tensed. Her wings wanted to tuck in tightly to her back, and yet they merely twitched behind her. They’d been saved from being torn apart, and yet the damage had been done. She would need to rest the feathered appendages for a while until she could fly again. In the meantime they felt like dead weight on her back.

Eyes the color of a forest sunrise warily watched as Amma carved a glacial blue gaze across her body. Was it obvious that Haven was in no state to defend herself against those blood red arcs of power? Her skin was hot and clammy from fear. She hadn’t looked at her wings yet, but she had an inkling that they looked like she’d crashed into an oil rig. Her wings were in a slumped position on her back, missing feathers, with splotches of black grease… and now the ends of her plumage were dusted with the ashes of things that had been about to dismantle her piece by piece. The same type of ash that stirred at Amma’s feet as her power struck the ground in a show of force.

Haven’s body wanted to flinch in response. Her mind wanted to back away. Yet her heart challenged her to remain still. Amma’s body language expressed a threat, but her actions a moment ago proved that she wasn’t here to harm. Haven couldn’t allow her fear to claim her again and turn Amma against her in the process.

“Do we know each other well enough to tell the difference, anyways?” Haven began slowly. Her voice as raw as her throat felt, yet carrying the weight of her heart within its timbre. “It seems like if the Foundation had its way, you would have let me die on that table.” An obvious shiver ran down the length of Haven’s body as she said it aloud. Her voice was softer in pitch when she spoke again.

“Why did you save me, Amma?”

The question visibly marked her, a subtle flinch through her gestures as another lance of her power bloomed, coiling through ashes and blackened remains, stained with their eternal rest. Skeletal fissures broke through the ground, increasing their intent, seeking Haven's truth that was lain there in every word she spoke.

"If The Foundation truly had their way, you would have been dead before I got here." It is a simple fact that Amma speaks, refusing to relinquish her hold just yet, unable to quell the trembling through her fingers. As slight as it is, it is telling in the usual rigidity and grace beholden to her presence. Perhaps her earlier ordeal left more than just the laceration down her chest and those that ringed around her arms and legs.

"Why..." It's the gleaming tools, the broken restraints, those four walls, and that damned door that she sees, but it's not the brunette before her, it's not the tawny wings smothered in oil and tainted with dust. It's the child screaming a plethora of whys through her mind, shattering through her waking world with every breath.

"Does it matter?" Amma sighs, finally lowering her quivering palm, her power slowly slinking back, aloft, and snapping to her aching frame. A subtle crimson glow lined her gesture, softening to a silver lining that coiled up her arms. "Maybe it's because you're a Teammate," she snaps those words through her teeth. "Blackjack prides itself on that, does it not."

"Maybe it's because if I make it out of here without you, or anyone, they'll suspect me." Amma moves to leave, offering a final glance over her shoulder. "But, I've been there- on that table. And no one was there to save me." She leaves the horrid operating room, mindful of the bodies in the adjacent space, trying not to look at the body of the girl left mangled and gone, her wings drooped to either side, her feathers forever soiled.

"I made a promise, once," she muttered, bracing against the pain and anguish. "I promised I wouldn't leave anyone to suffer what I have, not again."

Haven didn’t hide the relief that passed through her as Amma’s power returned to her body. Her shoulders sagged, along with her wings dropping an inch lower behind her. She’d never seen Amma shaken this way… and she wasn’t happy to have seen it at all. She could feel it in her chest that there was more troubling her saviour than this one act of kindness.

Everything about the withdrawn woman became clear as a cloudless sky as Amma walked through that horrible door. The pain of empathy returned again. Haven looked over the empty metal table, the broken manacles, and imagined someone much younger than herself being put through the terror that it brought her. She shook her head, taking another step away from it, and turned to leave it behind for good.

The scene in the next room was even more horrifying. Haven clutched her mouth, a sob escaping between her fingers as she pressed her back against the wall next to the door. The woman’s wings… It could have been her wings. Broken. Sullied.

Destroyed.

Haven trembled as she turned her gaze away. Fresh tears escaped down her cheeks and onto her hand. She pushed down the panic that threatened to consume her again and pushed herself away from the wall. Her steps were faster this time as she continued into the hallway behind Amma. She swallowed down the bile that had been inching up her throat.

It felt like she’d left her stomach behind. A chasm filled with painful empathy taking its place instead. Haven felt it for the dead woman she left behind… for Amma, and for the others that Alyssa had mentioned had gone missing. It threatened to tear her soul apart, but Haven felt anger keeping it together. The same anger that she’d kept stored deep within herself for many, many years. It stopped the flow of tears and it kept her from falling into despondence. She followed behind Amma for a few silent moments as she allowed it to rebuild her composure.

“They named you Tiamat after they rebuilt you… didn’t they.” It wasn’t a question. The voices that echoed the name at the beginning of this, and now Amma’s revelation, confirmed it for her. “How come you haven’t turned them to ash, too?” Her anger fueled this question, whether it lacked any social grace or sympathetic tone. Something told Haven that Amma didn’t need pity, anyways.

"Yes," she doesn't hesitate to answer, the rejoinder quick and torn from her throat in a harsh, feral sound. "And no."

No one had ever asked her about her name, not this calling that whisked through her nightmares, not the slithering malice of whispers that sired through the corridors as soon as Haven spoke the words aloud. Over and over and over as they moved down the corridor, the pace set one at leisure with their particular injuries. Haven's abused wings; her broken ankle, and her body that droned with the tumultuous power that fought to maintain itself within her grasp, every panel of the wall she touched splintered with tendrils of her power that imbedded itself into the simulated construct.

And then she heard it, the boiling fury that withered away inside her dulcet tones, the sort of cadence one expected from a bird, but no, this was a furious hawk's cry that barely encroached the depths of her obvious hate. An emotion Amma knew well and harbored within the pit of her heart and soul.

"You ask a lot of questions, don't you?" Amma paused, deliberately, turning to face Haven completely where she leaned in close, her frigid glare penetrating through slivers of green and brown, peering into the reaches of her empathetic nature. "You want to know why they call me Tiamat? Why they gave me that name? Didn't Alyssa tell you enough?"

Upon her spine and tensed shoulders did those scarlet threads rise, twisting into coils of ill intent, reaching and seeking high above Haven's crown and nearly caressing over her battered and bruised wings.

"They'll get what's coming to them. They all will. Everyone." A small laugh falls from her lips, punctured by the smile that carves its way across her face. "It's all a matter of time, Haven. As part of the role I'm meant for."

"What about you, what is your role to play here?"

Haven stared back into Amma’s eyes with an intensity that almost matched. Yet the subtle tick of a muscle in her neck gave away the wariness that Haven felt at this distance. She wasn’t afraid of Amma, really, but the energy that hovered fractions away from the most precious parts of her body. Still, Amma’s words had Haven pressing her brows together.

“Why do I need a role to play?” Haven thought aloud, genuine frustration evident in her frown. “Have you ever thought that some of us are just trying to make a life for ourselves? That despite the pain we’ve endured and might endure again, we still have hope?”

Haven suddenly thought of the bonfire again. Of Amma’s pessimistic words. She glanced between those cold eyes and wondered if they held the power to freeze her heart.

“How dare you try to crush our souls too.”

"Hope is fleeting, hope is a lie." Amma's words churn with a hidden frustration, witnessing the defiance that blooms within those eyes of moss and timber, a forest of secrecy, a forest that bids itself to freedom. She opens her hands, palms up, fingers splayed and blackened and red, her scars aflame with her power and the remains of blood that is not her own. The phosphorescent liquid had dried to a sickly cyan that still burned away at her wrists.

"Where was hope when they started taking away students? Where was hope when I was left alone in the dark?" Her fingers quiver, her arms wreathed in scarlet as she looms closer to Haven, her lashes peeled wide and her power inching ever closer to her precious wings. "Where was hope when The Foundation came to this island and decided to try to make it their own?"

"Need I remind you too? She didn’t get it either." She whispered, "They won't let us go. They won't let you go." Delicate threads of crimson caress against the downy softness of her wings then, slick with oil that congeals some of them together, the ashes of their enemies slowly feeding into her power.

"That soul you speak so fondly of? They'll take that too. And once they do, you'll wish they had taken your life instead."

“Don’t touch me.” Haven hissed a warning. Her chest rising and falling faster now that she felt Amma’s threats. “You didn’t have anyone to help you then, but you could now.” Her voice remained tense as long as those red tendrils held themselves so close. Yet her voice didn’t waver. Her defiant gaze still held strong. “That’s what we do for each other- why we call each other teammates.”

“Don’t you want someone to have your back?”

Her pupils compress to an obsidian sliver banked within a turbulent sea of blue, something there in those eternal depths that writhes and coils, awakened by the challenge of Haven's words that lance against the fortress of black and bone within and without.

"You're right, I could." Those churning threads of her power encompass the entirety of Haven's wings then, spindles of crimson energy threaded through her feathers, from primary to secondary, through every construct of muscle and bone, and weave back to the delicate radius of every barb and shaft. The HZEs that complicate and compound the waking world that quakes at her feet suddenly seeking those lain within, a brief glimpse unwarranted to the energy that genetically endows her mortal frame with the beautiful talent of flight.

"But I don't -"

Teammates.

"I don't need anyone."

Just as soon as her power had latched onto her, ignorant of Haven's plights and sensitivity, they slowly slunk back; snapping, twisting, some as leisurely twirls of authority that settled over her lithesome shoulders. Sparks of silver and red dance on her lashes as she says:

"...You remind me of someone." Amma steps back, her favored leg causing a slight limp as she continues down the corridor, turning left after a slight pause, the hall to their right dimmed in flickering light, the edges of the floor suddenly awash in blood. Waves of ruby that lap down the panels shattered and vacant, something black and horrid churning through the gloom that bubbles, oozes, wed to the darkness that howls as if starved.

"We should hurry."

Muscles that had bunched together in preparation slackened as the intrusive arcs returned to their owner. Her feathers, on the other hand, remained subtly ruffled. Haven took a long breath through her nose and slowly released it through her teeth. Her heart still thumped in her chest even after her breathing calmed. Yet somehow Haven wasn’t left with a sick feeling in her stomach. It was a violation, there was no doubt about that, but it hadn’t felt malicious. It felt like gentle probing. A caress of Amma’s ions against her own, internalized within her blood, tissue, bone, and keratin. It left her grateful that she hadn’t swung on Amma the moment that her power had snuck its way between her feathers. And that left her feeling just as unsettled, because she always made it clear that they wouldn’t be able to do it again.

Haven didn’t probe Amma further as she once again followed in her wake. The longer they stayed here, the greater the threat of this place became. Her eyes traveled to Amma’s weakened ankle. Another spot she would have aimed for if things had turned violent moments ago. Now she wondered if she should offer help… The thought of being held onto again sent a shiver down her spine. Her arms would likely show bruising within a few hours from the vise-like holds that those gloves had.

She glanced to the right as she reached the corner. Then looked away from it quickly as she decided to trust Amma’s decision. The hair on the back of her neck stood straight as she turned her back to it. She exhaled softly as she brought herself up to Amma’s side.

“You may not need it… but I’ve got your back now.” Haven murmured while her eyes scanned the impossibly clean hallway in front of them. Open doors and crossroads loomed ahead. She didn’t dare to imagine what awaited them in the hidden parts of the Foundation’s maze. Otherwise the simulation might snatch it from her mind and make it reality. “Consider it a debt paid. Since you saved my life.”

She glanced Amma’s way, so that the woman saw the truth in her eyes, and then returned her gaze to the length of halls ahead of them. She waited for Amma to set the pace for them before her own feet began to move.

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[Zoldyck]

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

Hope In Hell #2.0034: The Path To Ruin

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_{Interaction(s): N/A}

Previously: At Doom's Gate

CONTENT WARNING: EXCESSIVE VIOLENCE

A sound suddenly reached her ears. It was a dog, a big one at that, barking angrily.

Katja opened her eyes again and where she expected to see that raging inferno and a torrent of blood, she was actually met by pristine white walls filled with family pictures and paintings. A pleasant ray of African sun was shining through the windows, reflecting off of the neatly waxed hardwood floor. She looked around, perplexed at what she saw. This was her home. The home she’d grown up in with her family. And not only did her surroundings offer a sense of warmth and familiarity, it also all seemed so… big.

She looked over her shoulder to see a mirror in the hallway. What she saw reflected in it shocked her to her very core.

Where she had expected to see the big, strong and resilient Katja that she had built herself to be over the past decade, she was instead met by that small girl she had been 12 years before.

Casting a quick glance down, Katja saw that she wasn’t wearing her A.R. suit anymore, but instead wore regular clothes. Her arms seemed frail and weak. In fact, she felt weak everywhere. Trying to conjure up her HZEs, nothing seemed to come up. As if something was blocking her from accessing them.

She had no time to linger too long on what she saw, however, as the moment was interrupted by a brick flying through one of the living room windows.

“Verdomp, they’ve broken through the front gate!” A large man wearing briefs and a combat vest yelled out as he ran back from the front door, carrying his trusty service pistol in his right hand as he effortlessly scooped Katja up with his left. “We have to get to the safe room! Floor, is Johanna with you? And where is Faf?!”

“We’re here Paul! A woman who appeared huge to Katja said as she dragged another tall girl along with her. “Faf’s outside, I saw him maul a Poes who tried to break in through the back door. He’s buying us valuable time.”

Gunshots could be heard outside, followed by a dog’s whimper and cheers from an outraged crowd. A look of horror could be seen on the faces of the two adults as the realization set in of what had happened to Faf, the family dog.

But there was no time to mourn his loss, as the front door was kicked off its hinges mere seconds later by a massive brute of a man. He held a large pipe in his hand, while pointing up at the Kruger family with his free hand. “Kill the Hypies!” He bellowed out. Almost instantly a tidal wave of bloodcrazed protesters rushed inside the home from either side of him, echoing his warcry.

“Kill the Hypies! Kill the Hypies! Kill the Hypies!”

Paul Kruger, still carrying Katja in his left arm, turned around to unload several rounds into the oncoming rush of humanity. But while every carefully placed shot took one down, the flood would not stop as two more would take the place of the fallen.

They ran as fast as they could to the back of the house. That was where the safe room was located. It had been built with this eventuality in mind. The walls were made out of reinforced concrete, not even a bulldozer would be able to effortlessly flatten it. And the large automatically sealing steel door, which could be shut from both directions, could only be opened from the inside. Once it was set in motion to close, nothing would be able to stop it.

But then they were cut off, right as safety appeared to be in sight. Another large figure to Katja had crawled through the kitchen window and took aim at the family with a pump action firearm. Paul Kruger turned right in time to shield Katja from its fury, as the slug simply bounced off her father. He groaned slightly, as while his powers allowed him to harden his skin into a form of armor, that didn’t mean he didn’t feel the pain.

Still, it gave enough time for Floor Kruger to close the distance as she approached from the man’s blindspot. She effortlessly tore the weapon out of his hand, the metal bending under her incredible grip, before giving him a strong right hook that visibly caved in his skull. The family had no time to celebrate this small victory however, as the crowd was hot on their heels.

They were almost there, just a few more meters before they were safe.

A loud crack suddenly filled the air. It was the sound of a high caliber rifle being shot in an enclosed area. It hit her father in the thigh. While his hardening was effective against most ordinary weapons and many small arms, a rifle was just too much. Screaming out in pain, Paul dropped to the floor, shifting his weight around mid-fall to shield Katja from the solid hardwood surface.

Katja tumbled over the ground, coming to a stop right next to the steel sliding door of the safe room. Struggling to get to her feet, she was met by the big red emergency release button. When pressed the door would close and lock itself, only able to be unsealed from the inside.

More attackers flooded into the room at that moment and it became clear to the two Hypes that they would not be able to stop them, but only delay them for just long enough so as to keep their children safe.

“Press it!” Floor yelled out as she sent another assailant flying while trying to get closer to Paul. “Press it Katja!

But Katja couldn’t. She was completely paralyzed. Not by fear, but by a refusal to part with her family. She couldn’t abandon them, she wouldn’t abandon them. Not again.

The door’s safety locks suddenly unsealed themselves, and Katja looked up to see that Johanna had pressed the button in her stead. She then shoved Katja inside before the little girl could even react to what was happening. “Well done Johanna, make sure to take care of your little sister!” Floor said as she barreled through another pair of attackers.

With the locks disabled, the door started closing rapidly. The heavy steel object picking up momentum with every mini-second that passed. Johanna was about to run in when she tripped over one of the attackers their mother had incapacitated. The door came closer at an alarming rate. Reaching for her sister, Katja pulled as hard as she could, attempting to drag her inside the safe room with every iota of strength she possessed.

Just as they were almost safe Katja could hear a loud thunk, followed by a desperate cry from her father. She looked up just in time to see Floor Kruger, her mother, collapse on the floor, a large pipe buried in the back of her skull. The sight of that froze her for just a moment. Just a fraction of a second.

Then the door slammed shut, accompanied by the loud clang of heavy metal banging against heavy metal. And the crunch of bones accompanied by an anguished scream.

Katja looked on in horror as she saw how Johanna’s legs ended at her knees. Anything below that had been turned to a meaty red paste by the door that was meant to protect them.

The small girl stumbled backwards. It was her fault. If only she had been stronger. Then Johanna could still walk. If only her Hypegene had awakened earlier, then she could have saved her mother and her…

A scream emanated from behind Katja. She snapped around, startled eyes wide in as she looked over to the security panel. It had a single small screen in the center, displaying the video feed of the security camera that hung outside the door. And even in this grainy footage she could make out that there was one figure on the ground, writhing in pain as he was set alight by a jubilant crowd that surrounded him.

Katja couldn’t tear her eyes away. She could feel tears welling up in her eyes and yet she absolutely could not look away. The lighting in the room seemed to dim as she kept looking at the footage. The horrible things they did to her loving father, the unspeakable things they did to the corpse of her mother. Eventually the only light left was that of the small screen, showing what was happening outside.

Suddenly a new screen flickered to life that hadn’t been there a second ago. Right next to the original one, this new screen seemed to have a far higher definition as it showed the gruesome acts happening outside, but from a different angle. Another screen appeared, much like the previous one, this one however showed a close up of her father’s writhing in pain. Another screen appeared, this time showing looping footage of the death of her mother. Again another flickered to life, displaying slow motion footage of Johanna’s legs being crushed.

More screens kept appearing, each adding another detail to the calamity that transpired around Katja. Wherever she looked she saw more TVs, all with their own unique angle.

It was too much for a little teenage girl to witness something like this. She could feel something snap, just like it had all those years ago. She was overcome by emotions. By the agony of what she was witnessing. The grief of whom she had lost. The anger at her weakness. The rage at those who were responsible. And countless more that would take ages to list.

She couldn’t take it anymore. The small girl began tearing her hair out before eventually clawing at herself. She wanted it to stop, digging her nails deep into her skin so as to feel something, anything else than that internal torment. She screamed in the hopes of drowning out all the noise of the butchery that was going on in the other room. She tried to close her eyes but she couldn’t. Something was forcing her to watch, as if invisible fingers held her eyes open.

Katja couldn’t take it anymore. She wanted to take her own eyes out so she didn’t have to keep bearing witness to the horrors that transpired.

But as her nails were less than an inch away from her eyes, she felt a hand fall on her shoulder.

Instantly, all the screens went blank, all the noise was deafened. Even Johanna’s pained sobs were gone. It felt like Katja had entered a void that only consisted of her.

Her, and that hand which rested on her shoulder.

“Do you know why I called you in to see you, Katja?”

She snapped around instantly, but where she had expected to meet the man who uttered that phrase, she was met by a ray of light emanating from the open safe room doorway.

Katja was scared at first, thinking the door had failed and that she was about to be swarmed by the angry crowd outside. To be subjected to whatever cruelty they had inflicted upon her parents. Or worse.

But then Katja noticed something was different. The opening appeared to be smaller than it was before. In fact, she figured she’d have to bend through her knees in order to fit through it.

She took a step towards the doorway. She halted immediately when a slight quake was felt when her foot touched the floor again and looked down at herself. The distinct material of the A.R. Suit clad her powerful frame once again, and Katja could sense the HZEs coursing through her veins.

She raised her right hand, staring at it as she flexed her fingers. Katja enjoyed this brief moment where she had regained her strength, only for those thoughts to be drowned out by jubilant cries coming from the open door.

It instinctively forced her fingers to close into a tight fist. Her jaw was clenched shut by the fury that overcame her as she realized that they were still there. The corpses of her parents were still there.

That voice from earlier suddenly spoke again.

“Show them who you truly are.”

Katja didn’t look around this time to see where it came from. It didn’t matter to her.

At this point there was only one thing on her mind. She could feel it stir within her. That dark sensation that she'd kept hidden for so long. It crawled up her spine again. But this time she wouldn't stop it. This time she gave in to its desires.

Shaking the ground with each imposing step she took, Katja set foot out of the doorway and into that accursed room of her nightmares. She recognized the figures that stood before her, who had been hooting and cheering mere seconds ago before the first tremor could be felt. They were all just as she remembered them from her dreams. Except they were smaller.

No, not smaller. They were normal sized.

Which, to Katja, meant that they seemed puny.

The crowd of murderers seemed stunned at the sight of the colossal woman that had just appeared before them. Mouths agape and fear written on their faces. It was clear that their brains were in the process of choosing between fight or flight.

One man’s brain seemed to run a little faster than the others’, as he dashed forward towards the corpse of her mother. Reaching for the pipe that was still embedded in her skull. Raising his newfound weapon with glee, he swung straight for Katja’s jaw. It impacted with such a great force that the snapping of bones could be heard throughout the entire chamber.

Katja hadn’t budged though. She hadn’t even flinched.

Her attacker exclaimed a pained yell as his hand lost grip of the pipe. His wrist had been fractured by the great force that had been exerted on it. He had basically just hit a solid wall with all his strength, and he paid the price for it.

Katja looked down at the man. If he had been real, the sight he was met with would have frozen his blood. As before him stood a towering behemoth. Her eyes filled with hatred, her body twitching with barely contained rage.

But her lips, through which a low rumbling growl could be heard, were curled into a cruel smile.

“Show them our wrath.”

One backhand was all it took to send the man careening into a wall and remove whatever face he had. All that was left of it was a bloody mush of wet meat and broken bones. Katja tracked her victim with morbid curiosity. Pleased with the results, she exhaled with what almost sounded as a chuckle before she turned her gaze over to the rest of the group who seemed to be gearing up to fight her.

All Katja could do at the sight of them was grin while she almost gleefully whispered to herself.

“Rip. And. Tear.”

[Lord Wraith]

^{| A Day Ago}

The corridors of the former Black Site had always given Naira Cameron the creeps. But she walked with pride, the Harbinger had chosen her. There was something exhilarating about being in the presence of the Harbinger, they had an atmosphere about them that commanded respect, Naira couldn’t help but be in awe of the power they wielded from the makeshift throne they sat upon.

For the past year, Naira had been working for the Harbinger using her ability to maintain the alias of Pallyx Penada. Under this alias, the Harbinger had been able to get Pallyx into the system and ultimately onto Team Blackjack, a personal sleight against the chancellor’s former team and both Thaddeus Finch and Andrew Olyphant who personally defied Hyperion.

With the announcement of the degrees being stripped away from Pacific Royal, the opportunity to further drive a wedge between the students and the Foundation was at hand. It was simply the icing on the cake to ensure Blackjack suffered for Orcinus’ gain. Pallyx would simply leave, and Naira would move to the next part of the Harbinger’s plan.

A gloved hand reached towards Naira, holding within it a small USB drive.

“You’ve done well this far, my child. Truly you are a Child of Hyperion.”

"The winds are blowing." Naira replied with a bow.

"But the surface is still." The Harbinger answered, “You will need faculty access to the Trial, with your talents, but also you’ll need the student card of one of the Trial’s architects to write the code. Opportunity won’t knock twice, we need to strike while they’re confused and vulnerable.”

“Yes, Harbinger.” Naira stood to rise, “And should any of ours become ensnared in the trap?”

“Then they die for the glory of Hyperion.”

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_{Location: The Southern Plateau - Dundas Islands, Pacific Ocean}

Hope In Hell #2.035: No Angels

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_{Interaction(s): None}

Previously: Cult of Personality

“Structural integrity is currently at 61%.”

Another blast rocked the Manticore before the sound of something slicing into its armor filled the cabin. The back door was suddenly pried from its hinges as Naira climbed out, smiling smugly to her awaiting cohorts.

“Structural integrity is currently at 39%. Vehicle stability is compromised.”

“What do we do with him?”

“We have to kill him, he knows too much.” Naira replied, “The whole faculty is onto us, the mission is a failure. If we kill the Chancellor we have a chance to get away.”

“If we kill the Chancellor, it’s an open declaration of war.” Replied a male voice.

“We already did that the minute we tampered with the Trial.”

“She’s right.” A female voice interjected.

“I’m not doing it,” The male snapped, “Hyperhumans shouldn’t be killing other Hyperhumans, we’re supposed to be lifting each other up.”

“Sometimes,” Naira responded with a cruel smirk, “You have to crack a couple of eggs to make an omelette.” She turned to the woman beside her, “If Adam won’t do it, how about you?”

Picking up a nearby rock, the women smiled before charging it with kinetic energy, turning the stone from a projectile into a grenade.

“Jim wrote my parents last year, said I was a troubled youth, I spent my entire summer break bouncing from therapist to therapist. He wasted my summer, I’m happy to waste him.”

She launched the rock into the vehicle, the explosion quickly engulfed the interior while Adam shook his head.

“I can’t believe it came to this.”

“Where’s the beast?” Naira teased, “Never would I expect Lindsay to have more of a wild side than you.”

Adam roared, bearing his long, pointed teeth as the animal-like Hyperhuman gave a sullen look towards the burned-out vehicle.

“Suppose you want me to drag that wreck into the ocean-” He started to ask before a violet glow from the vehicle caught his attention. Turning to Lindsay, he raised a furry brow, “Is that you-”

The words didn’t make it out of his mouth before a wall of psychic energy smashed into his face, toppling Adam into the thick trunk of a nearby tree. From the other side of the vehicle, the driver’s side door exploded open as Jim toppled onto the ground, encased in a glow bubble of psionic energy. Lindsay smiled, reaching into the pouch she wore and producing a sleeve of metal slugs. Ejecting one into her hands, it immediately began to glow before she hurled the charged object towards Jim. Raising his metal arm and projecting a shield in front of it, Jim braced for the impact.

The explosion caused his eyes to blur as he was temporarily blinded while his cowboys dug into the soft moss covered floor of the ravine. He slid backwards, before turning to retaliate.

“Ainsworth, why I am not surprised y’all are caught up in this mess.” Jim drawled sarcastically.

“Go to hell!” Lindsay replied while repeatedly pelting Jim with explosives. Behind her, Naira looked between Lindsay and Adam before ultimately making a run for it, abandoning the other Orcinus members.

“Oh, you bitch.” Lindsay snapped from between gritted teeth while Jim began to close ground. “You better hope he kills me, Cameron! I’m coming for you, next!”

“I’d pay more attention to the fight y’all are in before picking more.” Jim suddenly leapt over the wreckage of the vehicle that had been separating the pair. Lindsay didn’t have time to react before suddenly Jim was tackled out of the air. A roar echoing through the trees as Adam re-entered the fray. His eyes were gone to bloodlust as the bear-like man tackled Jim to the ground. Jim winced as his skull bounced off a rock, his impact barely padded by a hastily made shield.

Scrambling for his sidearm, Jim managed to draw it from his holster only for Adam’s claws to tear it from his hand, sending the large revolver spinning across the verdant forest floor. Adam reared his head back, his pointed ears flat against the mane-covered skull. His protruding jaws snapped open, before rushing towards Jim’s neck.

Raising his metal arm, Jim grimaced as Adam bit down hard enough to bend and dent the metal shell. But it was the moment he needed. Using Adam’s locked jaw as leverage, Jim managed to get out from the much larger man, scrambling towards his firearm before coming face to face with the barrel of his own gun.

The weapon floated in front of him, the safety pulled back as none other than Teresa Torres stood near the wrecked Manticore. Lindsay’s eyes darted from Jim to Torres and then back to Jim with a smile. The birds in the trees above suddenly made themselves sparse as the sound of the revolver echoed through the trees.

[Qia]

^{____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}

_{Location: Southern Plateau - Pacific Royal Campus}

Hope in Hell #2.036: Dreaming While Awake

^{_{_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}}

_{Interaction(s):Interactions: Only to the dead and gone}

Previously: Leave the World Behind

Harper’s heart swelled as she took in the sight of her mother, the soft halo of sunlight framing her in a picture of maternal warmth. The kitchen was alive with the comforting scents of home—freshly brewed coffee, sizzling bacon, and the sweet aroma of maple syrup.

“Mom,” she said again, the word more confident this time, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. Her mother’s eyes lit up, a reflection of the joy that Harper’s presence brought her. “There’s m’girl,” she beamed. “Come get breakfast, and tell me ‘bout yer mornin’ with yer daddy.”

Harper obliged, her steps echoing softly on the aged floorboards. She settled into her chair at the kitchen table, the wood cool and smooth beneath her fingertips. The entire moment felt so real, so tangible.

So perfect.

The conversation at the table flowed effortlessly, despite the topics mainly surrounding the mundane. The crispness of the autumn air, the vibrant colours painting the trees, the plans for the upcoming weekend—each topic ordinarily unremarkable, yet today, they held Harper’s rapt attention. It was as if she was hearing these stories for the first time, or perhaps the last, savouring the cadence of her parents’ voices.

Her father leaned back, the chair creaking under his weight, and began recounting a story from his time in the military. “There was this one mission where we had to…” His voice, calm and authoritative, painted vivid pictures of landscapes and strategies. Harper listened intently at first but stopped halfway through, her heart swelling with a bittersweet pang. She had heard this story before, she realized then, but now each detail seemed precious, as if it were a piece of a world she had long lost.

Her mother, ever the brilliant mind, followed suit. “And in the lab, we’ve been breakin’ new ground in genetic research….” She delved into the intricacies of her work. Harper did her best to absorb her words, though the scientific nuances often eluded her. This was Sierra’s realm, a world of hypotheses and breakthroughs that Harper was more than comfortable admiring from afar.

“You’ve been awfully quiet, darlin’. Everything alright?” her mother’s voice cut through Harper’s introspection, laced with a mother’s intuitive concern.

Harper offered a smile, one that reached her eyes, as she took a bite of the fluffy pancake before her. “Just lost in thought, I guess. It’s been a while since I felt so…at peace.”

Her gaze wandered the kitchen until it rested on a framed sketch adorning the wall. It depicted a solitary figure seated on a shore, the posture one of serene contemplation, the loose dress and exposed back suggesting vulnerability and strength in equal measure. The artwork, simple yet evocative, stirred something within Harper, a memory dancing just beyond her conscious grasp, as elusive as the morning mist that now covered the ground outside the kitchen windows.

She stared at the sketch, her brow furrowing slightly. “That’s a beautiful drawing,” she murmured, half to herself.

Her mother followed her gaze, a soft smile gracing her lips. “Y’always did have a knack for capturin’ emotions with your art, Harper.”

“Well…I don’t know about always,” Harper countered, a shadow crossing her features as she dredged up a memory best left forgotten. “I think I still remember what Sierra told me the first time I ever drew something.” Her voice trailed off, the words catching in her throat as she recalled the sting of her sister’s critique. It had been a casual comment, perhaps, but to Harper, it had cut deep, slicing through her young, budding confidence with the precision of a scalpel. The memory was vivid—Sierra’s eyes scanning her drawing, the slight curl of her lip, and then the words, “You call this art? Looks like hot ass, to me.” It was enough to make Harper hide her sketchbook away, vowing to never subject herself to such ridicule again.

Well, that was until. Until…

Harper blinked furiously, placing her head in her hands. What had made her pick up her pencil again? There had to have been a catalyst, a moment of such profound need for expression that she had braved the shadows of past humiliations to once again let her thoughts spill out onto paper.

A sharp, piercing pain erupted at the base of the girl’s skull, causing her to wince, her hands instinctively rising to cradle her head. Her fingers pressed into the tender flesh there, as if she could physically mould her recollections back into coherence. The memory she sought was elusive, fluttering at the edges of her consciousness like a moth around a flame—visible, almost tangible, but perpetually beyond her grasp. Each time she felt close to seizing it, to understanding the why and the how of her return to art, it danced away, leaving her grasping at the empty air.

“Are you alright, darlin’?” The concern in her mother’s voice was palpable, wrapping around Harper like a warm blanket, yet it couldn’t stave off the chill of frustration that settled in her bones.

Harper managed a smile, a facade of normalcy that didn’t quite reach her eyes this time. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just a headache,” she lied, the words tasting of falsehood on her tongue. She reached for her coffee mug, the ceramic radiating a comforting heat into her palms. The rich aroma of the brew filled her senses, a familiar scent that should have brought comfort. Yet, as she took a sip, the liquid warmth did little to soothe the throbbing in her head or the turmoil in her mind.

Despite the confusion clouding her mind, Harper’s gaze was inexorably drawn back to the sketch. It was as if the drawing itself was a beacon, its silent lines and curves calling out to her, beckoning her to remember. “I started drawing again because…” she began, her voice trailing into silence.

Her father’s hand, warm and steady, was a familiar comfort as it closed over hers. “You don’t have to worry 'bout that now, Harper. Yer here with us, and that’s what matters,” he said, his voice a deep and gentle rumble that had always signified safety.

His words were meant to soothe, but they only heightened her unease. Harper closed her eyes, trying to push past the fog in her mind. She could almost see herself in those days following some…some tragedy it felt like, adrift in a sea of grief that threatened to pull her under. The world had become a blur of gray, each day indistinguishable from the next, as she moved through life like a ghost, untethered and insubstantial.

Her mind continued to wander, lost in the labyrinth of hazy memories—snippets of sleepless nights spent staring at the ceiling, the endless days where she wandered through her routines, numb and disconnected. She remembered the oppressive silence of a new and unfamiliar house, the absence of laughter and chatter that had once filled the rooms of the old. It was in those moments of solitude that she had felt most lost, a ship without a compass, drifting aimlessly in an ocean of sorrow.

The overwhelming feeling that had threatened to drown her was not just sadness—it was a profound sense of isolation, as if she had been severed from everything and everyone that had once anchored her to reality. The people and places that had defined her existence seemed distant, as if they belonged to another life, one that she could no longer claim as her own.

That is, until one quiet evening that found Harper knee-deep in the remnants of what felt like a former life to her now, surrounded by the clutter of her closet. She’d been sorting through the remains of the past, deciding what to keep and what to part with, when her fingers had stumbled upon the familiar texture of a sketchbook’s cover. It had been slightly worn at the edges, the spine cracked from use, and it lay buried under a pile of forgotten trinkets, coated in a fine layer of dust—a testament to the time that had elapsed since it had last been opened.

Curiosity piqued, Harper had flipped through the pages, each one a portal to a time when creativity had flowed freely, unmarred by grief. Because that’s what she’d felt then, she realized. Grief.

The sketches were his—lines and shapes that he had conjured into existence with effortless strokes. She could almost picture him there, hunched over his desk, the pencil an extension of his soul as he brought his visions to life.

Tears had blurred her vision as she’d traced the outlines of his work, each drawing a bittersweet reminder of his presence. It was then that she’d noticed the pencil, its wood darkened from the oils of his hands, nestled in the spine of the sketchbook as if waiting for her. The weight of it in her hand had felt like a piece of him, solid and real, anchoring her to the here and now amidst the storm of her emotions.

And so, she’d begun to draw. The page before her had been blank, a canvas of possibilities. She’d sketched a scene that had been etched into her heart—the two of them on a beach they had loved. She’d drawn herself as a child, small and trusting, her hand clasped in his, their silhouettes cast against the backdrop of a setting sun whose dying light seemed to set the ocean aflame. It had been a simple drawing admittedly, the lines uncertain and the composition basic, but it had been imbued with the rawness of her emotions—the love that still warmed her, the loss that still haunted her, and the longing that lingered like the afterglow of the sun on the horizon.

It was this drawing, this act of remembrance and homage, that had reignited the spark of life within her. Through art, she’d found a way to bridge the gap between the world and her wounded spirit. It had been a silent vow to keep his legacy alive within her as well, to honour the bond that not even death could sever.



Harper’s mother’s voice, gentle yet laced with an undercurrent of concern, tugged at the edges of Harper’s consciousness, pulling her back from the precipice of her thoughts. “Harper?”

Blinking away the remnants of her reverie, Harper refocused on the here and now, the kitchen materializing around her like a scene coming into sharp resolution. She nodded slowly, the motion deliberate, as she mustered a smile. “I’m fine, I’m fine. Just…thinking about some stuff,” she murmured. “Some stuff that I thought I’d forgotten about but now…now I think it wasn’t quite that.”

A heavy silence enveloped the space, thick and tangible as if the very air was waiting for her to unravel the mysteries of her own mind. The kitchen, once a cocoon of warmth and security, now seemed to contract around her, the walls inching closer, the ceiling pressing down. The comforting embrace of the room transformed into a smothering presence, a blanket too dense, too heavy, threatening to stifle her under its weight.

Yet, within that oppressive silence, Harper discovered a newfound strength, a clarity that pierced through the fog of the simulation. She found herself peeling back the layers of the scene before her, each one a veil that had obscured her true memories, her true self. Memories long buried, pushed to the darkest corners of her mind, began to resurface, buoyant and unbidden. They floated up through the layers of forgetfulness, emerging one by one into the light of her awareness.

There were memories of laughter and tears, of triumphs and defeats, each one a thread in the intricate tapestry of her life. There were moments of pure joy, so vivid she could almost hear the echoes of her own carefree giggles, and there were shadows of sorrow, so profound they left a hollow ache in her chest. These were the memories she had locked away, some deliberately, in an attempt to shield herself from pain and others that had simply slipped through the cracks of her busy mind.

Harper remained seated at the kitchen table, her mother’s eyes locked onto her with an intensity that spoke volumes of her worry. The memories, once fragmented whispers, now cascaded through Harper’s mind with the force of a river breaking through a dam. Each one surged forward, filling the gaps in her consciousness, painting a picture of a life that was rich and textured, yet punctuated by profound loss. The warmth of the kitchen, which had initially enveloped her like a comforting embrace, began to ebb away, replaced by a cool clarity as if a window had been flung open, inviting in the crisp breath of reality.

As the tide of recollection continued to rise, Harper felt a sharp twinge of discomfort, a stinging sensation that crept up her arms like a swarm of invisible insects, each tiny prick a hot needlepoint of pain. She winced, the sensation foreign yet alarmingly real. An instinctive urge to soothe the irritation arose, and she lifted her hand toward her cheek, only to halt midway as the pain intensified, blossoming into a throbbing ache that seemed to pulse in time with her heartbeat.

The edges of her cheek felt raw as if grazed by an unseen force, the skin tender to even the suggestion of touch. Harper’s hand trembled in the air, a hesitant guardian against the pain that no longer felt like a mere figment of her mind. Something was happening to her. Something she couldn’t see.

Where am I?

Simultaneously, a dull, persistent ache throbbed at the back of her head, a relentless drumbeat that pushed against the inside of her skull. Her fingers brushed tentatively at the nape of her neck, searching for a wound that refused to manifest, yet the sensation was undeniable.

Suddenly, Harper’s arms were engulfed in an inferno of pain, the initial pinpricks escalating into what felt like deep, methodical lacerations. Each sensation was precise, a deliberate etching that sent shivers of horror down her spine and twisted her stomach into knots. With trepidation, she cast her eyes downward, bracing for the sight of crimson wounds, but was met with the contradiction of her unblemished skin. It was a surreal experience, her arms appearing untouched, yet the agony she endured was as tangible and acute as any injury she had ever suffered.

Her breathing became laboured, each inhale sharp and ragged as panic began to set in. The once comforting surroundings of her parents’ kitchen seemed to deteriorate before her eyes, the vibrant hues leaching away to a monochrome blur, the familiar sounds distorting into an unrecognizable cacophony. Desperately seeking stability, Harper pressed her palms firmly against the wooden table, the solid reality of it offering a fleeting anchor in the maelstrom of her senses. But the pain was unyielding, an insistent tide pulling her towards an unseen shore, a reality that lay shrouded in shadows just beyond her perception.

The voices of her parents, once the embodiment of comfort and safety, now felt as though they were being carried away on a breeze, growing fainter with each passing moment. The physical torment eclipsed their warmth, casting Harper adrift in a sea of confusion and distress. She clenched her eyes shut, concentrating with all her might, attempting to pierce through the veil of suffering to the root of this torment. To finally pull that frayed and solitary thread.

Wake up!

“I,” she began, her voice barely above a whisper, her eyelids fluttering against the onslaught of pain, “I missed this. Just talking to you both. Being here with you.”

Her father leaned in, his brow creased with worry, his eyes—a mirror of the love and care that had defined her childhood—searching her face for signs of what ailed her. But Harper raised a hand, a gentle plea for pause. She needed to articulate this feeling, to acknowledge the preciousness of their presence before the dream—or was it a nightmare?—slipped away.

“I used to draw,” Harper said softly, her voice barely above a whisper, as if speaking too loudly might shatter the already breaking illusion. “Dad, you…you taught me. After you were gone, I started again. To feel connected to you.”

She paused, her gaze unwavering as she studied the image of her father. Tears breached the dams of her eyes, tracing silent paths down her cheeks, but she paid them no heed. Instead, she anchored herself in the deep, resonant ache that filled her chest, a hollow space where her father’s presence used to reside.

Her father’s comforting presence seemed to flicker, like an old film reel struggling to stay in focus. Harper’s gaze locked onto his eyes, those familiar eyes that had always been filled with strength and love, but now appeared shadowed by an unknowable distance.

A distance she could not cross, for she was not ready to let go of the illusion, not ready to face the finality of his absence. She clung to the image of him, to the sound of his voice, to the warmth of his hands guiding hers as she made her first tentative strokes on paper. In those moments, he had been more than a father; he had been her mentor, her guide, her gateway to a world where emotions could be captured with pencil and line.

Tears continued to cascade down Harper’s cheeks, unrestrained, as the dam of her emotions broke. Her voice, once steady, now quivered with the weight of her confession. “I never got to apologize for yelling at you. I’m so sorry. I’m really, really sorry,” she uttered, each word soaked in regret. She had been young, her emotions a tangled web she couldn’t navigate, and in a moment of youthful frustration, she had lashed out at the one person who had always stood by her. That moment, that heated exchange, was seared into her memory, a scar that time had not healed. How could it? It was the last thing she’d spoken to him.

Harper’s gaze shifted, her eyes finding her mother’s form as she moved closer, enveloping her in an embrace that felt like coming home. The warmth of her mother’s arms wrapped around her, a sensation so deeply missed that it carved through the numbness that had settled in Harper’s heart since her passing. She leaned into the embrace, her face pressed against the soft fabric of her mother’s shoulder, inhaling the scent that was so intrinsically linked to her—a blend of lavender and the faintest hint of vanilla—that had always been a signal of comfort and maternal love.

“I miss you both so much,” Harper whispered, her voice muffled by her mother’s embrace. “Every day, I wish you were here. I’ve felt so alone without you.” The admission was a release, a small crack in the dam she had built around her grief, allowing the sorrow to flow through.

The words, meant to bridge the gap between her and the memories of her parents, seemed to echo back to her, amplifying the sense of loss that lingered like a shadow. She clung to her mother, her hands gripping the fabric of her clothing, as if by holding on she could anchor herself in this illusion a little longer, as if she could somehow will this dream into reality. She tried to etch into her memory the feel of her mother—the solid, reassuring presence that had always been her sanctuary in times of distress.

But even as she sought solace in the embrace, the persistent pain that marred her dream refused to be ignored. The sting on her cheek, a raw and throbbing reminder of an unseen wound, the pulsating ache at the back of her head, and the sharp, needle-like sensations that marched up her arms—all served as harbingers of a reality that was calling her back. They were insistent, a chorus of discomfort that pierced the veil of her mother’s comforting presence, reminding her that this moment was fleeting, that the time to wake up was drawing near.
That it was now or never. Do or die.

Harper took a hesitant step back, her hands trembling as they brushed away the wet trails left by her tears. “I think I know how I got myself into this mess.”

Her father’s frown deepened, the lines on his forehead becoming a map of his worry. “What are ya talkin' ‘bout, Harper?” he said, his voice steady but tinged with an undercurrent of confusion.

She shook her head, a gesture of denial that felt as if it could shake the very foundations of the dream. “This… this isn’t real. It’s a dream...I think. I can feel it. The pain… I can’t see it but it’s too real to ignore.” It was as though her mind was shrouded in a dense fog, obscuring her vision, yet the agony was a beacon, cutting through the haze with merciless clarity.

The dream’s hold on Harper was indeed formidable, its grip on her senses tightening like a vice in response to her inner turmoil. It was as if the dream itself was sentient, aware of her distress, and in a cruel twist, it magnified every sensation, every emotion, to an unbearable degree. The world around her, once a haven of solace, now seemed to conspire against her, each detail intensified to a pitch that threatened to overwhelm her.

“I need to turn it off,” Harper whispered, the realization dawning on her with the weight of a thousand suns. “My enhanced vision… it’s amplifying everything. I need to turn it off to break free.”

But how….

With a deep, steadying breath, Harper closed her eyes, turning her focus inward. She searched for the control, the mental switch that governed her extraordinary ability. In her mind’s eye, she pictured it as a dial, radiant with an inner light that pulsed in time with her racing heart. She reached out with her thoughts, her mental touch tentative at first, then growing more confident as she felt the dial yield to her will.

The static-filled fragments of her mother’s voice broke through her concentration, a distorted plea that tugged at her heartstrings. “Har…er…on’t…o.” Harper’s eyes snapped open, the pain of the moment etched into her features as she fought back the urge to cry out. But she knew what she had to do.

With one final surge of determination, Harper turned the dial down completely, her mental grip firm and unyielding. The cacophony of her enhanced senses dimmed, fading to a whisper, then to silence. As the world around her started to dissolve into darkness, Harper found the strength to utter three final words to the fading figures of her parents, a farewell steeped in both love and sorrow.

“I love you.”

[Lord Wraith]

^{________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}

_{Location: The Southern Plateau - Dundas Islands, Pacific Ocean}

Hope In Hell #2.037: I Walk The Line

^{_{____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}}

_{Interaction(s): None}

Previously: No Angels

Behind Jim, Adam dropped to the forest floor. A clean wound through his shoulder took the rage out of the beast as the young man howled in pain. Lindsay on the other hand was unable to move as Torres held her tightly in her telekinetic grip.

“You dropped this,” Torres snarked, floating the weapon back to Jim who snatched it out of the air and hastily holstered it.

“I suppose y’all have my gratitude,” He replied, his hand wandering to his ribs before his winced. As the adrenaline began to die down, the pain racing through his body began to rise.

“How’d y’all find me?” Jim asked, his eyes darting back to Adam to make sure the older student was in fact downed.

“Your island isn’t that big,” Torres replied dryly, “A vehicle taking an impromptu trip offroad leaves a mark. Happened to be on my way to observe the Trial, though I’m hearing you’re having some trouble with that. Are things always like this with you in charge?” Torres asked.

“Oh darlin’,” Jim replied, “Things were like this long before I was in charge.” He examined the damage to his arm, giving his hand a few flexes before checking the elbow and shoulder. Satisfied, Jim secured his holster before retrieving his Stetson from where it had been blasted to by Lindsay’s attacks.

Thankfully, the hat was miraculously unmarred.

“If’n ya’ll be excusin’ me, one of them got away and I’d very much like to track that whale back to the whole pod.”

“Not without backup you’re not.” Torres responded as Jim reluctantly moved aside, gesturing for her to follow him.

“Though I don’t know how you allowed an entire terrorist cell to fester under your nose this whole time.” Torres added with a disapproving tone.

“People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, darlin’.” Jim smiled with a wink of his gruff face. “We both know y’all got more than a few problems in your pipin’ based on the smell coming from your sewer.” He added, giving Torres a pat on the shoulder before he continued to speak while walking.

“Hyperion’s loyalists fled P.R.C.U. after he was dealt with. It wasn’t until the Foundation removed all incarcerees from the islands that we started to hear whispers of growing numbers. Clearly, their ranks had been culled at some point, but to pull a stunt like this they wanted attention. The question is why.” Jim mused while Torres kept pace beside him.

“The Foundation somehow has garnered a reputation for being Hyperhuman first over the last couple of years,” Torres replied, “Based on the reputation of Hyperion, if anything your so-called loyalists probably figured helping our goals actually would aid theirs.” She paused, studying the hastily trampled forest floor.

“It looks like they were heading to the coast.”

“Not the coast,” Jim grunted, his bruised ribs making themselves known again. “The Black Site.”

[Skai]

---

_{Location: Southern Plateau - PRCU}

Hope In Hell #2.038: A Name Unspoken

---

_{Interaction(s): Amma @Rockette, Aurora @Melissa, Haven @Skai}

Previously: Feathering the Storm and Spot The Difference

Aurora’s legs wobbled underneath her as she made a break down the sterile hallway, pulse thrumming in her ears as she escaped from the twisted version of her best friend’s garage. Adrenaline surged and coursed through her veins as she extended and contracted her legs, trying her best to keep moving despite the pain that covered her body.

She wouldn’t let him catch her. She couldn’t let him.

And then the redhead was falling, a wave of dizziness setting in, no doubt from her injured head, and next thing she knew the world turned sideways. She braced her hands in front of her as she hit the ground, grimacing as sore muscles took the brunt of the impact. The wind knocked out of her lungs and she struggled to find her breath once more, heaving.

Staggering to her feet, not daring to look behind her in fear of how close Raze followed, she willed her legs to move just a bit further as her eyes continued to spill over with tears. Her legs screamed as she moved and after a few more feet she crumbled once more, instantly noticing two figures at the end of the hallway and freezing in panic. She could see the vague outline of wings, but after she had already mistaken one dopplegänger for the real thing, she wasn’t about to take any more chances.

“Aurora?”

Haven’s voice carried through the empty hall, its pitch as wary as it was worried. She could see Aurora as clearly as if the redhead was right in front of her. Her rough appearance was as concerning as the truthfulness of her stumbling into the same space as the two women. Now, after what she’d been through, she was unsure if she could tell reality apart from the simulation.

Her heart already hurt for the early signs of a bruise showing on Aurora’s cheek, either way.

“If this isn’t true… Do you want to run or fight?” Haven asked Amma with a lowered voice. She winced as she remembered the way Amma favoured her ankle. Another part of her wondered how much slower she would also be with her limp wings upon her back. “We’re stronger together in this. I won’t run if you can’t.”

"We fight," Amma uttered, lashes fanned low on her cheeks as she marks the copper hair threaded in gold, the blemish of red on her otherwise delicate features, the fearful reproach that alighted those blue eyes nearly silver in their dread. Though Haven had spoken true and indeed guarded her back, she knew that Aurora was her friend before she was her unwilling companion; Blackjack built the foundation of friendship and trust liken to an impenetrable gate, where the spires of mutual affections warded even her cruel introduction.

Slowly, carefully, she lowers her hands, arachnid gestures splayed, palms out to coax the energy betwixt them to a brightening hue of carmine that slithers across the linoleum.

"Get up."

The redhead heard the familiar timbre of Haven’s voice, fear laced with curiosity, but was still cautious. She couldn’t let down her guard again, this Trial couldn’t be taken at face value any longer. One misstep and she was good as gone. She considered her options, shifting her body to attempt to stand up, until the chilling tone of Amma’s voice followed and stole the breath from her lungs.

Aurora could only watch as the coils of the girl’s abilities weaved and wreathed down the hall towards her. She had nowhere to run, did not believe herself to be strong enough to teleport elsewhere, so she surrendered herself to the notion that this was going to get worse. Much, much worse. She threw up her hands in front of her, blocking herself although she knew it would be to no avail.

“No! Stop!” She cried, utterly terrified, “PLEASE!” The redhead pleaded, fear palpable in her words.

The terror in Aurora’s words and body language set Haven’s pulse at a faster pace. She tensed beside Amma. Torn between running to a friend in need and remaining wary of a potential ruse. She didn’t like this game of cat and bird at all.

“I’m going over.” She decided suddenly. “I-... Just try not to hit me.”

Before Amma could hold her back, Haven allowed her heart to guide her feet. She began slowly, and then picked up the pace the closer she came to Aurora. She could hear the shakiness in her friend’s breaths. The simulation might be playing her heart against her, but if this was really the kind, bubbly friend that Haven knew, she was devastated to see her so distraught.

“What happened?” Haven asked as she drew nearer. “Have you been alone this whole time?”

The redhead tensed as the winged girl approached, moving her hands slightly to get a better look at her. There were no obvious red flags, nothing that clearly indicated that she wasn’t the true Haven. It helped her case that she looked like she’d been put through the ringer as well, her wings coated in black substance and pain noticeable in her eyes. Cautiously, Aurora shook her head, and spoke with a wavering voice, “No… Harper, Lorcán and I got separated. I don’t know how it happened, but I blacked out and when I woke up he was there.” She looked like she had just seen a ghost, his fiery gaze was burned into the back of her mind. She continued.

“He… he was Lorcán but he wasn’t. Not my- our Lorcán. He tried to trick me, convince me that Hyperion had won and had taken over. Suggested wiping my memories.” She shuddered, “He called himself Raze. He wanted me to join Hyperion’s forces, marry him, he-” The redhead’s tears continued to fall. “He kidnapped my stepfather, told me it was a wedding gift and that I should kill him for what he did. I-I couldn’t do it.”

The frown that came to Haven’s lips was brought on by more than Aurora’s tears. Haven was worried for Harper and Lorcán, and also reminded that somewhere in the labyrinth Katja and Rory were fighting their own demons. Did Rory make it out of the fire? Was there any chance he’d gotten help if he needed it? Her mind was pulled to the present as Aurora hit her with a story so wild that it had to be true.

“That’s… awful, Ror. I’m sorry.”

“A Lorcán like that lit our room on fire…” Haven said softly as she lowered herself to her knees in front of Aurora. Her back ached with the movement. “I’m not sure if Rory or Katja made it out.” Worried eyes glanced between Aurora’s watery sapphires. “Amma found me-” Her throat bobbed before she continued. “We’re just trying to make it out of here before it throws something else our way.”

Haven tried her best to give Aurora an encouraging smile, but it was too tight. So lacking in her usual spirit that it didn’t even form the dimples that usually graced her cheeks. “I’m glad we’re together now.”

From woeful pleas of mercy to such outlandish confessions of fiction, their ordeals paling in comparison to the netherworld she had endured and slain another in. That creature that bore her face, the other that revealed a spawn of reaping hellfire, the beast that loomed over heart and soul. Her power continued to twine, spooled from her gestures as she approached Aurora and Haven at a slower pace, not entirely trusting of the former's plight and her shed tears. Amma stalked the edges of their influence and kept her gaze bidden low and not once did she relinquish the leash she had on her powers, those scarlet threads mere inches away from Aurora and Haven, lax and calm- poised to strike.

"I told you: they make you weak and defenseless." With a delicate pause, Amma glanced back down where they had come, the distance made seemingly minuscule, she felt as if they had barely moved at all. For in the distance, she could see the shadows that boiled and churned, a frothing edge of bruised vermillion entranced by the coils of her power left in their wake from every panel of the wall she touched.

"They'll attack you at your lowest when you think you've gotten away far enough. When you think you're safe."

Her eyes snapped back towards Aurora, striking to the depths of her woeful eyes, and said: "What you were shown was only a small piece of what they're capable of. This Raze is likely the other of Lorcán, a name like that has only one intention: The Foundation Force. I faced... something similar."

"She's dead now."

Feathers ruffled where they could throughout the destruction of her plumage as Haven felt that seeking power lingering behind her. She turned her gaze away from her friend to look up at the raven haired woman for the first time. From this angle, and with this new information, Haven was starting to see the Amma that was given the title of Tiamat.

“Who did you kill, then?” The question was out of her lips before she could consider its consequences. Yet she continued undauntedly. There was no going back now. “Which name did you choose when you defeated your other self?”

Amma's eyes narrowed, mere slivers of glowing blue that swelled with the void that was at her eternal beck and call.

"You really ask too many questions, Haven." On a small, delicate smile that slid across her cheeks stained red and black, she continued. "You may not like the answers you get."

Haven simply pressed her lips together. Her moss and timber eyes glancing between slits of glacial blue.

Aurora’s tearful eyes darted from Haven to Amma, the latter’s chilling words alighting goosebumps underneath her AR suit. She was simply overwhelmed, the two girls' conversation igniting more dread in the depths of her stomach. All she wanted was to find their friends, their teammates, and get the hell out of this nightmare. As her head continued to pound and the pain on her face radiated outwards, she turned back to the winged female who knelt in front of her. “Please don’t leave me. I don’t want to be alone again.”

Haven tore her gaze away, only because of the sorrow within Aurora’s tone. A recognition of that sorrow within her eyes as she nodded. Her left hand flexed in her lap, phantoms of a gloved touch holding her back for a moment before she reached for Aurora. “I won’t let go of your hand.”

She shouldn’t have let go of Rory, either. The regret pierced her heart and mixed with the dread of being touched again so soon. She would not let that keep her from showing love for a friend in need.

“Let’s keep moving, then.” She looked up at Amma, a silent question in her eyes. Had the untrusting woman made her decision to believe in this version of their teammate?

Her lip curled into that of a sneer; a slight lift that exposed gritted teeth as the energy spindled from her gestures pulsed once, twice, the third quake bidden to Aurora where Haven clung to her hand, that simple act beholden to her eyes that intensely tracked over every action- processed every word, every shuddering breath.

"This could be a trap, this Raze she mentioned could be a ploy. This little damsel here could be leading us right to him."

Amma's fingers curled inwards, every nail against the line of her scars that sunk deep, those tendrils of energy slowly pulling back and writhing up her frame, settled over her arms and shoulders, reminiscent of snakes.

"But," her expression waned, a sliver of exhaustion sliding into place on her facade. "If that's the case, I'll just kill-"

Amma's words were immediately sundered, her eyes panned wide, shaken, as a terrible esoteric drone split through the corridor, an intense vibration as if rent from the depths of an unforeseen Hell. Everything shook, and swayed, the entire hall suddenly warped in encroaching darkness that bayed with an appetence that demanded only one thing - death. She didn't hesitate and snapped her gaze to both Haven and Aurora and as the sound slowly abated it was replaced with a keening wail that wrecked her down to her core.

Time was suddenly no longer on their side.

"Run!"

Haven wasted no time in hoisting herself and Aurora to their feet. The shrieking hallway overwhelmed her ears and filled her body with terror, adrenaline pumping through her veins to mix with it. She bid her legs to run; willed the protesting muscles on her back to hold her wings against her so that they wouldn’t drag her down. Aurora was added weight against her arm as she tugged her along, but it was weight that Haven would bear to ensure they all made it out alive. The trial would not claim them easily.

Aurora didn’t have time to dwell on Amma’s threat, didn’t get the chance to prove her authenticity and innocence before the darkness and dread set in. Instantly she was on her feet and was being dragged along by Haven, beginning to run once more. She tried not to trip over her own feet and gripped onto the winged girl’s hand for dear life, afraid that if she let go she would be on her own again, forced to face the perils of the Trial alone. Up ahead the raven haired girl led the way, and for once Aurora was thankful to have her there to navigate them through the sterile halls, although she was still skeptical and apprehensive of her demeanor.

It manifested first as an unassuming shape, this figment of black and red, pinpricks of silver in the risen gloom that followed after them. A hellish maw split open, a vacant hole of writhing darkness that seemingly tasted the air as if a scent hound bidden to the hunt, a chuff echoed, followed by another keening wail before the fiendish creature split into three- one for each.

A roar sounded, and with it, waves of crimson came to, lapping against the confines of the hallway that suddenly felt much too narrow, as if this was the trap lain for them now- as if waiting for them to gather as one before it hunted them down as a pack.

Amma didn't hesitate to turn left, then right, the pain in her ankle hideous and blinding, the sheer agony coiling through her nerves like fire with every second as they ran. She recognized that sound in her waking world, in her nightmares, in her own wailing heart that was starved and famished, and now it bayed and demanded subjugation, it demanded their blood.

Even still, they were not fast enough, the ruby malice and twisting shadows reached forward in terrifying waves of hate, it soiled the ground and slid beneath them, the manifest knew them now: it tasted Aurora's anguish and dread, it tasted Haven's agony and fear, and it tasted Amma's power.

It tasted their soul.

With a bellowing triumph, each infernal apparition descended upon them, demanding their ruin.

Haven heard the beasts as if they were right in her ear and knew that they hadn’t been fast enough. She’d glanced behind in time to see the two beasts position as they leaped. Their blood and metal color too reminiscent of a certain teammates power to be coincidental. Was this the simulation's trick, or were they caught in a trap laid for Amma alone? Was this Amma’s slain other back for revenge?

Putting all of her strength into her left arm, Haven swung Aurora in front of her and to the side, allowing the redhead to narrowly avoid her personal beast's snapping jaws. She spun with the movement, her own monster’s outstretched paw grazing across her ribcage as she escaped its horrible embrace. Her suit tore from its claws, the flesh beneath cracking. It felt like lightning made its way into the bone under her skin. She cried out, but did not allow her body to crumble from the pain. Instead she grabbed the leg of the beast and used her spinning momentum to throw it into its partner.

“Aurora, port us behind them!” Haven demanded.

The redhead exclaimed as she saw her winged friend mauled by one of the creatures that chased, realizing that Haven had pushed her out of harm's way and taken a blow on her behalf. The action in itself was enough to stop her tears from falling and force her to focus entirely on what was at stake here. At Haven’s command, Aurora tried to dig deep, take stock of her current state and HZE’s to determine if she had enough strength to use her abilities to transport not one but two people in addition to herself. She came up short.

“I can’t! I-I don’t think I have enough-”

A thought came to mind.

Her determined sapphires found Amma ahead of them, and the redhead reached out her hand towards her. Although they manifested in extremely different ways, the two girls did indeed have the same power type. “Amma, give me a boost! It’s the only way, please.” The situation was dire enough that they needed to work together, Aurora letting her hesitations vanish for only a moment to ensure their survival.

Amma's manic gaze snapped towards Aurora; one of the sky, the other of the sea. One of endless hope and possibilities, the other of endless depths and darkness- the unknown. Crushing azure that her glare invaded with a sluggish glow that lined her eyes, and her lashes, fanning them against her cheeks as her demented beast leaped; she felt the weight on her spine, shoulders, the invading puncture of talons in her flesh, and a ridge of bone over her shoulder. It bit down and hellfire speared through her body and wreathed her veins in searing agony. Amma bore the pain, the lightning that lanced through her, the sort of anguish that brought her to her knees and -

She better be ready.

The thought reared through her mind as she reached out, fingers splayed, nails arched, bone cracking under the sudden swell of energy she clawed through, the world always shuddered at her ebb and flow and here it cleaved forth at the seams and burned silver and black at the edges. Tendrils arose and swirled around her quivering hand, tantalizing and hesitant before it shot forward in a funnel of raw power and latched onto Aurora. It sluiced through her veins and it burned, it wove through every facet of her awaiting embrace and Amma could feel her. She felt the terrifying depths of long-hidden anguish, her fear, her pain that bloomed bright liken to a solar flare at all the wrongs the world had done unto her too. She felt everything she was and everything she was not. Felt that she was true.

And though the demented creature latched onto Amma with all the fierceness of a predator, her power shot up and rent through every whorl of darkness, felt the hot wash of blood pool at her neck, and even though exhaustion fought to reign over her being, she continued to feed her power into the connection that bound them together.

"Go. Leave. Take it and get out."

“No!” Haven shouted from where she stood. She’d placed Aurora behind her, not quite sure how the two women would share their strength together, but determined to defend Aurora again should it force her to be still while she accepted it. She’d been exempted from those lessons due to her nature. “We are not leaving Amma behind!”

The beasts amalgamated as they crashed into each other, and what turned to her and her friend now represented their current physical connection. One larger body, six legs, and two heads of vicious teeth. The monster lunged. Haven twisted herself to kick, catching it in the chest. The power within her muscles sent it backwards again. Vengeful arms clawed at her leg for grip, shredding her suit and flesh down each length of her thigh until it lost connection at her knee. Haven and the beast each howled in shared frustration, the former’s cry laced with pain. The creature skid to a stop a few feet away, its front paws leaving a trail of blood and scars along the linoleum. Its snarl filled the hallway as it began to circle its prey.

Aurora instantly knew pain.

But this was a different kind of torment. Not akin to a physical injury, but a heaviness, a crushing weight that Amma carried that she couldn’t even begin to describe. It coursed through her veins and the burden of such power, raw and unyielding, was like wildfire, incinerating everything in its path. It was unclear where it began and where it ended, an endless well that seemed to whisper secrets of suffering, agony, and nothingness. The darkness she normally bore was a fraction of what lay underneath, and the only sensation that was felt stronger in that moment was Aurora’s immense guilt.

The redhead grimaced as she struggled to channel that energy, that chaotic wreathing shadow, not used to such amounts of it at her disposal. But she managed to reign it in, form it into something she could use and looked to the other set of ceruleans intently, holding tightly onto her hand. Through gritted teeth, she spoke.

“Like hell am I leaving you here.”

She made the jump, exceeding her own expectations as all three of them vanished and reappeared behind the monster. Just as quickly as the power had been ignited, it snuffed out, Aurora’s knees buckling as the crash hit her like a ton of bricks. She swayed, and leaned into Haven, completely sapped. But her eyes found Amma’s once more, and in them lay a wordless appreciation and a mutual understanding.

Haven pressed her lips together as she placed weight onto her shredded leg, muffling the whine that escaped her throat. She could feel her pulse in her thigh, thankful that the talons hadn’t hit any arteries but also aware of the warm blood that began to trickle down her knee. She supported Aurora’s weight anyway. Her mind was trying to grapple with the feeling of porting from one place to another. She’d never traveled like that and she wasn’t sure she wanted to ever again. It felt… unnatural. Not quite the same feeling as traveling by car, or even worse by plane, but still just as foreign. Her body was tense against Aurora’s as a result. Which also left her torn ribs aching. She allowed her wings to slump behind her in an effort to reduce the pain.

She looked to Amma and could only hope that from this vantage point the raven haired woman would be able to defeat the monsters in one blow. Haven could still fight in this battered and torn state. She’d learned to push through pain like this a long time ago. The only reason she didn’t jump into action being that she didn’t dare leave Aurora alone and defenseless.

To be dragged from one place and then to the next was such a jarring swell of energy that Amma was breathless with it, the melding of the world, two halves woven together and then suddenly not, to be there and then whisked away was both daunting and extremely taxing, rendering her to her knees as her power sputtered, sparked and groaned. The dregs of her once infinite resources were slowly dwindling, having compelled such raw energy to Aurora- to allow them this one moment of triumph.

To make it count.

Amma flung out her hand and braced for the crackling whips of her power that postured over her arm and lanced forward as a bestial reaper, cores of pulsating scarlet that struck through the hellish beast that roared, those gaping maws belching an obsidian tar that frothed with death and decay. That smell of rot that burned through her veins and cantered through her life, muddied in ashen remains that stuck to her lungs with the scream that tore through her throat. Her opposite hand reached out next, summoning another funnel of pure, destructive power and bid the creature be torn apart from within. It appeared to shudder and tremble, ran through with relentless whorls of red that struck the ground, the walls, bidden by their master of chaos. A terrifying squeal splintered through the corridor and the world held its breath, beholden to the mistress that pillaged through time as the scion of ruin before it exploded.

Then silence.

Amma immediately fell, her weight caught by her scarred palms that slammed against the ground, a violent quiver pinging down her spine, her body wound taut, muscles aflame and every nerve pulsating with the spent energy that fizzled and whisked away from her shaking limbs. And though she felt nothing, she could not contain the trill of laughter that erupted from her lips, shoulders drawn in and hair fanned over her facade that splintered with a manic smile of gleaming bone and red that bled from her nose.

“Holy shit.” Haven uttered. She’d never seen Amma’s power in full force like that. Seeing those masks reduced to ash was something she would have to process later, but this display? It was unsettling to witness, but it also left her in awe. She watched Amma’s shoulders shake with laughter and wondered if it brought her joy or left her feral and sardonic to emanate such destructive force.

Had she not just been a conduit to the raven haired girl’s abilities, Aurora would have shared Haven’s sentiment. She too would have been flabbergasted and stunned by what had just occurred. But she had felt that limitless source firsthand, got a small glimpse at the sheer magnitude of the well in which she derived her crimson and ebony power from.

It was beautifully chilling, understandably haunting, and reasonably terrifying.

The redhead felt herself come back to her body piece by piece, sensation returning to her legs, and took some of her weight off of the winged girl who was worse for wear. Normally Aurora could sense the HZEs around her, warp them to her will in order to travel from place to place, but after such usage to teleport the three of them, which surpassed anything she had ever done before, she was met with vast emptiness. She needed to preserve her strength if she was going to have a fighting chance.

“We should keep moving. Find the others.” She stated in between deep breaths, attempting to calm her pounding heart.

Amma's laughter slowly subsided, her reality carefully reigning back into place by the deafening silence and both Haven and Aurora's words, her trembling gestures carved back through her hair, soiled of obsidian ash and blood with a sigh that raked from her chest and deflated on a shuddering breath.

"Yes," she agreed in a murmur, attempting to stand was a struggle in itself, her ankle nearly buckling in protest before she fell, once, twice - a third time that had her teeth slicing into the pout of her lip, every inch of her flesh sensitive, every aspect of her heart and soul suddenly raw. It was a feeling not entirely unknown, but completely unwelcome as she finally managed to rise to her full height with a pained wince.

"Maybe we can circle back around... before I found Haven, I felt someone-"

She never got to finish her sentence, never even released a full breath before the wall at her back yawned into a sudden void on the ear-splitting screech of sundered steel. There in the eternal gloom churned a ring of hellfire that sputtered and roared, a terrifying echo of a guttural below that summoned her. The ink that waved across her flesh: demented snakes and fluttering moths and decaying birds that twittered and screeched. Those hellish hands ended in grueling talons that sunk deep into Amma's shoulders and hauled her forward, pitching her into that awaiting abyss that foretold her demise.

"NO!" A cry fell, a desperate screech of rage that had her twisting, hands reaching, nails digging and clawing and scraping, her power sputtered; red and silver tried to rise to her wailing shriek, but everything she was had been spent and all was for naught as Amma struggled.

And lost.

"Tell everyone - I'm --!"

A single thread of red, a fated string, a last attempt coiled away from her trembling hand where it lazily slithered across the ground, tracking through the blackened remains of their assailant before it looped around Aurora, the last vestiges of her manifest sinking deep into the same hand that had held her and refused to let go earlier. When she refused to leave her behind.

Then Amma Cahors was pulled back into that darkness, the void closing on a peal of hated laughter, the panels warped and blackened where she once was. A disembodied voice filled the entirety of the corridor then, the voice of Torres, and it echoed, over and over and over again.

Thank you for bringing Tiamat home.

And then there was darkness, the lights in the hallway slowly going out- one by one, until only a single bulb remained alighted over them both and with it, Torres' laughter faded away into nothing.

[Lord Wraith]

As Calliope stood, she was stopped in her tracks by cold steel against the back of her head.

“I’m sorry, luv, that’s far enough.” The familiar voice of the Butler stated from behind the blonde woman. “I’m afraid I can’t let you go through with it, that boy is my meal ticket and he knows it. If you take him away, if you give him meaning, I’ll be back to where I started before all this, and I’ll be damned if that cursed line is allowed to procreate again.”

His hand quivered slightly, the barrel of the weapon causing friction against the back of the student’s head.

“I did everything I could to protect him but this juvenile crush has gone on long enough. Hopefully he gets to you before you bleed out. I wouldn’t want to rob him of the chance to say goodbye again.”

Momentary relief washed over Calliope as the weapon was removed. The weapon cocking was suddenly deafening and before she could react the sound of the shot rang out. Calliope fell to the ground, where once was two feet, now was only one, her left leg from the thigh down gone. Searing white pain overtook the shock and blood was rapidly exiting from the open wound.

“I’d get a tourniquet on that if I were you, luv.” The Butler responded while nodding towards the bloodied stump where her leg had once been, and then he too, so like much of the Trial, vanished, leaving Calliope alone in the dark to bleed out.

^{________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}

_{Location: H.E.L.P.'s Black Site - Zayas Island, Pacific Ocean}

Hope In Hell #2.039: Monkey Wrench

^{_{____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}}

_{Interaction(s): None}

Previously: I Walk the Line

In the short months that the Black Site had been decommissioned, the age and humidity of the island had rapidly caught up with it, leaving the interior damp and reeking of mold and mildew. Still, Jim noted, it was void of the usual dust no doubt thanks in part to the traffic the site was still seeing thanks to Hyperion’s Children.

“Hold up,” Jim ordered, raising a hand before motioning to Torres to flank the entrance. “We have company.” He raised his weapon, while Torres produced her own.

“Jim,” Miranda’s voice called from the other side of the door, “It’s just Tad and I.”

“How do I know ya’ll ain’t Cameron?” Jim called back.

“Your favourite bourbon is Howler Head, but you always pour it into a decanter and dispose of the bottle so people don’t know you enjoy a banana flavoured bourbon.” Miranda replied. Torres raised an eyebrow while Jim let out a low chuckle.

“Happy to have y’all along.” He stated, stepping out of the shadows as Miranda and Tad joined him and Torres.

“I take it Miss Friend is here as well then?” Jim asked as Miranda nodded.

“Or at least she was when we had Cameron, congratulations on avoiding death again.”

“If Hyperion weren’t about to kill me, I ain’t about to let his bargain bin knockoff do it.” Jim retorted as the group headed further into the belly of the beast.

“This is all very sentimental, but I am hoping the pair of you have a plan.”

“Them?” Tad’s tone was incredulous. “They’re cowboys, I assumed you being here meant there was a plan, with all due respect Ms. Torres.”

“Big damn heroes.” Torres scolded as Jim beamed.

“Ain’t we just.”

Following the corridor deeper into the prison, the group emerged into a common area only to be greeted by several robed figures. Standing on the guard catwalk above was the Harbinger and beside him Naira Cameron holding Jessica with a blade pushed firm against the woman’s throat.

“Welcome, Chancellor and Interlopers.” The Harbinger gloated, their glee-laden baritone echoed through the large room. “I understand you have been looking for us.” They paced back and forth above the room, clearly amused he finally had the chancellor before him.

“You’re too late to save the students. Even if their minds haven’t crumpled from the strain, by now they’ve been wounded, maimed and potentially even killed. The team that dared stand defiant against our savior, broken by his successor. Look upon my works ye and despair.”

“Y’all look pretty stupid in those bathrobes. What is this, the spa from hell?” Jim smiled, his eyes focusing on Jessica’s neck. “This little game is at an end, take your mask off, put down any weapons and we’ll all walk out of here, hand in hand.”

“I believe,we have the numbers.” The Harbinger raised their hands as several more darkly clad figures emerged.

“Do you realize who I am?” Torres stepped forward, interjecting herself. “I am the Face of the Foundation. With a press of this button,” She started, showing her phone screen. “I will have the Foundation Force bring this entire building to rubble. You might be able to intimidate these teenagers into following you with your abilities,”

The Harbinger faltered slightly at the accusation.

“I’m sure Miss Rivers can verify my hypothesis, but even standing here now I can feel you trying to manipulate fear and awe from me. I have been in the presence of men and women far greater than you, I know a cheap imitation.”

“Well Miranda?” Jim asked, as the dark haired woman nodded.

“Their thoughts are well guarded, but I can feel their mind struggling to maintain their ability. Ms. Torres is correct.”

“No!” The Harbinger protested, “No! I am somebody you should fear.”

“Michael…” Miranda interjected, “Michael Tableau?”

“Mike the Janitor?” Tad blurted, stifling a laugh. “Hyperion’s Children are taking orders from Mike the Janitor?”

“Kill her.” The Harbinger ordered as Naira nodded only to find the knife wouldn’t move as a purple haze emerged between the blade and Jessica’s neck. Suddenly Jessica brought her heel down hard on Naira’s foot, before throwing the back of her head hard into the shapeshifter’s nose. Blood splattered across Naira’s face, the girl unable to regain her composure before Jessica managed to hoist Naira over her shoulder and off the catwalk.

“Thaddeus Finch, if you so much as spooned her, the wedding is off.” Jessica cried before vaulting over the catwalk to join her friends.

“Kill them all!” The Harbinger screamed. “Don’t let them escape with their lives, their insolence must be punished!”

But the cloaked students faltered, hesitating as Torres continued to hover her thumb over the button on her phone screen.

“That totally is Mike the Janitor,” Tad rolled his eyes before walking forward and hugging Jessica as she rejoined her rescuers.

“I always thought he shot spaghetti-os out of his nose.”

“Don’t just stand there!” The Harbinger screamed, “Get them! Now!”

A wave of energy washed over the room as something changed within the cloaked students. The Harbinger was pushing himself towards Hyperpsychosis to ensure he went down fighting. Looking from Miranda to Torres and back to Tad and Jessica, Jim muttered before spinning the barrel of his revolver as he put a new bullet in the chamber.

“And just when I thought it was over.”

[Roman]

"And Cut! Great job people - that's lunch!"

Gil and Gil2 came apart, releasing each other from where they'd been grappling for the scene. In a series of staggered, mirrored movements they patted each other down, smoothed out their clothes, and reset their hair, before shaking hands, complimenting each other on the success of the scene, and turning as a pair toward the food bar. A crew hand promptly arrived to retrieve the prop-gun that had been integral to the shot, and Gil2 handed it over first, before it crumbled in the crew member's grasp; they chuckled politely, and then looked to the other Gil, who passed another prop over. This one also crumbled, and the chuckle this time was slightly less polite, and then Gil ceded the actual prop. The crew hand took it away, but not without a few moment's pause and a few sharp raps against the prop to verify it was as authentic as it looked.

Around them, beyond the set, the air began to buzz with chatter as cast and crew rushed to lunch, and the locals lingering around the perimeter of the set re-started their own conversations and clamour now that shooting had paused. 'Crestwood Hollow' had been on-location for 10 days so far, and as word got around the town after their arrival, the crowds had, at first, dramatically swelled. After a week or so the novelty had worn off, and it was now only the committed (or un-employed) fans who remained; saying this was still a disservice to the size of their impromptu audience, however, and many of the crew had expressed a surprised gratitude for how popular the show actually seemed to be, judging by the numbers still peering in from the edge after the initial groundswell had returned to their regular hum-drum.

They'd been shooting the two-parter mid-season finale, that pushed Elwood Dowd - Gil's on-screen character - into the climactic second-half of his character arc for that season, revealing the true identity of his so-far anonymous stalker and harasser: his very own evil twin, intent on reifying a combined downfall. It had been a cold and soggy shoot so far, plagued by the characteristic rain of the titular city, and right now Gil was thankful to shed his damp jacket and replace it with a warm towel draped around his shoulders. Gil2, clad head-to-toe in black in the outfit of the evil twin, had removed his own overcoat and done the same. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder at the lunch bar, holding paper plates and loading them with bread rolls, fried greens, and cold cuts. Another crew-hand approached them with a polystyrene cup in each hand, vapour rising into the cool afternoon air from the hot tea within; the Gils took a cup each and thanked him in stereo, sipping the scalding liquid and savouring every burn as it cascaded down their twin throats.

Across the set there was an exclamation that burst through the general hubbub; Gil and Gil2 turned simultaneously to see what the ruckus was about, and spotted a short, young girl - wrapped in a scarf and waterproof jacket - deftly weaving her way around production crew members and ducking through umbrellas and camera lighting rigs. She was bee-lining toward them, her face - freckled and bespectacled and framed by lightly-curled ginger locks that fell from her voluminous barnet - set with a look of ferocious determinism that would not be swayed. She waved excitedly as Gil came into her sight-line, and Gil2 waved cheerily back, which doubled the girl’s resolve. Gil, for his part, merely subtly held off the security guard en route to intercept, who raised an eyebrow before shrugging, taking a pastry from a nearby cart to chew on, and hanging back to retrieve the fan once the interaction was handled.

She was flustered and excited but ultimately steady enough to compose herself and actually manage some words. Her voice was soft and light and if the rain picked up Gil imagined he'd hardly be able to hear her at all.
"Mr. Galahad?" She started, the tremor in her hand betraying the confidence in her voice. "I'm a huge fan...I've been watching 'Crestwood Hollow' since the pilot, and Elwood is my favourite by far."
She rocked on the balls of her feet, bobbing up and down rather than swaying back and forth. She was a ball of nervous elation. Gil and Gil2 maintained easy smiles, and as they turned to face her proper, she was unsure which one to address, her eyes darting back and forth between their identical visages.
"Could I...get a selfie?" She asked, and then with a hitching inhale, dared: "...with both of you?"

Gil widened his smile and pulled out his own phone, motioning to Gil2 to circle around and position himself on the other side of the girl.
"Absolutely - but only if I can get one too!" He said, his voice warm to match his smile. They got in close, each Gil placing a careful hand on each of the girl's shoulders, and she emitted the smallest of squeaks as she reached out her arm, carefully positioned her phone, and clicked the button. As soon as she'd verified she was happy with the picture, Gil raised his own arm, and snapped a duplica-

His phone buzzed with an incoming call as the screen flickered to a photo of a gently-beautiful brunette laughing softly in dappled shade beneath a declining sun, and the name 'Elenora Baines' displayed brightly above her figure.
"Is that the Elenora? From 'Romeo & Juliet & Zombies?'" The girl asked, and Gil twitched inside at the sound of her name. "Are you still dating?" There was a hint of sad disappointment in her tone, but Gil recognized how well she had attempted to mask it.
"It is, and no," he answered, noting the girl's microscopic sigh of relief, "but we're still good friends. We like to stay in touch."
He declined the call, resolving - lying to himself - that he'd return it later, and held his phone up again to snap his own picture.

"That's a wonderful photo." He said, looking at the resulting photo on his phone, managing to convince the girl if not himself. It would be a wonderful photo after some slight touch-ups, and Gil was quite adept at in-phone editing. "What's your 'at'? I'll tag you in my story."

He looked up at the girl, who had paled quite fiercely, her eyes wide and deep beneath her glasses. Fear pooled within them, and Gil had a sudden sinking feeling like he'd done or said something quite wrong; headlines flashed before his eyes, social media comments, trending X hashtags. He looked to Gil2, who held a similar face of constrained panic, and could only offer a flustered shrug.
"Please don't post anything." The girl finally said, quiet but with a sense of urgency that unnerved the Gils. "My dad...we can't talk about..." her words were stilted, sentence fragments spilling from her mouth, but the pieces fell in place. "He doesn't even know that I'm..."

Gil nodded, putting a hand on her arm to steady her and offering a comforting smile.
"I get it. Not everyone is...accepting. Even 'Crestwood Hollow' isn't immune to it."
The girl smiled back, wiping her eye with her sleeve, pushing her glasses up to her forehead.
"It's just nice to know...that it's not the end of the world. Hypes are still good people, they can still be important. Thank you, Mr. Galahad."
"Please - it's Gil. If you ever need someone to talk to - don't be afraid to reach out. I'm just a person too, you know."

They chatted for a couple more minutes, and then crew came around about shooting resuming; Gil nodded, and said his goodbyes to the girl. He'd not asked her name, not gotten her handle, and even now, as she was escorted by the loitering security member back to the public crowd cordons, he was forgetting what she looked like, his last memory of this brief encounter the back of a black waterproof jacket and a messy ginger bun. He was back to his phone, staring at the missed call from Elle, but finding himself making excuses to avoid calling her back. Poor signal from the rain; a long day of shooting ahead of them; no time between takes. Whatever worked to soothe his conscience.

The girl would reach out to him on instagram a few weeks later, after an accidental manifestation of her own powers had resulted in her father throwing her out of the house, forcing her to refuge at her aunt's while her dad attempted to sully her name to all family that would hear it. Gil wouldn't see the message request, wouldn't check his instagram DM's, and even if he had, wouldn't recognize her from her profile photo anyway.

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: The Trials, Southern Plateau - Dundas Island}

Hope In Hell #2.040: Ego

---

_{Interaction(s): N/A}

Gil was rattled. He knew about the trials and what they usually entailed, the thrills and spills therein, the carefully-curated environment to test the student's limits and capabilities, but this was different. This was actual danger, and he cared very little for it. He was tired from his replicating, tired from fighting, tired from running; just plain tired, and bruised and afraid and now whoever had arranged this hostile takeover apparently intended to just keep on splitting the team. What was the point? Given what they'd experienced, Gil was fairly confident that if the intention was simply to kill them, that could have been achieved fairly neatly even before all the dramatics with the lights and the separation of students. Why drag it out? Was it meant to entertain some secret audience, or was the prolonged cruelty of it all its own purpose for being? Darkest of all, was it even a hostile takeover at all? That rankled, cynical part of Gil, shining especially brightly under the current circumstances, was delighted to openly wonder if this wasn't all orchestrated by the university themselves, an elevated Trials for their grand return, something to test the students even more thoroughly in the wake of Hyperion and the mess he'd left behind.

"So we just....go through our door?"
Calliope was first to break the silence, and Gil returned her nervous gaze with a steeled eye. The question hung in the air. Gil surmised it probably didn't matter which door they went through; if their surroundings were as fluid and manipulable as they seemed, they would each be walking into whatever they were intended to walk into, name on the door be damned.

Gil returned Calliope's nod, remaining silent as she and Banjo exchanged platitudes and promises; he held no such expectations for himself. Calliope forged on first, pushing through her door with familiar, stoic poise; Banjo next, brash and headstrong and assertive. Gil, alone, put a hand on the doorknob and left it there, standing in the dark of the corridor with distant crashing of metal-on-metal ringing down the hallway, frozen in the moment between the known fear behind him, and the unknown fear before him.

After a long while, the door opened of its own accord, and a crowd of hands grasped the arm that had rested upon it, and pulled him headlong into the darkness. The door slammed shut behind them, and the bang echoed and reverberated down the corridor, until the sound and hallway both faded into nothing.

---

Gil woke on wet grass, his hands and face slick with dew but the water-resistant A.R. suit easily shedding the water, rivulets trickling down his torso and falling to the ground from the crests and peaks of his form as he picked himself up from the ground and tried to get a grip on his surroundings.

It was dark - ever so dark - like a closed set, but for the singular orb of light, a shining pinprick some hundreds or thousands of meters above him, visible yet offering no illumination. Instead, some eerie, unearthly glow cast an aura of maybe four or five feet around him in a circle, its origin invisible and unknown, as if emanating from his very being; it moved with him perfectly, elucidating his immediate area with a spectral light, but cut off at its boundary so abruptly, into such a pure and unfathomable darkness, that it was if the world simply stopped existing beyond its circumference.

He took a few unsteady steps forward, watching as grass appeared ahead of him and disappeared behind him, rubbing his arm that still stung from the unnatural clutches of a hundred hands. He tried all directions, wandering in a slow looping circle, spiraling outwards from the flattened patch of grass where he'd awoken, but found no edge to the sprawling field, no end to the grass, heavy with droplets that clung to each blade; the reflected sparkling of the dew in the unnatural light only amplified the sinister atmosphere of the whole situation.

"Hello?" He ventured, calling out into the abyss. Only silence was returned, and the blackness seemed to swallow up his voice, like yelling out into an anechoic chamber. He thought to yell again, but was suddenly gripped with the paranoid fear that something, out there in the ink, might actually hear him.

He walked on, alone, bruised, tired. The darkness felt cloying, only barely kept at bay by the ghostly light, and the orb high above him was perfectly still, unflinching. Was the edge of the light closer now? Had it shrunk inwards, or was it merely his eyes playing tricks on him, noticing change where there was none, conjuring phantoms?

Steadily, slowly, he picked up his pace, exhaustion wiped away by a ramping terror. Was this it? He was trapped, alone, in the forever-dark, endlessly wandering for an exit that would never come, finding nothing in his travels but wet grass? He began to jog, his feet slipping slightly on the slick green, but gaining purchase as he accelerated into a run. Not alone. Not here. Not in the dark, forgotten and ignored, fading into nothing.

He didn't see the figure until it was too late, the all-black outfit springing into his vision far too quickly to do anything about; he felt his face crunch against the man's back, and he bounced off hard, reeling to the ground where the blood trickling from his newly-broken nose mixed with the wetness on the grass in an interplay of hot and cold across his features. He pulled himself up to a single knee, recovering as his head swam and vision span, trying to center his gaze on the person in front of him.

"Hello, 'Elwood'." The figure said, reaching an arm out to assist him. Gil's blood turned to ice, the blossoming painful throb from his nose completely numbed by shock and realization.

With no other recourse, Gil steeled himself, and took the hand proffered, standing. The figure pulled a handkerchief from within his coat, tutting as he held it out. Gil snatched it away and pressed it to his nostrils. He could taste the blood dripping into his mouth, and he stained his teeth with it as he licked his lips.
"Hello, Elliot." He replied.

Elliot Dowd, the evil twin, Gil's mirror. His outfit was perfect, thread-by-thread, like he'd just stepped out of costuming straight onto set. A tailored black suit, expensive and well-fitting, over a dignified black shirt and worn beneath a long woolen overcoat, all topped off with a pair of distinguished, but restrained, black gloves. Even the wig was correct, similarly dark, slicked-back with a subtle shine. Christ, he even had the eyeliner on.

"This is it then?" Gil said, his tone aggressive and accusatory. "The best they could do is myself from some years-old bit-part? I have to admit, having seen the Force tie-ins and adverts, I'd have thought the Big Bad Foundation could have conjured up something a bit more inventive."

Elliot sighed, and despite Gil's familiarity with his own face - through his copies, through his roles, through his own vanity - the way his features contorted on this doppelganger unnerved him. It was like he was mirrored the wrong way, and looking at him, Gil felt like he was the reflection.
"Do you ever get tired," Elliot began, removing his gloves and overcoat, holding them outstretched. Another pair of hands, attached to too-long arms and disembodied from any kind of visible torso or tertiary figure, appeared from the blackness and took them, slinking back into the dark. "Of hearing your own voice? Or is it only everyone else that suffers?"

Gil faltered. Elliot's manner was so far removed from Gil's usual friendly facade, which was to be expected, but there was also a hint of something else. Something Gil recognized, but didn't want to.
"I suppose, of course, that if it did bother you, you'd probably do something about it." Elliot continued. Gil took a step back, but Elliot moved with him, imperceptibly closer for the attempt. "As long as it's just everyone else, it's not worth worrying about, right? After all, we both know the only person important to you is you."

"Get away from me." Gil said, his words defiant but voice unsteady.
"No." Answered Elliot.

Gil changed tact. "Yeah, I've got a bit of an ego. Why the hell not, eh? I've earned my accolades. You'll have to dig a little deeper if you want to really sting."
"Well, that's just the problem, isn't it? There's nothing really there, after we've scratched the surface."
Gil laughed, smug and complacent. "So that's it? One weak blow and you're all out of hot air?"

Elliot chuckled, an apologetic and almost sheepish sound. "I do apologize; you misunderstand me. I mean, when we 'dig a little deeper', as you put it, underneath you're just...vacant, aren't you? As I said, there's nothing really there. I wonder if that's why we were so easy for you?"
"'We'?"

Elliot shimmered, and out of the dark stepped another Gil, dressed in jeans, t-shirt, and a nostalgic jacket. The actual Elwood, once again perfectly costumed, make-up applied, nary a trace of imperfection on his powdered face.
"Slipping in and out of us was just another layer of costuming for you, wasn't it? I remember..." Elwood paused, casting his eyes to the sky as he rested a finger on his chin, posturing as if deep in thought. "...I remember the writers saying they based Elwood on what you were like in real life. To make it more 'natural' for the screen. I remember how that made it harder for you. You had to portray a character, while also trying to act like yourself. Trying to do both at once was so tricky, wasn't it?

"In fact," came a third voice, "I recall that the less real we had to be, the easier the job was." This version held an arm towards Gil, proffering to him an open container of rich-scented sweets. Gil could see the Cachou Lajaunie branding along the side of the tin. "Ads were our favourite. A quick paycheque, and you didn't have to try and be human! Just shill the product with a smile."

Gil, justifying his retreat with a thought of 'I don't have to listen to this', and ignoring the sheer panic welling up in his chest that acted as his true motivator, turned on his heel and fled. He left behind a chorus of laughs, jeering and disdainful, but didn't get far. Those hideous pairs of hands re-appeared, pawing at his legs and arms, wrapping softly around his chest until they restrained him entirely. Gil expected them to hold him down and pull his limbs apart, drag his pieces into the dark to join them, but instead they just politely, firmly, gestured for Gil to pivot back, ushering him - again, polite but firm - back to his other selves. There was no jostling, no aggression; they just indicated the intended direction, and silently guided him back, ensuring he did not stray. As soon as he was once again stood before himself, the hands disappeared.

"Well, it was fun to watch, if inevitable and pointless. This must be what we mean by 'born for entertainment'." Elliot remarked, eliciting a chuckle from the other two.
"What do you want from me?" Gil said, exasperated and agitated. "Stand here in the dark and listen to you berate me?"

Elliot shrugged, splaying his hands out in a comical fashion. "It's more about...accepting some home-brewed honesty. As amusing as your escape attempt was, it's also rather apt given the circumstances, don't you think? Always running from the ugly truths of the self." He raised a single eyebrow, though his gaze went past Gil and to something behind him. Gil turned, and saw the figure he dreaded the most.

A younger Gil than the others, this one was clad in the formal accoutrement of a sixteenth-century nobleman. His face was pallid and gaunt, and an unidentified, off-colour liquid oozed from his mouth and stained his lips and chin.
"If it doesn't serve your ego, dump it and move on, right?" Said Romeo.
"Don't." Answered Gil, softly. Romeo just bent backwards, one hand clutching his heart, the other across his forehead, a theatrical and cheesy pose, but one flush with rancour and derision.
"If love be rough with you, be rough with love; prick love for pricking, and you beat love down." He espoused, in his best thespian dialogue.
"Shut up!" Gil hissed, vitriolic and desperate.
"The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head - go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;" the aura of light became a path, and the echoes of Gil parted around it and slunk back into the shadows, barely visible but for ghostly traces of their features.

"Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished," Romeo continued, as Gil trudged forward, no recourse but to press forward. At the very least, it put distance between him and the burdening, taunting words of his Shakespearean counterpart, that lingered after him to twist the knife.

"For never was a story of more woe."

Gil daren't look behind him for fear of what he might see; yet he understood that what - who - lay ahead of him would be infinitely more terrible a reckoning.

_{^{"Than this of Juliet...and her Romeo..."}}

[Hound55]

The toddler in the box gazed out in horror…

Darkness consumed his sight. He struggled to keep silent. The devil devoured.

---

The next child returned to his bed, rubbing his rear end as tears filled his eyes.

There were only three left for the ‘Auld Scalder’ to consume, and then things would get worse. Much worse.

Banjo looked over to the other two. Jennifer’s eyes looked wide like saucers, she glanced at her foot locker in regret, there was nothing to be done now, it was too late. She’d never done anything like this before. Never even thought to get in trouble.

Banjo recognised the look on her face.

They’d toss her locker. She dare not even move towards it now. Find the two gobstoppers she’d stolen for herself and her younger brother from the local deli. He'd been beaten for them and hadn't even got to enjoy them yet. For a reason he never understood. Just as every child before her had already taken a half dozen ‘bites’ from ‘Auld Scalder’, but her fate would be different. With the culprit found the leather would find far more of her flesh. Her rear, through the thin flannelette pyjamas, would be lit up like a Christmas tree, and if past cases were any indication, there’d be no sleep for her that night. He could still remember the whimpering of the boy who they’d caught on the first night they’d been through this.

How long was he going to be stuck in this Hellhole? Prospective foster parents weren’t even shown to him. Was that even allowed? Beating minors with a leather goddamn three-strap piece sure as Hell wasn’t. Not that he had any recourse for that… Hell, where would he even go if he issued that complaint? What year did they bloody think this was?

As the heavy feet fell closer, Jennifer whimpered, and pried her wet eyes from the foot locker.

He dropped from his bunk.

“So you finally got to me, Huh?”

Dark faces turned to him, from the girl’s bunk who was next in line.

“Took ya half the bloody night. Surprised none of these jokers didn’t dob me in well and truly before this… Or did they, and you just wanted to keep beating your way through kids arses, ya pair-a pervs?”

The dour faces on dark faces turned a darker shade still. Humourless. Cold.

His footlocker was seized. The contents upturned. The invasion of privacy met only with a shake of the head and a laugh.

“You reckon I’m stupid enough to just hang onto the evidence? HAHAHA! Mate… they’re long gone.” He opened his mouth and stuck his tongue out, pointing at it.

The two dark grown figures looked at each other, and satisfied that the confession kept them from wasting any more time on the task at hand, grabbed the small boy by each arm.

“Hold up… hold up… You’re not gonna straighten my shit up? What kind of turn down service do ya call this?” His heels slid forward as the pair dragged him away.

“Well, you’ll get no bloody gratuity from me…”

He was brought before the Resident. Auld Scalder was brandished, tapped in the palm of the other hand.

“Ah, ya found it. Been lookin’ everywhere for that. I’ll just take that off ya hands and be on me way then…”

The grip on his arms was tightened, as he was cast further into the shadow of the seemingly growing Resident.

Too late to back out now, anyway.

“Three of ya. To haul off on one kid. How pissweak must you lot feel, eh?”

The sound of the strap, and the boy’s wails echoed much louder than from any of the half dozen that night.

It seemed someone wanted to prove their arm wasn’t pissweak, if nothing else.

Banjo walked on tiptoes from the calves down, with a tight grimace, as he made his way back to his bed.

As he got there he looked up.

“Ya jokin’ me?”

“Tidy it up.” The two grown men who awaited him said, referring to the upturned foot locker.

Banjo stuffed his tongue deep in his cheek, as he considered his predicament. His rear end hurt so much it radiated heat. He was pretty sure it had actually lifted strips of flesh. They’d worked him for a good few minutes. If he took another serve from telling them to go fuck themselves, would they work the same torn up area? Would sick bay actually do anything about the open wound?

“Ya not jokin' me…”

His eyes flickered up with spite, as he clucked his tongue and sighed. Turning the foot locker back over and beginning to dump the contents back inside in a haphazard fashion.

At the conclusion he slid the box back and gestured to it. Until, content that whatever point they’d attempt to make had been made, the pair moved off.

Banjo sighed and fell into his bunk belly down, as the lights went off and the quiet and still fell upon the room.

Banjo sniffed and his eyes felt wet, even as he tried to blink the moisture away.

He twitched and jumped as a figure appeared from the darkness.

Jennifer put an arm over his upper back and hugged him. He couldn’t relax into it. He sniffed.

How much longer was he going to be in this goddamned place?

---

Silence was absolute in Paisley's History class.

The rail thin man walked up and down the rows of desks. The tension in the room as always, was palpable. And his decision to teach from a mobile position, never static at the head of the class, only exacerbated things.

After a term on the French Revolution, this education-bloc had turned to the American Revolution.

If the Butler didn't pull him out of this school, the next revolution would see one of Paisley's or Banjo's heads on a spike...

A familiar flicking sound, resulted in hushed shuffling as every student's head turned around to see which it was today. The unspoken tension in the room heightened even further, Banjo knew what it was, before he even looked.

Paisley lifted the lighter, and today it was the cigar.

Banjo turned back to his desk, and internally psyched himself up.

He stood up.

"Sit down." The thin man's voice barely raised above a hoarse whisper.

This wasn't what he wanted. But good. Fuck what this dessicated skeleton wanted. Banjo thought to himself.

The smirk crossed his face. "Y'know what... I'm never going to America, so why the fuck do I give a shit if they had a revolution?"

Paisley's face held the same pallor it always had in times like this. The same it always would.

Banjo's held defiance.

In the face of the inevitable, which both knew was coming.

^{________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}

_{Location: The Southern Plateau, Dundas Islands, Pacific Ocean - Present}

Welcome Home #2.041: Horror Movie

^{_{____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}}

_{Interaction(s): Calliope - @PatientBean}

Previously: Under Water, Above Board

Calliope hesitated at the door.

She turned and looked over to Banjo and Gil. "So we just....go through our door?" Was she stalling? She seemed to have pushed through some of her prior anxieties, to something else, but perhaps she needed a little more assurance.

She gave Gil a meaningful nod and then looked at Banjo. "I'll see you on the other side? I love you."

"Love you, too. Remember what I said. The way out is through. Whatever it is. Whatever we see." His words affirmed her. She could push through. She was stronger than she knew. He just wished she believed it as much as he did. "And yeah, I'll see you on the other side, too."

Calliope turned and pushed open her door and stepped through. He watched her go. Then sighed and looked at his own task that lay in front of him.

Banjo stepped through the door with a surprising amount of ease.

This isn't real. None of it. Stand by to be fucked with. Whatever it is.

He walked down hallways filled with the empty desks of students. Crisp and sterile. Presumably the layout of the Foundation's facilities again. Or an approximation by whomever programmed this. As he walked the hallways though, the classrooms began to look different. Bigger. Colour added to the decor. And more familiar.

Or was it to give the illusion that he was smaller. To take him back to an old-- That classroom was painfully familiar...

Banjo picked up the pace to a trot, leaving the memory of the scent of burnt flesh and cigar ash in his wake. As a sneaking suspicion set in as to who or what he could expect to cross paths with.

“G’Day…”

“Jessie fuckin’ Christmas!” Banjo jumped back about three feet in surprise. Mamili Motlop’s uncle from years ago.

“You bloody dug deep on this one, eh? A bloke I knew for a few weeks, years ago?” He spoke to the sky, as if a divine force or the programmers of this digital Hellscape were watching on. “What, are ya here to tell me I’m a disappointment? Am I that hard up for male bloody role models, you reckon this counts as a father figure? I suppose I should be thankful they at least had the sense to outsource it and not try and squeeze Jim-Bob in that role… or Heaven bloody help us, Tad…”

Something was off about his appearance, and not just the fact that a Darwin native tribal elder was over ten thousand kilometres from home in an augmented reality environment. No. Beyond that. Something was off. Banjo just couldn’t think of what it was.

“I’m not here for that. I was led from the veil of The Dreaming to be here as a help.”

“Hmm. Somethin’ tells me this ain’t that kind of game…” Banjo eyed him skeptically, looking over the Cleverman’s appearance.

“For some, no. But then as I once told you… sometimes the audience is equal part of the message as the telling.”

Banjo nodded in recognition. “New girl. Whatsername. Amma.” He said, considering the message and how it.

“You’re not surprised.”

“That thing back there with the training robots. Still felt, I dunno, a little pedestrian. Like, I dunno. Like busywork. I mean a couple Gils went belly up, but it kind of felt like the usual kind of problem solving for the Trials. Just... you know… a bit higher stakes, granted.”

“Busywork? Uncle asked.

“Yeah, y’know, like when you get sent to the Principal’s office and they give you some meaningless worksheet or assignment to keep you out of their hair while they actually deal with something else ‘important’...” He looked at ‘Uncle’ who was listening but it seemed like he hadn’t caught the analogy. “Of course you don’t… Well, it feels like we got pushed to a corner, whilst this place deals with what they really wanted to focus on. The décor too… Foundation layout… That’s not for my benefit.” He stopped and thought on it, soaking up what he’d seen. From what he’d heard around the campfire the Foundation could be… rough around the edges. But if what he’d seen here ACTUALLY pertained to their newest teammember’s experiences in the place, and her reaction to it when they first got in here suggested that was the case... He got quiet. That train of thought didn’t bear more thinking about for now. Not productive. Wait--

“Except there was one room back there…” He remembered, thinking back to a few rooms back.

… The only way out is through …

“Damn it.” He turned around and looked back down the hallway at where he’d come from. There was a half fallen fluorescent light, hanging off of one remaining thread, that was flickering and sparking back down from the way he’d come, towards the old classroom he had recognised. Just in case he'd missed the hint of the initial ominous vibes.

“Yeah sure. Wasn’t bad enough the first time, I guess.” He sighed. “Let’s do this, I suppose.

He turned to ‘Uncle’ and he was gone. A cackle of ambiguous laughter hanging on the uncomfortable atmosphere.

“Alright… so you’ll be on your way then. Guess that happened.”

As he looked back down the hallway, sparking and threatening in intent as it was, it struck him that this was more mundane than terrifying. Right down to the conversation he’d just had, with the figure he’d just sort of been reunited with. It also dawned on him what it was about the Cleverman's appearance that seemed 'off'.

He was bigger. Banjo was smaller and younger when they'd met, he'd since grown considerably, but 'Uncle's appearance had grown proportionately so he was still towering over him. Keeping him feeling more 'familiar'. A comfort.

Playing to overconfidence..? Is that what they’ve got on me?

Taking the quiet opportunity he checked his surroundings and drank in whatever those meagre surroundings provided him. His body turned jet black and a small corona encircled him, there was only secondary artificial light kept low, and the air conditioning was quite cool. His breath quickened and halted and his synapses flared as his body re-knitted. He held his form for a little while, not knowing when he’d next get the opportunity, and knowing there wasn’t as much of the day to draw on in this dark place, before letting his form revert back to his usual state.

The time and space to think was starting to make him second guess what lay in waiting ahead for him.

This whole thing was… what..? Just some Foundation move on Amma? Well, you saw how she took things at that assembly. They’re making some kind of point or taking some kind of shot.

His mind kept racing as he slowly approached the classroom with trepidation.

No. That doesn’t sound right. This whole thing is just about her, and nobody is taking a shot at any of the rest of us? Even if it did seem to get the desired reaction with her piss-boltin' off at the start.

He could see a sliver of light through the open classroom door now.

You mean ‘you’.

He stopped and stepped to the side to get a clearer angle to look through the door and what may be awaiting him inside, without getting closer.

That’s your ego talking. Can’t bear to think it has nothing to do with you. That fake Calli at the start said it about her other, but it could’ve easily been about you. Can’t stand to not be seen as the centre of attention.

He didn’t see any movement. Couldn’t hear anything obvious either, not from out in the hallway. Maybe if his hearing were up to Haven’s lev—

This is what the design is. It’s to make you overthink. Get in your own head. So get out of your bloody head, and get in the room!

He clenched his fists together and strode inside for whatever awaited him.

And he found himself in an empty room. No ghosts. No enemies. No Paisley.

And then he could hear it. Faintly, from the front of the classroom.

A portable AV set on a wheelable TV tray, facing away from the direction of class, which muffled the speakers as they spoke of the events of the screen.

He turned back, half expecting some horrifying imitation of Paisley with a cigar, or flamethrower or some other poetic equivalent to appear at the back of the class, awaiting the lowering of his guard. Seeing nothing, he slowly decided whatever puzzle this was, it’s solution was awaiting him at the front of the room. Projecting the rules of engagement away from him.

As he approached he could hear it before he saw it. The sounds of screaming.

He rushed to the front of the class and saw the television split twelve ways, four rows of three columns, with two blank screens along the bottom row.

One on the left was a view of himself looking at the television from above. He waved an arm up, to get a sense of where the camera was.

But all of this paled to what was on the other screens. It quickly became apparent what the scream was.

A winged girl was strapped to a surgical table in the middle column of the top row. He recognised the sound of Haven’s own voice in her screams, and the sound of a bonesaw. The angles didn’t provide the best view of the winged girl, but just how many winged girls did he know? – and the screams certainly confirmed it.

Aurora took a punch from a figure, and was held aloft by the neck by a redheaded girl, in the third column's middle box.

In another box Lorcán was fighting a version of himself and losing, his face being scorched whilst he screamed.

Calli fought for her life against something so monstrous he could barely even recognise, in the box opposite Banjo's on the right. Teeth sank into her arm and she screamed.

The screams combined, a witch's brew of pain, angst, horror and growing torment of everyone he cared about being poured over him.

He jumped back from the screen. His sniffed, his breathing increased. His heart pounded in his chest. He was getting lost in his quickening breath. He sniffed again. His eyes started scanning the backgrounds of the scenes in feeble desperation, if he could recognise where they were maybe he coukd find them. In... this place... where appearances mean nothing.

He turned away from the screen and the screams grew louder to compensate. As if chasing him.

“Sit down.” The thin man’s voice, barely above a whisper. He could hear a hint of pleasure in the situation rasped from the gaunt figure. Somehow it penetrated the screaming. It was a familiar voice, and the only one he'd expected to hear in this room.

”Get ‘em out. Now.” Banjo growled, trying to regain a grasp of some sense of control.

“You have nothing to barter. Nothing to offer. You’re not in control here.” Mirth caught in Paisley’s throat, as the corners of his mouth upturned, and specks of saliva flew from his mouth.

“Now. Sit. Down.”

The old thin man was right. He had no play. Except for that itself.

“Sure... But not until they’re out.” A forced leer started to creep across Banjo's face. He worked to quell the pounding in his chest, and the obvious effect it had taken on him in his breathing. He wasn't sure how convincing it looked, but it was the only play he had. As the screams wore on. With intermittent breaches of bonesaw mixed in..

“If you’re worried about missing what’s on the tv, you needn’t be concerned. And as for your compliance, it was just requested for ease. But you never could do things the easy way.”

A desk behind him swept Banjo through to his own chair further back in the class, and a wall raised up from the floor, which contorted and twisted in shape until it produced a wall sized screen of the same thing he’d just been watching.

He was corralled to his desk, and then the back wall itself started to move. Paisley stepped through a back door, which locked behind him, and opened a slide to a multiplex window to watch proceedings.

“No. You won’t be taking the burn for anyone else. That’s not how today is going to go.”

The walls began to close in, above Banjo a fluorescent light burst, whilst others flickered as walls gradually closed in. Amidst destroyed lighting and desks getting splintered as they were pushed together beyond what they had left to give. He scrambled upon his own desk to buy himself some more time, before his legs would be crushed in his seat. As he'd turned away from the screen to do it the screaming torment got louder in his head, again as he did.

He felt like everything was collapsing on him. His view was dragged back to the screen in time to see bindings tighten around Amma's middle and her throat as she gasped out. Katja found herself drowning in blood as flames licked at her heels. And even hers... even Katja's screams... added to the concoction of trauma pumping into his head. Rory grunted with exhaustion as flames consumed everything around him. A Gil getting jumped and dog-piled by about a dozen other Gils whilst some strange new gal watched on. Baxter was being cut and hurt by the same red head who tormented 'Raw. Katja's bloodcurdling bellow sliced through louder. The bonesaw...

Banjo dropped to a knee and gasped. More air. His heart pounded in his chest like a jackhammer. Gotta have more air. His breathing at a fever pitch.

“You don’t get to point the gun at your own face and eat the bullet to spare seeing anyone else hurt.” Paisley’s voice rasped. “Here. Now. You’re going to watch all of your friends die, and then you’re going to join them in discovering whatever afterlife awaits you.”

“You never talked this damn much. You were just... a sadistic prick.” He barely squeaked out between breaths.

“Well, yes. Because I’m not really here. Or are things really starting to blur for you, are you that far gone already? No matter. Doesn't help them, anyway. Nothing you do. Nothing you say. Nothing is going to make me give them up to you. You'll watch them die now. Maybe if you got here a little sooner. But then you always made your way to class in your own time as well...”

The bonesaw and the screams were louder. Somehow, whenever he looked away, the sounds, the screams, the angst came in louder.

Just... need to breathe... That's all. Breathe... And think...

“You really had some of those younger kids fooled. But this is exactly who you always were. The biggest pretender of them all. For all your talk. All your bluster. All your machismo and 'I don't care' for the sake of being cool. You're just a scared little boy who doesn't want to see anybody else get hurt. Who's so broken that you'd rather take it yourself first, just so you don't have to live to see it.”

Darkness started to fall upon him as more lights had burst from the closing walls, and the chilled air made him feel worse. Every part of this was curated for purpose, to maximise the anguish. His heart felt like he it was going to explode in his chest.

The walls closed in, the cold, the dark. Haven’s screams. Calli was grabbed by some kind of a tongue. She cried out.

Hers were different. Calli's torment cried out to him. Rather than just another ingredient in the pot. It was as if it was targeted. Directed. To him. Even though he wasn't there.

So I've gotta live... to get her out... If nothin' else...

He put a knee down on the table and took a few deep breaths. No plan yet. No way out. No problem to punch into submission.

“I'm not goin' out... to a prick like you. Even one who just looks like ya. No way, no how.”

And then his table tipped on one side as it to was getting crushed by the closing walls. 'Paisley' laughed at his enfeebled defiance.

The two walls were elbow width apart now. He pushed off in a sudden panic, and his face smooshed against the TV wall as Haven's wings were torn through in a bloody mess of bone, sinew, blood and feathers as her screams dimmed amidst the cacophony. ‘Paisley’ looked on in as much sick joy as the original may well have had. The dark. The cold.

Wait— the cold..? The curated cold.

“Oi. Paisley. Fuck your American Revolution right off. Vive la Banjo, Numbnuts.”

He lept off the table and bounced off a wall, before bouncing off the next, back higher again to the first and jumping for the overhead air conditioning vent. Scrambling like a rat up a drainpipe, he could hear the Paisley simulation swearing behind him as the tv wall was crushed against the compressed furniture below.

He pulled his legs up, just as the walls closed together beneath him. It wasn't until he did, that the enormity of everything he'd just seen actually hit him.

“Holy-- Holy fuckin' shit... Haven-- Haven's dead..?”

He hugged his legs and leant against one of the walls in the tight air conditioning vent, as the adrenal kick wore off and he once again found himself gasping for breath.

[webboysurf]

^{________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}

_{Location: The Matrix - Dundas Island, Pacific Ocean}

Hope in Hell #2.042: You're No Good

^{_{____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}}

_{Interaction(s): Himself}

Previously: Nothing Left to Give

“Very good Rory, but there's more.”

Rory felt his blood run cold, turning from his own slumped figure and looking back towards where the table and chair once stood. He was met again with a dark void. He could feel his body feeling less stable, like he was on the verge of falling apart. Time was just about up. He looked to the gun, still feeling cold steel in his hands, and used his remaining time to crush the firearm in on itself. He pressed his hands together, the steel giving way and folding itself into a rough ball.

“What makes Rory Tyler tick? It’s not family.” Two gunshots echoed behind Rory from where his siblings had just been.

Rory felt his body rearrange himself. He felt lighter, falling to his knees. This wasn’t real. They weren’t real. He had to keep playing. He had to-

“Hopefully it’s not friendship.” The voice laughed viciously as a hologram of Lorcán electrocuting the doppelganger Rory played in front of the real man.

Rory’s eyes were locked on the hologram, it’s cold glow washing over his face and burning the image into his eyes. Lorcán’s expression was new… practically twisted. Rory couldn’t pull himself to look away. He swayed slightly, his nerves and sense of balance fried as his nervous system went into shock.

“Could it be a rivalry?” The voice asked again, the hologram showing Katja now covered in the blood and bodies of her parents.

Rory dropped a hand to the ground to steady himself, looking away once he registered what he was seeing. This was the game. Hurt them, push them to the brink. This was personal. He could tell that much. The why didn’t make sense. Who had they possibly pissed off? Why were they going after Blackjack? This couldn’t be-

“Or love?”

No no no no _{no no no no}

The winged girl on the table being ripped apart played in front of Rory, her screams originally foreign before Haven’s cries and protests were mixed in and eventually overwhelmed the recording.

Rory threw up.

His head throbbed, his fists clenched tight. His fingernails on his left hand dug into his skin until small beads of crimson dripped down the length of his palms. His mouth stung with the taste of bile, his head swimming. He couldn’t think, every fiber of his being desperate to move but his body proved uncooperative. He had to find her. He was tired of playing games. He shoved the metal ball into a pocket in his suit.

“Do you crave power? Recognition? Perhaps you want people to stop overlooking you?”

Rory shakily stood up, only to find himself on a small pedestal. In front of him was Blackjack, each member bound, gagged and a noose around their neck while they stood on a trap door. “Choose one to save, condemn the rest,” the voice instructed. A wheezing laughter filled the room. “Or open the pedestal and save them all, save us all.”

Rory’s gaze immediately locked with the winged figure in a hood. Tears streamed down his face. It wasn’t a choice. He fell forward, off the pedestal, and connected with the hard ground. His hands had barely cushioned his fall as he landed on his side. The throbbing pain was muddled as he pulled himself up into a sitting position, looking up towards his real family. This wasn’t a choice. Not for Rory, at least. He pushed himself onto his feet, a hand catching the pedestal for balance, as he positioned himself over it. He cautiously lifted the lid, only to be greeted by a pair of neatly folded black robes. Atop them sat a smiling mask, its forehead marked with the letter ‘Upsilon.'

Him.

It always came back to him.

Rory’s eyes studied the mask for a moment, as he could feel his vision righting itself. He looked up for a moment as his right hand lifted the mask into his bloodied left hand. His breathing was uneven, as he remembered the words from years ago. If he stood by his side, he could have anything. He felt the inside of the mask with his right hand, checking for anything toxic or sticky, before setting it aside and sliding on the robes. His left hand cradled the front of the mask, sliding it on over his head and leaving a bloody smear on the front. He lifted his hands, standing up taller as he wore Hyperion’s outfit. He looked up, towards the ceiling. He screamed, “You’ve made your point! You win! I’m in… You can have me. Killing them doesn’t help any of us.”

"I'm glad you finally saw reason," A voice said from behind Rory as he was greeted by a blonde woman dressed in a shimmering gown. She towered over him, her chest at his eye level while long, blonde hair spilled over her shoulders. ”We can finally be together, we can be stronger together."

“We all can," Another female voice piped up as a familiar pair of wings dragged themselves along Rory's back flirtatiously before a third woman dropped from the ceiling, adjusting her black hair before smiling at Rory.

“As Hyperion, you can have anything or anyone you want." Mei sang sweetly to Rory, “Who are we to reject the savior of all Hyperhumans?"

“But we're not safe yet," The winged woman whispered in Rory's ear, “Interlopers masquerading as our friends still run in this maze. We need to stop them." She paused, the three women simultaneously turning to reveal a door. "Please, Hyperion, your utopia must come true. You need to stop the interlopers."

The tall blonde smiled wickedly, stating one last thing. “Starting with the interloper from the Foundation."

Rory turned his gaze back towards the three women… or rather, the cheap simulations. His mind was still recovering from its fog, but even disoriented he knew when he was being underestimated yet again. This is what they thought he wanted. But he steeled his jaw. He knew where he could find at least one of his teammates now. After that, he could improvise.

He quickly moved through the door, running with urgency as he looked for someone... anyone, really. It sounded like they were leading him towards Amma. She definitely wasn't his preferred ally in this… but at this point, he'd settle for even Tad.

"Do not fail us, Hyperion." The chorus of women called after Rory, "We'd hate to think of the consequences of a deceiver in place of a leader."

[Qia]

The motel room was steeped in shadows, a canvas of darkness punctuated only by the feeble glow of a streetlamp outside. Its amber light seeped through the flimsy curtains, casting a ghostly pallor over the room. Harper lay motionless on one of the twin beds, her eyes fixed on the ceiling, a blank screen onto which her anxious thoughts about the impending flight to Canada were projected. She had believed Sierra to be deep in slumber on the adjacent bed, the rhythm of her sister’s breaths a comforting, steady sound in the otherwise silent room.

Unexpectedly, the quiet was pierced by a gentle voice, soft yet clear. “Harper, are you awake?” The words, barely louder than a whisper, seemed to vibrate through the stillness.

Jolted, Harper turned, her eyes finding Sierra’s. In the scarce light, her sister’s eyes were like beacons, luminous orbs in the engulfing darkness. “Yeah,” Harper whispered back, her voice a faint mirror of Sierra’s question. “What’s on your mind?”

Sierra’s posture, usually a fortress of self-assuredness, now seemed to crumble into something more fragile, more human.

Stop being so easily fooled, Harper.

“Why didn’t you tell me about your enhanced vision?” Sierra’s voice, usually so full of conviction, now trembled with a vulnerability that made the air around them feel charged, heavy with emotions that had long been suppressed, now clawing their way to the surface. “Why keep it a secret from me, of all people?”

The question caught Harper off-guard, a curveball that left her scrambling for the right words. It was an unusual sight—Sierra, always so composed and impenetrable, now seemed exposed, her defences down, her soul peeking through the cracks of the facade she’d been putting on since their reunion. “I… I didn’t want you to worry,” Harper faltered, turning her head away in a subtle attempt to hide the sting of pain that crossed her expression. “I didn’t want to be seen as different. But it seems that was inevitable.”

A heavy silence fell upon them, a gulf that seemed to expand with each ticking moment.

Then, gently and with a touch of reluctance, Sierra’s voice pierced the quiet. “But…you are different.” The words were not laced with accusation or tinged with bitterness, as Harper had anticipated. Rather, they were imbued with an indescribable sentiment, one that Harper had never thought to associate with her sister. What was she playing at here?

“After mom and dad died…it was like you closed yourself off from the world.” ​​Sierra’s confession was soft, almost lost amidst the rustle of sheets as she shifted in her bed. “I thought your withdrawal was just a phase, but…you never went back to your old self.”

Harper’s eyes returned to Sierra, widening as they struggled to pierce the murky gloom that filled the motel room. The darkness seemed almost sentient, wrapping itself around Sierra’s figure, blurring her into a spectral shape made of half-tones and hushed secrets. Yet, even veiled by the obscurity, the sincerity in Sierra’s voice painted a vivid portrait of her visage—eyebrows drawn together in concern, the creases of worry etched deeply on her brow as if carved by the weight of her thoughts.

“And then that whole thing happened with your eyes and…it just felt like I’d lost you too.” The pause that followed was filled with an unspoken heaviness, the air thick with the ghosts of memories they both tried to keep at bay. “But who was I supposed to be mad at for that? Dad?” The question hung between them, a rhetorical one, laden with the pain of loss and the bitterness of unresolved anger.

Harper’s reaction was immediate, her brows knitting together in a display of bewilderment. The mention of their father, the insinuation that Sierra had known something more, sent a jolt of confusion through her. “You mean, you knew about him? That he was…” Harper’s voice faltered, the word ‘monster’ echoing in her mind but never reaching her lips, “…different?”

“Sorta…well, no, not exactly.” Sierra’s words were a tightrope walk between conviction and doubt, her voice a veneer of composure over the subtle quiver that betrayed her uncertainty. “It’s more like I found out about other things.”

Harper’s breath hitched, her gray memories of their father suddenly awash with new light, new questions. “What do you mean, ‘other things’?”

The silence that followed was thick with tension, the only sound being their synchronized breathing. Sierra seemed to gather her thoughts, a prelude to revelations that would change everything.

“I mean that I saw him too. The monster.”

^{____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}

_{Location: Southern Plateau - Pacific Royal Campus}

Hope in Hell #2.043: The Cat Gets the Tongue

^{_{_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}}

_{Interaction(s):Interactions: None/ Open?}

Previously: Dreaming While Awake

Harper’s eyelids trembled, a delicate dance of resistance against the beckoning call of consciousness. The world around her, initially a blur of indistinct shapes and muted colours, began to crystallize with painstaking clarity. Each element of her surroundings declared its presence, asserting itself with the precision of a master craftsman’s stroke. The dream, a sanctuary of solace, clung to her with the tenacity of a cherished memory. The imagined warmth of her mother’s enveloping arms remained a ghostly comfort, while the soothing lilt of her father’s voice, tenderly uttering her name, receded into silence like the last note of a lullaby.

She remained motionless, suspended in the liminal space where the intangible touch of dreamscape met the solid certainty of reality. A hesitant blink banished the final vestiges of sleep, her pupils contracting against the room’s glaring luminescence. The light, devoid of any softness, immediately invaded her eyes, its sterile brightness an assault on the remnants of her nocturnal reverie.

Gradually, her eyes adapted, and the clarity of her surroundings imposed itself upon her. The walls, devoid of any personal touch, stood cold and clinical, their immaculate surface interrupted only by the sporadic sound of medical machinery—a beep here, a whisper of air there. The pervasive aroma of antiseptic irritated her nostrils, and as Harper shifted, the sound of the linens rustling beneath her was a crisp counterpoint to the silence.

A flicker of uncertainty crossed her mind. Had she emerged from the simulation? Was she now safe within the confines of reality? Questions about the whereabouts of the others surfaced, especially one in particular, their fates momentarily shrouded in mystery.

In response to her silent queries, a throb of pain pulsed at the base of her skull, a sharp retort that demanded her attention. Instinctively, her fingers sought the source, trailing to the nape of her neck. There, they encountered what was merely a tender spot at first before they encountered something wet. Harper winced, bringing her hands in front of her to see what it was.

Blood.

A sharp intake of breath seized Harper, her chest constricting as her eyes locked onto the vivid scarlet that defiled the paleness of her fingertips. The shock rooted her to the spot, a statue of disbelief, as the initial haze of confusion that had clouded her mind began to scatter. It was as if a sinister tide of dread was rising within her, wave after wave threatening to capsize her sanity. She grappled with the elusive fragments of her memory, attempting to weave them into a coherent tapestry that could explain the blood that now seemed to accuse her. What in the world had happened to her?

With each mental tug, a spike of agony lanced through her head, a relentless sentinel that seemed to guard the gates to her past with sadistic vigilance. The more she delved into the labyrinth of her mind, the more intense the throbbing became, as though her very brain was rebelling against her quest for clarity. The enigma of her location gnawed at her, an itch that couldn’t be scratched, as her gaze began to absorb the minute, yet telling details of her surroundings.

Her eyes flitted to the medical apparatus that surrounded her, their beeps and whirs a discordant orchestra to the chaos of her thoughts. These machines, with their blinking lights and scrolling numbers, bore an eerie resemblance to those she had seen in another time, another place—a memory now muffled by the dulling pain that enveloped her head. She recalled nights shrouded in vigilance, her gaze fixated on the vital signs displayed before her, each beep a harbinger of hope or despair. The only question was, which outcome would she achieve tonight?

Was it her own form that had once been ensnared in the web of wires and tubes, or had she been the person at another’s bedside? The recollection was fractured, a jigsaw puzzle with too many missing pieces, a mélange of antiseptic odours and hushed, reassuring whispers. Yet, amidst the fog of her memory, there was a sense of déjà vu, a recognition of patterns and routines dictated by the unemotional cadence of the medical devices that now held her in their grasp.

The urgency to free herself from the invasive touch of the medical equipment surged within her. She needed to rid her skin of the foreign objects that pierced it, to reclaim the autonomy of her own body. Her gaze fell upon her arms, and the sight that greeted her sent a jolt of horror coursing through her veins. Angry, raw lacerations crisscrossed her flesh, lying against the torn remnants of her augmented reality suit. The blood from each wound, fresh and vibrant, welled up from the jagged cuts, tracing a crimson path down her arms, dripping onto the pristine bed and the cold tiles below.

The rhythmic throb of her cheek pulsed in time with her racing heart, each beat a drum of agony that resonated with the steady drip of blood she now felt running down her neck. The wound was a raw landscape of pain, its edges tender and vulnerable to even the faintest touch. Her hand, shaking with a mixture of fear and pain, reached up to explore the damage, only to retreat, coated in the same slick evidence of another injury. The scent of copper, rich and overpowering, filled the air, mingling with the sterile tang of the room. Her eyes barely glanced at the blood tracing a warm, sticky path down her cheek, soaking into the fabric of her AR suit, spreading like a dark bloom.

Harper’s head throbbed with relentless intensity, each heartbeat echoing like a drumbeat of agony within her. The pain’s nucleus, buried deep at the base of her skull, sent out relentless shockwaves of distress that distorted her vision and scrambled her thoughts into an incoherent jumble. Her fingers, driven by a blend of instinct and newfound alarm, reached for the epicenter of her suffering, only to encounter the unexpected warmth and stickiness of blood matting the lower locks of her hair.

Yet, the nightmare continued to unfold.

As her fingers probed deeper, the grim reality sent an icy tremor coursing through her body. Her hair, which had once flowed in a rich, chocolate-brown cascade that gracefully fell past her shoulders, was now a butchered landscape. The strands had been crudely chopped, seemingly at the whims of a callous, uncaring entity, leaving behind a jagged, uneven canopy that told a silent tale of brutality and rashness.

The epiphany hit Harper with the devastating impact of a wrecking ball, compounding the already profound sense of violation that permeated her disoriented consciousness. The cold, impersonal touch of medical devices, the savage butchery of her once-beautiful hair, the sticky warmth of blood—all these elements coalesced into a macabre scene of utter disregard and cruelty. Harper’s breathing grew labored, each shallow gasp interwoven with the piercing agony that wracked her battered frame. The room seemed to close in on her, the walls creeping inward, exacerbating her feelings of captivity and bewilderment.

In the midst of the chaos that churned within her mind, a voice cut through the thick silence, its sharpness as startling as the crack of a whip. Harper’s head jerked upward, her eyes darting to find the source of the cold interruption. There stood Sierra, her sister, embodying an aura of impatient indignation that seemed to slice through the very air. Their eyes met in a collision of emotions—hazel eyes, brimming with confusion and the raw edge of fear, clashed with the turbulent brown of anger and silent accusation. Sierra moved to loom over Harper, her presence heavy with an impatience that was almost tangible, piercing through the veil of fear that now shrouded Harper’s heart.

“You’re not meant to be conscious yet. My piece is incomplete,” Sierra declared, her voice tinged with a disquieting irritation, her words detached as if she were discussing something as mundane as a chore left unfinished.

Harper’s breath stalled in her throat, a choked gasp as she confronted the surreal horror before her. The words she tried to form were reduced to a hoarse whisper, fragile and scarcely audible against the thick silence. “What… what did you do to me?” she breathed out. Her hands fluttered upwards once more, grasping at nothingness. Without the veil of her long hair, she felt exposed, as if stripped of a protective layer that had once shielded her from the world.

The corners of Sierra’s mouth twisted into a perverse grin, a dark mirth that seemed to mock Harper’s disarray. “It seems we’ve both embraced the role of artist,” Sierra sneered, her tone laced with derision. “What’s your opinion of my latest masterpiece, so far? You can be honest about it being too much on the nose.”

Bewilderment clouded Harper’s gaze, her eyes searching Sierra’s face for some hint of jest, some sign that this was all a terrible joke. “What are you talking about?”

Sierra moved with purpose, each step measured and resolute as she closed the distance between them. From the shadowed recesses of her pocket, she produced a small, plain mirror and with a flourish that seemed almost theatrical in its execution, she thrust it forward, holding it high and steady. It was an unyielding command for Harper to look up and witness the glory- the horror- reflected back at her.

The brunette’s heart lurched, skipping a beat in sheer terror as her gaze collided with the grotesque spectacle in the mirror. Carved into the tender flesh of her still-weeping cheek was a single, condemning word—a word that landed with the force of a physical assault:
▅▅▅▅

—“FREAK.”

▅▅▅▅

“I thought it suited you,” Sierra’s voice was devoid of any semblance of sisterly warmth, her tone as cold and hard as steel. “And I’ve got the perfect title too. ‘A Hot Mess.’ Apt, don’t you think?”

Tears, unbidden and unwelcome, swelled in Harper’s eyes. The pain of the physical wound was nothing compared to the agony of perceived betrayal, the humiliation of being reduced to a spectacle, the confusion of a world suddenly turned upside down. Why were they doing this to them? To her? The Foundation. What did they possibly have to gain from this? Her vision clouded, a mist of sorrow that threatened to spill over, and she bit down on her lip—a futile attempt to dam the flood of emotions.

Yet the tears defied her, spilling over her cheeks in a silent rebellion, mingling with the blood from the fresh, vicious inscription. It was a poignant blend of salt and iron, a bitter concoction of anguish and misery.

“Oh, look at you,” mocked Sierra’s doppelgänger, her voice dripping with mock sympathy. “Still the crybaby baby sister. Some things never change, do they?” The taunt was a knife, twisting with each syllable, each word designed to cut and wound.

Harper’s frame trembled with the force of her crying, each shudder a clash between her longing for dignity and the crushing wave of sadness. Sierra’s double watched the display with a malevolent grin, her delight in Harper’s anguish unmistakable.

“God, you’re so pathetic,” the clone hissed. “Just like you’ve always been with no mommy to tuck you in or daddy to clean up all of your bullshit anymore.” The words were a reflection of Harper’s deepest insecurities, the fears that had haunted her in the quietest moments, now given voice by the one person who knew her best.

Herself. This was her, the guilt she still felt in the guise of the sister that she’d hid from after all this time.

The clone’s smile unfurled like a flag of war, a grotesque contortion of what once might have been a gesture of joy. Now, it was nothing short of a harbinger of agony yet to be inflicted. “You know, perhaps it’s time those lovely eyes of yours served a better purpose,” she murmured, her voice a sinister lullaby that sent shivers down Harper’s spine. Her breath felt like a venomous mist, seething with malice as it brushed against Harper’s skin.

With deliberate slowness, the clone reached for a scalpel that lay gleaming on a nearby tray, its edge catching the light with a menacing sparkle. She wielded it with a perverse sense of ceremony, bringing it ever closer to Harper’s eye. The cold metal kissed the tender flesh of Harper’s eyelid, sending a jolt of terror and something raw and animalistic through her.

It was a challenge laid bare, a gauntlet thrown at Harper’s feet—a challenge she was compelled to accept, because she couldn’t have them. They were hers.

Driven by a primal surge of instinct and desperation, Harper’s hand shot out, seizing the clone’s wrist with a strength born of raw emotion. Caught off guard by this sudden act of rebellion, the clone struggled to maintain her grip on the scalpel, but Harper’s will to survive burned fiercely within her.

Their struggle erupted into a frenzied clash of limbs. Harper lashed out with her foot, striking the clone’s knee and sending them both crashing to the ground in a tumultuous heap, the beeping of medical equipment providing a discordant soundtrack to their battle. The scalpel flew from the clone’s grasp, its metallic surface catching the harsh light as it slid across the floor.

With adrenaline coursing through her veins dulling her pain, Harper crawled frantically, her hands slipping on the cold, unforgiving tiles as she reached for the scalpel. The clone was quick to react, lunging at Harper with a feral growl. But Harper was faster, her fingers wrapping around the handle of the scalpel just in time.

With a raw, guttural cry, Harper swung the scalpel wildly, slashing through the air as the clone descended upon her. The blade arced with desperate, frenetic energy, finding its mark again and again—each connection a spray of crimson that splattered the pristine tiles and stained Harper’s face with the evidence of her struggle.

The clone’s movements began to falter, its vitality draining with each slice Harper delivered. At last, with a strangled gurgle, the clone fell, its body convulsing in the final throes of defeat.

Harper stood, panting heavily, the scalpel slick with blood in her trembling grip. She had prevailed, but the victory was hollow. The room fell silent, save for the sound of her laboured breathing and the steady beep of the heart monitor.

“You talk too much,” Harper uttered with icy detachment, gazing down at the bloodied scalpel, then at the lifeless form before her. A twisted smile crept across her face as she knelt, positioning the cold blade beneath the clone’s lifeless eyes. “But I suppose some things really do change.”

[Skai]

---

_{Location: Southern Plateau - PRCU}

Hope in Hell #2.044: I Wanna Hold Your Hand

---

_{Interaction(s): Aurora @Melissa}

Previously: A Name Unspoken

"Maybe we can circle back around... before I found Haven, I felt someone-"

"NO!"

"Tell everyone - I'm --!"

Thank you for bringing Tiamat home.

Haven's body trembled as it remembered that hateful voice. The pain and anguish it had brought her, that cold metal against her back-

Amma had been pulled into hell so easily...

The woman wailed as her wing was cut from her, a painful symphony that echoed in Haven's heart. Her own wings were stretched so tightly she thought they would be pulled from her body. They were going to pull her soul out of her.

Blood trickled past her hip and knee. Her pain was growing as each second passed. She wanted to crumble to the floor, but she feared she wouldn't get back up again. Her whole body ached. Her heart ached. Haven's hold on Aurora's hand tightened, as if she would be stolen from her too.

What was Amma trying to tell them?

What name did she choose?

The lights at the end of the stretching hallway began to flicker out one by one. That horrible laugh rattling her heart inside her chest like she'd rattled that cage. Soon the only light that remained illuminated the frightened girls where they stood.

"They'll attack you at your lowest when you think you've gotten away far enough. When you think you're safe."

The words played themselves over and over in Haven’s mind as she stared into the darkness left in that laugh's wake. Their surroundings so silent that Haven swore she could hear their thundering heartbeats.

"I... I don't know how much more I can take." She breathed. Her eyes finally turned to meet Aurora’s; her gaze distant and anguished. Her mind was still back in that lab, yet she wasn’t consumed by the memory. She was fortunately, and unfortunately, aware of where she was and who she was. “We need to get out of here.”

Aurora’s eyes did not leave the wall where the chasm had come and gone, her baby blues remaining locked on the exact place where Amma had been swallowed whole by the void. Her hand did not cease to tremble and quiver, that last whorl of the raven haired girl’s power felt like it was continuously encircling her skin although she had already absorbed the energy bestowed upon her.

As the pair stood there in shock, the redhead could feel the winged girl’s grip strengthen on her hand. Out of habit, she squeezed back, an action that instantly brought her thoughts towards a certain boy, who’s warm ember eyes were all she wanted to see in that moment. Where he was in this chaos, she didn’t know, and the notion made her heart ache. She desired nothing more than to be by his side, the place where she felt safest; after all, they had planned on sticking together.

Fighting back the bile that rose in the back of her throat, she turned to Haven, her lips pulled taught and her forehead strained, exhaustion pulling at her limbs. “You came from that direction, right?” She asked, nodding towards the left side of the hallway. “I think Amma said that she sensed someone else before she found you. Maybe we can retrace your steps? There’s strength in numbers, whoever it may be.”

Haven slowly turned her head to the left, looking back the way that she and Amma had come. She could figure out the way back, but… It meant she would be heading back towards that terrible room. Close again to the mangled body that would haunt her even in reality.

Aurora had a point, and Haven wasn’t sure if they could make it the rest of the way in their state. She knew the redhead was exhausted and her shredded thigh would slow them down. Would it be as slow as Amma’s ankle had been? She visibly shivered as she wondered if it even mattered. It felt like the simulation would swallow them up no matter how hard they tried.

“Yeah… We can,” she took a shaky breath, “We can go back. I can handle it.”

The two girls, battered and bruised, began to make their way down the dimly lit hallway with fear in their eyes but hope in their hearts. The horrors they had seen were beyond imagination, but they’d have to find one of their teammates eventually… right? The redhead braced herself against Haven, her depleted body regenerating what she had lost after expunging her abilities whilst they hobbled in silence, the emotional weight they bore heavy.

Eventually, they came to a fork, where the path diverged into two directions. One was bathed in cold white light, an incessant beeping and ringing ricocheting off the walls, and the other sat silent and ominous, each movement they made seemed to echo into oblivion. Aurora tried to examine each with equal consideration, but found herself favoring one over the other. But in her hesitancy, she turned to Haven. “Which way?”

Haven’s jaw clenched as she leaned her weight onto her left leg, giving her right a moment to breathe. She nodded to the right as she remembered how she and Amma had taken a left before. “We came from the right. Not sure how long we walked until we got here, but… I’ll remember where she found me if it looks the same.”

Haven took the first step as she began to lead them down the overwhelming length of brightness and cacophony. Her breathing grew heavier the further they went as she tried to contain the panic bubbling up her throat.

“So… You said that other Lorcán had your stepfather…?”

Aurora watched Haven’s facial expression as the girl tensed. It was clear that whatever she had experienced in this space had caused a great deal of pain, and she was not eager to relive it. Every corner they turned in this trial had screamed agony, it was highly unlikely that anyone had remained unscathed. The redhead followed her companion’s lead as they walked, head on a swivel determining if any other threats were hiding in the shadows.

At the question, her face paled, sweat collecting at her brow. It wasn’t a topic she was prepared to divulge in its entirety, but if it was a momentary reprieve and distraction from whatever hell Haven had emerged from, Aurora would shoulder that burden. “Yes, he- he did.” She replied in a subdued tone, sputtering out the words, “He was stuffed into a cabinet. Bound and suffering.” The redhead looked into the girl’s eyes.

“Just as he should be.”

Whatever guilt Haven felt for asking such a question vanished the moment Aurora said what she had been thinking. Despite her growing panic, and despite the situation they were in, Haven huffed a halfhearted chuckle. “Yeah, serves him right.” She gave her hand a small squeeze after a pause. “I’m glad you got out of there before it got twisted.”

Aurora shook her head, recounting the moment she had woken up from whatever had caused her to black out in the first place. “It already was twisted.” She uttered, goosebumps pricking the back of her neck.

“I thought I was safe. I saw Lorcán - or who I thought was Lorcán - and believed for a second that we had made it out of here.” The redhead could feel her heartbeat begin to quicken once more, dread stirring in her stomach as they passed by rooms of medical supplies strewn on linoleum. “Had I not known him so well, I might have never realized that he was trying to trick me. I don’t think anyone else would have noticed the subtle differences, but to me, they were jarring.”

“He had his face, but a long scar on one side. His eyes were darker, more jaded. Cruel.” She shivered. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to unsee him.”

Haven ignored the contents of the rooms they passed by watching Aurora’s expressions as she recounted her personal torture. The fear her friend presented, laced with what Haven now recognized as haunted memories, had that painful empathy returning to her stomach. Their experiences were so different, and yet they were both leaving with the same feelings of distress and horror. She was at a loss for words.

“I’m sorry.” She murmured softly. It was all she could summon to her lips. She couldn’t bare her own nightmare to Aurora, not when they drew closer to it with each hobbled step, but maybe she could let Aurora know that she understood. “I won’t be able to forget, either. I guess it’s one more thing we can add to the list of memories that keep us up at night.”

The redhead nodded, holding the winged girl’s hand tighter as they walked, eyebrows raising as another thought from her experience slipped to the surface. “I don’t know if I can believe anything he told me- what was real or what was fake- but he said that someone from Blackjack is to blame for trapping us here.” Aurora uttered, her thoughts racing as she attempted to discern if it was just a cruel part of the simulation or reality. “That they serve Hyperion, still.”

“I don’t want to believe it’s true. Who could support such a monster after everything he did?”

“That has to be a lie.” Haven began in earnest, even as her brows furrowed as she debated it internally. “The trial is testing your faith... Why else would it give you a Lorcán that deceives you?”

“I think… I think the simulations are trying to wear us down. To break our spirits. I don’t know how you felt in that moment, but if you didn’t have faith in Blackjack, or in the real Lorcán, you might have given into it.”

Haven thought about how she’d felt on that table. She’d given up the fight the moment her wings had been pinned down. So close to destruction, with no means of escape and her body frozen with fear. Part of her worried that the simulation wasn’t testing her will, like with Aurora, but instead teaching her another lesson. A lesson she didn’t want to admit to herself just yet. Not with Aurora by her side, not when Aurora needed hope–

When they both needed hope to make it out of the trial.

“Whoever messed with the trial, they want us out of their way. They want us scared and untrusting. We have to make sure we don’t give them what they want.” Her voice shook with the intensity of her words. She looked to Aurora and in her eyes laid the controlled burning within the forest of her soul, the defiance that had pieced her back together after she’d nearly fallen apart on that table. “I won’t give it to them.” Not again.

Aurora shook her head, biting the inside of her lip. She waffled back and forth in believing the dopplegänger at Haven’s suggestion - he had deceived her, but something about his chilling words seemed to churn in her gut. Maybe her supposed concussion was to blame for her lack of clarity? The girl’s expression grew heavy. “They want more than for us to be scared,” She swallowed, “They want us dead.”

Haven stopped moving, her expression falling flat as her heart seemed to plummet off a cliff. Her now dead weight pulled Aurora back from where she’d taken a step. Haven looked between Aurora’s eyes as she swallowed, a poor attempt to wet the sudden dryness in her mouth. It still tasted like bile, even after this short amount of time. “I… I thought I was the only one it wanted dead.” Her head shook ever so subtly. “Do you think– Amma?” She couldn’t finish the question.

Instead she looked forward with worry clouding her eyes. She forced herself to move again, taking a pained step forward until her muscles seized as she saw it… Footprints of ash on the linoleum, leading from an open room. Her muscles ached as they pulled her wings in closer to her back. Tanned skin paled, the fear draining the color from her face and neck. Her voice was quiet as she spoke again, as if she feared waking the horrors within that room.

“This is where she found me. We have to go past it.”

Aurora could see her change in demeanor instantly, the way her jaw clenched and her eyes grew wide at what lay ahead, and knew that whatever agony she had experienced before they had reunited was about to be re-lived. “I’m right here with you.” She stated supportively, their footsteps continuing.

Haven forced herself to breathe deep, and then released the breath in a shaky exhale. She was still mindful of her strength as she gripped Aurora’s hand tighter, although she may have overestimated how durable a human’s hand could be. Her stride was unsteady as she placed weight on her leg, but her pace was determined. Despite the pounding of her heart in her chest, she wanted to overcome the fear. She would look into that room, look at the poor student on that table, and then she would move on.

“Please don’t-” Her words were stopped short as they stood at the opening, her breath escaping her lips in a whoosh. She didn’t take another.

Eyes of a forest sunrise stared at them with muted colors, as if the light had been subdued. The tanned skin was clammy and spattered with blood; the cut on the left cheek still fresh. The muscles in her face were slack, and yet her hands would forever be clenched at her sides in rigor mortis. There was a cut from between her clavicle down to her navel, and a gaping hole where her heart should be resting within her chest. Wings lifeless, flesh and muscle torn and cut, laid in pieces on top of the metal. The feathers on her once tawny wings stained forever red.

There was so much blood… and yet Haven’s eyes remained on the face. Her face. She lifted a shaking hand in front of her, blocking the view of those dull hazel eyes. Her hand turned over once, twice, her lips parting as she was lost to thought.

“Maybe I never left it…” She whispered the thought aloud, her brows furrowing. Her left hand slackened around Aurora’s, threatening to let go of her contact with reality. “I need air... I need to find Rory. I need to get out of here.” The words spilled out of her mouth breathlessly. Her eyes fluttered between her hand and her lifeless eyes on the table. “Not real.”

Aurora’s panicked gaze darted from Haven to the lifeless version of herself on the table, to the abundance of crimson that covered the girl’s small frame, the tangled limbs, and the disfigured wings. She swallowed a scream at the gory sight, trying her best to maintain her composure, a few silent tears falling from her eyes. Had the real Haven not been standing next to her, she would have assumed she had met her end, the resemblance was uncanny. And for that reason, stifling a sob, she didn’t hesitate to close the door, sealing off the room for whoever may encounter this hallway next.

The redhead gripped the girl’s hand as she felt her presence waver, a physical bridge reminding her that she was standing right there next to her. Gently and cautiously, she brought her hand to the small of Haven’s back, making sure to avoid touching her wings and guided her away. “You’re alive, you’re here with me.” Aurora consoled as she forced her to continue walking down the hallway, away from that fated room, from a distorted vision of the present. “We’re going to get out of here, we’re going to find Rory.” She repeated to her, hoping she would hear amongst the chaos that likely raged in her mind. “This isn’t real.”

The door was closed, cutting the image off from Haven so that her eyes returned to her hand. Distantly she felt Aurora’s anchor to reality, yet she didn’t even flinch as she felt the pressure of a gentle hand against her back. So lost in her fractured state that she hardly acknowledged that they began to move again either. The pain in her thigh was a dull throb compared to the torment inside of her. Aurora’s words whispered to her in the depths of her mind, each one slowly pulling her back to her body until she gasped for air. It felt like she'd been drowning.

Her free hand reached up to her chest to check if it was whole. She pressed her hand against it to make sure of it. Her heart beat against her palm, fast, but steady, and the rising and falling of her chest as she regained her breath was slowing, returning to her usual pattern. She realized how limp her hand was in Aurora’s and slowly wrapped her tan fingers around the pale skin.

“I’m sorry-I… I almost let go.” She turned her head to Aurora, the foggy look in her eyes slowly clearing. Her brows furrowed for a moment, tears pricking at her eyes, before she spoke again. “Thank you… I might have been stuck there forever.”

The redhead exhaled as she felt Haven’s grip tighten once more, watching as color slowly returned to her features. She blinked back her own tears that had formed, not wanting the winged girl to see how much the sight had shaken her as well. It very well could have been any of them on that table. Rubbing comforting circles on her companion’s back, Aurora continued to reassure her as they left the medical wing behind them and found themselves back in a similar looking hallway of classrooms from where they first started. “Don’t apologize.” She consoled.

“You’re strong, you can do this.” Aurora’s words reminded Haven, but were also to remind herself. The Trial continued to throw obstacle after obstacle in their way, and there was no end in sight, but they had to persevere.

Haven nodded even as a tear escaped down her cheek. “We can do this.” She parroted. Inwardly she searched for the fire within her soul, finding it quenched but not extinguished. It was all she had left in her to keep going. She would have to hold on tight to it if they had any chance of escape. Her next words were soft, as if she was afraid the simulation might hear them and thwart their plans. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Aurora was in full agreement, her eyes revealing her determination as she took her hand off of Haven’s back and began to lead them down the hallway once again. Sure enough, they reached another fork, which she delineated was what Amma had spoken of before, where she had sensed one of their teammates down the alternate path. “This must be where she felt someone else. We should go this way.” She murmured to herself, looking around. But it was at that moment, she realized something.

She couldn’t feel Haven’s hand anymore.

Turning on her heel to look where she thought her friend was following, she found the hallway empty.

“...Haven?” She fearfully asked, but already knew there would be no reply.

Except someone did answer.

“Aurora! Firecracker, where are you?”

The redhead’s eyes grew wide.

“Mom?”

---

[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: The Trials, Southern Plateau - Dundas Island}

Hope In Hell #2.045: Id

---

_{Interaction(s): N/A}

The path went on for...god, it felt like miles, but Gil knew that the dark and the silence played on his perception of time and space. The absence of stimuli stretched every second into an eon and he wondered, not for the first time, if the journey was endless. If the eternal walk was his ultimate punishment; press forward into nothing, forever, until you simply collapse and die. He didn't stop himself from mulling that part over.

And then, all of a sudden, there was...something. Something on the edge of the silence, so imperceptible he wasn't sure he hadn't just started hallucinating. He whipped his head around, searching every corner of the dark for the source, a source he wasn't convinced even existed.

Nothing.

He kept walking.

And then there it was again; the faintest rustling, oddly familiar but still he struggled to identify it, couldn’t quite put an image to the noise. He paused again, closing his eyes and straining his ears. Again there was nothing. He sighed, tired and frustrated, and took a step forward, only to swing wildly when the rustle reoccurred. The tension made him feel feral, unchained.

There was...something. Something across the way in the dark. It was no wonder he’d not seen it at first; it was only as he swayed back and forth now that he could see, ever so faintly, the slightest hint of a reflection of light, winking back at him.

He hesitated. Now that he’d seen it he could keep a bead on it, but it moved no farther from him nor closer to him as he watched. Gil made more steps along the illuminated path, watching it all the while, and it moved with him, perfectly parallel. It was a person, he could see now, and the rustling was clear and identifiable as their footsteps.

The words of his alters rang in his ears. The footsteps of his mystery stalker grew louder around him, but the distance never changed, moving forwards only when he did. He grew angry; he chafed raw from the berating he’d given himself, and now this place only sought to toy with him further. It wasn’t even interesting, for fucks sake, it was just fucking grass and the dark.

He pivoted on his heel and took off sprinting so quickly that he only realised he’d done so when he was already five metres off the path and the light was left behind. He plunged headlong into the darkness, not caring for a second how utterly enveloping it felt, how it cloyed and pulled at his skin and invaded his lungs. All he focused on was that glinting, reflecting light in the distance, winking at him. He was vaguely aware of far-off laughter, but paid it no mind; gave no notice to his pounding heart, pushing viscous blood around his aching body and fit to explode from his chest, nor to his burning lungs, pulling in air that felt thick and hot and tasted like crude oil in his mouth.

Head down, he pressed on, his muscles screaming and the grass slick beneath his feet and his breath failing until finally, finally, he lost his footing and tumbled, head over heels across the field, gouging up chunks of dirt, muddying his arms and face, the brown mixing with the red to distort his features.

He lay there in the grass, pushed to his absolute limit, heaving great panting breaths in and out, the lights no longer visible; nothing visible, just the sensations of being cold and wet on the ground anchoring him to any reality at all.

There was a rustling. More footsteps. Gil was vaguely aware of a presence near his head, but couldn't bring himself to roll over from where he lay splayed on his back to investigate, wouldn't have been able to see who those footsteps finally belonged to even if he had.

There was a light chuckle, gentle and feminine, and a single tear rolled from the corner of Gil's eye and across his temple to the ground, the only water he could spare.
"If only you'd have chased me so passionately eight years ago, Gil."

Gil managed a dry chuckle, coughed a mix of spit and blood, and sank into unconsciousness.

---

When Gil woke up, his head rang and his throat was scorched. Someone held a bottle of water to his lips and he supped greedily, letting it flow freely down his chin and chest as he gulped, the bottle being upturned as it emptied and eventually ran dry. Gil went to bring his arm up to wipe his chin, and it was only then he realised he was restrained; only then that he realised he was not lying on wet grass, but sat on a plastic folding chair. His hands were tied behind his back. His joints ached. How long had he been out?

"And now we come to the crux of the matter, don't we, Gil?"

He looked up sharply. His vision swam but in front of him, perched daintily on a chair of her own, was the unequivocal owner of that voice. He would never forget that voice.
"Elle...I'm sorr-" "SHUT UP."

The ferocity of the command, reverberating around his head and shaking his very bones, stunned Gil into obeyance. He couldn't see Elliot, but he felt a blow hit him hard in his exposed stomach. He spluttered, doubling over and coughing.
"Too late for that nonsense now. You made our bed eight years ago. You fucking lie in it."

"Elliot...you'll get your chance." Said Elle, gentle but admonishing. Whatever presence he had, Gil felt it slink away.
"We talked about how empty you are, didn't we? But that's only half the problem, isn't it?"

Gil daren't speak, despite the screaming inside him. Whatever force this was wasn't interested in his protest, and he was still catching his breath where Elliot's sudden blow had winded him. He just sat there, hands tied, head hung, trying to block out the venomous words spewed by the only girl he'd ever loved. Thought he'd loved. Convinced himself he'd loved.

"We both know that the real problem isn't the emptiness, isn't that gaping hole inside you instead of a soul. It's what you use to fill that hole."
She stood up, walking toward Gil and pulling his head up by the chin with a single finger. They locked eyes, and even though it had been nearly a decade since he'd last seen Elenora Baines, every atom of her was still seared into his memory; every strand of hair, every pore of her skin, every fleck in her irides. He looked into her eyes, and for the first time since entering this sabotaged Trial, seized onto some certainty.

This was not Elle.

He cradled that fact like his own precious child; it anchored him, reassured him. The horrors persisted, but so did he.

Elle let go of his chin and pushed a finger painfully into his chest instead.
"You use people, don't you? You chew them up, squeeze them dry, and then throw them away. How long until you get bored of the current lot, do you think, like you got bored of me?"

Gil thought back eight years ago, desperately searching his memory for those last days in Los Angeles. Hazy sun and quiet arguments...
_{"I...I begged you to stay..."} he managed, his voice weak and mournful.

"And I begged you to come with me!" She spat back, her face a portrait of pained fury. "We could have had a real life, with proper foundations, not all that...Hollywood glitterati shit. But you couldn't leave the admiration behind, could you? No yes-men in Michigan. Only one person to adore you and love you and support you? Not enough for Gil Galahad, Hollywood's biggest has-been! You're pathetic."

She walked away, waving her hand over her shoulder as she went in some kind of signal; presumably to Elliot, wherever he lurked, but Gil still couldn't feel his presence. Instead, the restraints around his wrists simply fell away, and he pulled his arms in front of him, his shoulders burning.

"Say what you want. Justify it however you can. It means nothing to me. After all, I'm not even really here, am I?" Elle continued, as Gil stood from his chair and attempted to stumble after her. "I'm just what your own mind conjured up. How's that for pitiable? You actually do think all of this about yourself."

Gil stopped, hanging his head in shame.
"Were you ever really 'you' when you were with me, Gil? Are you even really 'you' now? Here, faced with the lowest moments of your miserable, superficial life, and you're still acting, aren't you? Which 'Gil' are you playing today, do you think?"

Out of the darkness, Gil recognised faces. His faces, over and over, stepping forward to circle him. Elliot, Elwood, Romeo were all here, as well as a few advertising gigs. But there were more recent copies of Gil, too: here was one in PRCU uniform, tie loosened and shirt-sleeves rolled-up; here was one in the university's athletic issue; here was one in beachwear.
"Which one, Gil? Which face are you wearing right now? The Gil that 'chills with his bros'? The Gil that smokes with Amma? The Gil that entertains fans on the beach? The Gil that suckers Harper in for another guaranteed dose of naive affirmation? The Gil that told me he loves me, but couldn't be with me?!"

They surrounded Gil, encircling him on all sides. Elle was out of reach, stood beyond the circle, and she pulled out a phone from her pocket and held it up.

Gil felt a hand on his shoulder, and he turned to face a sight that sent him stumbling backwards, reeling away. A final Gil copy, bruised and bloody and wearing the AR suit he was clad in in this very moment. The face was a blank veil of flesh, no features to speak of at all.
"That's the real you, isn't it Gil?" Elle taunted, her peeling laughter full of spite and enmity. "Nothing and no one! Why don't we see which version of you hates you the most?"

"Lights!"

Blinding floodlights exploded into life, finally illuminating the grassy field for miles around. Crestwood Common, that damnable set, filmed on-location. It always had been.

"Camera!"

Gil heard Elle's phone start recording, and behind the lights, he could suddenly see cameras on cranes, recording lights steadily blinking.

"Action!"

The copies came for him. All he saw was hatred. All he felt was violence.

[Melissa]

^{| Four Years Ago}

On a mild Spring evening as the clock struck 1am, campus lay quiet and serene, the sound of cicadas and the whistling of the wind the only audible noise moving through the trees.

But in the depths of the Intake House, the campus speakeasy was indeed alive and vibrant, packed with University students enjoying the revelry of the weekend. Aurora had only heard rumblings before about the existence of the bar and yet, she found herself there in the mix, her best friend by her side. How they had gotten an invite, that was Lorcán’s doing. Well, not actually him, they had Ryan to thank for pulling some strings and getting the both of them in, especially since they still weren’t 19.

Aurora was drunk.

It wasn’t the first time she had drank- she and her roommates had gotten some booze before from their older Myotis peers- but she definitely didn’t have much of a tolerance to go off of. So, needless to say, she was a bit of a lightweight. You could see it on her face- her cheeks were rosy and flushed and her normally sharp blue eyes were glassy, accompanied by the relaxed and happy grin that tugged on her lips.

As the pair stood in the center of the room, enjoying the organized chaos around them, the redhead felt someone bump into her as they passed by, likely headed to the bar. She wobbled, unbalanced in her inebriated state but managed to remain upright, a few drops of her drink spilling over the edge of her cup. She giggled, looking at Lorcán next to her. “Whoops, sorry!”

Those molten eyes that were the same colour as the soda he was drinking studied the copper-haired girl intently. He had never seen her like this before, at first it had been invigorating partying alongside Aurora, watching some of her inhibition melt away as she danced to the music, finding rhythm with the pounding bass that echoed through the speakeasy.

But the night had gone on long enough and Lorcán was beginning to worry about the Aurora of tomorrow and her impending hangover.

“No worries, Lady Dude,” He replied with one of his signature smiles, brushing away his wavy, shoulder length hair from his face. “Think it might be time to quiver the boards and head for shore. Walk you home?”

Aurora jutted out her bottom lip, pouting playfully at the mention of leaving the party. They were having a good time, why would they leave now? She attempted to reason with the boy, “Nooo, Lorcán, why do you want to go home? This place is fun.” She asserted, trying to maintain her convincing facial expression before quickly dissolving into a goofy smile.

But she knew him well, well enough that even though things were a bit blurrier than normal, the look he was giving her wasn’t him asking. She took one last large sip of her drink before accepting defeat. “Okay, we can go,” The redhead raised her eyebrows, a thought coming to mind, “But what about Ryan, shouldn’t we say bye?” She quickly spun around to try and spot the similar shade of copper hair amongst the masses, but that was a bad idea, as she immediately grew dizzy. Aurora braced herself against Lorcán, her hands resting on his arms for stability. “Or we can just leave, that works too.”

“I have a feeling brah won't miss us too much,” Lorcán replied, looking towards the older redhead currently behind the bar doing her best rendition of ‘Cocktail’ while she had several male students fighting for her attention. When Ryan had invited them, Lorcán had originally been flattered but upon arriving at the party it quickly became clear to him that his invitation was more to ensure his silence. While the speakeasy was open to students, it generally wasn't open to parties of quite this volume. Ryan was certainly enjoying the privileges that came with being the Team Mentor to Eclipse, but Lorcán was feeling a little used.

“Do you, like, want my arm?” Lorcán asked Aurora, extending a denim jacket enclosed arm. “Or maybe my jacket, it’s pretty nippy with the sun down.”

Aurora nodded, setting down her half empty glass before grasping his bicep and forearm as they began to move towards the door. She held on tightly, half because she didn’t want to lose him in the crowd, and half because she was still a tad unsteady. “I’ll be fiiine, you’re like my own personal space heater after all.” The girl giggled again, thinking her overused joke was absolutely hilarious. With each step they ascended the music grew softer and the chatter dulled, until they were greeted by the cool April breeze. As they walked away from the Intake House, she inhaled the fresh air, her wavy locks rustling in the wind, before an idea popped into her brain.

“What if I were to just…” In an instant, she let go of Lorcán’s arm, teleporting back to the front door that led down to the speakeasy with a devious grin on her face. She reached for the handle slowly, baiting the boy and admittedly testing his patience with her.

Lorcán’s eyebrows rose as Aurora suddenly vanished. He stopped abruptly, spinning around on one heel, turning to face the giggling redhead while one eyebrow remained elevated.

“Hey, get back here! Don’t make me chase you, Lady Dude.” He called in his own teasing tone. Though truthfully, he was a little worried Aurora might hurt herself in her inebriated state.

“Come on, just like take my hand and then we can totally make our way back to the dorms.” Lorcán added while approaching. “Your bed must sound rad by now.” He suddenly blushed, turning as red as the flames he could create.

“I totally mean for you, not like us or me. Your bed, for you. Sleeping alone is totally rad.” He rambled on, now looking towards the sky.

“Mars is bright tonight, eh?”

Aurora considered teleporting off, but instead audibly sighed, an exaggerated indication of her agreement, before intertwining her fingers with his, “You know I don’t sleep much, Hotstuff.” She gently swung their arms back and forth, “I don’t want to think about going to sleep.” She stated as they restarted their walk back to the dorms, her head tilting upwards to look up at the sky.

“You can’t see Mars silly.” The redhead stated matter of factly, squinting up at the various stars. “I like looking at the constellations though.”

“Maybe you can't,” He teased, “But I happen to know that,” He pointed to a slightly crimson dot above the Eastern horizon, “-is Mars.”

“I've always liked Draco,” He continued, pointing towards the constellation, “But I often find myself staring at Gemini while on my board at night.”

Aurora tried to focus on where Lorcán was motioning, attempting to spot the shapes he was referring to, but everything was just a little too blurry for her to visualize. Another spark of genius came to mind as the boy mentioned surfing, and she gently changed their course, taking a few steps in the direction that would lead them to the beach. “You’re sure we can’t go sit for just a little bit? Please?” She pleaded, no doubt her avoidance of the dorms and her bed evident in her voice. The girl attempted a few more steps, but nearly tripped over her own feet as she went as far as she could go whilst in Lorcán’s grip. She let her next statement hang in the air.

“If I don’t go to sleep yet, I don’t have to dream, and he won’t be able to hurt her again.”

Aurora’s words took Lorcán aback. But he knew he couldn’t say no to her so it was simply easier to comply. The beach at least was still away from the party and the cooler air coming in off the Pacific might just be what the red-headed girl needed to sober up.

“I could totally do the beach,” He replied before leading her in the proper direction, “Might be better if we just hoofed it though.”

She frowned, looking up at him through her lashes, “You’re no fun! We could be there right now if we wanted to be,” Without hesitating, she let go of his hand and disappeared, materializing a good distance ahead of him on the path to the sand and surf. She was definitely trying her luck, but something about her buzz rid her of any reservations she might have been holding onto. A challenge danced in her eyes, “Bet you can’t catch me!” Aurora called back to him, grinning.

“Lady Dude wait-” Lorcán called but Aurora had already teleported before he could protest. Despite that, he couldn’t stop a smile from spreading over his face. She had always beat him at tag when they were younger, but he had a feeling tonight might tip in his favour. Ditching his flip-flops, the boy with long wavy hair ran after the copper-headed girl. His bare feet raced through the cool sand, before jetting forward with the air of his abilities only to meet empty air where Aurora once was.

Looking around, he spotted her again. Once again giving chase, he came up empty. Looking around, he saw Aurora waving towards him before feinting a boost and instead moving backwards in anticipation of catching her.

His strategy worked too well as Lorcán bowled Aurora over, tackling the redhead into the sand before landing on top of her. His face hovering not even inches from her own. The smell of roses and peonies wafted into Lorcán’s nostrils as his molten eyes looked down into Aurora’s shimmering sapphires. His tongue tapped his lower lip, as his jaw pointed forward before Lorcán caught himself and rolled off of Aurora.

Despite wanting that moment for so long, he wasn’t about to take advantage of her.

“Caught you.” He managed to spit out, grateful for the cover of night to hide his beet-red face.

The redhead shrieked as his strong arms caged her, her unrestrained laugh filling the air as they toppled to the ground, eyes closing as they hit the sand. Upon opening them, she met his fiery gaze above her, seeing just how close together the two of them were. Aurora looked down to Lorcán’s lips, feeling an overwhelming urge to close the distance between them, his wavy hair that fell around her face seeming to block out the rest of the world. But the second she lifted her face to meet his, the moment escaped her as the boy moved to lay by her side.

The drunk girl only giggled again, the desire to kiss him ebbing away just as quickly as it had come on. “You may have caught me this time, but we both know that I am still the record holder.”

“Uncontested champion,” Lorcán flashed a smile, despite his still racing heart. The sound of the nearby waves was always soothing, and while he didn't have any alcohol in his system, the idea of going for a swim at this hour if only to cool his flushed face was enticing.

“The swells sound tame tonight.” He muttered sitting up from the sand, his hand looking towards the water where the moonlight was reflecting, illuminating the Northern Horizon.

“I’m all amped up now, tempted to take a dip into the green room to soak my head,” He added with a playful elbow nudge.

Aurora let herself relax into the sand, looking up at the stars. They were so bright here, the lack of any nearby city meant no light pollution to detract from their glow. But at the mention of the water, she sat up as well, gazing out at the dark expanse that stretched out into nothingness. Slipping off her shoes, she dug her toes into the cool grains. “I’m a bad swimmer when sober, let’s not find out how I am after a few drinks.” She smirked, still having her wits about her even under the influence,“But I’d put my feet in, that sounds nice.”

Lorcán allowed himself a small laugh, he had seen Aurora in the water and her point was incredibly valid.

“A walk in the shallows sounds rad,” He replied before offering the girl his arm again, “What did you mean earlier when you said he won't be able to hurt her again, in reference to your dreams?” The words had been sitting at the forefront of his mind since she had spoken them but only now that the blood had stopped rushing had the courage and overwhelming curiosity prompted him to ask.

Aurora wobbled as stood back up once more, clinging on to Lorcán’s arm for stability as they approached where the waves met the shoreline. She hummed happily as she submerged her feet into the water, enjoying how refreshing it felt on her skin and kicking playfully, sending droplets back out into the ocean. The redhead didn’t even look up as she answered Lorcán, seemingly numb to the true weight of the question, her inhibitions and hesitations out the window with the alcohol in her system.

“My stepfather was not a nice man, Lorcán.” She stated, taking a breath before continuing, exhaling audibly, “He used to hit my mother, take his anger out on her.” Aurora looked up at the stars again, “I was too young to do anything to stop it.”

The temperature suddenly rose as Lorcán felt his hackles rise at Aurora's words. He had never met her, but given who Aurora was, he knew her mother was a big part of making her the extraordinary young woman he knew. The idea that anyone would intentionally hurt her got him hot under the collar.

“I can't believe people can be so cruel to each other. I find it hard to believe the mundane world is just or fair in any way.” His voice was stern, almost condescending. “I just wonder how we’re the persecuted ones sometimes. Where is your mother now?” He asked, softening his tone as his ember-like eyes looked back at Aurora.

The girl moved her hands from his bicep to instead intertwine their fingers once more as they continued to walk, the waves lapping at her ankles. She could feel his skin growing warmer, and she met his gaze with a sad smile, “It’s far from fair, but that’s the way the world works I guess.” Aurora directed her eyes out to the ocean, seemingly searching the distance, the stars blurring together in her drunkenness. “I don’t know where she is.” The redhead shrugged, digging her heels in the sand with each step she took.

“It wasn’t safe for me at home, for many reasons, but especially when my abilities manifested. Damon would have killed me if he knew I was Hyperhuman.”

Aurora looked back up at Lorcán. “So, my mom brought me to a children’s home and left me there. I never saw her again, don’t know if I ever will.” She rested her head on his arm, his temperature comforting as the breeze triggered goosebumps along her limbs. “You’re really warm.” The redhead added, seemingly voicing her stream of consciousness.

“I can’t imagine a world where I didn't know where my Mom was,” He allowed himself a small chuckle, “Though some days I wish she didn't know where I was.”

Lifting his arm, Lorcán wrapped it around Aurora, allowing himself a rare moment of boldness before enveloping her in his warmth.

“Alcohol must be wearing off if you're getting cold.” Lorcán teased before looking up at the stars. It was amazing that he could be surrounded by such awe inducing beauty and yet his eyes always found their way back to Aurora.

“I’m still hoping we can find your Mom someday, she must be pretty special to bring you into my life.” His voice was low, nearly a whisper as he spoke before those fire-like eyes turned back to the subtle ebb and flow of the midnight tide.

“Someday.” He mused again, his eyes wandering down to Aurora's left hand, before retreating back to the serene ocean scene.

The redhead leaned into Lorcán’s chest as she was tucked underneath his arm, the chill she had briefly felt instantly replaced by the heat he radiated. She closed her eyes and sighed contently, inhaling citrus and smoke, a soft smile tugging at her lips. “I’m not cold, you’re just hot.” The girl mindlessly replied before nearly losing her footing on a rock that, according to her, came out of nowhere. “Nope, still drunk.”

She opened her eyes, resting her chin on the boy’s torso as she looked up at him.“She was special. The strongest person I know.” Aurora stated, hazy visions of blonde hair and blue eyes coming to mind. “But, I’ve already come to terms with the fact that I might never see her again, who knows what happened after I left.”

“I wouldn’t be shocked if Damon had killed her by now.”

“Hard to send you to bed on that note, Lady Dude,” Lorcán tried joking to soften her words, “But we can't stay out here all night.” He gave her a quick squeeze, “Though I don't think another few minutes would hurt.” He added, gazing out at the ocean before taking a seat in the sand and gently pulling Aurora down beside him.

“I only ever need two things for a perfect night. A beautiful view, and the ocean.” He smiled, thankful Aurora once again couldn't see him blushing in the dark.

“And tonight I have both.”

The redhead, who would have less than gracefully flopped onto the sand had Lorcán not guided her down with him found herself smiling at his words and her cheeks turning rosy. She hadn’t expected him to say something like that, especially to her, but she certainly wasn’t opposed to it. She moved closer to him, resting her head on his shoulder.

“I want every night to be like this.”

^{__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}

_{Location: Southern Plateau - Pacific Royal Campus}

Hope in Hell #2.046: Train Wreck

^{_{________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}}

_{Interaction(s): Lorcán (Flashback) @Lord Wraith}

Previously: I Wanna Hold Your Hand

Aurora had forgotten what her mother’s voice sounded like.

It was sweeter than she remembered, melodic, more gentle than what her nightmares had warped it into over the years. In her dreams, her mother was always suffering. But here, the woman’s tone was warm and inviting; it was as if you could hear her smiling.

“Sweetheart, come here!”

The redhead willed herself to move as fast as her body would allow and followed the sound of her mother’s call. The shock she was in helped her in this instance rather than hindered, the numbness she felt in response allowing her to propel herself forward without her injuries inhibiting her. The dregs of Amma’s power managed to fight off any residual exhaustion she felt.

She was rejuvenated. Hopeful.

“Firecracker? Are you there?”

Firecracker. She hadn’t been called that since she was a young girl, hadn’t ever told anyone about the nickname her mother lovingly bestowed upon her. Although they weren’t exactly sure where her red hair had come from, presumably from her father’s side, Sasha taught her daughter to embrace her copper coloring. What initially had been a moniker to represent her fiery appearance quickly became so much more. Aurora was always the spark that kept Sasha going, the brightest light in her darkest hour.

And Aurora did indeed embody that spark as she chased her mother’s voice down hall after hall, stopping at nothing to find her in the labyrinth.

“~Aurora!”

She didn’t care that her body began to catch up to her brain. Didn’t care that she was growing weary, her breathing heavy. The redhead navigated each turn with agile grace as Sasha’s call echoed. She grew closer, the woman’s words growing louder and louder. She could already feel her embrace, imagine her warm golden blonde hair and striking blue eyes that held so much strength and perseverance.

Aurora turned the final corner and it wasn’t her mother who she found.

She was instead met with the sight of her teammates at the end of the hallway, battered and bruised, but alive. Calliope looked worse for wear, leaning on Banjo as a physical crutch while Rory carried Haven, her injuries more significant than the last time she saw her. Amma limped on her broken ankle, refusing to accept Katja’s help, the blonde visibly shaken and covered in a thick crimson liquid that made Aurora gag at the sight. Gil and his clones, noses bloody, stood together next to Harper, whose eyes were wide and expressionless, and Lorcán - Lorcán, alive - who clutched his chest, AR suit ripped open revealing a deep wound.

They were gathered in front of a door.

An exit.

The redhead didn’t hesitate, breaking out into a sprint to join them, relief flooding her features as realization hit her that the end was in sight. They had done it, they had survived the trial, sabotagers be damned, and they were getting out. Her mother had guided her to safety. But it wasn’t until she had made it halfway down the hall, a few yards from her friends, that she slammed face first into something unyielding. Static rang in her ears as she recoiled, her already aching head beginning to pound even worse than it had been before, black spots flooding her vision. Aurora reached up to her face and braced the point of impact, feeling something warm on her upper lip and pulled her hand away to find it covered in her own blood.

She looked in front of her, not seeing what had forced her to a stop so viciously, and reached out her other hand, coming into contact with a wall, invisible, but there nonetheless. She pressed her palm against the surface and pushed, not feeling any give in the structure that would allow her to get through to her teammates. Up ahead, she could see Katja open the door with ease, bright light from outside flooding the entire hallway. The mere sight of it was enough to make the redhead begin to panic once again.

Closing her eyes, she calmed her now racing mind and attempted to teleport to where her teammates were by using the last whisper of Amma’s power, but it wasn’t enough. Her form flickered, and she felt a weak pull, but it was to no avail. Aurora tried again, grimacing in pain, but the last bit of energy she had been holding onto flickered out, leaving her with nothing left to utilize.

“Are we all here?” Harper asked, taking stock of the group, and was met by nods and mumbled affirmation. Boots shuffled, and Blackjack began to move.

They were leaving.

They were leaving without her.

“Hey!” Aurora’s baby blues grew wide and she banged her fists up against the invisible wall, using whatever physical strength she had left to try and bring the barrier down by force. “Wait! I’m here! I’m right here!” She shouted, hoping to capture their attention before they departed.

But not one member of Blackjack turned or even flinched at the sound of her voice.

They didn’t hear her at all.

The redhead hit the partition harder as she continued to yell. “Don’t leave me here!” Her throat burned as she raised her volume even louder than the first time, attempting to fight her way through. “Please don’t leave me!” Her knuckles split, growing bloody with the amount of force she was using to try and get to the other side.

One by one, each of her teammates disappeared through the exit, leaving the horrors of the Trial behind them. Calliope and Banjo hand in hand. Rory with Haven in his arms. Amma and then Katja. Gil, his clones, and Harper. With each silhouette that vanished, Aurora grew more and more hysterical, eyes beginning to overflow with moisture, any hope she had held onto fading fast.

Lorcán brought up the back of the group and stopped in the doorframe, hesitating and turning his head to look around. Brow furrowed as if he was in deep thought.

“Lorcan!” She screamed in pure desperation, tears streaming down her face. “Lorcán, please!” The girl wailed as she watched him simply shrug before exiting the Trial, the door slamming behind him and locking into place.

He had left her there.

Her teammates had forgotten her.

She was alone.

The redhead’s fists against the wall grew weaker and weaker as she lost steam. Knowing that they weren’t coming back for her, she sank to her knees, her inconsolable cries filling the now empty hallway. For even though she was older, even though she had grown, the cycle would never cease to repeat.

No one ever stayed.

[Lord Wraith]

“How is he settling in here?” Jonas asked, taking a seat beside Aiden on the large wrap-around porch. Behind the house, the waves of the ocean inlet lapped up against the rocking shore while the porch looked over a large yard, the Alumni Village sitting on the horizon.

“He’s adjusting, misses the noise and liveliness of the campus though,” Tori replied to Jonas’ question, placing a cold glass of iced tea down beside the Chancellor.

“Miss Clarke is working out as a tutor then? No incidents?”

“Lorcán seems quite fond of her,” Aiden replied, “Perhaps a tad too fond, but he’s working hard and his control is on par with students nearly five years his elder.”

“Boy does love a redhead,” Jonas replied with a knowing wink, as Aiden choked on his drink.

“Jonas!” Tori scolded with a smile, “No spoilers, you know that.”

“Apologies, I couldn’t help myself.” The Chancellor chuckled, “He’s a remarkable boy, an even more remarkable young man, I consider myself very honoured to be his honorary grandfather.”

“Yes, we’re very proud of Lorcán, he’s growing up so fast now. Seems like just yesterday we were watching him fight for his life in the NICU, now Lion Lungs has his H-Gene active.”

On the grass below, plasma clashed against plasma as Lorcán focused on maintaining his blade while the older redhead agilely danced around him. Aiden, Tori and Jonas turned to watch as the pair of teenagers continued to spar.

“You’re doing well, little dude.” Ryan complimented, “But you’re still overthinking.” She reprimanded feinting an attack only to come from a different angle which caused Lorcán’s blade to falter. It shattered upon impact from Ryan’s own, sending Lorcán tumbling into the grass outside of the Roth’s new family home in the Alumni Village.

“You need to stop thinking and start feeling, let your abilities be as natural as using your hand is. It should be instinctual to dodge using a boost or to block a surprise attack with a generated beam.” Ryan explained, “You’ve got a lot in your arsenal, definitely one of the broader abilities I’ve come across.”

“Keep in mind,” Aiden interjected, standing up from his seat and approaching the pair. He placed a hand on Lorcán’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

“Unlike Ryan or I, you’re not limited to one method of using your abilities. Ryan creates her plasma blades exclusively, and my abilities only manifest in optic blasts, but you have the ability to manipulate heat. It gives you versatility and an edge.” Aiden reminded Lorcán while watching the two train, “You have the element of surprise because you can opt for a different method of attack.”

Gripping Lorcán’s shoulders, he turned his son towards a scarecrow standing in the nearby garden. “Go ahead, try and create a heat blast using only your eyes. Think where you want the blast to go, blink, check again to make sure there’s no one in harm’s way then release your blast.”

Aiden gave Lorcán a pat on the back before stepping back. “Just remember, visualize, blink, check and then release.”

Taking a deep breath, Lorcán nodded. Concentrating on the air in front of him, he pictured two beams of fire before closing his eyes and steadying his stance. Opening his molten-coloured eyes, Lorcán watched with a smile as a pair of blasts erupted from in front of his face, spreading across the yard and igniting the scarecrow.

“And that’s how the Roth men do it.” Aiden celebrated.

“Congratulations my boy,” Jonas shouted from the porch, “We will be watching your career with great interest.”

“Couldn’t do it without my Dad,” Lorcán replied while sheepishly rubbing the back of his head, desperately hoping his cheeks weren’t as red as they felt.

“Or Ryan,” He hastily added, this time turning a shade of beet red.

“That was so good, dude.” Ryan added.

“Now let's try again with sustaining those blades.”

^{________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}

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

Hope In Hell #2.047: Lose Yourself

^{_{____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}}

_{Interaction(s): None}

Previously: Duality

"Lorcán!"

Aurora’s voice felt simultaneously near, but distant. It wasn’t the cry of the doppelgänger above him, no Lorcán knew that to be his Aurora. Watching Raze’s cruel face above him, Lorcán knew he would have only one opportunity. His grip was beginning to slip, sweaty palms, weak knees and his arms heavy.

"Lorcán, please!"

Snap back to reality.

Her scream of desperation echoed across the chasm beneath Lorcán as he continued to hang. Every muscle in his body ached, strained and pushed to their limits as only the dull, constant throbbing of his body kept him focused.

"Don't worry about Aurora," Raze sneered, watching Lorcán's ears perk at her scream. "I'll make sure she's well taken care of, in time she may even come to love me."

Raze’s words burned in Lorcán’s ears as molten eyes turned upwards defiantly. Embers flared brightly as a new flame ignited within Lorcán, the hungry fire crying out for oxygen. Summoning his strength, Lorcán pulled himself upwards, but his efforts were to no avail, he was too weak.

He was running on fumes.

Then, he felt her, his pain, his torment beckoned for her to heed his cry. Stolen glances flashed before his eyes, full lips and raven-coloured hair. He could feel her in his arms again, the smell of the forest around him. As Lorcán hung defiantly, tendrils of crimson and silver flew from the abyss below. They crawled over his skin, wrapping around every limb, digging into his pores and sending a shiver of familiar pleasure up and down his spine.

His skin felt alive and electrified as a new power flowed within him, amplified like he had never been before. His toes curled and his eyes closed, he could practically feel her tracing his back, marking him as her own while he harnessed the unforgiving chaos gifted to him. It brought renewed strength that flowed through every muscle, the strength not of just one, but the strength of two.

Letting go of the girder from which he hung, Lorcán's hands flew to his sides. A wave of heat radiated from him, explosions erupting from each palm, launching the molten-eyed young man into the air as he agilely somersaulted over his darkly mirrored counterpart.

"You will not touch her."

A blazing beam of crackling crimson plasma exploded from Lorcán's hand, the blood-like colour casting an ominous hue over Raze as the near identical man quickly retaliated, his own blade of red pale in comparison to Lorcán’s.

“You’re going to need to be more specific,” Raze taunted, “Your thoughts betray you, they dwell on not one, but two.” He grinned like a Cheshire Cat. “There is much conflict in you. we’re not that different it would seem.” Raze scoffed before lunging. Sparks flew and angry hisses echoed over the catwalk as plasma and electromagnetic fields collided.

“Even a little boost from your friends won’t save you in the end.”

“You know why I’m stronger than you?” Lorcán cried, “Because I don't have friends,” His eyes suddenly flared, a crackle of silver and crimson danced in the corners. His father’s voice echoed in his ears.

“Visualize, blink, check and then release.”

“I've got family.”

The optic blast caught Raze off guard, obliterating the scarred half of his face. The smell of burning flesh overwhelmed Lorcán’s nostrils, nearly causing him to gag as the stunned doppelgänger stumbled backwards before plummeting over the edge and into the chasm.

Lorcán could feel the temporary boost from Amma weaning, the pain of his injuries rapidly returning. Still, the day was not yet over.

“Hold on, Aurora.” He muttered aloud through gritted teeth. “I’m coming.”

“I’m right here, hot stuff.” A familiar voice suddenly called from the balcony above. “You won, come and get your prize.”

“Sorry, brah,” Lorcán replied with an apologetic but weak smirk, “I’m not settling for anything less than the real thing, so I’ll be finding my Aurora.”

The doppelgänger pouted, leaning down on the railing while her outfit threatened to cause her chest to spill out. Lorcán took one last look before shaking his head and running for the door. Aurora blew a loose strand of hair from her eyes as she watched him go.

“Some gals have all the luck.”

[Lord Wraith]

^{________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}

_{Location: H.E.L.P.'s Black Site - Zayas Island, Pacific Ocean}

Hope In Hell #2.048: Tick Tick Boom

^{_{____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}}

_{Interaction(s): None}

Previously: Monkey Wrench

“Do you have any idea what it’s like cleaning up after these kids that treat you like you’re invisible?”

The Harbinger continued to rant from the balcony above while Jim and his allies defended themselves against Hyperion’s Children.

“I nearly got frostbite after the senator’s daughter blew up a sink in the bathroom. And what thanks do I get for fixing that? She just left the sink exploded to thaw out and flood the place without telling anyone. And did you or any of the rest of the faculty even ask her about it?” He screeched, “NO! Because she’s part of your precious little Blackjack.”

“So you thought trapping them in the Trial would show them the error of their ways?” Jim retorted, grappling an attacking student and wrapping his mechanical arm around their neck before putting the cloaked figure into a firm sleeper hold.

“No,” The Harbinger replied smugly, “I thought it would break them, leave their minds nearly catatonic so that you’d have a mess on your hands to clean up and have no one take responsibility.” He turned towards Torres, still hiding his face under the mask he wore.

“And if I managed to frame the Foundation and its transfer student in the process then so be it. I do have to wonder why the late Chancellor, or rather Hyperion, took such a vested interest in Amma?” The Harbinger purred.

“Did no one else find that interesting? Oh trust me, as a janitor I was a fly on the wall, privy to all sorts of private conversations. When no one sees you, they are their truest selves in front of you.”

“Whether Amma Cahors was transferred here by Kowalski or not, it doesn’t matter now,” Torres retorted, “She’s now a member of this student body and far safer here than she was with the Foundation.”

“Is she though?” The Harbinger taunted, “One of mine has gone missing, where is Robert Arkwight, Miss Torres? Don’t ‘sub-class’ Hyperhumans have a tendency to go missing with the Foundation?”

Jim watched as Torres turned three shades lighter, it was the first time she had shown fear.

“I assure you, I had nothing to do with that.” She replied before Jim turned to her.

“Are y’all as sick of listening to this blowhard as I am? Mind tossin’ me up there?” He asked Torres whose stern expression seemed to crack a smile if only for a split second.

“It would be my pleasure.” Torres replied telekinetically vaulted Jim into the air. Behind them, Tad, Jessica and Miranda were doing their best against several other members of the splinter house.

"The winds are blowing." Tad blurted out, throwing his hands up as the Orcinus members stopped dead in his tracks. Miranda and Jess both paused, turning to look at Tad.

“Wait,” A voice came from under one of the hoods, “You’re one of us? Sorry, I had no idea-” A fist smashed into the robed figure’s face crumbling him over as Tad stood over him, shaking his now throbbing hand.

“Hey, not cool,” Came a reply from another hooded figure, “You didn’t have to do that, we don’t hit our own.”

“Nope, not one of you” He snapped, decking the other speaker as his hand adapted to the pain and force.

“Just testing a theory.” His facial experience steeled as he turned to Jess and Miranda while resuming the struggle with the remaining members of House Orcinus.

“We need to get Blackjack out now!” He yelled, “I think Mike might have one more card up his sleeve to play even if we get the Trial turned off.”

“Which is exactly why Mr. Tableau here is going to tell us how to turn it off.” Jim growled, his mechanical arm lifting the quivering man in front of him. Behind them, Naira was imprisoned in a purple case of psionic energy while the rest of the House Orcinus members knelt on the ground with their hands raised above their heads.

“Y-you should be shaking in your boots, not me!” The Harbinger snapped before Jim removed his mask and any remaining bravado. Under his hood was an active neural link, the LEDs illuminated indicating it was connected.

“Sorry, I choose my friends a whole lot better than y’all do, Miranda’s been keepin’ everyone’s minds guarded from your abilities the minute we walked in here.”

“Telepath.” Mike sneered, “But even you were blind to me.”

“I won’t make that mistake twice,” Miranda replied coolly, her eyes fixing on Michael. “Amazing,” Miranda muttered, a hand rising to her temple as her voice quivered slightly. “Someone taught you how to resist me,”

“Looks like he’s plugged in,” Jim stated, turning Michael around to show the others, “I’ll get the techs to take a look at it, see if they can’t use this uplink to end the entire simulation.”

Putting Michael down on the ground, Jim moved his hand to his belt looking for the restraints he had brought from the crashed Manticore.

“Long Live Hyperion.” Micheal suddenly shouted, breaking free from Jim before throwing his robe open to reveal a bomb strapped to his chest.

“Jim!” Miranda cried as Torres quickly pushed her and Jessica out of the way before reaching for the Chancellor. In the chaos, no one noticed Tad tackle Michael to the ground. The pair of men sliding along the catwalk while Jim was pulled into the air.

And then, the bomb went off.

[Rockette]

_{Location: Southern Plateau - Pacific Royal Campus}

Hope In Hell #2.0049: the offering.

^{_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}

_{Interaction(s): &&}

Previously: a name unspoken.

She fell through smoke and ruin and blood and ash- her skin was marked in it, her veins were tainted through it, and her heart wailed and her soul splintered; tiny fragments of red and black that shattered; pieces of a conceptual design beholden to immortal intricacies. In vain did she try to fight, talons sunk deep into her flesh, purchased as vices, and through every weakening pulse of her heart she felt every lance, cut, gash, and sliver of pain on her body. She counted each of them once and then twice over, she relished in every mark that would awaken as a new scar, the fire that pulsed and throbbed as a symphony of life therein, for as she tumbled through Hell, Amma knew she was still alive. She marked this agony as the epicenter of her forsaken reality, the dregs of self and reasoning forever lost and nevermore, the threaded fate of a name unspoken that bloomed red and threaded to the quivering hand that held fast and true. To the hand that broke through the dark and asked her name, to the hand that fell before her and asked to take a walk, to the hand that yearned to show her what fun was, to the hand that clutched at her throat and speared nails against the name that burns away at her flesh. Slithering through each vein, every pore, every pump, and gasp of breath as heated lines of vermillion simmer away at her throat --

An 'I' slowly crawls there.

And she screams.

With a crash, she fell, finally, thrown against a wall already defiled by blood and quaking fissures of hate and denial. A gurney lay toppled over, erosion and rot pulled away at the metal bars, manacles lain open, vials strewn, and a single bulb of fluorescent light flickering in tandem to her sluggish heart. Her body quakes and trembles, muscles locked tight in fatigue, her flesh screaming furiously in protest as she struggles to stand. She falls once, arms giving out first. She falls once again, her legs refusing to obey. And then she falls a third time, a slick pool of red and black that is liken to cement that keeps her in place as Amma finally manages to sit upright.

And then wishes that she hadn't moved at all.

She was back in the first room she had entered, where that mask had slipped free of its bindings for just a moment to expose the raw denial of what she had endured. Here, the walls were lain with death, lines of red and silver, and oozing shadows of black that carved through the confinements of this once pristine hell. They formed letters and words, they formed sentences of her whispered confessions, they formed demented illustrations of a child and the cruel monarch of the christened beast within. They formed each name she commanded, each name that bore with it an incredible weight in each utterance, the letters cruelly weeping red as she too spared tears for the prices she had to pay.

Amma Cahors has not shed a tear in years, has not known to weep or cry, and has not been known to succumb to the woes of time and circumstance. Loneliness did not bedevil her life in shades of gray. She never cared, she didn't care. She bared her teeth and glared with all the furious defiance of a feral creature trapped and pinned to the corner and though her power was spent and raw and left her entire being aching, small, pulsating arcs of energy still bloomed and rose. The world would always tremble at her feet, the world would hold its breath just for her if she so commanded it even if she was to destroy it. She would end it. Amma could end it all. It was her role. Her purpose. Her intention.

The hospital bed beckoned as a reminder of the currency demanded, the power she had sought, and the power she had gained.

The walls shudder and tremble as she slowly pushes up, using the one at her back to hoist herself to her feet despite the agony that pulsates from her broken bones. Small victories lost to the hopeless situation lain before her as a door peeled open upon the familiar faces of The Foundation looming there, those that knew the secrets lost to the depths of the ocean, the screams and cries of many silenced, and the purring words of redemption. Too many faces and too many hands, and she glances down, expression stricken in silent fear as she recognizes the tools, the chains, that demented collar that fit so elegantly around her darling throat.

It is time to come home, Tiamat.

Amma roars and she screams, and she fights. She refuses to allow them victory even as she is beaten down, sliding through her blood -- is it hers, anymore? So much shed for naught -- and she just laughs. Every fist that connects with her jaw, her cheek, every grabbling hand curled inward as fiendish claws, the boots that connect with her stomach, ribs, and chest over and over and over again.

Over and over.
How much more is she to break, how much more is she to endure?
They conditioned her for this agony, she knew it as an eternal lover, a specter, a reasoning of self.
A hand wove through the mass of her hair and pulled, needles of pain through her scalp as she simply continued to laugh.

Remember the last promise you made.
The wish wasted away into the night.
Remember the life you spared.
Remember what happened then -

the punishment. The pain.

Remember the rewards given.
The lives you took.
The lives you take.

Amma wheezes through the agony and terror, her laughter spiraling high, every trill as demented as the first as she summons with a wounded cry:

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

They lift her up and over, they secure those manacles around her wrists and ankles, they tear her augmented suit at her sleeves, surgical equipment harsh and cruel against the profiles inked into her skin, they cross scalpels over the alluring moths and snakes there, the skulls turned inward in fear of reproach as they bind Amma down further with cuffs secured over her arms and thighs. She bares fang and claws and snaps out with her teeth, lashes peeled wide and wild in abandon as dread makes itself known unto that beautiful face defiled with blood.

As she did then, she does so now, Amma begs and pleads for an end, as above and so below, her life suspended within and without. In exchange for the two lives she spared, even if it had been for naught, hopeless they were lost in this hell with no end in sight.

Forgive me, dove. They said you had to go; they said they could help you!

The voice of her mother, the haunting emote of Charlotte Cahors as she gave her over to them.
A letter - a letter with her name.

The world is never fair for the different, for the misunderstood. For simply being not-as-we-should.

Amma screams:
"I am Amma Fien Cahors,
"I am Tiamat
"I am Ammar --"

Leather is unceremoniously shoved bewtixt her teeth and she bites down, her brows sundered low over the glare of her eyes that froth and churn as the sea, the void within risen high on a cry of subjugation. The demand for penance and pain burns eternally blue in her eyes, a sickly cyan color that blazes like the hottest of flame known to man. And struggle as she might, bound and gagged, they also fixated that Inhibitor around her throat, tight enough to choke the cries smothered behind the barrier gnashed upon her full lips.

Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me.
The world is never fair.

But no matter what, this world will never accept you. They won't forget. They haven't forgotten. I doubt they will ever forgive.

Amma's entire soul, though shattered and broken, stills and quiets as they begin their preparations. It is not unlike their intentions for when Haven was bound, but in place of gleaming bone saws and cages of hell, here they procured a row of vials - one after another, each capped in dried blood, each rusted shell boiling with that hated phosphorescent liquid that glowed - the same color as her eyes. Though she is silenced, there is no muffling the wailing cry of a beast that shatters through the room, the halls, and likely the very confines of the entire simulation. It is a bellow of defiance, fear, pain, and anger, it is the shattering howl of something lost, something a little girl gave herself over to without knowing what it meant. They hold her down, they each hoist those needles on high, and then they fall --

She only ever wanted to go home.

The thousandth upon a thousand injections come when she is twenty-three years old- too many to count, too many to place.

[Skai]

Haven was just past the age of twelve when virumosis took effect. Everything suddenly became so loud, so clear, and so bright and colorful. She could go longer without breathing. The heat of summer in a building with no A/C and the freezing temperatures of winter did not bother her any longer. She hungered for more food than the girl's home could provide.

Most importantly, the growing pains that affected her arms and legs moved into the center of her back. It made sleeping uncomfortable, chores even more taxing, and even something as simple as sitting in a chair a sore area. These difficulties would follow her for the rest of her life.

Just when Haven had grown used to these heightened senses, and grown comfortable with the growing pains, she felt them. Small pricks of pain similar to a splinter in her skin at the center of her back. As if her body was expelling something foreign and sharp. When she reached behind her to touch the area, she felt a grid of small pins growing between her shoulder blades.

She didn't go to anyone for help. Part of her knew that she was different now. Changed into something natural, and yet unwelcome in any place where prejudice lived. Her friend's chest was growing, and it was on her back where something sprouted instead.

She snuck into the bathroom in the middle of the night one day and stood facing away from the mirror. With a small handheld she snatched from a supervisor, she inspected her bare back in the dim light from the window. What she saw set her heart racing. She ran her fingers over the changed skin, finding that the small pins had loosened and become soft. Downy feathers sat where her skin had once been smooth and unblemished. Their color a mottled shade of brown. Wide eyes stared into the handheld mirror all night as delicate fingers ran themselves over the growths, wondering what further change was to come with this new development on her body.

The growing pains worsened. The downy feathers continued to grow, and two small bundles of bone and flesh stretched her skin where the patch of feathers remained. They took a triangular shape, and soon she could feel them moving with the muscles in her back. The night she realized she was growing wings was a night she'd never forget.

Haven stole a bundle of gauze from the sparse nurse room and wrapped them down. It made her chest even flatter, bringing about bullying from the girls who had become something beautiful, and hardly hid the bump on her back. She wore loose shirts and the only jacket she possessed to hide it further. The home didn't have much to offer, but the girls who dreamed of joining wealthy families only saw it as another opportunity to bully her.

Eventually, Haven allowed her only friend to see her growing wings. She'd never forget the fear she felt in sharing them either. If she lost her one connection to the girls home because she was different, she was sure that she would fade into the bleak paint on the walls and remain there forever.

Yet her friend was kind and sympathetic. She embraced Haven's new body. She helped loosen pin feathers as more began to sprout. She learned what she could from their limited library access, helping Haven learn how to wash and care for them.

She offered soothing words when Haven shared her fear of what was to come when the wings were bigger. She stood up for Haven when the girls were too harsh about the small girl's flat chest, even when she herself had become the most beautiful of them all. She was the first person that Haven could truly call home.

Yet as time passed, for all of Haven's attempts to keep them hidden, the gauze could no longer hide them. They were the size of a small raven's wingspan when the first girl noticed their tips peeking out of the bottom of her t-shirt one night.

Haven's found sister couldn't keep their curiosity away from her. She couldn't fight them off, either. They overwhelmed the winged girl. They tore her shirt from her back, and then the gauze. They were disgusted with her. They hurt her with their words, and then they hurt her with their hands. It went on for days until the supervisor found them. The supervisor did nothing for her. Their own disdain was clear in their sneers and the blind eye they turned to her pain.

Haven bore their disgust, their fear, their anger, and she in turn felt it too. It gathered in the small of her back and in the pit of her stomach. It gave her the courage to leave the girls home. It gave her the spirit to brave the world on her own. It gave her the will to try her wings for the first time. It gave her the strength to get back up again and again when she crashed. She took their hatred and she turned it into the love she feels for herself and her wings.

No one would steal that away from her. No one would touch her wings again. She became as free as the wind, and she remained there. Suspended in the air and untouchable by anyone or anything.

Until she was caught by an angel hunter.

Then sent to a facility for people also changed by a virus, and sent again to a place where she would find another family. Where she would find that they loved her for all of her differences and for all of the soul she would allow them to see.

---

_{Location: Southern Plateau - PRCU}

Hope in Hell #2.050: Wake Me Up Before You Dodo

---

_{Interaction(s): The janitor controlled the simulation, apparently?}

Previously: I Wanna Hold Your Hand

Haven had taken one step forwards into the forked hallway, and suddenly found herself alone. As if her fingers had slipped from between her autumn haired friend's without the slightest sensation of doing so. Panic immediately bubbled up her throat, choking her so that she couldn't call out for her friend. She was alone again. Vulnerable. Somehow, her surroundings didn't instantly ignite her fear. Instead, it left her shell-shocked and wistful. She no longer stood in the pure white hallways of the Foundation. Instead, she found herself frozen in a place she hadn't dreamed of in months.

The room was small. It's walls a discolored white, covered in shelves upon shelves of bottles leaking goo, plastic bowls, and tools she had never been able to name at that age. The floor was dingy; clean, yet worn and old from years of use. It's once speckled pattern lost to time in a few patches. A small table sat in the corner, only two chairs set beside it. On top of it sat a bent and torn drawing book, open to the page of a simple, poorly half-coloured dove. Broken crayons strewn about the table beside it. A small, well-used sippy cup of water was on it's side at the center of the table. Next to a plastic cup with a yellow dandelion inside. A free floral ornament to pretty the place up.

Cigarette smoke drifted in through the cracks of the door to Haven's left, followed by the muffled laughter of women from the room beyond. Haven took a step towards it, one particular lilting voice catching onto her mind and pulling, but felt something crunch beneath her foot. She looked down as she lifted her foot to see a toy, broken from the impact. It had once been one of her favorites.

The chatter from the salon lifted again, drawing Haven's attention back to that voice that had faded from her memory. She couldn't remember exactly how it sounded. It could have been a supplement made by the simulation, to imitate the sound of a mother's voice so that she would feel beckoned by it. Even in her dreams she thought that the voice she heard sounded too soft, or too different in pitch. It didn't matter much.

What Haven wondered now, even as she feared the simulation was toying with her heart again, was if the technology was good enough to dig deep into her memories. To find a clear image of a mother she'd buried within her heart, long lost to the stores in her mind. If she could just see it once, she wouldn't forget it again.

She stepped over the toys scattered about the floor, careful not to break any more, ignorant of the complications of allowing the simulation to win the upper hand. She took the wood door knob into her hand, trying not to let how small it felt in her hand now affect her, and pulled it open. One glimpse was all she needed.

The door swung open, and Haven found herself looking into a new scene from her dreams. Another place she'd found herself as a child, where her mother would take her when the harsh winter made sleeping in a car unbearable. She stepped onto old carpet, and her eyes scanned the tacky motel room for any signs of her mother. She found nothing but empty McDonald's wrapping paper on the nightstand and clothes strewn about the floor.

Haven took a deep breath. An attempt to maintain her composure as disappointment washed over her. Her torn ribs protested against the movement. She winced as the pain rocketed up her side. The motel bed was looking about as comfortable as she remembered it feeling. As much as she yearned to curl up within it's old bed linen again, she forced herself to remember where she was and what fresh hell might be waiting for her through the next door.

She needed to push on.

Haven made it a few steps into the room before the door she'd left behind began to shake against it's hinges. A terrifying knock sounding on the other side. Her heart leapt in her chest, that knock jolting a memory to the front of her mind. She looked towards the TV next to her and found the same re-run of her favorite public broadcasting cartoon playing. It was a memory of the day she'd been taken away.

The pounding at the door was protective services, come to take her away. Except now, maybe this time it was the masked men. Come to finish her off while her mind was in the past. She moved quicker now, her steps faltering with each bang against the motel door. She reached for the handle to the bathroom. The place she'd hidden away from her mom's overnight guests, the place where she'd taken refuge when she was alone and scared at night, and the place she was hopeful to find safety in now.

She gripped the metal handle and pulled, ushering herself through it with relief when she saw the familiar bathtub sitting before her. She closed the door behind her and locked it. She could hear the rustling of keys outside the motel door. It was the clerk, come to aid her kidnappers because of his civic duty to the law. She backed away from the door, and when her calves felt the cold plastic of the tub against them she stepped into the tub.

The motel door was open now, and she heard their feet against the carpet. Haven lowered herself into a crouch despite the pain in her thigh and side. She hugged her knees to her chest. The blood on her knee felt cold now. How long had she been bleeding? How much longer would she last before she fainted from the loss?

The footsteps were at the door now. Haven shut her eyes as the handle jiggled. A demand to open up came through the plywood. She hugged her knees tightly as her body began to tremble. "Not real."

The door handle jiggled again, threatening to rip the door apart as it grew more violent. It grew louder and louder in a crescendo of fear until the door burst open with a sudden crack and...

There was silence.

"Not real." Haven whispered again, as if the mantra was what had stopped the noise outside her safe space. It did not provide her any relief; it filled her with dread. Was this when the woman would begin to wail again? Would the simulation throw her back into that cage, and eventually back onto that table? Perhaps it was some twisted loop in which she would end up in the place of that winged woman, like she'd seen minutes ago.

She heard a door open to her right. The cage door. She didn't move from her position this time.

"There you are." A gentle voice, belonging to someone she had once called a sister, sounded next to her.

Slowly, Haven looked up at the figure with bleary eyes. She blinked away the tears that formed as she laid eyes upon her old friend. She looked the same as the day Haven left her.

"I... I'm sorry I wasn't there to help you." Her voice was soft and sorrowful as she sat on the bed Haven now found herself on. It sat at the end of a row, in the darkest corner of the girls home's dormitory. Haven sat facing the open room with her wings to the wall.

"Look at what they did to your wings." She said as she reached a hand out to caress the tawny feathers.

Haven shuddered at the touch, but she did not pull away. It had been so long since someone touched them this lovingly... so long since her sister had helped her with the pain of her existence. A sigh escaped her lips. "I wish you were real." She murmured, her voice tinged with sorrow and regret. "I'm sorry I left you."

Her words had barely left her lips before she felt a sharp tug against a primary feather. A bolt of lightning traveled up the length of her wing and buried itself deep in her back. The betrayal stung her right in her heart. She cried out in her anguish.

"Oh, come on. You didn't leave me anything to remember you by." Her sister chided, all sympathy and love gone from her voice. Haven pushed herself off of the bed, the entire right side of her body burning as she did so. She whirled around to face her sister, who now stood twirling her long consolation prize between her fingers.

"They're really going to kill you, this time."

Haven's heart twisted with fear as fresh tears escaped down her cheeks. She turned away from her betraying sister to face the open door at the end of the dormitory. Where she expected to hear black loafers on aged wooden flooring, she instead heard the snickers and leers that already haunted her nightmares.

"Haaaveeen."

"Ugly Duckling, where are youuu?"

"Show yourself, freak!"

"No... Not them." Her hands clenched at her sides, nails pressing into her skin. She couldn't stop shaking. Even her voice shook when she begged once more. "Anyone but them."

"Just accept it, Haven." Her found sisters voice lilted from behind her. "They should have gotten it over with a long time ago."

Haven suddenly felt a kick to her back where her wings met at the bundle of feathers. The breath was knocked from her chest and she fell forwards, catching herself with her knees and wrists. She felt lightning crack within her side again. The pain overwhelmed her with nausea. The footsteps from the hallway poured into the room, followed by taunting sneers and promises of pain. She wheezed from where she crawled towards a bed, desperate to get herself back onto her feet. She wanted to take them on standing. She wouldn't go down without a fight.

"There's the Ugly Duckling." The tallest girl spit at her before Haven felt a foot connect with her shredded thigh. Blood dripped onto the floor in the path of the girl's shoe as it returned to her side. Haven faltered against the side of the bed, choking back a whimper. "Little freak." The next kick came to her ribs, and Haven screeched. She released the bed to slide to the floor, reaching to clutch her side. A warm and wet sensation met her palms and fingers.

Two girls grabbed her, one arm in each set of hands. Haven struggled against them as they drug her to the center of the group that had gathered, faces she recognized from her dreams scowling at her. Masks covered the faces she couldn't remember. The tallest girl stepped up behind Haven and suddenly another sharp tug had a second feather torn loose. Haven screamed, her grief not only for her pain but for her beautiful wings. The girls released her, letting her crash onto those worn wooden floors. She hardly had a moment to breathe before the rest of the girls began their torment. The top girls always took the first bites before the rest could get their piece.

They placed their anger, their frustration with the world, and their disgust onto the poor, winged girl. The freak. The ugly duckling. The hypie. Haven took each blow, absorbing it all once again like she had those many years ago. The pain had her seeing stars with each rattle of her skull. The anguish had her seeing red. She couldn't let them kill her. Not this group of fucked up girls. Not her first tormentors. They couldn't win. Whoever was really doing this to her could not win. Haven didn't want to lose this easily.

Amidst the beating, Haven turned herself onto her stomach. She placed her hands by her head, and once she felt a lull in the pain, she shoved herself up-- only to fall again as her right leg failed her. The group around her erupted in laughter, their young and hateful voices filling the dormitory and overwhelming Haven's ears. She felt fingers splay through her hair and grip it tightly. The hand lifted her head up and back, and as she looked up at her aggressor, she was shocked to see a pair of gold and green eyes looking back at her.

"Don't you think this is a little pathetic?"

Haven's brows furrowed, her bloodied lip breaking away from her top to take a breath now that she had a moment to recover. Her eyes scanned the tanned face, the small nose, and the full cheeks framed by golden brown hair that looked down at her. She thought that she'd already seen her other self, so... who was this?

"I know you have more left in you. So get up. Are you really going to let these little girls win?"

She could hear the girls stepping back from her now. An opportunity to let her stand. The hand in her hair loosened as her other leaned back on her heels. It was obvious that the simulation was toying with her now. Haven hung her head and took a breath through her nose. She tasted the metallic tang of blood on her split lip. Every place the girls bruised her ached, filling her with that same pain and anger as it had long ago. She took that anguish and once again put it in her muscles.

Haven once again laid her palms flat beside her head, and slowly began to push herself off of the floor. The efforts had her shaking as she propped herself up on her knees, hissing through her teeth as she put weight on her right side. Blood dripped onto the floor and Haven ignored it's warning. She ignored the hateful eyes that bore down upon her as she fought to stand. The green and gold set watched her with no sympathy within them. Yet the moment Haven found herself standing on her feet, swaying as she tried to gain her balance, those eyes lit up as her other smiled.

"Atta girl. Now, run!" She exclaimed, bolting to her feet as she ran towards the door at the end of the room. She was fast and nimble, and her feet didn't make a sound on the creaky flooring. Nor did the larger, tawny wings that graced her back leave any trail of wind behind her.

Haven put all of her strength into her legs as she took off after her. Her battered body aching with each movement. She stumbled, nearly catching against an outstretched foot from the tallest girl as she passed. Hateful cries erupted from behind her as they began to chase. Haven didn't look back at them, eyes fixed on the door that would provide her escape from this horrible room where she'd been subject to their youthful hate. Desperation evident in her features as the girls followed her with vicious intent, her heartbeat racing once again. She reached the doorway and hastily pushed herself through it.

Wooden floors abruptly eroded into dark soil and detritus where Haven placed her foot next. Tall trees loomed around her, their lichen covered bark dark against the lush browns and greens of the forest. She recognized these trees and the path that lead through them. Her feet did not falter as she continued running. Her eyes searched the tree line for her other, and for the cabin she knew awaited at the end of the path.

A loud pop of power erupted in the forest to her right. Her stray hairs catching in the wind from the object that whizzed by her head. Just as she registered what that noise meant, the bark of the tree to her left erupted, splintering into chunks that flung themselves at her face. Haven ducked as her steps faltered, wincing against the thick splinters of wood that pelted her.

"Found you, little bird!" A gruff, commanding voice sounded from where the crack originated. The clicks of a shotgun reloading carried through the quiet woods in its wake.

The words set Haven's feet into motion again. She knew who that voice belonged to. She knew that if he caught her this time, he wouldn't allow her to live. Her feet dug into the forest floor as she ran, a trail of blood left among the leaves and dirt. Her lungs burned as she gasped for air.

"Aren't you tired of runnin'?" He called before another boom shook the forest. This time Haven felt the shot zip by her left leg, the pellets embedding themselves into the earth with small thunks.

She pressed onwards despite the heart ache that his words caused her. As desperately as she wanted to live, to escape this trial and it's horrors, she was tired of running. She'd been running her whole life. Even as a child, she was running from her mother's past. As a teenager, she ran from whatever system wanted to control her life. She was running from the fear of being different. She was running from whoever would claim her as a hyperhuman. Her time at PRCU seemed like a small period in which she'd stayed in one place. Yet even now as things were changing, Haven felt the urge to run from it. The instinctual need to place some distance between her soul and anything that challenged it. Whether that challenge came from a new person of power that threatened her safety, or from the growing love she had for her teammates. One particular teammate came to mind, and Haven felt tears blurring her vision.

Then between the treeline just ahead, there it stood. A beacon of hope made of wood and glass revealed itself at the end of the path. She was no longer running from her fears. Now she was running towards her hope. She blinked those tears back and dug her heels into the dirt. She heard the gun reloading again and knew it was only a matter of time before his aim fired true. She had to make it back for her team. For Rory. She had to tell him that she didn't want to run anymore. That she would unpack that bag and throw it out. Even if the Foundation, anything, threatened her happiness, she wanted to stay and fight for it.

She reached the steps of the porch and nearly tripped on them in her haste.

"I've got you, little bird." The voice sounded from the edge of the tree line. She heard the gun cock, and the whoosh of his breath as he leveled the barrel at her.

Haven grasped the knob and pulled, hurling herself through the door just as she heard him fire. The pellets imbedded themselves in the door where her head would have been seconds ago. She shoved off of the porch and into the darkness inside the cabin, and found herself falling.

The darkness transformed into branches covered in green. Light filtered through them from a source above. They scratched at her skin and tugged at her hair and feathers. She reached out around her, trying to catch onto one of them to stop her fall, but her hands continued to slip and tear where she couldn't find purchase. She cried out as she tumbled through the canopy. She fell through empty space until she landed on the soft dirt of the forest floor with a thud.

Haven laid still for a moment until her body twitched. She wheezed as her head tried to wrap itself around what happened. She hadn't fallen far. If she had, she knew that she would have felt the crack of bones breaking upon impact. Where she laid the new forest, rich with dark green pine and large, old trees spun around her. Two sets of legs, arms, golden brown heads, and large tawny wings melded together into one form as her other flew in from between the cedars and firs before her other silently landed beside her. The forest stopped spinning just as Haven looked up to see her disappointed gaze.

"You could have been so much more than this, you know." Her other spoke, but the words didn't make any sense. "If you had only chosen a different path four years ago, you would be as powerful as this."

Her other extended her wings behind her, showing off the grand size of them. They had to be at least two feet longer in diameter than her own. "He could have showed them more love than our human sister ever had. He could have blessed you, and you would have become the strongest in his cause."

"Well, besides Katja." She shrugged as she allowed her wings to fold again behind her.

Haven's brows knitted together as she closed her eyes, trying to process what her other was telling her. She shifted her body on the dirt, knowing that she had to get up again but unable to muster the strength to do so. She already knew who her other meant by he, and yet she wanted to deny it.

"If only you had let him in, in that meeting long ago. He would have offered you more comfort than Pacific Royal or Blackjack ever has. He could have been the father you never had."

Haven grit her teeth and spat hoarse words into the dirt. "Hyperion could never be like a father. He hurt the innocent. He deserved the fate that came to him."

Her other's face contorted with fury. She stepped forwards to press her foot against Haven's bloody side. "You cling to the hope that the world will accept you, and you are blinded by it. Even some of your own kind, those that dirty his name in search of their own cause, think of you as weak. Hyperion would have never called you a sub-class."

Haven could only respond with a whine as the boot pressed further into her. She grasped her other's ankle, nails digging into the cotton that separated keratin from flesh. The pressure only increased, and Haven allowed it to roll her onto her back only to rid herself of the pain. She panted where she laid, each breath eliciting agony from her side.

"The Foundation will clip your wings, and you will wish that you had placed your hope in his cause." Her other placed each foot on other side of Haven, looking down at her with an expression similar to pity. Haven looked up at her with what little defiance she had left. That fire within her feeling more like burning embers now. "But it's too late, now."

Her other bent down to her knees, straddling Haven's waist. She was careful not to kneel on Haven's wings where they laid. Even in the simulation, her other respected the preciousness of their existence. "The Foundation is here, and I don't think I can let them have you."

Haven recognized the threat hidden beneath her other's words. She knitted her brows together, baring her teeth as she tried to look like a force to be reckoned with. "They won't take me. I won't let them. My team won't let them." She lifted her arms and reached for her other, hoping to push her off of her.

"Your team? You precious Blackjack? They spat in his face." Her other said as she grabbed her by the wrists. The two wrestled with their arms as Haven struggled to free herself. "They deserve the fate that is coming to them now. They're going to die, and the Foundation will claim that it was in Hyperion's name. Even though one among you joined his cause."

Haven continued to struggle beneath her, and yet her other's words hit her right in the chest. "That's not true. This isn't real. You just want me to fear it."

Her other shoved Haven's arms to her side and released them, but just as quickly she placed her hands on Haven's throat. Haven uttered an angry cry, and her own hands grabbed onto the fingers that threatened to squeeze the life out of her. The fear of death overwhelmed her, sending adrenaline rushing into her arms and fingertips. Her heart beat faster, and she felt strength returning as she began to pry those hands away.

"This is real, little bird. This is a message to Pacific Royal, to your precious Blackjack. And if you won't die for the cause, whether it’s on that table or by my hands, I will make sure your soul doesn't leave this trial."

Haven gasped for air as those hands released her throat, her own hands moving too slowly to catch her other's wrists as they extended past her chin. They moved towards her crown, where they grabbed onto the neural uplink on her temples. Haven's eyes widened, terror evident on her face, as she realized what her other was going to do.

"Goodbye, Haven." Her other whispered before she tore the uplinks from her skin, and disconnected the winged girl from the simulation.

---

[Lord Wraith]

The sound of a distant explosion rocked the Southern Plateau as the techs left overseeing the trial continued to fight against the Harbinger’s hijack.

“The corrupted code just went offline.” The tense silence of the Trial control room broke as the tech's excited exclamation echoed through the office. Over the last two hours, they had been working with no avail to push the corrupted code out of the system, having tried everything short of cutting the power out of fear of putting those inside into a catatonic state.

“Console is going green, we have control again.”

“Power it down, medical is standing by,” A member of the faculty ordered. They had seen what Blackjack had been subjected to. Every scenario, situation and interaction had been displayed in the control room for the techs to witness. Each of them would be subject to a debriefing following today. The student body on the other hand had been ordered back to campus the minute the Trial had been hijacked. The school couldn’t risk anyone else becoming hurt or trapped, let alone traumatized by witnessing what Blackjack had gone through.

“We won’t know what injuries were real and what was the work of the simulation until we get in there, bring full trauma kits and be prepared for emergency transportation.”

^{________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}

_{Location: H.E.L.P.'s Black Site - Zayas Island, Pacific Ocean}

Hope In Hell #2.051: High Hopes

^{_{____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}}

_{Interaction(s): None}

Previously: Tick Tick Boom

A faint violet glow illuminated the area above Teresa Torres as she strained her mind and body using her abilities to push against the collapsing roof. Beside her, Jim was at his breaking point, using his abilities to shield not only their allies but the nearby Orcinus students who had surrendered.

“My phone,” Grunted Torres looking toward both Jess and Miranda, “Press… the… button…” She motioned with her chin towards the dropped device as Miranda scooped it up. Outside the shield, flame and rubble consumed the Black Site, the prison had been wired to go with the Harbinger and Miranda was silently cursing herself for not catching it. She had been a hostage negotiator for H.E.L.P., she should have been able to profile Michael and realize he wasn’t walking out of this room alive.

Jessica on the other hand was nearly catatonic, her eyes unmoving from where Tad had tackled Michael. There was still hope that Tad could make it out alive, but it wasn’t something Miranda could allow herself to dwell on in the moment. Scooping the device up from the floor, Miranda pressed the button illuminated on the screen.

“Now what?” Miranda asked, looking from Torres to Jim.

“We hope.” Came the strained reply.

“Well, this sure is a pickle.” Interjected a foreign voice as Miranda turned to see a tanned olive-skinned man twitching his prominent handlebar moustache before chomping down on an unlit cigar. He flicked out a lighter, pressing it to the end of the cigar before a much larger man plucked it out of his mouth and extinguished it on the back of his hand.

“Alveraz,”

“Yeah, yeah, chief, don’t get your spandex in a knot,” Daytripper replied to Hyperman who immediately went to work placing his strength against the collapsing roof. Both Jim and Torres exhaled in relief as some of the strain was immediately taken off their shoulders.

“Guess I’ll be ‘porting you lot out of here,” The teleporter winked, wrapping a hand around Miranda’s waist and the other arm around Jess’ shoulders. “It is a real pleasure to meet you.” He winked before the three disappeared and the Daytripper reappeared, grabbing two Orcinus students before vanishing again. In a matter of moments, the Foundation Force member had cleared everyone except for his colleague, Jim, and Torres.

“Alright you three, together,” Daytripper ordered only for Jim to shake his head.

“Take them, I need to find Thaddeus.”

“I can’t let you do that, Sir,” Hyperman interjected before Torres held up a hand.

“Hank, I’ve got this,” She interjected, “Jim, you won’t be able to survive the weight,”

“I have to try.”

Torres grabbed Jim by the shoulder, before giving him a quick squeeze and releasing.

“Do what you have to do, but I’m enjoying our rivalry, so don’t die yet, cowboy.” She reached out her phone. “When you find him, hit the button and Alveraz will get you out of here,” Torres added before turning back to the two Foundation Force members.

“Get me out of here.”

“Ma’am, yes, ma’am.” Daytripper saluted and disappeared with Hyperman and Torres. The weight of the rubble above immediately shifted as Jim tried to keep his shield around himself. He gritted his teeth and bared the weight, moving quickly to get out from under the bulk of the falling debris.

He only hoped Tad was alive under all this concrete and steel.

[Hound55]

Calliope strode forward, looking for any indication the others were nearby. If she got through her room, surely Banjo and Gil did too. Though if it was anything like hers, the torment and trauma was nothing to sneer at.

Her footsteps echoed along the walls until she heard a voice and....was that a click of a gun?

It happened in a blur. The fear, the panic, the confusion. She knew it had to be an illusion. Another figment courtesy of whoever locked them in here. That didn't make it any less real. Or less painful as a moment of relief was soon shattered like glass as the gun went off.

---

Calliope felt pain, unlike anything she had experienced before. The sides of her vision darkened as she looked around. She did everything in her power not to look at her leg, knowing if she did it would unnerve her more. Butler's words still danced around in her mind. Again, the simulations knew what to say to dig into her fears and worries.

"G'day love. Seems you found yourself in a pickle."

The voice came from beyond her scope but she recognized the accent. She wanted to cry out, both from fear and hope. He had found her like she knew he would. She heard his footfalls get closer and closer until she could see the shadow form. She looked and saw....well...it was Banjo all right.

But not her's.

The Banjo she knew was not this put-together. She often joked how he would roll out of bed and just tackle the day, but it was true more often than not. She had to be the one to beg him to wear actual decent clothes when going out. This Banjo was well-dressed in a dark blazer and colored button-down shirt that accentuated his frame. Tailored slacks fell upon loafers that Banjo would never be caught dead in.

Much like how Frigid and the other Katja came into the scene before, this had to be Banjo's twin.

"Got you good in here, didn't they? Say the word, love, and I'll whisk you away from here."

"B-Banjo?" she asked through labored breath.

He chuckled and shook his head. "Always hated that nickname. It's Andrew, love. You can admit it, you hate the name too."

Calliope tried to move to see better but she felt her arm buckle a bit, knowing if she tried further she would just hurt herself more. Banjo, or Andrew supposedly, stepped around, kneeling down to face her. "I don't know what you see in us, darling. You have to know the messed up stuff we went through. Your's is a cakewalk compared to ours. Let's call it what it is: princess slummin' it to stick it to daddy. Am I right?" His question was punctuated with a grin.

Calli clenched her fist. Andrew seemed to pick up on it. "Hit a nerve, did I? You're too good for him and you both know it. There's no effort there. If I had you to myself I would scream it to the world. When is it Calli's time to get her flowers?"

Calli took some deep breaths, feeling angry and scared in equal measure. "I..don't need...to be in..the spotlight...content...with where I am.."

Andrew tsk'd her. "We both know that's not true. Sure, you tell everyone within radius you're fine when we all know you need that pedestal. How else are you going to be saved if no one can even reach you?"

Calliope closed her eyes, willing Andrew to go away. She needed to think, to figure out how to save herself before she bled out.

"One day you will realize the toxic nature you both perpetuate being in proximity of each other. I only wish you figure it out before the damage is permanent. See you around, love." With a flick of his hand he turned and walked back down the corridor. Calli wanted to call out. Even he wouldn't just leave her here.

She reached out into the inky blackness that remained. Someone had to find her. To...help her.

Someone. Anyone.

---

^{________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}

_{Location: The Southern Plateau, Dundas Islands, Pacific Ocean - Present}

Welcome Home #2.052: Black The Sun

^{_{____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________}}

_{Interaction(s): Calliope - @PatientBean}

Previously: Horror Movie

Breathe.

"Dead... She's dead..."

Shut up. Sack up. Breathe.

Banjo stopped stammering and shaking and concentrated on breathing.

Breathe first. Then think. Then move.

He straightened up in the duct, and got his bearings. Looking behind him was a walled up section, which made it an easy decision as to what way to go.

This place is all augmented reality. Maybe she's not even dead. Maybe it's bullshit. But everyone IS in trouble. So you've got to move. But everything in order. Breathe. Think. Move.

After a few more deep breaths he started to crawl onwards through the ducting. It bent hard to the right up ahead and he paced himself, nervous of the sound he made as he progressed, and unsure how vulnerable that noise made him.

Rounding the corner he came to a section of ducting that was filled with small pinholes of light on all sides, and the far end of the ducting showed light at the end of the tunnel.

Buoyed with optimism for a possible way out he crawled faster, until a voice echoed in his ears.

"G'day."

"All good, champ. I've got it figured from here."

"Not why I'm here..." The disembodied voice of Mamili's uncle called back. Darker in tone this time. Banjo sensed the shift. "And did you just 'champ' me..?" The dark voice ominously asked.

"Aww Hell..." Banjo muttered, realising his error from the breached social taboo from back home.

Suddenly the pin prick lights started to swirl and change shape, colours and forms burst from the black walls like the canvas of the night's sky.

"Want another tale, white boy? More of our culture to misapprorpriate? Wasn't enough your ancestors slaughtered and enslaved us in bunches... stole our children..."

"God damn it! I called this! The real one's thousands of miles away! And this isn't even close to what he was like!" Banjo tried to grab hold of the sides of the duct to steady himself as the lightshow swirled and disorientated him.

"In the beginning there was the Rainbow Serpent..." Swirls of lights combined to form a multi-coloured snake, which coiled and sprang at Banjo through the darkness. He ducked beneath the snake with a clatter as he sprawled onto the floor of the metal tube. His breathing and his heart rate spiked.

He glanced behind him and could see the snake wasn't done with him. Somehow, despite being born from the lights that surrounded him it had gained physical form, and an ability to exist beyond just that flat plane.

It reared up and hissed aggressively, rainbow coloured coils of pinks, oranges, greens and yellows finding purchase upon themselves.

"Shit... Again." He slid to the right as it struck out with another lunge again. Once more only finding air before landing with another thump on the metal. But how long would that be the case while his movements were limited in this enclosed tube?

"A supposed snake out of myth and legend... what're the odds whoever's runnin' this picked a venomous one to play your part?"

The snake hissed, and turned back on itself again.

"Yeah, that's what I thought. Don't suppose you'd like to go find y'rself some kind of rat or other vermin in around these ducts, eh?"

It once again arched itself up on it's coils and held a menacing demeanour, ready to strike.

"I take it ya mean you like the look of the vermin ya picked already, eh? Well... shit."

It lunged again, and once more, Banjo flattened himself against the floor of the duct and let it pass by overhead.

"Can't keep doin' this. Sooner or later I'm gonna pick wrong."

Banjo turned to face the snake, as it re-positioned itself for another attack. Squaring up and staring straight at his serpantine aggressor.

"You would FIGHT the Rainbow Serpent?! The Creator?!" The voice of Uncle Motlop screamed. It was a barely human distortion of his voice, which made Banjo almost sick to hear.

But it hadn't played it's last card. Lights swirled. The snake coiled. Uncle unleashed a blinding flash. Strike!

Banjo snatched at the snake with his left, grabbing it just behind the head, mere centimetres from his face.

It wrapped it's coils around his wrist and writhed to free itself, unable to get leverage on it's head to sink its fangs anywhere.

"Heh. Heh-heh-heh. How'd ya like that? Gotcha."

Slowly at first, the snake started to expand. More coils wrapped up his arm, as the snake then grew in width. It grew bloated and wide, and the duct seemed to shrink even more than Banjo already felt it had. He had to clutch the snake with both hands. Then wrap himself around it's back, behind its head to keep it from striking at him.

"Aw f'r fucks sake..." He was now stuck riding the thing, as it's coils slammed themselves and him into the sides of the duct, trying desperately to pry him off. Unless he could think of a way to--

Oh.

Banjo breathed, then let his breathing halt, as his body turned black and he felt the familiar rush, he soaked in the light Uncle had filled the duct with to try and blind him. His body turned cold, and frost began to cross the snake's face, as it listed far slower in its movements. It began to enter a hibernation state. Shrinking back to its previous size again. As it fell limp, Banjo threw it down the duct with a black arm. It landed with a thud and didn't make any moves at all, until the colours faded, and its light was once again taken and repurposed for this place.

"Lawlessness. You would kill the order bestowed by the Rainbow Serpent?"

"Piss off." Banjo grumbled. He was tired of this. Watching people he knew twisted and perverted for use, if they weren't being killed horribly in front of him as some sort of a message. He tried to power down.

"But then that was alway going to be your role. Destroyer. Devourer. ...Tiddalik."

"Tiddalik..? Are you takin the piss--?" Suddenly 'Uncle' shifted the lights, the whole duct went bright and pulsated with light so strongly he could feel it in his throat and in his ears. He kept feeding. For some reason he found himself unable to stop.

"You know your place in this world..."

His surroundings went black and he was taken to a place. A city. A dour dystopia of huddled masses in thick clothes struggling for their last moments of survival. Those poor people who were still alive tried to flee. Banjo was feeding. More. Above a building, from a dying world's skyline he could see what remained of the sun - the darkened embers of it's core struggling to hold flame in the face of entropy.

"Heh. Ha ha..." Banjo slowly chuckled.

"So this--" He swirled his finger around, gesturing at everything. "Let me get this straight. This is what you've got on me? Hahahaha..."

"I was brought here to teach me how to get a hold of my powers. And THIS was never a concern. Not a real one. The fear of a dumb kid who didn't know better, maybe. But not really. I just didn't use 'em because I was scared of it. Heh-heh."

Actually seeing his fear from so long ago actually play out in front of him made him realise how absurd it actually was. How foolish. Made even worse by the fact that it was still a nagging little fear toying with the back of his mind on occasion - as evidenced by the fact that it had been brought to the fore here.

"I was a dumb, naive kid who was smart enough to be an idiot. I learned about the nature of entropy and the heat death of the universe and thought it could be theoretically possible I could play a part in it. But two things; first, I couldn't do this by myself, and second, it wouldn't happen like this if I could. This is all you have though, isn't it? You're working off of fears and insecurities. Doesn't matter if they don't make any sense. Just like my stupid nightmares. And I'll tell you right now, it's havin' the same effect. You're just pissin' me off."

"And you're blendin' stuff, to the point where it no longer makes sense. I get the vents... playin' up to my claustrophobia. Smart. But the Rainbow Serpent... it's a creator myth. It's movements create rivers and terraform the earth. It's not fittin' in a bloody air conditionin' duct."

"And Tiddalik wasn't a kookaburra, like the old bloke you're playin' long tried to beat into my head. He was a big arsed frog. Heh-heh-heh."

Banjo gave a wry smirk.

"And when he laughed, everythin' went back to normal. BA HAHA HA HA HA!" Banjo erupted into obnoxious laughter, hoping to break through its own programming. He kept cackling with laughter until...

He found himself powered down and back in the duct.

"Ho-lee shit. That actually worked." He started crawling again.

Just goes to show... It's all about mind over mind over hard-light not-really-matter. It plays to your fears, but if you keep your wits about you, a clear mind, its not really that hard or unsaf--

The airconditioning duct crashed twelve feet to the floor below in an open hallway. Banjo groaned and rolled out of the broken metal, onto his back.

"Uggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..."

Thoroughly battered and bruised, like he'd been left in a clothes dryer. Every part of him ached. Slammed and smushed against the sides of the duct with the snake, mentally drained from watching the rest of his team in turmoil or taken by death, and now dropped from a great height with no hope of a soft landing.

His body ached everywhere.

Through hazy eyes, he can barely see two legs and a slim lower half running towards him out of focus. The figure runs up to him and kneels down next to him. "Banjo? Oh my God, are you Okay? What the Hell happened? Please say something."

"Hun? Shit... Hey. You made it through. We both... made it through. You in better shape than me, by the looks..."

She shakes her head. "They really messed me up, Banjo. Made me see things, question things. What are we even doing? There's no point continuing this lie we keep pushing forward. Everyone on the team thinks it. Fuck knows I've had my doubts for a while now."

"Lie..?" The word, the question, caught in his throat, as he struggled to turn over to face her better, through no small amount of pain.

"We are two different people, Banjo. We come from messed up backgrounds. There's no future in that. I was quick to be with you to stick it to my father and I fell into the belief we could make it work. What kind of relationship could there be?"

"Oh. That." He accepted it without question. He'd been waiting for that coin to drop for five years.

But now..? We're going to do this now? I'm in bloody pain here...

"But nothing's changed there. That was the same case before. And you even took time to reconsider things when you realised that the first time."

"Yeah, and do you know how long that's been weighing on my mind? The looks people give me? Everyone knows our relationship started on a lie. I rushed into it. No..."

She pauses a moment.

"You pushed me into it. It was bad enough I felt so guilty, but you made me feel worse. The clinginess. The secrecy. Hell, I didn't even know where you came from for a long time and even then, even now, you secrets from me. Tell me honestly, can we recover from that? Should we recover from that?"

"I can't imagine how people look at ya. Because I've never really given a pinch of shit how anyone's looked at me. So I guess I'm sorry for that. But secrecy? I didn't know where I came from... and as soon as I found out, I told you. And ONLY you. Nobody else 'round here knows any of that. The main stuff I don't tell you is stuff I don't know, so what else is there to-- oh."

He grunted, shuffling slowly to get his free arm to the inside of the AR suit, through the leg of the pants.

"Hold on. Nothin' suss..."

He pulled out the crinkled pack of Winfield Blues and his zippo.

"I smoke. Is that what ya talkin' about? Because that's about the only thing I can think of that I haven't told ya. It gives me somethin' to do with my hands. Helps me think. And my hype power cleans it right out of me. Thought it was pretty victimless. You want me to kick it I could. Anytime. Juicin' cleans the nicotine right off my synapses. But that's about the only thing I can think of..."

"God Banjo, how stupid can you be? It's not about some fucking cigarettes. You expect me to believe there's a world you know nothing about and, what, I'm supposed to just accept that? You know everything about me but you hold so much unknown. For all I know, you were a serial killer child who messed up animals. I care about appearances, Banjo. That should have been obvious Day 1. Look at you, and look at me. We come from two different worlds. This isn't a Disney movie, we don't deserve happily ever afters. You certainly don't."

"Well... for one, if I were some child psychopath, then there'd probably be some signs of that in the time since where I have had my memories. But yeah, everything about me that I know... you know. Can't argue with what I deserve, but. So I won't. Is that what this is? Appearances? Reckon you'd be happier with someone else?" He asked, laying out breadcrumbs.

He shook the crinkled box until the end of a single smoke popped clear, and put it to his lips.

"Of course! You know the way Gil looks at me. You don't think I see your jealousy whenever he so much as greets me? He would be ideal. Someone my father would actually appreciate. You're not exactly ' Family Dinner' material."

He lit up, and rocked his head back. Confirming something to himself.

"Hell, can't argue that, neither."

He took a long draw.

"Though I will say... I don't much care for the fact that Gil ties into my fears and insecurities in any bloody way at all."

He blew out smoke.

"...or maybe the fear is that you might see it as that way."

Calliope looked at Banjo in shock before she let her face fall. Shaking her head. "Guess I laid it on too thick, huh?"

"Hey, I was just givin' you enough rope to hang yourself by pivoting from the pair of us not deserving happiness, to contradictin' yourself that there'd be someone else. You're the one who went full blown Daddy's Girl. Nup. Not my gal. No way, no how."

Calliope, no... Frigid let the facade drop as she stood up, blue highlights now appearing as she turned to him, a sneer on her face. She lifted her leg and stomped down on Banjo's knee. "Good, then I can do what I actually want to you. I can even make it hut more by telling you what's actually happening to your precious Calli."

"Nggg!" He grunted in pain. "Juicy bloody chrysanthemums" He exclaimed, clutching at his knee.

"I know... that my first source for news... Is one that will lie to me from the moment it bloody sees me, just to hurt me. So yeah, sure. Have at it."

He rolled to one side and kneeled shakily on his good leg, sizing her up.

"You really take the bloody fun out of bein' right, and solvin' puzzles. You know that?"

Frigid kicked him in the side now. "Lying to you would be easy. It would defeat the purpose of seeing you suffer in here. After all, we know what your fears are."

"So let me lay it out for you. Right now your girl faced one of her biggest fears. I could lie and say she is suffering eternally, but you wouldn't believe me. So no, she got through her room. Scratched, bloodied, beaten up, but she's alive. Though....gosh...not for much longer."

"You see, she tried to find you, bless her. But someone found her first and really laid into her. She didn't see it coming. Let's just say she doesn't have a leg to stand on. And the longer you take sitting here, feeling sorry for yourself, the longer she bleeds. Last time I checked, humans carried only so much blood before," Frigid made a cutting motion across her neck.

"I have an idea!" Frigid quickly formed an ice sword and drove it into Banjo's left leg, plunging it deep. "Look, twinsies!"

Banjo's howl echoed through this desolate place.

"Well, this was fun, but I have to go. Let's see if you can find her in time. Killing you would be easy, but watching you slowly die inside as your girlfriend slowly perishes is all the fun I need. Good luck!" As if to rub salt in his wounds even further, she slowly walked away into the shadows, leaving him to clutch his leg and bleed.

"Nggg... Shit." He rolled himself onto his back and scooched over to a wall.

The ice sword was in deep enough that it held its own weight. Drawing a furrowed brow from Banjo who contemplated removing it, or whether it would be better to leave it in.

"That one's probably best served stayin' put. If the doctor's tell me to stay off it and ice it... well... sorted."

He gradually stood up, leaning back against the wall to keep his weight off the other leg.

With one arm against the wall, he started hobbling down the hallway.

You know she was probably lying to you, right? He thought to himself.

"Doesn't matter."

He hobbled on. "What's the down side... Ya find out she's fine sooner? I can live with that."

Calliope had moved somewhat from her original spot, a blood trail following her. She needed to get out or find someone who wasn't some created fixture in this simulation. God, it hurt. She could only imagine what the others were going through. Would she be the only one severely injured? She doubted it.

As she neared she heard something or someone. God she hoped it was someone. "H-hello? I need help..." she attempted to yell, but it came out softly.

Banjo hobbled onwards. Considering whether it would be better to call out in this place, where his fears might target him again in a weakened state, and whether anyone however close would actually hear him.

He realised he didn't care.

^{_{"CALL-EEEEE!"}}

^{_{"CALLLLL-EEEEEEEEEEEEE!"}}

His voice started to rasp, from shouting so loud.

Calli heard his voice and nearly broke down again. Surely this wasn't the other Andrew messing with her, but she couldn't be sure. The voice sounded like it was in pain. She had to risk it. She kept crawling despite the pain shooting through her nerves.

The sounds grew closer until a shadow formed in front of her. She stopped crawling and looked up, focusing her gaze. The figure materialized and she knew.

"Banjo...thank christ.." Tears began welling up in her eyes.

"We. Have... Seen better days. But you're still a sight for sore eyes. Sore eyes, sore everythin'." He hobbled over and held her.

"I reckon its about time we weren't here."

"So whaddaya say, you lean on me, I'll lean on you, and we keep goin' til we get gone?"

Calli nodded her agreement, reaching for him. "Going to need...more support probably. On account of the fact, I don't have a leg. And The Butler did it..." her attempt at humor. He brought out the best in her.

He laughed. Broadly. Then felt slightly ashamed at how loudly he'd done so and the timing of it all. Until he saw the smile it brought to her face.