[IC] ✶~Our Brightest Stars~✶ (Always Accepting!)

[RomanAria]

Nova Infinitum

Every day, before any of the children wake up, a scientist comes into the common room and posts a list of daily assignments on the board. This might include class schedules, special operations for finding and recruiting other Stars, and other special notes.
Today, there are no assignments. It is a free day.

---

The silvery sound of a flute echoed through the dorm, quiet enough that it shouldn’t wake people. Unless they were light sleepers. It was somewhat a standard thing, at six-thirty in the morning, the music would start, and would continue until people were up and going about their day.

A flashlight beam fell across the source of the music. A tiny girl, barely three feet tall, her eyes shut and fingers flying over the keys of her piccolo, her black hair hanging in a cloud around her. The black star on her forehead stood out dramatically against her pale skin.

For several seconds she was so absorbed in the music that she failed to notice the frowning scientist in front of her, until he quietly coughed.
She jumped three feet into the air, whirling to face the white-coated man with wide gray-blue eyes.
“Astraia, we’ve been over this. Put that dog whistle of yours away until after everyone’s awake. It’s their one day to sleep in.”
The girl scuffed her feet. “S-sorry…” she made as if she was going to put the tiny flute away.
The scientist watched her, then turned and walked back out of the dorm.

The instant he was out the door the piccolo came back to the girl’s lips and she resumed exactly where she’d left off. She knew the scientist would hear, but he wouldn’t do anything. Battles had to be chosen. And her music was the one thing she was adamant about; they wouldn’t dare take her flute from her. They needed her too much.

---

Andromeda flailed awake as soon as Astraia played the opening notes of “Oh What a Beautiful Morning”, and mentally cursed. She shouldn’t have been sleeping, not when that project… wait… had she finished it, or just dreamt that she’d finished it?
Ugh. Too many thoughts in her head.

She fumbled for her laptop, sending notebooks flying off the edge of her bed. All her research books, she just kept them where she slept, in case she remembered something in a dream and had to write it down.

She couldn’t find her laptop, and rolled, thinking she might have fallen asleep on top of it. Unfortunately, she rolled to the outside, not the wall side, and fell the five feet off of the edge of her bunk, landing hard on her stomach on the floor, and smacking her face into the virtually-indestructible case of her laptop with a muffled “OOOPH” sound. Pain shot through her nose and she cursed as she felt warm blood sliding down her throat.
Oh, what a beautiful way to start the day.

Holding off her bloody nose, she gathered up her notebooks and threw them unceremoniously back onto her bunk, intending to organize them later, and grumbled as she gathered up her toiletries and clothes, intending to be showered and dressed before anyone else was even up. And then she could go finish her part of the damn project.

Showered and feeling much better for not being covered in her own nosebleed, Andromeda headed to the lab, passing some of the other early risers with a quiet greeting.

The raised door seal. She ALWAYS tripped on it. Today was especially bad, the contents of three manila folders, not to mention her laptop, going spilling across the entire laboratory floor as she fell.

For a moment she laid there on the floor of the lab, trying to reorganize her thoughts and attempt to regain her composure.

She sighed, forced a smile, and picked up her notes *again*, taking them to her desk. She went to sit down, only to have the chair she sat on fall to pieces under her, causing her to again smack her face (on the desk, this time) and setting her nose to bleeding again.

“OH FOR--” She started to shout. Perhaps it was for the best that she choked on the blood running down her throat and started crying, rather than finish the sentence. To add insult to injury, her leaky water bottle toppled over, falling onto one of her folders and soaking it and probably ruining the contents.

What a beautiful morning, indeed.

[null123]

Dallas, Lux Astra HQ @darkwolf687 @RomanAria
The life of the HQ was very simple, Lux Astra allowed the Stars that guarded them to move around freely, even within Dallas, so long as they stayed safe and were back at the HQ before 11pm. However the normal everyday life was broken as two stars working for Lux Astra were called the meeting chambers, Nicholas and Elysia. Upon arriving they saw a few of the adults who worked for Lux, who were mostly ex-Military gathered around the table. The leader of Lux Astra, a non-star only known to the organization as Doctor Gabriel. The only thing they were sure about was that he had a Doctorate in Physics, rumors circulated that he was actually a CEO of a large Texan Oil Company who had been influenced by stars to form Lux Astra. Other rumors stated that he was actually a star himself, with others still saying that he was simply just a man who happened to be against the other tyrannical organizations that dealt with Stars.

“Greetings Nicholas and Elysia. Today’s mission is absolutely essential.” said Gabriel, looking at the two. He took a small remote and turned on the room’s projector, showing a picture of a city.

“This as most of you know, is the city of Houston. We have identified several stars there, and at that, we have done this before Nova Infinitum, so we need to move quickly before they learn of these stars. However my contacts have informed me that Milites Dei is planning an attack. We need to move quickly.” stated Gabriel, is tone as serious and dry as ever.

Gabriel slid a few file folders across the table to Nicholas and Elysia.

“These are the stars we are looking for. Prepare for the mission and when you are ready to leave the helicopter is waiting where it always is.” finished Gabriel.

New York City, Nova Infinitum HQ
Berthold began walking down the halls of the HQ, holding a large cup of coffee in one hand, with his laptop tucked under his other arm. He wore the standard Nova Infinitum uniform. As he arrived in the laboratory he however saw Andromeda crying with her nose bleeding. He quickly sat down both his coffee cup and laptop and picked up the remains of Andromeda’s soggy documents. He grabbed a few tissues and handed them to her, while helping her up into another chair.

“Are you alright Andromeda?” asked Berthold, with concern in his voice.

[ClocktowerEchos]

"This is going swimmingly I think." Baihu smiled to his guards as they untied his straight jacket, "Isn't the weather beautiful today? You can almost smell the smog of the factories from here!"

The routine had been in place for as long as the Chinese boy had been in Nova Infinitum, it had been like this. Straight jackets, isolation cells, heavy security, one might feel bad for him. In truth however, one should feel worse for poor bastards watching over him. Baihu wasn't the... easiest of characters to guard.

The straps fell to the ground and something else did too, something clunker. One of the guards leaned down and picked up a handgun that fell out of Baihu's shirt. He just stared at him before throwing it to a corner, having someone else remove it. Of Baihu's skills, smuggling was his chief attribute. When ever the guards searched the boy and found a gun, he'd manage to amass an armory somewhere else. At this point all but the most zealous guards who brownnossed their commanders bother searching him. There was no point to it.

"Hey hey hey, easy on the Glock there Jerry, " Baihu tilted his head at the guard, "That's a modified one I got from a good fellow in the middle east."

The guard (who wasn't actually named Jerry), rolled his eyes and punted Baihu out of the room. Baihu angrily shook his fist at Jerry for possibly dirtying his pants but like usual, he was ignored. After picking himself up, the smuggler maniac strod down the hall, wondering what would be for breakfast, what would he be assigned and how long until he'd manage to get himself back into solitary.

So important many questions he had while walking towards the cafeteria, as of right now the most propionate was "is the food actually edible this time?"

[pure493]

Regulus' opened his eyes at the sudden sound of music playing from the nearby room. He raised a hand to his face.

"Oh for crying out loud shut up," he mumbled and covered his ears with his pillow. A mirror image slid out the right side of his body. It wore red-checkered pajamas, the exact same thing that Regulus wore. It had short blonde hair almost cut to a buzz, bright blue eyes, and a pug nose. The only difference between Regulus and the image was that permanently displayed no emotion on its face while Regulus' was at the time grimacing in pain from the morning music.

"God damn it, I hope the zvezda next door doesn't do this daily," he said. This was his first day in this room. Someone from the organization claimed they wanted to put greater study on his abilities and in a single night they moved him and all his belongings to his new quarters. The mirror image stood up and turned to the wall that the music was coming from. It raised a fist and banged hard three times. While it did this, Regulus facepalmed as he realized he took his lord's name in vain. "Well, another thing to admit the next time I go to confession," he thought.

He was fully awake now thanks to the obnoxious music from the other side of the wall, the mental effort it took to create his mirror image, and the realization that he started the day by misusing the name of God. He slid out of his blanket into the cold air of his room. His mirror image walked to the other wall and flicked on the light switch.

Regulus squinted as bright light flooded the room. He sat still, letting his eyes adjust. He looked at his mirror image and said, "Another day in Infinitum eh Grigori?"

Grigori was the name his parents gave to his twin brother. The brother that was born latched onto him. His parents told him that they were conjoined. Something like the Siamese twins he heard of in old freak-shows, except one of the twins was dead. He was creeped out when he used a computer to google what his parents meant. However, that revelation happened a long time ago and lost its edge. According to his parents, moments before the surgeon's knife would separate him from his dead brother, there was a flare of light, a miracle of god. A four-pointed star was all that was left of his brother's body that forever marked Regulus as a zvezda, the Russian term for star.

Time revealed what his ability was. Almost at will Regulus could manifest a mirror image of himself from the star on his side. His parents first thought it was the shade of his dead brother. If it was then it showed no will of its own and to Regulus it didn't feel like one. Regulus felt it more like an extension of himself versus a separate entity. He could see through it and make it move but it shows no signs of consciousness.

His parents named it Grigori after his dead brother. It was a name that Regulus himself found using, when referring to the mirror image. In many ways though, it was a far lot useful than any brother ever would be.

Regulus sighed and got up. He stood up and walked over grabbing a towel and slipping on a pair of sandals. The mirror image picked up a plastic basket carrying a bottle of shampoo and other hygiene products like a toothbrush and floss. He opened the door and stepped to the common area, aiming to see what was on the board before hitting the showers. Grigori turned off the lights and followed right behind him.

The supervisor mentioned the night before that part of their research was for him to complete taskings that would appear on the board in the common room. Regulus understood the meaning behind those words. To the organization that caged him it was another step towards their goal. However, he didn't really care for that. To him it meant another step towards repaying the debt his family owed to the organization. A debt which when fully paid would bring his freedom.

"And I will finally go home," Regulus thought approaching the common room door.

[darkwolf687]

Dallas, Lux Astra HQ

Ross took a quick look around the room before glancing back towards Gabriel and pulling the file towards him with a sigh, thumbing over its dull brown cover for a few moments. After Gabriel had finished, Ross cut in quickly with his own thoughts, an inquisitive look on his face.

"So why not just tell the fucking authorities? My life changing event was a plane crash, not signing on with the army. Seems to me like moving people away prior to a terrorist attack is a police job, not the job handed off to a delusional girl and a rags to riches kid and whoever else you could scrap up-" Ross paused for a moment before cocking his brow and thinking to himself as he considered his next sentence carefully. Finally, he pushed the point. "Or is this move a lot more self serving than you would like the world to think, eh?"

Ross sniggered lightly to himself and turned his gaze down towards the file as he opened it up and flicked through it. He glanced over all of the pictures, names and details, taking in the addresses and sliding his phone out of his pocket, opening up the maps app and tapping in each address, finally giving a small scoff and glancing up

"Huston, huh? Yeah, unless we are walking around the city to collect this lot then I think we could use a car. If you ain't got one there, I can foot the bill. No need for more people to die over this insanity..." Ross gave a thin smile as he looked up from his phone, clicking it off and sliding it back into his pocket as he did.

[karamonnom]

Nova Infinitum

Vespira was asleep. She loved to sleep. It was one of her few favorite past times. Especially since they were allowed to sleep in today. So, who was the one that was playing the piccolo so early in the morning? Vespira had a pretty good idea of who it was but she was not the type to confront a person, especially not a tiny, little girl; it'd be like bullying. She slunk further in her bed, hiding behind a fort of blankets and pillows, in attempt to run away from the sound. She knew if she waited long enough, it would stop. The guards will make it stop. And eventually, it did, much to Vespira's relief. And she was able to fall back asleep peacefully.

A few hours later, or something like that, Vespira woke up at a more comfortable time. She sat up, stretched her arms high over her head, and then plopped back down on the bed. She rolled over to the side of the bed, using the blankets as a cushion as she continued to roll onto the floor. "Now I don't want to get out of this blanket burrito," she thought to herself as she snuggled herself in.

After ten more minutes of enjoying the warmth of her blanket, she reluctantly got out, made her bed, and got ready for the day. She made her way to the cafeteria to eat breakfast, hoping that they would have something sweet like pancakes or crepes, though that was somewhat of a far-off dream.