Natsu

Avengers Academy: Junior Year 💥

Mary Sue Sullivan

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Location:The Sorcerer's Inn.
Skills:

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Mary Sue had just been emotionally deconstructed by a robot, and she flinched back at his words. She opened her mouth for a few moments, as if to speak, but no noises came out. The one phrase, "Grief is better conquered", stuck with her for a moment, something intellectual to maybe break through the wall of shit between herself and her emotions, and she shut her eyes tight. "Sure." She said, her lips contorting into a frown. "That is... not an unreasonable analysis. Thank you Mister The Vision." She said, holding on to a bit of sardony to hide behind, attempting to not directly answer his question.

But, nevertheless, something in her was chipped away, and she was left with that awful feeling that something was broken that could never be fixed. Why didn't he just let her deflect? Ser Nemo would never not be dead, and she didn't know what to do with that. Grief didn't make sense to her; there wasn't anything to be fixed. She couldn't cure death, so why did she feel bad? What purpose did it serve? These problems circled through her head, and she gritted her teeth, tears welling up for a moment before she forced them back down. This just sucked. "What is the use in grief if the thing that caused it can't be fixed?", she asked quietly, maybe to nobody in particular..

Avengers Academy: Junior Year 💥

Mary Sue Sullivan

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Location:The Sorcerer's Inn.
Skills:

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Leah's outbursts reminded Mary Sue of her own, back in Coulson's office. She looked down towards the ground, unsure of what to say about any of it. Trauma kept inflicting itself on all of them; was this what it was to be a hero? To bear loss after loss and keep going? It never looked that way from the outside. She knew there would be hardship doing this, but she never thought it would be this soon. Mary Sue hoped that both she and Leah could find a way to deal with these feelings, but in the moment, she didn't have anything helpful to say to her. She was annoyed at The Vision, for even bringing up the possibility of punishing her for reacting this way to death.

She considered telling him off, but thought, instead, of a more diplomatic way. Something he had said legitimately didn't add up to her. "Okay but, why was it important?" She asked, her tone even. She caught herself in the way she said that, and, not wanting to seem like a sociopath, corrected herself, "I mean, why now? We-" she started, drying her eyes, and considering her next words carefully, "We're kids. Adults lie to kids all the time, why was it important that we knew this right now?" She pushed. The rationale just wasn't clicking for her.

Avengers Academy: Junior Year 💥

Mary Sue Sullivan

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Location:The Sorcerer's Inn.
Skills:

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This was the day she'd been waiting for, and it felt better, perhaps, than she thought it would upon the returning from break, but not as she'd always imagined it. Her sessions with Maeve had helped her a lot, and she wasn't constantly on the verge of a meltdown anymore. That wasn't to say she was all better, no, she was a far sight from that, but she resembled that girl that wanted to enter this contest in the first instance more than she didn't, and that was good. She was embarrassed of how she had last acted in front of the whole group, and if she could have done it all over again, she wouldn't have snapped at the headmaster.

It was that thought, in part, that left her face red and eyes misty at the news of the passing of Ser Nemo. She hadn't seem him personally since that had happened, and that left her shaking. The last thoughts he might have had of her was as an emotionally incapable child. That stung, a lot. It wasn't the first death she'd seen at this point, but it was the first one filled with that particular kind of regret. She'd failed to be her best self, and now that was what she was indelibly seen as by this man. Her complicated feelings around the TVA aside, he would be missed.

Avengers Academy: Junior Year 💥

Mary Sue Sullivan

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Location:Hallway
Skills:

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The fire alarm hit Mary Sue with a shock, but one that was ultimately helpful for her. It gave her something to do, a thing she could accomplish and follow through on without much to think about. Nebulously, she looked around, and rubbed her head. She was going to get a headache from this, not that she didn't have one already. Diverting her eyes from the bright lights as she made her way through, perhaps moving more quickly than she would even normally.

Soon enough, she found herself out on the front lawn, and exhaled, relieved from the death of the sensory nightmare she'd just gone through. She looked at where she was, a part of her almost broke again. It felt like a thousand years ago, when she'd just come here. The word here echoed through her head a bit, at the complicated nature of what that word meant, but she understood it well enough. she gradually went about the process of making herself a part of the crowd, wondering what on Earth could have caused this.

Avengers Academy: Junior Year 💥

Mary Sue Sullivan

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Location:Hallway
Skills:

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Of all the hallways Mary Sue could have chosen to have a breakdown in, this was a pretty nice one. The light was soft, and flooring not too cold. One of the nice things about letting yourself feel awful was that the peaks of it didn't tend to last long. Human emotions worked on a kind of self adjusting scale, for the most part; Just as ecstasy is not forever, neither is sorrow. The issue then is, of course, that if emotions are not felt, you can't get past their most extreme points. Something Zari said stuck with her in that moment, that her expression, that her fear of what had happened hurt people. That was a thing should could never allow to happen again. She had to get control of herself.

Forcing herself to sit up, she looked desperately for something, anything else to think about. She looked up at the ceiling, shaking, and started to count the tiles on it. One by one, she made her eyes scan from row to row, muttering the count as she went along, her voice slowly losing its edge, and evening out to something that approximated her normal voice. She still felt raw, a headache behind her eyes and the distinct feeling that she was in her body the way one is in a cheap suit. It wasn't a good feeling, but it was a manageable one. She had reached, in some form, stability, and with that, hoped that she'd be able to find a way forward.

Avengers Academy: Junior Year 💥

Mary Sue Sullivan

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Location:Coulson's Office -> Hallway
Skills:

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Mary Sue was still shaking, a part of her couldn't believe she just spoke that way to the headmaster of all people, but then again, was he even technically her headmaster? Was she, legally, Mary Sue Sullivan? Somehow she doubted this had gone to court before, but given that old her was apparently murdered by the evil time fascists, she somehow doubted that anybody would mind her taking her place. She flinched, for a moment, realizing her parents were dead now. That hurt, and almost made her feel better about her dad. Almost. She stood up. She needed to get out of here.

She stood, unbalanced. "I'll do the contest. Sure." She muttered out, trying not to make eye contact with anybody. She was certain she would throw up if she didn't find a place to hide where nobody could see her. She needed water, she needed quiet, and she needed solitude. She quickly existed the room, and made turn after turn down hallways after hallway until she found a place where she could decompress. Mary Sue practically collapsed to the floor, eyes shut tight, trying desperately to ground herself to a world that ostensibly was not her own.

Avengers Academy: Junior Year 💥

Mary Sue Sullivan

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Location:Coulson's Office
Skills:

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An errant thought crossed Mary Sue's mind, that they hadn't stopped a massacre from occurring, and that she was, largely, in a room full of strangers, save for Andy and Zari. Sure, they looked like Mary Sue's friends and classmates, but those people died. That was clearly evidenced by the existence of Bonus Mary Sue, who she'd apparently taken the place of. She wondered idly what she was thinking about now, if she'd been shunted into another timeline, leading to an infinite regress of now displaced Mary Sues. She hoped that Mary Sue was doing better than she was now, but she somehow doubted it.

Her attention was snapped back to the Coulson as Vicky said the most cogent thing she'd heard in a week. "She's right." Mary Sue said, almost coldly, "Headmaster, the fact of the matter is, unless I'm deeply wrong about how all this works, nobody was actually saved. You just don't have to deal with the consequences." Mary Sue continued from where the girl had left off, an almost numbness coming over her. "Some of us had to go back in time, but I should really say we got to. When I came back, there was another me here, but I don't remember meeting me, so that means I didn't." Her voice caught in her throat for a moment, before she continued on, a venom leaking into her words. "Arcade killed everybody in this room, save for Andy, Zari, and myself, and you three. Shortly after, he probably killed a lot more people, maybe even you." She glared pointedly at Coulson.

A part of her honestly hoped Ser Nemo would pitch in here and tell her she was wrong, but she somehow doubted it. A part of her was upset at herself for doing this in front of Lady Nimue, a teacher who'd she honestly had enjoyed. But every other part of her was filled with white hot anger. Her heartrate was rising, to the point that she almost couldn't see straight. This was all too much. "A-and your response to all of that is therapy. Everyone died, but it's fine, we can talk about it, go fight in the Contest of Champions! Burn the bodies to ash behind us, and never think about it again." She put her head in her hands, shaking. "You make me sick." And with that, she was done.

Avengers Academy: Junior Year 💥

Mary Sue Sullivan

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Location:Coulson's Office
Skills:

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Mary Sue had spent the last few weeks practically wordless. The trauma, new disability, and grief aside, the utter shock at the betrayal of her family in not telling her anything about her paternal grandfather when he was, as she learned, worse than any human who'd ever lived, was something she had no idea how to cope with. She knew her dad didn't believe in her, that he thought she couldn't handle being a superhero, that relationship had already been damaged for months, but she always thought her mom was in her corner. A part of her was left with the feeling that her new blindness was narratively resonant with how it seemed she had always been. Ignorant of what she was, what she could do, and what she could be, it seemed fitting that her world too would now be forever cloudy.

It was hard to be livid at somebody who hadn't been conscious in several days, but god damn it, Mary Sue was finding a way. The horrors Arcade had left on them seemed paltry in comparison. Whatever those monsters were, they were way stronger than anything she'd ever seen before. Why on Earth would they be scared of Oliver Sullivan of all people? Even with the contempt she had for her father at the moment, he wasn't scary. Especially compared to some of the heavy hitters on Earth. She needed to not be here. She needed to be at school, with people who wouldn't know anything about this, she wouldn't ever talk about it. This... happened, but it didn't have to matter. She wouldn't let it.

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Mary Sue would file into the headmaster's office, wordless. She had decided that if somebody asked about her eye, she'd tell them to shove it. This was her problem to process, on her own. She figured the teachers already knew, and certainly wouldn't bring it up in front of other students. She hoped they wouldn't see it as an issue, but she also didn't know how well known the circumstances leading up to the attack on her father were known. How many people knew, and kept it from her? Could she trust anybody here? Thoughts like that had a creeping paranoia that she hated, and didn't want to give into, but she was hurt in so many ways right now that it was hard not to.

Avengers Academy: Junior Year 💥

Mary Sue Sullivan

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Location: Framework Area
Skills:

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As Bonus Mary Sue was pulled away, and the phone was passed to The Original Mary Sue. She was visibly nervous at this. She knew her mom would be mostly on her side, but if here dad heard about this... the future might not be too bright for Mary Sue. Dialing in Niah's number with a shaky hand, she led straight into the call with a
"Hi mom. I'm okay. I uh... somebody tried to kill us, and I think I time traveled? There's two of me. Have you run into that?"
Levity, that was surely the way through this situation; present the news, then pivot to something spectacular, surely that wou-
"We will come get you from school. Break is coming up anyway. As for your question I haven't run into duplicates due to time travel. My only experience I traveled to the 80s before I was born."
May Sue's heart skipped a beat, darn it. She gave a sharp exhale before continuing
"It's... Really okay! I'm fine! Nobody died, so we're through the worst of it. I can finish out here until break, I promise."
Her tone was bright, but obviously nervous. She didn't want to leave her, she liked it here, even if the stress was killing her a little.
"You'll be able to go back after break. I promise. But we need to see you. I want to hear the whole story as well. And I know as soon as your dad hears about this he isn't going to take no for an answer. Your options are come home now and go back after break or risk not being able to go back at all."
Mary Sue's face was frowning. Ultimatums were unfair, but what was she to do? This was a lose state, and she gave a clipped
"Fine."
"Thank you. Ill see you tomorrow. I love you."
"I love you too."

With that, she closed the phone. It was by this time that herself had walked away, and she wondered if Bonus Mary Sue would have a similar interaction with Bonus Niah in the Bonus timeline. Would it be weird for her to say she felt a pang of sadness as she realized she would never see herself again? Time travel was weird.

Avengers Academy: Junior Year 💥

Mary Sue Sullivan

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Location: Framework Area
Skills:

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Magical healing was absolutely a new feeling, and as new blood filled her body and holes began to patch themselves Mary Sue tried to steady herself. Physical wounds, of course, could be healed any which way (or in this case, any witch way.), but with the way her education was going, Mary Sue had to make sure she was made of tougher stuff. It was hard to internalize that brutal injury was on the table, and that she'd have to keep getting up every time she endured it. Upon being asked about which parent to call, her and bonus Mary Sue made a brief, nauseous bit of eye contact, before quickly deciding that obviously this was a "let mom know and pray she didn't tell dad" kind of situation, and simultaneously rattled off Niah's contact info.

Bonus Mary Sue, if not for the absurdity and terror of the current situation, would have been absolutely losing her mind at being surrounded by the heroes she adored, but things had honestly become surreal and difficult to process at this point. The vertigo was still awful, and at this point, she wanted her friends to be able to take her where she had to go to close the loop. This almost felt like the sort of thing they should have classes on, but it was maybe an edgecase, so that might not be generally applicable.