I've gotta say, I didn't expect a RP I attempted to join before my 3 years RP hiatus would resurface back to me into my inbox. That being said, I suppose it would be nice to return to the origins of how I started in RPG, no?
If I were to decide to submit the Wylde brothers once more, would I need to make any new adjustements?
When she had been picked up on the playground as the game ended, Angélique was barely conscious. She felt her body being lifted, but the pain and her dizziness cause from blood loss kept her from moving around too much. During the trip between the ruined plaza and the security outpost, she had faded into unconsciousness, her body barely holding up from the wounds she had sustained, even as they were patched up by the paramedic team that treated her injuries.
It was only but a while after everyone was brought into a room filled with monitors and snacks that the injured Aberration young woman woke up. Her waking up left her sight slightly blurry, her mind disoriented as the cool touch of concrete was no longer felt upon her back. She paid little mind to the heated exchange of words between the members of the two teams until she rose up from the cot she had been lying on unconscious.
“Fuck… Feels like a truck ran over me…”
Angélique turned to the hazed figures standing in the room, barely making out the snacks on the two tables and the flickering lights from the monitors looping scenes. Checking up on her body, she had found bandages wrapped around both her shoulders, and a cold compress gauzed around her sides. Strangely enough though, even if bloodstains from her tank top and bandages showed how serious her injuries were, she felt no pain at all, if only the numb aftershock of having been hit twice and thrown to the ground.
Gazing upon her bandages and thoughts drifting to her injuries, another question popped into the X-marked mind. If everyone had gathered in this room, then it surely meant the match was over. There was one thing in mind now. What happened by the time she faded into unconsciousness? Did they win? Did they lose?
“So… what did I miss?” she called out, readjusting the now crooked and damaged shades on her face.
I might as well jump on the bandwagon now that I have posted the aftermath of Angel's duel with Chris, hahaha!
Angélique's power has been upgraded!
First of all, her cone of sonic death wave can now extends up to a range of 40 meters.
Secundo, her screams strains her less physically now. She can scream twice as much as before, now bringing the number of consecutive shouts from 12 to 24 times before risking potential permanent damage.
After defeating the dragon, Angélique moved away from the grounded dragon. Her vision still blurred, she walked up to the spot where she was being pinned a moment ago. As she came close to the area, she spotted a familiar black shape down on a patch of dirt. Kneeling with difficulty as pain flared up o her side one more, Angel retrieved which were indeed her shades. There was a crack running down across the left lens, and the mounts were slightly misaligned. Guess she was due to request a change.
But as she slipped her shades back on, her sight did not clear up. Instead, everything faded to black.
There she was again, standing on a stage made of void, lost in the darkness, with only a single spotlight shining down on her and a featureless crowd facing her with expressionless stares. Their presence felt overwhelming, more so than the darkness surrounding her. Their lifeless stare was antagonizing her, made her feel oppressed, was aggravating her.
As she tried to call up to the mass of people that had gathered in front of her, one person dropped. Then another, then another one, then another again. Everyone fell lifeless and vanished into the surrounding void, all but one last person. She had remained close to her, in fact almost face to face. The features of the remaining woman seemed to slowly manifest, however still remaining clouded in mystery. The only striking trait that was showing was a taunting bloodied grin.
"Your voice was never meant to rally people together."
For a glimpse of a moment, the mysterious’ girl’s face revealed itself, reflecting like a twisted mirror the face of the woman standing face to face in front of her. Faintly, Angélique thought she recognized the visage, feeling it was strongly familiar, yet felt it was dirtied, even for the brief lapse of time she had gazed into it.
In a flash of light, Angel was brought back to reality. What was that just now? It had been the second time she experienced something as such. It felt strange, something seemed to have been dropped into her being while she was having this vision, made her feel more... whole but at the same time more sullied.
@Everyone: Since an issue had been brought up into the fight Angélique is having with one of her opponents, it had been decided by Jan that Angel's duration for her scream's mental affliction effects were set to last 20 seconds after the end of her scream.
As the team reached the town’s plaza, Angel scanned the surroundings beneath her shades, analyzing the area. The girl may not have been the most enthusiastic about this whole idea of playing “flag and seek”, considering just how stupid that game sounded for students of a school prison to partake into, but she was a team player nonetheless. She could afford to cast away her disgust about this whole situation if it meant to make her team win.
“Hmm… so we really do need to find Lilianna all the while we look for the other healer…” Angel mused as she noticed she was the only girl on the team. “Hey there, guys. I’m Angélique, or Angel if you prefer.”
Marcus also looked around, viewing the area with uncertainty. The few dead bodies that littered the ground kind of took away from the gung-ho, 'let's kick ass' attitude he'd begun with. He brought his hand up to shield his eyes, sighing softly. The ruined town brought too many memories with it, memories that were also doing their best to demoralize him.
He turned as one of his teammates spoke; the chick with the sunglasses. "Yeah...lord knows they couldn't make it easy for us or anything. Marcus." he said, smiling warmly and nodding his head.
Sander already knew what was in the cooler before the pair of guards marched it over to him. A frown creased his brow, but he didn’t voice any protest. They had already told him as much: this was mandatory, meaning he would have no choice in this matter. What he did have a choice about though…well, he didn’t want to think about it.
Once his teammates started speaking up, he glanced tentatively in their direction, searching his memory to put names to faces. He only recognized the young woman with sunglasses, and only vaguely. He doubted they had exchanged names though, given the fact that their last meeting had been in less than favorable conditions.
“Hey.”-Since his teammates were beginning to introduce themselves, common courtesy demanded that he returned the favor –“Sander Lorraine.”
Grant looked around with a tired gaze. A game, huh. Annoying. He rolled his neck and figured that he should just get this over with, not like he really wanted to be here in the first place. He look over at the rest of his teammates. They all seemed familiar at a glance, and there was even one person he remembered. What was his name? Marcus. Right.
He let them introduce themselves first, before he said simply, "Grant." And nothing else. Didn't matter if he said any more, he would've been interrupted by...
A loud beeping noise was suddenly emitted from everyone's cuffs, followed by the musical tenor of Mr. Francisco's voice.
"Just to clarify! Due to the unique nature of his ability, Mr. Francis is exempt from being out as soon as he takes his flags off to transform. He may keep his flags on the ground, but the Scorgasms better make sure they protect it like a good dragon guards his golden hoard, because if the other team picks up all the pieces-- he's out!" A second beep signaled the end of his message.
“Right.” Angel muttered after Fredric’s announcement. She remembered how she had to protect Chris’ naked ass while he was transforming. Would he be foolish enough to take half the game’s duration to transform himself? Somehow, she was more afraid that he would be ripping their limbs apart instead of taking their flags.
“Well, with what he just said, I guess we could use what little time we have left for strategy, wouldn’t you agree?” the black-haired Aberration added as she pulled out folded papers from the back pocket of her jeans and beckoned the others to approach her with a wave of her hand.
“I’m no strategist, mind you, but I figured it would be most beneficial for everyone here to know names, faces and powers. Starting with myself, you all know my name now, and I have to power to emit destructive sonic waves by screaming loudly.”
“I don’t know much about you guys, sorry.” Angélique chuckled as she realized she haven’t interacted with anyone on her team beforehand. “Let me make up for it.” She shuffled through her pages and pulled out ten sheets.
"I'm mobility." Marcus said, very matter-of-factly. "I can basically teleport back to where I was two seconds ago, or I can jump ahead by a few seconds. Not a trick I can do over and over again, though." he finished.
Sander kept his eyes on the red canister as the conversation went on around him, moving his hand every so often to feel the liquid slosh. When Angel started on the topic of power, he looked up at her, jaws again twitching as he chose his words. It was only appropriate that he shared what he could. They were already stuck with him; there was no point in making this harder for them.
“I can become stronger. After…drinking.”- He held up the red canister for emphasis, before falling silent again.
"How much stronger are we talking here? Because we might be at a slight disadvantage in the power department. " Marcus said, hesitantly looking at the red canister.
“Depends.”-Sander shrugged –“It is not without risk, though.”
""R-risk?" Marcus asked, the hesitation in voice becoming abundantly clear. "Risk of what, exactly?"
“Depends.”-Sander repeated, eyeing the scarred boy carefully. He fell silent for a few moment, before continuing –“My power isn’t exactly stable.”
"Right. Unstable. Got it." He did not at all get it, but at this point, he wasn't sure he wanted to ask any more questions.
Grant watched the two, Marcus and Sander, go back and forth with Q&A. Or just Q, because Marcus didn't seem to be getting any straight answers. Once there was a moment of silence from them, or hesitation, Grant cleared his throat. "I have these two chains here..." He pointed with his thumb back behind him as two chains appeared, swaying just behind him. "Whatever they touch, I can manipulate, as long as it's nonliving and in my range." He'd summarize his power before the chains lowered out of sight, and they were gone.
While the boys were talking about their powers, Angel silently nodded, gazing upon the canisters of red liquid Sander was carrying around. What could he be possibly drinking to give him that much power? She took mental notes of what was being said, reminding herself to put add those entries to her profile sheets later on after this game.
"Christ, you two, stop running around in circles! He means he can lose control of himself. Haven't you seen him after that battle with the monsters? He literally was about to jump at his teammates." Angel commented, remembering well the night. First it was a stand-off against Dragon-transformed Chris, and afterwards Shane had to immobilize him into a crystal cage as he went berserk and jumped towards Christmas.
"Just don't overdo it. When you feel you have enough, just stop. Winning is one thing, putting your future comrades in danger because of a game is another." She added, the certainty in her voice hinting as if she knew what she was talking about.
"What is that stuff you are carrying in those containers anyway? Some sort of magic potion? Chemical-enhanced drink maybe?" Angel questioned the tall lanky boy.
Sander fell silent at that question, his gaze once again glued to the canister. When it seemed almost like he wouldn’t give an answer at all, he let out a sigh, then said hastily, not unlike the way someone would yank a thorn out of their flesh quickly enough to minimize the pain.
“Blood.”
Hearing that, Angélique was revolted from the idea. Truly, the more she learnt about Subnaturals powers, the more twisted she thought of how Dreamcatcher's way of gifting young people their powers.
"As long as you don't come sucking down blood from my neck, who am I to judge, heh?"
Sander offered no remark, content to simply admire the nearby crumbling building.
“Anyway, Lilianna is the small blonde girl, riiiiight there” she trailed off as she searched throughout the profile sheets she brought until she found Lilianna’s picture. “Apparently, she can transfer wounds. I don’t really know much about it beyond what we were briefed before though.”
“I don’t know anything about Callan and Kusari, to be honest.” She said with a hint of disappointment as she pointed the two profile pictures. “As for Christmas, well we all know he’s the guy who can heal with his blood, right?” She added as she shuffled her sheet to put the boy’s profile on top.
"Oh, I can help you there. Callan is basically a super hero: Super strength, super speed, the works. Kusari is...indestructible, I guess?" Marcus said, trying to find a way to describe it. He'd only seen it happen once so far, but it had held up to Emma's explanation. "She like, can heal anything you do to her. Also she's got this weird raptor leg. I really don't quite know how that fits in."
“However, I’ve personally been in contact with Christopher and Siena. Let me tell you, these guys may be those who would give us a run for our money. Chris has this huge disadvantage of having to wait for five minutes to transform. He’s in great pain and is most likely unable to move while he’s trying to become a dragon. That’s our window of opportunity to grab his flags. Once he’s transformed though, we’re fucked. I saw what a Dragon could do on the battlefield. He’s reckless, savage and violent. I suggest you haul your asses’ outta his way if he manages to transform.”
“As for Siena, she can borrow the power of any kind of character she can read from her tablet. I’ve been here with her before today. She could tear apart a building if she wanted to. Even managed to amplify my own powers. There’s no telling what she might be up to, her powers are as versatile as the number of books she can get her hands on.”
Marcus paused for a moment. He'd never actually seen Siena in action; even back at the battlefield, he was preoccupied with his fight and didn't get a chance to see what she was going to do. He knew what he'd been told, but this woman had apparently seen them firsthand. Some sort of emotion crossed his mind; guilt for not seeing his own roommate fight? Upset that he'd not been paying attention to his own teammate during the battle? It was something along those lines, but he quickly pushed it out of his head.
Back to the topic of strategy, a welcome diversion: "Like I said, I'm mobility, so I can rush in and grab his flags if he's stuck transforming, or even if he's just big and slow, but I doubt they'll let that happen easily. There's also the matter of the healer; did anybody happen to cheat and see where they put him?" he asked, grinning and looking around. It was a big area, and if they only had ten minutes, finding the kid was probably going to be impossible.
“I can help with that. Christmas is…near.”- Sander turned his head in a particular direction, eyes faraway –“I think I can find him.”
"Well that makes things a little bit easier, I suppose." Marcus said, unwilling to follow that up with a question. "So who do we worry about first, the dragon or the healer?" He mentally winced slightly at the question. He knew that whatever the answer, he was probably the best for it, while the front line fighters had their blood duel.
"Well, you said you could flash forward and backwards, right? How about you flash to wherever he dropped his flags and get back with them backwards?" Angel suggested, thinking they might as well take the opportunity for free points. Although if Sander could really find Christmas, then they shouldn't be worrying too much about the other team's flags.
"Alternatively, you could act as diversion. Like, we could go all out there and turn everyone's attention from Sander while he's going to look out for Christmas. Make ourselves as much of a threat as possible. Healers are worth a lot of points, if we can snatch him and a few flags, while making sure they don't find Lily, then we're set to win." She further added, her mind full on into imagining how the game would play out.
"From what you've been telling, nobody on the other side has the power to immediately look after Lily. "
Unless...
"Keep an eye on Siena though, she is the only one who could potentially have the power to seek her out, if she is mined into finding the healer instead of taking flags." Angel cautioned.
"Alright, why not do both? Run in, grab the dragon's flags. After that, tag Sander out, he goes and looks for their healer! Easy-peasy!" Marcus said, starting to get excited. "If we split up one-on-one, then whoever's after Siena is effectively also defending Lily, we win, no classes!"
“So, do you think I need to drink for this?”- Sander suddenly said, his tone tentative.
Marcus hesitantly shot a side glance at Angel. "I mean...depends who you're going against. Strength versus strength would be Callan, and she's pretty damn strong."
Thinking about who everyone wanted to be up against, Angel suddenly felt so useless. Sure, she might have a leading presence, but that won't stop anyone from getting past her. The only way she could effectively stop anyone dead in their tracks is to literally scream at them, and that was the least of what she wanted to do in this game. The only use she had was hand-to-hand combat, given what she had learned from her ex-bodyguard who happened to mentor her for self-defense. However, self-defense doesn't do jack shit against actual powers.
"It's likely Callan will be targeting probably every single one of us, if she is as strong as you say she is. I mean, what can we do against that? It doesn't sound like she has a particular limit in order to use her strength. Unless she is like superman and has an actual weakness to kryptonite." Angel chuckled at the stupid thought. Still, the matter of how stopping Callan without potentially injuring her was unnerving.
"Sander shouldn't be held up by her if we want him to find Christmas. He's got to be discreet if we don't want the other team tailing him down to where their healer is. I'd think, sure, drink as much as you can actually remain in control, it wouldn't hurt to have some extra muscles in case anything happens."
"Well, I haven't been throwing rocks at her to test that one out, so I can't help you there," Marcus said, also chucking. "Hell, even if you could just point one of us in the right direction, that could leave you to keep dealing with her. Battle of the century, clash of the titans, you know?" Marcus said, turning get Sander's opinion on the whole situation.
“I can find him faster.”- Sander looked clearly uncomfortable with Marcus’ comparisons, but he didn’t mention any of it. –“But if you want me to fight Callan…”- He trailed off, turning his gaze to the other team’s side.
“Is she very strong?”
"To date, I've seen her bend a metal bleacher by bouncing her head off it, push that same metal bleacher back into place, and then punch a hole straight through Kusari. And that was all with the suppression cuff on." Marcus said, nodding affirmatively.
He didn't want to push anymore; this guy didn't seem to appreciate the idea of fighting, but he'd at least answer truthfully. Whatever his power was, it actually be a literal clash of the titans, assuming Callan wanted the challenge. And if there was one thing he could guess about Callan; she wanted the challenge. She'd immediately jumped at the biggest enemy their first fight, so it made sense she'd do the same thing here.
“Is that so?”- Sander mumbled, almost just to himself –“Then maybe she ca—I can do this. I can. Can I?”
With that said, Sander moved toward the cooler and opened it up again, revealing rows of canisters inside. He stared at the red canister in his hand for the longest time, before dropping it on the ground and pushed it away with the tip of his shoe. Then he reached into the cooler, fishing out the first one and opened it up. A brief moment of hesitation flicked by, before he tilled his head back and began to chug down mouthfuls. The red glow around him flickered on and off as he used his power to catch any spillage. As soon as he finished with one, he tossed the empty vessel to the ground and began with another.
While Sander was downing the content of his canisters, Angel turned to Marcus, a look on disbelief on her face as he had heard what Callan was capable of, disturbed by her last achievement, or what she believed she heard. It wasn't just possible, surely she had misheard the scarred boy.
"Wait... She whaaat!? The fuck!?"
"Bent a bleacher, re-bent a bleacher, and then punched a hole in Kusari." Marcus said, as casually as if he were listing off things from a grocery list. " But Kusari's the invincible one, and I guess she asked Callan to punch her?" he finished, shrugging. He took a few steps away from Sander as he spoke, not wanting to get caught in whatever the red glow around him was.
Who the hell were those peoples? From what Angel had read from the profiles, those two girls were Arbiters, no sign of being batshit crazed Aberrations like her and the others. Why the heck would they go around punching holes into each other for the heck of it? Didn't Kusari feel pain nonetheless. Has her powers effectively rendered senseless to pain? Or was she a masochist on the extreme level? Guess not every Arbiters are in control of themselves, as the popular opinion would believe.
Part of her would want to know more about how that situation came to develop into, but deep inside she really didn't want to pry into this matter any further, already disgusted by the outcome of it. Anyway, Marcus seemed to have wandered off to Sander's side, who was still drinking down his containers filled with blood.
Hope he doesn't overdo it...
"J-just remember that you're only trying to get the flags, man." Marcus said, almost as an afterthought. If he was sending this guy after his own roommate, he didn't want to be putting her in danger. Second thoughts began to race in his mind; if Sander truly did berserk, there was absolutely nothing he was going to be able to do to stop him. "Flags. Not punches, not kicks. Just the flags." he said, more firmly this time.
Sander gave Marcus a look over his shoulder, crimson eyes impassive. He gave a nod that was barely there, before turning back. However, after a brief moment, he turned his head eastward, narrowing his eyes as if trying to catch something in the distance.
“Christmas is somewhere to the right side.”-Eventually, he spoke up, gaze fixed on a faraway point, nostrils flared as he sniffed the air–“At 2? 3 o’clock?”
Another moment of silent staring passed, and Sander returned to his cooler, plundering its content with a desperate haste.
Angélique's gaze turned to the direction Sander believed he sniffed Christmas, about north-east from their position. Scanning the area with curious eyes, there were two options where Christmas could be hiding. The five stories-high apartment complex and what seemed to be a ruined mall. Hiding the boy in one of those buildings seemed highly dangerous, considering the heavily-damaged infrastructure of the buildings. What if they used their powers in the flag showdown? They could risk plummeting the buildings on top of their classmate's head.
Upon focusing the area a bit more, a third unlikely option opened in Angel's mind. The open manhole. It seemed just as dangerous considering the many cracks and rupture on the streets' asphalt, but that would be one heck of a place to hide someone.
"Have you ever tried to guess about how far you can you sense someone.?" Angel questioned Sander."Also, can you sense people you don't know? If you can pick up anything astray, far from where we are, perhaps that might point us to where Lily is."
Sander paused once more, turning to Angel with what could only be described as a withering look. However, he said nothing, only gave a firm shake of his head then turned back to the cooler.
"Well, glad we got that figured out. If he's taking Callan, I can try and take Dragon-boy's flags; get in and get out before he can fling me across the plaza." Marcus said, looking to the rest of the team for confirmation. The blood in his veins was starting to boil with excitement, and he was starting to get antsy.
Entering class, it did not take long for Angélique to be annoyed once by the presence of Fredric, waving at the girl with a smile that made it look like nothing ever happened between the two. Was he doing that on purpose to aggravate her? If it was the case, he damn well succeeds in doing so. Not to mention that there were four additional missing students on top of Aaron’s disappearance. What the fuck was going on with their classroom?
With a bored look on her face, she looked at the paper a guard just handed to her while absent-mindedly listening to the class supervisor at the front. So that’s what elective classes were. Back home, they call it ‘optional classes’. Technically, they were mandatory for extra credits, but they weren’t what would make one graduate from school anyway.
Setting up the elective form aside for later, Angel listened to Fredric about this activity he had brought up. It was sort of simple, really. It reminded her of Flag Football in her school days, although they weren’t chasing after the guy with the ball, but rather randomly taking off bands and looking out for healers to get points. It sounded dull. Already, enthusiasm sapped away from the black-clothed singer. The problem was that this will be a team game, so she couldn’t let her own lack of motivation hold her team back. The reward at the end was quite mundane too, nothing really encouraging.
Getting her requested royal blue folio out during classes, she reviewed the information given about her classmates, memorizing their name and faces. On the empty spaces of the pages, she would write down information she had already gathered on the individuals she had already encountered, such as powers for the entire crew of the previously-formed Green Team, Lilianna, Christmas and Siena, as well as her first impressions of everyone she had met so far. It took her an entire class reviewing and adding information onto her profile sheets. After it was done, she had separated the folio into two stacks. One was composed of every players involved into the first set of match, the other into the second set.
Until it was time to being brought into Ground Zero for their Flag n’ Seek game, Angélique didn’t pay much attention in class, fiddling with her phone, gathering information on Death and Taxes, chatting, reading more e-mails and messages that she was still catching up with from her week-long absence. While there was certainly an ordered chaos in Angel’s newest lifestyle, it was terrible just how much of a mess she had left her old life behind, as a result of her awakening as a subnatural, at least on the social side.
Throughout social media, there was an uproar about her coming out as a subnatural in such a way. Media seemed to have jumped on the opportunity to make a scandal out of it, with reason considering how dire the situation had been. The most aggravating however that is those same media started the rumor that it was all part of a scheme, terrorism in a way. Angélique Lachance was but a subnatural terrorist who bade her time, building fame until she could hit hard. Effectively, those rumors gave an even worse reputation to Subnaturals, gave more reason for the normal people to fear the supernatural-empowered freaks. Some hardcore fans and groups of activist tried to rally against these rumors and defended the young Canadian singer, but against the already overwhelming general mistrust towards the “Dreamcatcher’s Blessed”, the issue was quelled rather quickly, branding the newly-formed Voice of the Metalheads into one more hated villain.
As a result, Angel had received many e-mails and notifications. Hate letters, threats, sympathies, sponsors cutting their ties with her, manager and staff members leaving her service, letters from lawyers and bankers; she had read them all. It had broken her heart reading the letters, but she was a woman who loved her fans, and so had taken the time to answer to every single one of them during the days she spent had spent in USARILN. This afternoon, she had finally managed to get through them all.
She had been thinking about her old life during her stay in this prison. Would she be able to remain the same person, even though she was locked behind this prison they faked as school for Subnaturals? She wanted to believe she was the same Angélique Lachance, popular rock and metal musician, who had been so close to her fans and even tried to become a voice for the outcasts and secluded members of society (she wasn’t an activist, but she had the reputation of being close to one, her reasons unknown as to why she had been supporting Subnaturals during her last years as an icon).
No. What happened during her last concert changed it forever. She would no longer be the fan-caring leader of a band. She was transformed into a Subnatural criminal, one who had robbed the lives of people who loved what she was doing and who trusted her. There was no way she could return to her last life.
Hence, the raven-haired X-marked deleted everything related to her. E-mail, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, everything until there was no trace left of her but the fan-made legacy she had left behind throughout the internet.
By the time she was done with deleting her old life and focusing on what will be ahead of her, the class ended, and it was time for everyone to be herded together and brought to Ground Zero, where the Flag n’ Seek game was to happen.
Time to see if she was truly resolved into starting from scratch. From popular singer icon to despised Subnatural. Would she witness as much success as she had in her previous lifestyle? Only time and her living existence will tell.
Another morning came to the horizon, this one however with a bit more purpose in the newly arrived student that occupied Room 300 in the Aberration dorms. Waking up once more in cold sweat from that same old yet newly reformed nightmare, Angélique got up from bed with the facial expression of someone who woke from the wrong foot. Her current thoughts were occupied by negativity, voices taunting her with how worthless she had been recently; how fleeting the bonds of friendship she made here were; how much of spineless cowards the humans around had been to her; how much pathetic beings her Subnatural friends and teammates were.
The raven black-haired student slapped herself out of it. She could not do anything about the voices in her head, but she could at least try and remain focused, shake off this anger building inside from the words whispered. Angel desperately tried to change her mind, thinking about what Lawrence told her the day before after they were finished with their firearms training. It was up to her to decide how her stay in this prison will be like.
As much as she did not accept the fact that they would most likely be spending their rest of their lifetime in here, she could not deny the truth in her veteran classmate’s words. She needed to plan ahead of time, make the most of this place before the opportunity arises.
With this train of thought in mind, Angélique dressed simply with a pair of skin-tight leggings, running shoes, a sports bra and her trademark shades; everything black in color to contrast her light complexity and complement her hair that she tied in a ponytail. She’d get a small breakfast at the cafeteria before jogging at the training grounds, to the track field.
Earbuds in place, plugged into her cellphone, the French-Canadian girl started jogging to the music of her playlists. She needed that much to distract herself from the ever-whispering voices pounding the back of her head. Jogging in itself was boring, and as such, after completing a single lap on the track field, she left the training ground to jog around the campus.
By the end of her cardio session, a guard had approached Angel. Initially, she did not hear a single word from what he was saying, with the earbuds blocking outside sounds and music already blasting through her ears. She was tempted to just jog past the guy and ignore him, but with a raised gun pointing towards her, she doubted it was such a good idea after all. She stopped and removed her earbuds when she got next to the guard.
“What is it, Sir? Didn’t know we had curfew during daytime as well.”
“Real funny… You have orientation to attend to this morning.”
“Woah there, cowboy. Would it kill you to warn us beforehand? I’m all sweaty and shit, can’t I just take a fucking shower before going to classes?”
“Then get your ass moving. You don’t have much time.”
This being said, Angel raced back to her dorms, grab her personal hygiene kit before quickly washing off the sweat and dust from her morning jog. While her inner self fancied a little touch of makeup, mostly eyeshadow, she had no time to prepare beforehand for such things. As such, Angel quickly dressed-up with skin-tight black jeans and a black cropped tank top, slipping into her pair of sneakers and taking off to the class where she was supposed to attend today’s classes. She wasn’t wearing everything she’d wish to, but that would have to suffice for the time being, she thought as she slipped her black opaque eyewear on her face.
As she reached the class, there were already a few people that had arrived before Angélique. She did not recognize one individual however that had been sitting among them. Eyeing one open spot at the furthest possible seat from the teacher’s desk, Angel made her way there, sitting at the back end of the class next to the wall. She would’ve liked to sit next to the window at the far end of the class, but that spot had already been taken.
Throughout the whole orientation process, Angel paid little attention to whatever the guy at the front - Frederick? - was talking about. He may have been a Mage(?) just like they were, but the fact that he was working directly under their supreme overlord made him no less than a lapdog to the metal-styled student.
It was but until the red-haired young woman who burst in the room with boxes and energy to wake up even the dead, things suddenly caught Angélique’s attention. So pretty much any kind of requests were accepted, on top of being dealt with quickly? From electronics to pets, musical instruments to firearms, most of the requests had been granted to the students.
Angel would have been damned if she expected her request to really be considered. But with the Desert Eagle being dropped on her desk along with a few boxes of ammunitions, she could hardly deny that those people were serious about it. Even the blue folder sitting in front of her was testament to that.
"I noticed that two of your classmates were having some gun practice the other day. What a fantastic way to build camaraderie! Just take it with a grain of salt. A lot of DC's finest don't give two hoots about the weapons we're packing. Anyway, since big ol' Grumpy has put me in charge of this group's requisitions and I'm allowed to do whatever I feel like if I think it benefits the group, from now on Lawrence is your official firearms instructor!"
Indeed, monsters were resilient to bullets, she seen it firsthand, but they would affect lesser creatures. Better using a bullet than a scream, in her case.
“Who said it’ll solely be used on monsters?”
Angélique slapped her hand to her mouth, her eyes growing wide when she realized what just came out from her mouth. Did she just really say that out-loud? Her mind had been nagging her at her with this idea as she had taken hold of the handgun and examined it. Surely, it was foolish to threaten the guards with it. But deep inside, she knew about herself, the danger Aberrations represented to others, what had happened between Zoe and Aaron. While bullets did no good against monsters, it was a whole another story for Subnaturals. At base, they were still humans, and if it wasn’t the case, why everyone here be so frightened about having guns pointed in their face. If one crazy Subnatural were to try and kill her, she would have to mean to lethally take that individual out, without resorting to her suppressed powers.
For the rest of the morning, Angel paid little to no mind about the classes she was having. Taking on textbook that had been distributed to her, Angel opened it and placed the blue folder she had gotten earlier from Daisy. She would pretend self-studying, all the while she was carefreely reclined on the two legs of her chair, back against the wall, with the allure of a slacker well experienced at what she does.
Her mind drifted to the profiles she read thoroughly about her classmates. Granted, she was pissed off by the post-it notes detailing that she didn’t have access to her classmates’ powers and background. Classified information, her ass. Was it just so difficult to save her time and write down their powers instead of just having her walk up to each and every one of them and ask about what they do?
When lunch time had arrived, Angel quickly got up her chair and left the class in a hurry. Something had been bothering her for a while, in fact throughout the classes. She had noticed they were one member short, seemingly replaced by an unknown dumb-faced guy she couldn’t care less about. Aaron was missing, and that bothered her immensely. She may have been an asshole to the boy for the past few days, but she still owed him much for what he did to her, and it was a lie to say that she didn’t care about him.
There was a single lead for Angélique to follow. Out of his three roommates, only one remained available. Christopher was there in class, maybe he knew what happened to Aaron. If she could find him during dinner time, maybe she could have a chat with him about her friend’s whereabouts.
With a sore shoulder from today’s earlier training with Lawrence about handling firearms, Angélique made her way towards USARILN East’s cafeteria. She was looking forward all day long to this afternoon, getting her old team all together for a dinner of her own design. Sure, what she intended to make didn’t quite fit together, but she’d rather make them discover a bit of dishes from her hometown rather than treat her friends to something ordinary.
As always, she was greeted by the nonchalant expression of the staff member labelled “Jason” behind his counter. Before even taking care of the ID formality, she jumped on the trigger with a question.
“Hey, you guys have kitchens at the back, right? Mind if I use them for the afternoon?”
“Uhhh, you know you have a communal kitchen in the Abes’ apartment, right?”
“No shit. I don’t have the ingredients.”
“Use your legs and your allowance to buy what you need in CC 1.”
“Well fuck you then.”
Angel stormed out of the cafeteria with a pissed off expression in her eyes. She really didn’t want to go to town and carry groceries from Crimen Culpae to the dorms.
“Hey Angel!”
Aaron called out behind the angry Canadian girl. She turned on her heels, visibly mad, which made Aaron back off a little bit while presenting his hands in a symbol of peace.
“Oh, sorry. Did I catch you again at a wrong timing?” Aaron apologized, remembering well what had happened yesterday when she crossed her during one of her bad mood days.
“No no. Quite the opposite actually. I’ve been refused access to this prison’s kitchen, so I need to run to town and grab some stuff to make tonight’s dinner.”
“Need some help? Four arms are better than two to carry groceries bag, am I right?"
“Hmm… Well I guess I can’t say no. I’d really appreciate it, thanks.”
“Alright then, lead the way.”
The two former members of Green Team soon departed towards Crimen Culpae 1 in search of a supermarket. Thanks for the power of the campus’ network signal, Angel managed to find - with the help of her trusty smartphone - a rather good-rated supermarket not too far away from USARILN.
On the way to the neighboring town, the two subnaturals discussed at length about what kind of music they preferred, bands and some well-known albums. Although the two shared a passion for metal music, it was evident their taste came from two different sources. Angel preferred mostly was came out from artists, while Aaron was very interested in covers made from video-games and/or the original soundtracks from those.
They’ve been killing time on the road by making listen each other listen to their favorite songs, Aaron lending his trademark headphones to Angélique while she handed her smartphone playing songs from her personal playlists.
It had been a good way to seemingly reach the store in the blink of an eye. Before they knew it, the musical duo stepped through the automatic door of the supermarket, greeting the two Mages with the fresh smell of fruits and vegetables.
“Alright, let me check what I need.”
Angel took her phone in hand and opened a note she had typed in earlier this morning. It was her groceries list, listing each ingredient she’d need to make her food.
Farine Sucre Bleuets Cassonade Lait Œufs Fécule de maïs
Aaron looked quizzically at Angel when she was muttering out loud the list on her phone. He had absolutely no idea what most of what she read meant.
“Sorry, I don’t speak… French, was it? Tell me what you need, I’ll go get them for you.”
Aaron took a nearby shopping cart and brought to Angel while he was carrying a shopping basket for himself.
“Could you get… mozzarella cheese, onions, green peppers, blueberries, eggs, milk, and cream-styled corn?”
Aaron nodded, pulling out his phone and making a note of everything Angélique said. So far, he really had no clue what she intended to cook, and that seemed to be only half of her shopping list.
After writing everything down, the two split up on their own to fetch their ingredients. While the brown-haired Arbiter went to fetch his parts of the groceries, the raven-haired Aberration took her time to select the finest selection of food she could find. A 10 pounds’ sack of potatoes, oil, brown gravy mix, Italian sausages, lean ground beef, white flour, sugar, brown sugar, salt and finally corn starch.
Pooling everything together, the students’ duo went to the cashier to complete their purchase. While the two were emptying their shopping cart on the moving tray, the guy behind the counter seemed anxious, or nervous.
“Holy crap, you two are Subnaturals right? You two going out? On a date, perhaps? Oh, I know, you guys shopping for a romantic meal tonight, am I right?”
The cashier obnoxiously questioned as it was time to pay for the groceries.
“N-NO!”
“What the fuck man?”
The two Mages blurted out in answer to the sudden assault of erroneous assumptions the guy behind his counter shot at them. With an annoyed frown, the black-haired X-marked got her student ID card and shoved it in the cashier’s face.
“Just shut up and take the cash. I haven’t got all day to listen to your bullshit.”
Angel sharply added. At this moment, Aaron realized just how straightforward her friend could be to others when she wasn’t in the mood to mess around, especially when people were being stupid to her.
The cashier gulped and lowered his eyes, not wanting to aggravate the situation any further, knowing well what an angry X-marked could become. Yep, definitively going out, and the girl seemed to be the dominant one of the couple. He chuckled mentally at this fact. Taking the girl’s card, he charged the card for the expenses by sweeping it in his machine before returning it to its owner.
“Thank you for your purchase! You two have a nice day together!”
As much as Angel wanted to shout his face off some more, Aaron gripped her arm, looking at her with disapproval eyes and slowly shaking his head negatively.
He was right, the guy wasn’t worth the trouble she’d get for sending the guy flying on his ass with his machine. They’ll just take their groceries and leave this store as quickly as possible to return to the dorms. It was getting rather late to make the dinner, but if they could hurry up, she’ll have time to prepare everything for this evening.
The road back to USARILN was less eventful. The two spent their time walking in awkward silence, Aaron carrying the heaviest bags and the 10-pound sack of potatoes on his shoulder per request, while Angélique was carrying the numerous smaller grocery bags.
“Did I do something wrong?”
“What do you mean?”
“Yesterday, when you stormed off the training grounds. Did I say anything hurtful to you?”
Angel stood silent, at loss as what to say. What could she tell him? That she was tormented by inner voices which drives her towards destruction? No, she didn’t want him to worry about her problems. It was her burden, she couldn’t share it with someone else, even if at times she would want to confess her worries, pain and sadness to someone else.
“I… just wasn’t in a good mood that day. I’m an X-marked, you know? They say that we simply have days we feel that way. I guess yesterday were one of those days.”
Visibly uncomfortable speaking about this subject, Aaron dropped the subject for the time being. Surely there was something deeper than that, like what exactly was her stigma that turned her into such a different person. But it wasn’t the time to pry further into her reasons. After all, they had just recently come into USARILN, who knows how recently she had to start dealing with her issues.
Arriving at the dorms, the duo took the elevator inside the Aberration apartments, bringing the ingredients to the third floor’s communal kitchen.
“Do you need help with the cooking? I can cut vegetables if you need me to.”
“No, that will be alright. I… need some time alone. Plus, I’m treating you guys to dinner, it wouldn’t be fair to have you help me now.”
“You sure? Okay then… anything I can actually do for you?”
“Well… if you could do me one last favor. I told everyone to meet me at the cafeteria at 5 PM, but I obviously won’t have time to go there myself. If you could just meet the others there and tell them to meet me here, or at room 300, I’d be much obliged.”
“Alright, got it. Anything else?”
“No… I think that will be all.”
“Alright then. See you later.”
“Yeah… later. Thank you for the help today. I appreciate it.”
“Eh, you’re welcome. It’s always a pleasure being with you- err… I mean… speaking with you. Yeah!”
Aaron started walking out of the kitchen, before slowly coming to a stop, realizing Angel had just given him the number to his room.
“If you need anything, my room’s 225 in the Arbiter dorms. Chris is my roommate… and so was Alexis.”
Aaron trailed off on his former roommate and teammate. Finally, he left quickly, calling himself stupid to have brought up Alexis’ name in this discussion. He had to move forward, no matter how hard it was to accept a fellow student’s death, but perhaps that deep inside, Angélique was still mourning the loss of their friend. That would explain why she was trying so hard to bring up the team together after that night.
In the kitchen, Angel had stopped from unpacking the groceries after she heard Aaron mentioning Alexis name. Why did that name affect her so much? Was it because she still blamed herself for her death, even though she barely even knew her? She didn’t know, or refused to acknowledge the reasons. All that she knew is that they had lost four people that night, perhaps four too many.
After a minute of lamenting herself for this loss, Angel started unpacking the groceries once more, looking somehow more determined than before.
She would not let their deaths be in vain. If needs be, she’ll use them to strengthen herself and the others. That’s the least she could do to pay homage to their sacrifices.
---------------------------------------------
I can't believe I'm bothering with this.
Zoe paused at the door of the cafeteria, feeling slightly irritated that she'd actually headed out for this. Of all the people in the school, these were the ones she'd planned to avoid as much as she could - even if she'd bothered sating her Stigma at any point, they'd probably still manage to annoy the shit out of her.
So why was she here?
Well, she had her reasons for turning up. Mostly to see if they'd actually given any thought to what she'd said, or if they were still going to bitch and moan at her for being mean to them. Not that it bothered her either way, but she wanted to see if helping them was even worth the effort. If it wasn't, then that just meant she was wasting her breath and she could move on to people that might at least try and help themselves.
In short, she was here to judge exactly how right she was about them. She certainly had no intention of making up for anything, that was for sure. As far as she was concerned, she didn't have anything to make up for and didn't feel any kind of obligation to these people after the situation they'd put her into.
She pushed open the door, expression shining with arrogance as she strode into the room and took a seat. Perfectly aware that she was being obnoxious about this, she sat with a taunting smirk on her face. It was more than clear that she wasn't here to apologize - if anything, the expression she wore made it seem that she was laughing at the situation. Daring anyone that might come in to confront her. At least she could have some fun with this.
When Chris had gotten an invitation, he was a tad surprised. He thought he made it clear he wasn't looking to make friends with his attitude prior to the fight. Then again, the tragedy of losing a few unlucky souls was heartbreaking to everyone, not just him. He definitely did not like his other roommate, but with the loss of Alexis he figured it would be best to just go ahead with it. Chris then took a nice hot shower, groomed his white hair back with gel, put on some generic white-boy deodorant, then proceeded to get dressed in his suit and tie he and brought with him as part of his clothes. A black trimmed heavy coat, with matching dress pants and a black tie. A fancy red shirt was worn beneath the suit, buttoned and folded collars all. Finishing his attire with white socks and black dress shoes he would look at the mirror one last time before heading out to the cafeteria.
When he arrived, he would sigh with his usual brooding scowl. Sure, he was willing to go, but that doesn't mean he was going to enjoy it. He was the second enter, just after Zoe. He took a seat himself, in his silence and away from Zoe and Aaron. Taking refuge in a corner for him to brood alone at.
Allison arrived quietly, pushed open the door to the cafeteria, and walked to the table where her former team mates sat. She was wearing some of the clothes that Angel had picked out for her. Allison sat down, looking around at those who had arrived before her. Aaron was there, Zoe seemed smug, and Chris was brooding and moody. Allison kept to herself, staring down at the table with her hands clasped together.
Once everyone had gathered at the cafeteria, Aaron had risen from his chair. Truthfully, he wasn't sure a lot of these people would've accepted Angélique's invitation. Well, not that she was hated or anything. There was something about her that tried to bring people together around her. The brown-haired boy wondered exactly how his former teammates felt about Angel, if they felt strongly about her the same way he did.
While he wasn't fond of having Zoe around with her challenging sly grin, he would do his best to ignore her smug attitude, for this dinner's sake, for Angel's sake who had poured a lot of effort to bring her former team back together despite what had happened on that night.
"Everyone's here. Good. Follow me. Angel told me to get you guys to her dorm, as it appears she couldn't use the cafeteria's kitchens."
Aaron said as he turned to the former Green Team, shortly leaving the cafeteria afterwards to head to the Aberrations' dorms.
Still playing at being a leader, are we Aaron? I thought we'd established how that one goes. Zoe had rolled her eyes as Aaron addressed them, making a point of basically ignoring whatever he said. Whether or not she could get a rise out of the guy, watching him try not to get annoyed by her was almost as entertaining as actually provoking him.
Once they reached inside and made their way to the third floor, their nostrils would be assaulted by the smell of various kind of food. Meat, stirred vegetables, pie? The mix of smells seemed kind of weird, but it made the whole dorm smell tremendously good nonetheless.
As they reached the communal dining area, they were greeted by the sight of Angélique just about getting something out of the oven, curelessly speaking with a few other Aberrations that she had drawn out of their rooms with the exquisite aromas escaping from the kitchen.
"Don't worry, Jake. I'll try to save you a piece of pie after our dinner. If not, I can just make another one with the leftover blueberries I have."
Angel chuckled as she brought the blue-filled pie out of the oven and onto the counter. Turning to bring her last cooked part of the dinner over to the dining table, her face beamed with a radiant smile as she noticed everyone from Green Team came.
"Guys! I'm so happy to see you all came! Here, take a seat, dinner's ready."
Angel motioned to the table with a swing of her head. The surrounding Aberrations that had been speaking with the cooking angel either dispersed back into their own rooms or went to use the kitchen now that the newly arrived Aberration finished using it. Even though some of them wanted to stick around, they all respected the girl's dedication to bring her former team back together, finding some kind of solace from seeing such a display if friendship inside these cold walls.
When Savannah had gotten to the cafeteria, no one from the former green team was there. Already exhausted from the frantic run across campus, the young girl sped back to Building B, panting. She was so late. Who knows if anyone would actually be there by the time Savannah managed to arrive at the building. Her shoes slapped the pavement hard; other students moved out of the running Aberration's way. It was clear she had somewhere to be, and that place was not here.
When Savannah got to the building, she sped up the stairs towards Angel's room. If they weren't in the cafeteria, they'd probably be there. Getting to Angel's room, Savannah stopped and banged on the door. She panted, her curly blonde hair stuck to her forehead. Damnit, it'd be extra frizzy in an hour or so. She just hoped that it wouldn't look like a fucking afro.
After about 45 seconds of waiting, no one came to the door. Agitated, Savannah decided to check the second place that they might be. The kitchens. She sprinted over there, and seeing them, she came to a stop.
"H-hello." she managed to gasp out while catching her breath. "It took me forever to find you, thanks for that.
Upon arriving in the room, Zoe really wasn't sure how to react. She appreciated the gesture, that wasn't an issue at all, but - well, she couldn't remember the last time she'd actually had anyone make her fresh food. Or eaten much of anything that wasn't from a can or a cafeteria, for that matter. It was strange, familiar and completely unfamiliar at the same time. Plus, she was pretty sure her table manners had all but disappeared in the intervening time. Smelled good, though.
Taking a seat with a yawn, she figured they'd just put down any faux pas to her being deliberately rude. Which, all things considered, was fine with her. Rudeness had always been the least of her concerns, and it was a problem that she didn't care to fix. If any of her teammates cared that much about table manners, then they could get the hell over it.
As Savannah arrived, Zoe looked over from her seat and spoke in a flat tone. "Sorry to inconvenience you. Must have been real hard figuring out people were making food in the kitchen, but I'm glad you were able to manage it eventually."
Savannah glared at Zoe, pissed-off ness radiating off of her. "Haha, very funny." Savannah said, sarcasm lacing each word. She really didn't like Zoe. Not one bit.
The scent alone was amazing. Allison hadn't smelled anything that good in a long time. When was the last time she had had a home cooked meal? Allison took her seat at the table with glee, hungrily staring at the food in front of her.
"This looks absolutely amazing! You made this by yourself?" Allison's focus flitted between Angel and the feast. "You've got to teach me how to cook sometime." The line came out of Allison's mouth faster than she could process it. Well, Allison didn't know how to cook, and Angel seemed to be pretty capable, and she had helped Allison out with other things already.
Allison's excitement instantly dropped when Savannah entered the room. Allison's eyes focused on the table, her hands clamped together. She stayed quiet while Zoe let loose an obvious insult.
"Hey, Savannah." Allison said, still focused on the table.
"Savannah! It's good to see you!"
Seeing Allison, Savannah immediately began to redden. When she took her seat, she took the one farthest from Allison as possible, looking at her shoes.
"H-hi, Allison." Savannah croaked out. Their meeting from yesterday still burned in her memory, much to the distaste of Savannah. No, she didn't want to think of lacy, erroneous underwear. That wasn't something she wanted forever ingrained into her memory, but alas, it was.
"Sure! Next time we get to have a good homemade meal, let's go shop and we'll spend an afternoon experimenting with food."
Angel answered to Allison, flashing a cheerful smile as she sat down at one end of the table.
By the time everyone sat, there was this awkward silence filling the dinning room. The only person who wasn't this silent was the one who had cooked this meal by herself, humming a joyful song from beneath her closed lips. Seeing everyone gathered here, no matter how awkward things may be, it filled her with pride and joy.
Well the food was good. That much Chris was certain just by entering the relocated room. For the others, well, he could tolerate them. However, it seems there was some tension between the others, which was surprising since he thought he would receive the most annoyance of for his cold and distant behavior towards them. The silence made it more obvious that nearly everyone had no interest in conversing. Music to Chris's ears. He'd enjoy his meal of Poutine and Pate Chinois, foods he had never experienced before. Chris may had no interest in the others, but he had to give credit where credit was due. "Well I appreciate the food, Angelique, I suppose that makes us even." It was only polite to accept the food, even an edgelord like Chris knew his manners. "Don't think that makes us friends though." He added before taking another bite of his selected serving. Chris's etiquette was professional. Napkin on lap, taking small bites of food, and frequently dabbing his lips with his napkin.
"Yeah, love you too, bro." Angel sarcastically answered back at Christopher.
...Jackass...
Cracks began to appear in Angélique's smile. She tried to maintain a friendly and positive attitude as the host of this dinner, but already the heated-up tension between Zoe and the rest of the teams, Chris being an ass and Allison and Savannah being awkward to each other, not to mention that suddenly her voices began creeping up the surface all of a sudden, all this started to twist Angel's smile into a more forceful one. In her life, the raven-haired Aberration wasn't known for having a lot of patience, and this situation really tested how far she'd keep up the good looks in order to bring some semblance of harmony into this team.
Savannah served herself a portion of poutine. Hesitant, she bit into it, and was immediately surprised. It was salty, almost greasy. The sauce covering it- was that gravy? There were also some various toppings on it, which she happily ate as well. Unlike Chris, Savannah was a messy eater. She ate far too fast, the occasional juice dripping down her chin, which she promptly caught with her napkin. Although, she did have the dignity to eat with her mouth closed.
"This is good!" Savannah said after swallowing a bite of it. "What is it? I've never seen this before."
"It's called Poutine. Usually it's just fries topped with gravy and cheese, but I went ahead of myself and added some more ingredients. I guess you could call it Lumberjack Poutine in English. Oh, and it's normal you maybe haven't had any before. I've heard this meal was exclusive to the part of Canada I live in. Have yet to confirm whether it's true or not actually."
-----------------------------------------------
Eventually, the meal came to an end when everyone had their fill or had enough of this foreigner's cuisine. Seeing how everybody seemed to appreciate Angel's cooking, it was to no surprise there weren't any leftovers from this 6-man servings, much to the chagrin of the few Aberrations who had asked the cook if they could taste her homemade dishes.
When it came time to bring out the dishes from the table, Aaron had offered to help cleaning the table, but Angel insisted doing it herself, bringing up the issue that she wanted some time alone to think while cleaning the dishes.
That dinner was more troublesome than she had expected.
Oh well... maybe one day they'll all come up together.
If they even live that long to see that day.
Chris excused himself once the meal was done. He would fold his napkin over the plate, carefully placing the silverware over it. Once doing so, he straightened his tie and turned to the door. "Thanks again for dinner, Angel." Chris said before taking his exit. That night, all he wanted to do now was get out of his fine clothes, shower, and sleep. However he made sure his attire was neatly hung by hangers near his desk before calling it a rest, making a mental note to get that cleaned somewhere.
"Oh, are we leaving? Well, thanks for the food, Angel. I can appreciate a decent meal, at least."
Zoe, having stayed quiet for most of the meal on account of actually wanting to enjoy the food, watched Chris leave with a grin appearing on her face. Sure, she could offer to help out, but that meant spending more time around these people - and if Angel wanted time alone, Zoe doubted that she'd be an improvement on that situation. Of course, Zoe being who she was, she wasn't about to exit without getting another shot in at the group.
Standing up, she started heading out of the cafeteria. "Well, I'm heading off then. You guys try not to get anyone killed while I'm gone!" Her tone was cheerful, enough that if it wasn't for what she was saying people would probably think she was being nice to the group. "I'd hate to have to clean up after any of you."
With a mocking salute, Zoe turned and headed out. She figured that would be enough for the day, anyway - and besides, she really wanted to get some sleep.
Allison wasn't sure how much she had eaten. The food was amazing, better than canned beans, that's for sure. Allison had been relatively talkative during the meal, moreso than most of her compatriots, but she had refrained from talking much to Savannah. Hopefully they would both eventually forget about what had happened.
"Thanks for the meal, Angel. That was the best food I've had in ages. I mean it." Allison wanted to help clear the dishes, but considering how Angel had already shooed away Aaron, it seemed that help wasn't wanted. Allison left right after Zoe and Chris, waving Angel, Aaron, and Savannah goodbye. It was time to sleep.
"Already? Damn, that was so good I lost track of time. Thanks for the food, Angel. It was awesome. Savannah said, smiling. The food had been good, Savannah had devoured a lot of it. Especially the pie. Especially the pie. What could she say? Savannah had a tooth for all things sweet and sugary.
She walked out of the room with a wave. It had been a good dinner, with the exception of the awkwardness between Allison and Savannah, and the hostility from Zoe. She headed to her room, humming.
Angélique waved goodbye to each and every one as they bid their farewell. Alone at last, the black-haired Canadian slowly cleaned the dishes from the table, before moving on to the sink where she took her sweet time cleaning everything up in pristine condition. In contrast to earlier, there were no songs, no joyful humming escaping her lips, no smile.
Truly, the dinner might've went well according to outside viewers, but in reality, it was a disaster. While Angel might have scored a few points in her teammates heart, this meeting wasn't to show-off her culinary skills, nor to gain more popularity. Sure, she could benefit from gaining her teammates' trust, but that wasn’t what she was going for. She had hoped this dinner would've eased the tension between everyone on Green Team. Hard truth was, the shades-wearing X-marked realized that this evening only cemented each other's hate or disliking towards each other, as Angel had to preemptively stop Aaron from shouting at Zoe after what she said before leaving the dining room.
"Pathetic..."
For once, Angélique's words reflected what her inner voices ushered, the façade she had built crumbling.
