Because Jan mentioned the idea of taking on a Russian organization, who would be better suited than I for the job?
Clears throat and speaks in true Russian accent
Okay, so let me tell you guys what REALLY happened to Las. Since you folks are rather good comrades, I feel like sharing with you all the details of the special operation mission that led to the event of Las' concussion. I trust you won't be using this information to blackmail us or reveal it to the outside world, capiche?
Fiddles with garrote wire
Anyway. It all started when news of an underground Russian organization called "The Black Vipers" reached the KGB ears. Word in Moscow was that this organization had kept low on the radar for many centuries, gathering ressources and materials without arousing the suspicion of the world's leaders. And finally, with the turmoil currently happening as the countries are preparing for a third world war because of the fascist American president Donald Trump and the stupidly overconfident leader Kim Jong Un, the Black Vipers got a bit too hungry and accidentally leaked informations on a Doomsday device that would be a total game changer.
So naturally, the KGB deemed necessary to send me on a mission to stop the Black Vipers from finishing their device and use it for global domination. However, skilled as I may be, the underground organization had time to build a decent base of operationss and get the personnel to wage war on a country. So my bosses called in for reinforcement. The top of what they could call in to help me in my mission. The KGB gave the MI6 a call and asked for their best agent, someone that I surprisingly knew from my undercover task at scouring role-playing forums.
So, first part of my mission was to get in the Black Vipers' line of sight and have them recruit my skilled self into their ranks. Needless to say, you all know just how good my infiltration skills are, so it was a piece of cake to become one of their members. I was to be the contact that would allow Las to infiltrate the Black Vipers' hideout and help her terminate the heads of the organization and destroy the Doomsday device.
Little did I know that I underestimated my partner's badassery. Where my skills lie in infiltration and assassination, she is my polar opposite. She doesn't give a fuck about all that, and let me tell you why. That girl is like the mix of The Punisher and Superman. She doesn't take the backdoor; she punches people through the door. So yeah, hard to admit it, but she wasn't my support, I was HER support. Rugby is just an undercover activity she took to cover up the super strength she had and the badassery aura she exudes.
So yeah, my role in this operation was basically to guide her throughout the hideout while Las simply mowed down the organization by herself, making her way through the vast complex of tunnels and corridors and slapping giant of men and muscled thugs as if she was a pimp slapping her bitches to the ground.
Eventually, we made it to the core of the base. Unfortunately, the commotion Las caused pressed the heads of the Black Vipers to threaten us to blow the whole continent should we not back off. Unfazed, Las simply walked up to them and beat the living crap outta them as if they were mere dolls. However, one of them got scared shitless and proceeded with the Doomsday countdown. After kicking the guy into space (yes, Las can actually kick people so hard they leave their earthly bonds to be disintegrated into space as their pass through the atmosphere like a space rocket), she looked at me with a confident grin and simply walked up to the device.
I thought we were goners, but Las' confidence leaked into me and I put all my trust into her as I reached for the device myself. I set up the groundwork for Las to terminate the device, hacking into the system so that the machine would cool down sufficently to not explode upon heavy bludgeoning impact. However, there was nothing we could use to break down the device.
It was with a final nod and a grin as wide as the Joker's, Las simply took the device with her two hands and... headbutted the machine with all her might. The impact sound of her skull meeting metal was tremendous, and I could saw the Doomsday device breaking down into pieces as Las fell backwards, seemingly knocked out from the intensity of the impact she gave the device with her forehead.
Little did I know that the device was giagantic enough to be wired throughout the whole underground complex. So when Las broke it down with her headbutt, the whole place was just about to come down on our heads. So I did the best I could in this situation. I grabbed on Las, swung an arm around my shoulder and quickly left the area. It was easy to escape, as the gal wasn't really knocked out cold, simply confused from a concusssion. She was aware enough of the situation to run with me to the exit.
...
So now you know the details that led to Las' concussion. Needless to say, the shock was tremendous enough to affect her short-term memory, so she probably doesn't know about the mission at all. She'll probably believe she got her ass whooped while playing Rugby. I suppose it's better she doesn't remember. It won't compromise my identity, and sometimes some missions are best left unremembered.
However, I will always remember this mission and my partner, the badass girl that is Lasrever. God bless her soul, and I hope she will recover well from her concussion.
"Alright, let's get this show started!" Angel spoke to herself, as if to gain some confidence for heading out in battle.
Getting out of the trucks, the sight of the ravaged town greeted the singer's sight. Seeing it for herself was disturbing, instead of at the TV news. Angel shook her head, trying to remain undeterred despite the rubbles and corpses littering the streets. She had to remain calm and focused. Her team needed someone battle ready; SHE needed to be ready for what was coming.
After a while, when everyone gathered into their respective teams, Angel walked up to her own, looking in turn to Siena, Emma, Hazel, Grant, Brent and Gregory.
"Do you guys thought up of some plans on the way here?"
Truthfully, Angel had already imagined various possibilities, strategies and planning ahead of time both during the trip and before then. Hell, she even wrote down possible strategic deployments on everyone's profile sheets back when she was reviewing what she knew of her teammates. But she wanted to hear what the others' thoughts were. She desperately wanted someone else to come up with the plans. Not that she wouldn't mind carrying the burden of the responsabilities, but deep inside, Angel wanted someone else, way more stable than her - an Arbiter like Siena, Brent or Grant - to assume the position of leadership. Angel wasn't confident in her own emotional stability to make sound decisions and uphold them.
A frown crossed Emma's face as she surveyed what remained of Wisford. All this, done by one subnatural? We really are monsters. Emma shifted uncomfortable as Angel began to speak. She felt out of place. Very out of place. This was a real battlefield, no place for a high school girl. Between Hazel's armor, the helmet, and Hephaestus's 'wishalloy' she felt like a little girl playing dress up. Emma kept her head down as she responded to Angel, "N-not really. Sorry." the words came out quickly. She knew she wasn't ready.
The battlefield didn't bother Hazel the same way as the others however; it was similar to Ground Zero after all, though she was the one that did most of the killing there. She was more concerned about the coming battle and the horde of enemies she might have to face. With a wide reaching ability like hers, sticking together was just as likely to harm the others as well as those monsters. If she went alone, she might get blindsided once again. There was something in the books she had read over in the library, something she found while reading about armour.
"Trap them in a killzone."
She didn't think to explain more, instead she started fiddling with several earplugs she brought along as well as the wishalloy everyone had been given. Would the alloy help with the earplugs?
Another battlefield, though this one more real than any of the ones she remembered. No...not all of them...but this one was worse than what she'd seen with her own eyes. There was no doubt about that. Her mind, however, was preoccupied with thoughts of their abilities. With the others fully capable of doing direct damage, Siena wasn't entirely certain where her place was. She could help them be stronger...or perhaps defend...?
"We need to distract them, right? If they have vision like we do, I can probably attract them while taking a name." She paused as she considered the names she might take. "We could set a trap that way. Better still if we can limit how many come at once."
Angel listened to Siena’s idea, nodding apprehensively at the plan and quickly adding that to what she had already been thinking, see if she could somehow manage to fit the puzzle of stratagems together.
“What do you have in mind?” Angel asked, wondering how a trap could work out in the situation they had to face.
"Well, between all of our abilities, it shouldn't be difficult to attract their attention..." Siena thought for a moment. "Grant's abilities could almost literally pull the ground out from under them if needed, but if we're speaking practicality, it would be best if we could lead them somewhere where we won't be flanked." Unfortunately, running for a building was out of the question, and the brunette had serious doubts about how long they could maintain anything created artificially for those purposes. "I'm concerned about their durability though. There's a good chance they won't notice pain, so they might not be hindered by anything short of crippling or outright killing them..." Which in turn meant more energy spent per monster if they didn't function like living creatures.
A soft sigh as Siena considered the situation they were in. "Honestly, our backs are against the wall here. We could draw them into a building to pose some limit to the number we take on at once, but then our ranged support wouldn't be able to reach us."
Hearing out what her teammate had in mind, Angel figured out that most of it were idea factoring unknown variables. Siena’s ideas were sound, but Angélique felt it could be refined, be a bit more specific about the general course of action to take.
The obsidian-haired Aberration stood pensive. “I agree. It’s either we rush in there and cause a commotion on an open field with numbers overwhelming us, or be trapped inside the town with machines swarming in on us without snipers covering us.”
Her sight turned over to Hazel, who had been quite silent despite being the one firmly proposing the killzone plot. “Mind telling us more about your idea, Hazel?”
Hazel blinked.
"This is.. a town." She pointed down a road. "Funnel them down a road. Strong buildings on either side, for shooting. Someone to remain on the road, to fight and hold their attention."
It was a simple plan, one she had derived from her reading before. In searching for protection and hence armor, she had read over a few history books and inevitably read a treatise on castles. Of course, there she had read about how castles were made, what each structure was for, and why their shape was the way it was. And of course, she learned of the killzones the architects made when designing a castle. It was invariably a one way road to funnel in the enemy, hemmed in by all sides by walls where archers could shoot at them from cover. A one way street with buildings on either side was in no way scarce in a town like this. Of course, how that translate to their sort of fight remains to be seen.
"Killzone." Hazel repeated.
Hazel’s plan bore much resemblance to what Siena had explained earlier, Angélique figured. The idea of thinning out the horde by straining them into a single alley. As much as Angel wanted to trust into that plan, she simply couldn’t find the better outcome in this plan.
Firstly, while their main objective is to distract and thin out the army of clockworks, everyone was basically here to prevent Factory from regaining control of the town and sow more destruction that it already had. Luring the machines into a street was just inviting the mass of metallic animals into the very area, making the battle even more difficult considering those creatures could simply just disregard the Support Team and run amok in the town to look for easier preys, like the Healer teams, the roving unit, or worse, civilians.
Secondly, the snipers were to cover their asses with suppressing fire, or shoot down stray clockworks that managed to pass through. If they would go with the funnel tactic, not only the snipers would potentially not get a clear shot at the monsters inside the street, but the cover of the surrounding houses would be problematic should some machines decide to go off in the town and ignore the distraction. Again, that would only make it easier for the clockworks to roam the area and get to the other teams or civilians.
Lastly, Angel wasn't confident enough in their individual firepower to engage Factory's minions on separate fronts. Just seeing the flying giant mechanical snake circling its master overhead, it was clear to the fallen singer that those machines were possibly capable of clearing obstacles. If those metal creatures were able to reach the attackers on the houses by climbing or flying, then it meant those attackers would be forced to fight isolated and on multiple sides.
A funnel trap attack was inconceivable in Angélique's mind. If they were facing humans, it would have been feasible. But their enemies were monsters, unpredictable and far more capable than simply human soldiers. They have to stay united and take the battle to the open field, outside of town. Now she understood why Kardos had selected their position on the map earlier.
Angel frowned, looking somewhat unsure about the given explanations so far. She turned to the last member of their team who hasn’t spoken up yet. The black-haired Aberration figured Grant was the silent type, from her past experience of teaming up with him at the Flags and Seek event. But he was also praised by a lot of classmates for his wits, and that’s what Angel hoped he would show today. Hopefully, he could see the flaws of making a trap and speak up about it.
But seeing he wasn’t saying much, Angélique found little choice but to coax him out of his silent shell and get his input on this planning. “Grant, what do you think of this plan?”
While his teammates were talking among themselves, Grant was instead looking around the chaotic landscape of the once full town, thumbing the hilt of Her knife in his belt. Something that could have caused this was not going to be so easy of an enemy. Especially if it was supposedly a subnatural, like himself and the others.
When his name was said, he blinked and looked over at the girl- what was her name? She seemed familiar. A... Ah, Angel. That girl from the flag football game. He turned toward her when she had asked him this question. Frankly, he hadn't been listening too intently on the plans, but he caught some... a few key words as he inspected the surroundings
He glanced to his other teammates before looking back at her to focus his words on. "...Well, for one. We don't know exactly what to expect out of the creatures aside from the fact that they are both mechanical and animal-like. Underestimating them by making a set plan could prove our downfall. It's 50/50 if we put our trust into one. Something that caused this devestation is something not to be taken too lightly. Such as funneling them into a road where we can receive no ranged support." He gestured over to the collared girl, indicating her 'Killzone' plan. "That could end up being our killzone. Or leading them into a building. Again, no ranged support, as well as the possibility of the building not being able to hold while we deal with the Metalworks." He continued, using the word Metalworks to describe the creatures as he, once more, gestured to... Siena, indicating her plan. "Put simply. With the scarce information we have about the Metalworks now, having a set plan at all would be stupid." Grant would finally finish, his eyes keeping their signature tired gaze and tone, stuffing his hands back into his pockets.
Hazel glanced at the boy, reviewing what he said about her plan.
She went over the scenario again and again in her head as they walked, trying to think of what would happen if they did not have a plan and simply went in. Without cover, without a killzone, but with ranged support. They were still outnumbered, and fighting without a plan or any sort of preplanned actions was just as likely to get them killed, especially if they were boxed in by enemies at all sides. Should that happens, they might have to fight uncomfortably close together.
She had no desire to stand near Angel and her screams, nor did she like having obstacles in her way when she was trying to destroy something else. Having enemies escape them was one thing; they were here simply to take attention of the main bulk of the monsters here from the strike team after all. Defending the townsfolk was not their — or her— primary objective.
Should they wish to fight out in the open, surrounded by enemies, it was not her place to say otherwise. She could only follow the orders imposed on her; she will endevour to keep herself alive at any cost and disregard any orders to the contrary unless it conflicts with the first directive. Even if she had to leave them or fight alone.
"Understood."
Having already decided they would not fight with her in a safer location, she continued walking, slowing her pace as she looked around at the surrounding.
Angélique listened to Grant's remarks about the plan so far, applying the Wishalloy bundle she had been given to her torso, arms and just enough for her legs. Deep down, she was glad he had pointed out some fallacies in the plot. The both of them seemed to have just about the same worries, she figured.
"Not to mention we absolutely cannot afford the machines to slip by inside the town and get to the other teams. Our priority is to distract and destroy the bulk of the army, but we were told last Monday to make sure the enemy never finds our Healers." Angel added to Grant's opinion.
She mumbled a curse underneath her breath. So was there really no other way than simply confronting them up front? The raven-haired Aberration suddenly let out a nervous laugh.
"So we got our back against the wall here. Really, we just go in there, guns blazing and cause a ruckus? If you ask me, it sounds like we've been assigned as the real-life version of the Suicide Squad."
Angélique paused, her expression grave as reality slowly settled in. They were simply canon-fodder, in the end. Nobody would care if they died in this town. Readjusting her shades, Angel's gaze set forward, down the ruined road.
"If we are to go there and simply fight the metal monsters head on, should we agree on a battle formation? At least maximize our group's efficiency instead of throwing ourselves randomly onto the horde. What say y'all?"
While the others walked and talked, Gregory fiddled with the last straps of the ballistics vest he’d grabbed. Putting on the Wishalloy pieces underneath it had been a bit annoying, but hopefully the extra protection was worth it. Tapping at the metal trauma plates inserted, he rolled his shoulders and twisted around to make sure it was secured properly before he trudged after the others. A few carabiners dangled from the straps above his shoulder while several lengths of knotted rope and canteens hung from his belt. Aside from the three items given by the guards, it didn’t seem like he had picked up anything more than a crowbar.
“There’s at least one person that summons disposable minions. Send them out to scout first if they’ve got the range. Gauge how the Metalworks react,” he chimed in while looking around at their surroundings and then towards the destination.
Emma finally decided to chime in, raising her hand slightly indicating that she wanted to speak. ”Well… they work as long as they’re in earshot of me. Which brings me to another point, in the Capture the Flag… game, we worked out a system where we used Brent's phone so I could relay commands to them while I was in relative safety. Since I don’t really have any options if we fight close up it might be a good idea to get some kind of similar setup…”
"I'm inclined to agree with keeping Emma herself out and away from the main battle." The brunette claimed while tracing the outline of her tablet with a fingertip. "We lose too much manpower if she gets too injured comparatively." There might have been other reasons for that concern, but Siena didn't bring up anything beyond the pure rationality of it. That aside, at least most of the support's main body had ways to defend themselves directly if the worst case scenario rose. "More importantly, our job is to create enough chaos to attract the majority of the forces. Having the summons attract forces that don't respond to any initial attacks would be a good fallback."
"While I don't really like the idea on straying too far from each other, I agree Emma should stay safe in the back." Angel replied, her gaze shifting towards the X-marked alluring girl. "Emma, you think you could stay within earshot of the group, at the back? That way, you could probably command your... golems(?) from a safe distance, keep an eye on our back and warn us if anything is heading towards us from behind."
Angel recalled the warning they got at the briefing about possible Subnaturals lurking in the area and possibly teaming with Factory. "While our main target is the metallic horde, keep an eye out for those Mages we've been warned of. Especially Emma, if she is to stay alone at the back."
Ah. There was the dreaded topic.
"Speaking of opposing Mages...if any of them do attack, are we really ready to kill a human?" She should have felt uneasy about it, but Siena was aware of what kept the emotion from growing much further than a hollow pang. "I mean...we're prepared and likely lethal, but it's different trying to kill a human and trying to kill a monster."
Grant did the same as some of the others and went ahead and applied his Wishalloy onto himself as they walked and talked. The topic of the supposed enemy subnaturals came up and he focused his attention to the others. "We're already helping to get rid of the target, who is also supposedly a Mage. If they come to us, and they're in the way, it won't matter if we're ready or not. If they're ready, and we're not, that's it for us. We'll be doing ourselves and everyone else a favor by dealing with them." He paused as he looked ahead...
"If they appear." He added after.
Emma sighed. One answer at a time, first Angel. ”I’ll do my best to stay back while staying in range. Looks like I’ll be getting a vocal workout too…” a hollow laugh followed, ”And not that it matters much, but I’ve decided to call them Tulpas. Thoughtforms from Buddhist texts… like I said, it doesn’t matter much.” and then Siena’s question. ”… Grant’s right. I’ll do what I have to if we see a Subnatural.” Emma’s tone was entirely passive, intent on not giving her thoughts away.
Seemed like everyone were quite willing to pull the trigger on another human being, Angel understood. The question Siena asked brought back some memories of the talk Angel and Zoe had last week, about caring for others, pulling the trigger and taking all the blame. Surprisingly, Zoe seemed to be wrong about everyone after all. Even about the caring Angélique.
“Humans or monsters, it doesn’t matter. If it’s out there to kill us, then I won’t have any regret taking a Mage down. Better him than you guys.” The singing Aberration confessed, feeling a small hint of uneasiness creeping up. She had taken human lives before, and it still tormented her to this day. Why did it feel so right now? Was it because her concern for her own survival and the others’ disregarded the nature of the threat, being it human or monster?
"I see..." Well, she supposed that was the best she could hope for. Siena tried not to acknowledge the startling ease she considered the situation in. That certainly wasn't the type of person she wanted to be, at the least. The girl wondered briefly if she would have even hesitated if one of their own decided to flee. If one of the faces she was just starting to accept as part of her new daily life would at least make her think twice. Releasing a soft breath, the brunette tried to focus on the path ahead. "I suppose my next question would be what we think we're lacking most. I can fill in the holes, but I sincerely doubt we won't be noticed once I start."
"I can manipulate nonliving matter, so I could act as offense, defense, or even ranged if need be." Grant mentioned to narrow the list of what they were lacking at the moment.
Angel took a bit of time to think about the question. What had she been writing on her personal notes earlier today. A support; a berserker; an attacker and defender; two jacks-of-all-trades. “I’ve been thinking about it earlier today after the briefing. We seem to be able to bring up a lot of everything to the table with the team we have currently.” Angel paused, trying to puzzle the pieces together with the strategy they were trying to get through with.
“Let’s say Hazel is our primary attacker, since she’s the one with the most destructive natural power here. Being the one with the potential to bring down a lot of creatures by herself, I was thinking of having a formation centered about her, as to protect her from the monsters while she cleaves them down. Taking that into consideration, her best position would be at the front, or center. Gotta give her some space and a clear front for her to pulverize anything standing against us.” Angélique commented as she looked towards Hazel, wondering if she would be alright with the suggestion.
"Emma can probably cover roles we lack too. Her big armoured Tulpa seem to be just as able deffensively as offensively? It might as well engage some Metalworks or protect Hazel if she's hard-pressed. The pulling one could serve mighty well as a support to line in the fuckers into Hazel's attacks too." the Aberration then remarked about Emma's versatile options.
“Grant and I would probably be best flanking Hazel’s side from a distance, to give her some space but at the same time make sure nothing comes blindsiding her. Grant can potentially pull the earth to both attack and defend whatever’s coming at him.” The singer added as she glanced towards Grant. “As for I… well I’m not going to lie to you, I’m sort of a liability here. My shouts most likely won’t affect the machines as they do to humans. At best, I can only knock them back a few feet away, but I doubt I won’t be dealing as much damage as anyone here. I was thinking of positioning myself a bit away from everyone so you guys won’t get caught up in my sonic blasts.”Angel added with a hint of disappointment in her tone. Really, what was Kardos thinking about putting her on the Support Team instead of someone actually useful?
“Maybe you could fill up that attacker and/or defender role with me on your side, Siena? I don’t know what you have in mind for powers, but I most likely won’t be of much help to protect one side by myself. You got a powerful enough name to take on that side of the army?” Angel then asked as she looked towards Siena, the images of what kind of destruction Siena was capable from the two training sessions they had together were still fresh in her mind.
Ah...that was right, Angel's power would probably meet with some resistance in the face of metal creatures like that. Something akin to concern welled up in the pit of Siena's stomach, but the brunette did her best to quash it. Now wasn't the time to try and figure out which emotions were left. Still...Angel's shouts had a wide range, and she'd watched them take down Chris's dragon form--well, at least the one without wings--so they at least had some effect on even thick armor. The Aberration was right though--there were probably things that wouldn't be kicking in when it came to creatures like metalwork beasts.
"If we're concerned about how dampened your abilities are, I...I think I can provide enough support to make your shouts completely viable attacks. It'll consume less energy on my end than having to directly attack and demolish them alone." Giving herself a moment to think...well, that was completely viable. "In that case, I won't have such precise control over my targets, but as long as we're not getting in each others' way, it should be okay."
"Oh..." Angel let out in surprise. Truthfully, she had been thinking about that possibility before. However, most of the power she held was based on her stunning capacity, not her destruction potential. It would be a waste for Siena to use her potential on buffing someone who didn't belong here in the first place.
"I'm... not sure about it. I feel like you would be a better asset with using your full powers yourself than simply giving me a boost. I'm not even sure if an upgraded scream would destroy them."
Moreover, images of a kneeling Siena after abusing her powers played back in Angel's mind. Her partner probably wouldn't have had that breakdown if she didn't try over-optimizing both their magic at once.
Shifting her gaze back to the brunette's eyes, Angélique reached the girl's shoulder for a reassuring pat. "Just... do what you would feel more comfortable with. I don't want to exhaust yourself like that time." Her tone of voice was quieter than before, as if the last part was meant to be heard only between the two of them.
A reassuring hand on her shoulder and soft words reminded Siena of things she'd rather have forgotten. Things about the failsafe she kept tucked neatly away in the inner pocket of her coat, ready to be drawn and used at a moment's notice. A failsafe she prayed she woudln't have to use, because she knew she couldn't control it. Still, she gave a weak smile and a nod of understanding.
"I know." Soft, careful words."I'll be careful."
Grant adjusted his clothes, the Wishalloy protection working its wonders underneath. Hopefully they were effective as they had explained. Either that or he could just avoid getting hurt altogether. He glanced back at the others that he was walking with. Once more, thrust into a team. They were better alive than dead. For my survival, he added in his mind. A few more steps, before he finally spoke up to them.
"Everyone's got the Wishalloy stuff on?" He asked to his team.
Angel nodded slowly to Siena, a faint crack of a smile appearing on the corner of her lips as her classmate reassured the singer of being careful. When Grant asked about the strange armore material they were give, the obsidian-haired young woman turned to the Arbiter with a grin and raising a thumb up. "Good to go on my end, sir." she didn't put as much emphasis on the last word, but Angel hoped the joke would shift the leading role of this group to Grant, rather than herself. Truthfully, with everyone tossing plans and ideas here and there, she had forgotten about her worries and unwillingly went on with the flow, her leading nature taking over again without realizing it, and spoke a bit too much despite not wanting to take the lead.
Ah, right, the Wishalloy. She'd been holding off on applying the largest section of it--mostly to see if it would do anything bizarre when applied. So far, nothing seemed to be going wrong, so... "Ah, I should get the last of it on." Not much of a hassle, really. Even keeping it in place wasn't entirely difficult with her coat doing most of the work for her. Untested as it was, the girl couldn't deny that she wanted to take on a name more than capable of taking hits, but at the cost of time or potency for what she wanted to do...? It didn't seem quite worth it. Instead, the brunette gave a quick nod of affirmation as she waited for the fabric to complete its magic. "Should be good to go."
Wishalloy was a pain in the ass to apply, especially considering how he effectively had to strip to his underwear before putting the strange material on his body. It was also a bit of a shame that it couldn’t be Overclocked, meaning that he still had to keep his body armor on…but, on the bright side? Two layers of protection was better than one. The rest of the group had already left by the time Brent finished gearing himself up again, from helmet to boots to his assortment of weaponry placed all around his body. It still rattled, but the weight was more or less distributed around his body. He could do this. He could get used to this. He could…
…take a deep breath of the burning wind and drink in the destruction wrecked all around him. His amethyst eyes lingered on the stains that couldn’t be washed away, the debris of clockwork and the remnants of humanity. This wasn’t the worst end.
But this could be much better. The silence was deafening, even as combat raged farther away. Brent turned to the truck that was already driving away, and picked up his pace, jogging over to the rest of his friends? Teammates? Inmates.
“Yoho, sorry for lagging behind. Whatcha all discussing?” he called, the same smile as always standing in stark contrast to the bleak atmosphere.
"Took you long enough. Probably brought a bit too much gear with you, no?" Angel commented as the late arrival chimed in. "We just finished planning out our battle strategy. Nothing too fancy. We agreed on formations and decided we'll do our best to distract and destroy the machines by bringing the fight straight to them while you sniper guys cover our asses from afar."
Looking at her surroundings, Angélique felt uneasiness becoming ever more present as they walked further in town. Hopefully, the early attack force managed to effectively contain the horde of metal freaks and didn't let anything leak in the city. Last thing they wanted right now was to be caught in an ambush in the middle of the town and crush their morale even further.
"We'll escort you to just a bit before reaching the outskirts of town. At least to make sure you two don't run in into an ambush before we get to the clearing outside of town." the fallen idol explained further. "Which makes me think..."
The oldest student of the group took the phone she had been given from the briefing earlier today, as a mean to communicate between every member of her class. Thinking about an ambush, it made her feel some worry for the others. Would they be fine if something just showed up and attacked them? Not that she didn't trust in her classmates' abilities, but the bulk of the powerhouses were at the front, leaving those with little offensive abilities at the back. If anything came up from the rear, they were fucked quite badly.
Extending the antenna from the phone, Angélique pressed the 'push-to-talk' button and took a deep breath.
"Testing testing. One two three. Angelic here, you guys hear me?" She paused, waiting to hear if the phone worked as intended. When she got confirmation, she resumed "I wanted to tell you guys, even if we are all split-up in different groups, we are still a team. Communication is key here. So please, if you spot anything out of the ordinary: a stray Factory's minion, an unknown Mage or whatever, warn the other groups, even if you are not to engage them. Let's keep ourselves updated, so we can adapt if things go wrong."
Angel paused again, letting a soft sigh as she felt uncomfortable about this whole setup. Why was she taking the lead again, despite trying to rely more on Grant's? Could it be that, deep inside, she still yearned to prove herself as a worthy leader, or at least someone who cares deeply about her fellow teammates?
"Y'all stay safe and be careful, alright? Support Team nearing objective. Angel out."
As everyone from Experimental Unit B took a seat inside the truck that would drive them to Wisford, the doors closed and the vehicle shortly departed from USARILN. Whether it was because of their growing anxiousness, or simply to kill time and make the trip more enjoyable, some of the students inside were already starting to discuss among themselves.
Angélique, who was sitting the closest to the truck's backdoors along with Sander in front of her, she had remained silent for a bit, looking around to see where everyone was sitting. Much to her dismay, her teammates were sitting pretty much far from her. But it was probably better this way. Hiding her pooling nervousness was becoming more difficult by the hours. She would not allow herself to look like that in front of her team. The last they needed to see was an anxious mess. She wanted them to be inspired, or look up to her cool-headed behavior.
Having finished looking around, Angel had noticed the blond boy sitting across her, next to the tall lanky Blood Mage in front of her. Seeing Christmas, the raven-haired Aberration was reminded of the role he had been given in this battle, which led to the times the boy had healed her and her classmates in the past. Really, she still hasn't properly thanked him for the Flags and Seek game's aftermath, hasn't she?
"Christmas?" Angélique called out to the blonde Arbiter nearby, her concealed gaze setting upon the Healer. "Thanks. For healing me... and the others last Monday. And the other times before that too." Angel paused, letting the irony of such a late apology settle in with a light-heart chuckle hinted with a bit of nervousness "Sorry if it came out of nowhere. I figured I should be thanking you for what you are doing for us. It takes someone... quite selfless to just accept an injury to save others." Angélique paused another time, a grin forming onto her lips as she gave Chris, who was sitting next to her, an elbow nudge to his sides. "Especially when this guy here doesn't know how to pull his punches."
Christmas looked up at the Aberration in front of him, distracted from scrutinizing his shaking hand wrapped around Sander's forearm. He was surprised to be addressed by someone whose name he still didn't know. The tense atmosphere fattened on that kind of sincere talk as well, and he wasn't sure he wanted a reminder that in a few hours they could all die. People were true to themselves in times of crises, weren't they? He breathed in, his other hand finding purchase on the unnatural heat of Sander's skin as red smoke curled upward from his roommate's body.
The girl nudged a white-haired Arbiter sitting beside her, the gesture implying a friendly familiarity that was a small comfort to see.
"...Don't have to--to thank me," he replied, looking back down. He didn't exactly heal others because he was concerned about them, but it didn't feel like the time to explain. "...Sorry."
The black-haired X-marked raised a quizzical eyebrow, confused and curious. Maybe Christmas was just one of those overly modest people. But why apologize for it? Perhaps there was something else, but Angélique didn't feel like prying, especially now of all times.
Discreetly, her eyes scanned the two young men sitting in front of her, their arm locked to each other. They looked strangely close, that much she could see from the familiarity of the gesture. Ironic, for the Vampire Mage and Blood Mage to be bonded so closely.
Something bothered Angel however as her gaze set upon Sander. The red mist emanating from his body felt somewhat foreboding for the singing Mage. Actually, this was something she had never seen Sander do before. Was it another aspect of his power he kept to himself, or was is a trick he gained recently?
"Are you alright, Sander?" Angel asked, a bit concerned about the whole thing. "What is that smoke coming out from your skin?"
“Huh?” -Sander blinked at his feet, slowly raised his head to look at the Aberration sitting across from him. He remembered her name, vaguely, from the flag football. But he remembered her comments on his power more –“I’m fine. It’s just…my power. Not dangerous.” -He clarified quickly, gesturing to the red wisps of smoking slowly rising from his body.
Not much of a talker, was he? Well, he was like that too last Monday, so maybe he really wasn't a very talkative guy. But seeing that display of his power, the pale screamer Mage couldn't help but feeling curious about it. Maybe she could ask for details, without being too forceful about it? She knew she was a bit obsessive about knowing her peers better, from what only her own hand notes showed.
"What does it do exactly? It reminds me a bit of Christmas' mist, if only less intense."
“It…” -A frown creased Sander’s brows as he searched for the words –“…helps.”
“Not dangerous.” -He insisted again, hoping Angel’s curiosity could be satisfy with just these half-truths.
Sighing softly, Angel dropped the matter. Obviously, the guy didn't want to speak about it. She wasn't really satisfied with this kind of answer, she was a tad frustrated even, but she tried not to show it. Now wasn't really the time to pry into everyone's little secrets. She had to respect their privacy, even if those details could really help into understanding one another.
"Oookay then. If you say so, I'm trusting you." Angel half-muttered, settling down more comfortably on her seat.
Chatting sure was hard with all these closed-up classmates of hers. Really, the only guy she ever spoke so openly was Brent. Everyone else? They all seemed so distant. Even her training partner was somewhat odd. Maybe they had yet to adapt to this new life. Had she adapted to this prison herself? Who knows? Even Angel started questioning herself; how quickly she began building a routine here, how strangely accepting she was towards these suicidal situations she was thrown into.
Surrounded by not very talkative people, Angélique shrugged slightly. She might as well kill time and occupy her mind. Struggling to get her phone out of the jeans inside the baggy overlaying military pants, Angel shuffled on her seat for a bit, ushering a quiet “Sorry” as she felt herself bumping Christopher a few times.
When she finally retrieved her phone, the panting Aberration removed her helmet and set it down on her lap as a cushion of sort for her arms. Riding the truck with all of this gear on made it uncomfortably hot. Her scalp was itching, and she could feel herself sweating in the suit. Maybe next time she’ll consider wearing fewer clothes underneath that military outfit, she thought as she took off her combat gloves and tapped gently the smartphone’s screen.
Chris had been silent for the first moments of the truck ride. Each second that ticked grew dread. When Angelique started on her phone, Chris pushed the thoughts away to spark up a new conversation. He didn't like the idea that this could be the last time they'd talk, but if that was true then why let that keep in quiet?
"Hey, Angelique..." He started, the arbiter had folded his hands over his lap. It took him for a moment to think of what to say. "I want to thank you for that training opportunity we had the other day."
In the middle of watching a video about the guns she had grabbed from the weapons crate before they embarked on the truck, Angélique paused the screen with a tap of her index. She turned to her Dracomancer teammate and offered him a warm smile.
"Oh, it's been my pleasure. Really, I'm glad you joined us that time." The raven-haired Aberration's face turned slightly red in embarrassment after thinking just how much of a fool she made herself of that time. Screaming like a little girl because of her fear of heights and all the tumbling that didn't help it, it surely made a poor impression of herself to the eyes of others.
"I'm sorry if I had been rude to you and the others, and for being so pitiful after the flight. It had gotten a bit too intense, trying to conquer my fear like Brent suggested." Angel giggled nervously, trying to make light of the situation.
"Better try to face them there then well, here." He mused with a smile. "It was no trouble, really. This whole thing is stressful for all of us."
Angel's eyes lowered at the mention of stress, letting our a faint "Yeah..." as her gaze fell back to her phone's screen. Anxiety, stress, fears; there sure are plenty of that in the atmosphere right now, in this truck ride. Hopefully, hers wasn't leaking out too visibly. Figuring out talking would probably help in dissipating some of her raging anxiety; Angel's eyes went back to Christopher.
"How was your week? Did I miss much from the classes?" the fallen rockstar tried to make small chat, even if she despised herself the idea of going to the school USARILN pretended to be.
"Well nothing important in class though..." Chris had paused for a moment, taking a look around his neighbors. He leaned closer to Angelique and talked a bit quieter as if it were some dark secret. "I got on this date with this girl see..I-I'm not sure if she likes me or not."
"Really? Already? Damn, that's pretty cool." Unlike Chris, her voice was just as loud as usual, if not a bit more due to her surprise. But as she realized her comrade was looking around before speaking abd talked with a quieter tone, she giggled softly and lowered her tone "Don't tell me it's with one of the girls in our class?"
"Not sure if I'm comfortable telling you who it is but..uh..I'm not good with girls. I could use some advice." He was a bit alarmed with her initial volume. He didn't want people to know about his own business. He also didn't want the crush in question to find out either.
"Ah c'mon, I might look like a loud mouth, but I can keep secrets." Angel chuckled at Chris' shyness, finding it cute of its own. "I'm no love guru though. I haven't experienced much romance in my life. I don't think I would be the best person to give you advices. Unless it's something very broad."
He sighed. "Its Siena."
Angel restrained herself from laughing too loudly, slapping a hand to her mouth as she slipped a faint laughter underneath the palm of her hand. "R-riding you had quite the benefits." she stifled another laughter from her innuendo. After silencing herself, she let out a sigh and wiped away a tear from her eyes. "I-I'm very happy for you both though." Her wide grin returned to a more serene smile. "I can't say I know her that much. Hell, you might know much more about her than me. But if you are going out with her, then I have one advice."
Angel's smiling face turned into a most sincere expression. Her mind went back to the time she had witnessed Siena's mental breakdown after abusing her powers. Through her hugging with the then distressed girl, she felt an unknown bonding with Siena. She could not place what was wrong with her classmate, but there was something that she had felt that day.
"Support her from whatever she is going through. If you two dated, then there's something she likes about you. You're straight-forward and honest to others, so just remain true to yourself and everything will just unfold from there."
He nodded, and returned to his seat in quiet. Thinking about that kind of stuff was a lot easier than the thought of not returning to the school in one piece.
After her training session with Brent, Angélique locked herself in her room and remained there quiet for the rest of the morning, until a guard would come up to knock at her door and fetch her for the mission. Before doing anything, she had taken a hot shower to brush away the cold weather she went through earlier and got a change of clothes, opting for something simpler and warmer. She was going into battle later today after all, no need to be wearing anything fancy. A pair of jeans and a sweater would do the trick.
Initially, after her strategic and analysis talk with her training partner, Angel was bothered by some aspects of the plans, and decided to review all of her teammates profiles, or at least the notes she had written about them. By the time she finished with Grant’s profile, she was already imagining some measures to take as a group and a use for everyone’s powers.
With that fresh in mind, the wannabe strategist began taking the files and added a new entry for each of her classmates: ‘Strategic Deployment’. If she could figure out what use she could give to everyone, maybe that would help her understand the grand scheme of Kardos’ plan. Hell, it might even help the Aberration in finding out new possibilities should the situation ask for it.
It took a few hours of thinking about her classmates and writing down what she knew and imagined what they could do before she finished. All the while, she had been listening to her music playlist quite loudly through her earbuds, finding the heavy rhythm of rock and metal appeasing, or at least burying over, the voices whispering to her. It helped her being distracted from her stigma and thus focusing onto her work.
Keeping her neck warm and cozy with a makeshift scarf, Angélique could feel her throat starting to feel better after squeezing almost a dozen screams earlier. While she was new to the whole Mage thing, the screamer Aberration was still very familiar with vocal cords soreness. Having experimented with her powers last week, the sonic waves she emanated might be magical in nature and have no real ties with actual sound physics, but her physical limit was just the same as if she was screaming or singing for too long. Having experienced her fair deal of temporary voice loss in the past, Angel was familiar with finding remedies for a sore throat. Keeping her throat warm with a scarf was one thing. The other she had learnt was to mix honey with hot water. The drink made it soothing for inside her throat, appeasing the aching.
When the time was nearly upon them, Angel walked to her closet and retrieved the military protective gear she had requested early last week. All things considered, the gear was plain black and a bit obstructive considering all the padding and the bulletproof vest. But making sure she was safe from the elements and the hazardous rubbles of the city was well worth the encumbrance. Slipping the protective vest first on her torso, Angel then proceeded after with strapping the elbows and knees pads, figuring out she should’ve done it before the vest as she had a hard time bending with the vest in the way. Over all of that, the sonic Mage slipped inside an overlaying pair of black plain military-designed pants and coat. All that remained for the rockstar-turned-soldier was to gather her signature bangs with the rest of her hair and tie them in a ponytail, avoiding getting hair into her face as she finalized her military attire by putting on a black helmet.
Looking over herself in the mirror, Angel felt at odds with her new appearance. She never thought the SWAT-looking figure reflected there would be what she would’ve become one day. The attire stressed her, reminding Angel the reason she was wearing that in the first place.
Just as Angélique finished fastening her Desert Eagle’s holster onto her belt, knocking came at her door. It was time to go.
𝕌𝕊𝔸ℝ𝕀𝕃ℕ 𝔼𝕒𝕤𝕥 / / ℂ𝕒𝕞𝕡𝕦𝕤 / / 𝟙𝟜𝟘𝟘
It was with a more eased but still anxious mind Angel embarked on the truck that would drive them to Wisford. She was a bit more satisfied to have heard more details about the mission, getting a second briefing cleared out some more aspects of the battle and left room for Angel to think about it and the possibilities.
The mention about escaping still pissed her off however. They already made it clear that once they caught someone, they would not let that person go that easily, which begged the question about what really happened to Aaron. If such countermeasures were established, how would a clockwork-summoning teenager be able to escape that? The conspiracy theory about USARILN holding Aaron captive secretly somewhere on the campus only intensified in the singer’s mind.
When it was time to get proper equipment, Angel ‘gracefully’ accepted the given gear and looked up to the weapon box delivered. Ironically, there were two weapons the raven-haired Mage was trained in their use, and the Desert Eagle fastened on her belt wasn’t part of it. In fact, she had no idea how to properly use a handgun. Taking up on the advice of the Commander, Angel resigned on using her requested Desert Eagle. Instead, she opted for taking two weapons of similar design she had practiced with Lawrence. One was a scoped Remington rifle; the other was a riot-breaker shotgun. Swinging the rifle over her shoulders with the provided strap, Angel kept the shotgun in hand while fastening the mandatory provided equipment onto her belt.
The stuff felt overall burdening, but fortunately Angel was conditioned. Never did she think all the exercises she had been practicing during her younger years and the mandatory training sessions would benefit her this way now.
With a sigh, Angel went inside the truck, taking the first seat available for her.
Angel's bubble burst when she heard a familiar voice near where she was sitting. Slowly raising her head up from her half-eaten plate of food, she flashed a faint smile to Brent.
"Oh, good morning Brent. One hell of a morning, huh?"
"Yeah," he said, surprised that she broke out of her shell so quickly, "was looking forward to acing the test today as well. Guess showing off will have to wait."
"I still can't decide whether I prefer going out there rather than spending a day in class. Guess we should be thanking the commander for that." the raven-haired girl joked, chuckling half-heartedly in trying to make light of the situation and hide her anxiety to the coming battle. "What were you up to this morning? Knowing you, you must've been already up before they came to get you."
"Seems like the guards really like to walk in on me during awkward times," Brent replied, slowly getting into the flow of the conversation, "First time they literally just waited outside my shower. This time they went out of their way to get to Ground Zero with just a flimsy ass umbrella, when I already had my raincoat with me."
"But yeah, was just doing some experimentation hijinks. Still sleeping on your side, Angelic?"
Angel grinned widely at the mention of being caught at awkward times "Oh, I thought you meant something more awkward." she jested, lightly poking a half-eaten sausage with her fork. "No no, I've been up for about half-a-hour before they came. I'm an early bird. Well, not as much as you are, but it's ingrained into my routine. Honestly, I had already resigned from my morning workout because of the weather, so I took some bit of time to prepare myself for the day."
"Well, for their sake, I hope the guards never have to walk into someone masturbating." Too crass of a joke? His eyes flickered towards Angelic before turning to his food. "And I only tried starting off my mornings at 5 AM recently. Think I might actually have to start drinking coffee now. Know any good coffee prepping techs?"
Angel cringed a bit at how straight-forward Brent was replying to her subtle innuendos, but she giggled nonetheless at the hilarity of the situation. "With the ways they come in so suddenly like that, I'm pretty sure they walked in on worse situations."
"Unfortunately, I'm not much of a coffee drinker myself. My manager tried that for the first days. I disliked the bitterness of it..." the ex-rockstar trailed off, suddenly realizing she was spilling out her old life again without thinking.
"Literally all those problems could be solved if they just gave a quick warning via cuff beforehand, but hey, maybe they secretly enjoy pretending to be moms who don't knock."
"And yeah," he said, smoothly continuing the conversation, "That's what made me go 'bleh' with coffee too. Just feels like you lose something though, if you have to resort to adding cream or sugar to make a drink taste good, right? Really, at least tea has a gentle flavor. Coffee's just the punch in the tongue that no one asked for."
He was talking too much, perhaps, but now wasn't the time for Angelic to clam up and start a self-destructive cycle of thinking about her oh-so-tragic past.
"Hmm... I tried a lot of stuff to sweeten the drink, but I just can't seem to enjoy it either way. Same goes for tea. Sure, it isn't as bitter as coffee, but it tastes... how do you say it... plain?" Angel fumbled a bit with the word. "I'm more of soft drink person. Soda, juice, a bit of alcohol doesn't hurt either from time to time. Usually, nothing gets me in a better mood than a nice glass of pulp-free orange juice."
"Mmm, a fan of feeling your taste buds get eroded by acid, eh?" he grinned, "Never understood masochistic tendencies like that. Orange juice is nice though. Lotsa vitamin C."
"I mean, if you haven't figured it out, I like sweet tastes. Maybe I'm a sugar person?" Angel chuckled, never thought of herself that way before now. "Well, it could be worse. It's not like I'm totaling my health like smoking or having bad life habits, right? Sometimes, you gotta spice your life up a bit, else you'd just be stuck in a boring self-imposed routine." Angel realized just how ironic it was for her to say that given how things had been going for her around here. That's who she was deep down after all, despite having a bit changed on the outside ever since she came here.
Sugar? Something to note down then. Nodding along with her chat, Brent stabbed an apple slice and bit into it, savoring the healthy crunch. "That's true enough," he said, not really committing to any particular argument, "But a sense of normalcy is a rarity here. No need to add extra spice when the world does it for you."
After all, regardless of how many safe topics they bounced around on, the upcoming 'mission' wasn't going to leave his mind.
"Got any plans after this?"
"I can't argue with you there. A routine does sound nice, given what kind of crap is looming over our head every day. But I'd personally add the kind of spice I like before being handed something I'd most probably hate."
Angel stood silent for a moment. Truthfully, before Brent had joined her, she wasn't even thinking about what to do before the battle. She had been just content with enjoying her potential last meal before going to battle. But now that the subject was brought up, the black-haired Mage looked thoughtful, the tip of her fork tapping against her glossy lips.
"Probably the same as everyone else. Getting ready for what's coming. Get a change of clothes, change into the protective gear I requested earlier last week. Ensure whatever gear I bring with me is functioning, that kind of crap."
Pausing, Angel was thinking back at the briefing, remembering her position and her role in this battle. Again, she could not help but feel uneasiness creeping back. "Brent..." she trailed off, wondering if it was a good idea to let her doubts show.
"What do you think of putting me at the frontlines?"
"Sugar instead of ghost peppers, eh?"
He leaned back as Angelic posed her question, studying her expression. Truth be told, the arbiter had thought that the allocation of power seemed to be off in this particular mission. Their healers, after all, were important, and yet, Christmas was protected by Ernie, who made rope, and Zoe, whose power was functionally useless against these monsters? On the other hand, Gregory, whose power was dependent on his ability to set things up, was put up with the task of supporting two different groups without attracting any attention to himself? And then you had Hazel, who's power should be amazing against these monsters, relegated to mopping up fodder?
"...sounds like a mistake. You're a ranged attacker, after all. Would make more sense that you'd be with me and Grego, instead of on the frontlines," he began, "But I can understand why they'd want you to cover Hazel's back. Your shouts are powerful enough to knock Chris on his scaly ass in close range, after all. Those robotic losers got no chance."
"So, hey, chin up! Sorta strange to think about it this way, but if you're in the same group as Hazel 'I Vaporize All Inorganic Matter' Baker and the omnipotent Siena, as well as the unstoppable, untouchable 2Chainz Rotem, you're probably in the safest position ever!"
In the end, Angel was right to have asked Brent about this matter. She figured he was like-minded when it came to strategy and analysis. While he wasn't off point, he wasn't completely right either. There were other people to take into the matter, people Angel felt would be more suited for taking her job.
"It's not really a matter of being a ranged attacker; it's more about my effectiveness against machinery. Sure, I may have kicked Chris' ass in the Flags game, but that was because he was affected not only physically but also mentally by the screams. I figured out, after training with my powers throughout the week, that the sheer sound of the shrieks cause some sort of mental breakdown... paralysis. It's basically like overloading your hearing with sound. Machines don't hear the same way organics do, so they won't be affected besides being simply pushed back. What good is that really is, compared to let's say Allison who can cut through inorganic matter just as efficiently as Hazel?"
"Following up on Gregory's matter, it would've been best if he was taking Allison's place as Healer defender, send her to the frontlines in my stead, and have me as ranged backup. I can't protect the healers myself, as my voice would just give my care's position away."
Angel crossed her arms, looking down at the almost-finished plate of food she no longer had room in her stomach to take anymore. "Don't get me wrong. I don't want to sound like a coward. I'm not one. I'm not very concerned about my safety in this plan. I'm concerned about how efficient the teams will be. Like you said, putting Zoe and Ernest together for protecting a Healer isn't something I trust either. If a monster comes up to Christmas, our most efficient Healer, what can someone summoning a rope and outstandingly resilient and a Mage that can only rot organic matter be of help to protect him? There are things I'm not quite grasping into this plan."
"Probably finding an excuse to use everyone in this plan," Brent said. Angelic was definitely taking this seriously, wasn't she? The plan definitely was strange, especially when it was confirmed by Rosa that there was only one subnatural involved in this situation, and said subnatural used inorganic materials as the base for their power.
"Positioning is nice and all, but really, it feels like the Strike team is organized strangely as well. As you mentioned, Hazel basically disintegrates matter, and Allison does the same, with the added bonus of being able to negate powers. Why not just have Hazel and Allison ride Chris towards the titan instead? Bring Siena along, perhaps, to increase the power of his flames to drive back the monsters. While Hazel shreds at the titan, Allison searches for the subnatural with her sword, and once that sword stabs them...well, that should probably erase or stop all the robots that the dude controls."
Brent laughed then.
"Hell, what is Savannah even DOING in the support team? Really makes me wonder if there's some sort of political shenanigan going around here, like Zhang trying to use this incident to show how everyone here is useful, when only some of us are."
Angélique listened intently to Brent's point of view. She approved most of what he said, voicing yet more logical fallacies into the plan. Playing around by spinning the now-cleaned fork between her fingers, the young woman looked back to Brent. "The only logical reason I think the Strike Team is composed as what is it is mainly because they are dropping them off completely for a helicopter. Hell, I think they are just going to launch them off from high above, counting on their superhuman resilience to just shrug off the landing. That and they will be in the heart of the swarm, outnumbered and counting on the Support Team to take the fuckers off their back. I gotta admit, even I thought I would be useful against the colossus. If there's really a human in there, then a well-placed scream can lock them down paralyzed until the other three tear open their armor and put an end to their rampage."
"But yeah, I'm not agreeing with placing Savannah directly in the heat of battle. If timing was the reason they didn't put Allison at the forefront of the fight, the girl is even worse in that aspect. She had told my team on our first encounter with monsters that she had a five minutes timer between each explosion. Is it worth blowing a few machines and being next to a liability for five minutes? No, it isn't. That makes just one more person to look after, who can't help herself."
Angel coughed, slowly realizing she was starting to sound exactly how Zoe had been in the aftermath of their gruesome battle. In the end, it looks like the fight left an impression on her, a lesson to Angel that she wanted to make sure she learnt and avoid repeating mistakes like last time.
"I wanted to speak with Kardos about my concerns about this plan, but I've been told he was too busy to even hear me out. Do you think we could manage something out , without fucking up badly, during the battle? They did say adjustments should be made as the circumstances change."
"Yeah, but even the whole dropping tactic seems...dunno what it makes me feel. Sander's invulnerable and Callan's super strong, but Chris can FLY. And you saw how valuable the ability to go airborne is from Shane, right?" Brent grimaced. "And if they're going to be tossed into the heart of the swarm without the support team right alongside them, how exactly are they going to keep the monsters off their back? The support team would be attack the horde from an entirely different location."
Ultimately though, they were just subnaturals that had no actual authority, so of course Kardos and his staff would be focusing on strategizing and whatever else. Was this supposed to be a test in its own way? To see how disciplined the students were? To see how flexible they were?
"Well, its not like we haven't disobeyed before, so they're probably expecting that. Maybe Sander will run off halfway during the fight to sniff down Christmas. Maybe Emma will just give up and crawl into a hole. Maybe Grant will fall asleep on the way there and then refuse to get up."
He chuckled at how silly and absolutely game-changing such things were, before getting serious again.
"Ultimately, though, we don't know how Hazel's power will interact with these things. Before we start changing the plan, it'd probably be best to see if our VIP's power works as advertised against them. Gotta get achievements and evidence under our belt before people start giving a shit about our opinions, eh?"
"Maybe you're right. Shouldn't get ahead of ourselves and start conspiring against the authority here. Still, I'm not quite fond of simply following blindly without thinking ahead of time. I can assure you, I won't wait for our classmates to fall one by one if shit indeed gets real to do something about it."
Angel leaned back on her chair and stared at the ceiling, letting out a sigh as she acknowledged Brent's statement about higher-ups not giving a damn about their opinion, for now.
"Speaking of Emma, how is she? You worked with her during the Flags game, right? What kind of partner should I expect her to be? I haven't had the opportunity to speak with her yet."
"As long as 'do something' isn't suicidal, go for it," Brent replied. Looking at his finished tray and his lack of a glass of milk, he was about to go up and grab something to drink when Angelic blindsided him with a whole different question. Emma, huh? He scratched his head, mulled over his thoughts, separated opinion from fact, and ultimately...shrugged.
"She's probably not a morning person. Probably also gives up too easily. God knows what she would have done during physical training classes if the teacher wasn't cracking his whip so much." Being a bit peeved here? Maybe he should dial it down. "Has an amazing power though. A summoning ability that has infinite range, as long as she is within earshot of her summons. That's why I was using phones and all that. Personally, Emma can be a super back-liner if everyone were equipped with cameras and microphones that allowed her to 'video chat' in their vicinity."
He paused then, thinking over some more things, rolling them within his mind. No, not this time.
"Not particularly bloodthirsty, or, at least, has a better handle on it than others. Was the least enthusiastic one on the team, but seemed to follow instructions well?" Brent's head tilted to the side. "Ultimately, a powerful follower with low morale. But perhaps that's just how she appears to me."
"An Aberration with good control over herself, huh? That does sound like someone I should get to know and learn lessons from." Angel chuckled to herself. "Well, that's good to know. Of course, I'll see it for myself when we are on the field, but at least I have a few guidelines of what to expect. Thanks for indulging into my request."
Pushing her tray of food aside, Angel laid her shoulders on the table and leaned on her knuckles. "And you? What were you thinking of doing after breakfast?"
Uwah, Angelic learning to become like Emma? Sounded like a downgrade to him.
"More experiments. Gonna have to get a half-decent map of the town as well. See what the internet brings up in regards to Maryland. Hopefully the conditions on the road would allow me to go rollerblading, eh? After that, it's just refueling for the mission. Can't waste any time faffing about, after all."
"Still experimenting about your powers?" Angélique hummed, suddenly looking a bit lost in thoughts before resurfacing. "I should be doing some experiments as well. There's... something I have been thinking about my own ability. It might be something worth looking further into before heading off to battle."
"Eh? Gonna try to make sonic swords now?"
"I wish!" Angélique laughed light-heartedly, despite how serious this situation was supposed to be. "You know what the problem with my power is? It's simply too damn wide. It's useful to get a lot of enemies or a big one, but it really sucks when I have allies standing in front of me. Can't go all out and risk dropping the others in a wide-ass sonic blast, you know?"
Again, Angel looked somewhat thoughtful, as if searching her brains out for something deep inside her mind. "I thought... what if I tried to concentrate those shouts? Reduce their area of effect, so I could target specific creatures?"
"Uh..." Brent scratched his head. "Yeah, I was planning on asking you about that too, on Thursday...but then you went off with Chris. I mean, it IS your voice, right? And the rain's perfect for seeing just where your shouts are going, so...can't miss this opportunity!"
"That being said...your voice going hoarse while you train would be pretty shitty right now."
"Well, true, it is my voice, but the way my power affects it is beyond my understanding. I mean, I do have some control over it now that I'm actively training it." Angel found it somewhat hard to properly explain how it worked. It just came naturally to her.
"A training date it is, then! Let's make sure we don't end up abusing me before the mission. I know for a fact, over the week, that I can recover if I rest up for some hours, depending how much I used my voice."
She was being strangely enthusiastic about it. The part about actually seeing the sonic wave showing through the rain was compelling.
"Yeah, if you're just there to test new things out, we should have plenty of time," Brent said, "Wanna finally try out the whole megaphone combo too?"
"Oh yeah... we didn't get to test that one out last Thursday, right?" Angel chuckled nervously, remembering that it was probably because she freaked out while dragon-riding Chris they stopped their training session earlier.
"Sure! Let's stop by my room and fetch that stuff."
Getting up and leaving the cafeteria, the two plotting Mages went to the Aberration Dorms. Reaching outside, Brent used his Overclocking ability to upgrade Angel's umbrella into an encompassing and transparent membrane. Its frame was study enough to take the force of the wind and sheltered effectively the two against the downpour.
"That's quite convenient, I must say."
"Technology exists to make things convenient, after all."
Reaching out the door to room 300, Angel opened the door with a quick swipe of her ID.
"Come on in. Shouldn't take more than a minute." Angel invited Brent inside as she stepped in, switching the light on. The inside of her room was tidy, her bed neatly made as the black and gray sheet aligned itself perfectly along the frame of the bed. The black curtains adorning her windows were held open in a stylish "< >" fashion by black lacy cords. Her desk was perfectly organized, stacks of paper neatly placed on the corner of the crooked-legged desk, showing some signs of damage. Hints of what Angel had been up to before being taken away by guard were sitting on her bed: a makeup kit next to an obvious spot Angel had been sitting where the bed sheet was unmade.
However, the most prominent feature of her room was sitting in the corner of the bedroom, next to the window. When the light came up, excited chirps came from the cage by the window. before heading to her closet, Angel walked to the cage, leaning to get a better view of the black-feathered canary inside.
"Hello~ Pav!" the rockstar half-singed to the bird, from which came a reply in the form of a few happy chirps.
"Chirp chirp," Brent mimicked as he waved at the canary. Looking about the room, it was fairly clear to him that Angelic enjoys her dark, modern design. Pretty impersonal, all things considered, but it also exuded a maturity that Grant's sole devotion to his bed and Brent's lack of shits about home design lacked.
"Taught it any songs yet, Angelic?" he said, unsure if he should sit while she grabbed her stuff.
"I tried to, but she has yet to repeat after me. She probably need more time to learn after hearing the same song being repeated over and over." Angel giggled cheerfully, whistling something rhythmic as she dug one hand into a small bag sitting next to the cage. Reacting to the whistles, the small bird singed along its raven-haired master as the girl was pouring some seeds into its feeding cup.
Judging there was yet enough water for Pav to last for the day, Angel put the bird seeds back into the duffel bag and turned to her closet. Swinging it open, it did not take long for the young woman to find the microphone and the pair of speakers she was looking for.
"Sorry for the wait. Didn't have time to feed my little darling this morning. She was still sleeping, dark as it is outside."
"No problem," Brent waved, "Gotta care for the peeps you're going to return to, after all. And hey, maybe one day you'll be able to give other people the same super-shouts. Then your canary will become your right-hand bird."
Offering to help Angelic with the load and making a silent prayer that the electronics didn't get absolutely wrecked by the water, Brent headed out alongside the raven-haired aberration. Another two overclocks ensured that everything remained dry, and from there, it was simply a matter of trekking all the way to Ground Zero once more.
Hopefully he didn't do it and run out of his silver blood as well...but then again, could he even run out of that?
The grounds were as desolate as he had left it, deep puddles forming within depressions in the ground. Finding actual cover from the rain in the form of a building, Brent released his grip on the umbrella, the large construction wilting as his power left its form.
"Alright then, Angelic, whatcha wanna get done first?"
"Let's get the electronics experiment out of the way first before it gets soaked and malfunctions."
Angel took the microphone in hand while giving the speakers to Brent. "I don't precisely how your Overclocking works, but here's what I was thinking. How about upgrading the mic's sturdiness and enhancing its sound reception, while also upping the speakers' sturdiness and raising the sound distribution. Think you can somehow do all that at once?"
"Unless you have a better idea. You are the techno-master after all."
"I definitely can do it all at once," Brent replied, "But it's better to see if the mic can handle it by itself first, right? After all, if the mic explodes, we can't even do anything with the speakers."
With that reasoning, he took the microphone from Angelic, examining it a couple of times before deciding that, given his lack of knowledge, he really had no clear idea of how to advance such an object. So it was back to the basics after all. The first function, Selector, would serve to improve its ability to further amplify sound. The second function, Incitor, would improve upon its physical durability, ensuring that Angelic's own destructive voice wouldn't just destroy it.
It exploded, reformed, and then warped within his hands, a molten mess of technological evolution, and finally, cooled.
A dark red cone, lightly pulsating with white LED lights, was what came out of the Overclock, and, still holding onto it, Brent directed the open end of the cone to Angelic, saying, "Try not to blow off my hand, yeah?"
While the whole show of technological-advanced upgrades were impressive, the final result of the overclocked microphone looked terrible. Megaphones made the whole thing look silly, Angel thought.
"Don't worry, I'm not going to use the force effect on those. Don't want to yank your arm or anything."
Directing Brent's arm away from his body, Angélique positionned herself as to scream into the rceiving end of the megaphone without having her training buddy in her area of effect. Clearing out her throat, she inhaled deeply before letting out a high-pitched "E" note from her throat.
While the ear-splitting screech did demonstrated the black-haired young woman effectively used her power, nothing left trace of her ability usage. The upgraded microphone itself still looked just as functional as before she screamed into it.
"Well, it looks like the thing held on."
Alright. At least the mic didn't explode or anything. Now then...
Taking the cord from the speakers and plugging it into the microphone, before releasing another deep breath. This was now a 'singular' object. Silver circuits coursed through the wire into the speakers, and once again, everything changed. Matching the dark red of the twice-buffed microphone, the two speakers grew taller, attaining a wicked flame-like frame and practically crackling with the magical power that fueled it. Voice amplification + durability once more.
"Ready to rock?"
Setting up the speakers to face a nearby building, Angel nodded with a grin before returning to Brent's risen arm holding the megaphone. To be safe, Angel stood at the opposite where the speakers were facing, behind them as to not expose herself from the potential sound waves that could come out of the sound-reproducing devices.
Again, she inhaled deeply and let out another mind-wrecking scream straight in front of her. While her voice was perfectly replicated, even amplified to an ears-hurting level, nothing seemed to happen beside the screams being annoyingly loud.
Turning around, Angel looked at Brent, then at the undamaged building in front of them, perking up a quizzical eyebrow "So...? Anything happened?"
"...yeah, shoulda seen that coming," Brent said, looking back towards Angelic. "My power can't be used to buff other powers at all, only inanimate objects. Since your voice IS your power now, I'm guessing that no matter how much you shout, your power will...interfere with my power and won't allow it to do anything."
He nodded, hiding the vestiges of his own disappointment.
"It's the same if I try to, say, Overclock a magically generated object. I can make an ordinary object as good as that magical one, but I can't make the magical one better than it already is."
"Yeah... that sucks." Angel let out a much visible disappointed sigh of her own. "Guess I was overthinking things. Believing I was simply amplifying the sound frequency of my own voice, and let science do the rest. Sort of like a sonic boom from those jets, you know?" the raven-haired screaming Mage chuckled bitterly at her own ignorance.
"I suppose there truly is no explanation when it comes to 'magic', other than figuring out what can be done, right?"
"Well, c'est la vie," he replied, releasing his power's hold upon the objects. "At least we now know that everyone can be as eardrum-shatteringly loud as you, just without all the other benefits."
A smile remained on his face despite the slight disappointment.
"And yeah, perhaps the lesson here is to focus on your power by itself, without trying to get drugs or accessories involved. Next is the whole 'focused' scream thing, right?"
"Ah... yes... let's get to tha-"
Angelique was interrupted by a loud obnoxious "HEY!" coming from her jeans' pocket, "Whoops, hang on a sec." she said as she dug into her pants to retrieve her phone
Hey angel do you know that zoe girl? I want to talk to her before the mission but I don t know where she is. Do you know her room number or where i can find her?
Browsing through some notes she had typed into her phone - basically a copy of her files - she returned a reply to her classmate as soon as she found the girl's room number.
I do. Her room's 201.
Thinking of Zoe, would she be around here too? Throughout the last week, Angel did managed to get a few glimpses of her former teammate, chasing around the citizens of Ground Zero with her still gruesome abilities. Taking mental note of that, the young woman added another quick reply to Ernest about the possibility of finding his teammate in the area where she currently was.
If you can't find her in her room, try at Ground Zero. She often uses the area.
Thanks buddy
"Sorry for that. Ernest is looking for Zoe. Probably going to meet his future teammate before the actual battle." Angel returned her phone to her pants as she looked up to the building standing in front of them.
"Alright, focus time. It'll be useful if I can manage to pull this off. Help in knocking down those robots without getting my team caught in the wake of my screams."
Remembering last night's week, Angel closed her eyes after visualizing her intended target: one of the many sets of windows still left intact. Before, she would simply scream at them and watch as they would all shatter at the same time. Today, however, was to break on set at a time. Taking a deep breath to clear her mind, she let out a sharp whistle. While surprisingly loud, it wasn't as deafening as her usual powerful shrieks.
Another failure. Angel let out a groan of frustration, her plans not going the way she wanted them to today. Why couldn't she do it? She clearly remembered that part in her nightmare. Was it something she couldn't do yet, didn't have enough control of? She knew something changed that night.
"Wa-" Ah, she was already going ahead and screeching. As Angelic groaned from her failure, Brent patted her on the back and said, "Was gonna tell you to 'wait' and all. Geez, what's the point of me being here if you're just going to train by yourself anyways?"
Pulling the hood over his raincoat once more, and this time not bothering to overclock it, Brent brought out his shiny new phone, walking off into the heavy rain. Drops splattered over the hood and his shoes were instantly drenched by an unfortunately deep puddle, but the arbiter didn't mind too much. He positioned himself a safe distance away from what he presumed to be Angelic's range, before starting off a video.
"Angelic! I want you to scream as long as you can while modulating your voice! Do as many weird vocal tricks as you can with it, and hopefully my camera will be able to capture what your shouts look like!"
"Oo~kay?" Angel was a bit confused about Brent's request, his words processing into her mind until it finally dawned upon her.
Nodding, the girl breathed in deeply and, this time, let out a forceful "O" pitched scream. The sonic wave became visibly apparent as the rain was pushed away wherever the sound reached in front of the screaming Mage. She had held onto her shout for a few seconds before coughing and gasping for her to refill her lungs. Once more, she let out another shriek, this time while trying to modulate her voice as she let it out forcefully. Changing pitches from "O" to "E" seemed to stop the rain from being pushed away, while going to "A" pitches brought back the same force effects. There was however little change in the wave's range and width as the intensity always remained the same.
"D-did you get what you wanted? I can keep going if you haven't." Angel stuttered as she tried to take back her breath.
"Try these two things now! A scream that becomes quieter as you go on and a scream that's like..." Brent paused, before letting out a sharp shout with his mouth as small as possible, as if spitting, "...BEH! Like that!"
Angel laughed at Brent's demonstration, suddenly feeling silly if that's what she looked like while screaming. After silencing herself from having a good laugh, Angel returned to the building's front view.
Starting out in full force, Angelique followed Brent's advice, resulting in growing quieter made the visible force wave lessen in length until it disappeared as she grew near silent. Then, grinning, Angel proceeded to let out her own version of what her training partner tried to show her, starting out with a low "O" before unleashing it into a focused "WAH".
Finally, the desired result came in. The sonic wave that came from the last note was significantly less wide than her usual sonic waves, shaped just about large enough to hit one or two persons,
"Think that worked," Brent called out, "Now make that 'wah' into a 'weh'!"
Tilting her head quizzically as she wondered what the difference was between the two, Angel slowly nodded and went for that "O-WEH" the Overclocking Mage was asking for. Surprisingly, the shout was even more focused; the sonic wave concentrated enough to be as wide as a single individual.
"Still got it in you, right?" The arbiter continued to call out encouragingly. "One last spurt now, Angelic! PEW PEW!"
Angel turned her head towards Brent, a face clearly showing a look of disbelief. "Are you fucking serious?"
"The smaller your mouth is during the screams, the smaller the radius is! Dead serious!" he countered as the wind picked up.
"Of course I knew that! It just sounds so fucking retarded."
"Causing friendly fire because you're afraid of sounding retarded is even more retarded!"
Snapping her head away from Brent, Angel let out an ear-splitting "O-WEE" scream. While this one might be about the same condensed radius as the last one, the pitch of the shout didn't bring any force effect, making it invisible in the rain.
"Did that sound retarded enough for you?" Angel mockingly shouted to Brent, before turning back to the window and letting out a sudden deep and resonating "POW", sending out a wave so small it broke only a few squares from one set of windows.
"We can always go stupider," Brent replied, capturing the profile of that last scream before stopping the phone on the camera and running back into cover. Taking off his raincoat and roughly shaking off the droplets that still clung to it, the amethyst eyed youth rubbed the screen of the phone dry, before showing Angelic a recording of her shouts as they parted rain and visibly made their different profiles known.
At the end of it, he asked, "How's your throat after all that? Do the pow pows exhaust you less than your waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaas?"
"That's so cool!" Watching how the raid was being affected by her supersonic screams made Angelique excited and quite enthusiastic over the footage of Brent's recordings. It was just as spectacular, if not more, than the special effects she would've seen in the movies. "I'm feeling just small itching. Something that will go away later today if I rest my voice for a few hours."
"Honestly, I don't think either type of screams is more or less exhausting than the others, It's just, one requires more focus and precise tuning. Otherwise, they pretty much feel the same exhaustion-wise."
"Mmm," he said, leaning against the concrete wall, "Shame there's no 'efficient' scream then. Sounds like you'll be doing a lot if you're going up against an army. Guess you'll be putting your gun skills to the test?"
"Mhm. it'll come around eventually. I'm sure of that. I've actually noticed my voice has gotten more accustomed to the screaming ever since I came here. I think... it happened at the same time my reach grew further? Felt like that suddenly, my voice wasn't taking its toll on my vocal cords as much as before." Angel paused, remembering exactly that it had happened sometime during the Flags and Seek match, just after she had beaten Chris and had that weird vision all of a sudden.
"I don't expect guns to be as efficient, but yeah, I do need a backup plan. That's one reason I had requested mine. Still... I haven't trained yet on how to properly use handguns, to be honest. Got so caught up in investigating my powers that I neglected firearms study."
"Must be because you're so gungho about power training, eh?" Brent joked.
Must be because of those fucking visions.
"But yeah, guess you're just gonna have to be careful about how many shouts you do then. Gonna be a bad time if you run out of gas in a dire situation, eh? As I mentioned before, Hazel can probably do like, 400% of the heavy lifting with her giant ghost-hands."
"Agreed. With powerhouses like Hazel and potentially Emma covering us up with her golems, I'm thinking of taking a more conservative approach, It's not like I can do much of my own by only knocking those things on their asses, right? I think i'll take a true 'Support' role and use my powers only in dire situations, like if we're somehow overwhelmed or someone's about to be jumped on."
"Sounds smart. I'll try to keep you all updated on horde movements so that stuff doesn't happen."
"Speaking of which..." Angel got her phone out of her jeans once more "Might be a good idea to get each other in our contacts, in case something happens or if they don't provide us with communication devices on the field, don't you think?"
"Sounds good. Even bought a bluetooth for that shit," Brent said with a grin, "Did you?"
"Same fancy model they give out to our classmates. Gotta stay in touch with the latest tech." Angel said as she handed out her phone towards Brent.
Spinning his own phone in his hand before tapping it against Angelic's, he waited until the 'blip' sounded before taking a look at the screen. "Lucky Angel?" he asked, cocking an eye at the contact info.
"Oh..." Angel's expression turned a bit sour when she heard her old pseudonym being called out. "That... was my old stage name," Angel admitted.
"Lachance means 'Fortune' or 'Luck' in French. Ultimately, Angel was a nickname given to me because of my first name, so it turned out this way when my manager proposed to turn my translated name into a stage brand."
"Damn," Brent laughed, "That's a pretty misfortunate nickname."
"You tell me..." Angel sighed. Really, looking back at everything that happened in the span of a few weeks, Angel had reconsidered if she truly was someone 'lucky' to have this voice of hers. While it did brought her fame and success before, now it was only used to destroy. A girl like her, who used to be something like the metal version of a hippie with all this 'Peace and Love' mentality. In the end, she thought that if she wouldn't be Miss Fortune anymore, then she would be Misfortune instead.
"I suppose that's about it for now. Can't go wasting all my voice here before the actual battle. And I'd rather not catch a cold either because of this awful weather."
"Oh, you know that porn star too? Damn, must be super awkward then," Brent patted Angelic on the shoulder, before handing her the umbrella. "And yeah, see ya then. Gotta go do my own stuff now before I run out of time."
"Oh you fucking-" Angélique threw a light jab at her partner's arm, her cheeks painted with a slight shade of embarrassed red. Despite that, she grinned playfully and waved a farewell hand while holding the umbrella above her already-drenched body.
Angel now has more fine control over her power. She can choose to fire more concentrated sonic blast at single targets (precision shots). However, it takes mental effort and aiming to focus these blasts.
Edit: Changes have been made into the CS. -Added Angel's power upgrade and the vision that came along with it in the Power section of the CS. -Changed Angel's Nightmare part to reflect what she will be dreaming about IC from now on. -Added some new clothing into the Appearance(Clothing) section of the CS. Yeah, might as well said she found a Hot Topic to shop to. ***-Added new opinions for the people Angel has interacted with during the IC week***
Lying down on her bed, it was still too early for Angélique to find any sleep. Her mind was drifting to different thoughts. What a week it had been. There was that Flags n’ Seek game that got out of hand Monday, something that probably made everyone stop and think about themselves. She couldn’t think for the others, but Angel knew for herself that there were things that needed to change. She had met many of her new classmates, bonded and trained with most of them. At the very least, she could see some links being made, some semblance of a potential cooperative effort to survive the miserable fate they were forced to live with.
Remembering the first days she got here, and then this week, Angel realized in such a short amount of time, she somewhat went some way to become better. Sure, she still had to fix some more of that extraverted attitude of hers, deemed immature and noisy by SOME people, but she was making progress by establishing a routine, talking with people and focusing on her objectives.
The proof resided in the small degree of control she gained over herself and her powers by coming frequently to Ground Zero. Even if it was sometimes to vent out her frustration, she willed herself to become better, not be overcome by the darkness lurking inside her mind. She wanted to not just simply let it all out. She wanted to take control of it. To use it to her whims, not simply for the sake of destruction.
Before her eyes, there laid an ocean of darkness, black as the void, nothing in sight. Not even the faintest light, the faintest clue of either person or object. She found herself surrounded by the oppressive pitch-black darkness, blind and disoriented. It was as if this dark vastness had been trying to claim her.
All but one of her senses felt numb. It seemed so far away, but she swore she could hear what sounded like a familiar yet at the same time unknown rhythm . But as she focused on her hearing, the rhythm started growing stronger , accompanied by another set of just as strong, yet soother rhythm. One set seemed to come from further away, from the ocean itself, while the other set was much nearer, as if standing in front of the ocean, blocking its path
Like unknown forces colliding, screaming words of pain from the ocean clashed against serene and focused chants of hope. And while she was bearing witness to this clash, splatters of the ocean managed to splash its way onto her. But for some reason, she did not fear the tainted dripping on her now-sullied hands.
Angel gasped as her mind re-focused on her previous thoughts. What exactly were those visions she kept having? What was their meaning? Why was she feeling so focused, so calm, so accepting? It should’ve felt wrong somehow. She should feel distressed and uneasy about all this.
And yet, for some reason, she didn’t feel any of that.
Silence reigned in the young woman’s mind as she overlooked the situation below.
Flying high above town, there stood a metal-feathered angel, watching down below as citizens ran off in panic when faced against a gigantic monster made of spaghetti, flying above ground on a giant ceramic saucer riddled with ravenous teeth, and an army of tank-sized meatballs swarming around their noodle overlords. The gargantuan creature made of noodle was smashing buildings with its noodle appendages, breaking them as effortlessly as wiping out a castle made out of cards. Humans and subnaturals alike were being devoured by the army of meatballs. Among those being devoured she could recognize the faces of many students with whom she had been attending USARILN with. The particular sight of one tanned Indian girl having her throat torn open by teeth before being gruesomely eaten alive was horrible to the eyes of all.
With utter dispassion in her eyes, Angel had been overlooking the slaughter with a cold expression placated on her face, waiting for the Regulars to finally kneel in front of the mighty Archangel and plead her to save their lives. Parts of her felt ashamed to have grown so apathetic of the lives being thrown away. But sacrifices were necessary, if she was to even be able to reach the goals she had set. Even the disappearance of a brown-haired boy she had started to grow fond of unfazed her.
It was only but when a young girl with red-hair came running towards her, only to be picked up by a tentacle and slammed with excessive force at the ground, crushing her skull open that the metal-feathered Aberration moved from her spot. Her face showed fury like none other, but instead of letting it all out into a world-shattering scream of retribution, the Angel closed her eyes, her traits slowly fading into serenity. Then, as she pursed her lips, a mind-shattering whistle came from her mouth, splitting the air like a serrated edge. The monster spaghetti and a line of its monstrous spawns screeched as ithey fell to the ground, a sizeable hole that pierced through their bodies and even through the armored saucer.
“They all deserved it.”
A wicked grin could be seen from the angel’s face, tainting her otherwise peaceful face.
This morning, Angel felt unusually calm after waking up. She still felt distressed about the whole gory show, and the remembrance of a missing Aaron, but she felt as if this new variant of the nightmare could’ve been worse. She felt something was keeping the rising tides of a tsunami at bay. That fact alone was putting her at ease. Whatever was blocking out the ocean’s rush put her at ease. Hopefully, things would get only for the better from now on. If those were the results of the discipline she tried to bring back to her life here, then it gave her the more reason to reign in those feelings and start acting like she should be. Act like herself, like who Angélique Lachance was, is, and will be.
Slipping into her morning footwear, the raven-haired Mage lifted the black curtains from her window. She had expected the weather to be this bad, judging from how cloudy it had been all week, but she didn’t quite expected it to be this bad. From behind her window, she could see the lightning illuminating the sky beyond the thick veil of dark gray clouds and the heavy drops of rain smashing soundly onto her window and the ground below.
So much for going for a morning jog this morning…
Yawning the sleepy bits out of her eyes, Angel made her way to her closet and grabbed a precise selection of clothing for today. No need to put on her usual training clothes on today, she figured. Instead, she’ll just take the day easy, even though her recent discovery of her powers being potentially linked to the visions she was having left her anticipating for the next time she would go back to Ground Zero. She had something she wanted to test badly, see if there was anything new concerning her powers.
Just as she had finished slipping into her clothes and was putting on make-up, rattling at her door made the Angélique snap out of her beauty-making trance. Wasn’t it early morning? Classes weren’t supposed to start until three hours. Maybe Allison or one of her classmates wanted to talk, this early in the morning.
The loud banging at the door intensified
No, this impatient knocking couldn’t be anyone from her class. In fact, it brought the unpleasant memory of one particular night she wasn’t ready to forget so soon.
The door automatically swung open, and hurried footsteps stepped into the room, stopping this close to a surprised Angel, still in the middle of applying a light touch of makeup on her lips. It was a morning ritual Angel had been doing for just as long as she could remember. Her agent always said that she had a nice set of lips that should be highlighted because of her shades hiding the rest of her face; bring out their gloss to overshadow the loss of what her smoky glasses were hiding underneath.
“Are you deaf, Missy?”
Angel stood there, speechless. Somehow, this sudden appearance was sinking into her chest. What the hell was this guy doing here this early in the morning, with a soaked umbrella in hand? It couldn’t be…
“Playing mute now, are we? Well, since you are already clothed, get up and come with me. You have a briefing to attend to this morning.”
Slowly, Angel started to realize just what was going to happen. They were about to get thrown into another battle, weren’t they. Shutting her makeup kit with a low thud, the sunglass-wearing young woman slowly got up and let the guard escort her to the briefing room, trying as much as possible to not comment on every nudge and stab the guy made with the muzzle of his weapon.
Angélique listened with keen interest to commander Kardos’ plan and explanation about the details of their next mission. So basically, they were to kill a machine-summoning colossal Subnatural who was wreaking havoc on a small town. So the mpowerhouses of their class were to take head on that Mage, while Angel and some other powerful Mages were to distract the machinery and back up the strikers, while the less offensive people were to either defend the healers or assist the injured/townsfolk.
The plan sounded right in Angel’s mind, except for her own involvement. Why the hell was she among the supportive group? Being someone who could emit powerful sonic waves, she could not affect machines, as they were lacking earing organs. The best she could do was put a dent and knockback a few machines herself, but she was more less useful than someone like Allison, who could probably cut through them easily with her anti-inorganic blade. Combined with Hazel, they could be a devastating duo. Angel saw herself more at the back, probably with Zoe, safeguarding a Healer, or even helping people out of the town.
She wanted to protest about the plan, but she was kept under silence by one of the nearby guards. When everyone was dismissed, they were escorted so quickly out of the room, Angel didn’t even have time to give a call at Kardos and have a talk to him about the tactical aspects of his plan.
Left out by the door, Angel turned to the guard with the gun still nudging against her back.
“Jeez, thank you so much for not making me waste my time! I wanted to actually speak with the Commander. Don’t need to fucking push me around with your shit. I got it already, after the Nth time you asshats shove your guns into my back.”
“Can’t do, Missy. The commander is very busy with this crisis right now, so he isn’t available to waste his precious time into ordering this mess. You got your orders, so move out.” The guard’s tone betrayed his inner thoughts despite trying to look unfazed by the brazen attitude of his care.
Annoyed by the man’s condescending tone, the black-haired musician ripped the umbrella from the man’s hands and stomped her way outside, leaving him dry inside the building.
Heeding Kardos’ counsel, Angélique headed for the cafeteria to grab a brunch. If they were to leave in seven hours, she might as well eat a mix of breakfast and dinner before heading to Maryland.
Inside, Angel picked up a tray and grabbed a few toasts, eggs, bacon, potatoes, fruits, sausages and pancakes. With her overfilled tray, she sat by her lonely self at the far corner of the deserted cafeteria. She figured she might as well get some peace and quiet for what could be her last meal, even if part of herself refused to acknowledge the probability of dying.
Just as she started eating, her mind drifted to memories of Aaron. A mechanical-summoning Subnatural? Aaron was pretty much the same, power-wise. This humongous creature that was supposed to be Human didn’t look a thing like her disappeared friend though. In fact, this thing was nothing like him. If that… thing… was willing to kill people, then by all means, she would gladly shout that thing apart.
Today, he had an excess of energy. Was it because of getting enough sleep? Because of the excitement and anticipation of learning new things? Or because of whatever meaningless epiphany he made up to stay positive? No, it was none of those things.
He had an excess of energy because he had yet to burn any of it away.
Brent sat on a bench, scrolling absentmindedly through international news on his phone. More monsters, more assholes, more misery. It seemed like every day, the world was getting worse and worse, but at the same time...heh. All these tragedies, all these numbers, and he still felt detached from it, removed from it. Same with Montreal, huh? He could read all about how Angelic turned the front row into a slaughterhouse, but at the same time...here he was, apathetic to the possibility of her being a psychopath that'd kill her own fans.
Because really, there was no way in hell it was an 'accident'.
His eyes flicked towards the clock. If Angelic didn't show up today, it could just be a rest day. But if this was her routine, then she should be coming any second now.
Just as Brent expected, the young woman passed through the gym's door during the morning. Dressed in her training wear, it was not hard to figure out Angelique was coming back from her morning jogging routine by the faint glistening of sweat her skin showed. Earbuds blasting music in her ears, she quickly made her way into the locker room, whence she came back a few minutes later with her shoes in her now-bandaged hands
Making her way to the back of the gym, where the training dummies and punching bag were located, Angel spotted the Overclocking Mage sitting on a nearby bench. Remembering he was also at the gym Tuesday, the X-marked girl figured Brent must've been a gym enthusiast. Perhaps, just like her, it was a routine to come to the gym?
Acknowledging his presence, Angel lifted a hand in a small gesture of greeting towards Brent's direction before settling her stuff down on a nearby bench and preparing herself for another training session.
There was a bit of deviation, but her appearance was still like clockwork. Looked like there was a routine setting in place after all, at least compared to Zoe and Callan. "Morning Angelic," he said with a smile, "Kickboxing again?"
Just as Angel was putting away her earbuds and about to put some music from her playlist, her head perked up from her phone's screen, looking towards Brent.
"Ah, 'morning Brent. Yes, I am. And you? Taking a break from... lifting? What are you doing here usually this early?"
"Yeah, usually I'd be going through all the machines here, but after yesterday..." He paused, recalling the minor despair that was having a class dedicated to working out...that did basically nothing for him. "...I was thinking of trying something new, actually. Mind if I joined you today for your punching stuff?"
"Figured I was lacking skills instead of stats."
"Something new? Hmm... perhaps that wouldn't be a bad idea. That could break the monotony of being here..." Angel muttered to herself, snapping back to reality when Brent asked to join her. "Sure. Wouldn't hurt to have someone to practice with."
Angélique looked back to her phone and set up some songs, however far less noisy than when she is training by her usual lonesome self. She gently put the phone on the nearby bench where her towel and shoes were resting.
"Have you ever learned about boxing before?"
"I learned about it, and I know the whole concept of stepping in, as well as bodily rotation," Brent replied, "Basically understand how the techniques themselves are supposed to function as well, but as for actual lessons? Naw."
As he spoke, he began to do his stretches. Arms, legs, sides, neck. The hardcore music Angelic's phone blared out didn't do any miracles for setting the proper tone for such a thing, but angry people screaming would probably nicer when he started whaling at the sandbags.
"That's good then. I guess that makes you good to go for at least half of what the whole thing is. Let's start up with the punches, shall we?"
Angel set up herself next to one of the nearby punching bags, looking at Brent and waiting for him to get started. She was curious as to how experienced he was. From what he said, it sounded like he knew the technical, but perhaps not the practical part.
"Sure," was Brent's reply. His wrists cracked and popped as he rotated them, before he formed a fist, one finger at a time. Raising up his fists, he angled his body slightly so his right shoulder was leading, before extending his right fist to lightly tap the surface of the sandbag. Optimal distance should be just before his arm was fully extended, and more power could be generated with a pulley system, where one fist went in while the other went out. Just a one-two motion. A one-TWO!
A 'whump' sounded as his left fist bounced off the side of the punching bag.
"...think that hurt me more than that hurt it."
"Yeah, you might want to watch out for a broken wrist. Pulling a weird punch could strain it, as the wrist is one of the weakest place on your hand when it comes to absorbing impacts. If you do not tighten your punches correctly, the impact of your fist transfers into your wrist instead of your arm."
Angélique stepped in, flexing her arm upward, some veins and muscles bulging out to show how tight her grip was. "Your stance isn't so bad, You face your target right up front and slightly shift your body towards your lead punching arm. Lead arm should be the one you use for jabs."
As she explained, Angel took on her fighting stance, her body slightly shifting to her right shoulder. "However, you don't need to punch using a one-two strike. It works for combo, yes, but that's when you first have gotten the feel of your punches first."
She began with a swift jab from her right fist, quickly extending the arm in a rapid and straight punch all the while her body pushed slightly up front, at the dead center of the bag.
"When you extend your arm, keep it tight, straight and steady. Feel like digging your fist into the bag for a split-second before pulling back. That'll keep your hand from bouncing away."
"Ah, so that's what the spiraling motion is for," Brent nodded, before bringing out his own right fist, tightening it until it felt like his skin was going to break open from his knuckles. Too much? Hm...
"Let me see your arm for a bit."
Angel wasn't really sure what Brent had in mind, but she complied, extending her arm to the Arbiter "Uh, sure..."
"Hmm..." Experimentally, he began to press his fingers against it, before stroking up and down, bobbing his head up and down. Still elastic, but that was due more to fat than lax muscles, wasn't it? He went back to his own forearm, comparing the two with that same focused stare of his. "Is there a balance between how taut your forearms should be? Or is it always a case of 'the harder the better'? Feels like the tenser it is, the slower it'd be."
Feeling creeped out by Brent's physical analysis on her arm, Angélique yanked her arm away from the intruding guy's probing, revealing a slightly annoyed expression creeping up into a frown. Rubbing her arm as if to shake off the feeling of being touched like that, Angélique shot up a concealed glare behind her cracked shades.
"Unless you want to break through concrete, no. If you tense up your muscles too hard, you won't get that swift flow of movement from your arm. Powerful it may be, but recovering and backing up after landing the blow will be much slower. Timing and swiftness is precisely what you want to get the most when throwing your punches and kicks."
So it all went back to speed again, huh? Made sense. He had come to that conclusion as well, but it was nice to get some actual confirmation for it. Brent closed his eyes, visualizing the sequences once more. Efficiency and speed, with the bare minimum required to keep his fist from folding over his wrist. These weren't bullets. Maximizing the value out of each strike wasn't necessary. He wasn't intending on learning how to punch and kick for the sake of killing monsters anyways.
"Cool," the arbiter said, pointing to himself, "Mind showing me a normal punch then?"
Angel nodded, turning back to the punching bag. Doubt crept up in her mind by his request. What kind of 'normal punch' did he wanted to see? A jab? A hook? An uppercut? A cross? There were so many punches it was hard to tell what he meant. Deciding to spice things up with a little variety, the fighting girl fell into her stance. This time, however, she used her left arm as an attack, bringing a straight punch after executing a small pivot with her body. Not too powerful, just quick enough to ingrain what she was teaching into Brent's mind.
Well...it definitely looked good, but he had already seen a whole bunch of her punches Tuesday morning. Brent scratched the back of his head. This was going to get a bit awkward, huh? And from what he recalled, last time someone tried this (Callan and Kusari), it turned into a hilariously traumatizing event. Did he really have to clarify this? Or was she intentionally ignoring his actual meaning?
Ah, it could always be worse.
"Meant for you to punch me, actually," he laughed awkwardly, "Feel the force of a normal punch with my own body, to gauge how much is enough? You know?"
Did she know? Hopefully she did.
Angel's face turned to disbelief when she heard Brent explaining himself over the meaning of his request. Why were everyone so fixated on getting themselves hit? She was no Callan of course, so she had no fear of killing anyone with a single punch. But still, she felt uneasy to simply just throw a punch at someone who didn't provoke her into doing so. All she learned was for the sake of self-defense, not injure others without a good reason to.
"What the fuck? What would you even gain from feeling that?"
"It's like that whole thing where when tazers were first brought out to law enforcement, they'd have officers shoot each other with it," Brent replied. "Think the lesson there was more to teach them to be more careful before shooting someone, but I'm more interested in getting a general idea of how disruptive a single punch would be."
He paused.
"Can totally see why this is a weird ass request, but you're the only one that I can ask, Angelic. Don't want false impressions to screw me over like it did with my thing with Hazel."
"Underestimated her, huh? I admit, I did not foresee such destructive powers coming from someone like her. It just goes to show you how deceiving appearances can be, how powers work in ways we can't even try to imagine. And especially, how freaking awful those powers are in the hands of an Aberration..."
The black-haired girl remained silent for a few seconds. True, he could use a bit of experience to see where all this training was going, but the way martial arts worked, even a ridiculous blow could potentially be very harmful. That was the reason why instructors wore pads and such when teaching their students with a more physical approach.
Just like that, Angel's face beamed with realization. Of course! The pads were the solution. She would be damned if there weren't boxing gear in this gym with all these sandbags and dummies around.
"Hang on a second here will ya?" Angel told, more like an order than a request as she darted off to the back of the gym, where some of the facility's gear was stored. After a minute, she came back with several kinds of pads into her arms, dropping them near the bench Brent and her were training at.
"I don't know anything about testing tazers, but we do have stuff in martial arts classes that can make you 'feel' the impact of a punch without bringing a real physical contact directly on the body. We'll start up with that. Then, if you really want to go all the way with this. I can try to muster the will to actually give you a beating. Put up with my request, then I'll grant yours. Fair deal?"
"Well, who would have thought she'd be able to steamroll through a building and flatten everyone after taking a hit that the mods thought was lethal?" Brent shook his head. "If I was really underestimating her, I would have been trying to snatch her flags or something like that."
When Angel brought back all the pads, providing a happy medium for the not-masochist and the not-sadist, the Arbiter nodded and began strapping the pads on. Compromise was losing, perhaps, but if Angelic turned out to be capable of cracking bones with well-placed punches...well, he wasn't adverse to Christmas's healing, but he didn't really want to owe that kid too many debts.
"More than fair. Thanks for putting up with my requests. If you need me to Overclock a TV episode or something, just call me. Worked out pretty well during movie night."
Angel perked up an eyebrow in interest as Brent merrily proposed his services as a token of thanks for making her go along with his stupid antics. Truth be told, she could always learn more about her classmates' powers, and there was a certain something she wanted to test out considering his powers.
"Sounds like an interesting offer. I might take you up on that for this afternoon, if you are free."
"Cashing in already?" Brent laughed, "Sure, I'll toss over as many free Overclocks as you want, as long as you also teach me how to shoot."
"Aren't you the bargaining one now?" Angel replied with a chuckle of her own. "I don't think I'm the one you should be seeing for that though. I only ever learned the basics from Lawrence. I have yet to practice whatever I self-studied."
Seeing Brent was just about done strapping the pads onto his torso and hands, Angel readied herself into her fighting stance. "Place your hands up, palms facing me. I'll show you the feeling of an impact behind a series of jabs and crosses."
"Lawrence, huh?" The blond that basically did nothing outside of clean up the mess his team made? Brent stored away that chunk of information in his head for a later time, before raising up his hands. "Come at me, brah."
Angel grinned slightly before launching a series of punches at Brent's arms. The padding offered good protection against the impact of the varying intensities of the blows. For a prepared mind, one would notice how small the force was behind each strikes, the weakest being the jabs and the strongest by the cross punches.
It seemed quaint and rather boring to just watch the girl offer seemingly unimpressive combinations of punches at the Arbiter's hands. But just as the pacing of the strikes became steady, Angel broke it by delivering a sudden staggering cross punch with her left strong arm directly against Brent's padded chest. Compared to the previous punches, this one packed an impact powerful enough to make the guy recoil a few steps back and send a slight shockwave throughout his torso.
"Oof," Brent said, surprised at the impact of the final strike, "Definitely felt that. That last one your actual 'normal' punch, Angelic?"
"Sort of. The padding around your hands don't make you feel much, combined with the fact I was aiming at the hands, which isn't the place you'd usually try to aim a punch at. They don't look impressive for sure, but those were normal. I will admit I've put a bit more strength to the last one to try and make up a bit for the padding. Trying to make you feel a bit what it's like to receive a 'normal' punch when you aren't expecting one."
Angel huffed, quickly re-catching her breath. "Well, despite that, are you sure you want to receive one without padding? That kind of punch can potentially crack ribs, not that I actually would like to cause that, or cause quite a bruise."
"Yeah, figured that the head would be a better focus for fisting." The point she brought was interesting though. So the potential was indeed there, that of cracking one's ribs, or at least cause a colorful bruise, but at the same time...stomachs didn't have bones. And, more importantly, fractured bones weren't lethal, at least compared to a bash to the head.
Brent removed the pads one by one, before rolling his shoulders once more. Stomp the back of the knee, pull hair backwards, punch down in her face, and snatch at flags? Was that a possibility?
He recalled the speed of Angelic's punches, a speed that was definitely achievable with enough practice. Enough practice and no need for talent.
"Alright, enough faffing about. Got the Rocky theme song, Angelic?"
As much as Angel wanted the situation to not have come down to this, she couldn't help but let a nervous laughter escape her mouth from Brent's joke. She really hoped that last punch would've been enough to dissuade him from getting the real deal. Obviously, he was too stubborn to simply let it go.
"No talking you out of this, eh? God you can be such a pain in the ass some times. Cortana, play Eye of the Tiger."
Angélique's smartphone beeped twice, ending abruptly the song that had been playing, changing to the iconic theme song that had been made popular thanks to that old movie. The raven-haired Canadian fighting adept was shifting uncomfortably on her feet, getting the feeling she will regret her decision as soon as she would land the punch.
She eyed out the possible targets. His sides were out of the question, a fractured rib could be lethal. The thorax's bones were dense, the heart and the lungs were located there, she couldn't allow a punctured lung to happen, and although it was unlikely she could pull a Bruce Lee's "heart stopper", she didn't want to take any chance either. One area remained, the stomach. At worse, he'd get the wind knocked out of his guts for a minute.
Readying herself back into fighting stance, Angel tried to breathe normally, but it was obvious stress was gripping her from how sluggish her form appeared to be, and how quick her breaths were. She just wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible, without any grave injuries.
Without warning, she threw a punch at Brent's stomach, fully bringing her body into momentum with a pivot as she extended her strong punching arm into Brent's guts. The intensity of the punch was on par, if not slightly stronger than when she hit her living punching dummy with the padding on.
As familiar, iconic instrumentals played, Brent brought up his own arms, turning to face one of the dummies. He more or less had an idea of how impactful blunt force generated by one's fists were now, and if Angelic's punches could crack ribs or other bones, then with enough training, he could as well. And hey, she DID say something about being able to punch through concrete, right? It wasn't exactly going to be on par with Ms. Pulvernize-Spines or Ms. Eradicate-Property, but it was definitely something, especially if he overclocked gloves to protect his hands as well.
He tightened his fists once more, trying to find a good balance between tension and looseness, before an unexpected impact spiralled into the side of his stomach.
The first sensation was the burning in his solid abs, muscles tightening to absorb the blow. Then, there was a sensation of breathless, his lungs struggling to bring in all the air that had been knocked out. And finally, that all dulled as his amethyst eyes sharpened, Brent taking three steps back and bringing his fists up once more, this time fully prepared to receive his assailant.
The assailant which was Angelic.
The agony was secondary to the comedy and Brent laughed, spikes of pain causing his 'hahahas' to transform into 'owowows'.
Realizing Brent totally didn't prepare himself for that punch, Angel gasped as she brought her hands to her mouth in a horrified manner. Didn't he wanted to get punched firsthand? Gosh, what had she done? Did she entirely missed the point due to the stress? Or was that because she was simply an idiot? She recalled having done the same thing to Marcus a few days ago after their Flags n' Seek match-up.
"Oh my god! I'm so sorry! I thought you were ready for this!"
She didn't want to make herself more of an idiot by asking him if it hurt. It very much looked like so, but she was still impressed by how he was still standing after receiving that unprepared. She did feel for a split-second how firm his abs was, as if bunching through a wood plank.
Eventually, the pain had faded, but Brent was still laughing, unable to tell if this was actually funny or if the surprise made him go stupid for a moment there. After a minute or two had passed, the youth eventually calmed down, a smile still on his face as he wiped the tears out of his eyes.
"Well," he said, standing upright and lifting up his shirt to inspect the quickly-forming bruise, "definitely wasn't expecting that, but hey, worked out. You totes coulda followed through with more strikes afterwards, right?"
He gingerly touched the bruise next, wincing slightly. He'll ice it later. It'd be a good opportunity to learn how to fight through some injury right now. "Nice punch though. Shall we get to the rest of the program then, Angelic? Was thinking we'd go through a training montage once the Eye of the Tiger, started, but..."
Brent chuckled once more.
By now, Angel's head had turned into an embarrassed tomato, from how much crimson dominated the usual pale tone of her skin. She felt so stupid, she was left motionless and speechless for a moment. Although some harm had been done, it was reassuring to see Brent took it with a laugh, or at least appeared to be. Is it even possible for an Arbiter to cope with this kind of airhead without boiling with rage deep inside? She knew for certain she wouldn't herself.
"I-I'm sorry! If I wasn't such an idiot, I would've confirmed with you before throwing that punch. I'm really, really sorry." Angel apologized, fiddling sheepishly with her fingers.
If you weren't such an idiot, perhaps you wouldn't have become an Aberration in the first place.
Just like that, her apologetic face unconsciously turned into a frown.
"And if I weren't such an idiot, I would have made it clear that Rocky theme was for actual punching," Brent replied, "So really, it's more of a 90-10, with 90 being me. Wouldn't have happened at all if I didn't mention it to begin with, so yeah! Less faffing more punching, Angelic!"
"Still gotta eat lunch and then overclock Desperate Housewives for you, after all."
"Y-yeah.", Angel nodded then turned to one of the training dummy. "What do you mean 'Desperate Housewives'? Is that some kind of subliminal message?" Angel exaggeratedly answered, remaining silent for a moment with a clearly forced pout before chuckling. "Nah, I'm kidding. Actually, I needed your powers to test out mine, see if we can somehow make our powers work just as well together as Siena and I."
"Only a subliminal message if you want it to be," Brent cheekily winked. "It's really just a TV drama popular with mid-aged women. And as for the whole power thing...you want me to overclock a megaphone or something?"
Angel chuckled slightly, unsure if she should take that answer as him flirting with her or whatever. "Basically. I've acquired a microphone and some speakers recently. But I now know my shouts are powerful enough to break the mic and blow the speakers in smoke from the sheer sound output. If I could somehow manage to make the microphone and the speakers more durable, as well as making them better distribute sound waves, that might amp up the screams. Might be an interesting useful tool next time we get out fighting, wouldn't you say?"
Oh, interesting. He had expected Angelic's screams to be capable of destroying objects, but to think she was ardent about it regardless. "Sounds like artillery," he grinned, "If it's just amplifying durability, it should definitely be possible, but at the same time...if magic only goes through your voice, it doesn't sound like a machine making the noise louder would really help out?"
"Definitely worth experimenting with though. If things work out, perhaps it's possible to set phone-nukes the same way."
"Yeah, I'm thinking the same. I'd rather test new possibilities with my powers whenever I go to Ground Zero than just go there alone for the sake of venting out, you know?"
She had already done that yesterday. But while she was venting, she was experimenting with her powers at the same time, try and figure out the finer details of her abilities. It was not done in vain, as she had learned the maximum range of her full blown screams, the effect it had on objects and even the limit to how much she could scream before her voice was giving out. The only thing she had yet to know was how her screams affected people, as she couldn't muster the courage to scream at the "fake" people inside Ground Zero. She had an idea about that last detail however when she was replaying what had happened when she managed to shriek at both Chris in his Dragon form and at Kusari.
"How about we wrap this up in a jiffy, grab a bite at the cafeteria, then meet at Ground Zero for 1 PM? I have already invited Siena and Allison for a 'Powers Workout' over there too. Maybe we can figure new ways to make all of our abilities work together while we're at it. Sounds interesting?"
Was that the decision Angelic came to after being pacified by Ernie? Well, Brent had intended on abusing the existence of Ground Zero in the same way regardless, so having an acquaintance or two join along for the ride wasn't too bad. It wasn't like his power's usages were strictly destructive, after all, but at the same time, its usages were limited to his imagination.
Wouldn't be a bad trade-off, figuring out the extent of his own powers while helping others get a better handle over their own.
"Shouldn't be wrapping things up in a jiffy," Brent remarked. "Still got a whole hour of actual training to go through if you want results, Angelic. But yeah, 1 PM, bring all the gear you want me to Overclock, and hopefully it doesn't explode!"
"Only if someone brings up that infamous Galaxy Note S7 and you rig it to explode." Angel giggled. "You're still good to go despite that punch? Such resilience! We'll make a MMA fighter out of you yet! Let's continue with the punches then. Next time, if there's any, we'll go with the kicks."
"Gotta be holding it to maintain it though, so it's less 'stealthy phone bomb' and more 'explode it into someone's face when I punch them, while simultaneously exploding my hand'." Brent smiled at Angelic's compliment, thumping a fist against his chest. "And yeah, pretty used to these sort of hijinks. Don't think I'll be asking for a kick tomorrow though."
He wasn't that depraved yet, after all.
Angel only nodded in silent agreement, discovering a bit more of Brent’s nature of his ability. So he couldn't overclock someone's gear and go his separate way afterwards? This was a huge let-down team effort-wise, still very useful and plenty varied depending on the situation.
This morning, she won't be practicing with her kicks. If both were to train together, she would need to set up her pace to match Brent's. Only punches it would be for now. If he was still interesting after today's lessons, maybe they would move on to the kicking part. The training duo did so for about an hour, just before it was time for lunch.
Wiping the sweat off her face with her towel, Angélique looked towards her training partner, a smile creeping up after the workout they accomplished together.
"That's it for today, I guess? Don't know for you, but I think that's pretty much all I can handle right now. Gotta go grab lunch before meeting the girls."
"Yeah," Brent replied, wiping his brow, "That's enough. I'll see you there then, Angelic."
"Yes, see you later." The girl answered, gathering up her things before heading to the locker room, then to the cafeteria afterwards. As she was passing the gym's doors, she glanced back and saw Brent still training inside. Would he take no break? The Arbiter sure was conditioned, probably way more than herself, Angel figured.
After eating a well-deserved lunch after her daily morning exercises, Angel soon found herself at Ground Zero with a pair of speakers and microphone in hand. Earlier this morning, she had bumped into Brent, and as they trained kickboxing together, she had invited the guy to train this afternoon. She was glad he accepted. She had an idea in mind, but only the over-clocking Mage could potentially help her realize this idea.
She was a bit early ahead of time, but she figured it would only be common sense for the one to organize it all to be there earlier. In the meantime, she was fooling around on her phone while waiting for the others to arrive.
Ultimately, the gear he had lugged over was much less than expected. His vest, his machete, his gun, a box of ammo, his phone, and a bag full of knick knacks. Ground Zero may have been a place where x-marked subnaturals were allowed to let loose and make things explode, but the amethyst-eyed youth was a white smear instead, and he had every intention of utilizing his time effectively.
His power was not his own, and it grew in ways that he could not understand, so really...
"Should have done this earlier," he muttered to himself. The weather was overcast with no rain in sight. Perfect. Alongside Siena, who's powers were apparently 'anything' and Allison, who was basically a better Savannah? Would definitely be interesting 'training' alongside them. He'd probably also have to apologize to the bookworm about losing the rollerblades she bought for him in less than a month.
But not yet. Spotting only the homicidal rock star thus far, Brent picked up the pace and called out, "Yo ho, Angelic! Eager to get started?"
"Yes, I am. Good to see you joining us." Angel waved at Brent's arrival. She perked up an eyebrow as she saw her training partner arrive with equipment fit for someone going to war, especially the machete. It brought back some unpleasant memories of Monday's game. "I hope you're not intending to use any of that on us today?"
She was tired, but that wasn't new for the week. Siena's self-enforced training schedule had been brutal on her body, to say the least. Physically, her muscles were still throbbing with an ache that spread like dye through water, and given the jog that she'd had to take from the training grounds to the appointed meeting place of Ground Zero to meet with her teammates, the brunette wasn't exactly at her prime. Not really a concern, but if she were to be thrown into another combat exercise, there was no doubt that she wouldn't be performing at her best.
Slipping her arms through the sleeves of a caramel coat too thick to be comfortable, Siena wondered if she should have postponed her own training for after her engagement with Angel. Now she was, to say the least, mildly unkempt and probably not smelling as fresh as when she'd started the day. Too late then. Checking the pockets of her coat for the faint weight within each pocket, the brunette took a few moments to groom herself appropriately before making her way to the duo already gathered.
Her eyes trailed over the vest. To the machete.
"...er. Should I have brought more than this...?" More than Fendi clothes for protection and her own "equipment" of books and e-readers? Certainly, she'd been practicing what she could remember from Gerwulf's lessons, but without the actual trench knife (she should have picked it up. There was still guilt over such a small item) or opponents, there wasn't any way to really mark her improvement.
"Hey Siena! No no, you look perfect. At least, if that coat hides books or whatever you use to read." Angélique cheerfully waved a greeting hand at the newcomer.
On that Thursday afternoon, Chris had been walking down to Ground Zero for his own training. Flag football had taught him that his dragon form might not be best for every situation. On the other hand however, he still needed to 'tame' his transformation, as he had felt it still wasn't under his complete control. As such, he wanted to practice both what he can do without transforming, and if he had time to spare, test out his transformation a second time.
The group of three students had caught the attention of the Arbiter's blue eyes. Angelique was the first he noticed, and seeing her brought back the memory of their conversation that one night. I shouldn't do this alone.
Chris closed his eyes for a moment and sighed. However after a short pause, he walked over to the group with his brown work-boots. His hands were in the pockets of his warm blue coat. "Hey you guys training?" He spoke out as he approached. His eyes however were focused on Angelique, and he had given her a hint of a confident grin.
Smiling in turn, Angel somehow felt good to see Chris joining them. If it wasn't for the discussion they had Monday night, she would've been extremely surprised to see him coming up just like that. In the end, he really seemed to be trying to get along with other people.
"Yes we are. I figured it would be nice if we could train in using our powers more efficiently. Moreover, see if we can find ways to combine our abilities or find tactics." Angel explained with a hint of excitement in her voice. She was looking forward to train with other people, have actually her classmates band together and take a step forward to unity.
"Want to join us?" the raven-haired singer returned the dragon-transforming Mage's confident grin.
"I was just about to test out some more of my abilities myself, its better if I work together with you guys." He accepted her offer, and crossed his arms over his chest as he looked to the other two. He wasnt too familiar with Brent, but he remembered Siena well enough. "Hey Siena, you're training too?"
"Oh, er...there were some things I wanted to try..." Siena gave a nervous smile. "It'll be good to practice with actual teammates too."
Oh, dragon boy was joining them? Must have enjoyed the beating he got from Angelic, huh. Well, hardly knew the guy outside of the fact that he let a victory slip at a crucial point, so ultimately, Brent simply waved at him, before turning to Siena. Fancy clothes, but then again, she was the teleporting, body-manipulating, human-tracking jack-of-all-trades, that probably had a myriad of other abilities.
An apologetic smile surfaced as he squashed down his jealousy.
"Heyo Siena, sorry for losing those rollerblades you bought me so quickly. Really should have kept them on me, but..." Then Hazel bisected the roof and buried those sleek blades under rubble. "...anyways, how we gonna do this? Brought some equipment with me, and I know that Angelic wants to try some megaphone hijinks, but yeah, we just here to think up sick team combo moves or something?"
"Oh, don't worry about it." Giving a faint smile, Siena brushed a few stray bangs from her face. "I don't think anyone was er...well expecting that." Giving the latter part of the question some thought, Siena paused. What had she been expecting? WIth what she saw in the matches before, the mage had been considering counters to anyone that came for her, but...teamwork was lacking. "I can support most of your abilities, and um..." Hesitation. She could, in theory, find a way to communicate with Chris if he needed to use that dragon form, but...she pushed the thoughts down. No, that could be something she tried later. When she was using a defensive ability...with resistance to sharp, pointy teeth.
Chris returned a wave to Brent. He hadn't really talk to him yet, but Angelique had inspired him to try and be a bit more social. hopefully things would work out this session. Chris had given a nod to Siena before speaking to the group. "Well seeing were working on teamwork I'll go ahead and transform." The white-haired subnatural started to look at their surroundings. "I'll find somewhere to hide and transform since I dont want to strip infront of you guys, should take me a few minutes, however I won't be able to speak to any of you in that state. I can still hear you though, don't worry, but if you want to discuss any specific ideas involving my power now is the time.."
"I do. Why don't you request for some clothes that would actually stick on you before and after you transform?" Angélique sneaked a snicker. "Well, I was thinking the same way Siena and Brent did. Siena can basically act as the team's rounder. She can cover up any area of expertise we are lacking due to her vast amount of possibilities, going from supporting anyone's powers to taking more offensive and defensive roles. As for Brent, he's basically the same, except it all goes equipment-wise. Whatever gear you bring to the table, he can make it better. That's quite supportive, but he can also cover both attack and defense bases, depending on what he's working with."
Angel paused, thinking about where she was going with the plans she had thought up until now. Chris as a new addition caught her off-guard, but that simply meant she had to think and adapt. Being solely focused on being aggressive, basically what would work well with the Dragon was Allison's nullifying blade should he lose control and have long-range attackers covering him from afar.
"Personally, let's try to get the basics out first. As Brent explained, I wanted to see if I could increase my powers via using an augmented microphone and speakers, a bit like how Siena and I already succeeded in doing so. Maybe Brent could enhance Siena's reading tablets, make it faster for her to get the names she is looking for? Siena could probably borrow a power that can increase a Dragon's potency, or flames maybe?"
"Actually, now that I think about it, we've been hearing about how rare Healers are. Is it safe to assume you could borrow the powers of a Healer without having those awful drawbacks like what Lily and Christmas are subjected to?" the black-haired Aberration gazed towards Siena with a look of curiosity, wondering if her classmate's power could extend to that level of usefulness.
"We already went through this before," Brent added, "but I can only do the whole equipment enhancement thing if I'm touching it. Of course, if it turns out that you can go become a healer, Siena..."
"Could cut a piece of myself off and see if we can do long range enhancements that way. If it doesn't work, just heal it up, I suppose?"
"Hmm...healing..." The brunette paused to give it some thought. "I don't know for certain. I've never tried it with magic, so I don't know how permanent it would be. Some of the powers I borrow don't have permanent effects." Her mind went back to the Luxin constructs she'd used in the first fight. They'd disappeared, even when they should have stayed after she'd sealed it. "I might be able to imitate Lily's healing or do something temporary, but I don't think we should jump to cutting anything off. If we're concerned about contact, I can try and see if there's a range enhancer somewhere..."
Slowly, her eyes trailed towards Chris. There was a lot that could be done with the power of an entire dragon on their side. Finding her courage, the brunette gave a nervous smile. He wouldn't eat her if she could talk to him...r-right? "Um, if we're concerned about communication with your dragon form, I could probably borrow someone that could speak directly to that form."
The dracomancer picked up his attention when Siena mentioned him. "I suppose it might be effecient to have a translator, but transforming into someone that can just speak to dragons might be a waste. Isn't there some story where some guy can ride and talk to dragons or something? If you can then I can easily take you and maybe someone else across the battlefield to suffice for range." Chris turned to Brent. "So if you can overclock tools n shit, could you fashion out some kind of gear for a dragon-saddle or something? If so i can probably run into the city part and take some shit like chairs and parts to help craft it." Chris offered. The idea of using his form for something that is more then just some evil monster appealed to him.
Oh, so her power was 'borrowing', huh? Not something based off copying the abilities of others, but...actually, why the hell was he wasting his time thinking about all this?
"Mmh, we can hold off on cutting off my ears and taping them onto objects for now," he nodded, "Was never super keen on that idea to begin with. That being said though...what exactly is your power to begin with, Siena? Never got the memo myself."
Chris was next on the chopping block, and upon his own request, Brent smiled confidently. "Yeah, don't even need to craft it. I'll just chop off the legs and we can go from there. Going full dark lord would be a fun time, even if the dragon's just a giant lizard."
"Oh, uh..." She supposed her powers weren't quite so obvious to someone that didn't know what they were looking at. "I take names from writing and can usually borrow a skill or ability from them. It's...easier to show than explain." Siena was surprised to find that she was still uneasy with explaining it or trying to get into what limitations she could understand. "I guess we should probably have an actual objective in mind with what we're doing here before we get too far. Like...a target or something?"
"Well while you guys decide on that I will go ahead and find a spot to transform at, and get a chair from some part of the city while I'm there." Chris turned and had begun to walk away further into ground zero. "Shouldn't take me too long, I trust you guys will have this training planned out then."
While the rest of the group discussed and set up the details of their training, Chris looked around the urban enviorment for a good spot to let loose. Even though he believed the city and its populous to be illusions, it still felt strange for him to just strip down in public and use his powers. The eyes of the arbiter had spotted a worn out apartment that seemed to be foreclosed.Perfect
"Eh..." Brent mused as Siena explained her power. Names from writing? Like...books? And then...borrow their skills and abilities? Couldn't she just channel Jesus then, and resurrect all the dead? Or channel her inner Hulk and smash all of DC's monsters into outer space? Sure, he might be stretching it a bit, but wow...it wasn't the omnipotence that he had imagined, but it was pretty close.
He scratched his head at her question, before gesturing towards all the buildings just loitering about in Ground Zero. "Like, there's buildings here? Can you make them explode? Just demonstrate your power and all. What does it have to do with e-readers, by the way?"
"Er, I suppose I could...?" Well, exploding buildings, demolishing buildings...it was about the same, right? And fast enough to allow someone strong enough to demolish one to come through...she supposed. "Um...it's easier if I show you. Y-You may want to stand er...behind me."
"Yeah, sure," Brent replied, taking a couple steps back. Heh, was she planning on turning into a lvl 99 Wizard or something and calling a meteor from the sky?
...
Silver blood flowed into his vest, fibers exploding to expose a muscled chest, before reforming into a suit similar to what one would wear when disarming bombs, the black material making the white, painted brand all the more obvious. Who knew what sort of god of destruction Siena was going to borrow from?
With a soft breath, Siena shot an apologetic look towards the others present before slipping a tablet from her pocket. Destroying things wasn't really what she expected herself to be doing, but... She flicked through a few volumes. Too early. Too late. Too strong. Not strong enough....there. Her eyes locked onto the screen as the telltale signs of her magic took place. Faint, purple circles, letters peeling from the screen and onto her neck. If she had been able to look into a mirror, Siena would have seen the grey bleed out of her eyes in favor of a brilliant pink, the tips of her hair darkening faintly in the potency of her choice.
Really, now. Just for a demonstration?
'Only one shot at this, Siena. Make it count.' Thankfully, Nanoha was less of a struggle to control in personality than most of her arsenal. The bookworm didn't necessarily have to control the mage in order to use her. As if in response to the thought, a radiant light formed before her--the same pink as her temporary eye color. One shot. Only one shot. The magic continued to pool, charging in place for a long enough time that for a moment, Siena wasn't certain she'd get to fire it off in time. Still, she pressed forward.
"Starlight...Breaker..." Muttering the words under her breath, she could feel everything fall into place. It felt right. "SHOOT!"
On command, a thin, pink beam fired in the direction that Siena gestured, piercing without any immediate form of damage. And then came condensed destruction. The beam seemed to thicken from its source, drowning one of the smaller buildings in light before the name slipped away, and all at once, the magic stopped. The beam vanished, the light faded, and Siena was exhausted.
But in the place of the building was a smoldering shadow of a manmade construct--what had been surrounded by light had been largely broken down. Not as strong as her source...the fault of lacking the weapon? Where the blast had been most concentrated was obvious--the only places where the building's sturdy frame had fully started to crumble--but the damage was obvious. It was a shame that the attack was so impractical for actual combat, really.
Brent let out a low whistle from within the thickly padded suit, before cutting off his magical influence over the overclocked object. Immediately, it turned silver once more, the amorphous matter reforming into the shame of the bulletproof vest as he applauded his fellow mage. Judging by appearances, it was clear that taking the powers of a god meant she consumed a fair amount of energy in return, but still...
"Super cool, Siena," the amethyst-eyed youth said, pulling out an energy bar from his pockets, "Thanks for indulging my request. I can sorta see why Angelic wanted me to overclock your tablet now, but...let me confirm this first. Do you need the entire book that features the character? Or do you just need their profile in particular?"
As he spoke, he offered the peanut-butter-and-raisins bar to her, wondering once again why her team thought it was a good idea to waste such combat potential on lost puppy hunting.
'C-Cool...?' Accepting compliments--an art that Siena was still not the best at. Giving a nervous-but-weary smile, Siena gave a brief nod before accepting the energy bar from her training companion. "H-hah...if I k-know the source well enough, a page with the name seems to be okay. It d-depends on what point in the source material too though." Certainly, the Nanoha of page one would not have been able to conjure the strength of the Nanoha she had taken from the pages. But she was so tired. Maybe indulging was a bit excessive. "I-I've never tried just a page, b-but with the way digital content works...i-it might be an option." Her breathing hadn't evened out yet, and it was painfully evident in the broken lapses between words.
"I-I've been working on getting more names, so I don't have to feel like I ran a marathon for one action..."
"Mm, out of curiousity, do you actually need to be able to read the text in order to borrow a name? While digital content maybe be good for carrying many characters, it seems to me that you might be better getting to know a small set of people very well, and being able to borrow them with just a scrap of literature attached, while reserving the thousands in your tablet for niche situations that you have time to prepare for."
Brent's brow furrowed, a finger tapping on his machete.
"Have your Avengers as the one-page gang that you're accustomed to using for most ordinary situations, and then have your army of differing Shield Agents as your Plan B for other situations? And for your Avengers, I can probably print out one page of text in near microscopic levels and slot it into a ring or something, so you don't have to fumble with a tablet every time."
Wait, could he even do that? Eh, probably. Giving up before the first step is for losers.
Despite her best efforts, Siena was quickly feeling an overwhelming sense of urgency. She didn't really know how to explain most of her abilities, but that was really a matter of less concern than the general unease she felt over its effects. Masking the moment she needed to consider her answer as a moment to catch her breath, Siena busied her hand by turning the energy bar over in it. "I...I'm not sure. I never really go anywhere without a source I can see, s-so..." Nor had she really had a reason to test whatever rules her power decided to set in place, or a reason to use it for something like combat.
"I um...I don't really have a lot of extra knowledge on my power. Just a lot of guesswork, r-really."
Angélique watched silently as her little training group gathered and began planning what they should be doing. It felt good, to see some of her classmates here today, brainstorming and figuring out ideas to cooperate. Angel was proud of having thought of organizing this training session, even more so to have more people joining them in the end. It was a nice change from the mess they’ve been in on Monday. Slowly, Angel could feel the gears of teamwork starting to move. Maybe the reason the Flags n’ Seek game was such a disaster in the first place is because everyone barely knew each other. Things probably would’ve been different if the entire class had the time, like this week, to get along together.
Shook from her thoughts as Siena fired off a pink beam that wrecked an entire building, the black-haired female Mage turned her now-focused gaze to her training group. Walking up to Siena after hearing her words, she put a comforting hand onto the brunette’s shoulder.
“And that’s exactly what we’re here for. Perhaps not every single one of us, but at least I know I have my own limits and whatnot to figure out. When the time will come to return back to the battlefield, we shouldn’t have any doubt or have to make guesses concerning our powers. What will decide our survival is how well we can work together and how proficient we are in using our abilities. Now that we have free time, I believe it’s the best moment to learn of our limits, our flaws, what we can do and what we can’t, so we can compensate, fix or work with those facts taken in consideration.”
Chris had started to strip from his attire when he noticed a great shine of light and a massive explosion that followed. Seems one of them had blown up some buildings somewhere in ground zero. "Jesus I hope they aren't trying to kill me." Chris muttered to himself as his jacket and pants fell to the floor. Chris, with the rest of his clothes now tripped away and folded to the side in his hidden spot, sat onto the ground to prepare his transformation.
Once the mental state kicked in, the familiar sense of pain flushed his body as he saw his skin already had started to turn green. His hands were vaguely shaping into claws and his overall body began to shift as it as done before. The arbiter had thought that he could try to meditate to reduce the pain, concentrate on thought alone to power through. At first it did help, despite his shaking body his state of mind was calmed as he had experienced this before, but a new sensation put him back in unfamiliar territory. Having opened his eyes to investigate he noticed that the tips of his clawed fingers were turning black. His whole body was turning from his previous emerald green hue into the shade of utter darkness. The pain had stopped. Or rather, it was replaced.
He had felt heavy, and more over, he had felt like he was being burned. His breathing starting to increase as he saw his flesh begin to drip. It was as if his whole body had become tar, a pool of black liquid had started to grow beneath his legs and waist. Uncertain terror coupled with this new pain had caused Chris to shriek in terror. He screamed as some of his fingers had fallen off his hands to join the growing pool. The mage then watched himself become closer and closer to the ground and puddle of black. The metal cuff at his ankle seemed to have merge with his body breaking down.
He had figured that his new ability might have altered the transformation process, but he did not expect this. Had something gone wrong? Was he going to die? The thought and fear of death only heightened the volume of his screams. With what was left of his hands he had desperately clawed at the walls and furniture of the building he entered. He wasn't able to move from the waist down, but he tried to at least pull himself up to prevent his body from joining the rest of the pool. All for knot, however, as he just continued to sink to the ground like quicksand.
Once his legs were gone, his body started to spread out faster. His arms had grown more numb as they dripped and fused with his liquefied body. His head, still screaming, became distorted with whatever features were still distinguishable. His vision had gone black, his hearing fading from him, and sensation of touch and taste were long gone at that point. From there it didn't take long for his head to vanish into the puddle, the fingers of a hand that had tried to reach for assistance, that was the last of his solid body, fell apart as well. Internal organs such as the heart and liver floated briefly in the thick biomass before submerging with the pool, the bones had broken apart but were still solid.
He was still conscience. But everything was black, or rather, void. He couldn't see, couldn't smell or touch. He could only imagine, contemplate, think. His mind was racing with terror, thinking that at any moment his conscience would cease with the coming death. But it didn't, instead he had felt the growing 'shift' in instincts as he had always did with his transformation. In the oblivion-like state of consciousness, he was left to his fears. He could hear the faint voices of his long dead friends, his recently deceased roommates, and a laugh. The laugh of that damned monster that started it all. Gnarled teeth and savage eyes. Fear was slowly being replaced with anger. Pure and utter rage.
Fire burned from the liquid biomass. The fire mimicked the growing malice of Chris's wrath. It writhed and coiled in the air, flicked the air with crackling heat. The flames rose and carrying with it both the substance that was once Chris's human body and the fragmented bones of his skeleton. The skeletal structure followed the pattern of fire, having risen and collected itself into a new and larger skeletal structure that dripped with the liquid remains it rose from. With the creation of its new outlined figure, its size tore parts of the room. Completed, the skeleton resembled an amalgamated, natural-looking, structure of what could have been various museum exhibited dinosaur fossils put together. The body was saurian, its claws were sharp and almost talon-like. The head of the still-forming creature could have been mistaken for a prehistoric predator with horns. Most abnormal was the inclusion of massive wings with elongated finger joints like that of a bat, only with more pronounced claws.
The skeletal mass was still loosely covered in the black liquid, the puddle of the same substance began to collect over the beast starting at its feat. Carrying with it the organs that were kept intact. As the liquid bio substance spread over the skeleton, it started to became more detailed, solid. Red veins had ran through the shaping mass. The white and pink colors of muscle and tissue began to shape over the skeletal body. The still skeletal creature began to move, letting out a roar as flesh started to cover its face. The body was finished with solid, thick black scales, the same hue as the tar that formed it. A yellow scaled below and skin membrane on the wings of the same hue stood out from the rest of the black-scaled body. The eyes, still burning for a moment with the remnants of his burning rage, were slits like that of a snake. A forked tongue slithered from the snout, before the monster let out another roar. The left ankle of its back legs had a metallic grey discoloration to it, as if the metal cuff worn by the arbiter had fused with the transformed flesh.
The black dragon allowed its wings to stretch and flap, as he was adjusting himself to his new body. Chris looked to an old dusty chair that had fallen over. Having tried to be as gentle as possible the beast picked up the chair with his mouth. He then looked to his folded pile of clothes, and took them with the chair in his teeth. Once more did his wings stretch as he shot himself out of the building. The structure collapsed as the dragon flew out and into the air.
When he got to the group the dragon flew in a circle around the group before looping in the air, as if he was showing off. The arbiter dropped the chair and somewhat-torned clothing infront of Brent as his gaze looked to both Siena and Angelique. The white mark was still under its eye as before, which stood out more as it contrasted with the black scales that surrounded it.
The shaking ground as one nearby building collapsed from a Dragon flying through it alarmed the black-haired Aberration. At first, she thought that maybe it was Christopher, but she then remembered the transformed Mage’s form to be green and wingless. This Dragon was a bigger and meaner looking black shade of those legendary winged creatures.
Fearing this may have been an actual monster that somehow managed to enter the school, Angélique stood on guard. Whether it was being protective of her friend, overconfident from having defeated Dragon Chris before or simply being her usual recklessness, she put herself in front of her training partners, between them and the incoming flying Dragon.
The sonic Mage nervously waited as the Dragon circled above their heads, but as the creature landed near them with a chair in its mouth, Angel sighed in relief. Her fears were immediately dissipated as she saw the trademark of an Arbiter smearing its jet-black scales.
“Wow, you’ve been holding back on us, Chris. I got scared for a moment. Could’ve told us you had a new trick up your sleeve before leaving.” The raven-haired singer replaced her loose shades back on her face.
Wow. When did that upgrade happen? Letting out a low whistle as Chris descended from the cloudy skys, the first thing that Brent noticed were the spines that jutted out of the black reptile's back. That was going to be a problem, wasn't it? Not a problem that he couldn't work around though. Rolling up the torn-up clothing and taking the chair in his hands, he said, "Damn dude. Badass form right there. Want to kneel down so I can actually, like, get up onto your back?"
The legs of the chair was going to be important after all, huh? First function would be to make it even usable on his back. Second would be to extend the number of seats on it. Would he need a third? No, should be fine.
"Looks like we can put this off til later, Siena," Brent smiled, "Now who wants to ride Chris?"
Chris had wings?!
The reptilian beast that had touched down was definitely Chris if Angel and Brent were right. He certainly didn't match up with the memories of either the footage of the match or the night of their first combat assessment, but given that the dragon wasn't trying to eat anyone...it was a pretty safe bet. As the surprise washed aside, Siena couldn't help but stare.
And stare.
And quietly, as if volume could hide the hope that dared to break past every emotional filter Siena had in place, the girl spoke. "C-Can we really...?"
Chris was sastisfied that his new form was impressive to his comrades. He tried to deliver a toothy grin, but being a mere beast, the expression only displayed his large monstrous teeth and maw. He folded and lowered his wings while he lowered his legs. His body leaned on his left, and his left lwing lowered to an arc like a ramp to a plane as he awaited Brent's adjustments. His neck had lowered too. The tail of the beast slithered and flicked about as Chris was just as excited to fly as the rest of his team were.
Angelique grimaced at Brent's question. She may be referred as Angel by many fans and friends, but she was ironically far from being someone at ease with heights. Plane trips always did make her nervous.
"I-I'll pass. I'm not too good with heights. Sorry."
"You sure about that? Gotta face your fears before you're faced with a life-and-death situation featuring it."
Angel had got to admit it, Brent did make a point. It would be quite hypocritical of her to have told her teammates earlier about being prepared for future encounters and refuse to face her own fears.
"Fuck... you got me there. Alright... I'll give it a try." Angelique nodded slowly, nervosity obviously showing up. "You better hold me tight should I fall unconscious!" she joked, trying to ease up.
"Don't worry," he grinned, slapping the jittery Angelic on the back, "It'll be like a roller coaster: conceptually terrifying but actually hella fun!"
With that, the brunette took the chair and took his first experimental step on Chris's wing ramp. There was a bit of slack, but it was definitely taut enough to hold his weight. Really, tougher than expected. A part of the arbiter wanted to bring out his machete and see if he could cut through it like a ship sail, but...
Yeah, not now.
Grabbing one of the spine-spikes for balance, Brent placed the chair roughly over Chris's back, before letting out a deep breath. Silver blood flowed and the chair exploded, a kaleidoscope of illuminated pieces. They expanded, a saddle forming around the dragon's torso, before the material 'cooled'. A single seat saddle made of synthetic wood, complete with stirrups for the feet and a horn to grasp in lieu of proper reins.
Another deep breath, another pulse of that silver energy within his core, and this time, the saddle screeched, twisting and controrting violently, erractically. It extended further, dark wood now turned into a sleek silver with 'N0 NAME' etched on the side as three seats were made. Now appearing to be more like a fusion between saddles and booster seats, it had the impression of a roller coaster car, elevated a foot above Chris's back.
Man, sucks for Angelic.
Careful to keep one hand on the ride from hell, Brent gestured towards the two down below. "All aboard!"
hesitantly, Angel stepped forward, walking unevenly on the dragon-transformed Chris' wing. she was surprised his new appendage would be so tough as to allow one to walk on it What surprised her most though was just how easy he was willing to let people ride him. Wasn't that supposed to be something Dragon highly despised, or at least honored few of this privilege? At least, that's what she heard from stories, movies and books, back when Dragons were but creatures of the mind and not the ravaging beasts in flesh and blood that basically destroyed the eastern world countries.
Joining Brent, Angel settled for the middle seat. Somehow, it put her mind at ease to have someone both in front and behind her
"Er...give me one second..." Though really, Siena wanted nothing more than to hop onto the dragon's back, she was aware that Chris being able to hear them didn't mean much if they couldn't get actual words out of their mouths at higher altitudes and speeds. If the words were lost on the winds...well, that was at least easily fixed. Quickly, the girl brought up a volume she wanted, hoping that her plan would work the way that she wanted it to.
Hopefully.
After allowing the name to settle over her, Siena quickly made way to the seats that Brent had made for their next little experiment, eyes now a brilliant green instead of their usual grey, the sense of fatigue making her almost regret working her magic as she steadied herself using any handholds she could get until she reached her comrades.
"Hope this works..." She gave a nervous smile as the words escaped her lips, before taking a quiet breath, focusing her thoughts on communicating with the dragon.
"Chris? Can you hear this at all...?"
Chris was shocked to hear a voice unlike his own to vibrate within his conscience. The sensation Siena's magic gave him was calming, he had no longer felt so alone in this beastual form.
"H-hello? I can hear you....You can hear me too right?" The dragon's tail had become stationary., his head lifted and turned to see the three.
"Oh, good...! I can hear you too." Siena gave a small wave to Chris as he turned to glance at the trio. "I guess we'll be able to communicate with each other this way then." A pause. Perhaps it was a good idea to let the others know too.
"Er...well it looks like I can communicate with Chris while we're up there, so if we need to land for some reason, we should be okay."
"This seat will last for ten minutes, after which we can stay around for another ten minutes," Brent said, "Or land. Guess if things get sketchy, I'll...tap Angelic on the shoulder, and then she can tap you on the shoulder?"
Well, that was under the assumption Angelic had even guts to let go of the handles during flight...
"Be counting on you, Angelic!"
With everyone onboard, Chris raised both wings as he let out a roar of pride. His forked tongue tasted the air as his eyes grew excited. The black dragon began to move its wings in flight motion, each slow beat whisked a gust of air beneath the yellow membrane. The beast then sprang upwards. As he gained height, his wings would beat at steady interval like a large bird. Once he had attained a height of about 500 feet, Chris looked to the ground in awe.
Confident, Chris let out another monstrous cry as flames began to flicker out of his maw. He had started to get carried away in his newfound mobility, and to show off, he performed a loop in the air in a similar arc that a roller coster would have. When the loop ended the dragon had darted itself on a downward angle. He had released the flames in his mouth to graze the earth below as he drew closer to it. By the time his sustained attack diminished, he was merely 50 feet away from crashing into the now burning field before he steered right and upwards.
Seated uncomfortably into this damned oversized chair without even a single seatbelt to hold her steady, Angel kept muttering lowly “Fuck, this is a bad idea.” Her knuckled were white from holding so tightly the handle bars. She was far gone in her mind, preparing herself for the worst, she barely heard Brent calling out to her about the plan, to which she only blurted out “A-aye” in reply.
When Chris roared, it made Angel jump from her seat, the ball of condensed anxiety that would be the only Aberration in the group however tensed up and firmly held onto dear life as the Dragon took off from the ground, letting out a yelp of surprise.
During Chris mid-air tricks, Angel couldn’t help but scream like a frightened little girl on her first roller-coaster ride. As a matter of fact, she never dared ride one of those things. To now experience the thing on the back of a Dragon at five hundred meters off the ground, she was just about losing it.
Muted by the wind force, she kept yelling “OH MY GOD I’M GOING DIE ON THIS STUPID DRAGON!” as her hands were quivering violently from the sheer pressure she was gripping the handle bars. Then the worse happened. The fiery dive bomb of doom. Thinking Chris had gone mad, and seeing the ground coming down so quickly, Angel unleashed an ear-piercing shriek upwards. As much as Angel tried to not scream, in fear of accidentally using her power, she managed to dampen the intensity of the shout, barely affecting her comrades’ senses, but their hearing would suffer for a little while.
By the time Chris steered upwards, Angélique was a crying mess, still clutching her seat and pleading her life to return to the ground below. Her eyes were now closed, unwilling to witness anything more until they returned to her beloved earth.
While Angelic was busy screaming her lungs out, Brent was busying screaming his lungs out as well. Two hands raised up towards the sky, with only his feet locked against the bars that kept him from flying right off the dragon, the amethyst-eyed youth screamed in exhiliration as Chris showed off his full aerial potential, jets of flame spouting about everywhere.
Holy shit, this was great!
"HELL YEAH!!! ISN'T THIS FUN, ANGELIC?!?!"
Clearly, somewhere between getting up in the morning and that exact moment, Siena had lost her mind. While the flight was exhilerating in ways that Siena had never experienced before, she was also suddenly made acutely aware that there was nothing holding her in place. Gripping onto anything she could wrap her hands around, Siena wondered briefly if her heart could physically explode then fly out of her throat. it certainly felt like it could happen, especially with the rushing air making her ears pulse and her eyes water, robbing her of two of the senses that she relied on most in most circumstances. Wind whipped the chocolate braid of hair from its place over Siena's shoulder, flinging it at an angle only possible because of their velocity, and all logic pointed at the fact that she should have been screaming for dear life.
What escaped from her mouth instead, was a laugh that was ripped away by the wind before it could even fully reach Siena's ears.
"This might be a bit much for us now, but I think you can get less resistance if you fold your wings a little more for a dive." A pause Between the thrill and Chris's own excitement, Siena was starting to sort her own emotions and her dragon companion's. Something...wild was lingering in their connection. It was familiar, and yet entirely primal. Rough around the edges, indeed. "But not right now! I think we should get more secure seating if we want to try this again." Without the aid of her usual mental filters, it was harder to hide the traces of glee that she would have kept from physically speaking--the connection was...different from typical communication. Harder to mask anything. It should have scared her.
But instead, she laughed.
As Siena had started to speak to him, Chris leveled himself in the air and slowed his speed to a more comfortable sustained flight. His head had once again glanced back to the crew to see a thrilled Brent and a weeping Angel. With less wind resistance it was easier to hear Angelique's screaming. The dragon seemed to give a nod towards Siena.
"Right, make sure you tell Angelique I'm sorry, got a bit carried away."
The dragon steered to the left, towards the city. His tongue once again slithered out of his maw briefly.
"I don't think I've seen you so happy before." Chris's voice showed a hint of enjoyment.
With the speed reduced and her senses no longer trying to adjust, Siena was left with a light feeling. While she was aware that it had to have been from the name she'd chosen, that didn't stop the mage from feeling a sense of ease while riding a dragon. Taking a breath of air, she glanced back at her fellow mages, the smile on her face muted compared to the one in her head. "H-He says sorry about that. Got carried awa--"
And her thoughts came to a dead stop.
"O-Oh! I uh. I mean." A surge of emotions came forth, the embarrassment cutting to the front of the pack. Right. There were no real filters between her head and Chris's, and that was probably both ways. She'd been able to sense something from his end, so it wasn't entirelyunreasonable for that to go both ways. Pushing aside most of the thoughts to recollect herself before trying the communication again, she gave a sheepish smile on both fronts. "W-Well, I mean...I never thought I'd get to ride a dragon before."
C-close enough, right?
"No reason to be flustered about it. I'm having a good time too."
The dragon steered down, having grazed the side of an office building with his claws. He'd then darted downwards, and had extended his wings fully to slow down his momentum. He had landed on the city street with a crashing thud that bore a small crater into the pavement, however he did not stumble in his stance.
"What else should we try?"
Oh, over already? Running a hand through his now horrendously wind-swept hair, Brent let out a deep breath. Practically speaking, it was basically useless because no one could focus enough to, say, bombard any surface-dwelling enemies with a long range attack, but that just meant he needed to use his Overclocks more effectively. If he didn't have to worry about multiple individuals, that single saddle could have been overclocked to better keep people ON the saddle. After that, it was just a matter of being able to swallow your fear and shoot shit down.
But still...he shook his head and let out a breath he hadn't even realized he was holding.
"Well, how bout that? Slow yourself down a bit and we can go for the whole mobile aerial fortress of death here."
Despite Chris having landed, Angélique wouldn't even notice the group were now back on land. Still clutching the handbars tightly, the raven-haired young woman had her head lowered, quivering, seemingly lost within her obvious fear. If one would pay close attention to her face, they would notice Angel was no longer sporting her shades, and faint wet trails on her cheeks suggested not so completly dried tears fell from her eyes.
"Chris, wing ramp, please?"
The dragon had lowered his left wing to the same ramping arc in response to Brent. He once more turned his long neck to watch the three mages.
"Angelic, can you walk?"
Shook from her panicked state by hearing her name being called, Angélique slowly opened her eyes towards the source where Brent's voice came from. Immediately, her eyes were assaulted by the ambient light. Lucky for her, it was cloudy today, but her eyes still squinted from a slight pain in her eyes.
Sniffing loudly and wiping her face, Angel tried to hide the mess she had been throughout the ride. "J-just give me a moment... to pick myself up."
Wobbly on her legs, Angel nearly tripped over the supposed saddle for three, her sight blurry and hard to distinguish where she was going. Groaning in frustration, Angel shamefully turned her head away and handed her arm to Brent. "Guide me... okay?"
Her shades were that important? Light-sensitive, maybe? He brushed aside his assumptions for now, turning briefly to Siena. "That saddle's gonna become a chair real soon. Mind bringing it down with you?"
With that, he hooked Angelic's arm with his own. Clammy and cold from the terror of Chris's little twirl through the sky, but still solid enough, more muscle than fat. "One step at a time," he said, slowly guiding her down, "Did well, Angelic."
Legs still shaking, it took great mental efforts for Angel to be able to slowly get down from the Dragon. It also took every last shred of dignity left in her to not give to the unpleasant feeling churning in her stomach. But as soon as they reached the ground, Angelique's legs gave out,the girl slumping in an awkward sitting position on the ground.
"You've got to be shitting me. It'll be a wonder if I ever take the plane again after that."
"Planes don't do backflips though," Brent replied, "After Chris's performance, would've thought that anything else would pale in comparison."
"Maybe that works for some people. But scaring shitless someone who's afraid of heights will help them much." Angel sighed in exhasperation. This riding trip somehow left her tired and drained, surely by the intensity of her emotions.
Complaining like a little girl was unbecoming for the raven-haired singer. She figured she'd need to take a breather and get her shit back together before continuing without being a bother. Her legs moved to cross each other, taking a more relaxed sitting stance.
"Give me some time to get over it. Anyway, it's not like I can be of much use right now. I can barely see anything." Angélique squinted so much it seemed she was closing her eyes when looking towards the others.
While Brent made his way to ground level with Angelique, Siena picked up what was once their saddle, hefting its mass awkwardly as she picked her way down Chris's wing. Angel seemed less than ecstatic at the preceding events, and...well, that made perfect sense. Throwing someone directly at their fears wasn't always the best way to help them overcome them. Setting the chair down, she turned her attention back to the winged dragon. While flying wasn't really an option without Brent's ability to make an actual place to sit, there were other things they could do...right?
"If we can't fly with you, there are some other things we could test." Well...there was one thing Siena was certain she wanted to try. "I think there's another name I'd like to try using as long as you're in this form, but it'll take me a bit to get it. In the meantime, maybe we can see if this telepathy can contact you at a range...?" More importantly, at a range with two different names printed across her neck. There had definitely been a few limitations on her usual prowess with familiar names when she had been in the match before, but with enhanced control, it might have been a better option.
"Sure thing, I'll fly some distance away and see if he still have a link." Once the three had gotten off of him safely, the dragon stood upright. Having turned away from the group, Chris sprinted down the road for a few meters before he had leaped off of the ground and allowed his wings to carry him in the air.
After he had risen above the city, he tried to see if there was still a telepathic connection with Siena. "You still there?" Chris had leveled himself and hovered in a single position, his wings were beating twice as fast to sustain his position.
"...Yeah, I can still hear you..." The words came to mind more clearly than she expected, given the distance. Perhaps distance wasn't a factor in it? "I guess if we have combat, I can keep in contact with you and vice versa." And that aside, there was one more name she wanted to try as long as there were other mages around her. "I've got one more thing I want to test, but I don't think there's much range to this."
Turning to glance back to Angel and Brent, Siena paused. Or...maybe she could try it with them...later. Yep.
"So any ideas on what we should try now? What do Angelique and Brent think?"
Looked like Angelic's microphone adventures were going to be taking a backseat for now, what with the singer's inability to even stand properly. Ultimately shrugging at her problems, Brent made a mental note not to bring up heights alongside Montreal and flipped out his phone once more. It was a fun diversion, flying on Chris, but while the draconic transformation and the fire-breathing was fun, it was still Siena's power that warranted the most research.
"Right, now that we're done..." he pulled up a word document and began making adjustments to a PDF, "...Siena, can you read this?"
At a font size smaller even than bullshit fine print, with the text being light gray against a white background, Brent didn't expect her to...but then again, maybe literary girl had god-like reading capabilities as well.
"Well, if you come back here, I had an--oops!"
The brunette jumped when she heard her name cut through her thoughts, eyes widening a fraction as she instinctively took half a step away from the source. "O-oh, um..." Cautiously, Siena brushed her bangs out of her face as her eyes darted briefly to the document before her. "I er...don't think I'd be able to read it, but I don't know if I could grab a name that way." Unease settled over her stomach again, and despite her best efforts, the girl couldn't stop the surge of distress that rolled over her. "I-I actually wanted to try something while Chris was still in dragon form, b-but I...er I mean..."
"Siena, calm down. You're f--wait." C-Could Chris hear that? Another wave of distress that threatened to drown the girl. Maybe she should have grabbed the name earlier.
"Hey Siena, you alright?" Chris asked, the sudden unease in her telepathic connection made Chris worry a bit. He had already started to fly back down towards the group. Once again he tried to slow his descent to avoid accidentally falling onto a teammate.
"Hey listen its ok if you're stressed out about this, it isn't easy planning on taking monsters." He paused. "D-do you want to talk about it?"
So she couldn't read it after all. Sorta expected, but also...sorta disappointing?
Not that super-reading was too useful against monsters anyways. Eyes bouncing from Chris flying over once more, and Siena's own stuttered statements about her plans, Brent said, "Oh, alright, go ahead. Just sorta had no idea if you were doing nothing because you had nothing to do, or if you were telepathically speaking with him."
"But huh, how long does his transformation last anyways?"
"S-sorry, I'm fine. I'll be okay," Siena lied, forgetting once more that the filters she relied so heavily on weren't working like she wanted them to. Remembering sent yet another weak wave of nausea over her. How long would the connection last? Maybe with another name, the connection would weaken...but that wasn't the only thing that was making her feel such drastic levels of distress. She took a breath, slipping her tablet out of her pocket again.
"I uh...I could ask him." Despite her words, Siena darted down to the pages she'd used earlier, a few breaths calming her down as her eyes took in the sight of her mark's name. "Just...give me a moment..." The magic started again, a faint purple light as she reached for the name.
"You're not alone Siena, remember that." Chris was a bit nervous of having such a strange connection to Siena, his mild feelings for her was apparent with his concern, but he knew that today at the very least was not the time to press on such issues. The beast landed with a thud near the group. His wings stretched around him which balanced the pressure that had formed from his ldescent. He stood upright on his four legs, neck upright with a still posture. His tail had helped balance his stance. Chris awaited for whatever Siena wanted to try next, curious of what name she was calling.
"Actually, Chris, can you understand what I'm saying? Nod if yes." Siena was probably the one running dry on juice the most. Why on earth was he letting her burn out before moving onto his own experiments?
The dragon looked to Brent and nodded his head.
"Does your transformation last only minutes?"
He shook his head. "Tell Brent that my form lasts about 2 hours. It's difficult for me to transform back now. It's easier for me to just wait for the transformation to wear out on its own. So whatever you guys want to do with it, now's the time.
"Alright..."
As she felt the second name settle over her, there was yet another sense of control. More control over the abilities that weren't really hers. More control over the emotions that she couldn't block out. Another breath, and the brunette turned her attention to Brent again. "Chris's form lasts about two hours. Apparently he can't change back to human until the time's up, so now's the time if we want to do anything with it." A pause. "I would guess that it's pretty tiring to transform too, so I guess we don't have a second chance at this for a while too. I'd better see if this name's support works on er...well, us."
With a faint smile, Siena glanced over at the dragon, her left eye stained with flecks of pastel pink like splotches of ink in a forest. "Actually, this could probably work with anyone, but I wanted to see if I could boost those flames. After that, I can see if the other variations work with everyone else."
Chris turned his body to the building behind him. He rose up to his hind legs as flames once again began to trickle from his slowly-widening maw. When he stood in a bipedal stance with his tail to further balance in his new stance, he released the build up of fire like a giant flamethrower.
"Woah," Brent applauded as Chris just casually spewed out concrete-blackening flames. A part of him wanted to try Overclocking his vest towards fire resistance and bathing in the giant flamethrower, but Siena had first dibs. And other parts of him didn't want to try dying yet.
"Whoa, whoa...!" That was sooner than she expected. Quickly adjusting her position and turning her attention to Chris, Siena tapped into the Caro's abilities. Softly, the brunette released a breath as she felt her magic leaving her, a faint pink wisp reaching the dragon in question. "Boost up, barret power...!" In theory, the support should have bolstered the destructive capabilities of a mage's ranged spells. WIth everyone's abilities falling under what Siena assumed was a blanket spectrum of "magic", it was at least worth a shot.
Once Siena's magic enchanted the dragon, Chris's eyes had sharpened its gaze from wild excitement. The encompassing buff sparked a sensation not unlike an adrenaline rush. The flames themselves suddenly bursted into a larger spread, the hue had become a more brilliant crimson as fire tore through the wall of the building. Having sustained the breathe, he slowly tilted his head with a lust for destruction as the flames carved a massive line through the apartment building. Once his maw closed and ceased the jet of sizzling flames, the burning apartment caved in. The ground beneath the black dragon sizzled with heat and fragments of intense embers.
Hm...he could definitely see it now. As Siena and Chris fused their powers together to create flames capable of physically blasting through a building, Brent could see just what sort of formation Angelic envisioned with inviting them here. Siena had the ability to play as a hyper flexible support, either buffing or providing her own magical onslaught. Chris appeared to be growing only stronger and larger as a dragon, with his own ranged flames to scorch the enemies. Angelic was also capable of long-ranged assault, while Brent had the ability to more or less create the platform that they would be standing on.
This was similar to Shane's bird of death, huh? Raining destruction from above utilizing Siena's ability to increase the power and range of their breath attacks. While the 'main' team's barrier-and-battery combo allowed for mitigation in its own way, this...this could work out as well.
An aerial fortress from which mages can safely attack out of the reach of DC's monsters.
But the size limitation...that was still a problem.
"How you feeling after that, Siena? Less tiring than your pink death-ray?"
"Whoa..." She'd expected a good boost, but Siena was still impressed at what just a bit of support could do. With the connection muted, the odd primal sensation she'd felt earlier was dimmed, but still present. Still, the girl set the thought aside. "I guess that works."
"Y-Yeah, it's not all me, so this is easier." That and Caro was significantly weaker than Nanoha, so the strain wasn't nearly as intense. "WIth the variations, I could make us faster and stronger too, I think. It's probably more energy efficient this way."
Sastified with his destruction, the Black dragon screamed its monstrous note. Siena's voice had quelled the monster's instincts. "That felt good, just to note I won't be able to breathe fire until another five minutes for it to charge up."
The dragon fell back onto its four legs. He turned his body halfway to watch his teammates plan on their next idea.
Brent nodded. "And can you buff multiple people at once? Or no?"
"That's okay, I think we got what we needed." Glancing at Brent, the girl gave a brief nod. "I should be able to, though I don't think the number is very high in this state." Considering the early form of the mage she'd taken, it wasn't entirely surprising. "The three of you shouldn't be too difficult to support, but Chris might take more out of me as a dragon than...er...normal people."
"Oh, no" the Arbiter waved, "Considering what I remember from Flag-and-Seek, there really are only three ranged attackers in class. Anyways, picture this...platform on the dragon, you buffing the three of us up, and then all of us raining empowered death-screams, breaths, and shots down below from the relative safety of high altitude. If things are sketchy, we can bring forth Hazel 'Literally a Team of Her Own' Baker to deal with flying threats too!"
Brent gestured energetically as he spoke, before stopping suddenly, like a conductor at a climatic finish.
"...but that's future talk, considering my current size limitations."
While she was simply sitting there, wincing from the small amount of ambient light that made it through the clouds, Angélique was listening to her training partners. Once more, she was glad they were sorting this out nicely. Using Siena as a support to the others was a good thing, although she would’ve liked if they could somehow find a use for Siena to go on the aggressive combined with the abilities of their other teammates.
The idea of a ‘Flying Fortress of Death’ was appealing to Angel, even though she despised the height involved. That was indeed one hell of a way to stay on the move while blasting down monsters. Logically, if they could manage to figure out a squad of long-ranged fighting Dragon-riders, that would be quite a deadly combination to use on the field.
As the talk went to the matter of boosting everyone all at once, Angel managed to get up on her feet. Her legs were still a bit shaky, but she would manage to walk up to the others. One arm brought on her forehead to shield her eyes as much as she could from the light, the other reaching out forward to make sure she wouldn’t be bumping into anyone.
“Don’t overexert yourself by using your powers on me, Siena. We already had a successful test about this the other day. You better focus on the others.” Angel remembered the time she trained alone with Siena. The girl went overboard by taking up too many names, she assumed. They both lost control of their powers as a result, and the ending part was quite a pitiful sight, Angel recalled both girls being on their knees, herself hugging the brunette to somehow bring what little comfort she could give.
"Actually, it's a shame Allison isn't here today. I had thought up of her digging a hole with her blade, attract some targets into that pit, and have you iron-maiden'ing them by using earth-control abilities. Speaking of Hazel, she might just be able to do that too."
The conversation went faster than expected, but with Caro's emotions helping to even out the usual turmoil, Siena found that she was able to mentally compose herself to at least a reasonable state. The unease still refused to leave. "Y-Yeah, that...does sound like it'd be a safer tactic." Though that didn't keep the soft, mocking voice in the back of Siena's voice from sounding off. Relegated to something less aggressive and safely tucked away--wasn't that what she wanted? It was getting hard to tell--but at least useful. "I think...my biggest concern is that I'm better off when I have preparation. If we get more fights like that first one, I won't always have a good source available. Like...things that can negate our ranged abilities...or worse." What "or worse" meant, Siena wasn't entirely certain. "If it's monsters we're talking about, we never know what might happen, right?"
"Well," Brent replied lightheartedly, "At least you can keep all your preparations tucked away in a tablet. I gotta carry all my gear with me, and if it turns out that said gear can't be used at all..."
He tapped the butt of his machete with one finger.
"...Eh, you can make most of your preparations just through having decent categorization and bookmarks, right, Siena? As far as flexibility goes, there's never going to be a situation where you aren't useful, provided you pace yourself."
'There's never going to be a situation where you aren't useful.
The words hit her harder than she thought they would. WIth everything that had happened in the week, Siena had been trying to set aside the less pleasant memories since her arrival. The shooting, the fight.
Fangs that tore through flesh as a stranger went down with a scream.
Not a stranger. Siena painted the best eager smile she could on her face even with the flurry of images trying to overwhelm her. She certainly hadn't been useful there. Hadn't been useful when it meant anything. If she'd been faster, or even picked a name before they had filed out of the truck, maybe Padma would have been training with them.
But still, she smiled.
"Yeah, I guess you have a point."
Ah.
That dislikeable smile.
His own smile faded as Siena reacted, replied. He had picked the wrong words again, hadn't he? Recall, what was her expression after that battle with not-Menagerie's menagerie?
He couldn't recall, and he suppressed the grimace. It didn't matter if he couldn't remember the details, remember who had been close to the dead. This was like Emma all over again. This was just what Angelic and Aaron warned him about. A whole fuckton of landmines due to a single incident that he couldn't sympathize or empathize with, because he hadn't witnessed any of it.
What could he say here? What would the correct response be? Why did he even care about Siena's feelings? Because he wanted to be on friendly terms with her? Or because she was useful, both finanically and magically?
Was silence the answer? What about brushing it aside? Pretending he didn't notice that obvious shift? Spout off another speech without thinking? Get emotionally involved and then get tazed?
Brent took a deep breath.
"Sorry."
God, he was blanking.
Sorry?
Another swell of panic, and Siena almost wished she could cut herself off from the name she'd used to communicate to Chris. Was she slipping? No, no, no. She felt the smile falter, scolded herself mentally for it. Everything was going wrong, and all she had wanted to do was prove herself, right?
No, not prove yourself. Train.
Wasn't she supposed to be good at pretending? That was all that Maya had ever had praise for when it came down to it. 'You'd never guess there's so much going on in that precious little head of yours. Good job.' She rationalized it all into a momentary lapse. That was all--she wasn't used to the connection she'd forged with Chris. Not used to having vivid memories that she knew were real. Not used to disconnected numbers and other people.
"What do you have to be sorry about?" She flicked her braid behind her shoulder, her voice picking up to its typical tone again. "In any case, I think we just have to consider that most of what we'll probably get pit against won't have detailed files or anything of the sort. Trial and error is a little draining for me, but I guess if Chris is able to keep us at a safe distance, I don't have to worry about all the lights and...other stuff from my power."
A crack in the mask, and Brent knew that his foot was, indeed, on a landmine.
Takes one to know one, huh?
Viewed as a short answer problem, it was fairly clear now, how things went for Siena in that battle. She wielded a highly versatile power, and yet, due to being a sheltered rich girl, had no real experience in situations as dangerous as the one she found herself in. As mages died around her, she put the blame on herself for being too useless to leverage her power effectively. And thus, when he had mentioned that she was useful in any situation...
Ah, and now she was faking it. She must have known that he knew, and was now just trying to make sure that Chris and Angelic didn't worry themselves over her state too.
Fair enough.
If readjusting her mask is what she was going to do, Brent had no intention of pushing further. So he smiled in return.
"Oh, just apologizing for all the expectations I'm piling up on you and how you've been the one who's done the most magical stuff thus far. Was that a bit out-of-the-blue?"
Let's move on.
"In terms of the whole trial-and-error thing, we do have a couple of physically durable people as well, to do a bunch of the testing for us. Wasn't Sander basically invincible? And Kusari immortal? Might be a bit macabre, but I'm seeing frontline-backline mechanics myself. Gotta keep our VIP topped up on MP before going for the kill, after all."
Angel shifted uncomfortably during Brent and Siena’s talk. She felt some kind of… unease between the two. She may not be able to clearly see their blurred face, but she could hear the hesitation in their voices. Oddly enough, the raven-haired Mage kept quiet during that time, letting the two settle what they had in mind. If need be, she would step in, before Brent shoots himself in foot, again.
Surprisingly, he fumbled less with his words than before. Maybe he was finally learning to hold back his tongue? Seeing the discussion began to shift towards a more comfortable subject, Angélique stepped in to completely shook off that uneasiness that had built up.
“I wouldn’t try my luck with those two, to be honest. From what I learned from Sander, he needs to ingest a large amount of blood to reach that state, and you saw what happened during the game and when he went against Shane that night. He lost it, twice. I won’t take a chance of relying on someone who could just as easily forget all parts of the plans we set and turn on us.” Angel pausing, reflecting on both his old teammate and opponent during the flags match. “Kusari may be masochist, but I’d rather want her to sustain as little pain as possible. She’s practically immortal, but I noticed she isn’t impervious to pain. Too much pain can break someone’s mind, as brutal interrogations taught us.”
“Unfortunately, we can’t all be perfectly prepared beforehand. Hell, I’m dreading the day we’ll face a monster capable of completely ignoring sound waves. Only thing to do is to keep our options open and varied.” Angel looked towards Siena, who had been so far the most versatile Mage she had met. “When faced against the unknown, you’ve got to ‘see the bigger picture’, as someone told me before. Don’t prepare names for specific situations. Keep powers that have a broad range of effects, like generally enhancing others’ abilities or temporary healing. If you go for aggressive purposes, think of powers that can generally affect anything. Something like air or earth manipulating powers? Or explosions, because you know, everybody seems to love those.” Angélique giggled at the last statement, figuring it wouldn’t do harm to bring to light-hearted humor into her matter-of-fact suggestions.
“Same goes for you. You’re actually pretty much like Siena. You’ve got the same variety, except you work with what you have and can have a more spontaneous approach on situations. With that in mind, keep the gear you have on yourself for a broad range of situations. But seeing what you came up with, I think you already know that. Beside the rollerblades. Those are probably unneeded, as you just never know if the ground on which you step will simply allow you to roll on it." Angel's gaze shifted towards Brent.
"Please," Brent laughed, "Just wait until I can start turning rollerblades into hoverblades."
Angel rolled her eyes over with a sigh. "Better get to it fast instead of borrowing other people's boots. Who knows, maybe I could vanquish my fear of heights with those kinds of flying wear." Angel laughed in turn.
"Long as you don't mind having pieces of my ear taped onto them."
"Gotta stay positive man. One day, maybe you will finally be able to Overclock stuff without having to keep a grip on 'em."
For the rest of the afternoon, the quarto of Mages continued on testing out their potential. For a while, Brent had been throwing questions and speculations to Siena about her powers, to which she simply gave vague answers and negative replies. While they were testing out some things to ease up the brunette’s way of selecting her names, Angélique and Christopher were seen fooling around the buildings of Ground Zero. Despite not being able to see all that much, Chris was diligent enough to help her navigate around and test out their combined powers. It turned out, sonic waves and a fiery breath didn’t go along well. The scream either dispersed the flame in its area of effect or altered its range. However, for stunning and burning imaginary citizens to a crisp, they worked well enough together as long one didn’t get in the other’s way.
Seeing they weren’t going anywhere at this rate, Siena had proposed Brent if he could Overclock melee weapons. Finally things seemed to unblock as the amethyst-eyed youth demonstrated his power on his own machete, turning the edge of the weapon’s blade into a vicious chainsaw blade. Seeing how both were adepts at using bladed weapons, the two Arbiters concluded they should meet up on another day for knifing lessons.
Shortly after Angel and Chris came back from their rampage across town, the training session was about to be brought to an end. The raven-haired rockstar was covered in bruises and dirt from having tripped on too many times because of her poor eyesight, despite Chris’ many attempts to catch her as she fell. Brent and Siena were awkwardly silent as whatever they tried to bring up ended in creating more unease.
Just as everyone were saying their goodbyes and were about to leave, Allison showed up at the reunion of training Mages. The girl’s messed up schedule apparently was the cause of her arriving so late at the training Angélique has suggested her to come. Obviously concerned by her friend’s pitiful appearance, Allison offered to bring the blinded Aberration back to her room.
Siena was quick to follow in taking her leave, then Brent. Only Chris was now left in Ground Zero. Figuring out there was still time until he would return to being Human again, Chris resumed his earlier training, before he had joined his classmates.
This morning was quite uneventful compared to the other days. Having been left along to do her daily routine, Angélique returned to her room after coming back from Ground Zero, late in the afternoon. Today, there had been some additions to her room while she had been away for the day. As soon as her door opened, she was greeted by the lovely sound of a bird happily chirping. With a look of glee, Angel entered her room to find a bird inside its cage at the corner of the room, next to the window. It was so small, yet so lively and fluffy-like. When the black bird saw the young woman approaching the cage to greet it, it approached in turn from its perch and let out a few seemingly happy chirps.
Immediately, the singer’s heart fluttered to hear something so lovely inside her room. She could already feel a degree of added liveliness and happiness inside her bleak room from the small thing’s singing. As the Aberration turned around to make sure everything was closed, she noticed there were a small black case and an envelope left on her desk. Curious, Angélique opened the envelope, finding a handwritten letter inside:
Good afternoon, Ms. Lachance!
I hope you had a refreshing time at Ground Zero. Rosa managed to get your request all squared away on time, as I'm sure you've noticed. Unfortunately she's feeling a bit under the weather, so the task of writing a chipper letter full of sunshine and rainbows has fallen to me! As you can see, I've attached several of Rosa's stickers to the parchment. Only the best for our resident rock star!
Indeed, Freddy had attached several vibrantly colorful Lisa Frank stickers. An array of smiling blue pug puppies, pink cats, rainbow unicorns, and butterflies decorated the entire lower half of the letter along with words and phrases like "You're awesome!", "Cool!", and "Party!"
You didn't specify what type of bird you wanted, so after several hours of rigorous research, we've obtained an American Singer breed of canary just for you. They said it was brown, but it looks black to me. I'm sure you'll like that. Seems like your style, eh?
I wanted to get the one named Angel. I thought it seemed appropriate since birds are generally so noisy, but Rosa didn't like that. Something about the name being too common. There was another one named Rose, but she didn't like that either-- something about it being a terrible name for a canary. No, she was quite insistent that we get the one named Pavarotti. Even though it's a girl.
Anyway, we were told she has a very friendly temperament and, because she's still young, she'll be really receptive to learning all sorts of new things. She already seems to recognize her name, though I've learned she also responds well to 'Pav'. She's awfully cute, I have to admit. Even though she did get poo on my suit.... Take good care of her.
Also, your contact lenses have arrived. You'll find them in the little black case. Dr. Spencer included a pamphlet on how to use and care for them properly. Don't fall asleep with them on! Wouldn't want your eye balls to fall out, now would we?
Only kidding.
Have a nice weekend, Ms. Lachance!
Sincerely,
Fredric Francisco
Simply by reading the first few lines, Angélique had a foreboding feeling about the letter. The way she was addressed as “Ms. Lachance” brought an annoying smiling jerk to mind. The more she read on about the letter, the worse her frown was becoming. The happy child-like stickers felt somewhat insulting to her when combined by the wording that was referring to her. Were they testing her patience by treating her like a toddler? It only got worse when the sender throwed an obvious jab at how noisy she was. By that point, the Aberration was boiling in fury deep inside. Then came the bird’s name.
“Pavarotti!?” The small bird chirped jolly in its cage in reply. “Who in their fucking mind had the idea of naming a canary after a dead opera tenor? I swear to god, this got to be a fucking joke. Assholes casually taking turn in fucking around.”
The part about the bird taking a crap on Fredric’s clothes however did feel like justice. Even if poor Pav got a weird name, the raven-haired rockstar already felt a connection with the bird. Too bad they didn’t give her something like a parrot though. Angel could already imagine teaching words to the bird like “Fredric is a dick”. Well, maybe if she tried hard enough, Pav could perhaps sing something close to that. Maybe that’s why they didn’t consider giving her a talking bird in the first place.
Confirming it was Fredric’s letter when reading the signature at the end of the letter, Angel crumpled the paper in her hands before throwing it in the bin sitting next to her desk. Would it kill the guy to simply write a formal letter with plain details, instead of trying to get under her skin? She swore to God, that guy surely MUST have a grudge or something against her. She can’t believe someone to be such a jackass to everyone in here, else he would’ve got something happening to him all the time. Well, now that she was thinking about it; perhaps that was the reason he is always surrounded by guards whenever he’s out. One day, he’ll get what’s coming to him…
Removing her new shades she had the use ahead of time because of losing her old ones during yesterday’s training session while air-riding Chris with Brent and Siena, Angel opened the black casing to reveal a small container shaped like the number eight and a folded paper. There was one round part labeled “R” and the other labeled “L”. Unfolding the paper, Angel was surprised to see a printed schema of how to put contact lenses the correct way, along handwritten side notes. Who knew the optometrist would be so caring as to provide her with that? Remembering the discussion they had by the end of their meeting, she should’ve known that the old man only had his patients’ welfare in mind. Once more, she was grateful for being considerate.
Putting the lenses were however easier explained that done, for a novice like her. It took some time to actually put them dead center on her cornea, but she managed. She felt like an annoying itching as she blinked a few times, but she was warned that it would take some time to get used to it, much like someone wearing glasses will adapt to the feeling of the eyewear poking their nose ridge and their ears. Afterwards, she replaced her shades onto her face, letting the comforting darkness shield her eyes from the harmful light.
Already, she could see much clearer, even better than before. Finally, it seemed as if a burden was lifted off from her eyes and her brain. Needless to say, new eyewear was much overdue for her. Being rushed from one place to another as a successful musician, she had neglected her eyes care for too long.
Returning to the desk, Angel sat down and took one stack of papers that had been left there untouched ever since Wednesday. For quite some time, she had thought of finally getting to read what everyone thought of that fight and the suggested improvements to be made, but she never got the chance to sit down in a relaxed state and review the whole thing. Perhaps, now that she was at ease, she could get down to it?
Retrieving her phone from her jeans and setting it on the table, the late teen musician listened to the jam of guitar riffs and drums beat while reading over what her peers had to say about this match.
Overall, as she expected, self-control was the most common theme used to describe the second battle. She felt somewhat ashamed though when she read over the last part, about her not being able to deliver her evaluation. But what was there more to say than “Learn about self-control. This fight was a mess.”? At least, she had put her thoughts about both games into her own personal files, even though those noted were for her eyes only. Perhaps it would’ve been best to at least try to find and give some constructive criticism? She blew up big time by acting like a child, Angel finally admitted.
However, interestingly, lack of teamwork was the main issue in the first matchup, the fight she was part of. Some praised the strategy of combining Grant’s ability with Sander’s to take down Callan. She felt humbled by those opinions. She was the one who had ordered Grant to help Sander in taking down Super Girl, but it was their execution that made the thing possible. But as much as she was glad that her strategy-making ability was honored, she felt disappointed in herself when faced against the comments of how poor of an idea it was to go and fight alone. After all, if it wasn’t for being patched up, she would’ve died of fighting against Chris, potentially lose even if Chris wasn’t so mindful about getting her flags without injuring her.
If there was one thing she learned from all this, it was to stop being so damned reckless. It was the second - maybe third time - ever since she got here that she put herself in the face of danger to pull out efficient but dangerous maneuvers. If her gamble wouldn’t pay off, she’d be gone. She realized she had to stop doing that, for both her sake and her teammates’. She needed to be able to see the bigger picture, with herself included in it. She was good at managing resources, a skill she had picked up from working so often with her manager the past. But what good would it be if she was lost in the process? What good is the girl with the plans if she ends up killing herself? She can potentially jeopardize missions if she kept putting herself in harm’s way.
After coming to this analysis, Angélique neatly stacked the papers back in order and set it aside on her desk. It would be a good reminder in the future. With nothing else to do, the ex-rockstar decided to take the rest of the day off. After a quick shower and dinner, she’d whip her guitar out and play and sing melodies next to her new pet, music that was far from what she’d been known for in her career.
The weekend had been quiet for Angélique. She kept on working out in the gym after her morning jogging, then go to Ground Zero for keeping her stigma under control and train with the use of her abilities. By then, she exactly knew the limits of her power, how they affect her surrounding, and even managed to separate the physical-affecting knockback aspect of her power from the brain-affecting stun effects. Angel found out it all came down to pitches. Deep sounding pitches like “o” helped in producing knockback, while “e” pitches were better used for stunning, and “a” combined both. This was a very useful knowledge about her power usage, something Angel was proud of having learned.
Throughout the weekend, whenever Angel was in her room, it was common for the residents of the Aberration dorms and the students passing by under her open window to hear the girl singing in a soothing and melodic voice. It wasn’t anything hardcore like how she used to. Instead, they were mainly melodies, folkloric ballads and softer-toned music, as if she was a bird singing to another. Eventually, her singing was followed by some chirpings, imitating parts of what Angélique had been playing or singing.
On this Sunday afternoon, Angel felt a bit under the weather all day long. Sure, she wasn’t feeling as bad as she was before she went to Ground Zero for a good fix of blowing up doors and windows with her voice, but she was somehow a bit tired of having to deal with this issue by visiting Ground Zero every day. Actually, it sickened her deep inside. She felt like a junkie needing her fix, before doing anything she’d regret later on. It was infuriating, to not be able to keep her head up high and confront this Stigma with simply sheer willpower.
Ernest was right, in the end. She couldn’t play the act of being that strong-appearing figure. Already, throughout the whole week, she showed multiple signs of weakness and lack of self-control. She was getting better by the day, as she got to meet new people and hang out with them. But still, there were those voices in her head that kept harassing her. It mentally exhausted her. There were times she’d just want to yell at people, like Ernie who kept poking her Tuesday or Brent who was seemingly trying to test her limits. Angélique was glad she still had some restraint left deep inside. Things would’ve turned out worse than how they were right now if she completely caved-in to the burden of her Stigma.
The black-haired Aberration took more time in the shower today. As the warm water rained on her body, she was lost in thoughts. Music filled her mind. That same strange and unknown rhythm she kept hearing in the visions she had before; the same melody that she had strangely tried to reproduce on her guitar. But today, it wasn’t only a rhythm she was humming. There were lyrics, or at least a random assembly of words Angel tried to piece together.
Eventually, the light-skinned Mage came out the shower and headed to her room swiftly. She pulled out a chair from her desk and a blank sheet from her one of her drawers. For a few hours, Angélique busied herself with writing down a song that came from her head, skipping dinner at the same time to work some more onto that song she began to be obsessed with. There were a lot of words crossed, arrangements, edits, arrows indicating which verse should be placed at some point in the song.
After quite some time, a few hours before curfew, the musician was finally done with her newest creation. It was handwritten down neatly on one of the few blank pages she hadn’t scrapped.
I hear voices in my head They council me They understand They talk to me
You got your rules and your religion All designed to keep you safe But when rules start getting broken You start questioning your faith
I have a voice that is my savior Hates to love and loves to hate I have the voice that has the knowledge And the power to rule your fate
I hear voices crying I see heroes dying I taste blood that's drying I feel tension rising
I hear voices in my head They council me They understand They talk to me, they talk to me They tell me things that I will do They show me things I'll do to you They talk to me They talk to me
I see darkness rising I hear voices calling I feel justice fading I see faith has fallen
I hear voices in my head They council me They understand They talk to me, they talk to me They tell me things that I will do They show me things I'll do to you They talk to me
I hear voices crying I see heroes dying I taste blood that's drying I feel tension rising
I hear voices in my head They council me They understand They talk to me, they talk to me They tell me things that I will do They show me things I'll do to you They talk to me They talk to me
Sitting down with her guitar in hands, Angélique tried to play along the rhythm stuck in her head along with the song she had just finished writing down. Oddly enough, both rhythm and lyrics strangely fit well together, although there were parts she was still unsure of. Mostly because what she was playing was from an unknown memory, by instinct, and the musician girl knew the thing wasn’t quite completed. Be it the guitar rhythm or the lyrics, something felt amiss.
But those additions would have to wait. For now, Angel had no idea what else could be done about it. Right now, she felt sleepy, and went to bed early that evening.
This night had been quite unusual compared to the others so far. One thing was constant though. It would seem she will never get a peaceful night of sleep, as her dreams still were plagued by nightmares, no matter how different they were. Instead of the usual sight of someone looking very much like a twisted version of herself laying waste a city by supersonic screams, she was now facing a very familiar scene, one that she wished to never see ever again. She woke up one morning after a very troubling night. Her sleep had been assaulted by very realistic dreams, visited by a seemingly invisible creature that seemed to offer her two choices. In one path, she was showed a way to bring harmony all around her through the use of her voice. On the other path, she was promised to walk the road of a destroyer, one who would bring an end to all conflict between humankind and put down the ravaging monsters. It had been a conflicting choice, in all of her sleepy haze. Bringer of Harmony or Destroyer of Dissonance? Many before her, artists and musicians alike, tried in vain to bring people together with music. How would she be any different from all those singers? Only through magic she could achieve change. But not any kind of magic. It needed to be strong, powerful beyond words. It needed to bring an utter end to threats.
Fortunately for Angélique, she noticed something changed about herself before anyone got to see it first. When she went to the bathroom for her morning beauty care, she shouted in both horror and surprise when she found that infamous “X” mark drawn onto her throat. At first, she was in disbelief, and tried to wash it down, pretending to herself someone pulled a prank on her during the night. She soon faced the truth when, no matter how hard she tried, the mark would never come off her neck.
Fearing for her career and herself, Angel hid that mark as best as she could. Makeup was used as a temporary solution, until she got her hands on a large leather collar that would cover up the mark on her throat. She wasn’t ready to tell her fans about her sudden transformation into a Subnatural. If that secret come into light, her whole life would radically change, many fans would reject her due to the poor popular opinion about Subnaturals and especially X-marked.
Despite this sudden twist of fate, the now-rising Canadian rockstar tried to live her life as normally as she could. Some questioned that new addition to her look, but with her convincing personality, it was quickly dismissed as part of her punkish style.
However, things changed over the next days. During her singing rehearsals, she found out it had become easier for her vocal cords to achieve high-pitched notes. She was even able to reach peaks with her voice she had never explored before. Members of her band were impressed, and some even suggested catching the audience of their next homecoming concert by surprise by working on that new note for a song Angel had been working on as a surprise gift for her beloved Montréal’s fans.
Then it all came down to that fateful day. Angel was standing on stage, stress knotted in her stomach, as it was the first time she would give a concert as a Subnatural. She was a transparent person, she hoped she could simply tell the crowd who she had become, but she feared change, as much as she preached about it in her songs and interviews. In the end, she was a coward and a hypocrite, just like all the others before.
It was at the climax of the concert, as she sang her newest song and the crowd was shouting and whistling loudly in approval, she activated her power to its maximum extent. Lost in the heat of the moment, she let out this inhumane shriek that was supposed to be that high-pitched note she had been working on days ago.
It was chaos.
The crowd at the front rows was decimated by the sonic wave unleashed from the newly-awakened Subnatural singer. Not because of her voice, but because of the high-tech gear surrounding the front row that blew from the sheer vibration of the intense scream they were broadcasting, sending plastic shrapnel to the poor souls standing there. The rest of the crowd suffered light damage; some were deafened because of their eardrums gave out from the intensity of the shriek, and the lucky ones felt nauseated as their brain couldn’t fully withstand the sonic assault.
Just like that, the career Angélique Lachance tried so hard to build crumbled before her eyes. Caught in panic, the singer choked on her tears and collapsed in the middle of the stage like a crying mess, until the police came to take her into custody. Angélique woke up with a panicked shout, tears trailing down her cheeks. It had been a nightmare, a very realistic one. As a matter of fact, it was no mere nightmare. It was a vivid memory of what had happened three weeks ago, just before she was convicted to be sent at USARILN for being an unstable X-marked.
How she came to suddenly dream about that day was unknown to her, much like how dreaming never really made sense to her. For days, ever since she had become an Aberration, she always dreamt about bringing relieving destruction to the monsters plaguing her nightmares. Why did it changed now? Was it because of Ernest bringing up what had happened in Montréal and made her lose control of her emotions?
Angel had a hard time figuring just how that mind of hers worked anymore. She was fucked up, ever since that mark on her throat appeared. She wished she just could be the normal girl she had been back then. How laughable was it now to think that being one popular lead singer was something to be considered 'normal' now that she knew what it was like to be a Subnatural.
Still, today was the start of a new day. She'd be damned if she would let nightmares drag her down and isolate her into her room all day long. She needed to get out, get some fresh air, train some more, anything than staying alone in the goddamned room. Putting on some leggings and a tight-fit T-shirt, she was off to do her morning jogging.
Zoe had been at Ground Zero for a while. Not long, but long enough to figure out that she was a hell of a lot stronger. Her hands tore through flesh like it was barely even substantial. Her range had improved as well - she'd kept breaking things down much further away than she used to. And then there was the new ability that she wasn't even sure how to describe yet. Yeah, she was a lot stronger.
Either way, the bloodlust had faded for the moment, so she was looking for something else now. Specifically, one of her classmates. She'd caught sight of the singer when she'd walked in, but figured it made sense to deal with her own issues first. Now that she'd done that, she figured they might have some things to talk about. Deciding to stay a fair distance back for safety's sake, she took a moment to watch what the other subnatural was doing before she called out.
"Spend a lot of time out here, or was it just a bad morning?"
When Angélique arrived at Ground Zero, she was in a foul mood. Her morning had been troubled by her stigma, and she couldn't keep up with her daily training routine in such a state of mind. After enduring her ever-growing frustration and working out half-heartedly, she came here to vent out all this anger and grief she was keeping inside. At first, the ex-rockstar had been screaming shrieks of primal fury out of her system, but as she kept on screaming her lungs out, the intensity of her shouts seemed to diminish. Until she was standing still, silent, seemingly contemplating the damage she had done to the building in front of her. Glass shards from broken windows littered the floor along blown out doors and trails of displaced dirt in the wake of her sonic waves was what stood in front of the screamer mage.
Clearing out her throat a few times to get the benign itching in her vocal cords out of the way, Angel almost jumped in surprise when she heard someone call out to her. Turning her heard, she recognized Zoe. The black-haired Mage saw her earlier, when Angel arrived at Ground Zero, chasing down the "ghosts" of this town's past and melting them down with frightening efficiency. But for once, Angel didn't want to engage in talking. She hadn't been in the mood to cross other people's way.
However, now that she was done venting and her mind felt clearer, she somewhat welcomed this surprise arrival. As a matter of fact, Angélique wanted to speak to Zoe about some things, ever since the Flags n' Seek matchup she had witnessed. She wanted to set things straight, confirm some things.
"Both, actually. As hard as it is to admit, I've been coming here more often than I would've liked. To get this pent up frustration out of my system and to train with my powers." Angel answered with surprising honesty about her whereabouts. She was however curious if Zoe was here for the same reasons. "How about you? Have you come to douse this fiery aggression out of your system? Or did you have something else in mind?"
"Self control, I guess. Figured I wasn't helping anyone by putting it off any longer. After all, I've got more than enough aggression to go around without making things any worse, right?" Zoe grinned, glancing around the area. Despite her words, she seemed to be remarkably unbothered by the statement. It wasn't like the knowledge of how she operated was new, after all.
"Other than that, I wanted to find out my limits. Don't know about you, but my powers have been changing, and I'd rather know how much. Can't exactly go around testing them on you guys."
"Yeah..." Angel trailed off, seemingly caught in her thoughts about her growing powers. She too noticed things seemed to have been changing about her screaming abilities as of late. And there were those waking nightmares she kept having, happening randomly.
"So you have noticed as well? It seems the more it goes on, the more potent my powers are. I haven't had the chance to fully understand them yet. It's just that... I don't know how you can manage to use your abilities on... them." Angel glanced towards the fake people, seemingly running about in panic because of the visiting subnaturals wreaking havoc on both buildings and people alike. "I know they aren't supposed to be here, but still, they feel too humans, too real. In reality, it's like those people are trapped inside a time loop. It... just doesn't feel right for me to go around and scream their eardrums off."
Angel's gaze slowly turned back to Zoe. "Well, I was just about trying to figure out my limits too, now that I'm feeling better."
"Yeah. Can't say I'm not thankful for it - If my powers didn't start changing when they did, I'd be some monster's lunch right now. Gotta wonder how far it goes, though. I don't get the feeling it's anywhere close to done changing, and I don't know about you, but my limits are already a whole lot harder to reach." That felt like an understatement. If Zoe's powers had been on this level even during the game, she doubted everyone would have made it back.
Zoe grimaced, her expression darkening for a moment. "As for the rest, I'll get back to you when I figure out how to kill a building. Not like I've got many other options here, and trying to pretend I do just means I snap on people that actually matter. As you've seen." And she couldn't afford to do that again. From everything she'd done out here, she knew she couldn't. Or maybe that was a convenient excuse to avoid thinking about how much she enjoyed it.
After a moment's pause, Zoe sighed in irritation. Seemed like something was on the singer's mind. "Listen, if there's something you wanna say to me, say it. Don't dance around the subject, it's a waste of both our time."
Angel was caught off-guard at Zoe's sudden approach. The young woman knew she was emotionally transparent, but not that much. In turn, Angel sighed exasperatedly. "Look, I'm new to this whole Mage thing. There are times I wish I had more control over myself. I'd like to say I've got nothing against you for acting the way you do, but that would be a lie. What you did to Aaron on that night, to Gregory Monday, that's what I have a problem with. You remember what you said on that night after we fought and lost some of our classmates? About protecting friends? Just how can you expect people to believe those words and look up to you when you act like this? You might not give a damn, that much you made it clear to me, but teamwork is based on trust. We won't survive out there by simply relying on our individual powers."
"Didn't have you down as the bleeding heart type." Zoe snapped, before realizing she probably wasn't helping her case with that. "And I'm certainly not looking to be a role model. As for the violence, well... It doesn't contradict what I'm trying to do as much as you'd think. But it definitely went further than I wanted it to."
She paused, strolling over to a nearby pile of rubble and taking a seat. "If you want an explanation, you'll have to be willing to hear me out. You can ask questions, but leave calling me a dumbass or whatever until the end." She smiled slightly. "Deal?"
"Hmph, that's not the first time I'm hearing that." Angelique grumpily replied. She heard those kinds of remarks enough times already from her entourage that she finally accepted being soft as part of herself.
Imitating Zoe, Angel pulled an unhinged door she blew earlier and set it on the ground near to where Zoe had been sitting.
"Deal! I'm all ears." She agreed, rather enthusiastic. Truth be told, she didn't expect her classmate to explain anything to Angel. It made her the more eager to listen to what the berserk Mage had to say. See her point of view, her side of her story.
"Don't get too enthusiastic, I'll get stage fright." Zoe chuckled, amused for a brief second before growing serious. "Okay, first thing. Assuming you're not a moron, you've probably guessed that part of it's down to what goes on up here." She tapped her head. "I'm not gonna go into detail, 'cause frankly that shit's personal. But for now, let's just say mine gets worse the closer I get to people. Which is where the issue comes in."
"You know how long it takes me to kill someone?" Zoe's eyes stayed fixed on the ground as she spoke. "A second, maybe two. Then boom, dead as a doornail. Even the strongest person needs time to react. You with me so far?"
At first, Angel frowned at the redhead's coarse language as she talked, but she could hardly say anything about, considering she was the same at times. It sure was an inconvenient Stigma though. She silently nodded at Zoe's predicament.
"I-I see. That sucks, big time. Does that mean you were holding back on Gregory, or you power grew since then? It felt more than two seconds at that time. But fuck, bone began showing just before you got shocked..."
"A little of both. My ability's gotten faster, but it didn't take too long before, either. As for Gregory... I can tell you that I didn't plan on killing him, but also that I knew exactly what I was doing. How you take that is up to you." She remembered it pretty clearly, of course. Flesh tearing, bone brushing her fingertips. Visceral, stigma-driven joy. It was difficult to forget that kind of rush, for better or worse. "Mind if I continue?"
"Oh yeah. I'm sorry. Please do." Angel apologized for the interruption. She wasn't too sure how to react to Zoe's reply, but the ex-rockstar figured that an Aberration's thought process was more complex, due to dealing with the Stigma.
"Fact is I've always had a temper, even without magic messing with my head. It's unsafe. Lashing out's an easy way to make sure you guys don't come close enough to make it an issue." She smiled bitterly. "No-one wants to hang around the psychopathic bitch, right? So there. Reason number one." She finally looked up, curious to see her classmate's reaction.
Hearing out what Zoe had to say, Angel's thoughtful traits turned into something more compassionate. There was no way Zoe would indulge herself into making herself into a martyr, right? She looked like a strong woman, who could get what she wanted if she willed it. As a matter of fact, Angel thought she was seeing a bit of herself in front of her. The same damn stubbornness she had before.
Upon realizing this, Angélique's serene face showed a smile. "I'm no psychologist, far from it even. But from what I've been hearing, you sound like you are doing this to yourself. You may have a temper and some issues, but no one is going to approach you if you chase them away by lashing out."
Angel paused, wondering if she was just about to cause more problems by speaking out what's on her mind. But then again, Zoe seemed to be one to seek the harsh truth, and Angel was one to usually be as honest as she could be.
"What I mean to say is... perhaps you are making your own solitude. I can't speak for others about not wanting to hang around with you, but I'm sure there are at least people in our class who would like to get to know you."
"Well, yeah, that was kind of the point. It's not a question of whether they'd like to know me, it's a question of my own control. You know, so I don't go killing anyone during lunch. Not that it's as selfless as all that - I'm pretty sure that'd get me put down as well, special group or not." Zoe scowled, sharpness creeping into her tone. It wasn't as though she wasn't trying to fix things, but she had to be cautious about it, and she could do without lecturing.
"Frankly, I'd rather not murder someone who I'm meant to be looking out for just 'cause everybody wants to prove a point about the power of friendship."
Seemed like Angel stepped on a landmine, just as she somewhat expected it. Her smile returned to a neutral state, thinking she tried to take the situation too lightly.
"Sorry, I didn't mean it like that. Look, you seem self-conscious to know what's wrong and what needs to get better, and I'm glad you are working on getting this under control. I just wanted to know for myself. Not because I want to try and prove a point, but because I want to know more about the people I'm working with. Even if you aren't looking to make a friend, I'd rather just talk directly to you and get things straight than just look from afar and make false assumptions." By now, Angel's enthusiastic tone faded into a more down-to-earth and serious voice. Truth be told, she would very much like to get along with the red-haired girl. It would've made things easier. But if Zoe was adamant about having no friends, for both their and her own safety, then the singing Mage would just have to suck it up and accept the rotting Mage's wishes.
Zoe shook her head, making an effort to get a rein on her anger. "It's not like that. You're not the first person to say I need to work on the whole 'friends' thing. Hell, I appreciate the honesty." For a moment she appeared almost conflicted about what to say. She knew why she had such a problem with it, but saying it out loud meant she had to think about everything else.
"What I want to do isn't really the main issue here. It's not as though I like spending all day training or hiding in my room." She sighed. "But I know all too well what I'm capable of doing. If I can't even shield you guys from that, then--" She broke off, her brow furrowed in uncharacteristic distress. Okay, too deep. Too close to home. Still aware of Angel's presence, she forced a casual expression after a few seconds, but it wasn't exactly convincing.
Angel flinched back onto her seat that was the broken down door and carefully eyed the troubled young woman. Getting too friendly or too intimate about her feelings was causing her issues to flare up, Angélique now realized. Now she truly knew what Zoe meant when the cracks began appearing in the Mage's behavior. When the redhead seemed to try to force a neutral expression, the raven-haired girl held her hands up.
"Woah there, easy. I'm very sorry if I'm ticking you off like that. I shouldn't be pushing it too much on you, As much as I'd like to continue talking to you, I think we need a break, before something happens. How about training, together or not? We're both here for the same reasons after all, right? Or... perhaps would you prefer some more alone time, get things off you system?" Angel tried to defuse the situation. She felt bad for pushing Zoe around like that. Despite all the warnings and the explanation, she was a stubborn one and tried too hard at convincing Zoe that if they couldn't be friends, then they could at least be more open to each other. Obviously it backfired, taking too lightly Zoe's Stigma, or whatever mental issues she was having.
The other girl's reaction almost surprised Zoe. Almost. It probably made sense how fast her classmate backed off, considering how volatile Zoe had been lately. "Sorry. Got a little caught up there, but yeah. Yeah, I think training would be good." The statement she hadn't quite been able to finish still lingered at the back of her mind, but she could ignore it for now. As she stood up, facing away, she spoke again. Didn't want to give the completely wrong impression.
"I'm not angry at you, you know." She started to walk off before pausing and looking back at the other aberration questioningly. "Well?"
"Ah..." Angel watched as Zoe got up and started walking away after agreeing to some training. "Well, I'm glad to hear it." Angel was at a loss of what to say for now. She'd feel like saying she admired her tenacity and how strong she appeared to be, but Zoe probably wouldn't want to hear any of that for now. When the red-haired mage turned to her with a questioning look, Angel looked dumbfound for a moment as she pointed herself. "Together? You sure I won't be in the way?" she asked as she got up from her makeshift seat.
"Yes, I'm inviting you 'cause I think you'll be in the way. What can I say, I just love inconvenience." Zoe replied sarcastically before breaking into a smile - a much more genuine one, this time. "You did just tell me to get better with people, didn't you? So let's call this one a compromise. Unless you're worried I'll show you up, that is." She glanced back at the black haired subnatural with a challenging grin.
The sonic Mage's clueless expression turning into a grin as she started walking towards her now training partner. "If I can take down a Dragon, puny Regular remnants of a town's past will just be small fries." Angel let out a sinister chuckle before her eyes went wide and slapped a hand to her mouth. Did she really just say that now?
"'Puny'?" Zoe burst out laughing at the look on Angel's face. Apparently that was as unexpected for her as it was for Zoe. "If it makes you feel any better I don't think they're paying attention." Zoe looked at Angel with an expression that was equal parts surprise and amusement.
"A-are they? I don't even know now. I've read they were some sort of... real illusions? I mean, if you're willing to compromise, then I should follow the lead and get out of my comfort zone too, right?" The embarrassed singing Aberration chuckled nervously, doubled over by Zoe's laughing. "So, what's the plan? Should I just start yelling at them before you dive in for the 'kill'? Test ways to synergize our attacks?"
"Figuring out how to work as a unit sounds like as good a plan as any. Fair warning, though - I wouldn't look too close when I'm using my power, especially if Monday bothered you. Even though they're not exactly normal people, it's not a pretty sight." It sort of went without saying, but giving the warning seemed fair. "Other than that, whenever you're ready."
"Thanks for the heads-up. Likewise, don't stand in front of me when I shout. I wouldn't know how it feels like, neither Chris nor Kusari told me, but you saw it. It can somehow knock back and put down a Dragon for a few seconds."
Angel walked took the lead and walked towards a nearby bystander. Putting herself into an angle that she would not have Zoe into her area of effect, she opened her mouth to start screaming. However, she felt her throat jam, and nothing but a wheeze came out. They were not 'normal' people, but the possibility of them being just as real, combined with the scene of what happened during her last concert that kept repeating itself over in her head, it was hard for her to overcome the trauma.
Real or not, one day you will have to get over it. You have chosen the path of a Destroyer, for the survival of mankind. There is no backing down now.
"What good is saving humanity if I'm destroying it in the process."
Sacrifices will be made, just as some already sacrificed their lives. Are you thinking those were made in vain? Or are you just pitying yourself over worthless lives because of your weakness?
"I...I don't-"
"You're not a Regular anymore. So stop using their guidelines to judge what you're meant to be, and deal with what you really are right now. What's really changed is the rules you have to play by now."
Ernest's words echoed into Angel's mind. The discussion they had yesterday in her room, how he tried to make her open her eyes about what she was and what was expected of her. She knew he was right. She was still Angélique Lachance, but not an international rockstar anymore. She had been made into an Angel of Destruction by Dreamcatcher, or whatever granted her powers. Perhaps it was her destiny to one day cause great pain to others, to bring back order to this chaotic world by screaming at it into submission.
Once again, Angel opened her mouth, and the knot inside her throat began to untie as her voice gradually rose in intensity. What sounded like a muffled cry grew into a raging scream, until it grew again into an ear-splitting inhumane shriek. The bystander, looking curiously at Angel, was blown back a few feet backwards, as if he had received a powerful punch, before crumbling to the ground, holding his ears and quivering into a confused mess.
As soon as Angel stopped screaming, Zoe rushed forward. She'd been slightly concerned about the other girl's apparent fear of using her powers, but the hesitation her classmate had shown wasn't something she shared. The power to kill didn't give much room for half-measures, and no matter how much you dressed it up that was the basic nature of what she did. When it came down to it, they needed someone that wouldn't hesitate to pull the trigger, and it might as well be her.
She reached the man quickly, black snaking across her hand as she drove it into the back of his skull. True to her word, it was fast, her hand driving through to his brain like the man's flesh was barely even solid at all. He collapsed to the ground as she withdrew her hand, twitching but otherwise lifeless. She glanced back at Angel and called out, wondering if the aberration had taken her advice and looked the other way."Done."
Zoe walked back over to Angel. If the stun usually lasted as long as that, then their powers actually did seem useful together. "I'd say that worked out alright. Makes sense, anyway. You put them down, I make sure they stay there. Not too complicated, right?"
Morbid curiosity had gotten the best of the screaming Aberration as she peeked a few glances, much to the singer's dismay, towards the macabre scene that was Zoe's doing. It was surprising just how quick she was to deal the killing blow, how easy it seemed for the other Aberration. Yet, for a strange reason, having shouted deaf this bystander felt... good? It somehow felt more relieving that simply screaming at windows and doors.
"Yeah. I figured my powers weren't meant to directly deal a fatal blow to opponents. I guess that would make me something like... an attack support?" Angel felt somewhat glad that, in the end, her power could synergize well enough with anyone able to inflict heavy damage.
Walking off towards yet another real illusionary group of people, Angélique glanced at her training partner. "It doesn't take you long to kill someone, but... I wonder just how long someone can recover from my screams. How much time we can afford before they get back up in action, if worse comes to be."
One more time, Angel let her out a devastating shriek as she was standing a few meters away from the group of bystanders. This time, she was able to do so without any complication. Her sonic wave caught them unaware; some fell to the ground from being 'punched' from behind. The result remained the same for all of them. They all recoiled a few feet back from the force of the scream, then they simply stood immobilized, in a haze, for a little less than half-a-minute.
"So, thirty seconds. Maybe say twenty-five, to be safe." Zoe appeared lost in thought for a second, concern crossing her features as she watched the people scramble for safety. Angelique's sudden willingness to attack the townspeople was definitely practical, but something about it bothered the red-haired girl. She wasn't sure what it was yet. Having someone to back up her attacks wasn't a negative, after all. She shook her head.
"Okay, one more thing. If I grab one of them for a second, think you can knock them into a few of their buddies as soon as I'm out of range? It'll make sense in a minute."
Curious as to what Zoe had in mind, Angel nodded in agreement. "Very well. I'll get a head start and try to position myself as soon as you get one."
As soon as she was finished, the raven-haired Aberration started off running, with an eerie glint shining bright in her emerald eyes beyond the cracked lens of her shades. In battle, speed was the key to winning, she was taught by her mentor. As soon as her partner would grab one of the imaginary folk, Angélique would spring the plan Zoe suggested.
After waiting a couple seconds to make sure her teammate had time, Zoe started off herself, running straight for the nearest group. Her victim saw her coming, but only had time to start turning away before she grabbed the collar of his shirt and, in a move that was much more street fighting than martial arts, head-butted him right in the face.
As the man staggered backwards, Zoe backed off. She'd already hit him - that was all she needed to do. Giving Angel a nod, she just focused on maintaining her power's effects, black specks rising from the man's body.
With her head start, Angel was already ahead of the group when Zoe grabbed of them. When they started running from their assailant, Angel was ready for them, waiting. As she angled herself so that her sonic wave won't hit Zoe, it did not take long for the screaming mage to take position and let out a forceful shout that pushed the front row backwards into the others behind, not too far away from where the redhead had been. As soon as they tumbled down on each other into a body pile, Angélique stopped and raised a clenched fist to her partner.
As soon as the people collided, Zoe started to let her power spread from person to person. It was slower than direct contact, of course, but they weren't exactly in a position to fight back either way. More importantly, it had actually worked - more black rose from the pile of people as the power spread between them, although the noise they made was disconcerting even by her standards. She'd never gone for so many before.
Once it was done, Zoe grinned at Angel, turning to head back over as the noise finally went quiet. As much as anything else, that had more than sated her stigma. It was a relief not to want to punch anyone in the throat for a while. "In case you were wondering, that's kind of a new one."
Seeing the new trick Zoe had up her sleeve, the winged-tattooed singer slapped a hand to her mouth when she saw the body pile turning black and slowly rotting away, like a spreading disease. The sight was too much for Angel. She turned her head away and even backed off a few meters away, feeling somewhat insecure to stand near the contagious plague her training partner seemed to have caused.
"I-I see... That's quite... deadly." Angel stuttered, feeling a bit nauseated by the sight and the wailing that came with it. She didn't know how Zoe could live with doing that on a whim. The two of them were quite different, she figured. She somewhat understood now why the red-haired girl didn't want to take any chances letting her power go rampant on others should she lose control. Seeing it with her own eyes now, it was clear to her that Zoe was probably one of the deadliest ticking bombs in their class. Which reminded Angel of the failsafe powers of her other classmates she had begun thinking of recently in light of the total loss of control that was the Flags n' Seek game.
"We're making quite a team, when we're putting our minds into it. There may yet be hope for us." Angel chuckled uncomfortably, trying to shake off the uneasiness that had began to creep into her.
Zoe chuckled. "I wouldn't go that far, but it's definitely one hell of a combination. And the power's under my control, you know. Won't hurt you. You're really not very good at pretending to be okay with this. The stuttering doesn't help your case, for the record." Zoe said, oddly relieved by the horrified reaction of her teammate. Honestly, part of her was sickened by it too. But she couldn't change her power, couldn't hold back because of misplaced fears. All she could do was try her hardest to aim it at the right place and hope no-one was in the way.
That didn't mean it had to be the same for everyone.
"Can you do me a favour?"
She sure doesn't speak with her boxing gloves on, Angel figured as she flinched from Zoe's statement. Of course she wasn't good at pretending, given how easy she was to figure out. It didn't really even cross her mind to hide she was disturbed by the sickening show. Even the girl manipulating that kind of power would be aware of that. Surely by now she grew accustomed to what her power was capable of doing. Just how Angélique wished she could say the same about herself right now though.
"Sure, what is it?
"Hold on to that. Caring." Zoe raised her head, looking determinedly at her teammate. "None of us wanted this. One bad choice, and you're fucked in the head for the rest of your days. The other path still gets you locked up like a dog. I'm not saying to cry every time you hit a monster, and I'd rather all of you guys were willing to kill if you had to-"
She paused, letting out a quick laugh as she struggled to put the words together. "Sorry, give me a minute, I'm not good at this." Her expression darkened. "I guess what I'm saying is that this shit already took almost everything. Don't get so caught up in being a weapon that you let it take away who you are, too." Zoe looked away, keenly aware that she could do a whole lot better with that herself. But she'd always been willing to do bad things to an extent - the singer didn't give her the same impression. At least if she was on the mark.
For a moment, as Angel listened intently to Zoe, she looked somewhat conflicted. Deep inside, she knew she was expected to become someone to comply with orders, pull the trigger without hesitation, else her life and the others' would be in danger. She needed to be resolute in facing her fears and discarding her worries away for the sake of everyone's survival. And yet, the red-haired Mage's speech brought back what Angelique prized the most. Her humanity, her love for others. Without it, she probably wouldn't have been the popular singing icon she was in the past, one who had had a vast influence on people for trying to sympathize with the Subnaturals and their predicament. Without it, she would probably be a remorseless killing machine today.
What uneasiness that seemed to have stiffened Angel disappeared, some sort of burden seemed to have been removed from her shoulders as Zoe finished. A smile etched itself onto a more serene and friendlier face. "I will. Despite what the others say, despite what the voices tell me to do, Ì will try to cling onto what little humanity may be left inside me. For our sake, for my sanity, for those I had let down.“ She looked back at her training partner, wondering if the girl was feeling just as eased as she was after sating their appetite for destruction, assuming it was the universal way to ease their burden as Aberrations. It somehow felt easier to open her heart and soul now that the voices inside her head seemed to have quieted down.
"However, that doesn't mean I will hold back on monsters. After all, part of me wanted this. This power to destroy. To tear down what had been demolishing what we built and killed many of us. It's just... I'd rather be using what I have been given on monsters than our own. I... still can't get over the deaths I caused..." At the mention of her last statement, Angel trailed off into a more sorrowful tone.
"Shall we continue to where you left off earlier? Or would you like to talk about something else?" The raven-haired musician tried to redirect the discussion, feeling uncomfortable about pouring out her own issues onto others.
Voices? Zoe wasn't sure the other aberration meant to let that one slip, surprise crossing her face as she listened to the rest of the talk. Apparently the singer was still hung up on what had happened with the concert. Zoe didn't know much detail about the incident - only what she'd heard from others. Keeping up with current events hadn't exactly been a priority at the time. Still, she gave the other girl a look.
"I don't get the impression you're the type to do that on purpose. You're more of a 'helping old ladies cross the road' type. Maybe not that far, but you know - a lot closer than I am. As for what I'm doing..." Well, Zoe assumed Angel would've figured out why she was scared of losing it - Not that she'd say she was scared, exactly, but the point stood.
"The way you guys have acted. I don't know you well, any of you, and that's on me. But from the fights when we got here, from seeing your reactions on Monday... I'll just say that I've decided it's better for me to be the one pulling the trigger if it becomes necessary. Leave it at that."
As much as Angel wanted to scream that it had been an accident, she stood silent. There wasn't need to find excuses. She took the lives of a handful of people, accident or not, and she was the one to blame for the grieving she had caused. But it was somehow good to know Zoe looked at her this way.
"Perhaps you're right. We do need someone with your kind of resolve." The ex-rockstar paused, feeling however disgusted by her lack of resolve. "I'll sound corny and you're probably tired of hearing me talk like that, but I believe you shouldn't be the only one the bear that burden, of dirtying your hands like that. If it's not for the others, then it's over for us. I remember what you said that night. Even if we have people like you protecting us, once we are caught alone with our lack of resolve, then it's all over."
"Eventually. But right now, making that choice - I think it'd break some of them. They've got themselves convinced that we're heroes. That we're the good guys, that we're better than that. That if we just keep believing in each other, everything will work out." Aaron sprung to mind, but she decided not to name names. At least unless he turned up again. "If I'm the one doing it, then it's easy to explain away as 'Zoe losing it again'. It's not ideal, but it'll do for now. Sucks to be you - you get to be the good example."
She laughed lightly, a little uncomfortable with that level of openness. "You're right, that was corny. I think I'm done."
"I'm still not totally agreeing with the whole 'you did it' scheme, but I'm sure you wouldn't care even if I protest." Angel chuckled light-heartedly to Zoe's comment. Sighing in satisfaction to have a decent discussion with a person she initially thought was too aggressive to talk to, the black-haired singer contemplated the sight of the landscape around her.
"Well... I suppose if you're done, then we should return to training? I have some limits I have yet to test myself."
"Sure, why not? Just make sure you can keep up." Zoe smirked, looking back out at their surroundings. She'd opened up enough - more than enough. Talking was fine, but only as long as she was ready to back it up. There was still a long way to go. "Oh, and if anyone asks, I told you I punch people for a living. I've got a reputation to uphold, you know."
"A reputation to uphold?" Angel laughed at the request. Still, it was whole-hearted, even though the infamous singer found the deal quite silly. "Very well. I mean, you did punch a guy's brains out after all. Can't be any more metal than that." The raven-haired Mage felt a chill creeping up her spine when she remembered Zoe's fist ramming into the illusory person's skull.
***
The two Aberrations spent part of the afternoon chasing down illusions of citizens throughout the ruined city. Slowly, Angélique had begun showing less restraint and was becoming more assertive in the use of her powers. The two managed to work well together by combining the uses of their power into synergic tactics. Throughout the training, both began to truly understand the use of their powers, their range and duration limitations by trial-and-errors tests.
Much to her dismay, Angel had signaled the end of their training session. The two X-marked girls were at it for so long that the screaming Mage’s vocal cords had begun to give out, making the young woman barely able to speak. It would appear Angel was limited to about two dozen screams before her voice was completely exhausted. She looked disappointed in herself, but shrugged to Zoe. If that was all what she was able to do, then there was no point in continuing.
Eventually, the two went on their own ways as their training was over and talking with someone practically mute wasn't ideal for both of them.
𝔾𝕣𝕠𝕦𝕟𝕕 ℤ𝕖𝕣𝕠 / / 𝟙𝟠𝟛𝟘
It had been quite an exhausting afternoon for Angélique. Spending half of it training with Zoe until her voice gave out; the other half was spent doing conditioning training organized the school’s staff. Obviously, being good with their powers wasn’t sufficient for them. The students had to be physically primed, the ex-rockstar figured.
Throughout the mandatory session, Angel had been absent-minded, lost in her thoughts as she was thinking over what she had been discussing with Zoe earlier today. If she wanted to get stronger, build up that resolve to use her powers, she’d need to train more, adapt, and perhaps even embrace it. Angel had the whole week free of classes. Maybe it was time to put Ground Zero to a better use than simply venting out there.
So far, she had trained with Siena, Allison and Zoe in here. Already, she felt it was most beneficial, as it helped the raven-haired musician better understand her classmates’ powers, and even peek a bit into their personalities. Perhaps having another training session focused solely on their powers would be a good thing? See how well they could cooperate the four of them together?
But then, thinking about what Zoe told her, maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to invite Zoe to that event. Angel had a hard time to get Zoe to somewhat open herself to her, she figured red-haired Aberration would flat-out refuse training with three other people around.
Baby steps. Let her get accustomed to the others.
When the mandatory training class was over with, Angel went to ask Siena, with great pain considering her voice was but a faint strained whisper, if she was interested for another trip at Ground Zero to train with their powers on Thursday. Likewise for Allison, she found the girl at dinner and asked her if she would like to join them.
𝕊𝕖𝕡𝕥. 𝟟, 𝟚𝟘𝟚𝟘 / / 𝕌𝕊𝔸ℝ𝕀𝕃ℕ 𝔼𝕒𝕤𝕥 / / 𝕊𝕖𝕔𝕦𝕣𝕚𝕥𝕪 𝕆𝕦𝕥𝕡𝕠𝕤/ / ~𝟙𝟡𝟘𝟘 Collab by @Riffus Maximus [@Varionus NW]
Ah, the cracks began to appear on his mask. Seeing Fredric trying to maintain his calm and composed smile, Angélique somewhat enjoyed hearing the guy speak with a tone that betrayed his cool attitude. And that scowl by the end of his speech was the cherry on top of the cake. Sure, she was irritated by his words, calling her 'immature' and 'pampered', but she didn't want to say any more than needed. She didn't need to prove he was right. She knew more than anyone else how hard she worked to get where she had been. She wasn't born with a silver spoon in her hand, and she endured more than her fair share of stress and difficulties. Calling her 'pampered' just showed how much he didn't really know about her, how wrong it was to assume she was yet just another rich and sassy star. Granted, she was rebellious and somewhat immature, but it had always been in her nature to be as open and honest as she could be.
Even now, Angélique could remember the words spoken by her manager: "There's a thin line between lacking maturity and being emotionally open. For the sake of your public image, don't cross that line. You can freely express your opinions and your feelings to the world, but do it so with a cool head. You are, after all, someone trying to represent a change of mentality in these dark times. Nobody will want to hear the words of a child throwing a tantrum whenever something isn't to her liking."
And yet there she was, throwing those teachings away. For what reason? She couldn't exactly tell. Maybe after all those years holding back for the sake of maintaining a decent public opinion, she decided to cast it all away now that she had nothing left to cling on. What good would holding it in do anymore? To become someone like Fredric? Just for once, Angel would've liked to see the man lose his calm, to show to everyone he actually was compassionate to his fellow Mages, demonstrate he still had that humanity that bonds humankind together when faced with disasters.
Moments later, the room was vacated. Everyone had been escorted to their respective buildings. A strange occurrence had happened on the way though. Screaming and alarms ringing in the air. Whatever was happening there, Angel couldn’t see anything but Rosa pushing through the swarm of guards that circled an area. Hopefully one of her classmates didn't do anything stupid that would warrant a trip to the hospital, again. Soon enough, after hearing someone crying, the distinct voice of Fredric barking out orders to get the students back to their dorms sounded a bit like music to the singer’s ears. Ah, just how enjoyable was it to hear this stupid calm voice of his turning this way.
When they had reached the Aberration dorms, Angel seek out her dorm neighbor. When she saw the brunette’s face relatively unscathed, aside from a few specks of blood and dirt, the raven-haired Mage sighed in relief. She quickly made her way through to meet Allison.
"Thank god we have someone like Christmas around! Are you alright, Alice?" the young Canadian woman said with a concerned look on her face, her hands reaching out for the girl's shoulders and her concealed eyes scanning her face for any sign of leftover wound or scar.
"Yea, I'm fine." Allison raised her hand to her eye as she spoke, tenderly touching the flesh around it, as if the wound could reappear at any moment. Once they were able to leave the observation room, Allison had moved as fast as she could back to the dorms. She hadn't expected Angel to come after her, but she was somewhat thankful to have someone to talk to. "You did great out there." Allison forced a smile.
"Ah... uh... thanks. I admit, taking down a Dragon was kind of cool. But... I let my team down afterwards. Shouldn't have taken this risk." Angel scratched the bandages around her shoulders, a ghostly itching from remembering Chris' claws digging into her skin.
There was an awkward pause after Angélique finished speaking. She wanted to return the compliment, but the battle went downhill so fast, there wasn't really much to congratulate about the whole ordeal, except being alive. Even then, if it wasn't for Christmas, Allison probably would've died from the blood loss of this grievous injury.
"So, feeling hungry? I don't know for you, but it feels like I haven't eaten for a day."
"Now that you mention it... Yea, I guess I could use something to eat." After the chaos of the game, it was sort of odd for Allison to notice something that seemed so trivial in comparison. Allison welcomed that triviality, it would hopefully keep her mind on something a bit better than the world around her.
There was another awkward pause and Allison hesitated to fill the silence. Something deep down was yelling at her to say something, to tell Angel how much she appreciated talking to her, how great she was, and a myriad of other compliments that she was sure would seem odd, considering how little Allison and Angel had really interacted, and how little they knew about each other. Allison awkwardly motioned for Angel to lead the way.
"You know, we don't really know much about each other, do we?"
Angel nodded affirmatively as she took the lead forward, heading to the cafeteria area. "Yes, you're right. I suppose things have been going so fast since our arrival, we barely even have time to stop and get to know everyone."
Indeed. So far, every people she met was by pure coincidence. She interacted with a few of her classmates already, but never really did get to know them at all. It felt just like back in school. At first, one would meet their future friends as they get paired into group projects, then if everything went well, those partners would discover similar passions they share, then would become friends over time. As cruel as this 'school' was, could it be the staff had this kind of plan all along? A tight-knit group of Subnaturals who get along well with each-other surely was more efficient than simply throwing random Subnaturals together against monsters?
"I'm sure we'll have plenty more chances to catch up. I mean, I'd like to know more about you. You seem to be a likeable quiet person. Maybe it was fate that brought me to cry on your shoulder that night." Angel chuckled in slight embarrassment. Oh, just how much of a mess she must've looked like that night. Hardly the best of first impressions, she had to admit.
"Yea" Allison said with a slight chuckle. That night was an odd one, witnessing the deaths of strangers, and then hugging and crying with a stranger over it later. Allison doubted she would be able to forget it, not just for the sight of someone crumpling lifelessly to the floor in front of her, but for how captivating and odd Angel was. The girl who would cry into a stranger's shoulder, and befriend a complete nobody. "Huh, I don't think I've ever been called quiet before." Allison smiled. "And if there's anything you want to know about me, ask any time."
"Sure!" Angel smiled cheerfully in turn. Before they knew it, the Aberration neighbors reached the cafeteria and settled down with their plates of food somewhere not too crowded in the dining hall. Feeling particularly hungry after that much action, Angélique had chosen two slices of juicy steaks, accompanied with a large portion of steam-cooked vegetables.
"So, did you think about what you'll be doing here, how to use your free week?" the raven-haired young woman asked after finishing her bite.
"No, not really. Haven't had the time to think about it, I guess. Any idea what you'll be doing?" Allison shoveled a forkful of rice and chicken into her face as soon as she finished her question.
"I don't really know either. I've started a routine of morning jogging recently. I might stick to that. Maybe visit the gym afterwards, while I'm still warmed up from jogging? I guess trying to figure out what I can and can't do with my power would be something good to do. I'm still very new to the whole Mage deal, and I haven't got the time since... my awakening... to test how exactly it works." Angel spoke reluctantly when she came down to the 'awakening' part. Ever since the incident, she barely had the time to stop and think about all this. She was just shoved from one place to another until she arrived at USARILN.
"Figuring out I might as well try and occupy my thoughts at something. The less I think about this place, the better." Angélique finished before cutting another slice of meat and shoving it in her mouth.
"That sounds pretty good. Maybe I'll join you for a morning jog or two, if you'll have me, of course." Allison shoveled more food into her mouth before continuing. " Other than that, though, hmm... I could get back in to some old hobbies, I could probably find a guitar if I looked around..." Allison trailed off, her voice quieting to a low mutter as she thought aloud.
"I'll be glad to." Angel answered to Allison's proposal. At the mention of her friend thinking aloud about playing guitar being a hobby, the raven-haired musician's eyes beamed with joy. "You play the guitar too? Girl, you're just, like, totally awesome!" Angel giggled excitedly at the possibility of having someone else to play music with.
"I've bought one when we went on our shopping trip last time. Well, actually, Siena did when she saw me eyeing that limited edition Gibson electric and acoustic guitar hybrid model that just came out this summer. I'm telling you girl, the sound that comes from this thing is exquisite. I still can't believe Siena just gifted it to me as if it was a cheap toy. That guitar is super expensive. Like, totally what the most renowned guitarists can afford." The sonic Mage explained with an unusual brightness in her cheerful emerald eyes that could be seen from the cracks in her shades.
"If you feel like it, why not come into my room and give it a try? I'm eager to hear what you play."
"No, no!" Allison waved her hands in protest, forcing down a bite of food. "I barely know anything, and I haven't practiced in a long time." It had been over a year since Allison had even touched the instrument, and she hadn't been taught much at the time. Allison couldn't recall Tommy ever being a good teacher.
Although it came a bit as a downer, Angélique's will remained undeterred towards a potential musician friend. Even though Allison might be a novice, it would be fun to have someone to play with in the future. Who knows, maybe they could even be a duo, playing in class.
"Well, knowing we're going to be stuck in here for a while, now does seem to be a good time to learn more and get back into it." Angel chuckled slightly, realizing she was just repeating what the girl in front of her just said. "Maybe I could help you get back into it? Have a few evening lessons? I mean, if you want to. That could be pretty fun."
Allison's face lit up at the suggestion. Allison wasn't going to turn down hanging out with Angel, especially when it would give her a chance to get back into playing the guitar and possibly learn more about her friend.
"That sounds great! I guess you're some sort of guitar expert, or something then?" Allison joked.
Midway from cutting what was left of her meal, Angel's silverware trailed off on the plate, letting out an unpleasant screech. As much as the fallen singer tried to keep a low profile on her identity here on the campus, it would seem her outgoing personality did quite the opposite. Already, she was giving out hints of her musical career. First to Brent, now to Allison. Soon, the whole campus would know if this was keeping up like this. The thought of having nosy Mages ask about her and the accident in Montréal was making her more than nervous.
Angel chuckled nervously to her friend's joke. "M-maybe something like that?"
Angel's response seemed slightly off, but Allison didn't dwell on it. It was nice to know that they shared an interest, even if one of them was just a novice at it. The two of them sat in awkward silence for a moment, Allison picking at the remnants of her food.
"So," Allison said, diverting the conversation. "Anything you want to know about me?"
Nearly finishing up with her vegetables, Angel rose her head up in surprise. That discussion had just way too many awkward silences. Was she pushing too hard in trying to be friend with Allison? She wanted to know a bit more about the girl, but the raven-haired Aberration didn't want to make the brunette feel uncomfortable.
"Well... hm,... What were you doing before coming here? I mean, were you working as a model or something?"
Bad. This kind of talk was just asking for Allison to return the question right back at Angel. She wasn't ready to tell her she had been a popular singer and guitarist before she ended up killing people with her powers. She had to find something else to ask about,
"No wait! That's too personal. Probably not something you'd want to discuss right now. How about the things you like? The hobbies you were speaking of earlier?"
Allison prepared to think on Angel's first question, and she blushed slightly at the question of if she worked as a model, but was somewhat relived when Angel changed her mind. Allison was fine with Angel thinking she was a model before coming here, it sure beat the truth.
"My hobbies, huh?" Allison leaned her head on her hand, resting her elbow on the table as she contemplated. "Well, I guess it's more like a bunch of things I did a few times before moving onto the next, especially when I was a kid." Her face fell into a frown for a moment with the thought of her childhood. "I was really into painting for a few years, to the point where my parents had hung up my terrible work on the walls." Her expression rose into a half-hearted smile. " After that I was obsessed with writing. I don't do that much anymore, but certainly more than painting." She let out a slight chuckle. " My biggest 'hobby' though? Probably dating. Don't know if there was a time in teens when I wasn't dating." She joked, though immediately contorted into surprise at what she just said, and she swiftly tried to change the subject "Anyway... anything else you want to know?"
Dating? That was an unusual kind of hobby. Was Allison the type of girl to swing from one guy to another? Well, she does have the looks to get the boys swooning at her feet. Angel wasn't sure what to think of that, but seeing just how Allison was quick to change the subject, the black-haired songstress wouldn't dig any deeper into the subject.
Angel pondered over what else there would be to ask about Allison. The more their talk went on, the more it felt like an interview, something Angel had been quite familiar with. "You said you learned a bit about playing guitar. What kind of music do you like? What genre made you want to pick up an instrument and play?"
"I guess I like a bit of everything? I've not got much of a preference. I don't think I was really inspired by a genre. More that it seemed like fun, and I had nothing but time to fill. I guess it helped that my girlfriend at the time was a bit obsessed with the guitar." Allison let old memories flow through her head for a moment, before realizing what she had said. She kept calm, her face relaxed, though she hoped that Angel wouldn't pry much on that aspect.
It took Angelique a bit by surprise to hear Allison had been going out with a girl before, but she looked overall unfazed by the sudden statement. After all, the now-infamous rockstar went to many places and met all kinds of people. In this day and age, homosexuality isn't as frowned upon as in the old days. Angel had her fair share of female fans flirting with her. Not that it bothered her much though, but having a relationship while traveling overseas was a bad idea at the time. Still, the obsidian-haired Mage respected those people for being so open about their sexuality despite all the nay say.
Realizing Allison was being this much honest, Angel did feel a bit ashamed to try and hide a lot of herself from her friend. "I see. I've been pretty much like that when I was younger. My parents were big music fans, of all genres. I suppose I got their love of music passed down on me." The musician chuckled slightly. "I started out listening, playing and singing about everything I liked. But then my tastes turned out to be a bit more specific as I grew older. Now? I like rock - both modern and classic - metal and a bit of blues and country from time to time." Angel explained with obvious passion about her musical preferences. Through the cracked lens of her shades, a small glint was shining brightly into her vivid green eyes.
Allison listened intently to her friend speak, absorbed by the obvious love she had for the topic. The brunette was almost envious of Angel's passion for music, being so easily absorbed in something. Allison liked music, sure, but not even close to the level that Angel did. Music clearly played a big part in her life, and the joy that seeped out from the girl seemed to crawl across the table and infect Allison a bit.
"Classic rock... That's what my dad used to listen to. And when I say classic, I mean CLASSIC. He wouldn't listen to anything from after the 1980s. He would blare the stuff for hours on end while he worked, to the point where I would bang on the door to his studio until he turned it down." Allison giggled slightly as she spoke. "Often, I would wake up to find that I had fallen asleep at the door." It was a ridiculous set of memories, but some of the few truly fond ones of her father. "He was an odd man, my father. To this day I still don't know whether I love or hate classic rock." Her face glistened with fondness, her eyes glowing with nostalgia. "I guess we're kind of opposites, then? You grew up listening to everything, but ended up liking mostly one genre. I grew up listening to one, and grew to like everything. An interesting coincidence."
In turn, as Allison spoke a bit of her past, Angélique was captivated by the tale. It did sounded like her parents alright. It was fun to have someone... she could relate to? Opposites in style they may be, but that's probably the reason Angel grew ever more interested in knowing about the other Aberration in front of her, this room neighbor of hers. Seeing Allison's face radiating of nostalgic fondness, the young singing woman couldn't help but keep on smiling cheerfully.
"Tell me about it! I remember my parents always playing the same damn saxophone song all evening long until I fell asleep. The Moment, from Kenny G, I believe it was called? It was something quite soothing to hear. Sometimes I wish I learnt to play the sax just so I could make a cover of this song."
Angélique paused, giggling to herself from just how close those days seemed to be. And yet, they were from a long time ago, a time Angel didn't think her parents were simply just using her for fame and money. Reflecting upon Allison's words, it was indeed an interesting coincidence. Or was it?
"Yes... it is. Perhaps not. Who knows? Do you think Dreamcatcher, or whatever gave us these powers, had a plan in mind?"
Allison smiled at Angel's story, and was immediately thrown into thought at her question. Was it all fate, Dreamcatcher hatching some great scheme by giving people powers, by unleashing monsters upon the world, by allowing such a chaotic world to exist? If Dreamcatcher really did have a plan with all of it, it wasn't a great one, at least not for those suffering because of it. Maybe it was better to think that there was no plan, no great design, to allow some faith in Dreamcatcher to remain, rather than solidifying the being as truly and wholly malevolent.
Though, if Dreamcatcher really did have a plan with all of this chaos, what could it be? What could justify the suffering and deaths of millions? Was the suffering itself the plan, was Dreamcatcher out to watch man suffer? And what of the nature of the powers? Why were they gained in the way that the were, a single choice determining everything about your curse of an ability. Why did people gain the abilities that they did? Why could Allison summon the shard, why could Angel scream death, why could Chris become a dragon, and Zoe rot flesh? Was it for some greater purpose? Some divine accident out of Dreamcatcher's hands? Were they all just part of some sick game? Allison only had one answer.
"I don't know." The truth was beyond all of them, as to the nature of the situation. "We can speculate on the idea of a great plan, on the idea of a grand fate, but it doesn't change that we don't know. It all depends on the nature of Dreamcatcher, I guess." Allison sat in silence for a moment, sipping from a glass of water. "Angel," She said, most of the previous warmth drained from her contemplative tone. "Do you believe in good and evil?"
Angel slid her plate aside as she was hearing out Allison's answer, setting her chin onto the back of her two hands. It was strange, to have shifted from memories of the past to speculations of an uncertain future. It had caught the singer by surprise to see her friend becoming so serious all of a sudden. She could feel a chill run down her spine as her name was called, and by the question that followed.
The raven-haired X-marked remained silent for a bit, pondering over the question. "I don't know for certain, but I believe not everything is black and white. Deeds of kindness against acts of villainy. In the end, those are choices, mostly for one's own benefits or satisfaction. No, I don't think I believe in those concepts."
Angélique paused, taking off her damaged shades and looking at the shadowy reflection of herself into the smoky lenses. Choices. That's what had made her who she was today. Could she say she was evil for having taken the wrong path and becoming an Aberration? Of course not. Beyond the desire to destroy , she had an ulterior motive to the destruction, some noble purpose she tried to convince herself of.
"Why this question all of a sudden? What do you think about it?"
"It's just... It's the sort of thing I've been asking myself for a while. Why do people act as they do? What motivates them? What are they working towards? It always comes back to the question of good and evil. I want so badly to believe that there is an ultimate good, that truly good people exist, but..." Allison paused, staring at the glass of water. She suddenly placed the glass down, shaking her head. "Sorry, I got carried away there, ruined the mood." She stared down at the empty plate before her.
Angel had quickly stumbled back into a less relaxed state when Allison seemingly loss herself into fervently speaking out her beliefs. In a sense, the ex-musician could understand what the brunette was saying. Who wouldn't wish for an existing greater good? It was an utopic belief, but that was something Angel believed people tried so hard to strive for, for their own moral satisfaction.
"Please, don't be. It's my fault for having brought up some philosophical discussion to our friendly talk." Angel looked at Allison, seeing only but a blurred visage with her now-dark forest green eyes before she realized she still had her shades in hands.
There was yet another silence that fell onto the two Aberration girls' discussion. After downing her glass of grape juice, the black-haired singer put back her shades in place and coughed slightly. "You must be tired, after what you been through today. How about returning to the dorms, to relax?"
"Sure. No reason to stay in the cafeteria, at least." Allison said, getting up from her seat. She looked down at her bare feet, still mourning the loss of her shoes. She would need to get those replaced in the morning.
Agreeing, Angel nodded and left her tray onto the table. Clerks would just clean that up, right? Soon enough, the two girls would find themselves on the third floor of the Aberration dorms, in-between the two doors that were Allison's and Angel's rooms.
"So, uh, do you want to call it a night? Or perhaps... we could hang out for a bit in my room, play a little bit of music while it's not too late?"
"That..." Allison hesitated for a moment. Half of Allison wanted to run back to her room and scream into a pillow, her emotions churning after the conversation, but the other half didn't want to pass up more time with Angel. "... Sure, hanging out sounds good." The brunette followed Angel into her room.
For a part of the evening, both girls quietly enjoyed the sound of the guitar playing from the expert hands of the raven-haired musician and a few passable parts from the brunette novice. Most of the discussions the two were having was about how to properly play one part, how to chain certain notes together, finger placements and other small pieces of advices Angélique shared with glee to her friend.
After both enjoyed this enchanting musical session, Angel had placed her guitar back into its expensive case and escorted Allison back into the hallway.
"Thanks for keeping me company tonight. I... needed that, after what happened today. It was fun. we should do that more often, if you enjoyed yourself too."
"Definitely. Haven't had that much fun in a long time. Thank you." Allison smiled, looking at her friend, who's expression undoubtedly matched her own. She let silence take over for a moment, that night seemed to be full of moments like that, though this one much more happy than the previous. Allison felt her thoughts creeping up from the back of her mind, she had been holding herself back all night, her stigma gradually returning in strength over time, at least she assumed it was her stigma. She let that silence hang, fighting with herself over what to do. Just turning around and walking away wasn't an option. Allison leaned in to hug her friend.
Just as if it was a natural thing to do between friends, Angel reached out for the girl with open arms, embracing her softly. After taking this blissful moment of silence in each other's warmth, Angélique gave a delicate pat on her friend's back.
"If there's anything bothering you, or just want to talk, my door is always open for you." Angel whispered, not wanting to break the silence as she was enthralled by how quiet this cherished moment was.
Allison savored that moment for as long as she could, taking in every aspect of it. The quiet air, the warmth pressed against her, and the overwhelming happiness of the moment, it almost drowned out the depressing state of their situation. If only that moment could last forever.
"Thank you." Allison whispered, before letting go. "Goodnight." Allison walked back to her room, the warmth of the hug still clinging to her as she opened the door. Normal friends didn't hug sentimentally the first few times they hang out, Allison was sure of that. She was happy for that lack of normalcy though, she needed it just as much as she needed the mundane conversation. Though, Allison also needed sleep, which hit her with a wave of tiredness as soon she flopped onto her bed, leaving that night as a memory.
"Good night" Angélique replied in kind as she looked back at her friend going back to her room. For a few minutes, Angel stood there, pensive, before going back into her room. Looking at the clock on her phone, it was getting late, although there was still time before the curfew. There were things Angel wanted to do before heading off to sleep.
By now, the aching in her body and the pain were all but gone. Inside her room, the black-haired young woman had removed the bloodied bandages wrapped around her shoulders to reveal smooth but dirtied skin, revealing nothing really out of the ordinary from her body, as if nothing ever happened in the first place. Truly, the healing powers of some of her classmates truly were astonishing. Remembering about the injuries she sustained today, she still hasn’t properly thanked Christmas for bringing her and the others back into shape. Angel took a mental note of thanking him the next time the cross each other.
Removing the now lukewarm compresses from her sides, the screamer Mage figured that most of this probably would have been avoided if she had been smart like Brent had been and requested protective like her fellow classmate did. Thankfully, her newly purchased clothes were still intact, if only a bit dirtied from today’s events. However, the same could not be said of her shades, which got damaged from being thrown off her face so often. With a crack in the left lens and the mount askew, they were barely functional now.
With that much in mind, Angel left her room to head towards the registrar’s office. Once, again, she was greeted by the same office lady who had taken care of her previous request forms and the letters she had sent to the other members of Green Team. Acknowledging the Subnatural’s presence in front of her desk, the woman raised her head from her paperwork.
“What would you require today?”
“I need to request more gear. Got any more of those papers they gave us?”
Without a word, the office lady opened a drawer next to her, browsing for a few seconds before retrieving a document and handing it to the raven-haired young woman.
“Bring it back whenever you are done if you want to get your request over earl-“
The secretary cut herself off when Angélique leaned over the desk and grabbed a pen from her metal case. She apparently tried her best to look unfazed by this display of rudeness. She silently watched as the X-marked on the other side of her desk swiftly filled out the request form and handed it back to the registrar staff woman. Looking over what had been requested, she looked towards the late teenager.
“For the first part of your request, you can expect it to be delivered to your room tomorrow. As for the second part, I can only point you towards the campus’ hospital. We do have an optometrist available, so you’d have to go there and get yourself an appointment. Lastly, expect your last request to be delivered by the end of the week.”
“Very well. Thanks.”
Angel nodded and left the registrar’s office. It was getting late, but surely the hospital staff was still around? From what it looked like the first time she was brought in there, infirmaries looked busy at all time.
Without hesitating much, the Aberration’s feet brought her to the hospital secretary’s office, located at the entrance of the institute. A blond woman dressed formally for office work simply stood there, looking bored as ever as she watched the mural clock ticking.
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything important.”
The secretary almost jumped from her wheeled chair in surprise, spinning it around to face the X-marked that had arrived in front of her desk.
“No no! I… was just taking a break! Is there something I can help you with?”
“Yes, actually. I’ve heard this hospital has an optometrist. I’d like an appointment with them, as soon as possible.”
Angélique emphasized much on the urgency as she took her shades off her face and deposited them on the desk, right in front of the secretary. At first, the blond woman was about to point out that this was no fashion store, until she noticed something peculiar about the sunglasses during her inspection.
“I see… Well Dr. Spencer isn’t available for the rest of the day. I can however set up an appointment for…” The hospital office young lady trailed off as she searched through her personnel directory. “Tomorrow afternoon at the earliest. Would you like to meet him for an eyes check-up at 1 PM tomorrow? ”
“If it’s the earliest I can get, yeah.”
“Good. Appointment at 1 PM for Dr. Spencer for ocular examination for Miss…?”
“Angélique Lachance.”
“Miss Lachance it is then. You are one of the newest arrivals, aren’t you? Heard Benediction came personally to heal your group after your first mission. Is he as impressive as the rumors tell?”
Angel sighed and simply turned around after ushering a faint “Thanks.” She wasn’t interested talking about Benedick. She got what she came for, no point in staying around any further. Hospitals were places she’d rather keep her presence short anyways.
It had been a long and exhausting day, mentally and physically. Angélique couldn’t, or rather wouldn’t want to remember the last time she attended a full day of classes, not to mention the grueling team battle simulation they went through just about a few hours earlier. Although her body and spirit yearned for some deserved rest at this late hour in the evening, Angel’s mind was still restless, thinking over the discussion she had with Fredric earlier today. His smug smile and his attitude was still getting under her skin, even more so than the blatant refusal of answering her questions about Aaron’s whereabouts. He didn’t attend any of today’s first classes, and he didn’t show up at the ‘game’ either. Hell, she didn’t even see the brown-haired boy at all throughout the day, which was even stranger considering the past few days they always crossed path and he always asked her if they could hang around. This whole situation reeked, and despite the tall overseer’s warning, she needed answers.
About an hour before curfew, a time when Subnaturals where pretty much all back into their dorms, Angel’s footsteps led her to the Arbiter dorms, in front of suite 225. Thankfully, everyone’s room and suite numbers were written on the papers she had received this morning, because she was no good with numbers and had forgotten about everyone’s room numbers that she had learnt a few days ago after the shopping trip. But she remembered well Aaron telling her about his roommates, having been Alexis and Chris.
While she really didn’t want to talk to the white-haired young man after what had happened this afternoon, Angélique was willing to put her grudge aside for this situation. Right now, Christopher was the only viable source of information who may have actually seen Aaron for the last time. Perhaps he didn’t know anything, but he was the only lead she had so far.
Knocking on the door thrice, the black-haired X-marked hoped both Chris and his new roommate were not asleep at this time and would be able to hear her outside. Last thing she wanted before going to her room for the curfew was to spend an hour in front of an unresponsive door.
Chris opened the door slowly, his pale arm was the first thing that was visable from within the room, then later his face had partially come into view. A blue eye had focused its gaze on Angelique's. "Yes?"He asked, though it resembled his typical standoffish tone, there was a hint of shaking within his voice.
Angel wasn't sure if she had caught Chris at a bad time, considering how... shaky he sounded? Still, she needed answers tonight. "I was wondering if you had seen Aaron today. He didn't show up in class, neither did he at the 'game'. Hell, I didn't even see him at all all throughout the day. You're his roomate, right? Surely you must know something." the Aberration girl's voice seemed insistant, as if she was at wit's end,
Chris's face turned utterly white. His stubborn persona shattered which revealed a look of unresting concern and terror. The bags under his eyes had become more noticable. "N-no he was just..here one night, but he wasn't here the following morning." Chris hesitated. "If I recall the guards broke in to collect his stuff. I-I didn't ask or anything but..." His face turned even more grim. "F-first Alexis, then Aaron, and now Rain" There was another pause. "Angelique, I..Am I next?"
The raven-haired musician's expression had turned into a frown when she heard about what had happened this morning. So that's what all the commotion was about this morning. Just what were they hiding from everyone about Aaron's whereabouts?
Her face however quickly changed to concern as she saw the usually cold and distant Christopher turning into a broken down mess by the disappearance of all of his roomates. Rain? Was that the name of the pink-haired androgynous person that had been sitting with Chris earlier today during the game? Were they the cause of the commotion earlier when they were about to leave Ground Zero? That would explain all the guards, Daisy crying her soul out and Fredric snapping at everyone to leave.
Deciding it was not wise to push the matter any further, considering Chris' state, Angel tried to push aside the grudge she had against the silver-haired young man and put a comforting hand onto the shapeshifting Mage's shoulder.
"Easy there. Relax. It surely must be some sick twist of fate or coincidence." Angel paused, mustering all the calm and comfort she wanted to inspire, despite her own growing restlessness. "As long as you don't do anything stupid in here, cooperate with the others should we go back in battle one day and stay strong, you're not going anywhere. You're one of the strongest people there is in our class."
"You just need to remain calm and collected, like your usual self. Although we could make it without you being cold and pushing others away from you." Angelique chuckled sightly. "We don't need to be friends, but that doesn't mean we can't all get along and cooperate. We need to stay together, for everyone's sake."
Chris had taken a moment to absorb the reassurance Angel provided. With a deep breathe, he replied; "You're right.." He paused. "I-I'm sorry for acting rude before." The realization had finally sunk into Chris. His previous strategy of pushing people away was damaging, the loneliness he now felt coupled with the death of his own roommates had caused him to feel terror. The same terror he felt the day he was cursed. It was Angel's reasoning that broke the camel's back. He wanted to survive. "I'm done running." He muttered under his breathe.
"I won't push you guys away any more." Chris returned a determined look to Angelique. "With that out of the way, is there anything else I can help you with?"
Hearing Chris get back into the right track of mind, Angélique offered a heartfelt smile at the shapeshifting Mage. She was glad he opened himself up like this, and accepted her advices in this way. This resolution, that's what they all needed to survive here, after all. Returning back to the matter for which she came for in the first place, her facial traits turned more a more serious expression, however hinting a softness that wasn't present when she had knocked on Chris' door.
"Well, you've said they took Aaron's stuff this morning? So something must've happened overnight. Wasn't he in your room that night? Or maybe you know where he went last time you saw him?"
Chris thought for a moment. "The memory is a bit fuzzy, he may have left the room by himself that night but I wasn't paying attention, to be honest." He shrugged. "I don't have a clue where he'd go, but I have a hunch he may have tried to escape or something...You asked around with the guards n shit right?"
Angel remained silent, looking pensive. Aaron didn't strike her as someone who would try to escape just like that. The brown-haired boy was level-headed. There's no way he would've just tried to escape with his level of power and all the restrictions put on the students. This hypothesis brought back in mind the conversation she had managed to spark on the Death and Taxes chatroom. The theory that he would've managed to escape had been suggested there as well. And there was this Hector person who seemed to know about something, despite the warning that he liked to rile things up.
"I directly asked Fredric about it. I had no luck with him. Dickhead just wouldn't want to spill the beans. He knows. They know. But they don't want to say anything about it."
Chris shook his head. "Well regardless of what happened to him, I don't think he'll be coming back." He had another pause, it was hard to muster those words. "Still, whatever happened it happened because he wandered off on his own for whatever reason."
"Still... that's a classmate we are talking about. Just how many disappearances will it take before we stand up to ourselves and act? I'll admit, we're far from being able to fend off for ourselves. Hell, even the Precursors can't escape from their grasp..." Angel trailed off, realizing her anger against this place was getting the best over her judgement. She should stop, before saying and doing things that she'd regret, end up disappearing like many did already. "Sorry... I'm just tired of all this shit. Seeing people disappear one after the other, wondering, like you did earlier, when will it be my turn. The stress of waking up one day and going to battle against monsters we are unprepared for, seeing more people die."
After a pause, Angel realized how much of a downer she was becoming. She just managed to somehow get Chris back up on his moral feet, it would be pointless to have done so if she just started showing weakness into her own resolve.
"I should go. It's getting late, and I believe I'm not thinking clearly things through." the Aberration turned, looking somewhat sour. After taking a few steps forward, she stopped in her tracks.
"Having this talk doesn't make us friends." She spoke with an exaggerating attempt at imitating Chris during the dinner Angel made for Green Team. "If you ever want to talk about something, or get something off your system, my door is open to anyone." the girl gave a faint hint of a smile before walking away from Christopher's room.
Chris understood her worry, but had said nothing more to add to her fustration. However, when she imitated his words from before, the arbiter couldn't help but give a half-smile back to Angelique. "Sure, sure, I don't mind being friends though." He spoke as she walked away. The conversation had lifted a burden Chris had been dragging. Her words had sunk into the fact that he can not continue to survive or be absolved of his sins if he lets himself rot away alone. He looked forward to the next time he'd seen her, while he had slowly closed the door.
While it may have been a free day of class for everybody in Experimental Unit B, Angélique had intended to make use of the privilege she had been granted for having won the supposed game of Flag n' Seek. After what she went through yesterday afternoon, she realized that it would be best for her to use a whole week free of classes to train her body and understand her new powers better instead of sitting around uselessly mopping about how her life sucked. For the sake of the new friends she had made, her partners and classmates, and those who had died, she needed to become stronger, both mentally and physically, become someone everyone could rely on and look up to once more so that she could protect them.
After taking a thirty minutes break from her jogging routine, Angélique headed towards the gym. While it may seemed quaint to delve into hand-to-hand combat training, considering they were up against monsters that could most likely shrug off such attacks, it had been an activity, like jogging, the raven haired- X-marked had grown fond of doing by force of habits. In the locker room, wrapping bandages around her feet and now bare feet, the young woman Mage remembered how she came to practice kickboxing.
It had all happened after one rough day at work. Back then, she had been about 15 years old, at the time she was just about starting giving shows and concerts. She had met her fair share of weirdos, but it never went as badly as that group of young adults who wanted to meet her backstage. She could remember the feeling of being cornered helplessly as they ganged up on her. Fortunately, the head of her security team had been searching for her, and found a crying Angel about to be assaulted by a group of teenagers-just-about-turning-up-adults. In a matter of a minute, the experienced bodyguard had kicked all of their asses in style just before calling the police and bringing the traumatized singer back into her room.
After that incident, Angel had decided to learn about self-defense, so that anything of that sort would happen to herself, or anyone else for that matter. Since that time, her head of security personnel became a good friend and a mentor to her, until the time he had to resign from his position due to internal conflict with the band's management. She had always been grateful for his kindness, the patience to teach a completely newbie to the arts of kickboxing and his years of service in assuring her safety.
Now that things had become rough for her again, maybe it was time to return to this old habit of hers. At the back of the gym, there were punching bags and dummies to practice on. Heading there, Angélique readied herself into a fighting stance, before launching vicious strikes at the bags. At first, her strikes seemed dulled by lack of practice, but as time went on, her punches and kicks showed their previous experience, becoming more methodical. It was always the same motion for a while: one punch followed by one kick, always aimed at the same point until it changed into a more complex series of punches and kicks. A mix of hard rock and metal-esque music filled the atmosphere in this part of the gym as the fighting initiate's phone was set up nearby to broadcast her playlist during her training.
The gym was a lot fancier than anything West had ever offered. Guess students had to be in tip-top shape, with the constant monster attacks and all. Ernie had just gotten back from handing in his requisition form.
Ironing stuff. A nice iron for clothes, and a board. Or just one of those portable mats is fine too. Pencils, pens and all that. Mini fridge. Saw other people getting some. I want one too. New work boots. Leather, non-slip, steel-toed. Buy me a fancy one please. Rock-climbing equipment. Harnesses, carabiners, rope (lots of rope), belays (ascenders/descenders), ice axe. Grappling hook?? I copied all this down from a website so don't expect me to know how to use any of this, haha.
The office had been easy enough to find, thanks to the map he'd... acquired the day before. After that, he'd decided to explore the campus. If he was going to be living in this prison until a monster splashed his guts, he'd better get familiarized with it. After that mess of a first day, it seemed a good time as any to take a relaxing walk around the school. So he'd entered the building closest to his dorm, lured in by music reminiscent of the radio back in Reno. And wow, if he'd known who he was going to find in there, he would have prepared a speech or something. There was no doubt about her identity now, not like in the classroom yesterday. The video of the first game and a flip through the profile folder had confirmed it. Standing in the gym, expertly throttling a punching bag, was international rock star, Angelique Lachance. Ernie swallowed. Jesus crap, what was he gonna say?
"Your punches look really cool!" he blurted.
The black-haired girl stopped after delivered a high punch, interrupting her series as soon as she heard someone talking right behind her, amidst the loud music. She turned to her phone to shut pause the surrounding melodic noise to better hear the person standing next to her.
When her head came to face the young man who was speaking to her, a slight frown was etched on Angel's face as she realized who her speaker was. It was the guy who had clubbed Allison to the face during the game yesterday. In all honesty, Angélique was still holding a grudge deep inside for having done that to her friend, as much as she tried to put it past them and blame it on the higher-ups for putting so much Aberrations in the same matchup.
"Sorry, didn't hear you. You were saying?"
Ernie froze up. Was she angry at him? Why was she frowning? Did she usually frown? Resting bitch face was a thing, right? Maybe she didn't like that he interrupted her training. He tried again.
"Uh, I meant... Your kickboxing is really cool! I didn't know you knew how to do that."
“Oh, it’s no biggie. Simply a hobby I picked up from a friend of mine. You know, helps with venting out pent up stress and keep troublesome idiots at bay. Well, not that it would matter against monsters, in our current situation, but who knows. Might come in handy someday. That and it also keeps me in shape.”
Angélique replied openly, although leaving in the dark the real reason behind how she started taking kickboxing lessons from her so-called “friend”. Underneath her shades, her eyes analyzed her Aberration classmate. From the looks of it, he didn’t seem to be the kind of a guy to frequently train in the gym.
“So, what brings you all the way here… Ernest, was it? Coming to train some more at targeting faces?”
"Oh. Just call me Ernie, everyone does that," he scratched his head and cringed at her last jab, "No, no more face smashings. That was a bad idea."
Only because he got tazed for it. If he were in that same situation with the same amount of information at that time, he would've stabbed her in the gut instead.
"I didn't really come here to train. I saw you in here and wanted to meet you."
"I see..."
Angel didn't really know what to reply to this. Sure, she was eager to meet her classmates and know a bit more about them. But right now, while she was training? It was hard for her to figure out what she could say in the middle of her things. Plus, it would be a lie to say she was looking forward to speak to a guy who bashed her friend's eyes voluntarily with a table leg.
Sighing, the sweaty young woman grabbed a water bottle she left behind on a nearby bench and sat on the ground, back against the wall. She might as well take the time to speak to her classmate while taking a deserved break.
"So, are you new around here? I don't think I saw you of the damned bus ride that led us here."
"I only got here yesterday. Got transferred from West," Ernie chuckled bitterly, "That was one heckuva first day for me."
"Transferred from West? Hmm... that's interesting. You wouldn't have heard anything about a boy from our class being transferred to West, would you?" Ernie's answer made Angel remember someone suggesting the possibility that Aaron might've been transferred in place of a new transfer student.
"I don't think East would be transferring anyone out. We only got shipped here cos of a shortage, after all. West has way too many kids to call for a transfer, even if it's only one dude."
Ernie walked around the nearest machines, idly examining the instruction plates. He recalled one person in the folder not being present during the games.
"The boy from our class. Was it that Aaron guy?"
Angélique once again sighed sadly. Was there really no clue as to where Aaron would've gone to, or what happened to him the night before yesterday? The more she tried to investigate, the more short-comings she was facing. It started to feel like a lost cause at some point.
"Yeah... I can't seem to find him anywhere anymore. We used to bump into each other every day. Since yesterday, not even his roommate knows where he is. His stuff isn't even in his room anymore."
He'd gotten a few days notice before his transfer. If Aaron was moved to Central or even West, people would have known about it.
"His stuff got taken? That only happens for dead kids back at West. Not that many people are dumb enough to get themselves killed over there. But who knows? Maybe his powers were super strong and they took him to a top secret facility. For experiments and stuff."
At the mention of the "being dead" part, Angel dropped her bottle of water, splashing the ground beneath her. No, it was impossible. How the hell would Aaron be killed without USARILN noticing it? Maybe they did it? No, that wasn't the case either. Aaron didn't seem to be the type of kid to just try and run away. He was a smart kid; he would've known trying to escape or get into troubles with the authority would have him end up in a terrible state. His powers weren't anything too special either. He was simply summoning clockwork machinery, hardly anything the higher-ups would lock the Arbiter for.
The whispers inside Angélique's mind began tormenting her as they called out her friend a liar, a coward, a good-for-nothing, a meaningless piece of human trash, a worthless waste unfit to be worried for. Suffering this mental assault, the raven-haired Aberration clenched her teeth and kept repeating to herself.
"No... this can't be. This isn't the truth. He's not like that."
"Woah!" Ernie jumped back at the sound of Angelique's bottle hitting the ground. He scooped it up immediately and hurriedly made his way to the towel station. Refilled the bottle for good measure too. A towel was used to soak up the spilt liquid while the bottle was tentatively placed beside the singer, who he could only assume was going through some sort of breakdown. Because of him. Crap, he needed to learn to not be so casual about this 'serious' stuff. Ernie had to admit, he was a bit jealous of this Aaron character from getting so much attention from Angelique Lachance. But this wasn't the time for that.
"Hey c'mon, it might not be that bad! I was just throwing theories around!" Ernie tried desperately to fix the situation. His brain wasn't offering any alternatives. Having his things taken from the room meant that the authorities at East weren't expecting him to come back. Maybe he needed to change the subject. Ernie pointed to his own X-mark.
"Is your Stigma okay? You seem a bit..." High-strung. "...upset."
The distressed-looking young woman, who could pass as a schizophrenic lass at this point, looked up to Ernest as he tried to explain himself, obviously just trying to reassure her. But even in those theories, there were truths, things that Angel would like to deny, but her logic mind and the incessant voices in her head tried to take them for granted possibilities.
Her head tilted to the side as Ernie pointed out his own X mark. Truly, she had never truly thought much about it before. She had read about Stigma on the Death and Taxes archives, but for something like that to emerge from someone else's mouth was sort of confusing to the sonic wave-creating Mage; it confused her to be asked something like that all of a sudden.
"I... don't know?" was all she managed to blurt out in her confused state of mind.
"Uhh...um..."
Ernie racked his brains furiously, searching for something to say. Reassuring distressed girls was definitely one of his worst skills, if his time at West was anything to go by. Was he supposed to pat her shoulder? Offer a drink? Amidst all the sudden panic, Ernie couldn't help but feel a tiny bit of disdain. Angel was supposed to be a modern-day goddess, an invincible rockstar. Seeing her suddenly so worked up over one guy, so unsure of even her Stigma...
What a disappointment.
"Maybe you should be spending more time at the Release Zone than the gym," Ernie worked to keep the cheeriness in his voice. He coaxed her water bottle back into her hands. "Smashing windows always helps me loosen up."
"Maybe..."
Angel repeated after Ernest. Was it however all there was of it, however? Slowly regaining her composure after hearing out what her classmate was suggesting her, she couldn't help but feel anger directed at herself. Was it who she was doomed to become? Someone who needs to go vent at Ground Zero whenever she feels down by the whispers in her head? Someone too weak-willed to withstand her own issues and let down her classmates because of it?
Looking over the mental breakdown she just showed in front of a classmate, a future potential teammate in the battles to come, she felt ashamed of herself. So much for trying to be the one people would look up to. She was instead being patronized by a guy who had smashed a friend's face without second thoughts.
Feeling the bottle of water returning to her hands, Angel shook up her head and quickly stood back onto her two feet.
"No... not maybe. You're wrong. Dead wrong. I don't need to fucking rely on such a place to kick myself back up. I just need to re-center myself, look back to my purpose."
Her stance flared up with some sort of renewed confidence. If only that train of thoughts would apply every time she felt herself being dragged down by her Stigma, she wouldn't look so miserable half the time. Maybe it was her own embarrassment to show that side of her to others that allowed herself to try and look more like a leader.
"I'm... sorry that you had to see this side of me. Sometimes, my Stigma, the never-ending whispers, are wearing me down. You should know, sharing this burden, however yours affect you." Angélique sincerely apologized, pointing at her mark.
Ernie had been fucking ready to snap back at her with just as much fire. She thought she was better than the Stigma. In a way, it made Ernie feel like she was mocking him for all the ways his Stigma dictated his actions.
It really pissed him off.
Part of him wanted to yell back and mock her for failing to find Aaron. Part of him wanted to goad her on, see how long she could go before losing it and crawling all the way to Ground Zero. He wanted to see her fail, come face to face with every aspect of her weakness. But then she stood, and Ernie was reminded of all the reasons he'd admired her in the first place. That reassuring confidence. It was like seeing her on stage again. Ernie had only seen a few videos on the internet but those were nothing compared to her presence in real life. His alarm at the sudden switch of her mood didn't matter. Her sincerity blew away any venom in his words. While he didn't agree with her views on Stigmas, he could respect her confidence.
"Um. Thanks. It's no problem, really. Us Aberrations gotta stick together, yeah? Gotta deal with the nonsense however we can."
"Yes, right you are. Not only us Aberrations. Us Subnaturals... no, Mages, got to stick together. Whatever this shitty school, or even Dreamcatcher itself, throws at us, we've got to watch each others' back and endure."
There were some hope in her words. Her days here might have been grim and dark for a few moments, but she had to remember the friends she had made here, those who also strived to protect. She wanted to be part of those people. Seeing Ernie agreeing with her mentality of sticking together made her see him in a new light. Perhaps he was simply misguided by pragmatism, but had a good soul? Who could blame him, living in a world such as theirs?
Ernie raised an eyebrow at her comment. Arbiters too? Sure, there were some cool Arbs like Brent out there. But there was a clear difference between the two mage types. The Senators had shown him that quite clearly. So fine, whatever. Ernie would just smile and nod. He didn't want to have to explain himself after spouting his beliefs.
"Yeah. Yeah, definitely."
Nodding affirmatively, Angel walked back to a training dummy, throwing a few punches aimed at various areas of the dummy's torso, more precisely towards the heart, the lungs and the stomach. "How long have you been in USARILN West? You seem to know a lot." Angel asked in-between two series of punches.
"Around seven months, I think. Got snagged in February."
Ernie was content to just sit on the bench for now. His eyes went distant at the mention of his past.
"You've only been here about a week, right? Like the others? The Montreal concert only happened recently, so I guess that makes sense."
At the sudden mention of the concert that changed everything in her life, Angel suddenly stopped. Her last punch had landed on the dummy's throat and stood there, immobilized dead it its track.
How the hell did he knew about that? Had news leaked into USARILN about this catastrophe? More importantly, Ernest had made the link between her name, her identity, and her popularity as a previously successful rockstar. And the most burning concern of hers, was he simply someone who had heard of her, or was he an actual fan?
The memories of the incident came flooding back into her mind, just like how she sometimes have nightmares at night about the whole gruesome scene. Angélique's face reddened, her body quivered, her teeth were chattering.
"I... Y-..." She tried to answer, to no avail. Her words were jammed in her throat from the intensity of the stress. Again, the whispers also came back full force, this time however insulting her with names like "murderer, butcher, psychopath" and the likes.
"Morning, Ernie, Angelic," Brent called out from across the room, as if he had just noticed them. Wiping the sweat off a bench with a towel, the Arbiter smiled at the familiar faces, ignored the mounting tension that the raven-haired x-girl was feeling and said, "How's it going? Didn't think you were the punch-y type and all."
"And geez, Ernie, you planning on actually lifting, or are you just going to take up space?"
He'd fucked up again. Ernie stiffened in his seat as he saw Angel visibly quiver. Fuck, why did he say that? He'd heard that the casualty count was alarming but he didn't think it'd be so severe to make her react like this. He made a mental note to never speak of the incident in front of her ever again. However, he couldn't help but feel the strange sense of delight from seeing the impact of just a few words. His Stigma felt better. But his conscience felt so much worse. This was one of his idols he accidentally triggered, after all.
"Angelique, are you--" He started, but was thankfully cut off by Brent's arrival. Thank god. He mustered a cheeky grin.
"Just exploring the school! Then I saw a classmate and wanted to chat. I'm not really a gym kind of guy."
Though he should start soon, considering his performance in the game yesterday.
Despite Brent’s arrival, Angélique was both blinded and deafened by her internal struggle. Her mind kept replaying the images of herself screaming a high-pitched note that was supposed to be the climax of her new song, only to watch in horror as the front row all dropping on the floor as if they were shot dead, and the ambient screams that filled the air of the horrified crowd. The silent ushering in the back of her head grew into a cacophonous symphony of accusations and guilt.
The once-more distressed Aberration was struggling to keep this all hidden underneath a fragile mask of serenity. Things took a turn for the worse however when she swore the training dummy he was punching on a minute earlier seemed to come to live, taking on the shape of this vaguely familiar figure she keep seeing in her visions, grinning at how miserable she looked.
You poor thing. Still being traumatized at what you did back there? That was only a glimpse of what you are truly capable of.
“I didn’t want this kind of thing to happen. I didn’t wish to have any of this.”
Are you sure? You took that path, Miss Popularity. You are the one who decided to walk down the path of destruction.”
“This isn’t true. All I wanted was to make music to gather people together in harmony, bring some more joy to this bleak world.”
And yet there you are, murderer. You killed those people. This is your calling, killer. You have to live with it, embrace it, become the power. Erase from existence everything that stands in your way.
Denying it, Angel wanted to scream no, but instead it came out as a sonic wave. Everything standing in front of her was blown with a force equivalent to someone punching all the bags and the dummies with great strength.
"Exploring the school? Shoulda dropped me a line," the amethyst-eyed youth replied, "For better or worse, I know a whole bunch of sket..."
His words died in his throat as he realized that this time, Angelic wasn't able to move on and brush it off. Weaker now? Or was the call of her Stigma stronger? No, that didn't make any sense, not after the beating she gave the dragon boy yesterday. Something else, related to her past then, a past that had to do with the 'Montreal concert'. Brent filed that away for later, before giving Ernie a look.
A superpowered scream forced all the dummies and sandbags to sway, before they swung back, undamaged. Not one of her murderous screams then. Not that unstable yet.
Brent looked around to the rest of the gym, a difficult expression forming. Placing a hand on her shoulder, he asked, "...you wanna get some fresh air?"
If she was going to scream at him, he'd rather have a hand close enough to slap that mouth sideways.
Ernie had fallen off the bench when the scream sent the dummies flying. The talking to herself thing was worrying enough. He didn't think she'd break down that far to cause such damage.
'Dead wrong', my ass.
He should have felt worse. He should have been thinking up an apology, or at least tried to be understanding. But all he could think was how right he was. He fucking told her. And he was right. When it came to Stigmas, arrogance and 'willpower' were deadly mistakes. Ernie felt a shocked laugh bark its way out from his throat, but clamped his hand over his mouth and feebly tried to hide it with a fake coughing fit. He thought it was hilarious when he did it to other people. He never wanted it to happen to Angelique. Even so, he couldn't stop himself from the giddiness that came from causing a breakdown, nor the shame that came with the high.
Ernie stood up and found, to his great shame, that he had instinctively summoned his rope when he fell. A coward all the way, huh? He dissipated it immediately.
"F-fresh air sounds good," Ernie made sure to keep a small distance between him and Angel. He nodded to himself, "Yeah. Sounds good."
Angel just realized the grave situation she got herself in as her ankle cuff started beeping loudly. A reassuring hand on her shoulder did little to calm her down, although she was less inclined to scream anymore. The proposition to take some fresh air was tempting, but that would need to be done without the two. Between Brent, whom Angel know for his "too honest for his own good" behavior and Ernest who constantly seems to be pushing her wrong buttons, this was a nightmare just waiting to happen, one that she didn't want to be part of.
Embarrassed enough to have mentally broke down twice, especially after giving a speech that she was able to handle it, she couldn't bear to look at her two classmates. She felt ashamed, disgraced even, as Ernie laughed his ass off his bench. She shouted a loud "FUCK" in frustration as she kicked the dummy with about the same intensity her shriek had given off before storming off the gym, never minding her phone and her shoes she left by the benches of the punching bags part of the gym.
Brent's gaze tracked Angelic until she left the gym.
"So...how's a guided tour sounding?"
Ernie watched as she left. If he followed now, he and his big mouth would only cause more trouble. Had he always been so conversationally stupid? Or was this what he and his Stigma had wanted all along? Whatever it was, it would be best for everyone if he just left it alone. He turned to Brent with a tired smile.
"Maybe another day, man. I think I should just... think things through right now."
And now Ernie was going down that hole as well. How did this happen, again, that every person he knew was either moody or x-marked or both? Brent shrugged and smiled. "Yeah, I get that. See you around then. You coming to the fight review thing tonight?"
"Tonight?" Ernie didn't have any plans besides sightseeing and Ground Zero that afternoon. His night was free. "Sounds good. I'll bring snacks then? I have my phone this time so lets just trade numbers. Text me the deets."
As he pulled his phone out, he noticed that Angelique had left her phone and shoes on the bench.
"Crap. We should get these back to her."
Brent glanced at the misplaced belongings as well, before nodding. "Wanna patch things up, Ernie?"
Ernie blinked and handed his unlocked phone to Brent. He leant down to pick up Angel's phone and shoes, careful to avoid the sweaty part and potentially dirty soles.
"Do you think I should?"
"Well, depends on whether or not you wanna be friends with her." Or if he just wanted to be immortalized by the screamer's anger. Waiting for an answer, Brent wiped the sweat-stained screen of his phone against his shirt, before tapping it against Ernie's phone.
"I can do it if you think it's too awkward."
"Friends?" Ernie echoed. Wasn't this the whole reason he entered the gym in the first place, to talk to Angelique Lachance? All he needed to do was shove his stupid Stigma aside for two seconds. He had a chance to actually become friends with someone he respected and he'd almost tossed his chance into the gutter with what happened just now. If the guys back at Reno could see him now, they'd be bashing his skull in. Ernie hurriedly pocketed his and Angel's phone and made a beeline to the exit.
"Nah, nah, I can do it! I'll see you tonight, then?"
"Yeah, go get em, dude! Give me good news tonight!" With a laugh, Brent saw Ernie off, grinning all the while.
Then, that smile faded. Brent closed his eyes, internalized the facts, and let out a deep breath.
The gym was quiet now.
Time to work.
Consumed by internal strife, there had been nothing in Angelique's mind but the desire to shut herself inside her room and let it all pass, until she would need to go out for lunch before going to her medical appointment set up for this afternoon.
The ball of fury reached her room with a noisy entrance as she slammed her door behind with a lot of strength. Angel paced around, at loss as to what to do to calm down. She never got this riled up before. The urge inside was getting harder to resist.
In a fit, Angel punched the walls of her room, remaining undamaged while the knuckles of the angsty young woman grew red, almost bloody. When the pain was unbearable, Angel fell onto her bed, her shades flying off her face onto the mattress.
Ernest was right, in the end. She couldn't control it, and apparently the only thing sating her appetite for destruction was giving into violence. So much for being the unshakeable figure she always tried to maintain around others. Once, she had been a confident and successful musician. Now, she was simply a broken Subnatural, marked by past events and terrified of her ability to kill others with the sound of the voice that had brought her success before.
Thinking about music, Angel looked defeated towards the black guitar sitting at the corner of her room, next to her bed. Music always had been an important part of her life. It's what brought her to the heights she had achieved in her life, perhaps what caused her downfall too. When in doubt, she played music. When she was happy, she gladly wrote songs. When she was down, she made some more music.
Maybe, just maybe, could she find some peace this way, instead of violently lashing out in a release safe one? Grabbing onto the neck of the guitar, Angel sat down on her bed and fiddled with the cords of the instrument. At first, it was some absent-minded notes being played, until those became more focused and less random. A strange melody, unknown yet familiar in the same time.
Before she knew it, Angelique was lost into the music, her mind drifted off as she tried to remember what that melody was.
Locating the girl had been less of a pain than Ernie had thought it would be. Turned out that shoeless goth Aberrations made quite lasting impressions on passersby. Everyone he asked pointed him towards Building B, then to Floor 3. Now all he had to do was find the specific room she was in. Again, it was a lot easier than expected. He could hear a gentle song playing from the closest room, 300. Ernie pressed his ear to the door. It was strange, but calming. A musician's release? Ernie sat himself by the door, placing Angel's footwear beside him. Useless. That sort of confidence was what had drawn Ernie to Angelique as a performer. But seeing it in real life, and seeing it so uninformed and misguided, made Ernie want to smash his head against a wall. Confidence in the wrong places was just stupidity. Why did she have to be so stubborn to not see it? Even after her outburst in the gym, Angelique refused to do the sensible thing and use the Release Zone.
Ernie sighed.
Oh, how heroes fell. At least his idolization wasn't distracting him from the truth anymore. Ernie was tempted to just drop her things by the door and leave. But he needed (no, it was only a want sort of situation) to fix this. He had to at least try. So he waited for the song to finish. It sounded like Angelique needed it too.
It took not so much time for the musical girl to stop playing. The melody created by her guitar soon stopped just as quickly as it had begun. She had played it unconsciously, by instinct, but this part was now totally unknown to her. Strange, it didn't feel like the song should be stopping right there. And yet, nothing else came into mind.
Angélique was brought out from her trance as she heard the quiet rattling behind her door. More interruption? Today was definitively not a quiet day, it would seem. Sighing softly, the X-marked late teen placed the guitar on her mess of a bed and walked over to her door, opening it slowly to see who was standing beyond.
Ernest, again. That guy sure is a persistent fucker. Did he follow her all the way to her room to make her feel more miserable?
"What do you want?"
Crap, busted. He held her shoes and phone out in both hands. She was definitely angry at him. Ernie caught a glimpse of the mess of the room behind her, distaste curling his lip till he shoved the feeling aside.
"You forgot some things at the gym," Start off simple, no problem. Was he supposed to talk about his eavesdropping too? "And... your song was nice."
At the mention of her missing stuff, Angélique's frown turned to discernable embarrassment, apologetic too at some point. Now that she was thinking about it, she had indeed stormed off the gym without putting back on her sneakers and pocketing her phone.
Annoyed at herself for making those stupid mistakes and give the guy who kept bringing up things that messed her up morally more opportunities to meet her. At least he was diligent enough to bring up her stuff back to her room. She couldn't just take back her belongings and slam the door in his face, could she?
Opening the door wider, she sighed and gestured the guy standing in front of her door to get inside.
"Thanks... Come in. I think you deserve an apology for what happened back there."
"Uh, okay. Thanks for letting me in."
Ernie stepped in cautiously. The messed up bed and crooked desk stuck out like sore thumbs to him but he decided to ignore them both. Apparently cleaning people's rooms without permission was 'creepy' and bounds for kicking guests like him out of other people's rooms. Ernie stood by the door. It seemed inappropriate to casually drape himself onto whatever seat he could find in Angelique's place.
"I guess now would be a good time to talk, huh."
Letting Ernest enter her room, Angélique closed the door behind them before taking a seat onto her pulling out the chair resting beside her desk at the same occasion. She gently took the guitar and put it against the end of her bed, keeping it close without fearing of dropping it. She nodded slowly at the seaweed-haired boy.
"Yes..." she trailed off, mustering the courage to be as open as she could be without fucking up once more. "Look, I'm really sorry for what happened at the gym. You probably didn't have any ill thoughts. It's just... you know, that incident is still too fresh in my mind. With a stigma like mine, it's hard to let it go. Being reminded everything I have caused every single time of the day: the pain, the grief, the deaths, sometimes I just can't seem to deal with it."
Angel let out a snide, disgusted chuckle at herself. "I keep talking big. Tell myself how strong I am, how I can endure all of this without flinching. And yet, I loose myself, like pretty much every Aberration. Hell, I showed this... moment of weakness in front of you two." She paused, realizing little by little that perhaps the old Angélique Lachance was slowly dying the more she delved deeper into the world of Subnaturals.
"I'm sorry you had to see this part of me. I don't believe I've always been like that. Perhaps I did, and this unfortunate event brought it out in the open. But sometimes I like to believe I'm still the same Angélique Lachance before becoming a Mage, with the same force of personality and confidence. I... don't want to let myself loose to whatever we Aberrations are fighting. I still want to believe I have freedom over my mind, even if it gets rough at times. That I am as strong and as capable as before."
Ernie's eyes narrowed at that last part.
" 'As before'. That's exactly the problem here!" he scowled, "You're not a Regular anymore. So stop using their guidelines to judge what you're meant to be, and deal with what you really are right now."
"You're the exact same person as you were before. Still international rock star Angelique Lachance. A few weeks with an X-mark isn't going to change that. I'd know that better than anyone else in this class. What's really changed is the rules you have to play by now. If you keep going on about 'endurance' and 'weakness', you're gonna end up hurting a lot more than just a bunch of dummies."
"So stop talking about freedom. We don't get that option anymore. Trying to get through your Stigma with just willpower is the kind of shit that ends up hurting you or other people a lot more than whatever you do to sate it in the first place. I've seen way too many Aberrations try that. It's never pretty. Or clean."
He suddenly realized that he was lecturing someone at least three years older than him. He scratched his head, his tone more sheepish than admonishing now.
"J-just think of it as medication or something. You don't have to like it. Actually, it's probably better if you don't. But it's something we all gotta do. Before stuff like the gym happens again, but worse. That's why they have release zones after all."
He wanted to laugh at his own hypocrisy. He, of all people, was the one lecturing about how to handle a Stigma? What garbage. He finished with a tired sigh.
"That's just what my advice. I've had my powers for a while, so I'd know a lot more about Stigmas than most people."
There were times Angel would have liked to snap back at Ernest for some of the things he said. But in the end, she kept her mouth shut and took it like a student being lectured by a teacher, or a teen being scolded by her parents. In some way, she felt like she owed him this moment of lecture after her own. What more, it felt actually good to hear him talk this much rather than the opposite. It felt like he actually cared and wasn't just there because of who she was.
However, as much as she disliked the whole idea of 'sating her stigma' as if the violent release zones like Ground Zero were medicine, or even the whole deal about still being herself after all that had happened, she felt like there had to be something to be learned from her fellow Aberration's words. He was more experienced than her as a Mage, so of course he'd know more than a two weeks-old Subnatural. Was it all? Accepting her faith and try to keep her shit together by managing through her stigma? Oddly enough, that sounded vaguely something like Lawrence told her before.
"So what should I do, 'teach'? Just accept the stuff I did back in Canada? Remain the same old me despite that, except I'm stuck coping with this stigma like it's some kind of mental health problem that requires violence to sate it?" Angélique questioned, her mind somewhat confused about the whole 'being herself' and 'accepting all of this'.
"I get your point. It makes sense on a certain point of view. But to be honest, I'm not too sure about still being the same person. The only thing I had to worry when I was a musician was to make my performances look and sound good. I didn't... killed people before. Now, I got powers, I did horrible things, and I have voices in my head bitching me throughout the day. Just how am I the exact same person?"
" 'Teach'?" Ernie chuckled, "You're making me sound a lot smarter than I actually am, Angel."
"That's the nice thing about change, right? You can choose how you move forward. You can try to stay the same, if that's easier for you. Or you can let yourself become something better, stronger. Your power's crazy cool. You took down a dragon with it! Think of all the people you can save with that same power."
"I don't know anything about moving on from doing something terrible. I'm don't think I'm the person you should be talking to for most of this, really. All I can say is that all you, any of us, can do now is move forward. You hurt people, yeah. But you'll be protecting so many more with what you've become. Saving entire cities if you let your powers grow. I can't say if that'll ever fix what happened. Voices, mistakes, violence are just the trade-ups you'll have to give in exchange. Every Aberration needs to learn to deal with those."
"I don't know you well. I don't know how you have or will change because of this transformation. All I wanna say is that you're the only one who should choose who you are. Plus, the only thing that matters is that you're still trying to be a good person, right? The fact that you're trying to avoid violence is proof of that."
Angélique's mood became progressively better as Ernest better explained his opinions on the matter. While he was rather vague as to what exactly she should be doing, he was actually giving her good guidelines and encouragement to forge her own view upon the whole Mage deal. Hearing his advices, his counsels, his suggestions, Angel couldn't help but nod apprehensively as she brought a hand to her chin in as a thoughtful reflex.
"That's... actually a lot to take in all at once. I'll definitively give it a lot of thoughts though. Can't guarantee you that it will happen overnight, but I'll try my best to make it better. Even though they are still some things I can't simply shake off right now, you are absolutely right about one thing. I will endeavor my best to strive for the welfare of others. It had always been a purpose and will always be. If it means I have to deal with my stigma to help others, then so be it."
She paused, reflecting on her stance about this whole ordeal. Truthfully, she will always remain the good-hearted person she had always been, and that wasn't something she'd want to change. The only problem was dealing with her stigma, her life here in USARILN, and the guilt of damage she had caused. If only it was that simple to move on just like that. Perhaps time will help healing this wound, and eventually she'll get around with handling her powers and their drawbacks, She could only wish and work to make it happen.
Angel reached for her guitar and began strumming its cords a few times.
"Thank you for giving me counselling about all this, for lending your ear to my confused self. I... really needed to get that out of my chest."
Holy shit, it actually worked. Ernie let out a nervous laugh. He could do some good with his words after all, even if he was just making things up on the spot. Even if he didn't believe any of it. Aberrations, especially ones like him, were doomed to destroy. He'd learned to live with that fact years ago. And he was constantly relearning it, from his first days at West, to even yesterday's game. But ignorance was bliss. Helping newbie Abes like Angel see the bright side of their awakenings was the least he could do. It might not be the best way, but it was definitely the easiest, especially with so many new aspects of themselves to take in. They'd realize the reality of their situation in their own time. Hopefully Ernie wouldn't need to stick around when that time came.
"Hey, it's no problem! Awakenings are a big deal. If you ever need to talk some more, just hit me up! Do you want my phone number?"
"Sure." The girl replied as she went to her pocket, only to realize it was missing and that was the reason Ernest came to see her in the first place. She retrieved the phone laying on the bed and unlocked it, presenting it over her classmate.
Ernie entered his number quickly under the name 'Ernie Mars'. Angelique Lachance had his phone number now. Woah. He could feel childish awe swirl in his system. He needed to leave soon, before he embarrassed himself. The phone was tossed back to Angelique.
"There's my number. If you've still got questions, just send them my way. Guess I should leave you to your guitar and go then?"
Catching the phone back, Angelique looked at the time. "Ah... Yes. Actually, I have an appointment this afternoon. I should go get prepared." Angel got up from her bed and walked over to the door to open it, by general courtesy of opening the door to guests.
"I will. Thanks again for bringing my stuff back, and everything else."
"Yeah, no prob. It'll be nice working together. See you around!"
Ernie stepped back into the hallway and waved the musician goodbye, before speedwalking down the hall and taking the stairs back down three at a time. He'd really just talked to Angelique Lachcance. He'd really just gotten her phone number. His plans for the day, or lack thereof, were quickly forgotten as he walked aimlessly from Building B. He was going to be seeing his idol almost every day of the week. Even if her mindset was a bit immature, Ernie couldn't wait for the days to come. USARILN East didn't turn out to be so bad after all.
After Ernie’s visit into her room, Angel figured it was just about time she gets ready for her medical appointment. Just before going there, she took a shower to clean herself off from her morning workout. Dressed in belted pants and a quite revealing strapped tube top, she made a quick stop at the cafeteria to grab something light to eat, to sate her hunger, before going to the hospital.
Right on time, Angel met the same blonde secretary from the day before. They were quick to clear up the appointment and soon to be right in front of the doctor’s door, on the third floor of the hospital. The door was open, a graying-haired man in his mid-forties was sitting behind his desk reading a file.
Angel cleared up her throat audibly in a fake way, getting her desired response as the busy optometrist raised his head and looked to the doorframe.
“Ah, Miss Lachance. Please, come in and have a seat.”
Angel nodded and made her way to the doctor’s desk, noticing the file he had been reading just now was actually her apparent medical dossier. She rose an eyebrow, curious about how it came to be here in the first place. She then took a seat in front of Spencer’s desk.
“You must be wondering about your medical file, I presume. Despite the reputation USARILN East has, we do care about our students’ health. Every institute you Subnaturals had frequented, any private doctor, every bit of data the public sector has, we gather them into a dossier and provide the students’ needs should they arise.”
“Such delicate attention from our supposed caretakers. They need their soldiers at their top when sending them to die, huh?"
“I can’t argue you guys are going through rough situations. But those are orders from the higher-ups. Plus, whether you like it or not, someone has to defend and protect the world from the monsters, no? The Precursors can’t be everywhere at once, wouldn’t you agree.”
Angel slammed her hands on the desk and was just about to confront the presumably doctor when a nearby guard entered the room and ordered the Aberration to stand down or be shot if not complying. Clicking her tongue behind clenched teeth, Angel dropped back into her chair, glaring at the optometrist through her shades.
“Sorry if that ticked you off. Anyways, you’re not here to discuss about the philosophy of this campus so we’ll get straight to the point. I’ve read your medical file, and it states that you have a rare case of myopia and photophobia at the same time. Since you haven’t been under any medication that would cause light-sensitivity, I can only deduce that you are a natural photophobic. As for your short-sightedness, I have come to realize you are suffering from degenerative myopia, which will only get worse by the years. Is anything from what I learned true to your case?”
“No shit, doc.” Angel shrugged, removing her pair of shades and tossing them over the desk. “I’ve always been light-sensitive. My parents didn’t know why, as a baby, I was always crying. Doctors conducted a series of testing and have come to realize that I was crying due to intense migraines and headaches at best. They tried everything, and then deduced I was photophobic as the only time I stopped crying was after long exposure to a dark environment.”
“About my ever-worsening sight, what the fuck can I say? It’s always the same damn thing every time I go for a medical check-up. I keep hearing that my sight is growing worse, and that I might turn blind at some point. Parents were at least smart enough to realize nothing was wrong of that part, as they seemed to catch up that I wasn’t able to see very clearly things far away.”
Throughout her explanation, Doctor Spencer was examining her new patient’s shades, which served, as a matter of fact, as functional glasses to counter myopia and were UV-proof to act as effective sunglasses. The way those shades had been made was clearly done by a specialist, an expert no less. Those had been made so that the patient wouldn’t need to wear a pair of sight-correcting glasses underneath another pair of shades. Ingenious, difficult to replicate and impossible to repair due to the crack in the lens.
“I see. Well then, you are overdue for a check-up, as your last visit to an optometrist dates from well over a year. Follow me, if you may please.”
The doctor reckoned the young Aberration to follow him with a motion of his hand as he got up and headed to the back of his office. With no shades to shield her eyes, she could already feel the burning bright artificial light going through her eyes, making its way to her brain. The blur made it difficult to navigate through the office without stumbling on anything, but slowly and eventually, she made it to the backroom.
The room was vast, much akin to the any true optometrist lab she had seen so far. More furnished, even.
“You know the drill; sit down behind the machine over there. We’ll start by sight distance test, then cornea examination.”
Angel slowly nodded as she slowly made her way to the seat. Once sit, the tests started. First, she was to tell about the assortments of varying sizes of letters on the wall at the other end of the room. Then, she was to use the machine in front of her to determine correctly certain shapes. Next, use that same machine to find the correct measurement of the lenses needed to be made. Lastly, the optometrist had been testing how her cornea reacted to light. Needless to say, that last part was very painful considering her condition. At some point, her eyes felt like igniting and the pain was so much that her tear ducts seemed to open like a dam.
“Holy fuck! You done yet? I… can’t see anything!”
“Well yes, usually it takes someone normal a few seconds to recover from having light beamed straight into their eyes. In your case, it might take a few minutes to recover. Remain calm and seated while I bring down the numbers to you."
After a few minutes passed, Angel did effectively begin to see back into her glorious blurred state of sight. She searched the room for the Spencer guy, who seemed to have disappeared from the back testing room. She tapped her foot impatiently just as the middle-aged man came back from his office.
“Bad news, your sight has worsened again, compared to the results of your last examination.”
Angélique only sighed, somehow knowing that this wasn’t going to be for the better.
Back into the bright office, the raven-haired X-marked donned her shades back, feeling already more at ease the instant they were put back on.
“So, I believe we can make you some contact lenses within the week at our labs. I’m pretty sure they will be available just before the weekend. Of course, we can’t replicate your sunglasses’ method into contact lenses, so you’ll have to buy a new pair, or request them, at your discretion.”
“Now wait a minute. I don’t want fucking contact lenses anywhere near my eyes. I want something like what I currently have.”
“I’m sure you probably don’t want to hear this from me, but listen. You no longer live the life of a rockstar in here anymore. You are a student, one who will see her fair share of battles in the coming months, years if you are lucky. You guys will have it rough, especially physically. Your bodies will suffer through it, and so will your gear and whatever it is you are wearing. That includes your eyewear. Whatever would happen if your glasses were to break or be lost in the middle of a fight? You’ll be fighting blind, and you will be jeopardizing not only your safety, but also the other members of your teams. Do you really want to take that risk by wearing glasses again?”
Angel stood silent for a moment. Who would’ve known an eye doctor, working for an institute she despised the most, would open her eyes as to how selfish and diva she still was. What Spencer was saying was the truth, nothing to argue about. If she would be part of a team, hell even lead one herself, she needed to have everything to ensure their survival.
With reluctance, she accepted, slowly nodding her head in defeat. In turn, the doctor affirmatively nodded and wrote down something on his notepad.
“Good. Alternatively, with the current level of technology we have, I could suggest you going through laser eye surgery to completely correct your myopia. But as I said, there’s no telling when you will be called upon the battlefield once more. You’ll have to get a special clearance for this surgery, as it would require you to recover for a week or two.”
“In any case, as I said previously, you can expect your contact lenses to be delivered to your room sometime this week.”
“Alright… Thanks. And uh… I’m sorry for earlier. I suppose you aren’t completely a dick. I may have gotten riled up for nothing.”
“Don’t worry too much about it. We doctors here see our fair share of Subnaturals every day, we’ve somewhat gotten used to dealing with the Xs. Listen, I’m making suggestions based upon the same principles of effectiveness this institute has, but that doesn’t make us less human. If what we suggest can save the life of one or many of you guys, then we’ll be glad to provide. Not because you are weapons, but you are also still humans inside. You’ll soon learn that not everyone in this world sees you guys as you think they are.”
Angel remained speechless. Did she just got lectured by an optometrist? She didn’t know what to feel about all this, but there was one thing she did know about this encounter today. Not everyone appears to be out to simply hate on her and her fellow Mages. Perhaps being a doctor made the middle-aged man care more for his patients, whether Subnaturals or normal humans? Nevertheless, it felt good to know to know this, even if the people sharing this philosophy were numbering only a few.
With a silent nod and a wave of her hand, Angélique departed from Dr. Spencer’s office to return to her room, where she found out everything she had requested yesterday evening had been delivered during her appointment. Kevlar vest, knee and elbow pads, camo-styled shockproof clothing, steel-toed boots, shockproof gloves and a trusty helmet. As if on cue with her clothing style, it all came in black color. While that stuff might do no good against an actual monster, it was better than parading around with her skin exposed, as long as this equipment didn’t impair her ability to move around and use her powers.
With the medical appointment out of the way, it was now in the middle of the afternoon. As an X-marked Angel stepped out of the dorms to head towards Ground Zero to further experiment on her powers, the girl couldn’t help but notice how cold and cloudy it was outside. Indeed, it was mid-September, and the temperature had already begun to show signs of autumn coming. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to have bought all those skin-revealing clothes she was so fond of wearing and hasty to fill her new wardrobe with.
Deciding Ground Zero training would have to wait as goosebumps and an unpleasant chill ran down her spine, Angélique instead took a bus ride to the nearby town of Crimen Culpae. She would head towards that store she had been shopping with the gang last week, as it had quite a lot of interesting articles of clothing.
On her way to the store, she however recognized one of her classmates. Aquamarine hair, dark tone of skin, carrying a plethora of shopping bags in her arms effortlessly as she was absent-mindedly looking at her phone. No mistake, it was the Super Girl of her class, Callan. Decidedly, she was bumping into a lot of her classmates today, which wasn’t a bad thing, in her opinion. Those were the people she had yet to properly meet and introduce herself to.
“Heyo, Calla~n” Angel shouted at the superhuman girl on the other side of the street, waving at her cheerfully.
Eyes fixed on the screen, Callan's mind was far from what she was looking at. Her parent's lack of reply, her scheduled rematch with Sander that afternoon, lunch options and what she was going to do with all those goddamn pillows when she got home. She looked up from her phone, spotting her classmate, Angelique. Otherwise known as "that chick who can scream down a dragon."
Purely out of habit, Callan shifted the weight of her bags to one shoulder and waved. She was certainly quite cheery. Out of the corner of her eye, Callan noticed the number of stares increase but did her best to ignore them. She offered Angel a brief smile.
Seeing Callan acknowledging her presence, the raven-haired Mage crossed the street separating the two after making sure no incoming car was heading her way.
"Coming back from a shopping spree, are you? Shame, I missed my chance to join our resident Wonder Woman for a trip downtown."
Angel chuckled light-heartedly. Truly, she had no idea where she was heading with this small talk, but she hoped those steps would be enough to have the girl open to her a bit more, get to know her. After all, the only time she actually interacted with her was when they were both looking out for Lilianna on her hospital bed, and during yesterday's battle game.
F-flattery? Callan laughed along, glancing up at the taller girl before slipping her hands into her pockets. "You didn't miss much," she chuckled modestly, thinking about the contents of her bags. Most of what she'd bought that day had been pillow cases and other bedding items. She doubted Angel was as much of a sleep enthusiast.
"Maybe next time?" she offered-- a somewhat empty promise since she barely knew anything about the girl. Her eyes flickered to the aberration's outfit, considering what a shopping trip with Angel would be like for the briefest moment.
"Definitively. Perhaps with Siena and Allison next time, hm? I'm sure a shopping spree between girls would be cool, no?" Angel suggested, remembering the fun she had with the others.
"Uh, yeah. Totally," Callan smiled. She recognized at least one of those names. Who was Allison again? ...blade girl? She'd be lying to say she was thrilled by the suggestion, even if Siena was involved. But it couldn't be all bad. As much as she found clothes shopping for anything but comfy sportswear a dullful waste of time, camaraderie was important. Worst case scenario she comes out with a bangin' outfit that'll collect dusk in her dresser. She waited for Angel to continue. Surely the planning of future shopping sprees wasn't the only reason she'd come over to chat and small talk really wasn't her forte.
While Angel was of an enthusiastic nature when meeting new people, she was no blind as to read the mood. Perhaps she caught her at a bad time, or perhaps Callan was not the talkative girl Angel thought she would be? From the answers she kept getting, she had the vibes that she should perhaps not push her luck any further and annoy the green blue-haired Arbiter any more than this.
"Ah... well... I guess I'll leave you to your things then. Gotta go fetch something to fight this cold temperature coming up, and replacement shades. Yesterday had not been kind to them. Well... it hadn't been for any of us." She chuckled nervously as she remembered yesterday's events.
Confused and slightly disappointed, Callan managed a smile as Angel seemed to admit she didn't have anything more to add. At the mentioning of yesterday, her smile faded. "Oh," she blinked up at her apologetically, "I'm such an idiot. I completely forgot... are you alright?" Coupled with Siena, Angel had passed out during the game because of her injuries.
"Sorry about what happened with Chris and--" a prickling sensation on the back of her neck brought the unwelcome memories of that morning as well as the game rushing back, "--Kusari. That wasn't supposed to happen."
Angel's face turned to a more serious expression when Callan turned apologetic about what happened during the game. In reply, she thrown her hand up in a dismissive manner.
"Well, it sure did hurt like a bitch, but hey, at least I'm glad we have someone like Christmas to patch us up, even though his power is a bit... disturbing to say the least." Angélique flexed her arms and shoulders, remembering the pain she had went through that time. For a game, it sure went completely absurd. Physical injuries healed though, and she had the pride of saying her team won. The same couldn't be said for the other girl though.
"To be completely honest with you, I'm more concerned about you. Injuries heal, but suffering defeat being blinded by a pair of pants wrapped around your face? Now that's the kind of embarrassment I don't think I could live with without blowing a fuse at the boys." Angel couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of that situation, after which she apologized, not meaning to being disrespectful or anything like that.
Concern quickly melted into complete and total mortification, which manifested itself in the form of a forced smile that resembled more of a grimace. She saw that? Of course she saw that. Everyone and their mom saw that.
"Yeah," Callan forced a laugh, "That, uh... that was p-pretty, uh... pretty embarrassing... I'll be alright, though." She slid her hand across her face, which by now was about as hot as it could possibly be without literally being on fire. "It's not like they recorded it all with cameras from like eight different angles or anything, right?" she muttered sarcastically, followed by a laugh that was a little more genuine.
"Don't worry, I'm sure everyone is mature enough to look past it. Last thing you need is to be called "Pants Head" or something like that." The Aberration laughed in harmony with the Arbiter, feeling somewhat a bit relieved to have this sort of discussion for once.
"Maybe that'd give you more reason to work double. Impress everyone, make them forget about that." She chuckled, her expression however turning somber as she recalled what happened earlier. "Even I will need to work double to regain the impression and trust I lost..."
"Oh God," Callan lamented, "If I end up with that as my nickname, I'm going into hiding." The thought was truly terrifying, but she doubted Director Zhang would ever release the footage of that disaster to the public. Almost as much as she doubted a bunch of high schoolers would be 'mature' about anything. But, then again, she hadn't thought a bunch of high schoolers were capable of being as violent as they were during the Flag and Seek game, so what did she know?
"Well, we've got nothin' but time for now," Callan smiled reassuringly, "I'm sure we'll all make some progress soon enough." She kept her reassurances vague. X-marks, or, aberrations were a topic she was still unsure about, but she wanted to believe people like Angel and Sander were just as capable of successfully controlling their powers as she was-- or would be.
Angel nodded silently in approval. True, the time they had to mingle together was everything they had now, until their next suicide mission. Her sudden shift of mood began leaking, and the Aberration young woman started to acknowledge it. This time though, she won't let it go downhill like this morning with Brent and Ernest. Last thing she needed was to have yet another classmate thinking she had a few loose screws and was unreliable.
"Well, I won't hold you any further. I'm pretty sure you have things to do. Been fun to actually have some time to speak with you."
Callan offered yet another smile and wave. "Same," she answered rather lamely, "See ya around."
Angélique nodded, returning the friendly wave before both girls took off in opposite direction.
The shopping trip was indeed quite short for the fallen rockstar. She went back to the shop she had previously visited with her newly made friends and indeed found what she was looking for. Comfortable sweaters, T-shirts sporting her favorite bands, warm vests, a leathery trench coat and even a new pair of stylish glasses. By the end of the trip, the cashier told the shopping Subnatural that she had no more money left available to her student ID, and so she had to pay the rest of the expenses with the small amount of money Angel had in her wallet.
After returning from her shopping spree, the black haired Angel stayed put in her room after grabbing dinner at the cafeteria. She would remain in her room for the remainder of the evening, trying to put some music she had in her mind to paper, play some more guitar riffs and listen to her playlist before going to sleep.
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