Private Roleplay~ IOD

taffy789 • 23 July 2013 at 6:54 PM

 The meeting officially over, Gale stood up from her chair and walked out the door, giving a backwards glance at Katrix as she did, but saying nothing.
 Following in suit, Zach pulled himself from his chair, stretching as he did so. Forgetting she'd never technically accepted the bet, he shot Raven a "you better pay your bets later" look, and moved his eyes around to the other occupants of the room. Blondie, as he remembered her, looked pale, sullen, and a bit sick as she heard her name being called out by the obvious One to stay behind. Her face was the worried one of someone who was thinking entirely too much about a hundred different things and was in desperate need of a smoke, or at least a big swig of Nightquil to calm herself down.
Moving on, Zach observed "Kitty" had become obviously flustered by Nine's accusations of Two, which could only mean that even she did not know him well enough to be confident in the face of doubts- strange. Also, the girl hadn't been lying about any of the things she said, and Zach had made sure of that. This new knowledge was nice to know, but mildly troubling- especially the things about the Unnoen. Hopefully the assassination plot would work out... though he thought himself qualified for the mission, Zach wasn't about to risk his own skin by volunteering. It would all instead be in the hands of... Lavender, and... Bunny-Boy.
Perfect.
With another stretch, Five left the meeting room.

 ...
 
 After everyone had left, Annabell shuffled in her seat, the plastic squeaking under her rear as she tried to make herself comfortable. She had a sickening, growing sensation in her stomach that told her why she and Raven were ordered to stay behind... and she wasn't sure in which direction the conversation would go. 
...She decided it was best to stay quiet until it was completely clear what Kitty wanted first.

asi • 23 July 2013 at 11:50 PM

Nine also left the room without another word. She had never expected her questions would turn out this way; only her natural interrogation skills had seen a weakness and picked at it. What Karin could do about it, she didn't know.
Looking slightly bemused, Damon could be heard murmuring to Clay as he quitted the meeting; "If her and Two are in a relationship, who's on top?"
"Uh..." Clay looked slightly shocked and was clearly praying for his future as he cried softly; "I don't want to know! Please don't talk so lewdly, Damon..."
On the other hand, Raven was silently fuming in her seat. That look her 'leader' had given her... Where the heck did he get the idea he could give her hot 'I'll deal with you later...' stares...! Even Kitty, wound up as she was, didn't neglect to give her a dirty smirk and eyebrow raise... Oh my god! She thought they were an item! Raven groaned and let her face very suddenly over-familiarize itself with the dusty table's surface. Unfortunately, this only served to futher cement the fact in Katrix's mind; the assistant was just embarrassed at being found out, of course.
Luckily for Raven, at the thought of her own fantasy relationship One quickly lost her humor again. Muttering to herself, Katrix paced the length of the table. "It's not Two, it's not! I trust him..." Then turning to Raven and Annabell, she admitted; "But can I really claim to know him, after... He must be at least eighteen now? That's eight years!"
Raven was surprised by this, and lifted her head from the table. "You knew Two as a child!? What was he like?"
At her question, Katrix couldn't help but grin; "Cuter. Much cuter," then added thoughtfully; "But also more violent..."
With that picture, Raven sweatdropped. "Ah."
"But he never lied to me!" she proclaimed vehemently. "Never! He didn't lie to anyone... He... Wasn't a bad person..." Katrix gave a bitter laugh. "How can someone who has tortured people to death be 'not a bad person'...? Two really has changed... But deep down, I still believe he's the same person?" she seemed to question herself, sighing.
"With the bonding, it could have been that someone who knew Two blood-bonded with some Glaeroes who could shapeshift," Raven suggested this doubtfully, knowing from Kitty's explanation exactly how wildly improbable it was. But she wasn't likely to tell One, who obviously had feelings for Two, evil or not, that she thought he was responsible... However, the fact that One cared so much about the probably villianous second leader boded seriously ill for the Falchions. Who knew, it didn't seem unlikely to Raven that Kitty would betray the whole lot of them for her boyfriend! Still, this meant that Two didn't trust her...
"I know," Katrix huffed. "But it's a little, well, extraordinarily farfetched... In Nine's eyes, it looks like he'll be 'guilty until proven innocent'... That's so backwards!" she whined childishly. "Wahhh..."
Raven shot Annabell a very uncomfortable look. The orphanage in which she'd grown up hadn't really given her a lot of time for crime and drama television shows. Giving relationship advice to the girlfriend of the accused? Not her forte.

taffy789 • 24 July 2013 at 2:08 PM

While Raven had grown up in an environment lacking drama, Annabell was a child of the public education system. Having seen a few of her good friends despair over the male gender in the past, she knew exactly how to handle this sort of thing.
 ...Although, it usually was over a bad break-up, not an accusation of their boyfriends being traitors, and the "handling" normally involved rocky road ice cream and tissues, which they had none. ... Other than that, exactly the same.
 "Look, Kitty," Annabell started to say after picking up on Raven's uncomfortable glances, "I'm sure everything will be explained eventually. Things will... run their course. Nine will watch Two, and she may find nothing on him at all!" This part wasn't a lie; she thought Nine not finding anything on him, even if he did have something to do with the rebels, was a possibility.
Just from the little rumors Annabell picked up around the base, she could tell that the Second Leader was a very secretive person many knew little to nothing about- did those people include Kitty, she could not say- who enjoyed popping up behind others without any warning just to scare them.
Also in the rumors, something about his nickname being "Spike" because he had ordered a large spike pit to be built in one of his torture chambers, had strung a tight rope across it, and now forces the Falchions who neglect cleaning duty to unicycle across it while singing love ballads for his personal enjoyment.
 ... This rumor came back to Annabell suddenly while thinking of other words of consolation for Katrix, and she made a face, wondering where that had even came from in the first place.
She correctly suspected Eight as its origins.
"... We don't know that much yet, so it's difficult to assume what's exactly going on here." the girl continued to advise, "We just have to keep an open mind and our eyes out when it comes to clues and information about the rebels and... stuff."
She found herself unable to conclude with the noun she was searching for, and blamed it on her slow, debilitated brain.

asi • 25 July 2013 at 7:58 AM

After not really listening to Annabell, Katrix was much assured. "You're right," she nodded sagely. "So long as I stick to him like glue, we'll definitely end up together eventually!" she gave a cheeky smile; "And besides, while everyone thinks he's the bad guy, it's an invaluable opportunity to 'comfort' him! But oh!" she momentarily suspended her schemes on remembering exactly what these two were still here for. "You have the power suppressors, don't you? From what I've seen, they look very powerful! Although really, Two has a lot more experience with this stuff than me... In any case, hand them over!" One looked at them expectantly.
Alarmed, Raven hurried looked at Annabell. She knew that the girl wanted to hang onto one of them, for whatever reason. But denying One was a very bad idea. What should she do?
One sighed, noting their hesitation. "How about this," she said willfully, a mischievous gleam in her amaranth eyes; "If you do as I say obediently, I'll tell you something good! You know about suppressors, obviously, but what about repressors? Sit down and listen, and I'll explain the 'Curse of IOD'~ Which, by the way, is absolutely incorrectly named. It's not the isle that's cursed~" she hummed, knowing that she knew so much more than the two girls, and loving every second of it.

Not much later, Bliss was sitting on his bed in the room he'd be sharing with Zan.
"What with all the new recruits, we're a little low on rooms. There's no point in making more either, as it won't be long until we change locations. Make yourself at home," the ice-power gestured lazily to a spare bed.
When Zan had reassured him that there were no other roommates, but plenty of space, Bliss should have probably suspected something. No, Zan wasn't all that popular among the rebels, a bit of an outsider, but he wasn't HATED. The reason why he hadn't shared his room was glaringly obvious.
"Zan," he said slowly, making sure that despite his affliction of an accent, he would be clearly understood; "You live in a freezer."
The power blinked twice, looking first at the hall-like space, then back at Bliss, playfully misinterpreting it as a comment on size.
Bliss clarified; "Admittedly a large freezer, but nonetheless, if I stay here, I will get hypothermia and frostbite and my toes, fingers and nose will drop off."
"Hmm? What did you say? I really can't understand your accent," Zan replied callously, obviously enjoying the healer's dismay immensely.
Bliss ventured over to the bed which had been indicated. At that moment, it certainly did not deserve that title. Touching the top sheet, he discovered that it had been frozen to the rest of the bed. He pulled until his hands became numb, and finally, the blanket yielded; as in, the portion he'd been yanking snapped off from the rest. Expressionlessly, he held it up for Zan's inspection, who merely gave a muffled laugh.
"You can formally file your hospitality complaints to the boss later," the power smirked, then grew serious. "But in the meantime, tell me. What did Mael, your 'friend', do to Angel?" a little bit of his horror from before returned, again draining what little color he had out of his features.
Bliss winced as he heard the subtle sarcasm on the word 'friend'. "I..." he stopped, lost for words.
"He's responsible for all of this, you realize that?" Zan said suddenly. "All the user repressors, this whole rebellion, me being stuck like this... It's his doing, all of it." He looked at Bliss hard. "You know what that means, right? That makes him my enemy."
Again, the healer flinched visibly.
"You know about my intentions. If you're with him, I should kill you right now," the power stated this as simply as a times tables fact.
"S-stop!" Bliss yelped, panicking. "I understand! Although we were once friends... Spence has changed. The person I knew... Although he was capable of a lot of things... This... This wasn't one of them!! No, the person I knew would have never done this. He's not Spence anymore, he's- he's Mael. And while I still don't want to betray the person who was my friend, hasn't he already done so, by using the serum I entrusted him with in such a way? He promised me there would be no disasters like before, but went and created this!" Bliss shook his head. "I wish I could save him, but honestly, he might be beyond that now... My friend is dead."
"..." Zan patted him on the back. "Great. I'm sure that was a very motivational speech. Too bad I couldn't catch a word. Really a shame."
The healer's eye twitched. "You wanted me to explain about the repressor, correct?"
"Yeah, but please. No science-y terms. It's enough of a chore trying to understand your language as it is," the ice-power yawned, collapsing on the frozen block that was his bed.
To his relief, the other felt the temperature rise slightly to a more comfortable level, and the crystals encasing his bed dissipated. "Okay," Bliss took a deep breath, ready to begin.

taffy789 • 25 July 2013 at 11:11 AM

It was then that Annabell decided that Kitty possessed a certain type of crazy that she wanted no part of whatsoever. With her being so powerful though, and wanting the power...suppressors, she guessed they were called... What other choice did Annabell have but to listen to her?
 ...
 Even if the girl was One, Annabell wasn't about to hand over both of the drugs to Katrix, so she began to think of a way out of her predicament.
 ...
 "...Let's hear about this curse, then." Annabell nodded to the Leader.
 She figured that in the time it took Kitty to explain this "Curse" she could think of a pretty solid plan of action.

asi • 26 July 2013 at 2:40 AM

Though the healer and the first leader were, at that moment, in two very different places on IOD, with very different people, they both unknowingly spoke the same words.
"User repressors are actually very different from their counterpart, power suppressors. The fact is that while it is entirely possible to block of one's subconsciousness via drug inducement- power suppression- the equivalent with the conscious mind would be basically be, well, sleeping. It just doesn't work the same way, as the body would be asleep and still out of the control of the power. Therefore, a user repressor, like the one used on our base, is actually something else entirely..." Kitty was very serious, and Raven couldn't help but freak slightly. This stuff was in her system too, remember!?
"You may have heard a few rumors about a so-called 'Curse', but nowadays it's presence is almost absent from IOD. When I first arrived here, it was in full force...
Killing. That was the curse. Anyone affected by it HAD to kill. If you hadn't sated this need, then when you saw a person with it's counterpart- a Glaeroes, assuming you're Falchion- then you would find yourself flying into a daze, where you are no longer in control of your body, and can only look on helplessly as you kill... Only once this was accomplished did the curse recede and you'd regain control- probably. You could try to avoid Glaeroes so that the killing frenzy would not be triggered... But in the end, the result was almost worse. Your power would end up taking over again, but with the lack of Glaeroes to kill, they'd be driven instead to simply DESTROY... This, of course, is called going feral.
With the curse activated, the power is barely more in control than the user; it turns them mindless to the point where they can't think of anything else but death and destruction. This is essentially why powers act as they usually do today, as they are still affected somewhat by it, but now usually gain control themselves rather than through the curse. Over time, it seems to have worn itself down...
The curse isn't, as some have mistakenly believed, to do with the Isle; in fact, the curse is in the same mutated DNA that gives us our powers, that's why the bloodlust affects powers as it does and not users," Bliss explained, while Zan, despite his lax appearance, listened attentively.
"The way it's set, the curse, the need to kill, normally activates in the user when they reach about sixteen; this is why the government sends kids here at that age, and this curse is why they put us here in the first place. You see, once the curse has been activated, it becomes contagious. Those around the individual can catch the 'temporary' version, which alone won't last forever, but can be caught multiple times, and can cause a user's 'true' curse to be activated. But the worst thing is, the temporary version can also be contracted by ordinary humans. That's the reason we're here," One said. "Because otherwise, the world would be torn apart as the curse spread, forcing people to kill..."
"Over the years, it seems to have been fading. The rebels are proof that many powers are no longer governed by the curse. Clearly it hasn't been activated in you, Zan," Bliss glanced at the ice-power. "But dumping the chemical version of the temporary curse into the Falchions' water supply... It will trigger the true version in many who would have remained dormant," he said sadly. "Back on Coreka, they were attempting to discover a cure for the curse, but with little success," Katrix shrugged. "The fact that everyone here has been temporarily infected, likely prompting truth as well, will definitely set back the curse's decline. It looks like this Mael, despite all his talk of rebellion, rather likes things as they are."
"So this curse," Zan spoke up. "Does it have a name?"
"The curse which is responsible for the whole of IOD... It's called Raze."

taffy789 • 26 July 2013 at 12:55 PM

"...So, what you're saying is that there are two different strands of this "curse", and these strands are driven to destroy each other?" Annabell asked quietly, looking to Katrix for her answers. "And the only reason why we're here is the most obvious- because we're dangerous to pretty much everything and one around us?" 
 It was true. Annabell hated to admit it, but it was the truth. The evidence of their deadliness could be found by just looking at the Unnoens. Sixteen-year-old nuclear bombs capable of mass genocide aren't a pretty sight no matter who you are. Even Annabell herself knew how much trouble someone with her power could cause if left in the "normal" world...
 Although she did know that the situation they were in seemed like it was for the "best", the girl couldn't help but think... it wasn't fair. 
By this point, their powers proved that they weren't "gifts", but a crippling, malignant disease; constantly ravaging their bodies and assuring a life cut short. Being surrounded by others with the same affliction, Annabell knew that some of the best people she would ever know were doomed to die... No, nothing was fair at all.
 "Wait," Annabell suddenly asked, a horrible realization dawning in her, "If the powers are in your DNA, you're blood... What causes the power's personality? The power has its own separate thoughts and drives from its user, so it's not like the user has anything to do with how their power acts, right?"
 She sincerely hoped that was the case. If not... her stomach dropped to the floor as she worried.

asi • 26 July 2013 at 9:33 PM

One nodded. "Raze has two strains; Fell and Glaia (that's GLY-a). It seems which develops in a person is caused by those around them, with the contagious nature of the curse. Experiments have been carried out in which a user has been placed in isolation, with no influences from either side. Unfortunately, this results in the development of a new strain, which attacks both," she winced. "The rebels said they are their own side... It's possible they've started their own strain," she said darky.
Raven digested this quietly. Since she had lost her power... Did that mean she no longer had true Raze? Had it gone with her power? But in any case, it meant she could still contract temporary, of course...
The thing was, she didn't know if she had 'truly' lost her power... Or if it was some kind of 'temporary' thing! It didn't seem to be coming back...
"That's... A good question," Bliss said slowly. "And it's next to impossible to scientifically find the answer. From what I've seen, unless you start to merge, the answer is no. Although you began as one, very soon after birth, and it seems the presence of the power mutation causes a fracture in personality, and the two split apart. Basically, a power is a user's split personality. Formerly a part of each other, but now two separate entities. From what we could tell, if this split doesn't occur, the child quickly... Burns out."
"Oh..." Zan stared up at the ceiling, lost in thought.

taffy789 • 27 July 2013 at 3:07 AM

 "...So it really isn't the user's fault then." Annabell assured herself, "It's not like you can control a whole another personality inside your head, in any case..." She sighed a breath of relief, and then continued to speak, "...So, I understand about the powers and about IOD a bit better now, but where do the power repress-uh, suppressors work into all of this? You were asking about them, and saying how they were different from the user repressor... How would a power suppressing drug work, anyway? And- I just want to know- what are you planning on doing with the drugs once I give them to you..?"
Annabell wondered if, after all she'd just learned, if the serums she held even worked... but it would do her no good to think that way, really...

asi • 27 July 2013 at 8:34 PM

One closed her eyes, and in a voice a little bit too calm, too relaxed, too innocent, said; "Oh? Is that what I said?" On opening, her pink eyes appeared cold, dull; "No, while the two are separate, the user can't control the power, or vice versa, they each have their own mind and will. But who's fault is that? Of course a child doesn't have the energy to fuel to separate entities inside of them, but when the power becomes active, then that changes. We know it's possible to be one again, merge with your power. Once that happens, then of course you're completely in control, as there is only one of you... So if you have a power who's different from you, who's fault is it?
"It's yours. Your own lack of understanding of yourself, your own weakness is why you are separate, and that's why you can't control yourself. And so... It is your fault. Your power is you, just a part you've shut off from yourself. Therefore... Shouldn't you take responsibility for it's actions? Raze is also your fault... Because it can't control the user, once you've merged it ceases to affect you at all~ And so, don't think yourself all pretty in white, Annabella," she wandered some paces away, her back to the two of them, and her tone returned to the militaristic one used in her explanations earlier.
"Power suppressing drugs are much simpler. In fact, there are medicines for humans which do basically the same thing; create a strong barrier between the conscious and subconscious mind, force the subconsciousness into 'sleep'- this does stuff like prevent dreams, sleepwalking, etc. All that's different is that the power is one of them. Unlike the user, their link isn't directly to the body... So they will always be the 'subconscious'.
"Hmm? Oh. What am I planning on doing? With the drugs..." Katrix seemed to start out of a daze. "Yeah. I'll need those serums now, please," she smiled sweetly.

"Okay. So how are we going to start on this... Project. 'Bring back the users', or what shall we call it?" Bliss asked, a little weary after all that explanation.
"What you're looking at is what we've got," Zan shrugged. "Even if I knew where Mael has his lab, he wouldn't exactly let us borrow it..."
The healer sweatdropped. "Okay. We're going to need some... You know. Drugs. Chemicals. Science-y stuff," he kept it simple for Zan. "And seeing as we can't exactly recruit rebels as test subjects... It's going to have to be you," he eyed the ice power.
"Great. Let's do it," the leopard said expressionlessly. "Though I don't know where Mael keeps his stuff... I do know where supplies are brought in, his with everyone else's. Therefore... We'll raid that."
Bliss nodded. "When will it come in?"

taffy789 • 28 July 2013 at 1:02 AM

There was a long silence from Annabell after Katrix's spoke. Her eyes dropped, and lingered on the floor panels a few feet in front of her, as she said nothing. Finally, a good reply came to her, slowly, and one sentence at a time.
 "... Some people don't know that merging with their power is even possible. They don't know what Raze is. All of this just hits them by surprise." she said softly, rubbing at her arms as if trying to warm herself. "I suppose they could try to fight against their power while they're under it's control... but I can see how that can be... hard. Almost impossible. And I can't wrap my head around," Annabell's voice gained strength and confidence, while her thoughts switched to her long gone friends, "how such nice people can have such /terrible/ powers. My brain won't even let me imagine their powers once being part of their personality, at any age or point in time. I just can't fathom it."
 Truthfully, the girl could hardly believe that merging with one's power was possible. Even if it was, who would ever want to reclaim such an evil force, such as most of the power's she'd seen, as part of themselves again?
 ... 
 "The serums." Annabell echoed, firmly. She reached into her pockets, took the needle out from its case, but paused before she did.
 "About this "power suppressor"... Raven and I agreed that it's probably a suppressor, but I originally thought it was... more of a antidote to the powers. Impossible, yeah, but that's what the people at the lab where this was taken from were trying to figure out... Anyway,"
 Annabell then pulled the needle out of her pocket fully, and held it out for the Leader.
 "I can give you this one. But the other..." she shot Raven a look that told her not to give her drug up just yet.
"I want to keep it on me. Hear me out, please." It was a plea, pure and simple. Annabell quickly racked her mind for a plan, needing a sure fire way to convince One to let her keep the drug. 
 ...
Oh.
 "Y-you see, I have a friend. He went feral recently, before all the rebel stuff, and is still on the isle somewhere. He's very... special to me." She chose her words carefully and raised her eyes to Katrix's, allowing them to grow slightly misty, which wasn't hard, considering all she'd been through this night.
 "Incredibly special. I thought he was lost forever when he turned feral. I didn't know what to do, but then I remembered these things..." The needle in her hand glowed bright green, and Annabell could see the light from overhead shining through the liquid and turning her hands the same color...
 "I can't help but think this could be the way to save him. Suddenly, there's this way to actually help! I know things would be different if there was only one power suppressor, but there isn't. Now that I have this thing, I feel like I should keep it by me. I feel as if I can't let it out of my sight, or else I'll lose the only chance at getting him back!" Getting emotional, Annabell looked as if she teetered on the brink of crying.
 "If he ends up d-dying before I can find him... I can give you back the drug. But while I still have it, and he's still alive... I can't just let him die. He's very, very important to me... I think we all have that one person we don't want to let go of no matter what, right?" She glanced back and forth at both Kitty and Raven, desperation in her eyes.

asi • 28 July 2013 at 1:48 AM

Katrix said nothing, just smiled coldly. Of course, the reason they were so very nice... Is because the harsher, stronger parts of their personalty is with their power. That's why they're weak. That's why they couldn't merge. But she kept this to herself, simply listening attentively as beg for one of the suppressors.
Then reaching out, One took the serum Annabell offered to her. Antidote? Is that what she said? Meditatively, she stared into the chemical's green glow...
She grinned, a look which sent cold shivers down Raven's spine. Raven was thinking that Annabell was kidding herself if she expected her to deny One the suppressor when the blonde had already given hers in! She was shocked senseless when Katrix spoke:
"Heehee, you should have said so earlier, silly!" One ruffled up Annabell's hair playfully. "Of course you can keep one for your boyfriend; if there's anyone who understands the purity of a girl's true love, it's definitely me!" she gave a breathy sigh. "So romantic... Too bad Two doesn't need me to save him or anything," Kitty pouted. "Oh, well. This will make things a bit more complicated for everyone, but true love trumps all, right, Annie? Love and justice will definitely prevail!" she pronounced cutely, eyes shining... Then gave Annabell a suspicious looking smirk, "And honor... Honorable people definitely pay their debts, don't they Annie, hmm?" she gave a sly wink.
"Now come along, children! I'll show you exactly what I'll do with this... Besides, I bet you wouldn't want to try this on your beau only to find there's a little fatal error... Heehee~" she skipped off to the exit, "Let's go! For love and justice~"
"..." Though still wearing a completely disbelieving expression, Raven forced herself to pivot around and robotically follow after the strange girl.

taffy789 • 28 July 2013 at 3:04 AM

Annabell instinctively flinched back from One's touch and froze solid in her skin when the Leader gave her the strange smirk then skipped off.
 "Ugh." she gave a small groan, her expression matching Raven's look of disbelief. After running around with Eight for a lot longer than she'd wanted to, she felt sure that she didn't want more of this! 
At least Katrix had bought into her sob story, or rather, Annabell hoped she did. Considering how emotional Kitty had gotten over Two, the trained spy figured that she could fake a romantic attachment to Leon's plight, and gain more sympathy that way... Did it work, though? Was One fooled?
 ...
Expect the worse, right?
 ...
That was still the zombie apocalypse.
 A small, freeing laugh escaped her at her own mental joke, then she remembered the group and jogged ahead to catch up to Raven. They both lingered a bit farther behind the Leader as she skipped ahead, and Annabell felt surprisingly relieved by this...
She turned to her friend, smiling her same soft smile, "Hey, Raven, I'll take the drug back now. It seems like I'll be able to keep it..."
 Suddenly, the blonde was struck by a terrible feeling of self-consciousness! Raven saw how she acted while pleading with One, and just what may her friend be thinking started to nag on the girl's mind.
 Annabell noted to clear things up later, once they were out of earshot of Kitty...

asi • 29 July 2013 at 1:26 AM

As Raven nonchalantly passed the other suppressor over to Annabell, she saw the blonde's expression suddenly change... "Hmph, don't worry," she assured the girl; "I knew about your little crush ages ago."
It wasn't until she nearly bumped into One did Raven realize their leader had stopped.
Drips of molten steel had begun to set on the walls, as if the building was crying. Along the corridor, were two silhouettes. One shape lay on the floor, while another was upright, but their position seemed awkward, like gravity dictated they should keep going forwards, but they didn't. Both figures were utterly still.
Even Katrix grew solemn at the sight, before her more, well, vicious personality took over- Raven, who had amused herself counting the leader's different mannerisms, had reached four- and Kitty said appreciatively; "Two is really something... Look at that precision, and this guy was a speed-power, hmph."
The male corpse was on the ground, seeming to rest almost peacefully, if not for his eyes, which still stared sightlessly upwards, and the thin cut through his heart, which bled surprisingly little, considering. Raven could almost imagine he would jerk back to life...
Of course, he didn't. He was dead.
Lightly tip-toeing over, One crouched at his side. "Still warm," she breathed with a smile. "Seems the metal helped him keep from drying up... Good." Turning to the other two, Katrix mentioned casually; "Two probably used some kind of divine weapon on him, so this won't become true and lethal... Only temporary," she said, as she stood and drew something from her side; an extremely long, thin blade, to the point where Raven hadn't even noticed it's existence until this moment. This was because, side on, it became practically invisible. It... It was extremely ridiculous, appearing no thicker, wider, or stronger than a strand of ribbon! With the intricate pattern carved on one side, it even dared to look more delicate!
"Ah... Swords aren't really my thing," One shrugged, "But sometimes, there really is nothing like hard, cold, sharp metal in one's hands..."
To Raven's shock and horror, Katrix unhesitatingly, still smiling even, did something so completely disrespectful, cruel, and disgusting, that the dark-haired girl had to clap her hands over her mouth to stop herself from crying out.
Horizontally, across the heart, Katrix cleaved the boy's dead body into two, sending blood splattering everywhere.

taffy789 • 29 July 2013 at 2:51 PM

She gladly took the power supressor, happily put it back in the case in her pocket where it belonged, but facepalmed as Raven claimed she'd been aware of her so-called "crush" all along...
 Determined, Annabell made it top priority to correct her friend's thinking as soon as it was possible.
 She recognized the two rebels as they approached the figures. The one frozen in place, by Two, as she now knew, was the same girl who had stabbed Riley; the other was the speed power who she'd kneed in the groin. Why Kitty considered the dead boy and stuck in time girl important, and lead them here, Annabell couldn't fathom... Until Katrix brandished her thin sword, and promptly divided a human body into two different sections without even blinking once. 
A mixture of shock and disgust rolled into Annabell like an rockslide going seventy down a steep mountain, and the girl unthinkingly jumped back out of surprise, missing her footing, falling, and then landed on her rear.
 She let out a small groan, and carefully picked herself up from the floor, eyes fixated on the separated body in engrossed horror as she did so, not being able to tug herself away...
 The more Annabell stared at the carnage, the more nauseous she could feel herself getting. Not wanting to collapse to the ground again, she managed to turn her sights to Kitty, and speak to her instead of continuing to eyeball the mutilated body.
 "Ugh, what... what was the point of that, exactly?" the girl asked sounding dazed, and tried to shake off her sickness.

asi • 30 July 2013 at 5:56 AM

Not seeming to hear, Katrix knelt down again and quickly, efficiently unscrewed the serum's lid, held it to the boy's heart and let the blood flow into the tube. Then she stood and held it up to the light, swirling the contents with a practiced hand so that the speed-power's blood and the suppressor chemicals quickly mixed... The contents, which had previously been a phosphorescent green, with red blood added to it, didn't keep either of those properties, nor did if turn a murky brown of both. It became a shocking bright white, almost pure for the exception of a bluish tinge appearing around the edges. The very liquid seems to almost crackle with energy, raging inside the glass.
"Haahhh," Kitty exhaled excitedly. "So pretty! It looks like I've solved it~ Heehee!" Then she cocked her head like a spaniel, as though Annabell's words had only just reached her. "Oh, yeah! Two would be annoyed if I left such a mess lying around... Rejoin!" she scratched the back of her neck apologetically, and the corpse was once again in one piece.
"What is that?" Raven asked warily. From what she'd seen of One, this was more likely to be a guaranteed love potion than anything else.
"It's a power suppressor, of course!" Katrix answered irritably, "Weren't you listening?" she gave a loud 'humph' before switching her attention onto the girl frozen in time. Taking one of the power's stone-still hands in her own, Katrix said quietly to her; "So long as you can feel my touch... Unlock."
For one beat, nothing happened.
"Chase! NO!!" A scream rent the air, a blur of green flew at One, knife clutched tightly in hand, aimed at the first throat the girl had set her eyes on.
In a flash, Voeing's arm was twisted behind her back, and Katrix held her fast in a lock. "Don't move," she instructed, sweet but harsh.
"N-n-no! No... Chase!!" The power caught sight of the body and screamed. "C-chase..." she began to cry, desperately struggling and fighting her captor to try and reach him.
One pulled tighter, until Voeing was forced to cry out in pain. "Stay, still," Kitty gritted out through clenched teeth.
On hearing the danger in the tone, the greenhead was frightened into stopping, though her body was still racked by sobs. "W-what do you w-want?" she whimpered through tears, before catching sight of the serum in the leader's grasp, her eyes widening. "No!" she yelled out, suddenly terrified. "Please, no!!" Voeing begged her.
"Kitty..." Raven seemed to hesitate. "Are you sure this is..."
Whatever she'd been going to say obviously didn't matter, as Katrix plunged the needle ruthlessly into the helpless, crying girl's neck.

taffy789 • 31 July 2013 at 12:19 AM

Despite Annabell already deciding that the rebel girl deserved no sympathy from earlier, she couldn't stop herself from being affected by the green-haired girl's terrified screams.
"Kitty, stop..." she started quietly, to softly for anyone but herself to possibly hear, and took a half step forward towards the Leader...
 She stared on with the same absorbed revulsion from before as Kitty fiercely jabbed the needle into Voeing's neck as she squirmed and twisted in One's grasp.
The blonde paused for a few seconds, mesmerized by the cruelty, then, as if moving in backward in time, Annabell immediately reversed her direction, putting one foot behind the other as if trying to walk away from a wild, dangerous animal without spooking it into charging. She stopped her pace when she was a good ten paces away from Kitty, as only then she felt safe.

asi • 20 August 2013 at 7:16 AM

Voeing fell silent.
As she stood waiting, Raven could feel the heat slowly seeping out from the metal underneath her feet. Katrix didn't show any intention of explaining herself however, not even relaxing her tense arms, although the girl in her hands had gone as limp as a wet sock.
Well? Had it worked? Was the power suppressed? Or had it backfired completely and been lethal?
The eyelashes of the greenhaired girl seemed to flutter slightly, as if in a light breeze.
Unknowingly, Raven found herself holding her breath, not daring to disturb the air in the slightest, least she falsify a glimpse of motion.
A sudden, piercing sound sliced through the spell- so high-pitched there was a tinker and the glass of the syringe shattered- jolting Raven backwards a step as she looked around wildly. An alarm? It ceased as suddenly as it had began, though its echo continued to ring loudly in her ears. Automatically her eyes jumped to One for instruction, only to find a strange expression she could only identify as unsettled. Slowly, almost fearfully, Raven inched her gaze downwards at the rebel, the face half hidden by green locks which had fallen forwards with her slump. The girl's lips had parted slightly, in... 'A silent scream?' Raven found herself idly thinking, before it struck her. That sound, it wasn't possible it had come from a human... Right?
As if in an innocent yawn, Voeing's mouth opened wide, and that was all the warning Raven got before she was assaulted by a wall of sound; her eardrums felt like they'd split open from the pain. All she could do was throw herself away and shove her fingers up her ears, the sharp pain doing more to distract her than the attempt of any blockage of sound.
Finally, Katrix let go. The moment she was released, Voeing froze, once again such a convincing statue that Raven could almost pretend that didn't just happen. Almost.
"Katrix...?" Even though the leader was certainly responsible for this episode, any animosity Raven should have felt had been entirely shaken out of her. She couldn't think that anyone would have done that intentionally, and only thought with concern for the girl.
However, One turned away, a shadow cast over her features. "Perhaps you'd like to reconsider using that on your sweetheart, Lee." She may have been mistaken, but for a second, there seemed to be a flash of- what? -on One's face...
She blinked and the leader was gone.
"She's a complete... Maniac!" Raven exclaimed furiously.

It was a long dance around the jagged fragments of glass littering his office floor. Maybe it would have been quicker to just look for a broom and sweep it up, but honestly, his head was still whirling after today's events- and since he was counting the day as all the time since his last sleep, it had been a very, very long one. It was a bit much to ask for straight thought processes after all that. Riley was just thankful he hadn't dropped off during One's lecture, although that probably was less to do with him and more about how many bombs that girl had dropped on them.
Although strangely the only one that had really stuck in his sleep-deprived brain was the same that gave him the worst headache... Her being in a relationship with Two!!
He just couldn't see it working. When she was being silly and flirty, Riley couldn't see Two getting anything but fed up with her. Or when Katrix turned all business and harsh, militaristic control? No way, there was no way Two would put up with that. Riley shook his head rapidly, trying to clear it. This was a mathematical equation which would never, ever make sense.
And now, it seemed he really couldn't sleep.

taffy789 • 21 August 2013 at 5:12 AM

Now huddled another twenty paces away from Raven, Annabell unlatched her fingers from her eardrums, trying to ignore the loud, annoying ringing in her head. Rubbing her ears, she started back towards her friend, shouting to her, "What was your first clue?!!" 
She spoke unnecessarily loud, the ringing making her unaware that she was yelling at the top of her lungs. "She cut a guy's dead body in half just to get blood from him!!! There is obviously something very wrong with that girl!!!"
The irritating, all-consuming noise ceased hindering her hearing as Annabell approached Raven, and her voice returned to its normal softness once more.
 "Gah, oh gosh, I feel like I'm about to go deaf here... And that noise gave me a splitting headache..." the girl held her head between her palms, grimacing. Her head wasn't the only thing killing her, as it seemed that her burns were reappearing on her legs... Was she out of the sphere of "One's influence" or whatever? Perhaps, she thought, upon seeing what Kitty's power could do, that was a good thing.
Pain attacking her from all sides, the girl seated herself on the warm floor, and rested for a moment before asking Raven, "Did that... inhuman screech come the green-haired girl?"
 Looking at the power, who was currently refrozen in place, Annabell shivered as she thought back on what Kitty just did to her... Then again, what Kitty just did to Voeing was what she was planning on doing to Charge!
 "God, Raven, what just happened?" she suddenly exclaimed out loud, with out really directing the question to her friend.
 "Whatever that serum did to the power... Whatever it did to make her scream like that..." She trailed off darkly, and then quickly continued with an aburpt change of ideas, her voice heightening with unexpected passion, "Didn't Kitty say that I shouldn't use it to try to save Leon? What does that even mean? What did it do to the power? Is she dead? Is the serum lethal? Can I really not use it?"
 Annabell now talked with her hands, her newfound distress animating her and making her feel restless.
"I mean, really, was that all for nothing? It's hard for me to just accept that!" The sudden loud, emotional outburst made it sound as if Annabell's normal, level-headed demeanor had broken she had turned hysterical, but when she shook her head sadly and then slowly stood, it was hard to say she looked anything but calm- yet greatly worried and in need of sleep.
 "I just feel utterly lost- again." she complained, frowning and looking towards Raven for help, "What do you think?"
 


 Walking along the eerily empty corridors, Gale couldn't help but get the feeling that she was being followed. 
 Because she was.
"Okay, please, can you stop following so closely behind me?" she demanded, whipping around on her heels with the grace of a breeze.
 "I really don't need you breathing down my neck right now, I'm trying to think."
 Zach, who was still soaking wet and had been keeping a good distance behind Seven, raised an eyebrow.
 "I'm sorry, I didn't know I could breath down your neck when I'm six feet behind you." he scowled, then added, "Also, we're both headed in the same direction, so it's not like I'm about to switch my path anytime soon just to cater to your personal space issues."
Seven frowned. With the loud echo of his footsteps hitting the metal tiles following her down the hall- and the sloshing sound his movements made- it really felt as if the boy was right behind her... Okay, so she might have been wrong about their spacing but, really! It still hurt her brain to have ANYONE following her at the moment! It made her feel... more inwardly frazzled and shook up than she already was. If anything, she just wanted a moment of peace and reflection before she headed to help the disaster area which was the destroyed base... Also, Five came off as a bit of a jerk, and that was one of the last things she wanted to deal with currently.
"While we are here, however..." Zach spoke up again, eyes scanning Gale with slight confusion, "You look familiar. Have we met?"
 Seven blinked, equally confused, then remembered.
 "Yeah, we have, actually." She recalled, leaning backward on her heels, "Briefly, and just a few days ago. Right before you took the test to get into the Truce." She nodded, and fell silent.
 "Oh, now I remember." Five said, looking Gale over again. "You were the girl strangling her complimentary vegetable muffin."
The Leader didn't want to take that trip down memory lane, as she remembered herself being a bundle of nerves that day, and feeling very... unsettled. Much like she did now. Much like she did when that evil, maniacal voice cackled in her mind like an evil witch out of some twisted Disney cartoon...
She shook those thoughts out of her head, as they'd begun to twist her gut into knots.
 Instead, she focused on answering Five. "Yes, and I remember you being the guy who didn't believe in luck." Gale shrugged, all the while mentally tacking a bitter "And who obviously couldn't take a good-intentioned "good luck", making me waste my breath." onto the end of her sentence to Zach, though not saying a thing.
 "So, Five," she continued out loud, wondering what would be the best way out of the conversation so she could get some quiet, "are you going to go help out the survivors?"
 "No. I'm going to find my wrecked office, a change of clothes, and then I'm going to sleep. Which I should be doing to right, now. So, bye." The conversation holding no more value to him, Zach curtly ended it by striding off down the hall.
Gale sighed. What a jerk. Perhaps even a bigger one than Six seemed to be, before he turned feral and ended up who-knows-where.
Truthfully though, Seven would consider pulling the same stunt and going to bed, if she didn't feel almost inclined to help out, since she was, technically, a part of the disaster.
 Sighing once more, the Leader started down the corridor, making sure to put plenty of space between her and her Fifth counterpart. 
At least now, she would have some time to really think.

asi • 24 August 2013 at 8:39 PM

"I don't know, I don't know," Raven retorted sharply, glaring upwards at the ceiling, despising the sense of inadequacy that came from the admittance.
She dragged in a deep breath, a tired and weak attempt at regaining her composure. "Maybe we should just slow down." Slowly realizing the truth of her own words, Raven continued; "We've been rushing too fast into things. Yes... We've all got someone missing we want desperately to help; Leon, Angel and Alex... And Blaine." With a tilt downwards of her head, dark hair fell in front of her face like a curtain, hiding her from view. She didn't want to admit to anyone, least of all herself, how acutely she felt his absence. Blaine was different to Riley and Annabell, more easy-going, less serious. He was someone who it was just easy to be herself around, relax. Between eight crazy leaders, especially her own, Raven found herself left wanting for exactly that. She sighed. "But after what happened with Charge today, I think we seriously need a change of tactics. If Riley wasn't a dead thing already, he would've DIED," she had some difficulty swallowing. "It may mean that in the future, there will be a point where we will have to rely on someone stronger than us, crazy or not. And we're going to have to chose carefully who that person is... It's just a feeling I get. All I know is that we should be more careful from here on in, not act rashly. That said... We should definitely get some sleep," she concluded, turning to face the direction of her beloved bed, and groaned slightly. "It doesn't take an Einstein to tell that in this state, I'll do more harm than good anywhere else."

Two didn't want to believe he'd actually slept in these clothes. They had some ash on them, and it had rubbed off onto everywhere... He cast them a disgusted glance; there was no way he'd be able to rest any longer now, not when every moment increased his cleaning load. White shirts weren't normally a problem, in fact, he couldn't remember the last time he'd actually been so careless as to get his clothes DIRTY, especially dirt that could be seen with the naked eye!
It bothered him.
It didn't bother him half as much as the sudden weight at the end of his bed, just interrupting his move to change clothes. The offending shirt only received a disdainful look for now, though knowing its master, it would definitely suffer a thorough drubbing later. At this moment, Two had more pressing hygiene matters to attend to.
"Katrix..." he spoke slowly, a sleek and dangerous edge to his voice. "If you're going to throw up, make it anywhere else."
Too late, it seemed.
"..." The second leader of the Falchions was reduced to tapping his fingers impatiently while he waited for the girl to finish; a more unsympathetic spectator couldn't be found. Well, it was a sight he was unfortunately accustomed to.
Katrix felt sick to the core. What had happened back there, what had she done? She didn't understand what was going on. As her head played over the past few minutes, she watched with increasing terror, knowing it to be her and yet at the same time feeling only a bystander. "Why, why... Why am I like this?" she murmured, so low he might have missed it.
He may as well have. His sole response was a cold; "I hope you intend to clean that up," matched with a stare no more respectful than the look he'd shown his shirt.
Her hands clenched around his blankets, digging her fingernails into the plain weave. The girl's expression seemed not to change, but he knew enough to see the flash of amaranth anger in her eyes.
Ever so slightly, his coldness receeded; for a moment, he relented. "You see what you've done, don't you?" Spike said, a slightly patronizing undertone to his perpetual pragmatism.
Questioningly, she lifted her head. At that tone, his treatment of her was all but forgotten; she fast buried the real Two in front her beneath her memories. Attentively Katrix sat up straight and (to his annoyance) wiped her mouth on his blanket (well, the damage had really already been done).
His hand twitched, itching for a taste of cold steel, and he wondered if he couldn't just get rid of her. Still, Two knew it wasn't worth the effort. Apathetically, he explained; "Your personality has fractured. You tried too hard to force yourself and your power together when you were incompatible," Spike rolled his eyes. "Therefore, some parts mixed, some parts clashed, and everything turned into a figurative giant globular mess. Hence, splintered personalities."
Katrix paused then quietly asked, "And is this your theory, or fact?"
"My theories are fact," he replied dismissively.
Her eyes hardened. "Spence wouldn't-"
"Don't speak of him," Spike interrupted, eyes narrowing.
"Luca-!" she began furiously, but this time it was not words but his black gaze that stopped her dead. It had looked so... Empty.
Sliding off the bed, Spike silently moved over to a wall, contemplating it carefully.
For the first time, Katrix looked around her at Two's room, eyes widening. Her immediate thought was that it seemed awfully small. Considering the one thing the Falchions had plenty of, the leaders had little restraints on their rooms. Certainly Two's office was more like a hall than anything else- though not as big, one might notice, as the former Three's- in fact, its size was mostly deception, as the edges of the space faded into darkness, making it appear bigger than it actually was. Two's room, on the other hand, wasn't much larger than one might find in an ordinary home. In one respect, it was similar to his office; the dimness, lack of color. Then you looked at western wall, the one Two stood in front of, and you saw it was entirely a fish tank.
She managed to quirk a weak smile. "Cool," she said, watching how the reflection of light from the water danced across the room, occasionally the shadow forms of fish darting across it. With the watery glow now shining on him, Two's face appeared to lose several years of hardness. He resembled again the boy she'd known, and she didn't miss a fluttering sensation in her chest (one that hadn't anything to do with her nauseous stomach). "And here I thought the ruthless Two only did things for a reason."
He turned back to her, eyebrows raised. "I do only do things for a reason," Spike corrected. "My predecessor's tastes were... Unrestrained and eccentric. It wasn't worth the effort removing this," he deadpanned.
... Did that really match the work involved keeping fish? She could only wonder. "... Well. Have you even tried merging with your power?" Katrix remembered to ask, somewhat accusative in tone.
"Of course not," was his dismissive remark.
She blinked, bewildered by his blunt admission. "Then... How will you become an Unnoen?"
"..." He returned her stare evenly, and didn't answer. "Are you going to clean that mess up already?"
"I..." her shoulders shook slightly, she was again holding back tears. Mess? By that he meant...
"I just have to do everything, don't I?" Two snatched up the blankets, easily pulling them out from underneath the girl, and stalked off to a section of the wall which opened and revealed itself to be the bathroom door.
"D*mn it, Two!" she shouted suddenly. "Would it kill you to help me?"
He stopped, looked back at her, dark eyes unreadable. The blankets sailed a smooth arc into the sink and he stepped back to allow the bathroom to close behind him. (After intense cleaning, the blankets would be donated to some unknowing prisoner in the punishment complex. Waste not, want not). "You don't think it will?" he asked cryptically.
Katrix only shot him a disbelieving glance. To what lengths would he go to avoid her!?
"Alright," he said finally, eyeing the pendant which hung from her neck. "Fetch your chosen weapon."
She hadn't noticed until now that she'd left her sword back there, a fact which slightly relieved her. It would be some time before she'd be able to pick that up again, but that didn't bother her. "You want to fight!" One jumped to her feet eagerly. A match against Two!
Spike merely shrugged a 'duh', waiting for her to flash off in search of a weapon, but she didn't, only raised an eyebrow smugly.
"Why, I'd be a fool to go anywhere without my most trusted companions at my side," she winked, teasing him for his belt, which indeed was empty.
"You chose your fists then," Two observed, much to the girl's disappointment. How did he KNOW she wasn't hiding anything!? So frustrating. "As do I."
At this, she scowled. "Don't you dare go easy on me!"
He shook his head slowly in answer, but One had already slid into the offensive; not wasting a moment. The fight had begun.

taffy789 • 24 August 2013 at 11:54 PM

Annabell nodded as she listened to her friend's words, and allowed them to provide her some comfort, even though they really offered little.
 "I think you're right, Raven." she smiled at the girl, "Perhaps, we all just need to calm ourselves down and get some rest." Rest sounded lovely to Annabell at that moment, and she imagined the wonderous feeling of her head buried in a fluffy pillow... Even the rock hard pillows that had in their rooms would feel like they were stuffed with clouds after tonight!
 "And I'm sure all of us will end up all finding our lost friends and family member eventually." she made sure to add, expertly observing Raven's slight change in demeanor when she mentioned Blaine.
 Annabell turned towards the direction she thought her room was in as well, but then remembered something she should address...
"Oh, and Raven? When I made it sound like Leon was my boyfriend to Kitty, I was purposely doing that so I could get her sympathy, seeing she had... relationship issues of her own, and so she would be more likely to let me keep the serums." the girl informed her friend, speaking very sincerely. "I don't want to give you the wrong impression or anything. Trust me, if I would've felt that way about him, I'm sure Alex would've picked up on it back at the school and would've murdered me in my sleep." She was completely serious as she said the last line.
However, she then smiled as if she found herself funny, and then joked, eyes sparkling with remembrance, "He's just my slightly idiotic, platonic friend who forces me to worry about him all the time. That's pretty much it."
 For a moment, she forget that same friend was now taken over by a complete monster, but she recalled that fact a few seconds later and grew solemn once again.

asi • 26 August 2013 at 8:35 PM

After watching closely her friend's expressions while she spoke, Raven conceeded, with a light, "Well, if you say so." She didn't sound entirely convinced, but she trusted that Annabell wasn't lying to her. Personally, although she had to admit that it would be a lot safer for the blonde's wellbeing for her to not go after Leon, Raven would much prefer that shipping on her wall. She felt a lot closer to Annabell than Alex... Riley's sister had came across to her as slightly crazy and possessive; not the kind of girlfriend Raven would wish on a nice guy. On the other hand, she could definitely find a few to point in the direction of a certain jerkface leader...
Gods above! She felt suddenly angered on realizing where her train of thoughts had led her. Raven was really too tired. Couldn't he just leave her alone!? She shook her head in frustration, as if such an action could ward off the bothersome fly-like thoughts which kept landing on her.
Still, it seemed like she'd been wrong about the Leobell relationship, sigh. Raven understood where she was coming from; contrary to many television drama depictions, girls really could have totally platonic friendships with boys! Wasn't that exactly her and Blaine? ...Actually, that was kind of funny, how Blaine had ended up firmly in the friendzone of both her and Alex despite being such a flirt... She hid a smile. Hm. What about Blaine and Annabell? If only she found him again, then Raven might try and get those two together, eheheh... "We'll talk about this later, okay? Right now, we both have dates with our pillows."
With that, the dark-haired girl set off for her bedroom, her feet so impatient for bed she could feel them going to sleep as she walked.

Katrix initiated the match, lunging forwards with a simple but oddly aimed jab, seemingly targeted at his neck. He slipped under the attack with ease, both grabbing her outstretched arm and launching a sharp kick at her stomach. Seeing it coming, she'd been able like a snake to twist out of his grip and bend back so his foot did little more than brush past her. But then, contrary to her expectations, Two followed up with a left hook, not the common right, and swifter than she could adjust to and dodge. His fist slammed into her jaw, knocking her backwards several stumbling steps and dizzy.
Calmly pulling his feet together- in no fighting stance!- Two straightened and seemed to stare just above her right shoulder as he waited. He wasn't looking at her?
Her eyes narrowed, analyzing the tactic. He wanted to shake her up  by not watching her and putting her unconsciously at ease, despite her knowing better. It would place her instincts at odds with her mind.
She took a slinking step to her left, curious as to his response.
There was none, as Spike continued to look straight ahead, not tensed or frozen, but all relaxed and casual. He allowed her to proceed in circling him, not moving even when she should directly behind him.
Oh, and he was also intimidating her.
Knowing how stupid and obvious from right behind would be, Katrix silently shifted back around to the right, giving her next attack an unexpected angle as she tried a sweeping kick, trying to take advantage of his lack of stance's less than optimum balance. (It did, she noticed, have other advantages; in not making that particularly vulnerable area open to her attack, for which Katrix was thankful for, it saving her a certain dilemma).
((Far, far away, godhead Raid facepalmed)).
Spike twisted his foot around, nearly an infinitesimal amount, but somehow just so that she tripped and went falling. Recovering smoothly, Katrix flowed into an forwards roll and then she was onto her feet again, whipping around and swiftly backing off.
From what she'd seen so far... Two was fast! Much, much more so than her, his movements both instant and precise, and he was impossibly aware, seeming to anticipate her every move. However, that one hit he'd landed on her... It hurt all right, and probably would have broken her jaw if she hadn't clenched her teeth, but after feeling it, One knew her own to be more powerful than that. Despite being the faster, Spike was also bigger and had the advantage in weight in this match (at least, she dearly hoped so, checking out her stomach and reminding herself to go easy of the junk food). However, those were things Katrix was practiced with using against others; just as she fully intended to now, assuming she could pull it off on Two.
So far, he hadn't initiated an attack, merely responded in kind to her own. His assurance, 'I do only do things for a reason,' echoed in her head, and her expression hardened as One poured her focus into the battle. ... Wait a second, there seemed to be an awful lot of kicking. Wasn't this supposed to be fists? Had he just tricked her, like she'd intended-
Waah! Her arm flew up on pure instinct and she flinched but held strong at the jarring impact when he hit it, hard. She danced to the side to avoid his next strike, throwing in a quick kick at his knee as she did so, this time pulling back fast to escape that trip-trick of his. Though it should have been seriously painful, Spike showed no signs he'd been affected; just as she hadn't earlier. The next few series of exchanges happened too fast for Katrix to think any but respond, though eventually she began to see that this really wasn't a real fight, despite the seriousness of the attacks. Two was merely putting her through a set of slightly abnormal practice steps. Like a test. One wasn't going to let that lull her into any daze, however! She met him with unmatched ferocity, while the entire time Two looked dully out to her right...
Finally, on threat of sweat permeating his room, he did allow her a moment to rip off her top layer, and that's when Spike glanced at her and noticed something, or rather something that wasn't there. Exposed, her arms appeared pale and plain.
One flashed him a curious look at his expression, one she couldn't seem to identify at all.
Wordlessly, Two pushed up his right sleeve, all the way up to his shoulder, and she frowned, even more confused. So he was into tattoo art, so what? But stepping closer, she found that the whole inked web was made up of... Digits?
"Like how they number people on IOD... Oh!" Katrix realized. "I don't have one, no. But why do you have so many?" she frowned. That stuff was pretty permanent, probably not something to get on a whim?
"I use it to keep track of things. Why didn't you get one?" he deflected.
She shrugged, "Ah, it just never really came up? Keep track of what?" One insisted.
"..." Two pulled the sleeve back down, and his features were expressionless again, that same disinterested, empty, bored look.
"Tell mee," she whined slightly, hating his silence, it made Katrix uncomfortable.
Then she was again on the defensive, ah, she'd allowed him to distract her... Until now, Katrix had been holding up fine; when it came to fists, it seemed they were about equal. But with her concentration lapse, Two had got her cornered.
"Don't worry about it," he said tonelessly, as if to offer comfort. "After all, I must have three years of training on you."
"Three years?" Katrix was bewildered by that figure, but as she spoke, kept her focus, feigning to her right, and trying to slip out to the left, and though he wasn't fooled, she still Houdini'd on out of there. If there was one thing One prided herself on, it was escapism. "Spike, how old are you?" she stared.
"... Do you know why we're fighting?" Two asked, dodging both her next attack and question by changing the subject again.
"Why?" she kicked out, wanting for any explanation at this point. Any would do to help solve her conundrum of Two.
"It's a way to unite you and your power. When you're fighting against a different enemy, you're forced to work together, as for once you share the same goals. This is why, no matter how hard you tried, you couldn't reach a full merge with your power. You don't understand each other, you don't share the same goals. That's why you've failed so pathetically." His monotoned words were like a bucket of ice water on her head, and she fell back, trying to gain ground to recover.
"That goal, couldn't it be love?" Katrix tried hesitantly.
After a beat, Spike said evenly; "It could." Taking three small steps forward brought him back within arm's reach of her.
She stumbled further back, which proved to be her downfall, as Katrix had forgotten her surroundings. When the back of her knee hit the side of the bed too sharply, she lost her balance and collapsed back on the mattress. The thought of him pinning her down in this position sent her into a spiral of panic.
But he just rolled his eyes at her and told her to please get off his bed. Blushing, she hastily did so.
"It looks like you've been self-trained. Your moves are unconventional and well-suited to your own physique, good. But it also means you lack the advantage of the traditional moves which have been developed through centuries of use..." he shrugged. "Go pick up some library book from Three or something. You've also placed a large emphasis on strength, rather than what would have been your natural advantage of speed. Do some more running, and improve your reflexes," Two instructed her, and she recognized a dismissive tone that said their 'playtime' was over. "And next time," he frowned; "Don't even think about going easy on me."
Still looking away, not paying her proper attention, Spike missed the fierce answering flash in her eyes at the challenge.
"Two," Katrix started sweetly, a tone which instantly struck as false.
But he ignored her, he was walking away towards the door to the office- probably to show it to her.
That wasn't going to happen just yet. "Sit," she commanded, lathering her voice with power. One had had enough. Oh, she was going to make him talk.

taffy789 • 26 August 2013 at 11:42 PM

"Glad you understand." Annabell sighed with relief while still wondering if Raven fully believed her.
She supposed it didn't matter all that much in any case... Now that was out of the way, Annabell agreed with Raven- it was time for bed. She called a quick "Good night!" out to her friend before shuffling off in the direction of her quarters...
 Halfway to her room, however, she suddenly remembered the dead feral that had been lying on her floor since Eight came to get her! Feeling somewhat disgusted by this revelation- and equally desperate for some rest- Annabell changed her plans, going with the first easy solution to her predicament that popped into her mind.
After finding a nice, empty bedroom with an unlocked door, the girl plopped onto a bed that wasn't hers and buried herself deep in the covers. The lull of sleep was so great that it almost immediately knocked out Annabell without her having to first get rid of the painful throbbing sensation in her legs... keyword, almost.
Luckily, she still had those morphine tablets from Eight's room, and she popped one in her mouth after deciding that she probably wouldn't get crazy addicted to them if she took one proper dose. The pain slowly faded, and her surrounds seemed to melt away too- then Annabell was out like a light.


#stealingotherpeople'sbeds #thuglifeAnnabell

asi • 27 August 2013 at 2:13 AM

He turned and looked at her.
Katrix hesitated. That expression, just so empty, devoid of even the slightest response... It scared her.
"Sit," she said again, forcing out more power into the command, and praying that her voice didn't tremble.
Spike lowered himself down to the floor and crossed his legs.
One couldn't help it; she clapped her hands together in elation, and giggled slightly at the second leader sitting like a little schoolboy... (No! A cool, teenaged schoolboy...) It had been a huge risk that her power would fail and he'd get mad at her. Or rather, he still probably would... But not before she had her answers!
So what first? Katrix pondered, then started with the simplest; "How old are you then?" she was curious about his reaction earlier. He was about seventeen or eighteen, right? It couldn't be much different than that, so why?
"... I don't know," Two answered coldly.
At first she just thought he was resisting, but no: it seemed like... He really didn't know! Strange. She should ask about what had happened to him after they'd parted, but to be honest... Katrix was too frightened to find out. She avoided that and instead said, though with little hope; "Do you know who Mael is?"
A shadow flitted across Two's face. "... I don't know," again was his reply.
But... If he didn't know who Mael is, shouldn't he just have said 'no'? "Does that mean... You don't know who Mael is... Or does it mean that you don't know if you know who Mael is?" she blinked.
"I don't know if I know who Mael is," Two repeated after her.
"... Then you know the muffin man?" She was sorry. But the temptation had been simply beyond resisting.
"... I know of the muffin man. But I don't know if I've met the muffin man..."
"So only one of us knows the muffin man," she sighed regretfully, before growing serious once more. "Are you Mael?" she tried desperately. "Are you my enemy?" her voice broke, she buried her head in her hands at the very thought.
"I don't know. I don't know." Two just said again the same three words, now sounding strangely amused, and she peeked at him through her hands.
He was watching her with a pronounced smirk.
"Wahh!" she backed up hurriedly, freaking out. "Go back to looking subservient and bored!" Katrix yelped. He, he, he was treating this like a game!
Two rolled his eyes and resumed his previous expression.
"Okay," she huffed, relieved. Next question... "The tattoos, what're they about then? What do they keep track of?"
"The number of people I've killed," came the nonchalant answer. "They're written in groups, so there are a lot of nines, for when the number exceeds a single digit at once I have to do the sum in several groups, otherwise I'd get confused if two and four was twenty-four or not... This way I just write it as nine-nine-six instead."
... What? One just stared, dazed. His words didn't make sense to her. He wasn't talking about human life, no... Two was just talking about numbers... She looked at his sleeved arm and thought about how many she'd seen, what percentage were nines, and if it went up his shoulder as well... Then she absently noticed something on his neck, as his collar had fallen slightly lower than usual... More tattoos, she wondered? It seemed strange... "What is that?" One murmured before she'd even realized she'd opened her mouth.
His features didn't react, but Katrix was struck by the impression of hidden anger as forced to obey, he tugged down the obstructing material so that she could see his lower neck and shoulder.
It looked like black veins criss-crossed under the surface of his skin; like a strange web, it was easy to see why she'd at first thought it more of the tattoo.
She almost wished he'd look furious, glare at her or something, just express whatever it was so then she'd at least know, but he didn't, just said quietly; "Raze. This is raze."
Katrix recoiled. So the second leader was infected. But she'd never seen anything like this, never heard of raze having any kind of visible symptoms. Of course, those touched by it normally didn't last very long.
He yanked the shirt back up, stood and only looked at her, but that was enough.
It was obvious her bonds had now failed, and though Two appeared as apathetic as ever, she was terrified. Katrix fled, her TELI filling the room with bright amaranth before she was gone.
"... You should be careful what you wish for, Katrix," he told the empty room.

taffy789 • 28 August 2013 at 12:20 AM

-Epic Two-like Time Jump! XD-

Vision foggy, Annabell woke up with a deep-throated groan, and pulled her pillow over her head as the person trying to arouse her kept poking her face.
 Two voices conversed quietly over her.
 "She's not waking up..." a male- most likely the one doing the poking, since he sounded so close- muttered.
 "Well, if that's the case, then we should leave!" a worried and feminine voice snapped, "Really, we aren't supposed to be here!"
 "We're here on official duty; we'll be fine." the male assured his companion breezily. "Besides, do you REALLY want to return to our Leader and say we've failed a simple errand?"
 "I don't want to return to her at all." the girl answered sincerely. Both of them fell silent, as if contemplating this great truth that was just spoken between them, when an unexpected loud shout butt in with, "HEY! What are you two doing?!"
"Aaaaaaah! I TOLD you we weren't supposed to be here!"
Shuffling sounds were audible as somebody- the girl?- moved closer to the boy near Annabell's bed. Thuds were then heard.
 "Ow! Stop hitting me!" the male complained, "I'm a hemophiliac! I bruise easily!"
All the ruckus soon became more than Annabell could possibly sleep through, and she jolted up in bed to get a good look at the situation around her.
"Oh, she woke up!" cheered the boy standing next to her bed and who was fighting to get his female counterpart to stop weakly pounding on him with her closed fists.
Past them, an older looking girl, in her later teens, stood, looking exasperated, tired, and unbelieving- three emotions that could all share one face surprisingly well.
"... You both." the older girl commanded the two fighting once she saw Annabell was awake, "Get out of here. I'll pass on your message to the patient."
At this wording, Annabell lifted an eyebrow, but before she could formulate a proper question in her drowsy brain, the two awkward messengers had both scurried off, out of her... room?
At this point, Annabell realized with a start that she wasn't in a proper room, or bed, and she certainly did not recognize her surroundings as the stranger's room she'd fallen asleep in! Instead of four metal walls protecting her, her cot- not bed- sat with the metal headboard pressed against a wall, and privacy curtains, like the kind seen at hospitals, surrounded her. The only opening in these curtains was in front of her, and that was where the older girl stood. Annabell blinked, and looked at the stranger.
 "...Where am I?" she asked, hearing the tiredness in her own voice. She prayed that the answer wouldn't be that she'd been kidnapped and transported to some crazy, evil facility in the dead of night. Considering her past (mis)adventures, this was, sadly, a very real possibility.
Although it might've been a possibility, it wasn't what had happened, as the older girl' arms clearly had the Falchion tattoos as she raised two fingers and tapped on a shiny badge in the shape of a caduceus pinned on the pocket of her shirt. "I'm a healer here, and you're in a temporary hospital set up in the mess hall." she explained simply, and then delved into greater detail, "From what I remember, somebody found you in their bed passed out, tried to awake you, couldn't, and then brought you here. All of us healers here thought you were badly hurt or something along those lines those lines, seeing your burns, but as it turned out, you were just drugged..."
 Annabell flushed, slightly ashamed as she recalled taking the morphine tablets. "I hope I didn't cause much trouble." she stated apologetically.
 The healer shrugged her shoulders. "After we patched you up, you weren't that much trouble. Well, not for the workers. Apparently, the patient to your right says that you talk loudly in your sleep." She smiled as if amused, which caused Annabell to turn a darker shade of red. After reminding herself to never take morphine again, out of fear she'll say something discriminating while she napped, she checked out how she'd been "patched her up". Her legs and arms, now wrapped tightly in so many bandages that she resembled a half-completed mummy, no longer pulsed with searing pain, and instead felt tolerably stiff.
 "May I ask, how long was I sleeping?" Annabell questioned after she got done examining her healed wounds.
 "Well, you were discovered a day after the lock down, and you were starting to come around after we moved you here... but our team couldn't deal with your injuries at that moment, so we knocked you out again to prevent you from just laying there in pain. After things calmed down slightly, we finally got around to you... so, I say about three days." the girl informed her, and then, with the speed of a lightning strike, changed topics, "Since you're up and healthy enough, you ought to leave the hospital now... Also, we need your cot. Like, asap."
 Taken aback by the sudden change in tone, Annabell complied fast, and stood herself up on shaky feet. Now that she realized it, in her drowsiness and confusion, she had completely failed to see just how impatient the healer looked! The girl's clothes were wrinkled, and she seemed to be twitchy, as if running solely on two hours of sleep and five nicotine patches.
 Annabell couldn't help but to chide herself for wasting her time with questions, even if they did clear many things up.
 "Take a right once you leave, and if you follow the path you'll find the exit eventually. Some Leader's messengers will be waiting for you outside." the healer advised her now ex-patient once she rushed towards the empty bed to prepare it for its next occupant. "Though, you should probably put on some new clothes, first..."
Almost too scared to glance down, Annabell slooowly lowered her vision... Oh gosh! She let out a inward groan. Though her her limbs had been scrubbed clean for the bandages, she hadn't been changed out of her dirty, sooty clothes..! She couldn't blame the healers for this, since they weren't the ones in charge of her appearance on a busy schedule, but she still felt rather gross.
 Pushing the thoughts of her dire need for a shower far away, Annanell thanked the healer for her work, which the healer didn't hear, as she absorbed herself in changing bedsheets. She took the silence as a "Your welcome." and left for the exit, slightly shuffling but moving well enough along.
 For a crude, makeshift hospital, it sure did possess the correct atmosphere to be real. As she passed rows among rows of curtained, sectioned rooms, the girl could hear the groans and moans of the injured all around her. The smell was spot on as well; the overpowering scent of cleaning supplies created a cloud of lemony-fresh haze in the entire room. Annabell wondered how much bleach they used to get the area sterile, and eventually decided they most likely power-washed the walls with the stuff, considering the stomach-churning stench and oddly off-white floor tiles.
As soon as she pushed her way through the doors to exit the smelly survivor camp, she was bombarded by the two awkward messengers once again.
 "Uhh, Annabell Lee?" the young male cleared his throat, "Our Leader wants to speak with you."
Without having to see their tattoo numbers and even in her current groggy state, Annabell could peg who their Leader was right off the bat, and promptly began to privately formulate excuses for avoiding the conference she'd been summoned to. Before attempting to dodge a confrontation with an insane person, though, she needed to take care of something...
"May I go get a change of clothes, first?" Annabell requested, and, upon seeing her tattered clothing, the messengers found themselves unable to refuse her. They all started for the girl's bunker straight away

randomness • 31 August 2013 at 7:22 PM

Even after wasting time by getting dressed in a less charred outfit, and pulling her dirty hair into a short ponytail, Annabell couldn't come up with an impressive enough reason to convince the messengers to let her brush off meeting with Eight. Apparently, the two's desperation get her into their Leader's crazy clutches was greater than her desperation to get out of it, which was really saying something, to be honest. On the brighter side of things, Annabell noted, was that the feral's body had been moved out of her room during the time she'd been resting in the infirmary, which meant one less thing to worry about.
 The walk to Eight's office passed eventless, and pretty boring despite all the activity in the halls. All the people rushing from and to unknown destinations without even sparing a glance at the others they were passing reminded Annabell of zooming cars on a busy interstate highway. The aftermath of the rebel attack had been clearly chaotic, and upon seeing how stressed everyone around her looked, she felt relieved she'd been unconscious for the past few days. Admittedly, it was a selfish sentiment, but still how she viewed the entire ordeal.
 Once the small group arrived at Eight's office... hole in the wall, which stood in place of the previously maimed door, Annabell's stomach dropped. Her aversion to this "chat" seemed to be enough to cause her abdominal pains...
 As she contemplated if this was a sufficient reason for slipping away from the summoning, the Eighth girl pulled her into the office.
 "Our Leader is back here!" the girl chimed, waving a hand towards a single door in the corner of Eight's office, "Eight's personal room connects to her office... I don't know about the other Leader's set-ups, but the Eight's space has always been like this!" She continued to chatter much in the fashion of a tour guide, "Eight Leaders in general have to handle a lot of, well, information, so I suppose it makes sense for them to stay by where they work! It's really amazing how the Falchion's base was built. For one, we ARE underground, and-"
 The Eighth boy gave his companion a look that read "Seriously?", then elbowed her as if telling her to stop needlessly explaining. The girl closed her mouth at the nonverbal reprimand, blushing slightly, as if just realizing she'd been speaking excessively.
"Anyway," the Eighth boy rolled his eyes, "Eight is resting right now, I'll go tell her that you're here." he offered, and then disappeared into the den of Eight, leaving Annabell and the girl alone.
 Since she hadn't talked the entire way over, Annabell found no reason to now, and instead let her eyes wander around the office space. Quite a few things were different from when she last saw it, for example, the puddle of blood was wiped up- thank goodness- and the purple rug turned bright red had disappeared from the floor as well. The filing cabinets, both wrecked or not, had vanished from the walls, most likely due to the security issue caused by there not being a door to safely lock them behind. The desk and chairs also sat back in what Annabell assumed was their proper place, and everything in general seemed less hectic...
 With a sudden slam, the door swing open, and the Eighth boy jumped out,  a happy grin spread across face.
 "She said that she relieved us of duty!" he exclaimed to his friend, "We don't have to hang around here any longer!" The two then highfived out of glee, but stopped rejoicing once they caught sight of Annabell's unbelieving stares.
"Uhh, yeah, you can go in now." the boy said after a short period of awkward silence.
 "Though you should use these." the girl added, hastily handing Annabell a pair of shades that she found reminiscent of the one's Blaine wore.
 "Eight has been umm, "messing" with the nurses that come in to check on her." the girl explained, shuffling where she stood, "Keep those on and she can't erase anything important in your mind, we're sure..."
Although she didn't sound all that sure, it didn't stop both of the messengers from shoving Annabell into Eight's room and slamming the door behind her before she could protest her situation.
"GASP! ANNIE~! You're HERE~!" A bright, deafening voice rang out and into Annabell's ears, making her wish she had worn earplugs. She reconsidered turning invisible and running away as fast as her slender legs could take her, but the Leader had already seen her, so she figured it would be better to get the conversation over with before Eight's insanity rubbed off on her.
 The blonde pushed the sunglasses up on the bridge of her nose, gave herself a moment of preparation, then turned around.
 For somebody who'd been stabbed through the gut with a sharp Japanese sword, frozen in time, and spilled a few pints of her own blood on her floor, Eight appeared to be as chipper as ever. Still as cuckoo as a traditional German clock, but chipper none the less. 
The Leader sat upright in her bed with three pillows propping up her back, her short hair still dyed dark blue, but her lips no longer painted the same color and instead back to their natural pale pink. Her eyes were full of life and light; still dreamily far away but not as nearly as cloudy as they had been when Annabell had discovered her lying on the ground. Actually, the only tale-tell sign the girl had been injured was the paler, slightly unhealthy sheen to her complexion, but other than that, she appeared as she always did.
 If Annabell was honest with herself, she felt grateful that Eight hadn't bleed out or died, if it meant one less death occurring. Not wanting somebody to die had nothing to do with wether you wanted to speak with them however, so she knew exactly where her feelings lay as she followed Eight's beckonings and sat on the edge of the Leader's bed.
 "Annie! Oh my gosh, you survived the attack!" Eight gasped as the girl sat, eyes wider than ever. "I totally thought you were going to ripped into tiny little blonde pieces by nasty old ferals!"
 Perturbed, it took a while for Annabell to stop staring in disbelief and find something to say back.
 "... Well, I'm glad you didn't die yourself, Ei-"
 "Like, all of the ferals killed a bunch of people and wrecked a lot of stuff!" Eight exclaimed with a gasp, cutting off the girl from speaking, "It's very, very bad! A lot of people died, didn't they? It's not good at all!"
 She was frowning, but Annabell couldn't stop herself from saying, "But Eight, people died at the Truce match too..." She asked this, recalling the zeal the Leader used when discussing the old matches and subsequent deaths. "And weren't you excited about those..?"
 "What?" Eight looked taken aback. "That's something totally different! That's supposed to have an be like a show! It had an audience, remember? What happened a few days ago was a tragedy! You can't just compare two things that are so different like that! That's uncouth, Annie!" she chided. "I don't know what that words means, but it is!"
 ... Annabell didn't know how to reply to that, so she didn't.

taffy789 • 3 September 2013 at 12:37 AM

"So, Eight," Annabell coughed, wanting to cut the small talk short so should could get out of there faster, "why did you call me in here, again?"
 "Oh?" Eight blinked, and then concentrated hard, as if trying to remember something. "I... I... I forgot.
 No! No, but waaaiit~!" She moaned as Annabell stood up to excuse herself and leave, "Don't go just yet! Give me a second and I'll remember! Promise." Her hands made a quick "X" motion across her chest, "Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a needle in a pie. ...Or was it hope for a pie, and stick a needle in a fly? I forget. I mean, it makes a lot of sense to hope for a pie, since they are delicious, and flies are annoying so you would want to stick needles in them! ...Is this why I called you over here, because I forgot the old saying?"
Eight's face contorted in confusion as she tried her best to figure out why she'd summoned Annabell, while the summonee merely sighed to herself, waiting patiently.
 "...Ooooooh." A sound of realization came from Eight after a few minutes passed. "I remember now. Annie~, I wanted to ask you, what happened with the power repressor thingies?" The Leader fixated on Annabell, who didn't let the question throw her off.
 "I gave the repressors to One, actually." she answered with a nod of her head.
 "Both of them?" Eight leaned forward if just a bit, focusing on Annabell's shades, as if the Leader was trying to stare past the dark lens and into her eyes.
"Yeah, they were both delivered to One. Hopefully we'll get back results on what became of them soon." Annabell lied effortlessly, though sweating inwardly under Eight's examination. Whatever the crazy girl wanted with the drugs, Annabell did not know, and she didn't WANT to know. All her natural curiosity seemed to screech to a halt when the Eighth Leader was involved. Perhaps, seeing how she is, that was a good thing...
The stare down continued until Eight finally resigned, and leaned back on her pillows, pouting slightly. "...You know Annie, I couldn't believe you were able to deliver the repressors, really!" she loudly exclaimed, giving her head a shake, "You've always seemed to be a bit unreliable and unpredictable to me! No offense or anything- because it's true, and you can't take offense to true things because it's like, the law- but I don't know why anyone would expect you to handle important things~!"
Although those were exact words used to regularly describe Eight around the Falchion's base, Annabell thought it best to make no comment.
 "Really," Eight said, still incredulous, "you're the last person I would trust with things like these! I think it has something to do with your face. Or maybe it's because I think you need to be older~. Like old people are always the most reliable! You're around my age, right? Seventeen?" Eight questioned, cocking her head to the side as if she was a dog.
 "Wait... you're seventeen?" Annabell blinked, honestly confused. Between the Leader's childish way of speaking and her round eyes and face, she gave off the impression that she was fifteen at her latest!
 "Well, AROUND your age." Eight repeated then hummed, "I'm just a teensy-tiny bit older~! I'm one-thousand-three-hundred-and-thirty-seven years old~!
 ...Don't give me that look!" she cried when she saw the frown crossing Annabell's face, "Okay, maybe I lied a little there~! I'm actually two-hundred-fifteen. No...wait, I'm three! Definitely three!
 ...You still don't believe me?" she sulked when Annabell's expression did not move, "Nooo~, why do you think I'm lying? Fine, really, I think I am..." She trailed off, concentrating,  and biting her lip as she pondered the difficult question of her age.
 "...I think I'm sixteen!" Eight cheered happily upon figuring the math out. "Something like that!"
 Ignoring how unsure the Leader sounded about her own age, Annabell decided it was about time for her to make her escape.
 "Well, Eight, if that's all, I should be going now... People need a lot of help around the base, with everything that has happened recently and all..." She stood up, but a familiar scene suddenly occurred, with a less clammy hand but the same unyielding grip. Also, this time, Annabell only screamed internally.
 "Annie~ Don't go, I've been cooped up in here FOREVER~!" Eight whined, hand dead-gripped on Annabell's bandaged arm as she pulled the girl back to a sitting position. "I wanna go out, but the nurses won't let me! Something about letting me heal up first- it's really not fair! Come on, please~, let's talk! We can gossip about the rude healers!"
 The way she then suddenly dived into a long, mostly nonsensical rant on how mean her nurses were made Annabell painfully aware that Eight was going to do most of the talking in their conversation.


Some say that time slows down when one is in pain, and Annabell soon found it to be true, as she experienced it first hand while listening to Eight. After what seemed to be a solid forty-five minutes of endless chatter, she glanced up at the clock hanging on the brightly colored wall, and couldn't believe only fifteen minutes had elapsed. It was that at moment, when she could feel her own sanity slowly bending to the Leader's breathless string of run-on sentences, that Annabell realized Eight's mouth would be the death of her.
"... Eight?" an unexpected, quiet whisper came from the doorway, saving Annabell's young life by halting Eight's rant.
 "...Jennifer~?" the Leader questioned, squinting as she tried to get a better look at the person entering. She recognized the face, as she then shouted, "Jennifer! Come in~!"
 A girl with square, purple glasses who could only otherwise be characterized as having long, black hair pulled into a ponytail, and extremely plain with a bookish air to her, entered through the door, holding a large binder against her chest.
"Annie~! Meet my assistant-person, Jaclyn!" Eight introduced her subordinate with a large smile.
The Eighth assistant sighed. "I'm not "Jaclyn", Eight..." she explained in a timidly quiet voice, but looked towards Annabell, as if saying this more for her benefit than Eight's.
 "Who would you be then, if not Jackie?" the Leader blinked, confused. "Anyway~" she dropped Annabell's arm, and scooted up more towards the foot of her bed, "Whatcha need, Jackie?"
 "Well..." her tone was reserved, quiet, and respectful as she spoke to her boss, "I just wanted to see how you were doing. Is the pain medicine working..?"
 "Pain medicine?" Eight cried out, bewildered, "Why would I need that, I'm not in any pain at all!"
"I'm glad to see it's working then." the assistant nodded to herself.
Shaking her blue hair, Eight stuck out her tongue. "Sometimes, Jamie, you make no sense."
 "I suppose we can all be a bit... out there, sometimes." the assistant agreed carefully.
Eight viciously nodded her head in agreement. "Yeah... And most of all you!" she exclaimed, and then asked in her usually long, drawn-out and happy tone, "Sooo, was that all you really needed? The medicine or whatevers?"
"Well, kind of," the assistant started, but her eyes flickered back to Annabell, and, upon seeing the blonde's current situation, her expression turned sympathetic.
 "But that's not all I need." she added, looking back towards her Leader, "I need to borrow your friend"- Annabell mentally shyed away from the label- "for a moment. I received word that she attended the Leader's briefing, and I have a few urgent questions to ask her- boring, official stuff."
 Eight didn't seem all too happy about her helper's request.
 "That doesn't make me happy." she stated pointedly. "But all that boring, official stuff sounds UGLY~." She shooed Annabell off of her bed. "Fine, Annie, you should go and fastly answer her boring questions! Come back soon, mmkay and we can continue our talk!" 
Having just gained her freedom from what she saw as a great stroke of luck, Annabell wasn't planning on returning to Eight anytime soon as she hurriedly exited the room with the assistant.

asi • 5 September 2013 at 6:54 AM

It had been three days.
She hadn't left her room.
It wasn't strange, though. One wasn't even supposed to leave her room; it was practically its own floor, and it had everything she needed as well as everything she didn't. What the room didn't have, however, was what Katrix wanted.
Her foot slammed through the wood, the sharp crack piecing the still air as her target gave way, split cleanly down the middle. Though her back ached from the strain, the girl ignored it and heaved away the broken halves, replacing them with yet another ready to break. It occurred to her then that this practice was utterly contrary to Two's advice, and she slumped down to her knees where she stood.
Two, Spike. To be honest, Katrix had thought that the cutest name ever. Spike~ It had reminded her of puppies!
It wasn't until that rebel Mael had left a message that she thought again. Two had never been a dog person. And the way that Mael had said the name, rolling the letters, a dark kind of smile in his tone... There was something sinister about it. Did the name Spike have some kind of meaning to it? She shook her head in frustration.
What he'd said three days ago. She'd gone over it a hundred times. It meant that Two had met Mael before. But it meant that consciously, he hadn't made the connection...
Whoever he was, Mael wasn't Two! She pulled herself to her feet and furiously struck out at the wood, this time with her fist, not even noticing the splinters which dug into her skin. It didn't matter to her how many people he'd killed, how many more he might need to just to stay alive. Katrix nodded determinedly; what mattered was making sure he didn't kill himself in the process. She wasn't going to lose him, not ever again.
One snatched up the helmet from the bed to which she'd tossed it last. *So? How is she?* she inquired, all business.
*Katrix. You know I don't appreciate you barging into my mind like that,* came the cool response, and she visibly relaxed.
*My apologies; next time I'll knock,* she quipped.
The subject of both her worry and relief reluctantly pulled his gaze away from the screen and towards the pale blue eyes glowering at him. *She's...*
"These clothes are two sizes too large. Besides, even an idiot could see a droll plain color does not befit a woman of my prestige at all." The golden-haired girl flicked her hair and put her hands on her hips.
*... Irritating,* Two deadpanned.
It took all of Katrix's willpower not to clap her hands together and squeal in delight. She settled with a slight amused, *Ha. Well, have fun~*
"Kat-* he started in a warning tone, but she was gone again.
Yanking the COMI off of her head, Katrix pouted. All this playing hard to get, acting all smart and everything, she wasn't in her element. She wanted flowers and kissing and cuddling and she was a girl who was used to getting what she wanted.

"Hey, Raven?" the teenage boy, though still sporting the dark tell-tale shadows of too little sleep under his eyes, was very awake, knocking on her bedroom door. "It's Riley. You in there?"
He waited, but only silence answered.
"Raven?" Riley hit the metal harder, trying to rouse a reply, but received instead only a sore hand. Sighing, he figured she must have gone to the training rooms, or the hospital wing, or perhaps the cafeteria? He remembered that when he'd last seen her, two nights ago- she'd come to make use of his special leaders' food privileges- Raven had still had that bandage cast on her arm. Therefore, because she was still injured, the girl would definitely be... In the training rooms. Riley facepalmed. It sure was a backwards way of thinking, that an injury was a weaknesses and needed to be trained. He was really worried that she could make it worse... But she wouldn't thank him for the thought.
Pulling a with-much-difficulty-acquired sharpie from his pocket (they were in high demand atm), Riley scribbled a note on her door: 
RSD tr4. So that she knew where to find him if his guess was wrong and she came back. Riley would probably be there for a while.

Yawning and flipping bedhair out of her face, Raven woke to the sound of banging on her door. She recognized Riley's voice, and rolling over, was about to answer when Raven froze, the air sucked out of her.
Crap. That hurt like CRAP.
Somehow, she'd managed to fall asleep with her arm twisted underneath her. She tried to flex her fingers; but even the slightest movement seemed to sent jolts of agony up her arm. When she tried to turn her wrist, it seized up completely.
At the time when Raven had recieved the injury, it had quickly gone numb, and she'd simply lost all feeling in it. Now it was back, and to put it gently, the fact that her other hand was practically ripping her pillow open hinted it was a crapload more serious than she'd thought, and she was no stranger to injuries.
She inhaled deeply. And then started panicking. Raven was already a girl here without her power, having to reply almost solely on her ability with knives to survive. What if her arm didn't heal properly? Before, when she'd gone to the healers', they'd only had been able to toss a bolt of their energy her way before returning to their patients in much greater need (though they still had the strength to whinge, loudly, about how their top healer had disappeared right when they need him- it sounded like some weren't used to doing their own work). Raven had carefully done all she could, trying to make sure her makeshift cast would hold everything in the right places, as far as she knew, but now this. Knowing that also it was the same arm she'd broke back at that orphanage showdown...
After gingerly shifting into a sitting position, she ran her good fingers through her hair. Raven had been wondering for a while now; maybe her luck was starting to run out.

taffy789 • 5 September 2013 at 7:28 PM

"If you've already guessed," the assistant said in her naturally small voice once they both stood outside the room, "I don't really have any questions for you- I just thought it would be barbaric to leave you alone with Eight."
 "Really, thank you for not doing that." Annabell sighed, grateful to be out of the Leader's grasp- literally. "I appreciate it. I'm Annabell, by the way- not Annie. And I think I've seen you recently?" Remembering the girl's notable bookish air well, she held out her hand, and when the girl took it, Annabell felt rough, ragged, nails scratch against the surface of her skin.
 "Contrary to whatever Eight calls me, my name is Jane." Jane smiled, "And yes, I am the assistant to Eight, which explains why you saw me in her office on the night of the attack."
 "Nice to meet you formally, then..." Annabell smiled, but a wave of pity crashed into her upon hearing the girl's job description. "Eight's assistant, huh? ... Your job seems... not fun." she said, stating the obvious.
 Jane shrugged, "Somebody has to do it..." She trailed off as she begun to dig around in her pockets, searching for something.
She quickly found it, as she produced a box of cigarettes and a lighter, asking politely, "Do you mind-?"
 "Oh, no." Annabell replied, off-put by the unexpected nicotine. "Go ahead."
 Jane brightened considerably, as if a hundred pound weight had been lifted off of her shoulders. "Oh, good." She bit down on the cigar, clenching it between her teeth and continued to chat as she expertly lit it. "The fumes bother some, so you have to be careful who you smoke around. Usually, I go to the common's area for the assistants and hang out in there in my free time- on the scarce days I have free time, that is." She leaned against the wall of Eight's office, puffing on the cigarette and occasionally sighing.
 Annabell nodded, and then turned her back to Jane, biting her lip in an attempt to stifle laughter. She blamed the pain medicine that was most likely still floating around in her system, but for whatever the reason was, she found bookish, unassuming Jane leaning against the wall and nonchalantly smoking like she was some 1950's greaser HILARIOUS.
Although, Jane quickly noticed something was up with her companion. "What's wrong? Is it the smoke..?"
"Oh, no," Annabell replied, clearing her throat and biting back the laughter, "Not at all."
She switched topics before the subject could be discussed further. "So, Jane, I bet working with Eight is pretty... difficult?"
The assistant's demeanor darkened with the question, and by picking up on the mood, Annabell concluded that she'd unwittingly opened the Pandora's box of all overworked lackey rants.
 "Difficult, yes, but also stressful and surprisingly terrifying!" the said overworked lackey exclaimed, tossing up her hands- one of them holding the cigarette. Considering Jane's gnawed nails and nicotine habit, Annabell took her word on how stressful the work was, but the assistant talked on anyway.
"Do you realize how much regular, day-to-day business depends on the Eighth squadron? A lot! Who else would fairly arrange kitchen and cleaning duty, or get information filed and sorted away in its proper place, or even gather important enemy intel from the front lines!" Jane complained, "It doesn't help that our own squad is set-up weird and hard to manage in itself... But the organizing is easy- it's dealing with Eight that's hard! Most Leaders do all the important work, and get their assistants to help on the rest, but with Eight, I'm basically acting as the Eighth Leader at base- albeit the benefits!"
 All at once, the clouds cleared away, and how the Eighth squadron hadn't yet broken down to uncivilized chaos suddenly became clear to Annabell.
Jane became more downcast as she continued, "Eight's more of a hinderance than a real help. It's better on her better days, I guess, but right now, she's pretty bad... And I can't help but find it somewhat funny that, even on pain medicine with the effect of making somebody loopy, it doesn't mess with her natural state at all..."
 "... Better days?" Annabell was confused by the term. "She's been... better? Less crazy?"
 "Don't get me wrong- for as long as I've known her, Eight's always has been crazy." Jane assured Annabell, "But sometimes, she seems more... lucid than at other times. Usually I go by how long you can carry a linear conversation with her without it being horrible derailed. Though, at her worst..." she frowned, discomforted, "The worst I've seen is her not even knowing where she was at all! At times, I want to believe she's just trying my patience and being difficult, but at others, I find it plain disturbing!"
An image of Eight, lying on the floor and giggling about a carnival that didn't exist, came to Annabell's mind, and she could relate to how Jane felt.
 "... I wonder what's wrong with her?" she pondered, more or less merely thinking out loud.
 The assistant thought it over for a second before answering in that unceasingly small voice, "I have no idea. I would bet that there's no drug, treatment, or cure for whatever she has, though."
Annabell nodded, content with at least knowing that whatever Eight had, it wasn't contagious, as Jane seemed perfectly sane... except for a bit of PTSD brought on by being overworked, of course.

asi • 12 September 2013 at 7:50 AM

"Do you dare ignore me? Two, I demand new garments. White does not at all compliment my natural skin tone, you know. Blue, or perhaps a darker shade of purple would do. No, I want them to match my eyes, a pale blue..."
His inbox was empty, his daily swamp of emails redirected amongst the most capable remaining leaders and their assistants. Even with the disorder following the rebel invasion, he was confident that with his setup, it would only be a few days before the base would adjust to his absence and resume normal, fully-operational working order.
Then his rooms were even tidier than usual, wherever possible; if there was enough light to do so, the walls, floor and ceiling would sparkle. His suitcase had been packed, plainly so; merely holding several changes of clothes, and the bare necessities, nothing else. His last video game had been beaten, completed with a perfect score... The entire collection to be donated to the divisions' lounges. Lastly, his subordinates had been given strict instructions when it came to feeding and taking care of his fish. Only one thing remained to do.
"... Are you listening to me? Two!"
"No," he answered absently.
She stomped over and slapped his laptop shut. "Need I remind you who I am, Spike?"
He didn't look up. "Why waste your breath when you know I'm not listening?"
The golden haired girl gave a tight smile. "One of these days, that impertinent attitude will get you into real trouble, Two. I look forward to it."
He rolled his eyes and stood. "The reason you're wearing white," he addressed her earlier issue. "Is to show a little humility and loyalty to our side after the fiasco you yourself were a part of. Need I remind you?"
The girl scowled. "Okay, okay, turn up the sarcasm! God, what numbskull made white our official color," she muttered resentfully.
For a minute, his fingers lingered over a certain stapler before he pulled himself away. "If you're done complaining, I'm locking up this room," Two told her pointedly.
"It's not as if I like your rooms," she sniffed, following him out. "I wouldn't have stayed in them five seconds had I been given a choice. Nasty, dark and smell too strongly of cigarettes... Disgusting."
"Maybe that's the point," he muttered under his breath, while mockingly holding the door open for her, the manner of which the girl failed to notice.
"Anyway, as soon as I am reinstated into my rank, I expect a full new wardrobe selection of pale blue," she started, all parts haughty.
"If," Two stated. "If you regain your former place, then the person in charge of imports, that would be you."
She smiled, catching on. "Oh? Going somewhere, my dear Two? My my, you have gotten in his bad books, haven't you... But as for me, you needn't worry. He won't demote me," she said, all self-assurance.
"The front lines is my own decision," his eyes narrowed. "One has nothing to do with it. Speaking of which, things have changed around here. There's a new One."
This she didn't expect. "What happened to One!?" Her tone was disbelieving. "And, if not you, who took over?" she wondered.
"... Goodbye, Vivian," he turned and, to her intense irritation, he walked away.
But though miffed as she was, Two wasn't worth her effort. As assistant to One, the single person on base whose every order came directly from their leader in person, Vivian outranked even Two.
Granted, of course, this new One would excuse the damage her disobedient power had caused, along with its unruly alliance of so-called "rebels".
She clenched her hands into fists and strode off down the steel corridor, long golden hair flowing as she moved.

He heard little of their conversation as he approached, but it was enough. Still, Two's expression remained as lacking as ever when he stopped before them and without effort recalled their names; "Jane. Annabell."
He looked towards the gaping hole. "Is anyone else inside?" he asked, though either way it was of little consequence.