Private Roleplay~ IOD

taffy789 • 17 December 2013 at 1:05 AM

Eight had clung onto Two's sleeve as he walked towards the teleporter, keeping pace with him but still arguing the entire way over.
 "If I'm right then why are you trying to go leave?" she cried out, confused.
After a second passed without her getting a reply, the Leader decided that only by loudly listing her grievances with the Falchion's base could she convince her friend that they should not return.
Her varied reasons for defecting ranged from "The base smells bad" to "All the Falchions are meanies" to "I hear the weather's nice in Guatemala and you can get better burritos there too". 
It was no surprise to anyone that these arguments, while well-founded and completely sensible to even a type-writing monkey, had no effect on Two's decision whatsoever.
All Eight could do was follow after Two while weakly moaning about how her idea was amazing and that heading back to IOD was the exact opposite of amazing, and was instead stupid. 
Despite her desperate attempts to drive her points home, Eight ended up reluctantly lacing her fingers into Two's and Telly's, and sulked as the magical, open air, and fairy-tale like kingdom vanished around them in a flash. A half second later, bland and boring, unbending metal walls surrounded them on all sides once again.
 Eight stared at the familiar surroundings, looking uncharacteristically downcast. She let go of the other's hands and let her own arms dangle at her sides.
 "... I would've stayed myself, but I don't think all the other people who say I can't go places would like that~" the Leader said sadly.
Then, without warning, the forlorn mask broke and the girl wrinkled her nose in disgust. "And really, this place IS smelly~ And not in a good way at all!"
 Eight shook her head, now revolted.

asi • 19 December 2013 at 5:47 AM

Two tested the air with due caution. It was certainly less pleasant than the fresh, outside air, that was for sure. However, it probably had less to do with all the death that had happened in the last few days and more to do with all the druggies chugging their way though mountains of alcohol and cigarettes and who knew what else... And then throwing it all up. He supposed that was one way to deal with pain. Two realized he wasn't exactly exempt from that list of culprits, since judging by all the smoked cigarettes littering his room after his power's disastrous escapade... Ugh. His palm itched but he resisted the urge to slap it against his forehead. The only one who would feel it right now would be himself, not the idiot in his head who he was trying to merge with. How annoying. Two rolled his eyes before bringing himself back to the present.
He hadn't noticed until then that the teleporter girl had yet to drop his hand. Pulling his free, he looked up to meet her eyes with a somewhat irritated expression. Two really did not need another girl infatuated with him. In her eyes, what he saw was hesitation. When Telly drew back, startled by the less than blank look he gave her, Two simply turned heel and left.
Or he would have, if Katrix hadn't just came around the corner and walked right into his chest.
Slowing craning her head upwards, when she saw who's shirt she'd been about to inhale, her face turned a soft powder pink and Katrix seemed utterly torn on whether to grab the opportunity and hug him, or savor the moment before any movement broke the spell.
Two, with one expression of exceptional blankness, shoved her off him, causing her stumble backwards and nearly fall over before regaining her balance. Katrix quickly straightened, a sheepish expression on her face as she tried to pretend that bumping into the second leader was not something she now intended to do on a regular basis, despite his pointed lack of chivalry. "Two, y-you, you should be more aware of your surroundings," she accused.
His eyebrows rose ever so slightly in skepticism, and he shook his head. "Yeah, whatever," was all Two said before stalking past her.
"Hey, we need to talk before you go!" Anxiously she shouted out after him, and sighed softly when he gave no sign he'd heard.
Then Katrix turned back and spotted Eight and Telly, the latter still staring after Two with a pensive expressive before zapping away through space.

"Zan? Hey, Zan!" Bliss called out, watching in puzzlement as the power went about re-refridgerating the area, ignoring completely both his roommate's wishes and his roommate's existence. Also, the guy who had just beaten him up, that guy too.
"Can he hear me?" the healer wondered. "Zan? Did he damage your ears?" he tried hollering it, to no avail. When Bliss tried approaching the power, resolving to try and heal his injuries, he only made it three steps before looking down to find his feet frozen to the floor.
Well, the guy couldn't be too badly hurt then, if he had this much energy left. Bliss suspected what had been hurt most was his pride. Which seemed a little silly to him, considering the size of the list of people who'd got their butts handed to them by a certain boy who was now only just more than teenaged. Since that list included pretty much everyone he knew and three times more that he didn't... Yeah, this really wasn't anything special, in fact, it was bordering on becoming a rite of passage of making Spence- er, Mael's acquaintance.
That new name was going to take some getting used to, Bliss thought, scratching his head absent-mindedly, before he figuratively froze, seeing that Zan was staring at him. It wasn't a kind of glare or anything, but it was dark enough that Bliss started wishing he had something in his hands, so that he could drop it.

taffy789 • 19 December 2013 at 11:31 PM

"Hmm? Oh, bye Spike-y!" Eight called out once she saw that Two had started to walk off. "See you later!"
 She said this, not remembering the entire "I'm leaving forever" speech her friend gave her a while ago.
When Two bumped into Katrix, the Eighth Leader watched the subsequent interaction with curiosity, but didn't pick up on any of the blatant, one-sided romantic subtext. Honestly, she only paid attention because the rest of the empty, boring hallway held no interest to her.
Then Two left and the attention grabbing scene stopped being so intriguing, so Eight turned her mind to the far more fascinating thoughts.
 Like how the carousal at the amusement park had been so much fun to ride on! Oh, and everything there had been painted up really pretty too~
  Even with all the images of the fun rides and happy colors she had to leave behind swarming in her head, Eight didn't forget about the newcomer. She shot cheerful smile towards Katrix and greeted her with a happy "Hi-ya~!"

asi • 21 December 2013 at 4:59 AM

Of course, he just had to have been hanging out with Eight. Her mood instantly soured as she realized that with them having gone off-base, she had no way of knowing what had just occurred. Of course, she knew there was no chance of him having done something stupid like confessed or anything of the sort, which was somewhat comforting. Still, Katrix hated the fact that she was unable to spy on and psycho-analyze every micro-second of the encounter.
What kind of relationship did they really have? It just looked to her like familiar workmates, at most just plain friends, from what she'd viewed via One's observation room. Then again, the fact that this Two would show any kind of fondness spoke volumes. He didn't even show any kind of affection towards Katrix, and they'd been friends for how long? She didn't even know. Pretty much forever.
Her answering smile was stiff was the Eighth leader approached. This was the first time Katrix had seen her in person, and she was utterly baffled by the idea that Two had any kind of workable relationship with her. After all, he'd practically reached a level of antisocial which burnt holes through the ether.
"I'm-" she began to introduce herself with her preferred nickname, then switched to saying slightly more formally; "Katrix." She thought about calling herself Two's girlfriend, but chickened out and just stood there awkwardly for a second. "You must be Eight, it's nice to finally meet you," Katrix remembered herself, pushed her brown, newly-curled locks from her face and giving a proper smile. "Say, I was just heading to the cafeteria to grab some food. Care to join me?"

"So," Zan started eventually. "That was pretty convincing. You two making out."
The healer's mouth fell open and he gaped at Zan, jaw practically on the floor. "What," he managed after several moments of floundering around like a fish.
Looking confused at this reaction, Zan said; "Don't deny it, I totally saw you..."
"Zan!" he sounded like he was on the verge of crying. "YOU SAID MAKING OUT."
The power shook his head slowly and replied; "Yes, I know I said making out. What, did I stutter? You're the one with the indecipherable accent, Leeuwenhoek."
"What..." Bliss just stared at him. "Zan, did he kick you in the head?"
"Hmm? No, my head's fine. You worry too much."
"Zan. You said making OUT."
Following the failure of sign language, Bliss was forced to turn back as far as cave men for the answer. With the ancient art of cave wall drawings on his side, it still took one very finely-detailed diagram to get his message across. Many, many years of the healer's life later...
"What? No, I didn't say that, silly! I said, making out," Zan explained calmly.
... Bliss could hear the cogs finally turning in the other's head.
"D*mn. Okay, that was a pretty bad Freudian slip," he muttered, only just loud enough for Bliss to hear.
"So you were thinking about that!" The doctor burst out in horror.
After musing it over for a while, Zan said; "I should probably get some sleep. It's going to be impossible to follow this with a serious conversation." He walked over to his bed with an air utterly unaffected.
"B-b-but..." Bliss could only stutter at him in supreme frustration.
"Hey, are you going to heal me or not?" the power asked lazily.
"Not," the other answered decisively.
"What? Why?" Zan feigned hurt. "You're the doctor, aren't you? Hartnell, you have to save me!"
Affronted, Bliss accused, "Hartnell? You only chose him because he's old!"
"How do you even know that..." Zan trailed off in disbelief, before remembering that the guy was British and so of course he knew everything there was to know about Britain.
"How do you even know that!" Bliss exclaimed with some embarrassment and praying silently that the conversation never turned to Doctor Who merchandise, memorabilia or cosplay.
The power shrugged with a level of coolness never before seen in any other conversation about science-fiction television shows in the history of time, and said; "What can I say, dude watched a lot of tv. Seriously, can you heal me? It hurts to sit down," he whined slightly.
"No! Spence told me, people with dirty minds can't be healed," Bliss informed him ruthlessly.
".... What can I say. Dude watched too much tv," Zan muttered under his breath.
Having facepalmed for what felt like the umpteenth time that day, Bliss added that point to his ever-expanding, "list of things about his roommate he never, ever needed to know", and went to bed.

taffy789 • 24 December 2013 at 12:29 AM

"Cat tricks?" Eight repeated, blinking in confusion and shaking off her previous absentmindedness. She'd only been giving the One a fraction of her attention, but now the idea of cute kittens juggling balls of yarn compelled her to listen to this strange person.
"What do they do? Are they magic? Like, do they pull rabbits out of their little kitty hats or something?" The Eighth interrogated her superior, pressing her about the nature of the fascinating felines.
 Before Katrix could even give an answer, the ditzy blue-haired girl switched over to the far more important topic that had been brought up.
 "Wait, did ya say we were going to get food?" Eight eye's widened slowly, and a grin broke out across her face at the same pace.
 "Yay! Food~!" the girl clapped her hands together excitedly at the invitation, and wrapped a hand around the arm of who she now considered a new friend. "Oh my gosh, I don't get invited out that much or anything and two times in one day means that it's a very special day~! Come on, let's go get FOOOOD~!"
 In a similar fashion to a sled dog racer yelling "MUSH!" and whipping his Huskies to run, Eight loudly cheered and tugged on Katrix's arm in an attempt to get her moving.

asi • 28 December 2013 at 8:36 PM

Despite having witnessed the eighth leader's antics before via surveillance footage, Katrix found herself fully unprepared for the girl's onslaught. It may or may not have had to do with the unfortunate timing of her observations, which happened to align with when "black-haired, tall, and totally drool-worthy" was there to serve as a particularly potent distraction... Cough.
For a moment, a spark of annoyance burned in her as Eight began to pull her along, and she was about to resist; then Katrix relaxed and allowed the action. As One, her priority may be the Unnoens, but that didn't mean her responsibilities ended there. It was fine for every-day management to be handed down to Two and then some, but the most powerful person on the base still had to know what was going on and make sure those who kept everyone else in line, were kept in line. Most of the leaders were responsible people- and Two for one sure had more of that personality trait than her- but that didn't change how it was. She was still number One, the leader of the leaders. Therefore, knowing her eight leaders was very important. Although Ones weren't ever supposed to come into contact with others... Katrix gave an uneasily smile and brushed her brown bangs down over her eyes when the two leaders stepped inside the cafeteria.

"What is this?" Nine frowned, standing on the threshold of the first cell and looking inwards with a slightly dismayed expression, for all the wrong reasons.
"This is the low security punishment block, for only trivial offenses, miss..." The second division sub was in a rather uncomfortable position; on one hand, she really needed to get back to work, or else she might be spending the night in one of these rooms. But the Nine had decided to start looking around without Two, and the first lesson the sub had learnt at the base was when a leader comes up and instructs you to do something, you do it. However, she'd only been here a bit over a month and had done solely cleaning and paperwork, and felt absolutely unqualified to explain anything to the leader. It also didn't help that the Truce had just ended and her first active mission would be any day now... She started sweating bullets at the very thought and completely missed what Nine had just said.
"I said," Nine paused, shook her head in irritation then changed course to, "Can you please find me Second's assistant? I want to know exactly what's going on here," she ground out.
Flinching, the subordinate said; "But Two never replaced his last one, who was killed in the Leaders' matches, remember? Miss," she tacked hurriedly to the end.
Now Nine was annoyed. "Why do you call me that? Miss," she scowled in distaste, and said, "Don't tell me Two has you calling him "sir"... That's ridiculous."
The sub looked at her like she was crazy. "Have you met Two? He's scary!" they blurted out, forgetting the formalities.
"..." Karen could only reluctantly accept this, as it was a view shared with practically the entire rest of the base. In fact, she was forced to register surprise that with Two's reputation, his underlings had not yet christened him their dark lord.
Then the girl from Second went on to mutter; "And totally HAWT. Wouldn't mind being his one-night stand..."
Yuck. That was not something she had needed to hear. "Can you just get someone who can explain this to me?" Nine growled with impatience.
"We can do better than that." Two said as he stepped into the light. "Run along," he idly waved off her guide, who tripped over herself to obey, while Nine stood by in growing resentment. They'd arranged to meet at Two's office in fifteen minutes, and she had meant to get a head-start on exploring the place, one free from the influence of how Two might present it. How did he even find her before he was supposed to be looking for her?
"Now, what was it you wanted explained?" Two questioned, candidly ignoring this latest example of Nine's disregard for his authority.

taffy789 • 1 January 2014 at 12:20 AM

Eight was more confused than usual when she saw that the cafeteria she'd led her new friend to had been converted into a trauma center.
"Eugh..." She dropped Katrix's arm and held her nose, trying to block out the overpowering scent of lemony fresh cleaning supplies. "It smells here too~ Not stinky like disgusting things, but it still smells BAD..."
 The Leader trailed off, and watched with detached interest as the healers hurried about, running to check on their patients and deliver pain medicine to those in need. Eight became so absorbed in the hectic chaos that she didn't notice that as a healer approached her...
 "... Mmm, Leader Eight?" The young man walking up to both of the girls blinked, "... What are you doing up..?"
 With those words, Eight snapped out of her trance and turned to look at the boy.
 "Ah~ Oh, you see, I'm all better now~! My nurses said I could leave my bed!" She brightly beamed at the healer while lying through her teeth.
 "...Leader Eight, I AM one of your nurses." The healer deadpanned, voice flat.  "And I know for a fact that you aren't supposed to be out of your room yet..!"
 The girl was taken back in surprise. "Huh? I didn't know you were one of my stupid mean nurses!" She stared at the face of the very guy who'd been checking up on her for the past three days and tried to recall if she'd ever seen him before. "Hmm~ Are you lying to me? I don't remember you at all~! Weird!"
The healer rubbed his forhead, feeling a headache about to attack. "Really, what DO you remember?" He muttered darkly this under his breath, low enough to avoid being heard by anyone but the same god he sent a silent prayer up to, hoping for help in dealing with his insane, disturbing patient.
Somehow, he doubted his wishes would be answered, and sighed. "Eight, I need to escort you back to your-"
 He never finished the sentence, because he'd made the mistake of looking up and into the eyes of the Eighth Leader.
 Eight pulled her gaze away from the healer after a second, grabbed Katrix's arm once again, and quickly walked out of the cafeteria.
 "Okay~" Eight sung as the large doors slammed behind her, closing between her and the boy who now had to recover from a small relapse in his memory, "NOW I know where the food is~ And we can forget about my stupid old nurse too~!"
The girl then hummed happily, and went back to acting as if nothing had just happened.

asi • 4 January 2014 at 7:21 AM

The other leader watched the proceedings with some interest in the way which Eight handled the situation and a total lack of concern for the consequences. The presumedly slightly younger girl seemed to Katrix to be in no impending health jeopardy obvious or otherwise, and in any case, One was confident in her ability to delay death long enough for anything the healers could fix. Though Eight's competency with her memory-manipulation she did find, for a moment, unsettling, Katrix felt secure enough in her barriers to relax around her. While holding her breath, she dared a glance at Eight's eyes. To her, she was relieved to find they appeared a soft, unflappable shade of white... Not harsh and pure like ice, but instead giving the impression of snow, mixed up with just enough mud to make it almost warm... Human. Imperfect. She wasn't sure why, but it was a color Katrix loved, one for which the rest of the world seemed to melt away infront of her eyes...
Katrix shook her head, tearing her gaze away. While she had just narrowly avoiding awakening one draining set of memories, Eight was slowly but surely stirring something else from her past to the surface. Or someone else.
When she laughed, it was softly yet with a touch of bitterness. "Eight, are you sure your power hasn't anything to do with Necromancy, by any chance?"

Glowering at him harshly, she gave a sharp gesture towards the contents of the cell before her, and said; "Can you please tell me what, exactly, is wrong with this picture." Nine phrased it like a query, but ended on a note free of question and definite in its ending.
Two didn't even bother glossing over the scene, just casually crossed his arms and, after a pause, answered her. "No, not really. Is it the layout, the lighting, the lack of porcelain, or perhaps," he mused, "the taste in wallpaper trimmings, which displeases you?"
"Drop the snark, Two, I didn't come here to discuss jail aesthetics, and there is clearly no wallpaper!" She shook her head in irritation. Was he always this ridiculous, or was it just her, because he knew it would annoy her the most?
He was clearly only teasing her. "Come now, you know the only requirement to make Nine is a passing grade in fashion."
Karen had reached outright glaring; she wasn't in the mood to take any of this crap. "Two," she warned.
That poker face of his was just too perfect. "This isn't what you expected? You're wondering why the subject isn't strapped to a kind of death wheel and having their head dunked underwater every other second? I suppose that's what the rumors say."
"I just expected less prisoners sitting around looking bored," Nine was quite justified in pointing out.
Two, of course, had the nerve to look bored with the conversation. "Yes, there is a bit of that, isn't there? I was thinking about hooking them all up with Mario Kart or something of the sort."
"Urghh," she half sighed, half growled at him with a hopelessly frustrated expression, and the higher leader just went on.
"Right, right. I really should be striving to live up to my reputation. I'll routinely slaughter the loser of each race," he seemed to have decided.
Nine was forced to conclude; "So psychological torture, or death by talking is "in" these days. I see."
Going as far as dropping his default blank expression and giving a slight smirk, Two told her; "If I gave the rack to and half-killed everyone who doodled obscenities on the lavatory walls, Nine, I would need one h*ll of a pay rise. Inconsequentially, half of the base would be dead. Including me, from exhaustion."
She thought about it for a moment. "Haha," Karen said sarcastically. "You're very funny, Two. But tell me why exactly, then, are we locking up people for drawing rudely in the bathrooms?!" She managed to suppress the basic urge to start yelling or massage her pounding temples.
"They really don't teach you anything in schools these days. The law needs to be enforced, of course," Two gave her a tight kind of smile. "We're a military base, after all. Just because we practically are Peter Pan's lost boys does not mean we have to act like them."
"... You're actually not joking," she realized slowly.
"No, I'm only half joking."
"Two, you've missed your true calling as a comedian."
He drawled; "You're absolutely correct, Nine. I get the feeling if you weren't trying to lock me up in one of my own cells, we'd be fast friends."
"Has anyone ever told you, you're really, really annoying?"
After seeming to consider this for quite some time, Two could only deadpan; "Actually, no. They haven't. Not once."
"You're really, really annoying," she told him quite seriously, her dark brown eyes trying to drill holes through his black ones.
Which he rolled at her. "... I can die happy now. Do you actually want to know what's happening in this cell, or not?"
When Karen fell silent in assent, he continued.
"We're channelling energy from the prisoners in the "minor discretion" area into powering the base," Two explained curtly, concisely. "We get electricity, they get to sit in a small room and contemplate the error of their ways while they feel the energy drain out of their body. And if, when their time is up, they refuse to cooperate, we can simply leave them in there until the room sucks out their life-force."
"... Oh," she said, then; "Who controls this exchange?"
Shrugging, Spike replied, "Oh, this one girl. She's got to be in her thirties by now."
"Really?" Karen asked doubtfully.
"No. But if you're interested, I could get you an invitation to her next birthday. Since you're among the few who have even the slightest chance of still being alive at that time," he deadpanned. "Can we move along now?"
Nine only nodded.
Two murmured as they walked; "Occasionally, I'll kill the winners instead, just to keep them guessing."
She refrained from commenting, somehow. Thankfully, Nine could ease the tension in her shoulders with the knowledge that he was literally handing this place over to her in mere hours, and any plans he made were only to try her patience. All she had to do was keep it from breaking a little bit longer.

taffy789 • 5 January 2014 at 3:37 AM

"And apparently, the doctors have been healing ALL SORTS of people who have lots of things wrong with them!" Eight exclaimed, having been chatting away about healers and her nurses the entire time Katrix stared into her enchanting eyes.
 "Like, there are some people with gross things wrong with them, like missing arms and stuff! And you can't heal a missing arm! ... I think! So how are you supposed to fix that?" Frowning, Eight twirled her fingers around her short strands of hair, as if she was thinking hard about something. "Well~ Those people who can't be healed end up doing desk work for my section a lot, huh? I wonder why that is~"
 She stopped talking as Katrix pulled away from her eyes and asked her the strange question.
 "Huh? Necromancy? What's that?" The Leader blinked, and scrunched up her face as she tried to decide whether or not the word pertained to her in any way.
 She eventually realized it didn't, and gave Katrix a- comically expressive- confused  look.
 "I don't know what that is at all!" Eight blinked in befuddlement, her mouth hanging slightly open, and then went on, "Seriously, like, I don't even know what that is~! Why did you ask me about it? Is it something I should know? I don't like being left out of- OH! There's the food!" Eight's short attention span was torn away from her rapid questioning as the duo finally made it to the makeshift cafeteria where the sack lunches- or dinners?- were being handed out by disgruntled workers who, while leaning over large coolers full of disappointing food in brown paper bags, looked as if they were about to close their eyes, pass out, and fall head first into the plastic bins.



Seven left soon after throwing the mutilated head of her practice dummy to the flames, and for that, Zach was glad.
 He stood near the burning junk pile, watching the colorful bonfire blaze, and tried not to inhale too much of the thickening cloud of pink smog.
 It never occurred to him just how much smoke a trash bag full of pink streamers and broken items once belonging to a guy smelling of lavender could make, and he began to wonder if it would set off the fire alarms once he stepped back into the hallway... If they did start blaring and he attracted half the base to his location, Zach decided that he wouldn't regret his decision. Not only had burning the garbage cleaned up his office and room space, but it had given him the warm, cozy feeling that one gets when they effectively turn their problems into a pile of ash... Also, Zach felt more productive while burning things than when struggling to type out orders for medical supplies, so that was a plus as well.
 Later, when all the once breathable air dispersed from the room and Five was forced to retreat, coughing up pink puffs of smoke, into the hallway, it occurred to him that he may need to add "pyromania" to the list of things most likely wrong with him.
 Fortunately for the Leader, his bonfire hadn't set off any smoke detectors- yet- but, unfortunately, someone came looking for him without the piercing scream of a fire alarm to call her over.
  "Oh! Five!" a young girl called out, jogging up to him in a rush. She skidded to a stop near him, doubled over, and fought to catch her breath. "The- healers- were-looking- for- you," she wheezed, then coughed, and straightened her back, "they needed you to go ahead and sign some paper work to approve of all the medical work done on the patients here? Apparently, they need it for book-keeping reasons... or whatever..." The girl trailed off as she became aware of Zach's slowly hardening expression. She cleared her throat, the Leader's change in demeanor unnerving her, and continued.
 "Uh, there's a lot of healers who need you to sign forms, and they all insisted on you hurrying up and signing them in person instead of the papers "rotting on your desk" or something, so they told me to tell you to visit all the hospital wings they have set up around here..."
 She then shrunk backwards as Zach's stare begun to drill holes straight through her. The unwelcoming air surrounding the Leader had only increased ten-fold after she delivered her message... It made her wonder if the new Five was one to shoot the messenger. 
And that thought reminded her, the OLD Five would never do such a thing, and would probably be graciously thanking her for doing her duty and giving her a charming smile at this point to boot-! The messenger sighed wistfully at remembrance of Damon, and her heart ached when she glanced towards the still deathly-quiet-and-kind-of-scary Zach and recalled who his replacement was... She got the feeling that this new guy wasn't the "smile-y" type. He also DEFINITELY was a down-grade from Damon in the looks and charisma department. It wasn't fair, really...
  Outside of the girl's thoughts, which were preoccupied on remembering the much hotter Fifth Leader before Zach, the current Five lit a cigar and held it with one hand while rubbing his temple with the other.
 He drew in a deep breath, and, sounding suddenly tired, shooed the messenger away. "Okay, go," he commanded curtly, motioning for the girl to leave, "Go tell the healers that I'll be with them shortly."
 Coming out of her bittersweet daydreams of poor, dead Damon, the girl snapped into attention and nodded towards the Leader before turning around and running off, leaving the Five to smoke and relax while she actually DID some work...

asi • 7 January 2014 at 6:52 AM

"So, there's Alex, missing..." After establishing the determination of both of them to stay, without further ado, Raven began a list. "Angel..."
"Captured by the rebels," Riley finished, and she could only admire his calm, efficient manner for the matter. It would be all too easy to give into panic or gloom... If only his sister had shown the same self-possession as he.
"Leon, missing and feral..." she shivered slightly at the memory. That had definitely been something to be scared about. "Blaine, for all we know, is the Glaeroes' captive or dead..."
"He may have escaped into France," Raven remarked. "If there's anyone who can find a way out of a sticky situation, it would be Blaine. He didn't just have a silver tongue, no, a whole set of silver looks. And he was strong, and smart... Blaine is the last person I want to worry about," she sighed.
Although sympathetic, Riley knew it was no use to give Raven false hope. "I'm afraid we- the Falchions, I mean- have ways of tracking down people who have escaped into the outer world. If that was what had happened, he would have turned up again, one way or another... At least in paperwork."
"..." She lapsed into a moment of silence, until Riley chose to push on.
"That's pretty much everyone from Super School..." he started, and she looked up.
"What about that kid who was with you for that one... Mission?" There was a spot of awkwardness and it didn't take Riley long to figure out what she was referring to; the time Raven and her power went a little crazy. "His name was..." Raven screwed her face up in an effort to remember, "Well, he had wings... I think it was something to do with one of the months? Or something of that sort."
"You mean Des," he realized, "Des Fletcher?" His tone seemed oddly strained to her, but gave nothing away.
"Yeah, probably. I only saw him once or twice afterwards... He just seemed to go missing, didn't he?" asked Raven casually.
"Actually, we've seen him quite recently. At a certain orphanage, in France..." Riley trailed off carefully, before taking the plunge. She couldn't really care about someone whose name she didn't remember, but... Bad news was what it was. "He's with the Glaeroes."
"Oh," she said, and blinked before giving the floor a dark look, as if it was the fault of anyone down there. "So he was- I didn't even recognize him- without the..."
"Green hair," Riley cut in, and she suddenly looked up and saw him trying not to smile. They were thinking the same thing; god, whatever had possessed that kid to dye his hair full-on green...
They both burst out laughing, without even knowing really why. There was hardly anything funny, in fact, there wasn't anything very funny about anything these days. It was more like a way to cope, deal with all the tragedy that had struck their teammates. Pretend it wasn't that bad. Like they weren't going to be sent to kill Glaeroes in just a few days.
With that train of thought, it was no wonder Raven was, as always, too quick to sober up. "By the way, where do you think Annabell is now? I haven't seen her for a few days."
"Me neither, but I've been a bit of a shut-in these past few days, with work, and... Trying to get a lead on Alex..." Now that she had him in a slightly better imitation of natural light than overhead panels, Raven could really see the shadows under the eyes thing starting to develop. She couldn't, however, let herself worry about something as trivial as a friend's lack of snooze, not when they had just made a list of five much more formidable troubles. (Also, it was kind of ironic... No rest for the dead. Strangely, it looked like all his bodily functions were normal so far, not that she was one to pry. But the fact that he didn't seem to have come back a rotting zombie was definitely a plus to the whole situation). "I'll look for her later. What about people we've met since coming to IOD?" Riley inevitably brought up. "If it's just the three of us, I don't know how we could possibly save everyone..."
"I'm hoping everyone won't need saving," Raven pointed out with forced, uncharacteristic optimism. "But alright; if it came down to it, I guess I'd be willing to trust Three- Col. He seems honest enough, I suppose."
He nodded in agreement before suggesting hesitantly; "That girl, Kitty, didn't seem too bad. She was really knowledgable, her power seemed useful, and, well..." he looked about them in apprehension before deeming it safe to say, in a hushed tone, "She's One, isn't she? It seems awfully obvious..."
Raven looked slightly amused and more exasperated. "Either that or sent directly in their stead, and whoever would have chosen that girl, I'd like to know... Anyway, you would trust her; you're a boy!" she said scornfully. "And you didn't see what Annabell and I did; believe me, she's completely BATS- maybe she could even rival Crazy Eight, who knows. To top it off, she seems absolutely obsessed with Two, who we are not, under any circumstances, going to touch with a ten foot pole."
"Right..." Riley looked apologetic. "Well, unless you're going to recommend Five, that's... Pretty much it."
"I'm definitely not!" she instantly refuted.
At that, he smiled slightly. "Okay. But you might want to say that more publicly. Even I've heard the rumors, they're really strange too..."
"Rumors? Like what?" Raven began to question warily, when, right on cue, an older girl from sixth pushed herself into their bubble and into their conversation.
"Is it true about you and Five?" she asked Raven directly, blunt as the wrong end of a knife, without so much as a hello.
And of course, her friend wasn't far behind; "Yeah, are you really having an affair with your boss?" she giggled, and Raven was instantly reminded of the plot of every dirty rag of a manga she'd been so careful to avoid.
"I heard you played strip poker-"
"Owe each other favors-"
"Used tongue in the leaders' lounge..."
Intensely disgusted, she stood up and abruptly shouted; "I'm not having any kind of relationship with anyone! F*ck off!"
"..."
She'd apparently scared the crap out of the only other people in hearing range, the garden druggies, but they quickly relapsed into their daze.
The girls gave her a decidedly strange set of looks before inching away into the distance... Obviously unconvinced of everything but Raven's state of sanity, or lack thereof.
Riley said rather hopelessly; "You never used to act like that..."
He hadn't seemed to notice, but the girls had sort of ignored him. It may have had something to do with him disposing of Damon... In that case, Riley actually might have to get used to being shunned by half the population of the base...?
"Didn't I?" she replied absently, still glaring about her as if challenging another to come forward and believe the gossip, evidently armed with birds to flip. Well, there WERE rumors of her and tongue before she'd even had her first... She swallowed rather self-consciously.
"You're probably just worked up about the front lines," the guy who'd gone as far as a long-time girlfriend noted. Riley didn't even bothering to pretend it was not absolutely going to happen; by now, everyone who wasn't going to be sent knew they weren't going to be sent. "Relax, Raven. Everything'll be alright, I'm sure," Riley leaned back, his arms crossed behind his head in a show of new-found confidence, and she found herself hoping that the person to inspire it hadn't been Two. He said; "Not one of us has died yet!"
She also really wished he would stop saying these things.
"Um... Are you Four?" A kid, wearing clothes Raven identified as belonging to the third division, approached on tentative feet.
"Yes," was all Riley could say in answer. He looked a bit taken aback, unused to being selected solely from rank.
"Oh, good," they exhaled with such obvious relief that Raven could only wonder how many guys they'd tried the same question on. Perhaps compared to the other leaders, Riley didn't really stand out, with moderate looks and a lack of flash in his power. Or else the kid just had a bad memory for faces. Aaand it could have to do with half the girls snubbing him...
"Could you come help the healers with authorization stuff? Signing off the medical work, and- they want to request more morphine, more coffee, and also some kind of special clinical air freshener..."
After a glance at his friend for assurance; "Sure," Riley shrugged and got up, always accommodating. "Though I thought Five was doing that sort of thing?"
"He isn't exactly the most reliable," they spoke with some discomfort. "And, well, the air freshener- rather urgent... Maybe you could talk to him, Raven," they addressed her trustingly.
Apparently everyone in the base and their mothers knew about /her.

"There's one other person," Raven muttered, as Riley was being led to the infirmary by the kid from third, and she tagged along for a bit.
"Who?" he asked curiously, not one other coming to mind.
"Mickey," she replied quietly.
"Raven-" he started to say, but she interrupted.
"You know what happened, don't you." This was murmured just loud enough for him to hear, and it didn't sound like a question.
"I- I'll tell you later," he said as he was pulled through a set of double doors, ones belonging to the former cafeteria.
Raven stood there for a moment, just outside, before she turned and left, expression unchanging.

smilies • 7 January 2014 at 6:55 AM

"No one can grow a new arm," One confirmed, then continued with cool, analytical intellect, "but if it hasn't been long and they still have the severed limb, it can be retatched. Otherwise, the most they could do is heal the wound over the skin..."
Her expression changed, as if she had only just heard herself speaking, and Katrix pulled a look of revulsion. "Yuck, so gross... I can't stand the scent of blood, it makes me wanna puke!" she illustrated this with a retching sound, now experiencing genuine nausea at the mere thought.
Then, suddenly, disgust tripped back over itself into contempt. "I wouldn't be too impressed with those sorry excuses for healers... Half of them can't even properly fix broken bones- isn't that practically the equivalent to tying shoelaces? Pathetic." This mood of Katrix certainly had no qualms about expressing scorn. "Why on earth didn't Bliss come?" she began to complain. "He's the only one who's any good. And he was going to be so surprised to see me here! I even tried helping out the healers for a day and didn't see him once!" Throwing her arms up in frustration, Katrix forgot completely about not drawing attention to herself in public.
Of course, she hadn't really expected Eight to know anything about Necromancy... It was generally considered a myth, fantastical thinking on the part of ignorant humans. Fortunately. Anyone who'd met Luca Evangel would agree that one was certainly enough for the universe, ever. It had pretty much been a rhetorical question, and Katrix was just as distracted as Eight by the prospect of food. She glided over to the coolers, and the workers may as well have been made of smoke, as oblivious as she was to their plight.
After much unnecessary fishing around in the box, Katrix pulled out a boring plain bag and inhaled. "Ah, my dear delectable, decadent bacon," she murmured, and it was left a mystery for the food distributors whether she meant this in seriousness or not. There certainly wasn't any real bacon involved, although there was ham, and perhaps she didn't know the difference? In any case, Katrix turned to Eight and asked, now in a shy manner, where she might like to eat.

Meanwhile, poor, sweet, dead Damon was bored out of his skull. He stuck his head outside the door and half-wished to get caught just so that something might happen. The chances were, even if an unlikely passerby happened to stroll past, they wouldn't even recognize him, as he'd only just had his hair shorn by the one and only, newly-christened resident hair stylist... By that he meant Clay, who was now doing his own into the same short crew cut. Damon really ought to show some common curtesy and do it for him, yet he was too bored to do so, and hairstyling was for girls, and also, he admitted he was a bit of a selfish jerk. It didn't help, either, that the poor guy insisted he didn't mind.
Why did the silly higher-ups ever give him this kid as a mission partner? Couldn't they see he was going to practically be Damon's slave? He could only shake his horribly short-haired head in bewilderment.
"Damon, you should probably close the door, or else we'll get in trouble..." Clay talked in tones so hushed it was practically a whisper. He was scared, and did exactly what he was told, obediently fixing up their disguises.
Damon didn't want to stay one second longer in the room. Having haircuts was bad enough- now they were going to go as far as taking over his wardrobe? It was outrageous.
... But he merely shook his head again and closed the door.
God, he was so bored.

taffy789 • 9 January 2014 at 1:30 AM

Sadly, Raven's dramatic exit was cut short, as Zach was approaching the door to the hospital wing as the girl turned to leave.
 The smell of smoke and cigar fumes enveloped Raven as the Fifth Leader strode directly past her, not even glancing in her direction, and came to a stop at the large double doors. Although he'd first seemed bent on ignoring her existence, he hesitated at the entrance and then changed his mind.
Zach whipped around to face his assistant, but faltered briefly as he discovered he had nothing to say.
 He found something to say.
"... Are you following me around?" Five questioned evenly, staring Raven down, "Because I wasn't planning on running into you again anytime soon."


"Riley?" The girl asked out loud, more to herself than to another person, as an opening door and the person coming through it caught her attention.
The blonde had been sorting medicines when she'd seen the Fourth Leader be ushered through the swinging doors of the hospital.
After a quick moment of internal conflict, Annabell decided that her work could be left alone for just ONE second as she went to chat with a friend she hadn't talked to in three days. 
 Jogging over towards the Four, she called out his name once more to grab his attention, and soon slid to a stop right in front of him.
"Riley, how've you been? Are you feeling okay? I haven't seen you in a while..." Annabell glanced the boy over quickly while making a concerned face, as if checking if he was still breathing.


Eight, already digging through her paper bag for her sandwich, replied to Katrix's question with only an absent "Hmm~?"
 When she eventually managed to locate her food, Eight pulled the ham-on-wheat-bread out of the sack took a large bite from it.
 "Okay so," the Leader began, gulping down the food, "There's an empty table over there~" She pointed towards one of the many empty, folding tables that were set-up to provide people with a place to enjoy their pitiful excuses for meals. Although a few of these tables were occupied by tired, worn workers who lazily sipped their coffee while nibbling slowly at the crusts of their sandwiches, many of the tables sat empty, with crumpled and abandoned brown bags littering their tops. Eight brushed this trash away as she sat down, and excitedly motioned for Katrix to sit in the chair across from her.

asi • 9 January 2014 at 5:47 AM

She had, for a moment, while she'd stood by the doors- been contemplating going in. If Raven came clean about the situation of her arm, it would be a thing of ease with Four's authority, to jump the line- push away all the people who might lose a limb or even die. Apparently, her condition was quite complex, would need a real operation. If only, the healer had said, their head doctor was here; he could fix you up in a second... As it was, they were all too tired and busy for her problem. But Raven quelled her resentment quickly. She was supposed to be the tough one- her, not depend on favors from Riley...
"In your dreams," she quipped harshly, perhaps harsher than she'd even intended to. It wasn't that she'd really been taken by surprise, not this time, but Raven had certainly hoped against the possibility of his appearing. It was unpleasant in all sorts of ways; it certainly smelled like the leader had succeeded thoroughly in purging his office of the distasteful decor.
"Oh, don't go in," Raven said, with a cold tone and a look of scorn. "You'll give the patients cancer from all that second-hand smoke. Besides, you've already dragged into there the person I WAS following, to do YOUR work. He'll do a better job anyway," she stated all this in a matter-of-fact manner.

On entering, Riley was rather blown away by the powerful assault on his sense of smell, like nothing he'd ever known before. Here, disinfectant bowed to no one. In the kingdom of bleach, all lowly humans were dirt to its eyes, and every patient who threw up for it meant more overpowering chemical used. The kid wasn't kidding about the clinical air freshener.
He tried not to gag.
"Oh, hello Annabell," Riley smiled as he saw her coming towards him. "What a coincidence; Raven and I were just talking about looking you up."
When he sensed worry in her queries, Riley gave a sort of bemused frown. He wasn't a completely oblivious person; he could tell that Raven often seemed to shoot him worried glances, and he couldn't imagine the least idea why. Unless, maybe, she had just been nervous about saying that name to him. That guy hadn't been mentioned since- since- Riley didn't know when. He'd just sort lurked over them, like a dark cloud, the huge, oppressive elephant in the room... It would be a relief, he thought, to finally talk about Mickey, no matter how very little either of then actually knew about it to say.
"I'm fine. I'm not one of your patients- yet," he added, after breathing in just a bit too much and feeling his eyes slightly water.
His guide didn't seem to care much for the conversation, and had no problem with cutting in. "This way." Riley was impatiently pulled over to a desk and shown a large heap of documents to process. He could only smile awkwardly and thank the kid from third before they scooted off.

Katrix didn't really mind that her audience wasn't listening; after all, she was the sort that had she been alone, she might've have said it all just as loud and clear anyway. Still paying little notice to their surroundings, she glided over like a little queen to the chair which Eight had indicated, and took her place on it in a curious pose, cross-legged as if a primary school student on the mat instead. Her head had just been emptied off conversation- or rather, yet another rapid switch in personality had done so- and now she sat quietly, the air of a recluse surrounding her. Katrix got out her food and picked away at it dutifully, but it was only a pretense of distraction; whatever her mind was on, that certainly wasn't it.
Two; the cold, calculating, seemingly emotionless person she used to know- Col; lost outside, possibly in enemy territory, as well as an unbalanced emotional state- the Unnoens; and the threat the rebels and their mysterious ally Mael posed- Vivian and the unpredictable serums which that girl, Annabell, had brought to base- Spike; the name which Two had adopted and its apparent ill meaning, at least, that was what she had gathered, hearing Mael speak of it; and what WAS their connection? Then the problems at IOS; the lack of contact, the disappearance of Fain... Oh- oh, Spence, what on earth had happened to him...?
She felt cold at the thought.
Katrix sighed, thought about Two again, and wished two slim, strong arms would encircle her; pull her close in a tight, rare hug.

taffy789 • 14 January 2014 at 1:52 AM

Zach blankly watched Raven as she spoke and wondered to himself if there was an award for the most obnoxious. With every spiteful comment, he felt a growing surge of annoyance rise within him... 
The only reason he'd turned to talk to her was because the looming metal doors looked a lot less friendly- and THAT was certainly saying something- but now, Zach began to rethink that first deduction.
The longer he stood within earshot of his assistant, the clearer he saw the truth. Both the hospital and Raven were equally unpleasant.
 His decision was a matter of deciding the lesser of two evils, so Zach picked the one that wasn't going to snark his ears off.
 "I didn't ASK the guy to do my work," the Five told Raven pointedly, while preparing to push his way into the hospital, "if he didn't want to do it, then he should've refused, or forced it onto one of his assistants. But I don't need you to complain about it for him."
 He turned his head away from the girl and addressed the door instead.
 "I'm going to finish up whatever the Heck* these healers want me to do in here so they don't come whining to me anymore. Go do whatever you want."
 With that command, he threw open the doors and walked inside the room, leaving his assistant alone in the hall.

Annabell stood idly by as Riley was tugged away by an impatient kid from Third. She felt a small twinge of pity for her friend- at least she had CHOOSE to work in the smelly, stressful hospital room and hadn't been- somewhat literally, in Riley's case- dragged into it... But there wasn't anything Annabell could do about the Four's current situation except shake her head sadly and go back to work, so she did just that.


Katrix wasn't the only one with drifting thoughts; Eight's mind had long ago sailed away on a far off journey, and it wasn't planning a return trip anytime soon.
 The Leader smiled and hummed cheerful tunes as she gulped down the last of her ham sandwich, and then she turned her attention to the shiny, red apple and juice box that were left for her enjoyment.
 The apple disappeared down the black hole that was Eight's esophagus in two minutes flat, and the juice followed soon after.
 As the girl made the loud, slurping noises with her straw that signified an empty juice carton, she remembered her company.
 "SOOOOOOOOOOO~" Eight began loudly, tossing the cardboard carton carelessly over her shoulder, "Cat-Tricks, why did you wanna come out here with me?"
 She tilted her head to one side, but then her eyes widened with a sudden realization, and she perked up, filled with a burst of excitement.
 "OH MY GOSH, ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE ME TO AN AMUSEMENT PARK THINGY TOO??!?!"
 Her squeals of delight and wild hand motions caught the stares of the other patrons of the make-shift cafeteria room. Their heads slowly rotated towards the strange, blue-haired girl who was literally bouncing up and down in her chair, and they all simultaneously wondered how the girl hadn't managed to fall out of her precariously rocking seat yet.

asi • 25 January 2014 at 5:30 AM

After watching him follow Riley through the double set of doors, she wore an expression akin to one who had just had dirt shoveled into their mouth. While it felt horribly gritty, dirt itself wasn't really all that bad; the worst part was the knowledge that you'd just had dirt shovelled into your mouth.
Fine, whatever; she HAD been complaining, and managed to feel fully justified for it, since Riley wasn't one likely to ever do that for himself. But what, was Five going to do that work now just to be contrary to her, just to spite her? What was he implying, that he liked doing work? That he was too prideful to push work onto his assistant?
What was that stupid prick of a leader going to do, kick his superior out of filling out boring forms?
On running her good hand distressfully through her hair, Raven discovered it- much to her displeasure- to be rather oily. "Gah..." she exclaimed at the doors, in a tone half-strangled by frustration. There was no way she was standing another second outside those doors.
The arguments between her and Zach were stupid and childish. Raven was better than that. She'd- she'd... She'd go to the office and do some of the work she had (in truth) been neglecting. And after all that burning, it was likely the place needed a proper cleaning... As much as she hated it, he was her BOSS. If the both of them could only just act professional, like mature adults, their stay at IOD would be that much easier. Right?

Contrary to Nine's expectations, Two conducted the rest of the tour in such a smooth, business-like manner, speaking so plainly about everything from the cleaning chores they assigned to standard torture methods, that she found it difficult to believe he had a thing in the world to hide- at least in this department. If her determination to open every single door in the place annoyed him, he didn't show it.
"This ward's entirely empty, Nine. You might be surprised, but we don't get all that many guests. What they were thinking when they built this place so big, I don't know. I suppose it does mean we won't have to worry about overcrowding... Ever."
"The general offices, where those in the second- now ninth- division assigned to desk jobs work, and where very little actually happens."
"... That's the break room."
"..." He sighed. "Yeah. That's the male bathroom."
Okay, he began to sound a little like it.
Two told her about the aptitude tests each person had to go through before being qualified to torture anyone, the precautions they took against a person becoming overly sadistic, or, apparently, taking other extreme actions.
"Overly sadistic?" she raised an eyebrow. This was considered a problem by Two, of all people?
"We're trying to keep the base safe," he said shortly, "Do I need to elaborate further?"
She shook her head, and they moved on.
He instructed her on techniques. There sure was a lot to learn there, and before the end she was forced to subscribe to the view that pain, with all its many subtleties, was its own art form. It was by far the least pleasant kind of art she'd ever known, even remembering a particularly dreadful exhibit of abstract portraits she'd been dragged through once, at one arty museum or other. While Karen had never thought herself one with a weak nerve, she was, secretly, infinitely glad of the calm, impersonal and unwaveringly normal demeanor Two retained effortlessly throughout the tutorial. It was easy to believe he hadn't any emotions at all to speak of. When he showed her the extensive array of blades and each one's specialties, they might have been in a kitchen, and he her cooking instructor. When he corrected her hold and angle on the knife, Karen might have fooled herself she was back in her old calligraphy class. When he walked over, snapped the prisoner's neck, and said the lesson was over, he could have been relaxing on a beach in Australia- difficult though it was to mention dark Two in a sunny place. His expression didn't change.
Brutal, cold, untouchable.
She caught herself wondering a little angrily, and a very tiny bit despairingly; had he been carved out of the same dull, grey metal as the rest of the base?
When they left the room, Nine had a slick, sticky film of sweat over her skin, and, despite priding herself on having a firm, unshakable memory, skittered anxiously over the past few hours, not wanting to forget anything, and not wanting to remember any of it either. She was only human, after all, she reminded herself, breathing in the colder corridor air with barely disguised relief.
Turning her gaze back on the leader she had labelled suspect number one in her investigation, Karen then realized his expression HAD changed.
Two looked thoughtful, and distracted. He was staring into space, and seemed to have forgotten about her completely. Not troubled or tired or even lingering; just sort of absent. For all her distrustful observance of him, Karen now actually looked at Two, not from her cool, calculating, removed perspective, full of possibilities and probable percentages, but judging him from how he really looked.
He had a face, she decided, that WAS expressive. Perhaps that was why a lack of expression showed so clearly on him. If he was feeling something, Nine rather thought it would show. He might be a brilliant actor, and fool her into thinking he was feeling something else entirely; but not, she thought, nothing at all. Utter impassivity wasn't that easy to feign. The only logical conclusion was that Two REALLY didn't have emotions at all. She thought maybe that she had always felt that... But then a wave of uncertainty washed over her. Two couldn't truly be a robot, could he? Maybe he was an impossibly good actor. Maybe a mask of indifference concealed madness.
But if it didn't, then for whatever Two was planning- and he was planning SOMETHING- he had to have a motive. And if he didn't have emotions, then could it be anything more than survival? But that didn't make sense...
"Nine." Two's voice startled Karen from her thoughts.
She wondered how he would react when she said, only a hint mockingly; "Sorry, your strange look just caught me off guard."
To her disappointment, his composure didn't even flicker. "Nine, I'm only human," Spike said, shrugging his shoulders and sounding ever so slightly amused.
"Really." She wasn't quite sure whether or not that was meant to be a question.
"Maybe you should trade conspiracy theories with Col," he said, and she managed to ignore this by switching her attention to the cigarette he had just pulled out of his pocket, and seemed to lack a lighter.
Rather unwillingly, Nine turned hers over.
"I didn't think you were the type to smoke," Two eventually remarked, having used and passed it back.
Unable to place that as either insulting or complementary, Nine merely accepted the statement at its face value. Honestly, she answered, "I tried to take it up, but it just tasted too disgusting for me," she explained.
"..." After a short, smoky silence, Two simply gave another sort-of shrug, and took his leave without so much as another look at her. Luckily she was way past being insulted by his abruptness.
"... Only human," Nine echoed aloud, and wondered.

smilies • 25 January 2014 at 5:41 AM

Riley didn't notice when Five entered the makeshift hospital; he was too absorbed in his work, on the papers to which he'd been assigned. Though definitely unused to this sort of work, it wasn't anything difficult, and he soon found a rythym to it- skimming the lines for key words, jotting down a few sentences with clear reasoning to outline the issue, then signing it off with his verdict and signature. It was simple enough, and he didn't waste any time.

"Hmm? Of course not," Katrix answered her absently, immune to the other's excitement. "My only motive was the proper making of your acquaintance, so a more thorough comprehension of the base may be in my cards; comprenez-vous?" she said, her French accent carelessly perfect.
Having made her way through the sandwich, she stared listlessly at what was left, as if her troubles had eaten away at her appetite.
After thinking of about a hundred things to say to Eight and discarding every one of them, Katrix abruptly blurted out; "Do you think you'll be alright? Working with Nine... After Two leaving..." She shut her mouth just as suddenly. It wasn't like she cared about this girl, but... Katrix wasn't sure she trusted Two to consider other people; no, she definitely couldn't. Was he that selfish? All she knew was, that if she was being left behind by a friend, she wouldn't be okay with it.
Although One did need someone like Spike out there in the field- and with Fain gone, there really was no one else with his prowess in weapons- hadn't he volunteered too readily? He had barely left the base in three years, and now he wanted to leave... Katrix wished that using her power to interrogate him back then, she could have asked him what, exactly, his agenda was. Make him spit it all out from the start. But then, she knew he wouldn't have given that up so easily. None of it would be that easy.
What if he'd told Eight his plans? Maybe that was why she was so at ease, and why they'd gone off-base together... Maybe.
"What did he say to you..?" she asked, without hope of a proper answer.

"So."
When Mael returned from the visit he'd paid Bliss, Raid was in the round, natural chamber which served as an entrance-way to both of their own personal rooms, resting on what looked like a couch made solely of rock. After staring at the couch for several moments, Mael deduced that sometimes the simplest answer was the right one. It really was just a huge rock shaped like a couch. Finally he acknowledged the other's two-letter, one-worded greeting with a single raised eyebrow.
"So," Rai repeated patiently, "how'd it go?"
"You mean with dear Elliss?" Mael shot him a condescending look. "I've told you, he isn't a problem. He's only a healer," he spoke dismissively.
"He's a user," Rai said, like it was the most condemning crime in the world- or a particularly smelly cow dump. "I ought to let them use him as a chew toy."
Mael frowned at him. "Don't do that. Elliss will be useful. He was the guy who invented the power suppressant in the first place."
"And you say he's not a problem," Rai countered with some satisfaction. Although he was working with Mael, he rather liked to have something to hold above the other's head and make him squirm. This weak healer guy looked like he might turn out rather more fun than a chew toy.
Mael just shook his head.
"What about the Falchion's Two, is he a problem?" Rai continued at the other's look of exasperation, "You paid him pretty special attention in that video of yours."
"This again?" the kid scoffed. "I only did that to try and spook him. I've told you; just leave Two to me." A suave grin suddenly stretched across his face. "I know how to handle him."
Rai was a little unsettled by the confident assertion, and the fact that he hadn't a clue what this kid- who didn't look a day over fourteen- could possibly have over the seemingly unconnected Two.
"Whatever," he decided finally. "We've made ourselves known to the Falchions. What about the Glaeroes? Is your spy ready to do some damage?" Rai smiled, his enthusiasm was badly hidden.
Mael answered vaguely. "Not yet, I think. Just train some more, will you? I'm leaving for a while again. This place is really too boring."
"If you just told where you were going, I could just let you know when something exciting is happening," the mind-reader rolled his eyes.
Mael gave a strange kind of smile. "Sweet of you, but that wouldn't work."
"We're moving to the next location two days after tomorrow."
When this got only a vacant nod, he remembered something he'd been meaning to bring up for a while.
"When you go away," Rai said slowly, "You always come back a little... Different. I can't quite put my finger on what it is, though."
"Really," Mael half-asked, absently. He seemed to think nothing of it, but Rai didn't relax.
Until he did. Kicking his feet up to rest on the solid stone armrest opposite, he yawned, "Well, if you say not to worry, I guess that's what I'll do. Have fun, kiddo."
Mael seemed to think about it, then made a face and muttered; "Unlikely," to himself as he stalked off towards his own quarters. Something then occurred to him, and Mael stopped, looked back, said; "I had some earlier, though. Beat up your second-in-command."
"Ah," Rai scowled, considered it, then commented, "Good. He probably needed that."
"You should watch your own problems," Mael said by way of a farewell.
The power was left wondering on what, exactly, was Mael's position in his rebel scheme. "He's kind of like..." Rai said aloud as it came to him; "A minister of foreign affairs!"
That settled, he hummed slightly as he picked back up the book he'd been reading. He was about the only power who did read, but it didn't bother him. He'd always considered himself a rather intellectual power. It was, in his opinion, all about the mind. And, of course, how easily the skull that contained it could be bashed in.
The book was titled, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"...

taffy789 • 25 January 2014 at 4:04 PM

"I don't speak German." Eight informed Katrix sincerely, not understanding the French phrase at all.
 She became more confused as Katrix asked her about Nine.
 "But... The Evie-girl is dead!" Eight exclaimed, eyes widening with conviction, "I remember that she died... I think! Along with Shortcake. And those other two. I think." She rubbed at her temple, as if that could somehow improve her memory.
 "I could be wrong~ Those other two and Evie could died two years ago, in the other Leader battle thingy, but I remember a buncha other people dying then? But I know Shortcake died THIS year." She seemed one-hundred precent assured of herself when saying this, but then hesitated, and quickly added another, "I think."
 Now staring at the crumbs of bread crust that dotted the table's surface, the girl twisted her face up in concentration as she fought to remember who exactly had died recently, and who was left among the Leader's ranks...
 Clarity suddenly came to Eight, and her head shot up from the unclean table.
 "OHHHH! You're talking about the NEW NINE! The Carebear IKEA girl!" Eight nodded, finally understanding.
"Well~ The last Nine didn't like me, and I've heard that IKEA is her clone! So I guess she won't like me either." She frowned slightly as she thought of something. "...A lot of people don't like me for some reason! I can tell! Like, Shortcake didn't like me. ...But I guess he's dead now. Evie is dead too. I don't know what will happen to IKEA, but a lot of people always keep dying all the time, so there's that."
 There was a slight pause from Eight as Katrix asked about Two's words, and the Leader drifted off again for a moment, thinking back on her friend. She gather her thoughts slowly, and when she spoke, she spoke at the same careful pace.
 "... Spike-y likes me and we are friends~ He likes me and he's not going to die, because he's going to make sure that he doesn't go to Miami where the dingos can eat him. So he's not going to die but he's still going to leave because he wants to be a boomerang that doesn't come back to friends. And he's going to just leave me here with only Janet and the Annie girl to talk with and that's mean."
 Eight pouted and continued, "Spike-y said that he wasn't a zombie and that he wanted to make good things happen to himself~ So he's going to not go get eaten by dingos because getting dingos to eat you would be stupid because then you would die."
 After finishing her overview of her conversation with Two, Eight bobbed her head up and down happily, as if congratulating herself for explaining everything with perfect accuracy and sensibility. Smiling, she looked towards Katrix for confirmation that she did a good job.



The overwhelming scent of lemon slammed into Zach's nose as he walked into the mess hall, and the Fifth Leader was forced to take a deep breath to keep his eyes from watering. 
 He stood in place near the entrance until he could breath in the air without gagging, but even after that, the smell still greatly annoyed him.
It only served to worsen his pounding, stress-and-insomnia-induced headache, and being surrounded by so much sterilized hospital supplies in general made his heart pump at an abnormal, quickened rate... 
 Five groaned under his breath, choosing to ignore how his mental "fight-or-flight" response was turned on, and instead lit another cigarette. As he did so, a passing healer, dressed in all white and carrying a tray of syringes, looked like she was about to tell him something about not smoking around the patients, but the murderous glare she received shut her up fast.
 Not in any mood to be confronted by any annoying healers, Zach scanned the room for somebody who looked even the tiniest bit helpful.
 He soon found someone.
"I remember you," the Five started conversationally as he approached Annabell, "are you working here now?"
 When she heard someone addressing her, Annabell looked up from the medicine and blinked in surprise upon seeing yet another familiar face.
 "Yes, I am," the girl smiled pleasantly upon seeing the person she recognized as Raven's boss, "Is there anything I can help you with?"
 To her dismay, Annabell found it hard to look at the Fifth Leader without remembering that rumors she heard about him and Raven. Thankfully, the girl rentained excellent, professional composure and expertly fought down the embarrassed laughs and resurfacing mental images...
 If Zach noticed Annabell trying to prevent any emotions from crossing her face, he didn't say anything. He tapped his fingers against the table in front of him instead.
 "The healers here kept bugging me about some paperwork, things only Leaders can sign, but then my assistant told me that they'd gotten her friend to do it..." He trailed off there, and looked to Annabell for the answer to the question he'd neglected to ask. Thankfully for him, the girl excelled in reading between the lines of dialogue.
 "Yes, I think it's covered now," the blonde told the Five helpfully, replying with yet another pleasant smile. "I believe the healers pulled in Riley to get everything signed... Your work is all covered here!" Annabell delivered the information too cheerfully even for her tastes, and was hit with the sudden realization that she would've been great working in the world of customer service...
 Putting that thought behind her, she returned to the medicines near her hands, and turned her thoughts to poor Riley, left to fill out paperwork only because the first guy who'd been stuck with the job had arrived a minute too late... A cruel twist in fate's design, really.

 Meanwhile, Zach, even if given the okay to get the heck out of the lemon-scented heck-hole, stayed. Seeing Annabell had stirred a memory in his mind, which had then stirred a concern- one he felt that he should address while he had the chance. 
 He sucked on the end of his still-burning cigarette while watching the healers as they scampered about the room.
 "...It was lucky that somebody else got stuck with my paperwork," he finally spoke, blowing out puffs of cigar smoke with every word, "... I'm about to leave, but before I do, I need to ask you about something." 
Slowly, Annabell picked her head up from the medicines again, and patiently waited for the question.
Zach's fingers still tapped on the table at a galloping pace, but he was more concentrated on keeping track of the movement of the doctors around him than his unconscious actions. "I wanted to ask you about that feral we ran into on the mission before the rebel attack. From what I pulled, he was your friend, right?"
 Annabell kept silent, and concentrated on Five instead of answering back right away. There had to be a reason for this unexpected interrogation, and she struggled to work out what it was.
 She noticed a certain type of body language about the boy; he looked relaxed, nonchalant and at ease, but his posture was tense and his back seemed stiff as a board. By the way his eyes scanned every inch of the hospital around him, and the rapid pace of his finger taps on the table, that nicotine wasn't doing much to help that subtle anxiety either.
 Considering he paid more attention to the healers carrying syringes full of medicine to patients than his conversational partner, Annabell deduced that the need for cigarettes had little to do with the current topic at hand. But this all still didn't tell her where the Five was going with his question, and she found herself fretting over why he even bothered to bring up the topic. Despite her concerns, she answered anyway, caution creeping into her tone.
 "... Yes, Leon was my friend... His power likes to be known as Charge now, though... Why do you ask?"
 Zach pulled the cigar from between his teeth, snubbed out the lit end on the metal table and flicked the butt into a nearby trash can.
 "Because, I'm concerned about the feral," he said, and then looked Annabell straight in the eye. "When we'd ran into him and the other rebels... I could feel that they were all strong, but the electric one- your friend's feral- in particular..."
 Drifting off, Five recalled the mission in France, and how he'd gotten caught between the Leaders of the Falchions and Glaeroes during a stressful standoff upon a rooftop. He grimaced, thinking back on how his power had sent screaming signals down his spine- ones strong enough to cause his entire body to tremble with anticipation. Back then, the meaning of this message had been utterly clear to Zack. Having depended on its various warnings and signs for practically his entire life, he knew how to interpret every ache, jolt, or sudden rush of blood into signs which told him anything from which way death was coming from or which way life-saving shelter was- or, both more recently and annoyingly, where every spider in the general area was located.
When facing both Charge and the imminent threat of an all-out death match on the rooftop, the message Zach received was the same: The power here is enough to kill hundreds of people- escape now before you die.
Sure, the feral hadn't used his energy wisely, and Zach had managed to wound him with little difficulty. But that didn't change the fact that the feral had been giving off an extremely dangerous aura, and that only meant one thing...
 "Charge," Five said slowly, to emphasize the severity of the information, "had the same strength as our Leaders here, and I'm not talking about the ones of low rank." Zach met Annabell's eyes and tried to gauge her reaction to his concluding statement.
 "That feral is all too powerful to be allowed to live. It has to be put down."

asi • 27 January 2014 at 6:43 PM

An unfortunate underling to One looked up from their desk as the office door swung open readily to admit the newcomer. They didn't get many visitors out here, despite the legend on the door clearly reading "Office of One". The place was, in fact, less popular than the week-old ham and mustard sandwiches in a school cafeteria. The secret to their success was not telling anyone they were allowed in. The offices of One were an excellent way of stealing lifespan from anyone with the awful audacity to presume they could have even the least direct contact imaginable with their glorious leader. The punishment extracted was directly taken from the level of stupidity and stubbornness of the culprit in question. It was convenient, swift, and just, and the angry-faced people lingering outside the door dissuaded many would-be followers from joining in. In this subordinate's mind, the solution was a pure stroke of genius.
However, today was one of those rare days when one of those expected nuisances were unexpectedly going to be nuisance, and there wasn't anything they could do about that.
The first thing they noticed was the person's clothes. They were sporting what could only be identified as the Falchions' official formal dress suit, as recently revamped by the late Nine. This subordinate was able to recognize it because although no one ever wore it, the cleaning requirements for them were absolutely unspeakable. First, the outfit had an undershirt that was a cool grey in color, short-sleeved, and with a versatile collar; apart from a deep blue, maze-like patten sprawling across the back, a mess of thin, straight lines that never intercepted, it was free of embellishment. Its only purpose to set a contrasting background for the far more elaborate coat, and trousers which quietly matched. The jacket was a shocking white, and made of somewhat stiffer fabric. The neck was high, shoulders were padded and sharp, the sleeves rather baggy until the forearms where they clung tightly to the skin, and were cut off before the wrists, leaving them exposed. It was similar around the waist but the coat ended sooner than its sleeve counterparts on either side, emphasizing the length of the person's arms, and legs, and seeming to shorten their torso. There was showy array of frogging and decorative straps, not to mention the more subtle embroidery and lampasse in electric yellow, while the fitted boots, gloves and belt were a royal sapphire. It somehow managed to fall JUST short of garish, smacking itself in the dead center of outrageous and pretty near the most conspicuous outfit on the planet. Its effects could be shocking as a strike of lightning, if you were one of the few who could pull it off.
Still, due to both the deceased's staunch beliefs in gender equality (causing there to be no altercation between the male or female versions), and this person's figure being slim, yet notably lacking in the curve department, there was no way for the one manning the desk to tell gender from their body.
Luckily, the second thing they saw was a dead giveaway; the beautiful head of shining golden hair she- for it was a she- wore. Then the delicate facial features, the pretty, light blue eyes- not cold like ice, but a pale periwinkle. Finally the sour and dour expression on her face, to which the subordinate could only wonder who had put bird poop in her breakfast cereal, and pray to god they wouldn't be noticed by the girl whose personality was strong enough to emanate off her like an aura- and it wasn't a pleasant one. It was, in the office worker's opinion, highly comparable to a skunk's odor.
"Present me to this replacement One, without any of your frivolous delays. I require to be acquainted with our supposed new leader."
They stared at the girl with a mouth gaping in disbelief. "B-but," they finally managed to stammer, "Don't you know? /No one/ sees One. No one but Two's supposed to have even met them. It's been that way forever!"
But she seemed only antagonized by this, and demanded; "Haven't you ears? I told you not to squander time with trivial excuses. Or eyes, to recognize me with!"
In their fright, they could barely do a thing but shake like leaf at her displeasure.
Seeing this, her expression slowly, grudgingly, softened. "I should know that you are only obeying your most recent orders. My absence and the ensuing ramifications are hardly a fault of yours, and I suppose it would be disproportionate to fire you solely for the sin of ignorance. You may even yet elude punishment by soliciting sympathy from me, granted you rectify your mistake immediately. I need not literally see our leader, merely be placed in a position of contact, a situation which has been my right for three years. And as your direct superior, I suggest you endeavor to follow my instructions /swiftly/."
Weakly, they managed to politely request an identification, which the lady answered promptly with; "174, Vivian."
Clicking on the entry and watching it load... And load... And continue to load. After swallowing their disbelief at the size of the page, their expression quickly turned to shock as they began skimming, eyes practically popping out of their head.
"No way, you... This many missions? No, exactly one hundred of them... I know who you are... But you simply can't be the Golden Soldier!"
Their jaw dropped onto the desk with a loud thump.

The Falchion who achieved the highest number of completed missions ever was known by one name; the Golden Soldier. They also had one of the top percentages of missions successful; a perfect one hundred percent. Said to be able to solve any problematic equation, save a mathematical one. One of the few people to really find fame without the help of a high position (that is, before they even made it to One's assistant). Dozens of rumors circulated around them; including some awkward ones about their relationship with a certain leader, ranging all the way from siblings to IN a relationship, and sometimes, dreadfully, both. But also that they had possible Unnoen potential, and taking that further, some even said that they were the reincarnation of Victory itself.
Which really didn't make much sense. It wasn't as if she never failed in a fight. It was just that she never failed in her objective.
Still, what people said or even thought had nothing to do with it in the end. It was about what they felt. And that was... That standing next to Fain, she was a lot less flashy. The Golden Soldier was just that- a soldier- not, as the late Three was often called, a hero. They'd carry out their orders to the T, while Fain... Well. He'd risk it all to save a cute, innocent kitten. Or even a mangy, not-so-innocent middle-aged cat. Sure, it endangered the entire mission, and the lives of his teammates, but forget that. Once home at base, it sounded d*mm good in the report.
One might wonder, looking back, if she was ever jealous of the guy... The late Three, Fain.

"I..." Having regained control of their jaw, they swallowed and found their mouth all of a sudden horribly dry. "Right this way, miss," they finally said, getting up and bringing Vivian over to the door heading rightwards. After opening it to let their "superior" through first, they followed the girl into the next room.

Shortcake? She hadn't a clue who THAT was supposed to be. Katrix listened with an expression of the utmost bemusement... And a little bit of hunger. When was the last time she'd eaten shortcake..? Soft, buttery goodness...
It seemed Eight wasn't entirely beyond hope, because she eventually made her way to Nine, and although Katrix wasn't sure about the clone part, she agreed with the conclusion that Karen probably wouldn't like Eight much. Nine didn't like a lot of people; herself and Two included.
She tried to be positive for Eight though. "I think she might be a bit nicer than Evie," One said rather grudgingly, not exactly enjoying saying anything nice about the ninth leader. "She doesn't seem as violent, angry or bitter... Though I really think she's a huge jerk!" she couldn't help adding. But in any case, Katrix hoped Nine wouldn't kick the bucket like Eight said; god knows she was short on leaders.
However, as the other leader began to, in her own way, recount her recollection of her talk with Two, Katrix started to shake slightly, and take a turn towards feelings less than amiable.
"Why... Why would you even think that?" she cried out as soon as Eight was done, "Why would you ever believe Two could die! Th-that's... Never going to happen! Two... He isn't like those other leaders! He, he, he isn't expendable!!" she half-whispered, half-shouted, sounding on the edge of hysterical as she ran out of breath. It was hardly any wonder, knowing what she knew; that Spike already had a timer on his life.
"I- I..." she closed her eyes and took in a deep, calming breath. "I came all this way for him... I can't lose Two," she said softly, eyes wide and not completely dry.
What had she expected, that Two would tell Eight he'd be back safe and sound next year? That was what Katrix had wished to hear. But it would be a lie, wouldn't it? Unless he wanted to wait desperately in the hope a cure could be discovered for Raze- when he was beyond both amazing and lucky to have lasted more than a month- and yeah right. If it was, everyone on the island could be freed... But it was that or make Unnoen. And even if he could do that, no Unnoen was ever heard from again at IOD. No, in all likelihood, if Eight ever saw Two again... By that time he would have succumbed to Raze, and be either dead... Or worse.
Remembering herself again, she timidly apologized to Eight for her outburst, regretting it almost immediately how little she concealed her feelings.
But it wasn't just about how she felt; there were other consequences too. And... If that was Two, she realized, deep crap couldn't even begin to describe how bad their situation would be.
Spike would make one scary Feral.

taffy789 • 1 February 2014 at 3:01 AM

Eight observed Katrix's small breakdown, tilting her head side-to-side slowly, if trying to comprehend something she couldn't ever possibly understand. She watched as One grew agitated, but didn't react to her conversational partner's emotions herself, and showed no signs of empathy with the girl- or maybe was just utterly oblivious to the girl's hysterics.
Either way, by the time Katrix had gotten a better hold of herself, Eight had found a proper reaction. 
"Well, I just said he wouldn't die!" she exclaimed loudly, drawing more attention from the other's in the make-shift lunch room than the whimpering Katrix already had, "There's no need to get all upset about it and stuff!"
 The Leader shook her head.
 "Spike-y said he wouldn't get eaten by dingos so he'll be okay! 'Cause if he says he'll be fine then he'll be fine~! That's how it works." She nodded in affirmation of herself.
 "Really, I'm more worried about him never ever coming back again because friends aren't suppose to do that!" Pouting, Eight slunk into her chair. "Friends are 'posed to talk to each other a lot! And I want to hang out with him a lot too! That's how friendship works." There was a pause, then she repeated with yet another nod, "Yep, that's how it works~!"


 Put down.
 Annabell could only stare at the Five in silent shock as he used a term meant for rabid, sick, or in-pain animals and not for human beings.
 She fought to wrap her mind around what Zach was saying.
 Leon, admittedly, was strong.
Annabell had seen his power in action before; one case in particular stood out, and it'd occurred after he'd returned to the Super School from what she now realized was IOD. She remembered eating lunch with Leon in the school's cafeteria, and watching her friend grow more flustered as he struggled to open a stubborn milk carton. After trying and failing the simple task for a good two minutes, he'd gotten so worked up that he threw up a hand and turned an overhead light into a shower of glass and sparks that rained down on a nearby empty table. Leon received a detention, naturally, and he looked gloomy when he discovered that he'd frightened Annabell, and remained trapped in the same mood even after she'd assured him that it was all understandable, and that milk cartons could easily be frustrating when running on fitful sleep and a lessened dosage of Prozac.
Even if the event had displayed Leon's power more vividly to Annabell, she still couldn't find the thought of her friend fighting against someone like Two or Three and winning plausible. Even if she imagined Leon and the more placid Riley fighting, Leon still ended up beaten, bruised and complaining loudly about how "everything hurts and oh god I'm going to die".
...But, she supposed Charge was very, VERY different than the friendly, pacifistic boy she once knew. 
"... We don't need to "put down" Leon," Annabell firmly assured the Fifth Leader, not talking her eyes off his. "That's not something... I would allow to happen."
"You won't allow it to happen, but it will happen, eventually." Zach predicted, ice frosting over both demeanor and tone.
 Growing agitated, Annabell found herself struggling to find the right words; the most convincing argument to make. She wondered if this was how Raven felt, fighting with the Leader all the time like she did... Annabell saw how it could be frustrating. Five seemed the type to approach even the most sensitive subject with no tact and didn't mind pushing buttons.
"Ugh, I don't see why you're suddenly trying to form an angry mob and go after Leon," she spat out, souring at the idea, "If I remember correctly, you didn't really care all that much when the rebels were a problem, right? Back when Raven first told us about them..."
"Look," Zach shot back harshly, "first off, I'm not trying "go after" your friend- I'm going after his feral. Secondly, at least the rebels set a date for their big attack; I don't see your friend over there sending any warning letters. The rebels are powerful, organized, and still an issue. I'm not denying that. But finding, fighting, and killing tens of powerful rebels is a lot more work than killing one dangerous feral."
 Still not convinced, Annabell folded her arms across her chest and frowned while Zach kept going, growing exasperated.
 "What I'm saying is that your friend is too powerful, and will kill again. But "Charge" is most likely wounded and weak after that nasty cut I gave it. Right now would be the best time to find and get rid of it. Then, we'd have one less thing to worry about."
 Even though Annabell remained quiet, her jaw was set in a stubborn, unshakable position that conveniently mirrored her stance on the issue of killing Charge... And subsequently Leon.
"We're NOT "putting down" anyone," she said sternly, adamant in her decision. "We're not killing them, we're not exterminating them, we're not going to put them seven feet beneath the ground- none that. Not any of that to Leon, or Blaine, or Alex- or anyone else we know whose power has taken them over. But," her angry frown and eyes now both turned towards Zach, "I suppose you're just going to go and tell the other Leaders that you're looking to get rid of this feral, right? And get them to all go after him..."
 Zach's mouth twitched slightly. Blondie seemed set on picturing him as having something personal against her friend, when in reality, all he wanted to was make sure this "Charge" wouldn't launch a surprise assault on the front lines and end up frying everyone like a giant bug zapper. Zach knew the feral was capable of just that- mass murder- and since the Five had received orders to be shipped to the front lines... There was a chance that he would cross that monster's path.
That thought... Was a frightening one. 
Zach, inwardly groaning, tried not to think about that happening. He hated variables in life. In his opinion, not knowing what was going on around you twenty-four/seven was as scary a prospect as being suddenly electrocuted where you stood.
 "Okay," he told Annabell finally, after a short period of considering the courses of action he could take, "I'm going to bring this up with the other Leaders, as a warning. But I doubt anything will come of it right away, since we don't even know where he is, and I'm not going to push for a hunt for the feral."
 Listening carefully, Annabell wondered whether or not she should be relieved by this decision. Five still wanted together rid of Charge, but at least immediate action would not be taken... That gave her some time. Very little time, perhaps, but it was better than nothing. She would have to figure out how to rescue Leon before the time that Charge became a real problem, according to the Leader.
Slowly remembering herself, Annabell gave a slight nod in the Fifth's direction. "Well... Thanks for not getting the Leaders to go after Leon right now, I suppose..."
Zach knew he didn't deserve the even the clearly half-hearted thanks- mostly because the real reason he'd decided to not take any immediate action was that, if he did, the duty of bringing down the feral would fall on the complainer's shoulders... and he wasn't looking to become martyr for any higher purpose like hunting a potentially murderous monster anytime soon. Zach didn't tell this to Annabell though, and simply nodded back. He then turned to leave, but another thought overcame him before he walked off. After a small pause, he ventured a question. "Hey, this boy we're talking about... It's not the same one you asked me about a month or so ago, right?"
After thinking over it for a second, Annabell recalled once asking Zach if he'd ever heard anything about a smiling Falchion with power over electricity...
"It is. I asked you about Leon a long time ago," she answered, and then mirrored Five's bewildered expression as it slowly appeared on his face.
"That feral... How long has it been out there?" Zach questioned, as befuddled as Eight was about many things on a daily basis, "When did your friend come to IOD? Around what time do you think he turned feral?"
Zach rubbed the back of his neck, trying to figure the conundrum out. He'd heard a rumor about an electric user gone feral, and figured Blondie's friend had fit the bill. But that story was already so old, and by this time, "Charge" should've been...
"...The thing is, ferals usually don't last for more than a few months," he said, solemn and frowning, "they end up starving to death or dying of some disease, eventually..."
Annabell now saw where the confusion stemmed from. 
"Oh, you don't understand," she explained, "Charge has only been a feral for a few months. I think that Leon was here at IOD once before, but then he came back to live at the Super School... But Leon turned feral back on mainland, and arrived at IOD as Charge. So-"
"But that's not possible." Zach interrupted suddenly.
 "Well, I was just getting to that," Annabell replied, frowning at his impatience, "I think the government brought Charge back for some reason... Maybe they just didn't want to deal with him? I don't know, but-"
"No, not that," he cut her off again. "Your friend couldn't have returned to the Super School," Zach said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, "If you haven't noticed yet, this place is meant for death and despair. You come here; you stay here. There's no "returning" from IOD- especially for the common soldiers, which I'm guessing the your friend was. He couldn't have gotten off this island just like that."
Zach went quiet for a moment, and spoke up again.
"And if he did... Well, that should've never had happened."

asi • 3 February 2014 at 4:56 AM

Upon entering, Vivian slowly turned back to her guide with stony eyes and uttered; "It is inconceivable that THIS guy should be One. Who exactly, may I ask, are you attempting to dupe here?"
Clay looked at her in blank confusion, wondering why anyone was let into the room. Let alone why he was supposed to be One.
"It's not like that!" they protested immediately. "I saw One go into this room, she was supposed to stay here..."
"You didn't know there was a door behind the wardrobe, did you?" Damon chuckled, having inched away from the door and pretending he hadn't been about to follow One out.
"Oh no!" the subordinate groaned. "Two's gonna have me executed this time for sure! One isn't SUPPOSED to run around the base, let alone spread gossip about other leaders' love lives..."
After staring rather disdainfully at the bawling office clerk, Vivian drew herself up and said loudly; "I require an explanation, at once!" She looked sharply between the two former leaders... And did a double-take. "Five?" her face twisted into an incredulous expression.
He frowned and squinted at her. "Vivian..?"
They stared at each other.
(At this point, the unlucky subordinate to One excused themselves quietly, muttering under their breath about tracking down runaway leaders, and left unnoticed by any of the other inhabitants of the room).
"How on earth are you still alive?" she finally raised one thin eyebrow.
"Look who's talking," he replied, eyes still wide with astonishment. "You went missing over a YEAR ago!" Damon was shaking his head as if he couldn't find a way to express enough disbelief. He walked over to her slowly, like he expected the floor to give out beneath him if he moved with too much haste.
Much to the surprise of the onlooker present, they abruptly... Hugged.
Breaking apart, Damon turned and, grinning, did the introduction. "Clay, this gorgeous girl is my friend Vivian. She's pure gold; one cool babe," he winked, causing the "babe" in question to mutter out of the side of her mouth;
"Don't push it."
"Uh, it's an honor to meet you," Clay said rather shyly, glancing at Damon for a sign on whether he was doing it right (who missed the look completely).
She just gave a stiff nod in return. "Pleasantries aside, I would not appreciate having to air the same question a second time. Five?" Vivian looked to him expectantly for her explanation.
He looked uncomfortable. "Ah, Viv, you see, I'm not Five anymore..."
"Don't tell me they gave you a raise!" she scoffed at him. "The standards in this place must have fallen miles downhill to allow for that; standards which were already far too lenient!"
Damon sighed, "See why I love this girl? She's so wonderfully cold."
"I hope you do not mean to tell me this," her eyes lingered on Clay and looked none too kind about it, "... Friend, of yours, is also amongst the high ranks? If so, I can see the base failed so dismally in that rebel fiasco."
"Well, he WAS," Damon said, apparently accustomed to ignoring her blatant slights.
She whirled around to stare. "Whatever do you mean, WAS? What thing could you two possibly have done that was stupid enough to strip you of your ranks? ... They didn't find out about your big secret, did they..." she added, rather slyly.
"..." Eye twitching a little at that, Damon told her briefly of the events of the Truce Tournament. Her reaction was rather predictable.
"So I wasn't wrong to presume you dead, was I?" Vivian spoke triumphantly. "For the majority of the base, you ARE dead. And with that suicide mission, the rest clearly have no scruples about completing the job."
"Yeah baby, I treasure your company too." He pretended not to notice the threatening glare she sent his way, steaming with indignation at his term of address.
"I retract my earlier sentiments," Vivian announced. "Not even this sorry specimen," she was looking at Clay again, "could hold a candle to the depths of my expectations for you. He at least won his fight. Speaking of which, Four's behavior is entirely intolerable. Where is he now? Somebody ought to keep him in line." She glowered at the both of them as if they had been solely responsible for rule regulation on base.
"Missing- just after the rebel invasion," Damon answered shortly, then added, "He's Three now."
"He wasn't among those captured by the rebels, was he?" she sounded alarmed, then turned utterly bewildered. Her mind seemed to grapple with the meaning of all these changes. "What? Three... But I was only just with Two, meaning... Is Fain the new One?" she reasoned.
"Vivian... I'm afraid not," he muttered, suddenly contrite; a look which didn't appear to belong on Damon. "You see... He went MIA, months before the whole Truce deal. He's been presumed dead... I'm sorry, Gold."
She said heavily; "Oh." There was a lingering silence as the two former leaders waited for her to ask (or rather demand) how. But she didn't; instead Vivian grew rigid as she seemed to process this, and grew grimmer by the second. "If you're off to neutralize an Unnoen threat, and we don't have Fain, then who is supposed to be our candidate? In the case of your eventual and inevitable failure."
"Thanks!" Damon exercised his skills of sarcasm.
"Seriously, Damon!" she growled. "If not him, then who?"
Having no answer for her, it was all he could do to look away darkly. The future was suddenly seeming rather lacking in prospects.
"Was he really all that?" Clay blurted out, his look that of a skeptic.
She obviously did not appreciate his comment. "What do you know? You've been here but a year; it's improbable that you've even stood witness to his skill."
"It's true that all I've seen was him practicing with Three- Col," he admitted.
"Oh! Col," she snorted. "When it comes to fencing, HIS hands are both left. Fain couldn't even work up a sweat with him. He put more effort into pretending to be tired for Col than the actual match... EVERYONE on base thought he'd reach the tier of Unnoen. Isn't that so, Five- or whatever it is that I'm supposed to call you now."
"... No," he said slowly, "I disagree."
"What could you mean?" she was taken aback.
Damon shrugged. "I don't think... He wasn't the type. Sure, he was brilliant and all, at fighting. And he was nice enough too. But being an Unnoen is supposed to be about more than just being a decent guy plus a little Kung Fu. And for the latter, he WAS a bit more experienced than the rest of us," he gave a small smirk as he pointed this out.
"It was not so great a difference as you make it out to be," Vivian scowled as she sensed where this was headed, and was fast proven right.
"Fain was twenty when he left for IOS, wasn't he? He came the same year as Two- I've heard that was some Truce- but he was seventeen then. You, on the other hand, have been here four years, right? Hey, Viv, haven't you got to be pushing on the big two-o by now?" He smirked at her and promptly earned a ringing slap.
"If you knew anything about girls, you wouldn't have said that," she growled dangerously, and Damon's smile was rather pained as he rubbed his cheek.

It was Eight's words that finally jolted Katrix out of her spiraling dark thoughts, as the implications were realized in her mind. Did she not have enough faith in Two?
It was a well-known fact that any kind of healthy relationship needs trust in order to work. But how could anyone really trust Two, as he was now? He was plotting behind her back, she knew that. There was no way One could trust him, no matter how much she might wish to.
"How do you know... How could you know he wasn't lying?" Katrix said helplessly. "Please don't say because you're friends... If he's already decided to leave you, what's one lie to him?" She clenched her eyes tight shut and wished one answer could assuage all her doubts, with no hope it would come true.
Then her eyes flashed open as One felt a new presence slip its way through the gathering. Her amaranth gaze zeroed in on the target and abruptly, she stood up.
Her expression was the same as that of a formula one driver swerving to avoid at all costs a collision with a clump of yellow and black water barrels.
"I have to go," Katrix smiled radiantly at Eight, apparently having forgotten utterly the nature of the conversation as she said; "It was a pleasure talking to you. Perhaps we shall continue this another time." Though it was all quite a mouthful, she had barely finished speaking before Katrix was gone.
"Where is she? Where could our glorious One have gone?" One kid of a first division duo was muttering to themselves as they swung their head back and forth, scanning the room in a rather exaggerated fashion.
"Shh! Shout to the world who we're looking for, will you?" hissed the other, and added; "Assuming that girl who calls herself "Kitty" even is One herself, not just a representative of some kind..."
"Molly, I think everyone assumes she's One," the first one rolled their eyes. "It just seems really obvious."
"... Maybe this is why she finds it so easy to elude us," the second murmured under their breath; "With you saying obvious things like that!"

taffy789 • 4 February 2014 at 11:20 PM

Eight thought about Katrix's question for a while, and continued to ponder it even after her conversational partner had left.
 What was a "lie" again? She struggled to remember if it was a good or bad thing.
 ... After a few moments of searching her brain, Eight concluded that being lied to was a bad thing.
That meant that Spike-y lying to her would be a bad thing... and it worked both ways, so her lying to Spike-y would also be a bad thing...
 But- BUT!
 Eight remembered lies could be good too. Or well, needed, anyway! Lies could stop people from getting hurt and protecting people was a good thing!
 If Spike-y was lying at all, then he had to be doing it to protect somebody - even if it was himself! And if the person you're protecting by lying is yourself, it's still a good thing since SOMEBODY is safe! Yeah, that's how it works! 
And if Spike-y was lying to her, Eight knew he had to be doing the good kind of lying instead of the bad kind because there could be no other way! She knew her friend would never hurt her! 
He... Never had hurt her! Never ever!
... Wait. The Leader knew she had more important things to think about than this! Things like... Puppies!
 Cute lil' puppies with their cute lil' wet noses rubbing all over her skin and making her laugh~
She could almost feel their soft fur and small padded paws now~ It was such an overwhelming sensation that Eight giggled audibly, and, grinning, got up from the table to steal another sack lunch out from under the noses of the cafeteria staff.


"... Are you sure?" Annabell blinked, off-put by the serious look on Zach's face.
 "Completely," he answered back, quickly, "there's no possible way your friend could've gotten off IOD for good. It just doesn't happen. I've heard rumors about attempted escapes before... But they all ended badly. I don't see a way of leaving IOD. It's..." Five hesitated. "... Impossible."
 Annabell gulped, her throat and stomach growing unpleasantly warm, as if she'd just swallowed an all too bitter hot tea. 
Had... She been wrong? Had Leon never come to IOD?
 Annabell, once so assured in her beliefs about the fate of her friend, now discovered a new doubt bubbling inside her. Perhaps it was foolish to think that simply because her friend had used the IOD term "feral" once, so long ago, it meant he had some connection to the place.
 "... I'm probably mistaken then," Annabell said apologetically, her eyes drifting down towards the medicine laying scattered on the table, "I just got confused, that's all."
 "That must've been what'd happened," Zach agreed, though unconvinced himself. He had a hunch- and it was a hunch his power confirmed- that the person in the old rumor had been Blondie's friend. But even his power couldn't tell him how the guy ended up back on mainland, or survived being a feral for so long- or whatever had actually happened.
 What Zach did know, however, was that the great mystery wasn't his problem to figure out, and he wasn't going to waste any energy trying to.
 "So," Zach sighed, one hand tracing lazy circles on the table top, "it was an interesting chat, Blondie. But just so you know, if you go chasing after your friend or something crazy like that, don't get me involved, okay? I'm not looking forward to getting electrocuted anytime soon. Thanks."
 With that, Five curtly ended the conversation and walked out of the hospital- perhaps at too fast a speed, as Annabell noted.
 She also "noted" that the Fifth Leader seemed to be a rather rude person, and she added him to her list of people to avoid in the future- right up there next to Eight and Kitty.
 Although Annabell had to admit, their conversation- however unpleasant- had been very informative. For example, she now was aware of the deadline hanging over Leon's head, and knew she had to act soon, or else...
 There was also the entire business about Leon's stay on the Isle of Despair, and despite what she had told Zach, Annabell remained skeptical that she'd made a mistake. Even if it had been "impossible" for Leon to had escaped IOD, Annabell's certain brand of intuition told her that her friend HAD gone to the island. It made too much sense to her, given how he'd acted after his rise from the "dead"; given how jumpiness and fear had become chronic problems when no anxiety was present before; given that band he'd religiously kept on his left arm, positioned in the very same place Annabell's own identifying numbers were forever inked onto her skin. Leon had been condemned to IOD, if only for a while. Her conviction in this belief returned despite the apparent improbability of  it all. While Annabell still didn't know how the boy could've possibly escaped the island of death, she knew he had. The way she saw it, she could always get the answer after her friend was rescued from the clutches of Charge.

asi • 15 March 2014 at 11:24 PM

She didn't want to go back just yet. It was selfish of her, but she'd barely been One for a month and she could already feel the pressure wearing her thin. A hand rubbed a circular motion around her temple, massaging the side of her head in a weary fashion. Two and Eight... She could only hope that whatever Two was plotting, it would not affect Eight too much... Although that was a friendship Katrix didn't exactly support, that didn't mean she wanted any of her precious few leaders hurt- even- or perhaps especially, Eight.
The corridors grew progressively empty the closer she got to the scene of the explosion. Katrix kept returning to the scene; wandering, mindless feet automatically led her back to the very real exhibition of the trouble preying first and foremost on her thoughts. It was, after all, evidence of how quickly she'd failed as a leader. One, he'd entrusted her with this...
It was so unfair; unfair that this duty had been thrust upon her, as little warning as a freak typhoon, and unfair that she had more to deal with than any of the hundred Ones before her- honestly, maybe he hadn't known about the rebels, but what had he been thinking, choosing her... When Two had told her SHE was to be One- well, Katrix would be lying if she hadn't been thrilled, but also scared. Wasn't it some kind of mistake? She hadn't dared say so.
Now, those powers were her problem. And this problem had a brain.
In order to find the base, they'd needed to sacrifice one of their own. Raven had to have been the perfect candidate; worthless to their cause, intending to rejoin the Falchions, but holding ties of loyalty to their users. Katrix didn't know how, but the method didn't matter; they'd managed to track the teleportation- and then they knew. The next part was clear; she'd spent hours identifying and following the movements of the infiltrator. It had been one of their own recruits, a girl with metal manipulation from Ninth division. She'd gone to Super School, and, as it happened, was close friends with the current Nine. Then, of course, she'd gone feral on a mission- possibly partly courtesy of Evie's reckless mission choices. This turned out to be a huge loss to the base, not only for what she helped cause, but for the reparations as well. The base had been damaged badly by Col's lapse of control, and they had no way to fix it. Structurally, the base was now... Less than sound. If it hadn't been nearly a decade since the last pure earth or rock power, Katrix might be evacuating everyone out now. One strong earthquake and the place would look like... Well, like a cake that had sunk in the oven.
Anyway, with the girl's power over metal, entry into the base without anyone's knowledge was a piece of cake. As soon as she was in, artfully she'd twisted the very walls of the base into stealing from Raven the first component of the repressor; and the second had been on her own person. Clever, to split it in two, as together the chemical energy would not have gone unnoticed. Then it simply had to be dropped into the water supply; again, with metal powers, simple. Only later, just before Two had finally got to Raven, the metal power had tried to assassinate her... Why?
Lost in the recent past, Katrix could hardly be blamed this time for colliding with a certain figure out of her more distant own. Luckily, Spike was paying slightly more attention. He had to grab her shoulders and hold her still before Katrix noticed.
"O-oh, Two!" Her throat stuck and she had difficulty swallowing. "Hi."
He seemed to search her expression a moment, before allowing his hands to drop. If Katrix had to guess what he was thinking, he was probably wondering what SHE was thinking. Sigh, when had he got so arrogant? It wasn't about HIM, for once at least.
"Good," Two quipped. "I was starting to think there was something wrong with your eyes. You're becoming quite the corridor health hazard." He raised an eyebrow. "Should I be putting up signs?"
Katrix instantly turned pink and redirected her view to the floor. "You're in a good mood," she managed.
"..."
When he didn't answer that rather subtle question, Katrix looked up and asked a proper one. "So, where are you going now?"
"I was going to see Four, actually," he said quietly, at a level that made her wonder if she was meant to hear.
One frowned. "I also meant to talk to him about something, but the person I sent to look for him said he'd left his rooms... And he's not answering his cell phone."
Shrugging, Two merely replied that it wasn't important.
"Um..." she began, and promptly forgot what she was going to say. Then just stood there rather awkwardly.

For one ice power, time had never seemed to tick by so loudly. Had he been a more fanciful person, he should have said that time itself seemed to be waiting for something, tapping its foot against the floor with a sense of boredom it didn't care to suppress.
Zan was lying on his bed and making lame metaphors while he tried to sleep. It probably didn't help that it really wasn't much of a bed; just a bunch of blankets over a flattish rock platform. That was yet another issue he had with the other powers, their apparent love for all things raw. Of course, most powers didn't like to spend much time sleeping, either.
Blaine had always been a light sleeper. The smallest things would wake him in the night; the fluttering of moths, distant doors opening and closing, and rain, even when, like the majority of his lab cells had been, he was underground. So it seemed only natural that, in a room with air too dry and hot, clothes itchy and plainly needing a good wash, and in skin sore and bruised (though it was really his ego that had been damaged more than anything else), he should have trouble drifting off. Not to mention the constant, crawling feeling of his roommate's eyes on his back. While the urge to roll over nagged at him like an old housewife, Zan could only ignore it and lie rigid as the decomposing, or, he imagined, alert Bliss to the fact he was only pretending to sleep. That was probably the main reason he was finding the genuine act difficult.
It had been just over a month since his user had found his way from France into the arms of these heavily armed, so-called rebels. A little more than three weeks ago that Zan had woken up and discovered that he was there and Blaine was- as far as he could determine- nowhere at all. Four days after he'd been asked to play fetch for a healer of a rather specific description, and after meeting the guy, he'd dared to hope. A user, from outside, who seemed to be on his side... Of course Bliss happened to be old BFFs with this Mael, the one user who had allied himself with the rebels. Just another person he couldn't trust.
If he was a stronger person, Zan knew, he'd have ran away. If it had been Alex in his place... She'd have torn this mountain apart in seconds, and stormed off without a second thought, never looking back. Maybe even with her twin's evil power trussed up in tow. But he, he couldn't do that... Zan shied away from the thought like a horse did from a saddle, even though they both knew it was the only real way out of the enclosure...
Tomorrow would be the first day since the invasion that compulsory battle training would be resumed for the rebels. Judging by some remarks he'd overheard in the corridors... Zan wasn't exactly holding out hope that Bliss would be excepted. Even if he'd just lost his trust in the healer, that didn't mean he immediately wanted to see the guy beaten to death. Zan wasn't like those powers.
Careful not to trigger any sound, he reached out his hand to rest it against the rock. It was coarse, rugged, and cool to touch. He'd purposely picked an outer room in the scattering of tunnels that formed the rebel hideout. On the other side of this stone, there was a crisp white night out there. Blanketing the ground; snow, soft and gleaming bright on the mountainside. Snow, drifting down from the sky, twisting and fluttering in the fresh, free air. Not stale and stagnant like that trapped in the mountain; real wind, wild and free. And above that, the distant stars watching from the obsidian sky.
It was out there, and one day again soon, Zan would be out there with it- not just bodily, but in spirit- free- as the best version of himself. Blaine.
Later, he'd wish that he had appreciated then the luxury of freedom inside his head. Oh yes. Things could be much, much worse.

taffy789 • 18 March 2014 at 1:25 AM

Zach finally stepped out of the lemon scented heck, and immediately sucked in a deep, calming breath of air.
 Then came the wild coughing fit.
 It was a natural reaction, as Zach, a light smoker at best, had gone through two cigarettes in under a span of thirty minutes. Thinking back on it, Zach couldn't believe it had only been that long, considering the time he'd spent talking to Annabell felt like it took... What, an entire month, give or take about thirteen days?
 Pushing his entire conversation with the Blondie out of his mind- he could dwell on it later, Zach finished expelling the excess smoke from his lungs, and straightened his back up.
Upon standing once again, the Five was struck with a sudden remembrance of a past truth- that he was as tired as an overworked teenager who'd gotten very little sleep in the past few days due to infuriating, incompetent, and paperwork worshipping healers.
 What he really needed was a nap, and because Zach knew exactly where to get one, he started off towards his office, dragging his feet more than actually walking to get there.
 
 Roaring and spitting, the ferals threw themselves at the doors of their cells, aiming to break loose and destroy. They pounded against the hard walls of their cages with both their powers and bodies, and with every strike they made against the metal, Gale prayed that the cell walls wouldn't yield.
 Seven knew it was a foolish fear, since the walls were thick and impenetrable, and would absorb even the strongest of blows. Furthermore, Seven had no reason to fear a break out, as she wasn't anywhere near the contained ferals, but was instead observing them through a system of small screens and cameras.
 "...That's everyone," a girl from the second division confirmed, uneasily watching Gale's eyes scan over the monitors.
 "... So, he's not here," the Leader sighed, to which the second girl softly replied, "Yes, nobody has found Six yet. They haven't identified any body as his either, from what I've heard."
 Silence followed the comment, and the girl waited for the Leader's next question to be asked. After an uneasy minute passed, the Second division girl glanced back at the Seventh Leader only to discover that Gale's expression had grown remarkably absent as she stared at the screens.
 The Seventh was thinking. About many things, but mostly about the fate of Dylan and the others still subjugated by their powers, trapped as prisoners in their own bodies.
Looking at the ferals on the screens in front of her struck a sympathetic chord in her. It pained her to observe her fellow Falchions in this state- a terrifying, yet somehow highly vulnerable, one.
 Perhaps they was a morbid irony to be unearthed from it all. Despite having killed many ferals while on missions, Gale had never thought- it had never crossed her mind to think- about how the users felt while battling themselves. Only when she'd received firsthand experience had she even considered the users as being present in the these "monsters".
  The second division girl noticed Seven's frown and quickly tried to help soothe what she thought Leader's worries were.
"We're expecting the suppressor to wear off soon."
Gale remained silent, then, against her better judgement, decided to voice a concern. "And if it doesn't wear off?"
"We'll decide about that if it happens," the girl answered back, firm. "Please, don't worry about it."
 Despite the confident assurance, Gale's mind still bounced restlessly, something nagging at her brain- an itch she couldn't scratch. The itch then became a wind that swirled in her head, picking up emotions and ideas from one side of her mind and depositing them in another without giving her time to gather her bearings. Frustration set in as the nagging feeling grew, and Gale found herself, if just for a second, consumed by a wave of her own emotions and unable to verbalize her thoughts at all.
 Suddenly, there was clarity.
 "These people," Gale blurted out without thinking, "they... They should get help after this."
 The girl from second didn't understand. "What do you mean?"
 "They're probably scared, or frightened. Somebody should talk to them- somebody who isn't an interrogator. It's..." Seven found herself losing the clarity, her tongue slipping behind the pace of her train of thought, "just an idea." Gale caught sight of the other girl's uncomprehending look, and hastily resumed her usual, aloof persona. "Really," Seven added, the passion fading from her tone, "just forget I said anything."
The second girl, who had been greatly confused by Gale's sudden, badly explained outburst, shrugged and went back to work.

asi • 22 March 2014 at 7:17 PM

Her feet were bare, blue and grimy against the slippery, near black stone floor. Grimy because it was a cave, and dirt kind of came with the whole natural gig. Blue because it was damned cold in snowy Area-C. Bare since no one had offered Angel boots, or any kind of shoes at all, and she'd hadn't wanted to ask. (It was warmer, and much drier, in the central parts of the rebel's lair, so she hadn't needed them either.) At least she no longer needed to pay attention to the soft drift of air through the tunnels- how she'd found her way thus far; now Angel could tell just from her feet. The bluer they got, the closer she was to the exit.
"You aren't supposed to be here." A voice spoke, and it was midway through its sentence before the sounds even registered in Angel's head, so chilled was she that her body seemed to function at half speed. "What are you doing?"
"I..." Angelina stopped, gave an involuntary kind of shudder of the shoulders before turning to face the voice. A girl, older than her, say nineteen or more total, with a short stature and dark hair that seemed almost blue. Her face wasn't pretty, slight or soft like Angel's, but plain- frugal almost- and spoke measures of hard years of discipline. It struck a chord of recognition in the younger girl, and it took a few moments of wrangling with her uncooperative brain before she remembered. This person had the same look as the ballet teacher Angel'd had when she was six. Though she'd enjoyed the dancing, that teacher had made her rather relieved when her parents told her she had to stop going. Confronted with this kind of authority, Angel dropped her gaze floorwards. "I didn't know." She made herself look up to show a small kind of apologetic smile. "In that case, I'll head back."
This stranger didn't make to move, however. She had a curious expression as she repeated her question to Angel.
"I wanted a breath of fresh air. At this rate, I'll probably only get a mouthful of cold if I reach outside," she illustrated the point with a light laughing "brrr".
The other shook her head. "That much was obvious. Being shut in this sh*tty cave is the worst. Especially since our great leader banned me from destroying any more walls, on threat of the mountain falling in." She gave a singularly unattractive frown. "Ugh, screw that. No, I meant why were you walking? You ARE a wind-power, aren't you?"
"Yes," Angel agreed, blinking.
Inverse crossed her arms. "Did you try levitating?"
It was true, the floor was icy cold. Why on earth wasn't she levitating? Suddenly, the very idea of her feet on the rock turned alien; no longer seemed to make sense. As she watched her heels first, then her toes lift off the ground and float midair, Angel felt one part relaxed, like she'd just found out her airplane seat reclined- and the other part disturbed. For the human in her, that definitely was not normal.
Quickly, she glanced back at her companion to see her reaction. Inverse just scowled. In fact, she seemed more displeased than before. "Great," the older girl said, in a way that sounded anything but, and started walking back towards the base's main passageways, Angel floating along behind.
After some time of silence, which Angel spent examining the fascinating growth of moss on the passage ceiling, she ventured; "Do you know, Stella should be allowed out of bed tomorrow. Her leg needed stitches, but apparently she should be totally, fine, apart from her arm..." the blonde trailed off, regret suffusing her features.
"That girl you totaled, the metal power? Does that mean it's my turn to smack her into the rock tomorrow? Great. I swear, combat training is the only thing worth joining this club for. That and getting rid of HER," Inverse allowed with an ugly scowl. "I don't know why Rai bothered fixing that girl. She was as good as gone."
After a pause, Angel answered quietly; "Stella can manipulate metal... She's quite strong, and rare. A power like that is bound to have it's uses."
The reversal power snorted. "If you say so. All I care about is getting a few decent fights come morning."
After that, Angel glided the remainder of the way in silence, until they stood outside her room.
"Do you think," she said quietly, "I'd be able to see Riley?"
Inverse stared. "Who?"
"Then, maybe your leader?" she tried again.
"What, now? Forget it, he's probably busy reading," 'Verse said dissmissively. "Why?"
"It's nothing," Angel simply replied as she floated into her room.

"Katrix, are you going to get out of the way?" Two asked her, sending a jolt through her system. She found herself wanting to step aside... But something wouldn't let her.
"If Four's not there, are you still going that way?" she questioned him, puzzled.
"No," he admitted, still as composed as ever. It occurred to her that he mightn't have meant it so literally, and her heart seemed to thump a little louder.
"Two," she tilted her head to look up at him, and began in the utmost seriousness; "I-"
He interrupted her. "I'll escort you back to your rooms then."
Katrix sighed, but agreed, and they walked.
Shirking your responsibilities was the definitely the worst thing to be caught doing by him. But back at her rooms she'd instantly be assailed by her work once more, so she had to make the most of this opportunity.
"I don't care about what you've done, or how drastically you've changed since last we met; it doesn't matter if you've killed hundreds of people..." She stared resolutely at a similarly unyielding steel floor- but if one had to guess on the most steel between them, only a fool would put their money on the floor. "I bet you have whole essays written to justify your actions, even if you deny it." Katrix watched him carefully, though he made not the slightest move to acknowledge he'd heard. "That's all irrelevant to me. What I care about is this. During the rebel's attack, you helped the Falchions. And you volunteered to lead the fight against the Glaeroes. But as- well, you know who," she muttered embarrassedly, then continued with unhappy confidence, "I have to ask you; whose side are you really on?"
He didn't answer immediately, so Katrix wondered; "Have you struck some kind of deal with the Glaeroes? Or have something to do with the rebels after all? Maybe you're using them for something, but keeping your distance from actual involvement... Whatever it is, I need to know."
"One," Spike quit walking there and addressed her formally. His expression was darker than usual- whatever he was feeling, he definitely wasn't amused. "I don't know what to tell you. Maybe that's because there's nothing to tell."
Also stopping to turn and face him, Katrix gritted her teeth and demanded; "Don't lie to me, and don't avoid the question. Maybe I can't exactly force you to answer- but I can still force you to answer- the old fashioned way!"
"What, torture?" Despite her warnings, Two couldn't help but raise an eyebrow.
"I don't need to resort to that," she told him, stubbornly unmoved. "I just need to argue with you. Loudly."
"... I don't want to argue with you." He sounded annoyed.
"Exactly!"
When he was about to turn around and walk away, she grabbed his wrist and held fast.
"Katrix," he sighed, his back still to her, so she couldn't see his expression, nor tell anything of his mood. "... It's as I've said from the beginning. My side is my own. I'm helping the Falchions as long as it suits me."
That... Was probably as good as she was going to get from him, at least for now. One let go of his wrist before he got problems from loss of circulation.
"And it suits you to go to the front lines. Perhaps I shouldn't let you go," she countered.
"Whose side are you on, One?" he turned around to ask her. His face was expressionless as ever- or maybe even more so. "You know if I don't go, the Falchions will be in trouble. The losses will just keep piling up."
"There are other people I could send. I wouldn't even mind going myself."
Two seemed to accept this fact, though she wasn't so sure about it herself. Katrix really wasn't as accomplished as him on the battlefield, and certainly none of the other leaders were half so. Anyone else would be a much greater risk. Then there was Vivian, but...
"But do you know whose side you're on? Katrix," he said her name again. For once, his tone was not uninterested.
Then she was conflicted. Was that- was that an invitation? To join his side, whatever that was? "Me, I..." she hesitated.
They hadn't exactly stopped in the most private area of the base. One's office was about as dead center as you could get, and so there hadn't really been any avoiding it. Still, it probably would have been good to have put a little more thought into this confrontation, she mused as a random passerby did their thing, totally oblivious to the two most high ranking leaders who'd just paused their somewhat heated argument to watch them crawl on by, seeming in their impatience to stroll as slow as a tortoise.
Then when Katrix actually looked around her, she saw someone else, unbelievably moving even slower- a very weary-looking male, about to enter his own office. Unfortunately for him, the tired part totally escaped her notice.
"Hey, isn't that Five?" she murmured in hushed tones to Two.
"I'm not the one who went out and met them all," he said rather pointedly, and showed signs of being about to bring up a certain previously unanswered question.
"Hey, he never did really fight Four, right? Who do you think'd win in a fight?"
Two shot her a look.
"Oh yeah, you trained Four yourself, didn't you," she remembered. "Huh. Doesn't matter."
Much to his exasperation, One proceeded to run off, grab Five's arm and forcefully drag him back to Two, saying; "Yup, you'll do fine instead of Four! Besides, you didn't really want to go in there. You'd have just distracted your lovely assistant from your work," Katrix told him easily. "Come with us~." With Five in tow, she skipped off in the direction of her office.
"..." And Two was forced to tag along.

taffy789 • 26 March 2014 at 11:05 PM

Too exhausted to fight back, Zach allowed himself to be dragged across the hallway by his superior, only scraping together enough strength to become mildly annoyed about his situation.
 

The sound of breathing made him want to puke.
 It was all too heavy; all too monotonous. 
Air rushing in. Air rushing out. 
Air rushing in. Air rushing out. 
Repeat ceaselessly.
If the loud air intake of people- were they even people, was he even a "people"?- wasn't enough to drive him insane, he had to deal many other annoyances.
 Like the drip. drip. drip. Of the melting icicle hanging on the rocky cave ceiling above him, or the soft wind which whistled around every corner of the "rebel" powers' cave.
 All these screaming, pestering noises put together, however, were no match for the TALKING.
 Yes. Yes yes yes. People- or powers, or... rebels, or whatever they wanted to call themselves- never. stopped. talking. He knew this now, and he wished he was still blissfully ignorant of this knowledge. Every noise, every sound, even his own thoughts!- they were simply overwhelming, and so very, very different from the silence he was used to.
 Sitting on a rock in the middle of an open space, and surrounded by a few other rebels, he shifted sightly on his makeshift chair and pulled his black hoodie tighter around his remarkably pale face.
 The power thought back to when the silence he now missed so much had been broken.  It had only been a few days since then... Or maybe months or years. The concept of time was still fuzzy and confusing, and the power didn't dwell on it for too long.
 What mattered was that the power had suddenly found himself listening to another person speak in his head. It was a person he felt like he knew and disliked, and he grew to hate the familiar person more with every burning second of conscious.
 It only made sense to try to kill the other person.
Then, after they began to fight, the power remembered SEEING. Everything was so bright, so new, so full of life, and so very strange that he immediately knew that he wanted it all to die and burn into ashes. Then he wanted to kill the ashes. Then he wanted to go back to sleep and not deal with the bright, new world around him.
 But the power neither got to kill everything nor did he get to go back to sleep. That was annoying. The excitement of the new world was annoying.
 The loud breaths of the other rebels was especially annoying.
 That was why the obvious response to another's power's statement of, "Hey you! Get off MY rock!" was, "I want you to stop breathing."
 ... For some reason, the power found himself being thrown across the room and slamming into a hard cave wall.
 Pain registered, and the power recalled receiving an injury once before, when he was stabbed with a knife... but the power remembered how to inflict pain along with what it felt like.
 Pulling a knife from his hoodie's front pocket, the power who knew his name to be Wither charged at the other rebel.
#artisticlicense

asi • 16 July 2014 at 11:20 AM

Click. Click. Click. Click.
"Hey, excuse me! Please, don't do that in here, this is a library... Oh!"
Quickly flicking her lighter back off, she looked up from her table to see Lily with a very surprised expression on her face.
"Oh," she said again. "It's you, Karen..." Her tone raised at the end like it was a question.
With conscious effort, Nine summoned herself a thin smile. "What are you doing here? I thought you went to get some rest."
"Ah, I did," the blonde agreed, slipping into the chair opposite her friend. To the left and right of the table, shelves full of books and books and books towered over them, even seeming to lean in and eat up their view of the ceiling. Although the library had not been one of Karen's regular hideouts back at school- their gang's spot had been the music room, she remembered wistfully- and, in fact, Lily knew the dark-haired girl used to struggle with the homework reading material; despite this, she still wasn't surprised to find Karen here. For even though this was a library, the two of them were still conversing at their normal volume, without any fear of disturbing others. The place was virtually abandoned, and therefore an ideal place for anyone in want of a little quiet, occasionally including Lily herself. Provided they knew about it. "But it's way too early to think about sleeping, so I came here to unwind."
Very few people did know about this place. It wasn't shown on the tours (since rarely did the guides know about it), nor could it be found from base maps (as who could decipher that ridiculous floor plan?), and it was far enough out of the way to avoid most accidental stumbling-upons. She wasn't sure why it was so unpopular, but suspected it had something to do with the reputation that it 'consisted mostly of bad fanfiction'. It was also kind of true. The largest section of the library was devoted to holding every diary ever written in by the sorry group of kids which called themselves Falchions. And most of these were undeniably full of crap.
Lily awkwardly shifted a hand to hide the titles of the books she was carrying... And turned the attention on her friend's subject matter.
"What are those? Not paperwork, seriously Kar," she whined, leaning over the table to try and read Karen's papers upside-down. "... the comparison to serrated edge, the latter retains its edge longer, and therefore requires less sharpening- and less pressure must be applied to the object, decreasing the rate of distortion...?" she read aloud, looking increasingly bewildered. "... Is this about... Knives?" the blonde shook her head.
"I was told to look these over," Nine muttered, eyeing the tacky plastic table surface.
Lily blinked, then smiled, "Well, you've done that, no need to actually read it, right?"
When Nine didn't respond to that, she quickly back-tracked; "B-but if you want to, that's cool, and stuff..." Her friend definitely took the work too seriously, but Lily wasn't prepared to go as far as an intervention yet... Especially after what had happened during the rebel's invasion; that kind of attitude may have saved both their lives. Still... Lily's brow creased into a small frown.
"I know, it isn't important. I just came here to get some peace, you know, since my office has to be... Cleaned..." Karen told her, before the assistant could ask.
"R-right..." Lily looked down at her tattered novellas, trying to disguise her sudden twinge of sadness. "I don't think- well, it's not like she was trying to be a bother- I think Kitty just doesn't know what to do with herself..."
She looked up when she heard a snort. "Maybe she should try to read the atmosphere- no one's in the mood to humor that kind of crap," Karen replied, busying herself with underlining phrases and scribbling in the margins of her papers.
With a sharp scraping sound, Lily's chair drew back as she stood, fumbling to grab her books. "I-in that case, I can go!" She said hurriedly, and nearly tripped over her chair as she turned around. However, the blonde was stopped by a loud huff of breath and a call;
"No, that's not what I meant. You're over-thinking it..." In a small voice, the brunette continued, "Although I was looking for somewhere quiet, it's a little too silent here..."
Lily was shocked; although Nine didn't give voice to the request, it was definitely there. "Karen? What's wrong...?" When she saw how the pen her friend held was shaking, her eyes grew larger.
"I... Don't think I'm cut out for this." The leader gave a weak jerk of a gesture with her idle hand. "IOD. This kind of despair..." As Karen continued to stare hard at the table, Lily realized that she hadn't been trying to blow her off the whole time. Instead, the stoic girl was well and truly freaking out.
The blonde reached out and grabbed the other's hands, on an urge to stop their shaking. "Hey," she whispered. "Hey, Karen. You're one of the strongest people I know. Nah, the strongest. I don't know who's actually "cut out" for this, but if anyone can make it, it'll be you." Even though she'd barely comforted anyone before (in fact, Lily was virtually always on the receiving end), let alone Nine, the words flowed from he mouth like they'd been rehearsed. Probably because it was true (what she said, not that she'd rehearsed it).
Despite being startled by the conviction in Lily's voice, Karen remained stubbornly unconvinced. "The strongest? What was it you were saying about Two, not so long ago?"
"There are different kinds of strength. Although Two is very powerful... If it's true what Kitty keeps on saying, that he wasn't always so completely... Cold... Then I don't think he's really all that strong after all. A truly strong person, they wouldn't lose their emotions to a place like this..." she explained unhappily. "That's why, if the two of you were locked in a room together, I know who I'd put my money on coming out alive," Lily smiled slightly, wishing this really was some kind of gameshow, and not one that would take the sentence quite so literally.
"... Thanks, Lily," Karen said finally. "Saying all that, you almost sounded smart."
The blonde giggled, happy her friend was okay enough to tease. "You'll see, we'll get through IOD... You, me, and Dani. Power isn't everything- and it helps to be a little stronger than everyone thinks."
Karen rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah." 
The two spent the better part of the next hour in quiet companionship, Lily covertly leafing through an old fanficough diary, while Karen's attention slid across her dull papers. Eventually, the latter spoke.
"You know what, these papers are so inspi-" she was interrupted by her own yawn, "Tiring," she corrected, "That I think I'm going to fall asleep."
Lily gave a soft smile. "That's... Probably a good idea."

"Did you like your room, by the way~? I thought grumpy griffins would suit you better, but then I hoped the unicorns would cheer you up some! It had to be pink, of course, because it's bad luck to put purple in the east of a place..."
It wasn't long before her chatter tapered off into an uneasy silence- not for lack of response, or other mindless things to say- but because she was self-aware enough to know talk born from nerves when she heard it.
Katrix had two options; address Two, or ignore him. Time was a-wastin' (and she knew he couldn't have that much left, before he had to leave) as Katrix both tried to think of something to say and tried to say nothing at all. Eventually, the sound of their footsteps built until she failed at one and succeeded in the other.
"In any case," she said quietly, "You'll look after yourself, won't you? Be careful out there." Although her wish was sincere, Katrix felt too uncomfortable expressing it to properly look her escort in the eye. It didn't help that she knew the kind of response she'd receive.
"You talk like I'll need it. Do you really think I'll be in any danger out there?" His tone was on the verge of patronizing.
Kitty felt just a little bit smug at having prepared an answer for that particular question. "I heard you were actually injured at one point during the rebel's attack. Don't you say you're invulnerable!"
Despite her searching, she couldn't find a flicker of irritation, and his words came evenly; "That was different."
"How so?" Katrix countered.
"..." In that pause, she imagined she could hear a mental sigh. At least, that was how she thought he should have responded.
Though her patience was flickering like an open flame, Katrix did her best to keep herself light and teasing. "You know, I could order some people to guard you. They could stalk you throughout the battlefield and toilet visitations, giving you not one minute to yourself," she offered.
Two glanced away from her, to the wall on his left as he finally let one word drop; "... Inverse."
Though pleased that she'd wrung any kind of answer from him- when normally she'd have better luck with a stone- the brunette's face still fell. "W-what? Oh no..." Katrix flung her free hand through her curls, ground her teeth in frustration. "Who else? Are you going to tell me who else I should expect? Even Bliss was here, you know, but he's disappeared..."
"Don't worry about him."
"Oh, thank god," Two watched as she sighed her relief. "You know where he is?"
He nodded.
"Where?" Katrix pressed him, anxiously, thinking she'd best get as much as she could from him while he was feeling so strangely cooperative.
There was a moment of hesitation, while Two considered his reply. The result was about as blunt as they came, and the complete opposite of the subtlety Katrix had come to expect of him. "With the rebels."

demon • 16 July 2014 at 11:26 AM

She let out a strangled cry, and her feet came to a jarring halt. "What? That's bad! That's... Oh, god." The brunette's gestures grew exponentially exaggerated with her alarm, her speech rushed and stumbling. "What should we do? A rescue-party? But- you don't mean it's already too late?!"
Sharply, he said; "Don't be so stupid." Actually taking her by the wrist, he forced a resumption of their journey.
For a few strides, One was subdued, then said bitterly; "Is there something I'm missing? Bliss knows, well, practically everything about..." A pause, then she repeated, frowning heavily; "Everything. If they've got him..."
Two waved her words away. "Forget it. If you really want someone to worry about... Here." Still very much keeping pace, he pulled out his iPad and, with a few flicks, brought open a picture. "Find her."
Gingerly, Katrix took the proffered device in her own hands and examined what it presented. Eventually, she had to ask; "Who is she?"
"She is- or was, I don't know- Four's twin sister," he explained without expression.
She blinked up at him, amaranth eyes wide. "Okay, but... What do either of them have to do with anything? They aren't from the past, are they?"
"No," he scoffed. "Isn't it obvious?" When her expression remained blank, Two just shrugged hopelessly. "Try and help Four find her, or not; it doesn't matter to me."
Katrix mused fruitlessly over the picture a minute longer, before sending it on to herself with a few taps, then passing the iPad back to its owner.
The corridor seemed to sprawl before them like a carpet ever-rolling outwards, growing longer and longer. A walk that could only be five minutes at most seemed in the territory of hours, and it wasn't Two's doing. He glanced suspiciously toward Five's dead-weight, which Katrix was still dragging along, and wondered whether his exhaustion was infectious. The girl who normally had eagle-eyes on him didn't notice, since she was too preoccupied with her own thoughts. Most of which were about him.
"You know, the two of them... Do look a little familiar," she muttered, brow furrowing in concentration.
"Hm," Two responded, eyes rolling up to look at the ceiling. "Really."
"I just can't put my finger on it," she sighed with ample despair.
"... You're not actually remembering anything at all, are you?" He asked tersely.
Katrix admitted; "No, not really."
"Understandable. At the time, all your head had room for was me."
"Yes, I- uh, no, that wasn't it!" She stammered, and nearly tripped over her own feet as they suddenly came to a standstill.
"Your stop," Two reminded her unnecessarily, as the three leaders stood outside One's office's adjoining room's secret door.
Her eyes darted between the two males in frantic indecision, until one took it upon himself to remind her; "If I don't leave soon, I'm going to keep the teleporter waiting."
"R-right, of course," she stuttered, and Five was completely forgotten. One was preoccupied with forcing herself to meet a very dark pair of eyes.
As she did, Katrix gave a painful, nervous swallow; then internally berated herself for such a visible reaction. "S-so..." And for such a sucky starter. "Your question."

"Damon," he began tentatively, having watched the two friends' exchange with some curiosity; "Uh... It's just, you don't look that much younger than, um, this gorgeous lady here..."
When the other male turned and stared at him, Clay quickly added; "I don't mean to pry! Sorry..."
Meanwhile, the "gorgeous lady" seemed to choke on something, before drawing herself up and announcing with the utmost indignation; "My name is Vivian."
Damon laughed.
"And," she continued forcefully and without amusement; "He is not."
"Not?" Clay questioned sheepishly.
"Honestly, child, have you ears? Younger than myself," she answered with painstaking emphasis on every word.
"Then-" he floundered, confused, until Vivian took pity on him;
"One simply does not tease him for it," she pronounced resentfully, while Damon grinned, "Since he always answers with the same words-"
"Chicks dig mature guys," the male in question interrupted proudly.
"Which you are not," Vivian muttered loudly. He didn't bother feigning offense, just continued smirking like it was nobody's business.
"Oh," Clay said, surprised. "I didn't think you were both so..." He trailed off.
In a perfect deadpan, Vivian finished the thought for him; "Old?"
There was a dreadful pause, and Clay could only anticipate the worst- until it was broken by Damon's sudden and unnecessary shushing sounds.
"Whatever could it be, now?" Distracted, Vivian marched over to her friend, who was leaning strangely against the door, pressing his head against it.
"I can hear people outside..." The former Five murmured, listening with an expression of intense concentration.
Clay hazarded to ask; "I thought this room was soundproof?"
"Only one-way," the golden-blonde answered him absently, then startled them with; "Does not that sound like Two?"
"Yeah... And the girl he's with... Is that One?" Damon closed his eyes, as if that would improve his hearing.
"... Really?" The golden-blonde joined him against the door without scruples.
"..." And Clay silently made his way over.
It seemed like the room was full of shameless eavesdroppers.

Two nodded. "As entertaining as it has been, I'd rather not waste energy playing Cat and Mouse games with you any longer." He gave a graceful sort of shrug. "I don't see why we can't work together."
"Is that so..." She prompted quietly.
"I know what you want; and there's something I wouldn't mind having from you, either," he said.
So he was going to propose some kind of deal of sorts. It was a bit of an understatement to say she had a bad feeling about this. Still, although she dreaded the answer, Katrix steeled herself, squeezing her eyes tight shut, then asked. "And... What would those be?"
Much to her dismay, Two now seemed determined to answer in the most roundabout way. "I heard about your cover at the Leader's meeting."
Her cheeks now a dusty pink, Katrix exclaimed; "It was just a cover! It's not like it meant anything..."
"Oh, so you don't like me," Two reasoned carelessly.
She gaped at him. "Eh? No- I... What?" Was he actually asking her this?
Ignoring that, he looked across at her and said seriously; "Let's date."
Now with eyes very much outmatched by the shade of her face, Katrix could only manage to articulate five words as she stumbled backwards; "You- what the h*ll!" and, "Why?"
He shrugged again, unaffected by her shock. "Who knows? It might even be fun."
That kind of response quickly cooled the brunette down. "Okay Spike, what is it you want," she eyed him cautiously, like he might come at her with a sword at any moment.
"What I don't want," he countered, "Is for you to get in my way. And, you know what they say; prevention is better than the cure."
"... How do you mean to ensure that?" she stared.
"How about good communication?" he hinted.
It took her a moment, but she soon understood. "You mean you'll date me... If I do everything as you say."
Two seemed to consider her wording, before nodding; an unspoken yes.
Katrix wrenched her gaze away from him, and stared resolutely at the wall, trying to ignore that blush that just wouldn't go away. "You don't want to just fight me for the position?" She spoke softly, trying to hide confusion and hurt. Seriously, what was he playing at? What kind of messed up deal was this? If Katrix didn't know this new Two better, she'd have been convinced he was having her on.
"Where would be the use in that?" He discarded the idea easily, it was clearly something he'd considered. "I can't even count the number of times I've disobeyed orders since I took this position. That's exactly what I don't want. But with a power like yours, the right promise should do."
"You want me to be your slave?" Her voice had risen much louder in volume, incredulous in tone.
"Your diction, not mine." Though he didn't seem to have a problem with it, as he brushed aside her comment with ease. "But if you actually trust me, this shouldn't be such a big quandary for you."
Trust, huh. Of all the things to bring up.
"... You're right," she agreed slowly. "I know you wouldn't ask me to do anything that wasn't important... And I wouldn't have a problem with giving you my promise," Katrix clasped her hands together anxiously.
"In that case... What is the problem?" He asked.
"It's... Not about those things," she said finally. "It's just... As the person in charge of this base, I... I have a responsibility to them. I have to make decisions with everyone in mind, not just myself." She looked unhappily at her shoes. "Therefore... Although I trust you for me... I can't trust you on behalf of everyone else... And I couldn't possibly accept."
"..." Two gave one last nod. "I should go now. We can talk again later."
One smiled weakly. "Okay. But I won't change my mind."
"I wouldn't ask you to. And Katrix?" He spoke in his usual monotone as he turned to leave; "You can trust... I'll kill those who do get in my way. With no warning, and no mercy. Not for anyone; including you. Ciao."
Then he was gone.
Sighing a small, "Of course," Katrix moved back to the secret door and instructed; "Open."
It did so, and she pulled Five (whose existence she barely remembered) in behind her.

taffy789 • 17 July 2014 at 3:48 AM

Normally, listening in on conversations was fun, and a guilty pleasure of Zach's, but when he was of hot milk and lullaby away from passing out on the cold, hard floor, all the joy seemed to be sucked out of eavesdropping.
 Pulling what little remained left of his willpower together, Zach summoned enough strength to mull over all the shiny new things he learned from listening along.
 First off, he thought over the obvious. Two and One, as shown by the way they talk to one another, and old friends they so openly discuss, had history. What that history was Zach did not know and did not care. What happened with or to them happened, if anything, he was worried about the present, and near future.
 As it turned out, those things could both be in jeopardy, and all because of the Fifth's caring superior, Two. A brain dead newborn baby could see he was planning something, and by the looks of it, it was something bad. Zach considered it common knowledge that people tended to keep quiet about their evil deeds, and instead flaunted the good they do around like they deserve a special prize. Why would the Falchion's best torturer act any different; be a saint among men? If he planned something that had no large, negative consequence, then he wouldn't be forced to hide it, would he?
 Zach also believed it was human nature to be a piece of crap at heart, and that kindness couldn't be expected from anyone- especially those who threaten to kill you before merrily strolling away. Because of this philosophy, he wouldn't have faulted Katrix for showing some brains and thrusting a sword through Two's gut as a safety precaution, and he almost expected her to. Almost. 
Of course she wouldn't have- as even the Five could see the love gushing from One's cheeks the minute he saw Two and her together- and because of that, Zach mentally cursed Katrix. If Two's plan- whatever is was- caused anything negative to happen to him, that would rest on Kitty's brunette head!
Admittedly, the future blame might be unjustified, but Katrix herself said she held a responsibility to her base. If Zach had to pick anyone to risk their skins fighting a threat to Falchion lives, it would be her.
 As the One commanded her door to open, Zach's thoughts flickered back to Two. The Falchion acted the same as ever, calm, emotionless, and intimidating, but Five realized he'd gained valuable insight into the mind of the unreadable leader. There were few things somebody would 'kill anyone who got in their way' for. Two didn't just have a plan; he had motivation. Even if Zach didn't agree with the leader's suspicious methods, he understood where Two was coming from. 
 The goal of Zach's childhood still remained his one, burning desire today- the thing he lived for; the thing he would die fighting tooth and nail for- and that was staying alive.
 Five's mind wandered back to Two's words, and a frown crossed his tired face, making the circles under his eyes appear a bit darker.
Whatever Two was chasing after; whatever he was going to DO; whoever he ended up killing- Zach couldn't care less. The only reason he WOULD care would be if their goals interfered with each other, one way or another, and he hoped to god that wouldn't happen.
 Katrix then grabbed the Fifth's wrists and tugged him into the office, the metal door sliding shut behind him.
 

awesomeness • 17 July 2014 at 3:52 AM

Wither charged too fast, too suddenly at the other power, so his foe didn't notice the attack until a sharp knife cut a gash through her left cheek, and she tasted iron on her tongue.
With bright blood soaking her lips and dribbling down her chin, the rebel saw red, and swung her head about in search for her attacker. She located Wither to her left, his knife ready to slash again. The wounded rebel roared in fury, lifted a hand, formed a fist, and brought all five vengeful fingers crashing into the side of Wither's jaw with the force of a kicking mule.
 To Wither's dismay, he discovered his foe's power was super strength only after the punch sent him crashing to the ground with missing teeth and a broken jaw.
 By this time, the other rebels present in the open cavern began to take notice of the commotion. Like vultures stalking a dying deer they swarmed, forming an oval around the fighters, chanting and laughing and some shouting things like, "GET UP AND FIGHT!" or "YOU CALL THAT A PUNCH? MY USER COULD'VE DONE BETTER THAN THAT!" 
Passionate calls for death rang out the loudest from the crowd, and these cries bounced off the high ceilings and vibrated down the corridors of the cave, drawing a steady flow of bored, curious rebels into the spacious area. The room grew louder, then louder than louder, and finally louder still, and the needless noise only rubbed salt into Wither's broken bones. He wanted nothing more than for all those surrounding him to have their tongues cut out and tossed over a tall cliff into a ravine full of lava. He wanted peace, he wanted quiet, he wanted to kill- and he kind of felt a bit famished- but none of those needs held importance over the need of motion, for the super-strength power had used her rippling muscles to lift up the same rock that started the fight, and now that boulder loomed over Wither, threatening to crush his head in.
 Wither rolled over many small, sharp rocks on the ground to dodge the one, massive, head-crusher rock that nearly hit its target. Disappointed rebels in the crowd booed at this, but Wither felt elated when rock-foe smashed itself into multiple pieces upon hitting the ground and not his skull, and he congratulated himself for defeating such a fearsome enemy.
 He couldn't relax just yet, for his first foe, now dubbed muscles-foe, still stood over him, still angry at the blood goatee dripping down her chin, and still breathing in oh so very annoyingly loud, deep puffs.
 Wither wouldn't stand for such an atrocity, and he found he couldn't stand, for muscles-foe began kicking him in the gut.
 The first foot to the gut came as a surprise, the second definitely broke a rib, but the third, the third Wither expected. Knife gripped in one hand, Wither grabbed hold of the rebel's boot as soon as it made contact with his stomach, and he clutched it tight to his body, not letting go. Thrown off guard for a second, muscles-foe recovered, and aimed her other foot at Wither's neck, only to scream as Wither's knife plunged itself into the soft skin behind the knee of the caught leg. Muscles-foe buckled, then fell over like a great oak tree, crashing onto Wither, who scrambled out from under the other power as fast as he could, plucking his knife from the deep, red wound as he escaped.
 The rebel crowd went into a frenzy, half cheering, half booing, and all filled with a bloodlust. Chants of "KILL! KILL! KILL!" began soft and slow, but soon rose to apocalyptic levels, and the crowd demanded more blood shed, MORE!, for the little they received did nothing to sate their unyielding hunger. By this time rebels touched wall-to-wall in the once open cavern, and more lingered outside in the corridors, attempting to push their way in to see the ruckus. Chaos ensued, the noise grew louder than ever before, and even those who had only a vague idea of what they were chanting about joined into the trance-like, rhythmic call of "KILL! KILL! KILL!" From the inside of the oval surrounding the fighters to the outer rings, ripples of hunger- for blood, for death- spread to everyone present. Tension rose, and fist fights threatened to break out everywhere amongst the crowd.
 Wither, now inching across the cold ground, away from muscle-foe, noticed the change of mood in the crowd, but the increased noise and movement and bodies bothered him more than the people who wanted him to bleed out on the rocks; to act as their sacrificial lamb. The swirling color and throbbing sound made the power's head hurt, and his stomach twisted up, nausea kicking in. His jaw hadn't mended yet and the pain from his broken rib didn't let up either, and Wither wondered how long he would have to wait before he won the fight.
 Then a hand wrapped around his ankle and his thoughts of winning cut themselves short, for muscles-foe pulled Wither back to her, letting the weaker power thrash about like a hooked fish, unable to do a thing but be yanked towards a cruel, cruel fate.
 Struggling with the squirming Wither, muscles-foe sat herself on her prey's legs and torso when she got the chance, to prevent him from escaping any longer.
Desperate and being crushed under the heavy weight, Wither attacked again with his knife, driving it towards his enemy with all the power he could summon, but the other rebel saw it coming this time, and the blade slashed a gash into her hip instead of embedding itself there. Annoyed, muscles-foe yanked the weapon from Wither, and tossed it into the crowd of rebels, who all cheered when it struck a poor, innocent bystander in the arm.
Now in complete control, a wicked, evil grin spread across muscle-foe's blood stained lips as she grabbed Wither's right shoulder, hooking a thumb underneath her prey's armpit. She braced her other hand on Wither's chest, then, applying slow, deliberate pressure, muscles-foe began to move the right shoulder blade towards Wither's head while the rest of him stayed rooted in one spot, pinned still against the hard cave ground. The shoulder strained and groaned and moved farther up than it should ever move, then with a quick, sudden yank, Wither screamed in agony as his shoulder was dislocated from its socket.
 Muscle-foe smiled, dark circles forming under dulling eyes, and the crowd began to shout again, "KILL! KILL! KILL!" They rejoiced, closer than ever to getting what they came to see- death, brutal, uncensored, unadulterated death, and the caverns vibrated with the vicious calls for a "KILL! KILL! KILL!"
 Muscles-foe wanted to please the other rebels, so she wrapped her meaty hands around Wither's neck and began to squeeze.
 "KILL! KILL! KILL!"
 Wither's jaw didn't hurt anymore, and neither did his ribs, but getting the life choked out of him was another story. He could do nothing but flail against his enemy and hope his power wouldn't come to save him too late.
 "KILL! KILL! KILL!"
 Colors looked muted and noise blurred into a big mess of unrecognizable sound. As a last act of defiance, Wither managed to find and jam his thumb deep into the gash on muscle-foe's hip. He couldn't feel if his attacker recoiled, or if it even hurt her at all, but the power COULD feel the life energy bleeding from the super strength power's wounds, pouring out faster than her dripping blood, seeping from the cuts on her face, leg, and hip. The energy flowed from muscle-foe and instead went into Wither, healing his wounds and making him feel... alive.
 "KILL!KILL!KILL!"
 Light-headed and dying, Wither's eyes rolled to the ceiling- his cheeks blue, his mouth dangling open- but then a gust of air entered his windpipe and the power sat up with a sudden gasping breath.
 "KILL!KILL!KI-huh?"
 The crowd all hushed, and the rebels able to see the fight all stared wordlessly at the limp, hunched-over body of their muscly friend, and then their collective sets of eyes shifted towards Wither, who, despite a hanging shoulder, many bruises, and being a bit blue in the face, looked alive and well.
 Surprised by this outcome, many of the rebels were at a loss of what to do next. With their emotional high swept from under them, rioting seemed pointless, but simply leaving after having invested so much time into waiting for bloodshed didn't seem like an option either.
 Some rebel powers grumbled about starting another fight, but nothing came of that, so everyone just stood around, waiting for something else to happen.
And thus began the most awkward few minutes of any of the rebel's lives.

asi • 3 October 2014 at 3:11 AM

"So, what do you think?"
The girl looked at him with eyes wide in surprise, as he stepped around the corner and spoke before she could vanish.
"Entertaining enough, was it?" he asked.
With eyes so dull and bored as his, and the heavy way their lids hung over them, like he was perpetually tired- she couldn't help but wonder if the second leader had ever been entertained in his life.
"You..." She collected herself, recovering her breath and pose. "I don't know what you're talking about, Two," the teleporter told him, although behind her back, her hands tugged at the edge of her shirt. Tearing force was carefully and narrowly avoided. This wasn't how she'd imagined this encounter beginning at all, and that wasn't a good omen.
"Relax." From the way his gaze glossed over her, she felt distinctly envious for how he still managed to convince her nothing escaped his sight. "It wasn't exactly a confidential conversation." He wore a strange, kind of amused look, like there was some kind of in-joke Telly was missing. She was happy to, however, preoccupied as she was with the subtle threat in his words.
If it had been a confidential conversation... She didn't have any difficulty imaging where she'd be now. Alarmed at the prospect, she said quickly; "I just wanted to save you the time of finding me."
Two held out his hand to her. "Shall we go, then?" It was an invitation.
She nodded, but when she hesitated to take his hand, he sighed. "Hasn't this been delayed enough?"
Telly forced herself forwards.

"How nice," Katrix smiled brightly as the door flew open and three people stumbled backwards with varying degrees of elegance. Even as the fastest recovered, sliding her back against the wardrobe all casual-like- they were all too clustered and close to the door to avoid the raising of eyebrows. Because really, there were only so things three people could be doing huddled around a door. "You all stood by to greet me."
Damon and Vivian managed to keep their faces straight- or reasonably so, as exposure to Kitty's smile made them wobble and melt. Clay, however, seemed strangely immune to that particular brand of discomfort. His hand jerked upwards, and gave a tentative sort of finger-wiggle half-wave before he coughed and hid it behind his back.
Katrix beamed at them all, then dragged Zach to the front of the room like he was some object in an elementary school's show and tell. "This is Five, um..." Her brow furrowed as she trailed off, staring intensely at the boy's left ear. "... Something to do with rubber duckies..." she puzzled, before clapping her hands together and conjuring another smile. "Look, he's a cynical jerk. Now you know him, and you're all invited to the funeral. Granted you outlive him."
"We know who he is," Damon muttered. He didn't sound particularly resentful; more frustrated and bored.
"I sort of didn't," returned Clay, equally hushed.
"He was at the leader's meeting with us..." Everyone could practically hear the, "dumbass" left off the end.
The younger male just continued to smile back at Katrix rather stupidly; "Oh." A soft light pink dusted his cheeks.
Stiffly crossing her arms, Vivian's icy demeanor seemed to lower the room by four degrees as she spoke, a sharp reminder aimed at One; "And what, exactly, is he here for?"
"Eep!" The first leader let out a curious squeak, hands flying over her mouth. Her eyes had widened, showcasing their strange shade of pink (not unlike Clay's blush), and she stared at the last speaker as if seeing her for the first time.
"Are you okay?" Damon stared, and then seemed rather surprised at himself.
Looking nervously anywhere but the assistant, Katrix murmured a few broken fragments of another language followed by a timid, "Y-yes, uhh, thank you, very much so..." She examined the floor for even the smallest spot of discoloring, and was disappointed. "I- I'm Del... Er, V-Vernier- I mean, I'm Katrix!" she finally exclaimed, and dropped into a sharp bow from the waist. "You must be Vivian Gold. It's nice to meet you." Her words came fast and anxious, and when she bounced back up to her full height, her gaze was still very furtive.
Much to the room's surprise, Vivian's face softened. "Yes. I too, find myself looking forward to working with you." She took Katrix's hand and shook it firmly.
The latter looked somewhat frightened by this turn of events, taking her hand back quickly and rubbing it against her shirt behind her back, as if to bring back the feeling in it.
"You, really?" This disbelieving question actually belonged to a miffed-looking Damon.
Vivian had no trouble explaining, her usual disdain working its way back into her features. "It was about time for a change in leadership. Working under the same nameless, faceless entity for years can grow rather stale, in my opinion. Not to mention, anyone who can make Two turn a hair certainly solicits some measure of attention."
"Thank you!" At least Katrix was happy with the compliment, temporarily recovering from her nerves. "I'll do my best," she pledged.
"I'm sure you'll do fine." Shyly, Clay offered his two cents and a smile, which was quickly returned.
With arms crossed and a no doubt award-winning scowl, the one to say loudly, "So? Are we going to get on with it?" was Damon.
"Er- yes!" Katrix stuttered, before she cleared her throat, and a focused expression crawled its way across her face.
Various hair products and machines, including but not limited to hairdryers, curling irons and straighteners- were thrust off the table; a large map whipped out of hammerspace (or possibly one of the desk drawers, but in any case, Katrix could probably make the circus with sleight-of-the-hand tricks), and quickly spread across its surface. The map depicted the Isle in explicit detail, complete with color-coded ocean depths, territory borders marked, and the occasional illustration of the Loch Ness Monster in bodies of water.
"Wow, I've never seen such a pretty map before," Clay remarked.
Damon, who was the closest, examined the page with interest, before looking up to meet Kitty's eyes- his own blue ones questioning. "This isn't quite right."
"No, it isn't," the brunette agreed quietly, gaze trailing over the dips and rises of the land with an unreadable expression on her face. "I mean, other than the artist's fondness for Nessie," she smiled slightly. "No, this map is from... Oh, about eighteen years ago? The Isle has changed a great deal in that time. Our most recent map is this one..."
A projector flickered on, and a wall was bathed in a second image of the isle. However, this one was much plainer, with large chunks of land appearing flat. Realizing that these were the Glaeroes' territories, hence rather hard to chart, the three non-leaders looked back at the elder edition.
With one index finger, Damon slowly traced the Falchion's borders on the map below them. It was not a very short journey. "That's... Impressive," he admitted.
Katrix nodded. "It didn't last very long, but at that time, we had one of the largest areas we've ever had. Soon after this map was made, the last Unnoen battle occurred... The result was that." She pointed to a section in the north of the projected map, which, unlike its papery counterpart, was colored snowy white: Area-C. "As well as the hasty decline into this," she waved at the notably smaller blocks of detailed territory, a rather disheartening comparison. "Three tells me- or, well, he told me- that across history, what we have now is pretty representative of our average land area; I'm afraid we tend to be a bit of an underdog," the brunette gave a light sigh. "In any case, together these should give you a good idea of where we stand."
"Speaking of standing, I would not say that your Five looks all that steady upon his feet," Vivian spoke up suddenly, tone disapproving. "I have my doubts as to how much of this he's actually digesting."
"O-oh," the one in charge stammered, looking guilty and a little timid. "R-right, uh, let me fix that... Uh, um, here." With a vague arm gesture and a few quietly spoken foreign words, she was exerting her power over the area, combatting the weight of sleepiness. "That should do it, I think..."
Then Katrix turned back to the maps, specifically the one on-screen, business-like once more. "Let's talk strategy. The Front Line, where the fighting's thickest, is currently here," she tapped the map, "Here, here, and here," in four different places. "Northern A-A, eastern A-I, upper eastern A-E, and the border between A-E and A-H. Although it's called the Front Line, it's actually fractured into these four areas. The lattermost is the second smallest in terms of area, but from what our sources on the Glaeroes have said, and this spot's position in the current geography- higher ground, very fortifiable- that's where Two's going to be based." The first leader flicked her wrist and revealed what looked suspiciously like a number '2' birthday cake decoration. Like one of those plastic numbers they stick on them which you always try to eat accidentally. It was placed just where the rocks and the savannah met the sea.
"For the record, we suspect the Glaeroes are somewhere around here," a thin, elegant finger drew a circle around the areas of A and B- desert and canyons- then jumped east across the inscribed landscape to rest in turn on those of A-I, A-E, and A-C. "And that the rebels are hiding in any one of these. However, in order to get you two in," Katrix glanced between Damon and Clay, "We need not to fumble around their territory- that would just raise suspicions. Instead, you'll have to pretend to be Ferals, and frequent the places they do to capture them. Such as Five's group saw in action at A-M."
The former leaders exchanged a look, and Damon frowned. "Does that mean we'll be splitting up and going on a rampage?" he asked, while his hand instinctively rose to his head, smoothing back what little remained of his hair.