Private Roleplay~ IOD

taffy789 • 22 May 2016 at 9:59 PM

Raven promising him protection- from both the people at base and from the spider- did reassure the power some. Although, considering picky, unpredictable reactions of both spiders and those staring at something they fear, Zach’s power rationalized that those dangers were too far into the future to peg down as nothing but assumption. Thus, her reassurances meant nothing except that one variable- Raven- would be a definite help to him, but at least that was certainly better than having to face whatever the future held alone, without assistance.
When Raven got excited about their possible rescue, the power blinked in amusement at her sudden emotion.
“…Well,” he began to reply, double checking the status of their only hope, “That Tabs girl’s journey back to the base is currently free from death for the time being~ That could always change I suppose, but I wouldn’t count on that. After all, that would be rather…” A dark and sharp glint twinkled in the power’s eyes, and the next words that rolled off his tongue spilled from a toothy grin, “unlucky for us, dontcha think?” Then, the power’s hand cupped his mouth as he snorted out a few uncontrollable giggles.
Then, the power stopped abruptly, straightening up and blinking while saying, “…Sorry. I’ve seemed to have forgotten that luck doesn’t exist, and it’s all just probability. I believe… the implication of luck existing is what I’d found so funny, I think.” He blinked again, staring intensely at the wall across from him…
“What I was saying though is,” he continued, turning back to Raven, “by a wonderful stroke of… probability, Tabs saw you and Zach enter the side of the hill, and then managed to escape that feral herself. Once she makes it back to base in hopefully one piece, she’ll gather a group of rescuers to come scrape away the dirt to pull us out of this hole, so no worries there~” Zach’s power then gave the girl a pleased grin, as if congratulating himself for knowing the information she’d wanted.

asi • 22 May 2016 at 10:54 PM

Mael's grin widened as he drunk in the sight of their unhappiness. If he had a tail he would've been swishing it, as he lounged there on his stomach, chin propped up by the back of one hand. He looked like the cat that got the cream- or more suitably, the canary.
"Yes, I think so, don't you?" He responded cheerfully to her tone. "Who would want to miss this?"
Some of his spirits seemed momentarily dampened as the saltine scent of ocean began to squeeze its way up through the drain, along with a spreading surge of green. It ran quickly to all four corners of the room, and from there it would only climb higher.
He looked more sombre than before. "I misled you, it seems. Remember the plumbing problem I was talking about?" Mael conversed loudly over Annabell's hurrying, to either both of them or no one in particular, it didn't seem to matter to him, "Well, it seems the block has been fixed!" he smiled again. "Obviously some of you are more competent than others. Anyway, now that's done, and there's nothing halting the flow of water anymore. It's a shame, for you," he looked sympathetic.

"Wait, Annabell!" Riley called out quickly, gripping onto the bars again, braced against the freezing push of water against his legs. He was worried about the increasingly upstream battle the steps were offering, but he wasn't just going to run off, either. "Maybe don't press any mysterious threatening buttons! Our problem is water, right? Well, I may have a fix! Just don't let the deadweight drown, okay?" So saying, he then felt justified in turning against the current.

Mael watched Riley turn away with an unaffected expression on his expressive little face.
Then lithely, just like a cat, he leapt from the operation table, over to one of the outward-slanting panel parts, landing without a sound. Some levers and dials were used as hand-and-foot holds, though nothing seemed to be triggered as a result. Apparently more dangerous than the switches was the submerged ground, the water of which, in Mael's dark eyes, had clearly transformed itself into hot lava. It was, of course, just another game he was playing.
He looked fondly down on the girl from his new perch. "You know, Annie, we could still be friends! I don't actually have anything against you. I could be helpful. In fact," the silvery urn swung precariously from his pinky finger, before sliding off the end, resulting in an arching toss. "I'm being helpful already." His foot snagged the thing's handle before it could crash to the ground.


Her excitement at the literally life-saving news had brought her much closer than intended, and she had rather too good a view for his next reaction. A sudden and unexpected spark igniting in his much lighter eyes, those she was used to seeing dark and dead-eyed, caught Raven off guard. A broad, shining smile and weirdly cute laughter followed, and she felt something inside start to thump. Like a big excited dog, slapping its tail against the ground with a force completely unmindful of any pain.
It only seemed to speed up as her brain chose that moment to remind her of a certain activity she and him had just been doing. Only moments ago. 'Not Zach,' her brain helpfully supplied. 'This guy.'
Her face heated up as the blood began to flood it from within, turning dark and flushed. She backed off a bit, seeking cooler air, only sparing an oddly voiced, "That's great, thanks," in response to his kindly imparted wisdom.
Shoulders shaking, she forced the next words out, with a weak attempt at a casual impression; "So why did you kiss me?" It came across more frustrated than anything else.
Clearly, she was ignoring the part where she kissed him, but to Raven, that part naturally didn't matter much. The other question? Now that she needed an answer to, ASAP, and it had better be good.

taffy789 • 23 May 2016 at 2:04 AM

Annabell had frozen at the control panel when Riley had called out for her to wait, her hands paused mid-reach for a lever. Trusting whatever plan he had, she relaxed her hands to her sides and turned to watch him rush up the stairs. After he climbed out of sight, her attention turned to Izzy, who was still laying on the floor and in the most immediate danger of drowning…
A heavy body landing right next to her made Annabell jump, startled, and she would’ve slipped and crashed backwards had her hand not reflexively caught the control panel for her. Her left palm slammed down onto an array of buttons- a group of familiar ones with faded “alarm” labels- and the small room exploded with the horrendous sound of five different sirens blaring at once.

Back up at the top of the stairs, Quincy was now standing, his knees shaky from kneeling for so long. He toed a boot at a particularly heavy, surging stream of water rushing past with a bored frown on his face. Glancing back up at the force field that his arm extended towards, Quincy caught sight of the water rippling sadly in its prison. He gave a small sigh at this, conversationally cleared his throat and, after some hesitation, asked the water witch, “So, the Olympics, huh? What… event had you wanted to do?” He smiled a bit and guessed, “Water polo?”
“No,” responded the lips, almost despondently, “Gymnastics.”
As Quincy’s brain tried to wrap around the mental image of a bucket of water rolling along a balance beam, Annabell’s hand had slammed the alarms, and in that next second the entirety of Quincy’s mind was consumed by a horrible, pounding noise-!
Swirling happier against the force field, the water remembered what occurred during the last alarm and prepared to break out once again…

Meanwhile, Annabell had recovered from the shock of the boy jumping to the control panel and began to frantically press the alarm buttons in an attempt to shut them off. However, she had no idea which she had or hadn’t triggered- and there were a good ten alarm buttons- so for a good minute she was playing a horrible parody of whack-a-mole where her palms were the mallets and the moles were the different shrieks that screamed out every time she accidentally turned one on.
After some great effort, she eventually succeeded in slamming every button to its proper “off” position, and Annabell faced the boy again, her face red. She made sure to extend a watchful arm between him and the alarm buttons, having babysat enough in the past to know that turning all those alarms back on would be exactly something a vindictive child would do, for the fun of it.
When he spoke false, flowery words of friendship, Annabell had to resist letting out a groan of frustration, though much of that annoyance was left over from the alarm fiasco.
“Look, Spence,” she said, her right hand coursing against her blonde, tangled locks, “Us being friends? That would be fine, I would be okay with that, really!” Her hand left her hair to motion towards the drowned state of the room around them, “But last time I checked? Friends don’t try to drown their friends, Spence!” She inhaled a breath, then said, calmer, “It’s very difficult for me to see how this situation is helpful to me, in the slightest.”
She shuffled where she stood, noticing the cold sensation of water licking past the rubber of her soles, engulfing her socks with a wet, salty, squish.
Annabell shuddered, and she glanced back at Izzy, expression creased with worry at the waterlogged, probably concussed boy. The sea was gurgling from the drain hatch at a faster pace now, and it filled her with deep concern. Compared with the stream flowing down the stairs, the drain hatch posed a much bigger threat. She had to close it; it wasn’t like she had no clue as to where that lever was.
Reaching out to the group of levers she assumed the drain hatch belonged to, Annabell pointedly ignored whatever smug grin was on the boy’s face as she finally conceded to his little game, and she tested a lever-

“Not this time!” Quincy declared a little too dramatically to not be totally lame, strengthening his force field with a despite the ringing in his ears. The water splashed uselessly against the sides again, and sunk back to the ground as it was now bearing the weight of the world on its unformed, nonexistent shoulders.
Quincy’s self-impressed smile stayed plastered against his face through the continued screaming of the alarms, and it lingered even after the alarms ceased their awful song. He nearly laughed, giddy at this redemption; yes, he fought off distraction this time, he’d been prepared for it, he’d been stronger than it- nobody was going to get sliced again, not on his watch!
All Quincy’s grinning and celebrating was soon interrupted by a painful, mechanical grooooooaaaannnnnn, and the guy lifted his head to try to figure out where the noise had come from.
He saw nothing, only darkness.
Knowing something was amiss, Quincy bent down to pick the flashlight off the floor, concentrating his energy and attention onto keeping the force field up as he did this, and when looked up again- this time with a shining flashlight to help him- his eyes widened in shock as he witnessed the rock walls pushing themselves backwards, water cascading down them and joining into one, surging, calf-high river that crashed through the hallway-!
Shocked, Quincy stepped backwards, not realizing how far he’d already jumped back when the alarms had surprised him…
Quincy’s foot completely missed the first step of the stairs, and he tumbled backwards, the waves following close behind him.

“Nope,” Annabell declared, pushing the lever back up as soon as the scary groan had begun resonating throughout the entire cavern, “That wasn’t it.”
The second lever she quickly tested, however, quietly closed the drain hatch, and Annabell waited a few seconds before allowing a sigh of relief.
The groaning had ceased, and no observable ill effects had come from those nasty sounds, so she decided the gamble had, largely, been a success. She couldn’t help herself but count the venture as a “win” under her name, one positive mark as opposed to the however many points the Saw-enthusiast little boy had accumulated by locking her in here in the first place…
Suddenly remembering how she had wanted to resist playing his game, Annabell almost slapped herself for assigning a mental score-keeping system to her situation.

Quincy’s elbow landed a clean blow on Riley’s crotch halfway down the stairwell.
The remaining few feet tumbled by in a blur, and the boy became aware of his glasses getting knocked askew at the same time his left shoulder made a hollow, gong-like sound against the iron bars guarding the room’s entrance. Ignoring the multiple blooming, swelling bruises on his person, Quincy gripped the bar, gritted his teeth, and hauled himself up, trying not the step on the leader who was currently crumpled behind him.
Dully, he heard a female’s exclamation of “Oh my gosh!” but didn’t turn to glance behind him. He pushed his glasses up on his nose, facing the downpour of water washing down the stairwell, and his double vision noticed a certain, rosy tint racing down at him, the color barely illuminated by the electric lights buzzing behind him-
The rosy water sped up, bunching up unnaturally as it caught sight of its target…
Quincy waved a glowing green force field into existence seconds before the water reached him and Four, and while it diverted the normal, clear water around him, the rosy water acted faster, bouncing from a wall and ricocheting off, slashing towards the two boys at an angle the shield didn’t quite cover.
Quincy staggered backwards, gasping, as the sharp, jet-streamed water sliced a clean cut below his ribcage and continued onwards, aiming too high to hit Four’s head but hitting an iron bar with enough force left to nearly separate it into halves.
The rosy water flew into the center of the room and began reforming, pink waves combining together in the now ankle-deep water that Annabell was standing and Izzy was sleeping in.
Pressing his hand against the slice in his side, Quincy hit the floor, slumping against the stairwell wall and watching as his blood oozed from between his fingers and mixed in with the water near him. The water swirling around him took on a rusty tinge, like dirty, cheap watercolor paint, and Quincy got a whiff of sea salt and dully hoped he wouldn’t attract any sharks to the area…

asi • 23 May 2016 at 5:42 AM

He had sniggered enough into his hand while Annabell engaged in war with the alarms, hammering down on the buttons with great prejudice. By the time she turned back to him, hair messy and touched by spray so it looked like she'd just missed the shower in the morning, Mael had more or less recovered and recomposed himself.
He listened to her words with a little more patience than she'd shown him, smiling all the while. "But Annie," he countered with a slight whine, but eyes earnest all the same, "I'm not trying to drown you or otherwise murder."
His eyes narrowed and his grin rose as Annabell's hand fell upon its chosen lever. He didn't even offer a last teasing, 'are you sure?', but simply leaned back to watch the show take its course. Of course, once it was pulled, though he certainly enjoyed the sound-effects, he didn't offer any clues as to what had just happened, either, just smiled enigmatically and uselessly.
He seemed a little pleased when she got it right the second time, though, and continued his dialogue, climbing his way along the control panel as he did so. "It's just something that you might inadvertently achieve whilst I am testing you. If you're stupid."
The way he seemed to cling to the mostly vertical panel without any effort, never disturbing any of the multitudes of sensitive switches and buttons and levers and dials was something to wonder at. He seemed to grip it unnaturally, like how a spider or lizard would use the tiny hairs on it's legs and hands to hold on. But none of this was strictly outside the realms of natural human possibility, even when he used the straight vertical wall as a stepping stone from which to kick off to the other operation table, and landing hands first, to swing himself over to sit on the edge.
He was just very, very good, and liked showing it. Unless of course Mael's power WAS sticky-grip, in which case he was very very smug about mostly nothing.
He went back to swinging his legs back and forth, as two soggy boys washed up against the bars with a huge bang of an impact, and whistled at the sight.

Riley had been storming the stairs and about to yell out something along the lines of, 'Oi Quincy, you can let her go, actually,' when it seemed all of a sudden that the other guy's chain of thought had preceded his own.
A serious, "Oof," left his lips before he processed a dull pain throbbing throughout his body, origin/s lost in the shock, and thought to steel himself for the all-consuming barrage of water that was sure to follow. He clenched his eyes tight from where he lay in a cramped heap, stuck between the sharp point of the stairs and the blunt cruelty of the bars, not to mention the human lump digging into him from above- but it didn't come.
He was distinctly relieved to see Quincy had erected another barrier between them and the raging water. Okay, he'd wanted her let out, but now- now Riley was reconsidering which was the lesser of two evils...
He pushed himself up onto a step properly in the moment's respite, saving himself a great deal of further discomfort as his teammate and the water clashed again, and he was naturally knocked around one way or another.
Unfortunately, this time Quincy was hit, and sharply so. Riley's hand also flew immediately to the other guy's injury, helping to apply pressure until they could work out how deeply he'd been carved into.
Distantly, he was aware of the red water crashing through the bars into the other room, and other voices, but he wasn't paying attention to that.
And... Maybe he should have been checking out his own injuries, but the background aching had already subsided, all pain going with it. Riley felt that was, odd, but that feeling, too, quickly fled his mind.
"Quincy, hey, you alright..?" He was just worried about the teammates he had been so newly assigned.

Mael's gaze shifted from Izzy, still as a corpse while the water lapped at his ears; to the water, steadily dyeing itself rosy; to Riley and Quincy looking rather battered on the other side of the bars; to Annabell, rather distraught by it all and panicking, just a little. And he smiled a thin little smile.

taffy789 • 23 May 2016 at 6:48 PM

“Well,” Annabell had responded seconds before the water came pouring down the stairs, “I’m not exactly planning on being stupid anytime soon, so I still don’t see how these mysterious games you insist on playing are any help to me..!”
Then Quincy’s shoulder rattling the iron bars whipped Annabell’s attention from the boy to the room’s entrance, and she gasped out in shock, her mouth falling further open as a powerful jet of rosy water sent red blood splattering backwards into the room. The droplets of blood landed like food coloring in the accumulated pool of water she stood in, swirling, reaching, spreading their deep red outward to tangle the water near her ankles in the color…
A second, larger wave followed the first down the stairwell before trickling back down to comparatively nothing. Frozen for a second, her eyes drinking up the chaos that had erupted around her as if it were a bitter medicine, Annabell simultaneously noticed three important events occurring at once.
One. The water level had risen faster with that second surge, and her calves were half submerged, with her pant legs slowly soaking up the uncomfortable moisture. Izzy’s head bobbed for a second but then quickly appeared to be under the threat of sinking and drowning.
Two. The rosy water had reared up, taking on a much larger, frightening form- not human but liquid and enlarged, swollen- a monstrous parody of a human figure. This watery beast extended two tendrils of liquid towards the boys huddled behind the bars, the water wrapping ominously around the rusted iron and squeezing with enough force to bend two of the bars together.
Three. One of the iron bars- already half sliced through the middle by the same attack that cut Quincy- rattled and shook and cried out under the pressure of those gripping, angry tendrils of water…
Pulling her knife, Annabell blinked invisible and decided to deal each situation in order of urgency. She dove for Izzy first, who floated right between the rosy water monster and the iron bars it was shaking.
She flashed him invisible with her immediately as her hand touched his shoulder, pulling him up out from under the waves by his shoulders and dragging him out of harm’s way.
As she moved him, she patted softly at his face, desperate to wake him up, and she whispered with urgency, “Hey, hey, now would be a good time to become conscious, okay, please?”


Quincy groaned at the feeling of another hand applying what felt like an unnecessarily painful amount of necessary pressure over his wound.
Still, he heard Four’s concern and managed to slur out, “Alive… ‘nd good it’s my left side, it was my bad side ‘lready, with all the scars and… stuff…”
His vision shifted as his head flopped around in a daze, and his gaze landed on the suspended, floating form of Izzy on the other side of the bars. A resonating twang of fear alerted Quincy’s entire body, numbing his limbs with a sudden shocked vibration, but when Izzy vanished into thin air in the next second, the fear quickly transformed into utter confusion.
And the confusion turned a complete three-sixty and boomeranged back to fear the next instant, when the water witch’s whipping tendrils began lashing through the bars to reach the two boys.
Quincy tore his hand away from his wound to raise it up, a green shield meeting a tendril of water with a violent crack, and both the rosy water and force field to ripped apart on impact.
As he watched the rose-tinted water rush past the all stained, rusty red floating around him, as the rose-tinted water reformed its tendril as if to brag that no wound made on it would ever possibly last, Quincy became sharply aware of the futility of his current situation.
He inhaled a deep breath, then spoke to Four, his words at first spilling out panted and fast-
“Can’t keep up the force fields for long, little energy to spare.”
A pause for another breath- a grimace of pain- and he continued again, now with a blunt, composed gravity weighing down his words.
“I… can’t run. But don’t you hesitate to if you need to. It’s better if only one of us dies than both of us.”




Zach’s power held himself higher when Raven thanked him for the information, feeling good to have received recognition for his efforts.
Then Raven switched topics lightning fast, and the power’s brown eyes blinked, registering the question for a split second before lighting up again with realization.
“Oh!” he exclaimed, slightly surprised, “That thing I did!” He shot her a smile, “That’s easy. I needed to distract you in some way from turning the light back on and shining it at my face~ It’s not like I wanted to be found out, after all.” He said this simply, bluntly, as if it were the most obvious explanation in the world, then added with a knowing hum, “You aren’t really fond of powers, are you~?”
He could’ve stopped there, but didn’t.
Continuing to muse on his past decisions, the power elaborated further. “When I checked it, making-out had been such an assured way to distract you- and it worked better than I could’ve hoped~ …And,” came an amused, admitted addition, “it was a nice way to kill two spiders with one boot~ I needed a distraction, and doesn’t kissing build relationships better? Since Zach likes you, kissing you would help you like him more, and then with you two liking each other, perhaps he’d be less…”
The power trailed off here, searching for the right word to use.
“…Depressing?” Zach’s power offered, and his face pulled a hard, displeased expression, “Honestly, you have no idea what’s it like to share a living space with that guy’s brain~”

asi • 24 May 2016 at 3:35 AM

"Oh," she said heavily, after a long moment. Well that was actually pretty reasonable and not irredeemably mortifying on her part despite the metaphor and- wait.
She'd been keeping her eyes stuck on the torch where it stood, imagining it to be a toadstool with a luminous top, before they shot back to the power.
"He likes me? Is that what you think?" Both of Raven's eyebrows rose. She brushed over his thin, watery understanding of human relationships. This guy claimed to know Zach, but still somehow came up with that? And she was supposed to believe it? Ha, ha...
"That's funny," she told him, and snorted. "Yeah, I bet putting up with that much monotone would be enough to drive anyone loopy."
It didn't seem quite in line with her words, for her to immediately look away, her mouth to turn down at the corners, and then her eyes to concentrate on the pale blue of her torn-up jeans.

taffy789 • 24 May 2016 at 5:24 PM

"You..." Zach's power matched Raven's frown, "doubt me." Giving a huff of displeasure, he crossed his arms and pouted slightly, "How annoying."
Not wanting the girl to carry on while so ill-informed, the power scooted closer to her, opening his mouth to talk more on the subject despite all signs of Raven having disowned the idea.
"Zach here doesn't care for many people, as I know you already know~ So I tend not to care about those people either, even though I could, I suppose. Would get messy and confusing and dangerous, but I certainly could..." The power lingered on this idea, then dropped it, continuing, "But! I know Zach likes you for a fact. He'd rather stick around you than anyone else, and he seems to find your presence..." A grin broke out on his face as the right word struck him, "Comfortable? Frankly how he does the opposite of avoid you speaks for itself. He wants to keep you around, see?"
The grin turned even more smug as he added, "And that's where I've come in! Since Zach wants to keep you around, I've taken great care to keep my power on you, Raven~ Any harm that has come your way for these past few weeks, I've known all about! And after appropriately alerting Zach, he's been able to help you avoid a lot too~ Another win-win; you don't die and Zach doesn't have to deal with any more death!" A content little sigh breathed out from those smiling lips, "Ah, it feels great when things work out all mutually beneficial like that~ So much less messier than other ways of solving problems, like murder or lying~"

asi • 25 May 2016 at 4:27 AM

Izzy was coughing up the water stuck in his airpipes and up his nose, gagging at the unique earthy, vegetative flavor of swamp fused with a potent salting from the sea. It was not palatable. The first thing his single good eye did, once clear of that same horrid water and with function restored, was try to identify a suitable material to scrub his tongue out on. It wasn't very successful.
Instead of licking her, his immediate instinct was to cling to Annabell like a baby koala bear to its mother, only it wasn't death by falling he was so frightened of, but the cold. He pressed himself up against every bit of relative warmth he could find, curling into her chest, his eye slipping shut once more as he mumbled something that sounded an awful lot like, "Mm, M'incy..."
And he wondered vaguely why his boyfriend kept patting his face.

He frowned nervously down at his injured teammate while the guy's body jerked and his speech slurred like that of a certain copper-skinned middle-easterner they both knew. Although Riley's vision felt crystal clear, Quincy's eyes didn't seem to be meeting his, and that in itself was unnerving- until the leader found the guy's attention was focused somewhere else entirely.
Following Quincy's outstretched arm, he looked over his shoulder to see the little green shards of raining down, while the equally broken droplets of red retreated to go and reform once more. In no time at all, of course, they were already merging into a highly-pressurized and deadly octopus arm.
Hearing his words, Riley gave his teammate a thankful smile, and patted him gently on the head. "That's fine. You just stay here then, and try not to get hit further."
So saying, Riley turned and stretched his back a little, reaching behind to try and scratch at an itch that was newly bothering him. The torn fabric made for ease of access, and what he felt of his skin was uncomfortably rough, but he didn't have time to inspect it now.
The offending tentacle of water was currently writhing against the bars, engorging itself and pushing further against the metal. Rather than splitting itself and flowing around the bars, the power seemed to prefer remaining as one mass, especially in its sharp-edged, pressurized form. It wasn't assaulting them directly, because it seemed the power in control was distracted by something in its current room- what, it was hard to guess, since he couldn't even spot what Annabell or Izzy might be doing. But regardless of that, now looked like the perfect time for him to act.
Riley grabbed his sheathed sword set by the hilt and used the butt of the same end to attack the bar of iron already protesting from prior attacks. After a few strikes, it just gave out, snapping under the stress.
The rosy red water, still not paying attention, fell away at the lack of resistance, too confused to press forward, and Riley took the opportunity to squeeze through the gap, mindful of the sharp edges-
Until a snake of water coiled around his arm and yanked him through. He was hauled up by a suffocating grip around his waist, until Riley choked out, "I don't have a power, you know I can't hurt you!"
The tightening paused, but the water didn't slacken.
"There are clearly other people here, so now aren't you interested in an explanation?" Riley pointed urgently to get her to notice the little boy absently kicking his feet back and forth as he watched the goings-on.
From- somewhere- the girl's voice laughed at him. "You don't mean that child?"
Okay, Riley was in a bit of a bind.


Raven still looked askance, until he mentioned the perks of his own protection. That stuff, she could testify, was definitely true. She'd already admitted to Zach about how his power had saved her hide many a time, although now come to think of it, this guy hadn't been around to hear it then.
She threaded her fingers through the brand new holes riddling her jeans, feeling a couple of hardy strings just holding together tear away with her touch. There was a lot that he said that Raven didn't fancy responding to with even a tell-tale look, so she kept her eyes down. Somewhere in one of her jacket pockets, she had a little sewing kit, consisting only of a little fabric, some thread and a needle, but it was critically useful in the creation of her hidden knife compartments. It was so tempting to pull it out and occupy her hands, but- it would be way too obvious.
Mainly, she did her best not to show that anything got to her head, until one little bit hit a nerve.
"Erm, about lying..." Raven looked at him with a compelling weight of anxiety behind her eyes. "You're not actually going to, you know, tell him, about how we..." she trailed off, not prepared to finish the end of the sentence and frankly just hoping she didn't have to.
Because while all the stuff he'd been saying about Zach still liking her, despite all the crap she- they'd given each other, was nice, Raven had got the distinct creeping feeling about halfway through his dialogue that, well... This light-haired version of Zach perhaps hadn't had the same meaning of 'liked' as the one she'd used. As in, she was getting that old strictly platonic vibe. And if this was an unofficial friend-zoning she was hearing right now, Raven did NOT want the first guy finding out exactly how much fun she had had kissing him (whilst thinking it him).
Despite the beliefs Zach's power held about human relationships? She was pretty convinced that would be NOT GOOD.

taffy789 • 26 May 2016 at 2:21 AM

Seeing that Izzy was sentient enough to curl into her (admittedly flat) chest as if snuggling into a pillow, Annabell assumed the guy could sit up on his own without drowning.
Still, as she cupped a hand into the water, she couldn't help but question his muttered words with a confused whisper of "Minced meat?" before she splashed water up into the boy's face.
Hopefully having woke him up now, she unceremoniously propped him up, above water, against the operating table the kid wasn't currently sitting on.
When Riley broke through the bars, Annabell turned to watch his entrance and subsequent end of her imprisonment with glee; the tendrils wrapping around her friend in the next instant evoked a much less positive response in the girl.
Taking her hands from Izzy, returning him to the visible world, Annabell climbed on top of the operating table and pulled a throwing knife from her belt.
"Hey!" she shouted in the loudest, sharpest voice she could manage, and in an attempt to distract the monster from Riley, she flung the knife at the mass of whipping water with pin-point accuracy...
The knife hit the water, zoomed through it until it slowed, then stopped completely and floated the rest of the way down to the floor. Slow ripples moving across the water mass were the only sign that any object had even hit it, for the power itself remained completely unaffected, if only a bit puzzled.
"Who was that?" The power's female voice seemed to echo throughout the room as searching tendrils formed and began whipping around to find the unseen attacker, "Who threw that? Who said that?"
... Annabell had more sense than to answer that.
She ducked and laid low on the operating table, avoiding the water tendrils that zoomed over her head, but the bind holding Riley wasn't getting any more loose anytime soon.
So, when the power called out another "Show yourself!", Annabell thought of a stupid idea and almost banged her head on the metal table for deciding to enact it despite her assurances to certain malicious little boys of her doing nothing but the contrary.
"He didn't mean the child!" she cried out, cupping her hands over one side of her mouth to hopefully redirect the sound of her speaking as to not give away a location, "I'm the one with the explanation!"
The water rippled, small waves lapping the legs of the operation table. "And just who are YOU?" the power rumbled, her voice more directionless than Annabell's could ever hope to be.
"I am-" hesitation- "your... conscience."
Although she was invisible, she didn't dare meet Riley's eyes to see his reaction.
The water tendrils stopped their sweeping search, choosing instead to sway, almost ponderously, in mid air-
"...Is this 'conscience'," the power mused, "the voice in my head that tells me what to and yells and fights when I don't do what it wants me to do..?"
"Er," Annabell began-
"Because I HATE that voice." The tendrils invigorated once more, lashing with ferocity, an intent to kill, around the small room...
"No, NO," Annabell squeaked, "A conscience is not that voice, NO-" The tendrils paused, but Annabell felt no relief given the way one had stopped in mid-swing at her table.
She continued, more soothing, "A conscience, um, tells you how to do things right, but not to fight you, but to help you be... better?"
Every tendril except the one squeezing Riley dropped to the ground with a loud "splash".
"Oh, like a coach."
“Sure.” Annabell replied with quick agreement, “Aaaannd, if you want to be a… real… team… player? You would, um, stop squeezing that boy now? Let him and his friends go, safely, nicely?”
Silence.
Then, “…Will that get me into the Olympics?”
“… Absolutely,” Annabell said, nothing but confidence with a slight aftertaste of stoic disbelief.



"Made out?" Zach's power supplied helpfully. He looked at her, all innocence, "I tell Zach whatever he wants to know. ...And some things he doesn't, but when he needs to know something, I tell him." He rubbed at his chin, thoughtfully, "It is hard, deciding what information is important. I usually leave that stuff up for him to decide, because he has the life experience, not me... But somethings I know he'd should know, so I tell him whether he wants to hear it or not!"
He dropped the hand back to his side, his eyes flickering back to Raven, and he gave a sly, unapologetic smile. "Especially when it comes to things that he doesn't know will help him~ And, at least he'll believe me, unlike some... stubborn people..."
Zach's power grinned, not even attempting to hide that blatant passive-aggressive tone...

asi • 26 May 2016 at 7:12 AM

He opened his eye, now very confused, only to get a faceful of water. Izzy responded with a rapid shake of his head, flicking water droplets everywhere, especially from the dripping tips of his hair. The dark water of the underground had leeched the sun from its color and turned his hair a deep brown closer to that of his natural tone as it capped his head, sticky and flat. But more importantly, cold. And his warmth had left him.
Squeezing the liquid out of his good eye, the finally fully awake and equally unhappy Izzy tried to fathom how he'd landed himself in such an unpleasant place.
Of course, by that time, he knew all too well that the smell surrounding him was not that of his boyfriend, but instead that blonde female. Luckily, he wasn't given the chance to react to that information, since as soon as he could see, Annabell was gone.
... But he could still smell her very nearby? Maybe his sleepy mind was playing tricks on him.
He stared around the room he barely remembered entering and, breathing heavily, Izzy tried to get his bearings.
The cute kid sitting up above on the other operating table waved at him; he returned the gesture uncertainly.

"Annabell?" Riley gazed at the empty space in amazement when he heard those ridiculous words leave her invisible mouth, own jaw falling slack. His hands, the parts of which not gripping his sword set, had been attempting to grapple with the watery tentacle wrapped around his middle. They nearly managed to thrust straight through its semi-permeable form in her distraction, breaking it up, though the power managed to hold it together last moment.
... Thankfully in matters of the mind, despite being made of water, the witch seemed rather thick.
Riley was lowered deliberately to the ground, and he felt his painfully cold socks touch the stone with a rather subdued sense of relief, as the miserable water enveloped most of his lower legs again. At least his waist was better off- oddly, it wasn't left drenched by the power's grip, but merely a little moist. It was weird and he tried to shake it off as soon as possible.
Anyway. While he hated to question a good thing, Riley couldn't seem to resist. "The Olympics? I thought you wanted the swamp?" he questioned the red humanoid gathering of water at the center of the room.
It hesitated. "I- we-"


"..." For the benefit of the doubt, Raven gave him a long moment to take back what he'd implied, or add some small reassurance to the contrary.
When clearly nothing of the sort was forthcoming, she dropped her head into her hands with a groan. Raven mumbled, in a distinct-enough deadpan; "In that case, I may have to start drinking for one of us to forget..."
She could still feel the heat of her cheeks lit up in a blush. And over all the prospective (and current, to a lesser degree) embarrassment, she still found that smug look way too attractive for her own good.
Raven couldn't even think of a single thing she could do to stop him- no, wait, she totally could. She lifted her head and looked him sharply in the eye. "If you do," she told him, low and threatening; "I'll fill Zach's bed with spiders."

taffy789 • 26 May 2016 at 6:24 PM

Annabell clapped her hands together, suddenly, to grab the power's attention.
"Um, but because you are nice enough to let the boy and all his friends go," she said hurriedly, hearing the conflict surfacing in the water's voice, "you get both the Olympics AND the swamp! It's the best of both worlds; everyone is happy!"
Painfully obvious, forced cheer drowned her words, and had she been visible, Riley would've seen the 'don't you go asking the crazy power all these difficult questions' daggers her glare shot in his direction.
"Well, it's time for us to leave, alright? You did good, um, all the gold medals belong to you."
From her perch on the operation table, she reached over and tapped an invisible hand on Izzy's shoulder, whispering softly to him at the same time, "Hey, start heading for the exit."



An expression of pure shock and betrayal unraveled over Zach's face, all opened mouth and raised eyebrows and wide, horrified eyes.
He went silent for a long, long time, his face eventually hardening into one of pure, focused concentration...
After about two minutes of apparent elaborate thinking, a decision arrived.
"Okay, I won't tell him." Zach's power replied, nodding along with his words, "Won't mention the making out at all, nope, not at all."
While he was trying his best not to make it obvious, the power was most definitely lying.

asi • 26 May 2016 at 7:13 PM

Unfortunately, it couldn't be that easy. The great tendril of water that had released Riley from its grasp was now free to pursue others, of course. Its whole rosy mass plummeted into main body of water, which was now passing the milestone of Riley's knee and making movement on the ground all the more laborious. It even meant that some light sloshing could be heard from behind one of the operating tables, so unless Annabell's voice wasn't coming from where he thought it was, or Mael's legs were suddenly disproportionately long to his child's body, Riley had a pretty good idea where Izzy was.
The one in trouble definitely was... "Annabell!" Riley called out again but in alarm, just as the rosy red water rose up in an unnaturally thin wave, and struck out with all the alacrity of a scorpion. It splashed out to quickly drench the area, and anything unusual it touched would be quickly seized upon, and hoisted up for closer inspection.
Needless to say, Izzy held very still while the table worked its magic and the water sailed over his head, and Mael Evangel was thoroughly soaked where he sat.


Raven may not be a lie-detector, but she prided herself on a basic ability to read human social cues. And this guy was most definitely not playing ball. On her figurative checklist, Raven sighed and crossed out 'threats and bullying', because it clearly was not going to work. And she let her head fall back down to her hands' embrace.
She was still planning on collecting and distributing spiders, though. This guy was possibly even less preferable to Zach, only she was completely prevented from wishing her leader back, due to the sparkly new information he was bound to receive immediately upon arrival.
The problem was that the power's intentions made fine theoretical sense, he just didn't understand all the, ahem, complexities of human interactions. And even if Raven had an organised, impartial mind on the particular subject, she wasn't sold on her ability to convince him otherwise... He seemed pretty darn self-assured by himself, probably a side-effect about always knowing the immediate future or whatever it was he did. Zach never really had explained it...
It occurred to Raven then that there were probably more useful things she could be talking with this guy about.
She sat up. "So... How do you work, exactly?" Raven squinted at him. "Do you always know like everything about the stuff around you, like omnipotence, or, do you have to solve it like a mathematical equation or something?" Actually, that question didn't appeal to her so much as; "What do you think they're doing with my power?"

taffy789 • 27 May 2016 at 7:56 PM

Annabell's gasped out at the sight of the wave, and her mouth squeezed shut as it splashed against her, drenching every inch of her skin. She remained invisible, though it didn't help much as the tendril shot towards her, wrapping around her waist and yanking her off the operation table, into the air.
Her invisible legs flailed as she struggled against the power's grasp; her hands clawing at the surprisingly solid coil of water squeezing her as if she was a nearly empty toothpaste tube.
"What's this?" the power exclaimed, the tendril it held up tightened around seemingly nothing. It began shaking the tendril violently around the room, crying out in frusteration "Who are you!"
Annabell couldn't reply over the feeling of her stomach being thrown in ten different directions in under three seconds. Left, right, swoop downwards, left- Annabell flinched and clenched the tendril tighter as it swung her inches away from a wall. Her vision blurred with the movement, an inky blackness burning fuzzy spots into all images she saw- the control panel, red-tinted water, Riley's look of concern-
Then the direction shifted completely, and Annabell's stomach bit her as it dropped to her feet, and she felt a swift, upward ascent-
When the tendril slammed itself into the ceiling above, a short-lived cry echoed out into the room, and the limp body of a blonde girl with shoulders smashed against the ceiling flashed back into the realm of visiblility.
The water hummed at this new development, lowering the tendril back a few feet off the ground.
"Hm, dead?" the power questioned with curiosity, the tendril shifting, turning the girl's body side to side as if to examine it thoroughly. It ragdolled easily and every limb lolled about, but it also shuttered and shook in a weird, jerky, pained sort of way that could be interpreted as signs of life.
"...Oh, well," the power hummed dismissively, exploding the tendril into hundreds of scattered, rosy drops of water. The body of Annabell dropped into the knee high water, submerging completely.
The power, having shook off any past mental conflicts going on, appeared unconcerned with this, "The swamp is more important than some dumb gold medals anyway!"



Zach's power shivered at the knowledge that Raven saw through his lying.
Also, spiders.
That was a thing she was planning on doing.
She was a cruel, cruel human being, but at least he could find solace in knowing he would be able to see her dirty trick coming a mile away, and would be able to alert Zach of those creeping, crawling monsters that possessed too many legs for their own good.
Then, Raven asked about him, and the power's eyes lit up at this change of topic.
"Oh! Me?" he exclaimed, sounding honestly excited, "Well~ You see, I'm intuition, so most of the time for Zach, I sense things like when danger is about to strike, if people want to cause him harm, or which direction to go in if he needs to find something- simple things like that! I'm really helpful, right~? But I know a lot more things than just that~" He hummed, grinning to himself, "I can also sense if things are fact or not, if they are currently happening or are true~ But that's more difficult-" he frowned- "I need to... concentrate my energy on one thing to be able to sense if it's true or not. Zach phrases what he wants to know in the form of a question for me to guide me. And he makes them a lot more specific than that horrible one you just asked me. Your question about your power gives me nothing to check if it's true or not; Zach's questions tend to focus me on one thing, which is... helpful."
Zach's power rolled his shoulders slightly, an- embarrassed?, humbled?- small smile softening his face.
"Honestly, it's difficult, really! Having to know things all the time, because things are always changing and that's dumb-" he grimaced- "and confusing! For example," an obvious annoyance crept into his tone now, "I've haven't stopped sensing that the ceilings aren't about to cave in to crush one of us since I've awakened, and it's not like I can stop, because-"
He paused.
It was a long pause.
"I... can't?" he finally spoke, a confused expression shadowing over his facial features, making them all glimmer darker.
"I'm everywhere. I can't not stop knowing things. It's difficult."
Looking thoroughly pained by this, the power sulked to himself, pouting while staring at the dusty concrete flooring.

asi • 29 May 2016 at 8:38 PM

"NO!" Riley barked out, horrified but frozen immobile in the critical moment when Annabell crashed into the stone ceiling, hard. By the time the witch was tossing her aside, his feet were moving again, and with hands hooked under her armpits Riley quickly heaved her upper body back up out of liquid and into air.
Her whole body was shaking against his chest, likely from shock. As luck would have it, she'd hit the rock back and shoulders first, sparing her more fragile head the blow. She wasn't out cold, only very dazed and limp in his arms.
Once he'd ascertained her pulse and breathing were fine-ish, then did Riley spare a moment of thought for the perpetrator. With an dirty glare, he addressed her; "Look what you've done! She wasn't trying to hurt you, Annie never- never wanted anything but to help..!" He looked down and saw the way blonde hair swam in the water around him, and his throat closed up and he couldn't speak further.
Although his look was venomous, there was an empty weight behind his eyes that nothing could be done about. Riley was weak. He didn't have the power to do anything to hurt this witch. He'd even forgotten his ineffectual steel swords, losing them somewhere in the flood. Forget attacking, all he had to protect Annabell with was the literal durability of his body, mere sinew and bones that it was. Poor Quincy was already a testament to how well that strategy would hold out, when his force-field failed and she had cut him... The guy was still waiting on the stairs, water running red around him while he clenched down on his wound, trying to keep it in.
Riley knew this power not to be driven crazed and feral, yet she still insisted on senseless violence, hitting without stopping to listen! It made him so mad, to think that they might die like this, angry tears were stinging at the corners of his eyes, but Riley was still useless against a force composed only of water. What could he do?
If he'd still been able to read minds, he could of handled the situation better, he would have definitely convinced her before-
But now the lady was descending on them, an eerie stretched smile coating her swirling watery face, and she was opening those liquid lips that turned pink with movement, saying, "Sorry to say, your little swamp-sucking expedition ends here-"
Then she stopped. She looked down and shrieked. It sounded like crystal shattering, sharp yet tinkling, and Riley flinched, hands very much occupied or else he would have used them to block the sound. "It hurts, it HURTS!" she was screaming, and that left Riley without any option but to follow her stare down.
From her formless water-column of a stomach, a blade was protruding, but it wasn't anything like the one Annabell had tried on her earlier. It was cruelly sleek and funnily curved and sizzling with a strange kind of energy the likes of which Riley had never seen. A pale, purplish blue glaze seemed to dance around the metal, but it was faint. The frying noise it emitted was much stronger than the sight, but harder to hear over the panic the power was making. Bits of water kept falling off her and splashing back into the pool, while she tried to reform herself.
But the little dagger kept up its strange fizzing as it slowly sank down the form made of red rushing water, as if shuffled and dislodged by the girl's agitation. The weapon's glow seemed incensed by the movement, spitting out tiny bluish-purple sparks with its descent.

On hearing that sickening impact, Izzy's temperature had suffered a sudden drop, plunging into the seemingly frigid degrees. He was scared to all heck at what he might see, but he inched around the operating table regardless, like drawn by an unyielding string. The water was swishing around his thighs at that point, but no matter. Riley was making enough noise for the both of them, and it wasn't like Izzy could feel much colder than he was at that point. Neither its bark nor bite could phase him.
He looked around the side of the thick workbench to see Riley nursing the fallen Annabell, who looked seriously out of it, and Quincy, on the steps and bleeding out...
As the half-humanoid, half formless mass of water advanced on the two in the corner, Izzy drew the long, light pesh-kabz from his belt. It felt solid yet seemed to weigh even less than a feather in his hand.
He darted forward and, with all the energy he had, stabbed her.

The dagger was swallowed up by the water, and Izzy could only draw back and watch it make its way down the body of red water. Though it caused jolts of pain at each step of the journey, it was only a matter of time before the dagger landed on stone and the witch, though still shuddering and suffering through involuntary spasms, turned its attention on him.
He only had the one, after all. He gazed longingly after his pesh-kabz, forced to acknowledge how it was currently very much irretrievable, stationed as it was directly below where the power's form melted away into the waves.
As the thing advanced on him this time, Izzy spent a few precious seconds idly wishing someone would come rescue him, while he shrunk back against the wall, the agonizing stone pressing cold like ice into his shirt, through to his skin and seeping down his spine.
Meanwhile, the power-taken girl was spitting something like; "You HURT me, how did you hurt me when I'm like this?! I'll definitely kill this one-"

"Is that really it?" Riley interrupted, scowl deepening until it dug creases of epic proportions on his usually so smooth face. "You're just out for revenge? What about solving the problem?!"
Just when he was beginning to think she wasn't anything like the more-or-less rational and in their own way, reasonable powers he'd previously had the pleasure of meeting, the water-girl stopped to argue with him again. "You lot have been stealing my swamp, played with my dreams, and now have even stabbed me with a funny burning knife!" she hissed, as if this kind of retribution was 'only fair'. And then, to his wonder, she followed his thinking to the letter. "It's only fair," the water-formed lips muttered over the sound of her body's own rushing current.
With that, Riley started to get it. He scooped Annie up in his arms, bridal-style, and- oof, it wasn't exactly an easy carry, but it was manageable- walked closer to the lady. She was taken aback by the motion, and rightfully so. He had to have a pretty impressive set of guns to handle a girl substantially taller than him, right? "It's not fair, though," he countered, much more calmly than he was before, "when we weren't the ones the ones to touch the swamp, nor are we capable of harming you in any serious way, outside small discomforts-"
"Small," scoffed the girl, glowering down at Izzy, who flinched, shot a very distrustful look towards Riley, and proceeded to try and scamper away.
A stream of red water shot out and wrapped itself around around the boy's struggling arms, until he had to stop or fall flat on his back and down underwater.
"No, let him go," Riley insisted on stubbornly trying to argue with her, like she were a small dog that simply needed house-training to be an acceptable pet.
"Why should I have to risk feeling that way again?" she demanded, stretching out her watery limbs as if to strangle their tracker.
He thought over everything he'd learned about powers.
Don't appeal to a power's sense of empathy- Riley knew theirs to typically be lacking or twisted. Instead, he'd try their instinct for self-preservation, something almost always found intact. "You won't, you have the knife now, and besides, the chances of more people like us exploring this area will only increase if something happens to us and our mission is not c-"
Izzy chose that moment to find his voice. "'S'not a knife, i'ssa pesh-kabz, 'n' I wan' it back right now!" he groused, kicking up water in a flurry.
The water writhed in snakelike discomfort, feathers clearly ruffled by the strange debate. "That won't matter if my swamp is gone!"
Now Riley felt like he was being attacked on all sides, including his back from the strain of holding Annabell so long... "What difference will killing us make? You can control water, can't you just pull it back up again?"
"Not if it's being drained down here," the witch answered in a huff. "It's just a matter of time before it's all sucked into this nasty underground!"
"Well, we'll just have to plug the hole," Riley explained with somewhat wearied patience.
She paused. "... Y-you'd do that?" Her water stopped whirling to tumultuously and for the first time, her form took on a smoother rippling like that of a lake rather than a sea.
He almost wanted to tear his hair out and shout his answer, but his hands were full so he settled for a more quietly exasperated, "Yes."
In a flat tone, she prodded a little further; "How."
"Uhhhh," Riley didn't have an easy answer to that, and when she quickly grew restless, knew he had to change tack. "We don't know yet- but someone else does!"
He couldn't point, so he just nodded his head in the right direction. "Well, this kid happens to have opened the drains to start with, and uh, may have been trying to drown us, which is, uh, not... fair..." he trailed off, not sure about what the reception to this claim might be, nor what he might want it to be.
The girl, whose features appeared markedly more human now, did a very solid impression of a frown, and along with Riley, turned curiously to face the child, who didn't seem to be reacting at all.
Just sitting there, swinging his legs, humming quietly...
"So? Is he correct? What is something so small doing down here?" the power couldn't help but ask curiously, to no avail. The child wouldn't respond.
"Well?" she stepped forward, impatient for answers.

demon • 31 May 2016 at 4:09 AM

Raven wasn't quite expecting just how amenable he'd be to answering. He was much more forthcoming than Zach... Although no, she didn't suppose that either of them would be alive if he wasn't.
"Ah..." Although mildly disheartened that he couldn't tell her any news on the one thing she really wanted to know right now, Raven was quickly distracted by the rest. Her head perked up in interest, loose, frizzy hair bouncing ever so slightly on her shoulders, though failing to draw her attention to its state. "So you can tell stuff like..."
She scrunched up her face trying to think up a simple question. "What's my favorite- no..." She'd been about to say color, but then realized, she didn't really have one. Bad question.
"What's my birthday?" Raven didn't know that either, actually, but now she was curious, what would he say? But shouldn't she ask some proper questions, too? "What's Riley's birthday? What's Alex's birthday?" she felt pleased with the last one, considering they'd never met. Of course, Riley and Alex were twins, so the date was the same: September the twenty-first.
Ha. Raven always snickered on remembering the guy's star-sign was usually portrayed as a busty blonde lady.

taffy789 • 1 June 2016 at 6:54 PM

Annabell groaned when Riley lifted her up, her back arching away from his arms as if they'd burnt her.
Shifting sideways, she curled into his chest, limp arms rolling with her body before remembering they could function and then stiffening at her sides. Moving with more purpose, the arms travelled to her own chest, and her hands gripped at the boy's shirt, clinging with dear life like she would free fall again if she let go.
Her body shook and shuddered, oblivious to all the goings-on around her.
She remained shaking and silent as Riley argued with the water power, hands stretching the fabric of his shirt with how tightly they clenched.
Finally, after the water power turned her attention to the small boy, Annabell's mouth opened in a shuddery gasp and she croaked out, desperately-
"Riley, Riley, I-" Her spine rattled in his arms, her stomach turned at hurt cascading down her back, and her heaving shoulders twisted her expression up into a mask of pain and discomfort.
"I don't, I don't feel-"
She couldn't say any more, for the agony flooded upwards, suddenly, and Annabell felt thrown upside-down, as if she'd slammed into yet another ceiling.
With the upheaval of pain came a rising of another kind, and Annabell gagged as her twisted, shaking stomach unraveled and upchucked its contents at Riley's shirt.



The power frowned at Raven's second round of questioning.
"Those questions..." he stated, blandly and in a slight, judging fashion, "Tell me nothing."
He scowled- a familiar expression on Zach's face, but his different in the expressive pout of his lips.
"You can't even prompt me a month to work with? I have to do it all by myself..." the power complained, then, humming, drifted off into deep thought...
"...Your birthday is in the summer-ish months~" he finally concluded, sporting a pleased grin, "And the other two have their birthdays in the fall months? That's what I'm sensing, anyway. But I'm always right so it's not like you can say it's different without outright lying to me~"

asi • 1 June 2016 at 10:28 PM

Raven frowned back, her snark turning itself right up on the dial. Okay, his seasonal radar was pretty on the ball, at least for the ones she knew, but; "You can't even do that much? So what, you specialize in telling people if they've got a spider on their head or not?"
As she said this, the spider responsible for all of his panic before took the opportunity to climb over and make a nest of the appropriately-fashioned hair.
While contemplating the difficulties of such a finicky, fastidious power such as this, Raven wondered if perhaps she didn't give Zach enough credit after all. He seemed to make the most of what he had been given, saving their lives multiple times while she had problems getting a few numbers out of it.
"I want my own power back," she sighed involuntarily out loud.


From glancing over at the child Riley's gaze quickly switched to down, startled by the guttural prompting coming from at his chest. There was a lot of jerking and lurching going on and he worried for a moment about putting her down, perhaps his arms weren't solid enough-
Then he wondered no more. "Oh," Riley said, as mildly as anything else, and then slowly walked over to the unoccupied worktable to ease Annabell onto it, wanting her to sit as comfortably as possible. "You gonna be alright?" he questioned her, but calmly, without urgency or pressure to respond.

Meanwhile, the water girl had been watching the event with a front of indifference just the slightest part troubled. She thought about saying something for a moment, lips parted as if ready to speak, then they pressed themselves into a wobbly, uncertain line.
In her distraction, the tentacle holding Izzy captive fell away into the flood, freeing him.

"How vile," the child perched just opposite of Riley and Annabell was leaning back as far as possible, somehow managing to look both pleased and revolted simultaneously. "I may be covered in wet swamp ick, but at least I don't smell as bad as you," he maintained, shaking his head and spraying droplets from his hair while his hands swept the coating of water off his bare arms.

Izzy, equally drenched as he was, shaking from head to toe from cold and now looking nauseous, crept his way over to the gate to stare down at Quincy through the bars that still stood.

taffy789 • 2 June 2016 at 1:19 AM

Annabell responded to Riley's concern with a shaking little whimper, like one a small dog sitting in the rain would give to be let back inside- a pitiful, weak little noise.
When he eased her onto the table, she gripped the sides with tight knuckles and helped to roll herself onto the metal platform. She sat up abruptly, the pressure on her shoulders unpleasant and making her feel nauseous again...
Her whole body gave a shudder.
"I'll be aa-lright," she breathed out, brushing messy, wet strands of hair out from in front of her face and pretending they hadn't gotten caught in the cross-fire of her vomit, "b-but I'll feel b-better when we get out of h-here."

When the water has started to rise higher, the waves began lapping into Quincy's cut, and the pressure over his bleeding wound became much harder to maintain. Grimacing, he shifted his back against the wall, using it as leverage as he pressed his feet to the opposing wall and attempted to scoot his body up the stairs. He didn't get far, for after three steps the sharp piercing feeling stabbing under his left rib became too much, made him too dizzy, see too many stars, and he had to stop even though the water still licked harsh sea salt into the already stinging wound.
He leaned his head against the cold wall behind him and stared at the blank, slimy, and equally cold-looking wall in front of him, feeling very much trapped between a rock and a hard place- or at least, between two insurmountable obstacles. When a shadow cast over him, blocking the light sourcing radiating out from the small room, he turned his head to see what had happened-
"Oh. Hey, Izz," Quincy said casually, sounding a bit out of breath as he stared back up at the guy looming over him, "Happy to see you're okay, lost sight of ya there for a- a 'sec." He winced, hand tightening around his wound with a fiercer purpose, "I- I saw what you did with the... stabby... blue, thing- that was cool-" he sucked in a deep breath- "And if you could find some bandages or- something? That would be pretty cool too, yeah."



"No. Like I said, I specialize in sensing facts," Zach's power replied with an annoyed tilt of his head, "Not knowing them. Sensing. Intuition."
He leaned back on his palms, eyes cast upwards to the darkened, invisible ceiling.
"Although... sensing spiders on people's heads does fall under that category, yes." His sent a nervous glance towards Raven's head, shivering as he did. "I have to be impressed, Raven, I would never get so close to one of those disgusting things..." He thought of each of those crawling, hairy legs- those eight too many legs- and visibly recoiled.
Then, after Raven mentioned her power, he blinked, curiosity glinting under his eyelashes.
"Oh? You do?" He studied her, carefully, before replying, "You should be careful what you wish for~ Not all powers are as great as me, and the faint memories I have from Zach tell me anything... Your power wasn't the nicest around~"

asi • 2 June 2016 at 5:36 PM

Raven felt an itch and scratched at her head a little before continuing; "Alright, you can sense where Tabs is and what she's doing, but not where my power is and what's happening to her... No, I don't really get it," she said with an offhanded shrug of the shoulders. "But it's no wonder Zach's so nightmarishly difficult, his power's the same way."
She watched him cringe over spiders again, looking visibly unimpressed for her part. She couldn't imagine Zach overreacting like that- for a hilarious few moments she tried to picture it, that dead-faced monotone guy standing on a chair and shrieking at a creature no bigger than three inches wide... Raven muffled a snicker, the vibrations causing her to pay no heed to the little shifts of hair on the frizzy crown of her head.
She sobered up at his next words. "I don't need her to be my friend, I want her so I don't get stuck in nasty holes liked this. If I get another chance I won't put up with any of her crap. I'll get her under control no matter what..." her stare looked hard and sharp enough to pierce through rocks.

taffy789 • 2 June 2016 at 6:17 PM

"I don't know what Tabs is doing!" the power hissed with indigination, "I said her journey would be safe, and we would be rescued. I don't know what she's exactly doing!" Zach's power huffed, "You're putting words into my mouth! And I only knew she had seen you and Zach and would definitely tell others to rescue us because- because-"
He stopped talking, eyes squinting with the effort in took to come up with an answer.
"...Because I just do!" he exclaimed, suddenly, with a pained, confused sort of confidence.
"I just. Know. And that's that. I. Guess?"
He sounded hesistant, as if he, for a moment, had no idea where he was, but then all traces of his lapse disappeared when Raven spoke up again.
"If you want your power back, and want to know about her so badly," the power began, frowning, "I could help you. I can answer questions about your power, but I have no idea where to begin? You're not-" a whine, like a child's complaint- "giving me ANYTHING to work with. It's rather annoying, how you don't listen. Honestly, maybe you should ask Zach about it later, because then at least somebody would be able to guide me in the right direction..."
He trailed off, ending on that soured note, that implication that Raven had completely and utterly failed at what should have been a simple and easy task, as if she should've been born able to properly ultilize an intuition power to its best capabilities.

asi • 3 June 2016 at 1:09 AM

"... Right," Raven agreed after a long moment, looking absolutely a hundred percent convinced, especially with that high quirked eyebrow, definitely. "That makes a lot of sense."
She regained a great sense of normalcy when the complaining started up, although he sounded more like an elementary school Zach than the grizzled leader she'd come to know and hate. Tempting though it was to respond in fashion with a comment about the annoying frequency of his voice, Raven restrained herself with a reminder that she'd graduated that level of education at least some time ago. Probably. If she could transfer down credits from the high school she'd never graduated... Very probably.
But she smiled a little at the offer hiding amidst the all the whining. "I don't really know what I want to know," she sighed softly for a second time, brushing a hand through her messy hair. "I guess knowing if she's still you know, around, ali-EEEE!" she yelped, shooting right out of her seat on the ground as her hand hooked around the spider's rigid little body and it fearlessly crawled on board-
She flung it to the ground and trod on it for good measure. "Not okay," Raven mumbled breathlessly, just recovering.


"Of course," he said sympathetically, with a softening of the eyebrows, as what she said made perfect sense. Glancing back over his shoulder, to where both the girl and the child were watching them, Riley grimaced slightly, but hid the expression before he swiveled back and Annabell could see. A somewhat shaky smile was the only look he'd allow her to see; it didn't look great, exactly, but she looked much worse.
The hands which he'd placed on Annie's upper arms to make sure she sat up steady held for a moment longer as he told her; "I'll just finish up here, then we'll go. So sit tight," he gave a final pat before turning away.
"Finish up? Aw, but Annie and I have only just started getting to know each other," Mael frowned, seeming disappointed.
"Well, as you can see," Riley explained with delicate impatience, "she's done with you. So what do I have to do for you two to let us leave?" he looked between their two adversaries with wary frustration, the bent of his head causing wet hair to flop forward and irritate him with its sticky touch. He swiped it away.
The water looked dubious. "Let you leave...?" She and Mael traded looks; hers akin to a mother badger ready to strike and defend her territory, while his was something else entirely- perhaps the artifice of a fox would describe him best.
Riley sure didn't like any of it, eyes narrowing, but his attention was then pulled by an unlikely demand.
"Bandages," Izzy prompted very abruptly from behind the leader, his hand in snappy supplication.
"Huh? Oh, do I-?" but the guy had already wrested the small backpack off his shoulders and was digging through it, throwing away things like muesli bars and letting them hit the water with a series of musical splashes before sinking out of sight.
"Hey, careful of the..." Realizing the other certainly wasn't listening to him, Riley wisely gave up and returned his attention to the two in time to hear them begin haggling.
"You can have all the medals you want, darling," Mael was promising with glittery dark eyes.
"Olympic gold," the power was insisting, water swelling up around her with the force of her fervor.
"What would that even be worth it if you couldn't earn it in the Games?" Riley butted in, glaring knives at that self-satisfied cat, Mael.
"Oh, but you could!" he shrugged like it was no big deal, smirking all the while. "With your abilities, I'm sure you'll have no problem flushing all the competition away, then you can take your sweet time crossing that finish line."
Riley's brows furrowed fretfully. "But you can't go, lots of people would get hurt..." None of them could return to the normal world if they were just going to get hunt down and innocents caught in the crossfire, right?
She and her water paused, disapprovingly. Her focus was on the child. "There is no line in gymnastics. You get points."
"Gymnastics?" Mael snickered, outright grinning at the display of living water. "Of course, that makes sense. Well you can have it just the same. Heck, why not take the entire Games by storm?" he gave a sly wink, then gestured around the room. "I'm not much for interior design myself, but I think this look would be even greater in a place with much more space. How about an arena, packed with people?"
As the child's voice grew more and more hushed and feverish, as the thrill built up in his eyes until they blazed, Riley managed to pull himself away to snatch up the girl's reaction to it.
She was trembling, but not at all like Mael or even like Annabell was. She just looked frightened.
"... make their screams the new Olympic theme, won't you? It just kills me when they can't seem to hit the notes right. Maybe they'd do better if their own chords were out of their bodies. Without all that mess in the way, it would surely be much easier," Mael was saying, while he rocked up and down in his seat like an excitable little kid.
"Quiet," Riley said suddenly, both to shut that little creep up and to appeal to the witch. "Harmony. Peace. Isn't that what you'd rather have? With this guy's co-operation," he glowered hard at the kid, "we can restore your swamp to you, I'm sure."
Mael smiled widely, splayed his hands and offered again, "Gold medals."
"Swamp," Riley countered.
"All the medals; silver, bronze and iron too," Mael added haphazardly, apparently making things up and inventing new rewards as he went.
"Swamp," Riley replied, insistent.
"Diamonds, platinum, whatever you want," Mael concluded with a tempting flutter of the eyelashes.
"Or swamp," Riley finished unnecessarily, before the both of them turned their expectant faces on her, awaiting an answer.
It seemed like this ultimatum was really a kicker for the girl, because she had her head in her hands and them over her ears like she was trying to stop any more of their words from getting in. A small wail was being emitted from somewhere deep in her throat but nothing else by way of a signal seemed forthcoming.
"We might have broken her," Riley wondered, glancing reluctantly at his competition, who just rolled his shoulders in assent. "In that case, we'll just- go," Riley decided, eyeing up Annabell and wondering how best to shepherd her through the bars and up the stairs.
"It may be best you run," to Riley's surprise Mael agreed, tapping against his cheek with the fingers of the hand he leaned on. Of course his smile only grew when he saw the boy staring. "She might be about to blow."
A glance over to the steps confirmed that Izzy had just finished wrapping about half of Quincy up in a mess of gauze, and was yanking sharply but without much strength on the guy's arm to try and get him moving up.
The water was actually weighing heavily around Riley's hips now, and was creating a serious sense of urgency unless they were planning on swimming on out of here.
"Annabell-" He needed to know she was ready.

taffy789 • 6 June 2016 at 5:14 AM

Annabell’s eyes flittered to the water power, and as she saw the power’s struggling expression, she could almost hear the audible tick tick tick of the living time bomb in front of her sounding off in her head.
Scooting up to the edge of the table, Annabell’s palms pressed flat against table’s edge, leaning forward as if preparing to launch herself across the room at a moment’s notice.
She met Riley’s eyes and nodded at his prompting.
“I’ll be right behind you,” she confirmed, if only a bit shakily.

Quincy braced his hand on Izzy’s shoulder, mouth pressed into a hard line as he slowly picked his body upwards; his sides shuddering and heaving with the shaking gasps he refused to voice himself.
When both his feet found steady ground below him, Quincy immediately shifted his weight to his right foot, swaying further into Izzy, and had to clench his hand behind the other guy’s neck to remain balanced. His head momentarily bobbed onto his boyfriend’s shoulder, and Quincy muttered a quiet “thanks babe” before taking the opportunity to lean over and press clammy lips to Izzy’s cold, drenched cheek- a quick, appreciative- if not remarkably listless- kiss.
The pain shooting up his left side normalizing and numbing as he stood more, Quincy unwrapped his grip on Izzy, stepping up one stair with his right foot and shooting his hand to the wall for support. He brought up his left foot soon after, wincing but declaring still, “I can walk again, I got it”, and Quincy hoped his didn’t sound as overconfident as he felt.


Zach's power smiled as Raven stomped the life out of the spider.
"Good," he stated simply, looking towards its crushed, mangled little body, "It deserved to die."
He said this as if his judgment alone was final, was enough of a universal determinant to allow him to play the part of a god choosing which animals got on the Ark when he flooded the Earth. The spider, clearly, was perceived by him to be unworthy of any life given to it, and so its ill-fated end was impassively brushed over by the power, whose attention drifted elsewhere as a shiver trailed up his spine.
He furrowed his brow, going silent.
"... Good news, Raven," he began after a stretch of consideration of his options, "We are, for sure, going to get saved. Which means that a rescue group is heading over right now, most likely- no- yes, yes they for sure are..." He gave her a happy little grin at this information, "So, good for you! I know you wanted to get out of here, Zach would also appreciate this information had he been not in a coma to receive it~ Good news for you indeed... But-" the smile fell from his face, losing all happy pretense; a very grim, very dark, very Zach-like expression casted its shadow over his cheeks, complete with the acquiescent annoyance humming sub-audible in his agitated body movements, clearly upset by the situation presenting itself but rolling over silently still, "...it's bad news for me." The power finished, rolling his shoulders as the anxiety crawled over his spine again. It reminded him of some many-legged creature of some sort, and the power had to choke back the nausea that simple act of imagination brought on.
He turned his focus back onto the real, back onto Raven.
Frowning, the power crept a deliberate hand behind his back, hiked up his undershirt, and pulled a short dagger from the secretive sheath on the back of his belt.
"But first-" his eyebrows furrowed deeper- "I'm going to need your help with something..."

asi • 7 June 2016 at 6:15 AM

The one who stood before her had a head encircled by long, flowing locks, red hair streaming outwards without any regard for gravity. It twisted and curled and rippled just like a tumultuous river the color of roses and wine; a shade that was echoed in her eyes. Otherwise, the shape, the body and face, were identical. Even if their pose had them slumped inwards, shoulders collapsing on themselves, neck crooked, side muscles clenching at their stomach.
The other one- the power-'s mouth turned down at the corners, and their eyes shone with disappointment. "Won't you even consider it?" they asked.
"I only want to get out," she said lowly, knowing there was no one else to hear her, "I have other places to be!" she flew forward in a fierce charge, plain brown hair billowing out behind her as she lunged, then swooping forward over her face when she was pushed back.
The water welling up around her ankles, dragging her away then extending its clawed hold over her entire form, until it imprisoned her mind, too.
It turned out it didn't take much for the other to win total control of her physical body. But in the privacy of their shared consciousness, she still had at least the freedom to grapple the mental bars and sneer at the blazing red power, "So much for cooperation!"
"Yes," the power agreed with a tone brimming with frustration, and teeth that harshly ground together, "So much for that. You've been an utter pain to work with!"
"You likewise," the girl spat- only for her guts to evaporate as soon as the other turned their attention to the outer world, face becoming enveloped by fear, and despair.


After a split-second's consideration, Riley nodded. "I would've said 'ladies first', buut those two really look like they could use a hand," he told her as an aside, before wading with some haste towards the exit and trusting Annie to follow.
Whilst carefully squeezing his way through the barred door, he took the chance to glance back over his shoulder at the remaining residents of the room one last time.
Predictably, Mael had a cheerful little hand wave ready for him, actually more like a shooing motion than anything else. That in itself was enough to give Riley pause for a suspicious moment, even as the water's cold was attacking his grip on the iron bars. The witch had stopped her noise-making, too, and looked up, over at the child. Her lips were moving, but over the rush of the water and the way her voice was directed away, further into the room, he didn't catch any of it.
Mael's answer was louder and easier, though. "Why, you've seen the state of this place, haven't you? It's downright disgusting, right?" Yet the kid reached down and dipped a hand into the water, despite his repeated reservations about the stuff. When he pulled it out, however, a dagger was pinched between his fingers- Izzy's. "I came to flush this toilet out, of course. It's not like the swamp's much better, but soap can come after. You understand, right?" Mael blatantly twirled the blade round one, twice, three times, quick enough to reduce it to a mere flash of light, until it froze to a standstill. "It was so unclean, something had to be done." He looked up to meet her furious red eyes.
And Riley knew exactly what was going to happen before it did, but with Annabell right behind him-

Izzy seemed to turn to stone at the kiss, and immediately on regaining function, shoved the guy right up against the side of the stairway, too hurriedly to worry about being gentle. He ruthlessly pressed himself up against the bandaged chest, buried his face in Quincy's shoulder and fastened his hands tightly to the wall on either side, pinning the other guy down. The position wasn't exactly ideal... given the circumstances, but it was the only thing that stopped them from being swept away when a sudden torrent rushed down the stairs to the witch's aid.


The late spider got about three seconds of silence and was lucky for that. The news was enough to quickly put the life back into her ever so very, very remorseful eyes. Because, you know, she couldn't use the spider any more to bother that guy. But that didn't matter any more if she was getting out!
Barely suppressing her own, far too genuine smile, Raven flashed that guy a double thumbs up. "Wow, well done. Keep that look up and you'll fool the best of them," she told him seriously, before giving an easy grin. "I knew you had a grumpy jerk in you somewhere."

taffy789 • 7 June 2016 at 3:11 PM

Although normally Quincy would have no objections to the direction Izzy decided to take things in, the slash in his side slamming against the wall sent an "hey, ouch" of protest sounding out from him. He reached out to push the other guy off of his side, but that action was stopped by the intensity with which Izzy held him down with. The protesting hand fell onto Izzy's shoulder instead of pushing him off, and Quincy squirmed only passively in Izzy's grip, discomforted by the pressure on his wound but at the same time noting the body heat that being so close to another person gave out...
The cruel, cold current of water hit as soon as his pallid skin had begun to warm.
Considering the waves hit ribcage deep and slammed into him with all the gall of a child flying off a swing set and expecting to be caught by the parent they gave no prior warning to, Quincy tightened his own grip on Izzy's shoulder and felt grateful that he hadn't slammed back into the bars below for a second time.

Annabell had been squeezing through the bars after Riley, sighing with relief, when the water had hit her like a punch in the gut and sent her reeling back into the prison of a flooded room behind her. She flashed invisible as the water pushed her under, not wanting the attract the attention of the water power any more than she had to.
Unfortunately for Annabell, the swamp girl had other plans.
A familiar sensation of solid water wrapping around her waist made the girl want to vomit again, but before her body could act on any nausea, she felt herself being heaved, lifted out of the water, and she broke the surface in time to catch tail end of the power saying something that sounded like-
"-and if you think the swamp is so disgusting, you can see if this driftwood piercing your gut feels any better-!"
... Annabell could only imagine the look of surprise on the power's face when she saw her water tendril lobbing a weighted nothing at the young child.
And so Annabell had been tossed again by the power, this time in a manner very akin to the common occurrence of an invisible, flailing Capuchin monkey being lugged ten miles an hour at a smaller, smugger Capuchin monkey- the second one notably less sympathetic due to having a certain mischievous air about it, as if it made a frequent habit of stealing people's wallets and unlocking the lion cages at the zoo it escaped from.


"But," Zach's power grumpy frown intensified, and he pulled the knife into full view of Raven, gripping the handle tight "I won't fool them."
The blade pointed itself towards Raven as he gestured to her, groaning in a moody, childish, and very-unlike Zach manner, "That's the problem! I can resolve to try my best but the warning signals are still kicking in! They'll figure me out! I'm in danger!"
Sniffing in annoyance, he carefully laid the dagger in his lap, being extra cautious to where the sharp edges sat themselves.
"So, I have a plan, so I don't have to murder everyone right when they show up to rescue us and try to fight me or pin me down~" He hummed happily, as if that stated outcome was a mere inconvenience left best avoided and not a horrifying reality with the possibility of becoming true.
"I'm going to knock myself out!" he declared with flourish, his chest puffing out as if it were a balloon inflated by pride alone, "When they come, you can say you did it after I- um, Zach's power- went all crazy~ That way, I'll go directly into a holding chamber, and if Zach isn't back from his coma by the time they test me, I can pretend to be him then~ Oh! And you should be the one to test me, that way I'm declared to be Zach no matter what happens~ Sounds like a plan?" He looked towards Raven with eyes hopefully she'd agree that his plan was fool-proof, that it was the best plan she'd ever heard...

asi • 12 June 2016 at 4:11 AM

Izzy drew back by a curling of his spine so he could look over his captive without letting him go. His eye raked up and down Quincy's skin as closely as a razor blade might before stagnating again, growing listless and leaden. "Can pick up 'gain from'ere later," he promised while looking discreetly away out of the corner of his eye.
Then he broke away and begun the hard task of stumbling up the stairs. Soon enough they were past the flooded area and only had to worry about slipping from the water rushing around their feet, as opposed to it swallowing their stomachs like it was beginning to threaten back in the control room.
After climbing the steps that had defeated him on their first round, Izzy stared around distractedly, confused by the absence of the rest of their teammates, who didn't appear to be following like they ought. His foot tapped out his frustration, splashing water all up his other pantleg, but it wasn't like that wasn't soaked already.

"Huh- oh, not again..!" Now, on the other side of the bars, Riley had no way of moving quick enough to do anything more helpful than groan and shove his forehead against the cold bite of the bars. The extraordinary sight of a tentacle of water throwing something that looked like nothing couldn't be mistaken for anything.
Because of this, naturally he couldn't see Mael scoot back on his table and hold his arms out until he caught the heavy nothing only somewhat painfully on his lap.
Although he most certainly gave an almighty wince and huffed as the air was punched out of him, Mael recovered soon enough to give the invisible girl in his arms a wide, arrogant smirk. "You sure like playing princess, huh Annie?" he said before pushing her off him to the side, using both his empty hand and the hilt of the dagger. "Don't touch my urn," he told her before springing over to the second table, closer to the very bewildered-looking power, who was drawing up the water around her once more.


She eyed the sudden knife for a few long moments before unwinding, the new tension slipping out of her stiffened shoulders as Raven listened to his plan. All the while her eyebrows rose. "Sounds like the stupidest one I ever heard," she said finally, when asked. "Zach's already concussed himself into a coma, he still isn't awake and you want to knock his body out again? Sounds like a recipe for brain damage or something."
With shining disbelief in her eyes, Raven continued to stare at him. "Is that seriously the best idea you can come up with? I know Zach's health is crap already, but-"
But nothing, since she really didn't have a good excuse to care... Raven shrugged and tried to give a somewhat positive, encouraging smile. It mostly just looked sardonic. "Hey, if that's what you think'll work. You're the boss, of luck and fortune and whatever." Remembering his earlier existential spiel about luck, she really just said that last part to rub him the wrong way. Plus a cheesy snap of the fingers and wink.
She was pretty thrilled at the prospect of getting out of here, to be honest, and even the dread of her friend possessed by a power wasn't gonna put a damper on that.

taffy789 • 13 June 2016 at 12:37 PM

Despite the cold water that had leeched all warmth from his body, Quincy felt his stomach turn into a space heater at Izzy's words.
"Uh," he replied, lips spreading dumbly, "I'll be, uh, holding you to that."
After that quick exchange, the other boy broke away, and Quincy was freed. Gripping the sides of the wall, he then followed Izzy, staggering up the stairs behind him.


Landing with a painful "oof", Annabell winced hard at the hurt shocking up her injured shoulders, and she cringed even harder at the boy's sardonic claim to her nobility.
Rolling out of his hold, Annabell lay perfectly still and invisible, counting the seconds in her head.
Eight, nine, ten-
Glancing sideways at the boy who had jumped over her to confront the power, Annabell assumed the power was preoccupied enough for her to attempt yet another escape.
Carefully, invisibly, Annabell crawled down from the operating table, stiffening as the cold water enveloped her up to her bruised ribcage. Taking the boy's advice and ignoring the weird, unimportant urn, she moved away from the table, water rippling furtively around her as she did.
Slowly, Annabell crept along the side of the wall, making a careful crawl towards the iron bars once again.


"...There were so many things you said wrong just now." Zach's power stated, sounding honestly offended by every word that had left the girl's mouth.
"First off, I have no domain over luck- er, probability. Secondly, I'm not going to knock myself out by hitting the brain!" Zach's power huffed with indignation at this assumption, "No! I'm not stupid. See, I'm going to poison myse-"
He brandished the knife again, holding it upwards for her to see, but froze solid when he saw Raven's cheesy smile and finger guns pointed his way.
"I-" he began, a stern expression shadowing his face, "I was going to say how there's a tranquilizer coated on this blade, but-" The power skimmed confused eyes over Raven, "Is there any reason you're pointing a gun made out of your fingers at me? Is this..." His eyebrows creased with concern, "Some sort of signal to me that I'm about to meet an ill fate due to my plan? Because if so-" the power's face fell- "I do not need you to signal me anything. I can sense incoming threats to myself better than you can."

asi • 15 June 2016 at 7:00 AM

His face didn't alter in the slightest as the water level finally jumped the table and found his feet, but it twisted unpleasantly when it blasted up from under him like a geyser. Swept up in an onslaught of white, rushing bubbles, there was little Mael could do. His hair, top and pants flapped around him as if possessed by an enraged bird. And while he'd closed his eyes against the watery assault, he couldn't help but notice when his feet took flight. The water only calmed once he was floating suspended in a large bubble of water. Mael opened his eyes and glared at the power responsible while his black hair puffed out freely in the water, like how animals did in order to look bigger when threatened. But on his limbs, the water exerted a tight control, binding him in place. Trapped in this manner, he would drown without being able to move an inch.
At the same time, a loud hissing sound began to build, originating from inside the hovering pool. The water started to froth and its form disintegrate around the pesh-kabz that Mael held, although without any of the sparks or colored glow that Izzy's attack had featured.
The power's relieved face was suddenly torn apart in pain.
The boy grinned and as his arm up to his elbow made it into the air, slashed inwards around his chest, causing the entire structure to collapse with just a few rapid, targeted blows. With all the water splashing uselessly away around him, and all the strength of its grip going with it, Mael landed neatly back on the table in good position to slice up the following tendrils as they tried to regain a hold, or push him back.
He did so, paying no mind to the agonized cries that issued with each movement, nor the growing pleas that he 'please, stay away'. She was retreating in on herself, curling into a ball even as her forces continued to try and hold him off.
"Oh, you'd best be going now," Mael sang out as with each cut, he grew closer to the power.
Then, with a final sense of desperation, a wordless shout rang out, and the power's steel-sharp, pressurized claws of water cut through the grate at the bottom of the stairs.
In a few mere seconds, all the air in the room was taken the sea.


Raven looked down at her hands, blinking wide doe eyes. "What? No. Oh my god," she mumbled to herself, sliding a hand up over her eyes, "I can't believe I'm starting to miss people with a sense of humor." Her head sunk deeper into the support of her shameful hand. "I can't." And a low groan was emitted.
But she recovered soon enough, straightening both her back and her face while her hand fell away to her side. Raven looked, well, mildly irritable. "Since you're so convinced you've got it all worked out, why even ask me? You're going to do what you want, aren't you? Since you know best."

taffy789 • 15 June 2016 at 4:47 PM

As the water level shot up to her chest, Annabell realized the dire situation, sucked in a deep breath, and held it in as the water swallowed her head.
Sea salt stung her eyes as she forced them open, and murky, green water greeted her as her head swiveled around, making currents in the water as it searched for her escape route.
Then, out of the corner of her field of vision, blurred by the blinding salt and debris, a glimpse of dull metal materialized into Annabell's view, and she could've sworn a halo of light enveloped those iron bars in that moment, complete with the heavenly singing choir and all.
Her muscles moved in unison, every nerve perfectly remembering all those YMCA swim lessons she'd taken throughout elementary school. She shot forward underwater, arms rotating in a quick breaststroke until her hands found the bars in front of her and- with a final pull- Annabell shot through her prison and surfaced on the other side of the flooded stairwell.
Gasping but overcome with extreme relief, Annabell turned visible and let loose a wild, joyous little laugh at what she'd just escaped, unaware of how Quincy was standing directly above her bobbing head, ankle deep in sea water and staring at the floating, giggling girl as if she were some monstrous, undiscovered deep sea fish that had suddenly washed up on the beach.
Carefully stepping backwards up the stairs to escape the rising water, Quincy worriedly glanced around the stairwell for the leader he had been in charge of protecting.



"Well, yeah," Zach's power admitted with a blink, "I do know what's best, usually, so of course I'm going to do what I want."
He said this, picking up the knife and experimentally poking at the blade's tip without piercing his finger's skin.
"And I want to not have to kill Tabs when she tries to attack me."
With that the power raised the knife and cut a shallow slit along the length of his right forearm, and he reared back with a wince as blood began bubbling from the line made-
"Ow!" he exclaimed, blinking furiously, "I forgot- I forgot that would hurt me!"
He set the knife down and spent the next few minutes rubbing his left hand along the cut, smearing blood all over the length of his arm.
"Feeling things is weird and unpleasant," he complained, continuing to agitate the wound further, "and I am going to be happy when Zach comes back... so I don't have to deal... with all this.... living stuff."
His hand wrapped tightly around his arm, the power got on his knees and scooted closer to Raven, swaying slightly as he shoved his right arm towards her.
"Can you, mm, bandage this wound too?"
When his left hand stopped supporting his arm, the limb immediately dropped like weights had been tied to it and limply dangled at his side.
"Although I guess it's not that important," Zach's power hummed, a fog swirling in his brown irises, "'cause I can't 'eel no pain on it anyways~~~ I... feel-"
His knees going numb under him, the power lost his balance and allowed his head to descend straight into Raven's lap.
"Nothin'," he muttered, his left arm snaking behind Raven's waist and loosely remaining there as the boy's body relaxed completely on top of Raven's legs, the entire weigh of Zach's torso snuggling against her thigh.

asi • 16 June 2016 at 5:39 AM

Although she looked fairly peeved by his first admission, the second statement left her grimly mollified somehow. It was really comforting to Raven, if even this power was taking into account the health of their teammate for all of about three hours. That or he was just getting her to lower her guard so he could, uh, slice himself up, presumably to play to his sick, self-harming masochistic tendencies? Someone less restrained than Raven might have hurt themself rolling their eyes too hard at that suggestion.
There was a follow-up to that motion directly afterwards as the pitiable power expressed surprise at the sensation of pain in response to cutting up his skin. "If it makes you feel any better, I'm still pretty sure Zach never has to deal with feeling things either," she still managed to snark away while watching the poison take its toll with an interest just teetering on the edge of morbid. It seemed to be starting with his mobility. "Yeah, I can ba-" He fell onto her. "..."
Raven took the opportunity to practice her least amused expression. "I am like this close," she illustrated with a very tight pinch between her thumb and forefinger, "to pushing you off." Despite this, she made no move to get rid of him, only shifting very slightly to a more comfortable position, and then not being able to resist sticking her hand in his soft, powerfied light brown hair.
"How long should this poison take to knock you out? How long are Tabs and the others going to take?" she wondered then rather belatedly.

taffy789 • 16 June 2016 at 11:08 PM

"Abit afer for mituts," the power answered into Raven's thigh, the right side of his mouth hanging open against her leg, "uuhd tuub eer e air uhn."
Then, from Zach's mouth no longer came any attempt at vocal communication; there only dripped out drool.
Despite the threat of Raven pushing him off, the power made no move to remove his drooling face from Raven- mostly because every muscle in his body had gone limp by this point in time.