Private Roleplay~ IOD

asi • 17 June 2016 at 8:21 PM

As the water surged up around him, threatening to swallow him whole, Riley was fumbling, warring with the zip. The moment he was sure everything wouldn't fall straight out, he shoved the bag back over his shoulder and clicked on the spare waterproof torch he'd retrieved. Through the all-encompassing darkness and debris of the water, its beam of light shot out, hitting the broken skeletal bars of the door between Riley and the other room. But only for a moment. It flickered out almost instantaneously, and Riley frowned down at the thing in frustration. Apparently it wasn't all that waterproof- the salt probably did it in. But at least it hadn't gone on to electrocute them all...
Allowing the useless thing to drop from his hand and sink heavily to the steps, Riley struggled for a moment with all the little particles of sea-gunk floating past his eyes, and the strange question of why the salt wasn't stinging his open eyes. Those few disorientated moments were soon broken by the turbulence of someone pushing past through the water- by the glimpse of yellow he caught plus the size of the disturbance, Riley bet it was Annabell, with no small relief.
But still holding his breath, he wasn't ready to follow. He glided back over to the iron bars and pressing his face forward, tried to peer through...

At the surface, there was an ominous wait, filled only with the constant streaming of water down the walls, and the slow pouring of water up the stairs. It was only a few short of the full set as it was. Soon enough the flood would set its sights on this corridor too, although the sea seemed to have stopped its approach and left further progress up to the swamp once more. Izzy was clenching his hands tight around his opposite sides and shivering violently, teeth even chattering a little while the water slowly slid down him. One of his legs couldn't stop bouncing either, but that was more to do with anxiety and impatience as he passed those awkward seconds staring at the flooded stairs and waiting for their leader to surface.
Which he finally did, nearly a full minute later, with a big almighty gasp. After wiping back the now dark brown-appearing hair from his eyes, Riley clambered out of the stairwell, speckled with bits of seaweed and kelp and with a face blue enough that he wouldn't have looked out of place in a horror movie.
Izzy couldn't be blamed for retreating ever so slightly, although he watched to make sure that the guy recovered his breath, and color slowly did return to Riley's face.


Raven didn't understand any of that, and yet the next thing that issued from his mouth still managed to improve on levels of uselessness. Luckily, she was a resourceful girl with a solution to almost any crisis. With the bandages she was going to seal his arm with, she stuffed his mouth. That neatly soaked up the saliva and made everything so much more comfortable for her- besides, it's not like that numb guy could feel or taste it. So there!

taffy789 • 17 June 2016 at 10:20 PM

Quincy was holding out his hand, helping Annabell out of the water and into a standing position, when Riley surfaced.
His concerned, “Four, are you okay?” died on everyone’s ears, drowned out by the blonde’s louder, more shocked cry of, “Riley!”
She scrambled to her feet and rushed over to the leader, kneeling near him as he recovered his breath.
As the guy’s face drained of that unhealthy blue sheen, Annabell hovered over him, worry blatant in her expression.
“You feeling okay?” she stuck out her hand for the leader to grab and pull himself up with, “Because I think it would be best that you felt okay, considering we still need to climb back out of this hole, after all…” Despite that horrid reminder, the small, good-natured smile she gave following those words lent a teasing atmosphere to the situation, making the prospect of abseiling back up that small rocky cliff somehow more bearable in Quincy’s mind…
… He still wasn’t looking forward to the climb up, though, not when he felt the keen effects of blood loss draining him.
Directing his attention away from the fog weighing down on his mind and body, Quincy stepped up the stairs, slightly bumping into the other, more anxious boy as he moved upwards. Taking note of Izzy’s incessant shivering, Quincy resisted the overwhelming urge to wrap his arm around his boyfriend’s waist, pulling him close to warm them both, and he instead funneled his intense desire for heat into a more situationally appropriate response.
“I think we should get out of here, and uh, fast,” he said, glancing towards Four to see if the leader had recovered, “before the swamp witch comes back for us.”

asi • 17 June 2016 at 11:52 PM

"I'm fi- fine, fine," Riley spluttered a little, tasting salt somehow in his mouth despite never having opened up and left it unguarded. His clothes and especially his (very shredded) jacket felt heavy with water, so he accepted the help standing, giving Annie what could only be called a rather dim-wattage smile in return. "Y-yeah... We'd better hurry," Riley agreed with Quincy, then spared a surprisingly timorous glance back at the water-filled stairs. "But I don't think it's her we need to worry about..."
Izzy was too busy being cold and hard-of-seeing to be very confused by the leader's words. As well as the rest of his body, his nose was also twitching- an effort to determine from where exactly they'd come- but all he got was a nostril full of sea-smell, causing his face to cramp up. The water in the stairs glowed a little from the lights at the bottom, but as for the rest of the caverns, his one little eye could scarcely make anything out...

taffy789 • 18 June 2016 at 1:02 AM

Raising an eyebrow as she helped Riley up, Annabell glanced questioning eyes over her friend.
"... Do I want to ask what we should be worried about, or should we just start running?" she asked, already tugging Riley up the stairs by his arm.
"... It better not be something like sharks," she muttered in addition after a short moment of consideration.

asi • 18 June 2016 at 1:47 AM

"No... No," Riley corrected after the first attempt had a rather uncertain delivery. "I shouldn't think there'd be sharks, and regardless-" he gestured at the low water levels in the corridor that could threaten little more than to slip one up. They definitely wouldn't support the swimming of any man-eating shark he could picture. Piranhas, maybe, but while IOD definitely had a unique geography, it had yet to reveal freshwater fish emerging from the sea.
"Anyway," he said whilst giving a nod to Quincy to lead them on their way, "I'd definitely recommend we at least leave before we all freeze to death," Riley noted Izzy's sorry state, although he himself didn't feel too bothered. His arms barely seemed able to raise goosebumps for it.

taffy789 • 18 June 2016 at 3:08 AM

Annabell opened her mouth, wanting to ask Riley again, what exactly he assumed they should be worried about, but was silenced when Quincy nodded and declared, "Let's get out of here, then."
As the guy began to stagger up the stairs, Annabell found herself not caring what lurked under the water as long as she could escape the horrid caverns...
"Hey, let me help you," Annabell called out to Quincy, stepping up the stairs two at a time and quickly catching up to the guy.
"What?" he blinked back at her, "No, don't worry, I'm fine." He tried to wave it off, but Annabell rebounded with a "You seem hurt pretty bad, and you're rather pale. Are you sure..?"
Quincy froze, then, sighed.
Sliding up to Annabell's side, he placed a reluctant hand on the girl's shoulder and allowed her to ease him up the remaining stair steps.


After what felt like thirty minutes to anyone stuck in a dark hole with nothing to do but get drooled on, loud scraping and general commotion became audible near the bent, twisted metal door in the bunker that held back a sea of dirt and debris.
Then came the shouting, then the shifting of rocks, and then- like a glaring search beacon- the first crack of sunlight to hit that dusty concrete floor in years.
Followed by the light immediately taking on a dark blue tint as an aura of energy consumed the metal door and ripped it violently from its hinges.
“DUCK!” came the belated warning as the door was thrown backwards in a blinding blue arc and landed somewhere on a far-off hill with an audible crash.
Followed by the crash quickly came the panicked screams of terror, and the startled, unfamiliar voice exclaiming with an angry shout, “JASON, WHAT THE-”
“I SAID DUCK!”
Two hands hit the doorframe the metal door’s hinges were once attached to, and a tall, powerful body swung her way into the bunker, landing on the concrete flooring with all the grace and demeanor of a large, annoyed wild cat of some sort.
“Jason, she’s right,” Tabs said reproachfully, tossing a purposeful glance back through the doorway, “As your superior, I must remind you to think before you act. You have to ask yourself: Is what I’m about to do really all that necessary?”
A loud scoff sounded from the other side of the doorway. “Uh? Did you see how far I was able to throw that thing? That had to be a new personal record so- heck yeah that was necessary!”

“…” Not bothering a response, Tabs turned her attention and flashlight to the inside of the bunker, and she took one step forward into it-
A crunch echoed underfoot, and upon shining her flashlight down, a frown crossed her cheeks as she saw a Special-K bar trampled under one boot. Also present- what appeared to be a streak of blood…
Following the blood trail with her flashlight, she was lead straight to the sitting form of Raven, and she blinked in greeting to the assistant.
“Glad to see you look alive.” Tabs breezed through that formality, and then shone her flashlight on the limp form of Zach, “Your boss? Looks less so. What’s his status?”
Tabs descended on the seemingly injured leader before Raven could reply, her hands touching at the bandages on his head-
Her fingers froze there, her memory buzzing at the strange sight of her own black skin contrasting against that… brown hair?
Realization shocking through her, Tabs reared her hand back from the guy’s head and turned to Raven, searching the assistant’s own face for any indication of how she should feel about the current situation.
Still, the most prominent emotion Tabs. right felt off the bat, was…
“Don’t tell me we already lost another leader to this crap,” Tabs muttered with a huffy sigh.
… Annoyance.

asi • 18 June 2016 at 11:27 PM

Seeing the other two team up to go ahead, Riley glanced at Izzy, who didn't pay him any attention but rubbed at his tiny button nose and followed. So Riley hurried to do so too.
Behind them, the water pooled in the stairs continue to crawl upwards, shining faintly with the artificial light from below, but its surface remained flat and unbroken.
The group navigated their way through the extensive system with surprisingly little difficulty- Riley was sure he hadn't been paying enough attention to remember reliably, but it didn't matter because Quincy and Annabell had it down. He sighed in relief and almost stomped on someone's back when he wasn't paying attention.
"Christ, what are you doing on the ground?" he drew in a sharp breath and pulled back his foot before it could land on pliable human.
A volley of incoherent foreign mumblings issued before a slightly more intelligible; "Whaddya think, I tripped!"
"Ok," Riley reached down and grabbed the kid's arm to help him up. "Well next time, don't just lie there, maybe say something?" Just a suggestion.
Izzy used his own force to push himself up, then completely misinterpreted the offer by choosing to latch onto the leader- while also scowling like he hated every second of it.
"Can you actually not see down here?" Riley asked with one skeptic brow raised.
Wet hair was shaken back and forth furiously. "'N' I can't smell 'cause it stinks o'fish!" Izzy complained.
Somehow, after all the near-fatal strangeness that had happened down here to them, this struck Riley as funny. Probably because sometimes this kid seemed something akin to a sleepy sun-loving cat, yet now he was whining about fish. Yes, the comparison was pretty apt now it occurred to Riley. "Pffft," he snorted, covering his mouth with his spare hand.
"S'not a joke," Izzy's frown deepened, and the leader quieted. They went on a while longer in silence, finally climbing their way out of the largest cavern, without anyone having a particularly painful experience with feet and broken glass or pointy stalagmites. Maybe the cosmos had decided to give them a break, because the underground remained deathly silent and still, save for the flowing water underfoot.
"It was pretty cool what you did earlier, how did you-" Riley was about to ask when the other's single eye flashed angrily, causing him to halt mid-sentence.
"Did you get my pesh-kabz?" Izzy asked quietly, but with such unusual clarity that Riley had no problem picking it up over the sounds of their walking and the running water.
Riley was trying to figure out the best way of answering without any mind-reading cheats when they emerged into the chamber from whence they'd came. Streams of pale light filtered down from the tear in the earth above, along with a single line of rope.
A child was sitting cross-legged where the light pooled at the bottom, playing with said length of rope, twisting and tying it in a variety of ways. He didn't look up when they entered, just continued minding his own business and humming the... Jaws theme? It sounded surprisingly classical, yet recognizable.
"You..." Riley said lowly, being able to see just over Annabell's shoulder, whereas Izzy, only now opening his one bleary eye, was still in the dark.


Raven looked up and was instantly smacked into a daze by the first burst of sunlight. So much so that the typical teenage yelling and squabbling went right over her head, and she failed to react until someone was standing right in front of her- Tabs, she realized at the familiarity- and reaching out for the boy in her lap.
"Don't-!" She belted out before her brain kicked into gear and Raven jammed her mouth shut. Because had she seriously been about to tell the other girl not to touch him? She may be his assistant, a role that sometimes doubled as bodyguard when the situation called for it, but this... Didn't... Call for that.
Evidence of her embarrassment tinged Raven's cheeks as she took a deep breath of wonderfully fresh air and tried to explain. "He's fine, or he will be, he just got... Knocked on the head then poisoned into paralysis," her mouth turned down at the edges in lack of amusement at how very bad that sounded, but she shook her oddly springy hair and gave Tabs a look that couldn't be argued with. "He just needs rest, then he'll be himself again." There was no room for doubt in her clear-cut tone.
That said, Raven stood in a scramble, pulling with some difficulty the limp leader's body up with her, ready to pass him off onto the other, clearly more suitably-built girl.

taffy789 • 19 June 2016 at 12:47 AM

While a shining joy exploded in Annabell's chest when she caught glimpse of the exit, the sight of the familiar child destroyed all feelings of happiness in the next second and summoned a dark overcast of thunderclouds to rain on any metaphorical parade she was planning on throwing.
She may have been too busy groaning to speak to the boy, but Quincy was free from any tangling malice, so he was able to voice his confusion.
"What's the kid doing here?" Quincy asked, noticing the recognition flashing in his teammates' eyes. He looked sympathetically towards the child, "Are you, uh,extremely lost, or-?"
"No," Annabell answered, finding her voice again and glaring warily at the small boy, "He's not lost. Just sociopathic."
"..." That comment gave Quincy more questions than answers, but he caught the mood and didn't push it further; he took a more defensive stance instead.

asi • 19 June 2016 at 7:26 AM

Mael snorted, looking up with a glint in his coal black eyes as the light streaming from above almost turned his hair grey at the lack of brown undertones. Earlier he'd been dosed entirely by water down in the control room, and indeed the whole place had been subsequently flooded with him in it. Yet every inch of the Mael that greeted them by the entry pit was dry, from head to toe, hair even fluffed out like it had had a good half hour with shampoo, conditioner and a dryer. "Rude, Annie," he reproved her with a snicker. "We haven't even sat down together and you're psychoanalyzing me?"
Riley exhaled a long-suffering sigh and pushed to the front of their little group, past Quincy and Annabell. "What do you want from us?"
The kid pretended very plainly to be surprised by the question. "What I want from you?" he repeated with classically wide eyes, while getting to his feet. "Why, I already got it! You all very kindly helped me determine the source of my woes and subsequently put a stopper to it- or should I say, pull the plug. Wash it down the drain? Hmm." He seemed to have hit upon a personal conundrum. But Mael waved it aside, and with that motion, something fell from the sleeve of his jacket (the one he'd taken off to give to Izzy, which had then been abandoned the water; he had it back now, perfectly dry) and into his left hand. "But look how clean this place is now! It seems to have an entirely new spirit. All traces of muck and grime and other horrors just swept away; it's thanks to your help," he splayed his empty right directly over his heart. "I wanted to congratulate you all on being so very good," Mael smiled, with teeth.
"My pesh-kabz," Izzy hissed out, clawing his way to Riley's side.
"Ohhh," Mael blinked and his eyes slid over to the dagger which he'd been swinging dangerously close to the rope he was taking care of. "Is this yours? Indeed it is. Well," he looked closer. "I assume so, I can't actually read this crap, what is it, Arabic?" he spoke disdainfully. "Woooow."
Clearly not caring much for this line of questioning, Izzy lurched forward, held back only by Riley's new grip around his forearm. "Gimme i' back!"
It spun around Mael's fingers once, twice. "Suuure," the kid stretched his syllable again, grin widening. "Oh, but I shouldn't throw it!" His eyebrows quirked down in mock-concern. "That's dangerous, you know. You'd better come here and get it."
Izzy seemed very prepared to go over there and take Mael up on his word, but Four wouldn't let him. "I'll go, you stay- and that's an order," he told the guy, who appeared rather cross but nodded.
"It isn't yours," Mael pointed out, but Riley countered with a simple, "Of course it is, I'm leader," to which there was a shrug, a smile and no further complaint.
After trying to communicate a reassuring look to the others, Riley traversed the treacherous ground with care before looking up and approaching the objectively worse child.
Mael whipped the blade around to offer it handle-first.
Riley showed him his hand, palm upturned.
Mael gave yet another little smile and extended his left arm- then drew it back sharply and followed up with a mean right hook which sent the leader reeling. He would have followed that up with a slash to the stomach, but in a flash Riley had his swords out and blocked it, in spite of the knock to the head he'd taken which should've left him out cold on the floor.
But he was caught off guard yet again when, accompanied by the boy's laugh, a sudden deluge of water seemed to erupt straight out of the weapon Mael was holding, almost sweeping Riley and the others away.
It ended quickly enough, though when it did and Riley scrubbed the water from his eyes and looked, the kid was gone.
The rope was left hanging, fully intact, only tied at the end into a more than convincing noose.

taffy789 • 19 June 2016 at 11:55 AM

When the water had lashed out towards the group, Quincy had stepped forward, waving his hand out in an arc and tossing up a long force field that protected the three from getting drenched again.
Then, peering through the green tint of his power's energy, something caught his attention and he threw his arm skyward before the stopped water even hit the ground.
While Annabell was pulling a face at the distasteful noose, Quincy's eyes were turned up, to the second force field he'd created around the rope, to stop the kid at near the top from escaping out of the pit.
"Guys, up there," Quincy huffed, his force field weakly humming in response to his exhaustion, "There's a kid at twelve o'clock."



"Keyword here bein' himself?" Tabs said, eyebrows raising incredulously, "I just spent twenty minutes fighting off a feral with changed, brown hair- I know a feral when I see one. Don't tell me you didn't notice anything..."
Tabs grabbed Zach's armpits as the limp body was offered to her, and she grimaced, confused, at the bandages stuffed into his mouth.
"... Do I wanna to know what occurred in here?" she asked deliberately, pulling the bandages from his cheeks. Despite the drool that immediately splattered against her knuckles and continued to drip down Zach's chin, Tabs fearlessly heaved the leader over her shoulder, grunting with the effort. "In any case, y'all both need healers and rest, and this guy needs an observation room. I'll need your help in writing the report to base later, of course, and so you can fill me in on all the exciting details then."
With that, Tabs turned from Raven and made her way back to the opening above her.
"Unconscious feralized leader, coming in hot!" she exclaimed as she lifted Zach's body out through the opening with much strenuous effort. A second pair of hands reached down to pull Zach out, and Tabs pulled herself up after them, disappearing completely from the dark hole in the ground.

asi • 19 June 2016 at 2:30 PM

It didn't matter because he still had the knife. Gripping the rope with just one arm and his feet, Mael cut away at the barrier until it was forced to fall apart, his freedom guaranteed. He sprung out of the pit and out of sight.
"... Nice try," Riley consoled their magical barrier guy, although personally he was still staring dazed at the speed with which the kid had scaled that rope. He wasn't sure he knew anyone who could have matched that. It was like the boy wasn't even confined by the rules of this universe. While on his side, Riley was just impressed they had someone who could still work to slow after all the exhaustive crap they'd just been through.
Still, when the full coil of rope fell down at his feet with just the ceremony of a short-lived spiraling dance, rough-cut end meeting that ridiculous noose, it stung a little.
Izzy started spitting out curses in his native speech again.


"Of course I did!" Raven refuted, looking outright disgusted by the insinuation, adding mentally that it was a lot harder with your eyes closed and also lips puckered- a thought that really didn't do much for her blush. But never mind that. Raven agreed wholeheartedly with the rest of Tabs' sentiments, being in no state to pick a fight either way.
She gratefully allowed herself to be led back up into the open air and the light.

taffy789 • 19 June 2016 at 4:33 PM

Quincy had staggered backwards with every slash of the knife, forcing his energy to rebuild, strengthen, and reinforce after each attack.
Ultimately, the green barrier began to flicker and shutter until one nasty cut hit and it died with only a slight little, final fizz and pop of energy, like a lightbulb burning out.
Quincy dropped his arm to his side, swaying and fighting a rising nausea surfacing in his gut. It tickled the inside of his wound, and he went deaf to Riley's words of consolation, not hearing anything over the static in his brain.
Sometime after Izzy started cursing, Quincy took a knee before fully laying down on the ground, his back cold against the wet rocks.
"Just gunna rest here for a bit," he muttered, listless, "Kinda overdid it."

Annabell took some time away from mentally breaking her head against a wall to glance over Quincy, who looked surprisingly pale.
She bent down, briefly touching a hand to his forehead.
"I'll say," she commented, moving her hand to the floor and dabbing it into the water, "You feel warm." She brought the cupped handful of water up and poured some over the guy's head.
Then, Annabell looked up to Riley, concern etched into her expression, "So, we wait down here until somebody comes to get us?"

asi • 19 June 2016 at 7:28 PM

Looking disappointed, Riley nodded solemnly and brought his wristwatch up to his face, pressing a small button on the side as he did so. The device emitted a small series of beeps, and then he began to talk into it. "Hey, this is Four, we just got stuck beneath the hole, over... Well, some of us are badly hurt, over..." He then looked around him discreetly. "The water-level's rising, we might also drown, please hurry..." Riley then proceeded a weird strangling noise then shut off the bridge of communication with a second robotic ditty.
One of them appeared rather less than absolutely impressed by his timing, but at least they were getting out and Riley wouldn't have to be trapped in a horrible sea-stinking cave with an angry Izzy for an indeterminate amount of hours.
A very tired and disgruntled-looking kid appeared without much delay, took in their immediate surroundings and their expression grew rather vexed, but they nonetheless agreed to teleport the lot back to base.

taffy789 • 19 June 2016 at 10:32 PM

After the ceremonial hand holding that came with any teleportation, Annabell's feet hit the safe metal of the base, and she couldn't have felt any more relieved.
The teleporter gave a sideways glance to Quincy (still bleeding through his bandages and unable to stand), muttered something about getting a healer, and poofed away again.
While she waited for the teleporter to return, Annabell sat on the floor, her back hovering near a wall but not quite touching it- as if the metal wall was a fire and she was just warming her shoulders.
"Well, we made it," she sighed happily, blinking up at Riley, "And, um, feel free to not put how I got tricked and trapped by an eight year old in whatever report you need to fill out about this, um, okay?"
She meant that statement as a joke, but she found that more authenticity rang out in her words than intended.
"Um." Annabell decided to change the subject and nodded her head towards the watch on Riley's wrist, "That thing came out of nowhere, but we're lucky it did. I'm guessing it didn't get signal deeper into the caverns, huh?"

asi • 19 June 2016 at 11:37 PM

"Well, I suppose I can put in a word with One for you, and you know Katrix, she'll be cool about it, probably," he reassured her rather teasingly, recognizing the humorous light she'd intended. But knowing Riley actually would have to write a report or two on this, he made sure to confirm; "He said his name was, uh, Spencer, right? And you don't actually think he was eight, do you...? We should probably go over everything he said to you." He considered this carefully before her next question shot a jolt of electricity down his spine.
"It sure didn't," Riley lied smoothly, the words partnered with a shifty look around their current setting as if for any lurking officials who might pop out and correct him with a smug, 'well, actually...' Safety thus secured, his face flushed with just a touch of shame as he continued to tell Annabell, "Us leaders are held to be extremely responsible, therefore capable of not losing and-slash-or getting our cellphones broken, and also not getting ourselves into desperate emergencies..."
He smiled apologetically at her before turning to detach the long-forgotten longer-since-used abseiling harness from his person, stepping out of its restraints and letting it drop to the floor. Literally not being able to wait to get rid of his sopping wet clothes- he wanted nothing to do with the foolishness the shuddering bundle of Izzy displayed- Riley stripped quickly down to just his pants, taking advantage of his male privilege by casting his torn-up jacket and shirt off in the semi-public space.
It didn't bother him much until he realized Izzy had stopped shivering to gape at him. "What?" Riley called him out defensively.
"... Your back," Izzy winced, hiding his face behind his knees where he sat. "Y-yowch."
This took a few moment to sink in. He remembered what had seemed like the glancing hit he'd taken from the water girl's claws; it couldn't be that bad. "Huh? But I don't feel a thing," Riley hesitated, trying to twist around and see, and at the same time realized that although water had definitely done its work on his clothing, there was still distinct traces of red where the backs had been torn...

taffy789 • 20 June 2016 at 1:25 AM

"I can go over everything with you later," Annabell assured him, "I'll remember everything- my memory tends to be pretty great."
Then, he pulled off his shirt, and Annabell's eyes were immediately drawn to his bare back...
...Because of the painful scars decorating it, not due to any other reason, of course.
"... Although, we should all see healers first, okay?" she said decisively, giving Riley a meaningful stare in hopes of keeping him from thinking too hard about the lack of pain in his back, "I mean, even he got a nasty hit on the head!" She exclaimed, motioning towards Izzy.
"I think healing and rest are the definite first priorities to think about..."
At that moment, the teleporter arrived, a tired looking healer in hand.
Immediately, the guy took one glance around the group before deciding the injured guy collapsed on the ground took priority over the similarly injured guy standing up.
Sending an obvious "you're next" look Riley's way, the healer squatted down to first work on Quincy.
Sighing, Annabell ignored the dull pain still echoing through her shoulders, patiently awaited her turn, and thought nice thoughts about the bed in her room anticipating her return.

asi • 20 June 2016 at 8:17 AM

The medical wing was not somewhere anyone really wanted to have to go. Not even he'd wanted to be there, left behind, useless though he was at the slicing and the kicking and the punching and the running. He'd wanted to stay fighting with his friends.
He'd thought it was all over when Spence walked him into that place, filled with the stink of antiseptic, groans, crying and the occasional scream. None of those things really bothered him, except for the thought that the boy might walk back out of this place- but without him.
Spence wouldn't meet his eyes, but was staring straight ahead. The kid had the kind of dark gaze that couldn't be broken, unswerving and determined to a fault. Shoes clipping lightly on the linoleum, Spence strode up to one of the beds and took the hand of the girl who sat there, sniveling her poor little heart out.
He watched warily as his friend leaned in close, wiping away the startled girl's tears. Although reluctant to hear the argument the kid would undoubtedly give, his curiosity wouldn't let him turn away. "Why are you so upset?" Spence asked ever so kindly, tone infused with sympathy, warm and comforting like a good cup of tea. Because Spence was never fair.
The answer could be read so clearly in her eyes; 'What if I never get better? What if I'm stuck here forever?' But Spence only smiled softly, yet compellingly, and answered, "Contrary to popular belief, this place isn't about wishing on a star. It's about working hard. You can't leave the heavy lifting to everyone else. Put in the effort yourself, and allow this place to do what it's meant to: make you better, of course."
Spence's eyes remained on the girl, but he knew enough to know who was really targeted by the words; "And you do want to get better, don't you?"
As the girl nodded with newfound resolution, he found himself feeling surprisingly bitter. If only she could know what meant so much to her meant so little to the speaker. But he was disturbed into attention as his friend called him over now. "Elliss."
Grudgingly his feet led him over. He stared down at the pathetic girl while Spence convinced her; "See this man? He can help you get better if you'll help by believing in him. You will, won't you?" And Spence looked him in the eye finally as he said, "After all, you'll want to be ready for when the world might need you again."
Alright, Spence... He'd do it your way.


She saw Zach through to the observation room before she consented to herself being treated. Nothing had actually happened to her in that battle, Raven had only collected a few scrapes and bangs in the end. Well, that and they discovered she really had broken her little toe, but...
She talked to the healers while they worked- at her insistence, having stressed the importance of immediate isolation- solely on the leader, and learned a lot. It had struck her immediately as odd that they even had healers on hand, even if it was only two, considering the previous rule on the matter. But things were changing. It turned out One had reversed the ruling, which had only ever been an emergency measure so the Falchions could replenish their skilled stock after that disaster. These two were just the advance lot, with more on the way. That also explained why the two actually seemed on their game- they'd be in charge of managing the (largely incompetent) herd.
They were good enough to realize something was seriously wrong.
Laying awake now in that dirty little cubby of a room she had been given, Raven stared upwards but didn't see the ceiling; she saw nothing but the bleak look on their face as they'd told her it couldn't be fixed. She didn't hear the low snores next door for the sobriety of their tone as they'd said how it was too late, her arm had healed that way. And they could only speed up the natural process, and altercations had to be made at the time, not in retrospect, because that just didn't work.
So now? She was stuck like this, by work of her own folly.
With jerky, tremulous movements, Raven stretched and pushed, trying to force the stiff limb up higher. But it stopped before it reached over her head and refused to budge any further. A little more sweating and straining only rewarded with a blaze of pain shooting down the offending arm and all the way across her back. The muted cry of fright given so unwillingly sounded even more loathsome in the darkness.
At least if she curled up and let it, sleep would take her.


It was a long time before they'd let him leave. They'd wanted Izzy to stay too, so he could be observed for any ill effects of concussion, and the boy had stared over at Riley almost the entire duration of his stay. It had really given him the creeps! But eventually even Izzy was dismissed, let back to his own quarters with no more fuss than a box of pills and a careless handwave, so why were they taking so long with Riley? For the leader in question, it was beyond baffling.
At one point, one of the silly nurses nearly gave everyone in the ward a heart attack by jumping away from his bed shrieking that he hadn't a pulse!
Everyone kicked up a fuss, but Riley knew it was stupid, he could feel it coursing through himself. Dark, thick and strong, there was energy flowing inside his body, and what else could that mean if not that he was utterly, indisputably alive? But Riley couldn't see his back, after all, so he had to entrust his treatment to this suspiciously nervy bunch of nurses.
They finally let him go with a bunch of liquids and ointments pressed into his back that they kept warning him would sting, yet never even caused him a twinge, and a mass of bandages embracing all of his torso. It was downright embarrassing, but if that's what it took to get out Riley wasn't about to kick up a fuss. Ignoring their pleadings for a him to take a proper meal, he whistled his way back to his room, sweet room, and flopped down on the delightfully giving mattress, supposed wound not giving him trouble in the least.
There was just one problem. A small one at that.
Riley couldn't seem to sleep.


No, no, no, this couldn't be happening. It was a nightmare through and through. Though the air was pierced again and again by quick jabs of chill, icy spears erupting from both the air and out of the ground, everything was as if slick with water, and Zan could feel himself slipping.
She was too fast. If he held on for an instant too long, 'Verse would steal his effort away from her, his ice would fall apart, splash down as liquid and scatter into the rock, and his chill would turn to heat, robbing all he had left to work with from the air. But if he tried to keep up, make his attacks as if lightning, and fight to strike her down? Well, it turned out Zan's auto-aim was rubbish.
He couldn't win, and the moment he realized that was the moment 'Verse got her knee into his gut. Hard.
It went black and white and red for him from there.

As soon as he was released, Bliss hurried to the power's side. It wasn't looking good for the guy, his breathing was audibly labored and that was to say nothing for the amount of clear evidence in red...
But Bliss was ready. He'd been told he'd needed to fight the loser, well, he'd apply his own brand of fighting, and he'd show them that it was more than as impressive as anything anyone else could do. In his own way, he was truly a force to be reckoned with.
A creamy glow akin to the milky-way took the room as Bliss concentrated everything he had left on restoring that pale white skin into one flawless piece. He succeeded, and promptly collapsed on the floor in Zan's place, a feverish heat flooding his body and going straight to his head. He looked completely and utterly out of it, much to the shock and agitation of the newly recovered ice power.
Rai looked grimly amused. "That's nice, but not exactly what I meant. See, by fight him, what I'd really meant was kill him." He turned to Zan. "I guess you'll have to do that instead."

taffy789 • 2 September 2016 at 7:10 PM

The darkening desert sky glimmered brilliantly.
Sultry oranges, dull yellows, and shallow navy, all smeared across a bleeding red sky.
The sun had reached the apex of its descent, it’s bottom crest softly meeting the distant horizon to give the sands a tender kiss goodnight.
From even the isolation of the hospital tent, the beauty of the night was not lost on Naji’s sensibilities.
Though, for him, most of the evening’s beauty came from his knowledge that his work day was nearly over.
Sitting behind the receptionist’s desk, Naji methodically pulled three papers out from three different stacks, ordered them on top of the other, and stapled all together. Then, he glanced at the small digital clock to his left. 2043. Naji pretended to know military time and made the educated guess that the current time was currently “late”. That being decided, he returned to his work.
Pull, order, staple. Pull, order, staple. Pull, order, staple-
An eternity passed and Naji stole another glance at the clock. 2044. Still late.
He returned yet again to his work.
To his right, a thousand similar packets were stacked, each with the same bolded title on its front, “SELF AID AND YOU: HOW TO SURVIVE ANY INJURY WITH YOUR OWN TWO HANDS”. Each had the same crude drawing of an injured woman giving a thumbs up to her doppelganger while the doppelganger wrapped her bleeding arm in what was supposed to be gauze, but looked more like a towel.
“I paid a kid two packets of gum to draw this,” Chief Velazquez had mused when he’d directed Naji to sit down in the receptionist’s chair, “clearly, the price was worth the quality.”
The smug smile, sharp as a scalpel, had continued- thinner, more dangerous- when the Chief Healer patted Naji’s shoulder and said to him, perfectly flippant, “And maybe, just maybe, you can learn something useful from this busy work, for you’re not helpful anywhere else currently, hm?”
To that, Naji hadn’t had a reply, for there was no denying his boss was right.
So, red with shame, he had busied himself with pouring through the packet, scanning eyes over simple instructions concerned with stopping bleeding, treating shock, and applying tourniquets properly.
Even after reading the packet over for the hundredth time, Naji felt no greater confidence in his ability to treat shock during combat. More than likely, he determined, he would first die of it himself upon seeing somebody else begin pouring blood…
An opening of the tent’s front flap registered against Naji’s ears but failed to rouse his eyes up from his methodical work. Ignoring the hot wind sweeping over his checks, the boy continued to form and staple the informational packets together.
Pull, order, staple. Pull, order, staple.
“Oh, hey.”
Pull, order, staple. Pull, order, staple.
“Hey, uh, Naji! Naji, right? Hey!”
Now Naji budged, responding automatically to the call of his name. He raised his head and then yelped in surprise, for a grinning mop of golden brown hair hovered mere inches away from his nose- so close the fly away strands tickled him and made him choke back a sneeze.
Recoiling, Naji blinked his eyes and adjusted his vision, as to get a better look at the intruder of his personal space. He recoiled further upon realizing just how familiar of a face the intruder had.
“Heya!” Gabriel grinned, that dumb smile spinning Naji into a flashback of yesterday, when he’d met that crazy gaggle of exercised-obsessed kids. “Naji!” Gabriel continued, laughing with good humor, “I didn’t know you were a healer! How cool!”
Naji’s mouth grew dry as he fought for something to say. Gabriel seemed so happy to see him, which struck strange, for Naji had felt so assured his lies to the group had been so transparent, so obvious-! But no! Here Gabriel was, still grinning at him, still thinking Naji had come from a training facility, like the rest of the weird group had. Still thinking this one thing they had in “common” was reason enough to think of the healer as his friend-!
Naji was flummoxed, baffled, and darn right confounded. As he struggled to make sense of it all, Gabriel grew bored and rolled his eyes.
“Hey, hey. Earth to Naji?” the guy said, waving his left hand in front of the healer’s face, “You there buddy?”
“I’m-” Naji blinked, and then uncrossed his eyes, “I’m here, yes. But, um-” another blink- “what um, exactly are YOU doing here, um… Gabe..?”
Deaf to the obvious hesitance with which Naji tested his name, Gabriel hooted at the boy’s words, shaking his head. “What am I doing here, Naji?” He waggled a condescending finger towards the boy, “I should be the one asking you what you’re doing here! All cramped up in this sad, boring little tent! Don’t you know there’s Falchions about, missions to run?”
“There’s… missions going on already?” Naji stated, his heart rate beginning to hasten, “I thought they were only sending out those small recon groups right now!”
“Uh, duh, yeah?” Gabriel laughed, “What missions did you think I was talking about?”
“Uh. The missions we would actually get sent out on- not the ones that people volunteer for?”
“Missions are missions!” Gabriel said, shaking his head with a smirk, “And just because you were being lazy with this cushy job and didn’t volunteer, that doesn’t mean that other people didn’t.”
Naji fell silent, staring at the dumb, almost smug grin present on the guy’s face, and the realization rolled over him slowly, like a steamroller flattening him as he stood stupidly glued to the floor.
“… Gabriel, you, um, volunteered for that recon mission today?” When he spoke those words, Naji surprised himself with how hushed and careful they sounded exiting his mouth, as if his own tounge couldn’t believe what he was saying…
“Haha, of course! We all did! Amy, Geraldo, Raquel- everyone!” Gabriel replied, ignoring the bulging eyes directed towards him, “We didn’t decide to be lazy today, like some people.” An eye roll; “Come on, Naji! Knowing where you came from, you really should’ve known better than to just sit this one out! Have some pride man!”
“Eurhm,” Naji gagged, sweat forming on his brow, “I, um, couldn’t! I had to work here, you, you know, because this is where they needed me! So I couldn’t volunteer, no!”
“Oh, wow,” Gabriel frowned, tilting his head to the side and sending his long hair spilling over his left shoulder, “That sucks, man. I wish you would’ve volunteered with the rest of us. Could’ve had fun hanging out all day.” His lips spread apart as he gave a dazzling bright, white smile, “But I appreciate you sacrificing your time doing something boring like paperwork instead of going out and doing something actually useful and fun.”
“Yep,” Naji choked, “that’s me! I’m always willing to take one for the team, haha…”
“Yeah, somebody needs to do it! Though it would’ve been nice having a medic out with us today.” Gabriel mused over this, moving his arms and resting them both on top of the receptionist’s counter. It was with this action that Naji noticed the previously out of view, soaked red bandages wrapped around the guy’s right arm.
A noise like a rodent’s squeak sounded out from Naji, and he made a frantic, nervous gesture to the injury while spewing out, “Um, is that, um, something you need taken care of..?”
“Hm? Oh, this thing?” Gabriel shrugged, “it’s a flesh wound, and it doesn’t even hurt that much, honestly. It’s really nothing compared to Weapons Wednesdays back at hom- er, the base.” He caught himself, dismissing both the wound and his stutter with a smiling wink. “You know how it is, right?”
“Yeah, sure, sure.” No longer paying attention, Naji now dug through a drawer with haste, finding and wrapping hurrying hands around a small radio. He pressed a button on it, saying, “Naji to Paola? We have a patient who is um, bleeding in the waiting room. He just came back from a mission..? Please hurry, please. Um, over.”
A crinkle of static, then:
*Medic One to Pink Boy. Okay, heading over. But remember what I said about the code names, over.*
Blushing furiously at the horrible name Paola had bestowed him, Naji threw the radio back in the drawer and slammed it shut, not daring to meet Gabriel’s eyes.
When a minute passed and the injured guy began humming to himself and tapping his fingers against the desk, Naji finally gained enough courage to peek upwards…
Gabriel seemed unconcerned with anything that was occurring; he was lost in a separate world of thought.
Naji breathed a sigh of a relief, one that quickly shattered with the sudden snap of Gabriel’s fingers.
“Hey. Naji.” Gabriel grinned, turning back towards the boy, “have any plans for tonight?”
Seeing the shaken head in reply, Gabriel exclaimed, “Great!” and proceeded to loudly crack his knuckles.
“’Cause I want to invite you to hang with the group tonight! We were planning on having s’mores and a campfire- it’s gonna be great!”
Remembering the last encounter he had with the group, Naji shied away from the offer as if it could kill him- and, knowing that high energy group, it was a real possibility.
“Oh, geez,” Naji sucked in a big breath, “I just don’t know about that! My, um, tentmates and I usually um, ‘hang’ in the evenings, you know…”
“Then bring them along!” Gabriel stated, so simply, “The more the merrier, am I right?”
“Um,” Naji spluttered, “yeah, yeah, you’re right, but-”
“So I’ll see you at 2200 then?”
“Um-”
“Is this the patient?”
Paola materialized from thin air with those simple words, causing Naji to jump out of his skin. The girl raked squinted eyes over Gabriel, before sighing and saying, “This won’t be the last time I see you here. Let’s get that arm healed up, then.”
With a nod towards the girl, Gabriel swung his head back to the receptionist’s window, giving Naji a bright grin goodbye. “See you tonight! Bring your friends!” were his departing words before being hauled off for the heal.
Sitting, shocked, in his swivel chair, Naji felt his head begin to pound.
Staring at his desk, he wondered what he’d gotten himself sucked into.

asi • 4 September 2016 at 12:26 AM

Later that evening, Septa showed up at her door with a bow and a flourish of a bouquet. Xela looked down on the throng of flowery heads at far too close a proximity to her face, and suppressed a sneeze.
"What are those supposed to be for?" she asked, wrinkling her nose and turning away.
He straightened his back with surprising grace; it probably helped that he was as skinny as death. "They're for my darling princess, of course!" Septa beamed, pushing past Xela without any kind of ceremony and into the room. "Guithe!" he called, spreading his arms out wide so the little girl could hurtle into them. He laughed on impact, and with his free hand, he sculpted her hair into a veritable bird's nest.
"Aren't you the cutest?" he cooed, looking down at the head burrowing into his sweater vest. "And how are you this fine evening!"
"Good!" Guithe answered with a chirp, turning to point over to her bed. "Miss Cindy and I've been playing patty-cakes!" An exceedingly stern-looking woman who might have been chiseled out of ice sat there, cross-legged.
Septa looked and sounded delighted. "Have you now? That's so great!" He kneeled down to the girl's level. "I'm so glad you've been making friends."
The girl nodded excitedly, dark hair falling back down into sleek strips. "I wanna meet all your friends and make them mine, too! Pleeeease let me come, Big Brother Lich-yy..." she whined and pulled at his sweater.
His smile turned distinctly wobbly. "I- I can't do it!"
Just then he was yanked up to his feet by the back of his collar. "Guiffs, you will go with him only over my dead body," Xela stated positively, glowering at the both of them.
Septa rubbed at the back of his neck, stammering out a sheepish, "A-aye aye captain," while Guithe's ocean-blue eyes grew more watery than before, filling with tears, much to the fear of both her 'big siblings'. For a few strenuous seconds, it even seemed like the world might end for those three.
Then a hesitant, strongly-accented voice broke through their despair. "I can stay?"
Guithe let out a gasp like a sudden bluster of wind in the night. "Miss Cindy! You mean it?" She ran over to clasp hands with her new friend. The bleached blonde continued to hold her pose like a queen and refused to meet anyone's eyes. But there was a tinge of pink showing just across her cheeks, and the thick cake of makeup on her face didn't include any blusher. "I missed already half a day's work," she muttered.
"Ah, Cenerentola," Septa gave an admiring sigh, cupping his chin in one hand. "Light of my life, what would I do without you?"
"Wear bad clothes," she sniped back at him, "And call people ridiculous things. What in the world was that just now?"
He smiled softly. "Cinderella, you know- Miss Cindy," he gestured to his own hair, then her.
"Is that what you have been calling me?" she looked down at the young girl and even she didn't seem to have mettle to scold her.
Septa shrugged his shoulders with a helpless grin. "Well, it looks to me like Guithe's in safe hands tonight!" he said to Xela, putting the bouquet rather thoughtlessly down on the table. True to character, he probably didn't have a clue about vases or water.
The redhead frowned up at him. "I'm not sure I feel comfortable with this." She rubbed her bare arms worriedly, until Septa grabbed one of them, hooking it around his own.
"I think, you must be getting claustrophobic from how small your comfort zone is," he challenged her. "Besides, look! They're gonna do exactly what you did this morning: get make-overs! I'm sure they'll have lots of fun."
'Miss Cindy' was asking Guithe how she wanted to look, if she wanted to be as pretty as her big sister, but Guithe shook her head. "That's in- um... Unpossible!" she disagreed. "I want to look brave and heroic!" She posed with a hand thrust in the air like a legendary adventurer.
The blonde nodded thoughtfully, an inspired sparkle in her eye. "Yes, I think that can be done..."
Xela sighed in grudging defeat. "All right, whatever, as long as I don't return to find Guithe's face covered in the stuff."
"That's the spirit!" Septa spun her around, grabbed her hand, opened the door for her, and led the way.

taffy789 • 4 September 2016 at 6:40 PM

At 2145, Naji found himself face-to-face with exactly what he’d gotten into.
“Well,” Samuel laughed, kicking a rock as he strolled next to Naji and Jorge, “they don’t really sound all that bad, dude. You sure you’re not over exaggerating, even a tinsy bit?”
“They said they had s’mores,” Jorge interjected helpfully, “how could anyone who has s’mores and is willing to share be like, bad people?”
“Not bad,” Naji muttered, giving up the fight with a submissive whine, “just- just very strange.”
“Hey, buddy, do not knock strange.” Samuel flipped around to the boy, walking backwards while pointing his finger at Naji with mock-seriousness, “Some would say me and Jorge are strange, but we’re perfectly fine, healthy individuals. Heads right squared away on our shoulders. Ain’t that right, dude?” With a glance at his friend, Samuel raised his bushy eyebrows up and down at a breakneck speed, and Jorge snorted.
“Dude. We. Are. So. Totally. Sane.” Every word came punctuated with a raise and drop of Jorge’s eyebrows, which only intensified the speed of Samuel’s own dancing brows. They continued on- eyebrows flying fast and true- like this until Samuel stepped on a large rock while moving backwards and landed flat on his coccyx.
As Jorge laughed instead of helping his friend up, Naji stood sulking to the side, only to stiffen when he heard a loud, familiar voice screaming, “NAJI! IT’S SO NICE TO SEE YOU AGAIN!”
Then, Naji was tackled and vice gripped in half by what he couldn’t see, but assumed to be a large, mutated bear of some sort.
Wheezing, choking, and dying, Naji turned purple as Amy squeezed all life out of him.
After her vicious attack left her prey completely lifeless, she dropped the limply dazed boy at her feet and shifted her sights on her next target.
“And it’s so nice to meet Naji’s other friends too!”
Samuel, having just stood back up, was completely unprepared for the blonde bulldozer that constituted Amy. Without any warning given, he was snatched up in her arms and let out a sound akin to a deflating air mattress as she hugged out a greeting.
Jorge, having had more time to prepare, side stepped Amy’s movement towards him, and he smiled pleasantly as he stuck out a hand instead. The smile disappeared and his eyes bulged as she took his hand in hers and cut off all circulation to his fingers with one joyous grip.
“Really, it’s so cool you could all make it!” Amy grinned at her victims, each in various states of pain.
“Uh, mmhrm,” was all Samuel could reply back in agreement, wheezing and clutching his now bruised ribcage.
“Glad to see you’re so,” Jorge gasped, shaking his throbbing hand back and forth, “…enthusiastic to meet us.”
“Of course; why wouldn’t I be?” Amy smiled, grabbing Naji’s arm and lifting his ragdoll body off the ground, “Now, let’s go see the others!”
Feeling a sense of déjà vu at Amy dragging him off to meet her friends, Naji allowed his heels to drag in the dirt as he was carted along to dreaded social interaction.
The group’s campfire burned bright orange, brighter and sunnier than the dim glow of all the other campfires which dotted the camp. Naji peered through the dark night to make out the faces of his small group while they sat on sand bags and warmed themselves against the flames. The long hair kid sitting directly across from him- the one shooting him a good-natured wink and grin- was easy to identify; Gabriel, of course.
Amy, the giant tank, was just as easy to pick out in the crowd, and not just because her bear trap hands were still wrapped around his arm.
The last boy, sitting two sand bags down from Gabriel, was… Geraldo, if Naji remembered right, and he of course had taken his seat next to that… one… girl…
...The girl who was staring right at him…
…The girl who he’d stupidly called “Raquel” without even knowing if that was her real name or not…
…
Naji immediately refused to make eye contact with the girl’s mesmerizing, dark almond-shaped eyes, even if they kept staring incessantly at him.
“Sit down, sit!” Amy commanded, throwing Naji unceremoniously onto an empty sand bag. His butt hit the seat with a hard “oof”, a sound which made Samuel snicker as he slid into the last empty spot near the boy. Jorge, having no place to sit, kicked at Samuel’s hip until his friend scooted over so they could share.
“So,” Samuel began, tapping his fingers together, “Nice to meet everyone! I’m Samuel, but call me Sam. The guy who tried to kick me off this sand bag is Jorge, but you can call him George-” here Jorge used a proximity advantage and elbowed Samuel in his already crushed ribs- “OR,” Samuel wheezed, “call him just Jorge. Ya know, whichever!”
“Yeah, it’s nice to meet all of you guys,” Jorge continued for his injured friend, “but to be honest, we kinda just showed up to mooch off of the s’mores you guys were cool enough to offer Naji. But meeting new people is a definite plus.” Jorge smiled, “Haven’t ever seen your group around though. You guys new here?”
“Not really,” Amy answered first, “I’ve been here a month, and it already feels like I’ve been here my whole life! It’s been pretty great, and surprisingly easy, honestly.”
“Two months for me,” Gabriel said with a pleased grin that quickly flat lined, “but I disagree with Amy. It hasn’t felt long enough yet. It’s been going by so fast.”
“Month and a half,” the second unnamed girl- the more talkative one who could either be the “Esperanza” or “Raquel”- said with a slight nod of her head.
“Mm. Three weeks.” Geraldo motioning to both him and the scary, intimidating staring girl as he said this, as if speaking on behalf of both of them. “I am going to get the chocolate and items for the s’mores.”
When Geraldo spoke, a heavy Latino accent rolled off his tongue. He turned, whispered something to the silent girl next to him, and then stood up and walked off.
Naji felt a cold wind rush past him as Geraldo left, taking the human barrier he served as along with him. Now, Naji froze, keenly aware of the girl sitting one sand bag away from him, still glancing in his direction…
“Geraldo might be a while,” Gabriel pointed out helpfully, looking at how the guests were squeezed together on the sand bags, “Feel free to scoot down.”
At those words, Naji wanted so badly to use the excuse “I can’t move, I accidentally glued myself to the seat”, but considering how much dumber that would make him look, Naji held down both his tongue and fear and moved one over upon Samuel prodding at him.
The girl gave him a sideways glance as he sat next to her, and Naji choked at this action, instinctively squeaking out an almost apologetic “hi” to the girl.
Blinking, the girl tilted her head sideways, a thoughtful frown melting into her cheeks. Sweating, Naji made sure to close his mouth and began staring intently at the ground, trying his hardest to quiet the heavy, nervous beat of his heart.
Small talk stemming from the rest of the group picked up, but Naji could barely focus on it, too terrified by the girl sitting next to him, and whatever unpleasant thought she was surely thinking about him-!
It was too much. Naji felt nauseous, and there was a jabbing pain in his spine, as if a volley of arrows had been fired and all had struck him between each bone in his vertebrae
So distracted he was by the growing pit of despair in his stomach that he barely caught the rest of the group’s conversation. He only dully registered Jorge saying he had been on IOD for seven months while Samuel explained how he’d been present on IOD for nine long months.
Upon hearing how experienced Naji’s two tent mates were, the group- led by Amy and Gabriel- exploded into loud chatter and quick questions, asking Jorge and Samuel thousands of questions about IOD: the types of missions they’ve seen, how many Falchions they’ve killed, and what the best dishes served in the mess hall were. Though the flurry of questions made Samuel go cross eyed and caused Jorge to slightly squirm, the two laughed, dismissing the less humorous questions and choosing instead to joke about how the mess hall purposefully made the food taste like crap to build character.
Jokes like these went on until Geraldo returned with arms full of s’mores supplies, saw Naji had stolen his seat, shrugged, and slid onto the silent girl’s sand bag. The girl scooted over for Geraldo, now even closer to Naji, and Naji wheezed, hyper aware of the proximity and trying not to faint.
His stomach tightening up made all appetite fade, and so he refused the items to make s’mores as they were passed around. Naji instead closed his eyes and focused on the conversation around him in an attempt to calm his rumbling gut.
“Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve eaten a s’more,” Naji heard Samuel remark, and the plastic rustling of the marshmallow bag crinkled in synch with the crackle of fire.
“Frankly,” Jorge replied, and Naji imagined the grin as he spoke, “I’m just pumped for the Hersey’s. Sometimes I get the worst cravings for the cookies and cream kind, right? At least regular chocolate is second best.”
“Almond is where it’s at, dude,” Samuel snorted.
Jorge laughed, “Not when you have a nut allergy.”
“A downright shame,” Samuel sighed, and the crinkle of plastic sounded off again as he passed the marshmallow bag along.
"Herseys is pretty good," Gabriel agreed, talking loudly over the snapping of firewood, "but my favorite candy bars have to be Whatchamacallits."
"Whatchamacallits?" Samuel's voice piqued with interest, "Dude. Heck. Yes. I freakin' loved those things growing up. They were like, my favorite obscure candy bar."
"I've seen those," Jorge commented, "they don't look that great."
"Fine, step all over my childhood mister nut allergy," Samuel retorted, "you know what? Gabe over there earns the title of my best friend now, because of his awesome taste in chocolate bars."
Though he'd never thought it possible, Naji swore he could hear Jorge rolling his eyes from five feet away.

awesomeness • 4 September 2016 at 10:42 PM

Gabriel laughed. “Nice to know it’s that easy to make friends! But really,” his volume lowered, “I only really like Whatchamacallits because of what they mean to me. Our instructors would give one to the person who was the overall best trainee that month! When you got that thing, it was heaven because of both the chocolate and knowing you’d been the best at training…”
Following Gabriel’s drifting off, there came a moment of deliberate hesitation, then-
“...Training?” Samuel questioned, softly.
“Yep! Like at a training facility!” came the happy reply.
“Oh.” Samuel stated, blandly, and then Naji heard nothing but cold silence ebbing out from the guy’s direction.
“Nearly all of us here came from the same training facility,” Amy explained, “Except the Verreos twins over there, and, of course, Naji.”
Now, the sick feeling in Naji’s stomach exploded, and he opened his eyes with a start, so fast that he caught the drop of Amy’s hand as it finished motioning to him and the “Verreos twins”, who were apparently Geraldo and the intimidating, mute girl…
“Naji?” The sound of surprise whiplashed Naji’s head around to face Samuel’s. Samuel scrutinized him closely, as if seeing him for the first time. Naji quickly begin to open his mouth, about to protest this false fact about his origins, but Amy cut him off with her booming voice.
“Our training facility was called Espada! It was simply amazing!”
Samuel stiffened on his sand bag.
“It was pretty tough, but it taught us so much!” She looked so happy; all bright blue eyes and swinging blonde ponytail. “It was such a good place, especially compared to some other facilities we’ve heard about! We didn’t even lose that many kids to training accidents!”
Off to Naji’s left, Jorge gasped, dropped the half bitten marshmallow he’d been holding, and started choking on something.
“Hey, be careful chewing those marshmallows,” Amy said, eyes concerned, “Those things can be pretty deadly, you know.”
Samuel began to pound on Jorge’s back, absentmindedly. Between the smacks, he muttered a retort to Amy under his breath, barely loud enough for Naji to catch it. “…And Espada wasn’t deadly..?”
“To be honest,” the unnamed, non-mute girl spoke up, “Espada’s training is the only reason I’ve made it this far on IOD. Those Falchions would’ve killed me by now without it.”
“That’s so true!” Amy agreed wholeheartedly. Then, a realization struck, and she smiled from cheek to cheek as she turned to her guests, “And you guys have been here even longer than us! You guys must’ve received great training from a place like ours before coming here too, huh?”
“Me?” Jorge- now free of marshmallow in his throat- said, and sounded incredulous, “No, not really. Not at all. But, um, uh. Mmm.” He fell quiet and side-eyed Samuel, who simply rolled his shoulders, leaned back, and flippantly shrugged as he replied, “Yeah, you could say that, I guess.”
Despite the obvious change mood emitting from Samuel, the others continued on, even more excited now, “Wait, so- wait! You came from a training facility?” Gabriel’s words had a sense of awe and wonder to them, which were cruelly juxtaposed to the surprisingly sharp snap of Samuel’s own words: “Yeah, I did, what of it?”
Silence for a moment, as if the group was trying to process the hidden meaning behind the curt statement. As if to fill the awkward void, Jorge whistled, quietly, trying not to draw attention to himself.
Then, it seemed that Samuel’s emotion had fallen on deaf ears, for Gabriel’s ecstatic reply was, “Wow, that’s so cool! Where did you come from?”
Samuel audibly bristled.
“Nowhere-” his teeth ground together as spat out the next word- “amazing.”
That awkward silence lasted much longer this time around.
“… What are you-” Gabriel began, then paused, his eyes narrowing as the wheels clicked and clanked in his skull. “…What are you… getting at?”
Samuel inhaled a deep, long breath.
“How long were you all at Espada for?”
“For as long as I’ve, you know, have known Amy-” Gabriel replied, eyebrows furrowing together, and he explained, “We basically grew up together.”
At this, Jorge winced and, shoulders dropping, pressed his mouth into a grim line.
Samuel’s expression did not change. Naji snuck glances at it’s stony, emotionless form and blinked a couple of times to make sure he was seeing things correctly. He’d never expected this. Not from his dumbly grinning tent mate, no- this had completely come out of left field, the entire social situation had moved from awkward to traumatizing in the span of a couple of measly minutes. Naji didn’t fully comprehend what was going on, and he didn’t dare try, for even the action of comprehending seemed dirty to him, as if it would somehow associate him with the negative feelings stirring in the air. He stared at the fire in front of him instead and marveled at how bright and true it was burning; how pure and smokeless the flames appeared to be against the dark, discerning night.
Samuel spoke up again.
“Where did you guys get the s’mores stuff from?’
None of the group seemed to want to answer that; finally catching the mood, they stared at Jorge and Samuel without understanding, balking at them as if they were insane.
It was Amy who proved most courageous. “We volunteered for that mission today. They gave us this as a reward.”
Emboldened by Amy’s response, the other Espada girl scoffed and spoke up, “But they should not have done that. Smashing those Falchion’ skulls in today was reward enoug-”
Samuel stood up, fists clenched in tight balls. He’d still been holding onto a marshmallow through the entire conversation, and now the puffy mallow bubbled up from between his white knuckles.
“It’s been fun, but I’m leaving,” he stated fast and in a tone that conveyed anything but a happy goodbye, “Don’t ever ask me to come back again. Bye.”
With that- just like that- he was gone.
Jorge stood up quickly after, paused to glance pitiful eyes around the group, muttered a quiet “Good luck to you all”, and rushed away after his friend.
With those two gone, all five pairs of eyes turned to their last remaining guest: Naji.
“Uh- ha, ha… ha,” Naji weakly laughed, not realizing how much he’d already sweated through his shirt until this moment, when all that extra perspiration began freezing his entire body rock solid. Shaking off the forming ice crystals, Naji willed his body to stand, and his legs shook under the weight of the cold, confused stares that clung onto him so fiercely.
“It was, uh, ha ha, fun, aha,” Naji’s dry mouth managed to croak out, “Let’s, uh, do this again, uh, maybe? Maybe, uh, no…”
“Uh. Yeah.” Gabriel blinked, and stood up as well, “Naji, you should definitely hang out with us again, yeah. But uh.” Another blink. “Yeah.”
“Yeah,” Naji echoed, dully wishing he was anywhere but here in this moment of time.
“Before you leave, I’d, uh, wanted to give you this,” Gabriel frowned, producing an envelope from his pocket, “Think of it as a favor I did for you, okay? And don’t worry- it was no trouble on my part. I actually managed to get everything sorted out during my healing early today. Your boss understood the situation so perfectly, so there was really no trouble at all…”
Naji had no idea what Gabriel could’ve been talking about, but he nodded, thanked the boy, and pocketed the envelope anyway.
Then, after choking out a quick “goodbye” to the entire group, Naji fled into the night, unsure if he could even find his tent in all the inky dark.

taffy789 • 5 September 2016 at 2:32 AM

After almost entering the wrong tent twice, Naji finally picked up on the loud talking of two familiar voices, and he followed the noise back home.
As he approached near, the conversation became audible, though it wasn’t hard to hear, considering how the volume it was held at could be likened to a jet plane taking off.
“-king BELIEVE them, I can’t, I can’t,” came a wild, desperate exclamation from Samuel, “I mean, what the heck, they actually believed everything they said, and- I can’t, I-”
“Hey, hey,” a calmer, reasonable voice- Jorge- spoke up, attempting still the uneasy air, “they always believe it. No matter where they come from- it could be ten times worse than Espada and they’d still believe it. Dude, you know that. You don’t need to stress, come on. Dude. Dude, breathe. Come on, it’s not your responsibility if they- if they never realize-”
“It should be so friggin’ obvious, man. Why isn’t it more obvious? Crap. Crap- I mean, holy friggin’ crap! They actually believe that crap, that garbage, that absolute horse sh-”
“Ssh, dude, yeah, I know. Just, hey, lower it a bit, there’s people tryin’ to sleep, and you’re over here yelling like you’re attempting to create a zombie army.”
The sound of deep breathing. In and out, in and out, in and. Out.
A pause. Followed by a singular, blunt question:
“…How would me yelling create a zombie army.”
“’Cause you’re being so loud that you’ll even wake up the dead?”
“… You’re a friggin’ idiot. I hope you know that.”
Quiet laughter echoed out, and then Naji stepped into the small circle of light the one swaying lantern over their tent provided.
The two heads under the lantern swiveled towards him as he entered their ring of light.
“Naji,” Samuel blinked, seemingly frozen in place. Then, shaking off the shock, his limbs began moving, all swarming towards Naji as he repeated the boy’s name yet again.
Naji flinched as Samuel drew uncomfortably close and stated, almost accusingly, “You never said anything about a training facility.”
“I uh, don’t really know where I went to!” Naji blurted out, the truth spilling from his mouth like a rushing, pathetic waterfall, “I assumed it was a training facility of some sorts when I was asked? And, uh, I guess it wasn’t, but I’d told the group that I’d gone to one when I hadn’t, and-uh, I still don’t know where I went to train for the week I was there?”
Samuel frowned, as if trying to sort out that jumble of confused information in his head.
“You would…” he determined, “know what I meant by a training facility if I asked you. It’s pretty recognizable.” His shoulders relaxed, and then suddenly bunched up again, without any warning-
“Okay, but if you’re not like them, why are those the people you decided to hang out with..?”
He nearly hissed it out, and Naji shrunk back, fearing the retribution he clearly deserved for… whatever sin he made, even if his only sin had been his inability to say no to forced social interaction-!
Jorge, on the other hand, saw no sin committed on Naji’s part, and he made an exasperated sound as he walked behind Samuel and put a hand on his friend’s shoulder.
“Dude. Chill out. Naji’s new, remember? He doesn’t know any better.”
“Oh.” Samuel’s eyes widened with the realization, and he stepped backwards from Naji, “Oh, I- I. Ugh. Sorry.”
He sounded sincere, and Naji was too sincere… ly happy that Samuel didn’t seem to be holding anything further against him. Thinking the worst was over, Naji allowed himself to breathe easy once more.
Samuel scanned over the paled but relieved face of his newest team member, and he sighed. “Look, dude. I’m not the best at explaining these things, because- because I’ve seen too much of it and everything just kinda. Mixes after a while. And then it gets hard to pull one part away from the next, and-”
“And I can explain it better anyway,” Jorge quickly interjected, much to the Samuel’s muted relief.
“Naji, dude,” Jorge began, “I’m going to be blunt here. Those training facilities are some effed up places.” A humorless bark of laughter sounded off from Samuel, who’d stood further back, crossing his arms as if trying to distance himself away from the explanation.
“They’re there to like,” Jorge continued on, frowning, “train the Glaeroes for IOD. Even more than the schools do- the facilities, they, uh. Don’t really sugar coat IOD’s purpose. Sure, they tend to all be super gun-ho about this fakey war we’re fighting but, like. There’s no “teaching about your power to help you” BS like they pull at the schools. Crap, they don’t do any of that. The only thing they teach you to do is how to kill. And if you fail that class, they’ll send you to a research facility and-” Jorge closed his eyes, wincing here- “those places are a whole other can of worms, believe me, alright?
Jorge sucked in a breath opened his eyes, and went on. “But these facilities don’t just take in people our age, right? They have… methods to finding kids young. Super young. Toddlers, in some cases. And they take them in, and they train them, and teach them all about this stupid fake war, and make Falchions out to all be demons, and they don’t let them know anything except IOD-”
“They brainwash them,” Samuel interrupted, arms crossing tighter against his chest, “They make them into small, idiot soldiers who can’t think for themselves. And then they send them here. And because they’re so ready to fight in the war they trained their entire lives for, they go and fight in it. And they die in it.”
Samuel stepped forward, shoulders tensed again as he rejoined the duo, “And they’re always the idiots that go and volunteer for those death trap recon missions, every year I’ve heard, without freakin’ fail. Always so ready to die for their cause that they end up doing just that. They’re so idealistic and careless that they’re not even good soldiers, right? They’re- they’re just cannon fodder, for christ’s sake. It’s messed up, it-” his shoulders dropped, hanging in defeat- “just keeps happening. And will keep happening, yeah.”
Naji swallowed the lump of- something- that had formed and lodged itself in his throat. God. He thought over everything he’d just been told, replaying the words over in his mind and trying to piece everything together in a fashion that he could begin to fathom. That group? Gabriel, Amy, and the rest..? They all were… delusional? Crazy? Insane?
Brainwashed?
Naji tried to wrap his mind around the word without it conjuring up bad science fiction tropes, but he failed that task horribly. He shoved his hands in his pockets instead, thinking on everything, and Naji was startled when he felt the envelope Gabriel had handed to him push up into his hand.
He pulled the envelope out and tore it open as Samuel continued to talk, his voice growing angrier, more venomous as he began to rant, “You feel sorry for them at first, yeah.” Samuel spat this out, kicking at a pile of sand, “but as time goes on, it just all gets too much to handle. Because you say things to them, try to help them, try to get them to understand- but they never listen. They’re like a blind person who only stumbles around because they forget they can open their eyes. They’re freakin’ idiots, dude.”
Jorge frowned, and opened his mouth to say something, but was cut off by the increased volume with which Samuel spoke.
“Idiots! Idiots who blindly charge into any battle with a Falchion, even when it means risking the lives of everyone else on their team. They’ve gotten more good people killed than they’ve actually ever helped anyone out. It’s sad, it’s just freakin’ so dumb and so sad. Brainwashed buffoons like that will get you killed before you even have a chance to realize how they screwed it all up, I swear-”
Naji drifted off, no longer listening to Samuel as he ranted. Instead, Naji read and reread, over and over, the words on the card, that little, tiny green card that he held between his shaking fingers. The card, the tiny little green card with the tiny words that meant such big, enormous things-
Jorge was the first to notice how pale the kid had gone.
“Naji?” Jorge questioned, reaching out a hand to stabilize Naji’s shaking, heaving shoulders. “You, uh, feeling okay there, dude?”
Naji wasn’t sure what he was feeling. There were sensations he could think about- like how his legs felt like jelly- and urges he was aware of- like how his gut wanted to puke up his dinner- but he could only think, not feel.
Not feel anything.
Not even feel his knees giving out from under him, and certainly not feel the frantic scramble of Jorge’s hands against his back as they struggled to catch him.
He didn’t feel one thing, not one thing, as he effectively blacked out into a pleasant, dreamless, feelingless place.
On the sand, there lay the tiny green care which Naji had dropped from his hands, laying face up and reading out:
"#2385694,
You have been requested to report to duty at tent #3 for mission briefing at 0600 sharp tomorrow. The recon team on duty that day has requested the presence of a field medic, and you were deemed well suited for the job.
Do not worry about your work at the infirmary. This card serves as your official wavier from all your infirmary duties, and is certainly valid for it has been typed up by the Chief Healer himself.
Signed, Healer-In-Chief Dylan Velazquez.
(P.S. Good luck, Naji Bhatti. Don’t worry- this experience in the field is exactly what you need. You’ll either come back better or you’ll- well, you know. But don’t worry about that part, right?) ”
Then, a strong gust of wind blew, and the card lethargically rolled over, revealing the Spanish neatly printed on its back:
"#2385694,
Ud. ha sido solicitado..."

asi • 17 September 2016 at 8:30 PM

"So..." Xela glanced to the man at her side as they walked. The corridors were surprising quiet, relatively few Glaeroes bustling past: some in nightwear, dashing between rooms or between trips to the bathrooms, some sweaty and pumped after an afternoon at the gym, some of the more service and administrative types tottering along, about to collapse. A wide range, but most were tired and heading towards bed.
Where grayscale t-shirts, sweatpants and the occasional pair of blue jeans reigned supreme, a girl in a fitting purple dress and a guy in a sweater-vest that was bright, bright yellow stood out a little. The looks they attracted... Weren't strange, per se. They were sort of lingering, wary perhaps, and then quickly dismissed. Sometimes there was flashes of excitement, and once Septa was sort of yelled at? It was hard to tell if it was friendly or angry or what, and Septa didn't give any clues, only giving a possibly ironic wave as they strolled past.
She cleared her throat, taking in the leader's oddly serene face, and continued, "Where are you taking me?"
It hadn't exactly been established, other than Septa making a few ominous references to 'the club'. When he'd joked about it being a book club, she thought she'd started to get the idea. She expected a drinks stand, a dance floor, and teens making stupid decisions. But...
She eyed Septa's strangely formal getup, specifically, the black, silky bow-tie fastened around his neck. It looked like the kind you actually tied, rather than the cheap elastic loop variety. Or, god forbid, a clip-on.
Feeling her attention on him, he smirked lopsidedly, pale skin stretching over his cheekbones. She noticed he too was wearing make-up, more than just the eyeliner sometimes smudged around the edges of his eyes. She couldn't say for sure what his bare skin was like, but she knew that this was more than normal, because the small mole she remembered on his jawline was blotted out... Uh, she hoped that wasn't weird, that she'd noticed. Xela looked swiftly away.
In any case, he certainly didn't mind her staring, even if she did. "Didn't that Miss Cindy tell you about it?" he chuckled lightly. "She's not usually so cruel. Or, she is," he said in an aside, "but not to the new kids."
"I didn't ask," Xela admitted, realizing that she probably should have. She'd just not wanted to... Validate the plans for the evening. She should have just accepted her fate of being dragged along, and got herself informed.
Septa gave a small kind of "humph", and brushed a length of fluffy black hair over his shoulders. He hadn't done anything with that- it looked like it might physically reject straightener products, anyway. "No need for so much dread! This is the place people go to have fun, you know," he teased her.
"People who aren't me." They turned a corner in silence, just accompanied by their footsteps.
Then; "Look!" he pointed out eagerly, and unnecessarily, since her eyes were immediately drawn to the cacophony of graffiti suddenly infesting the wall, in big, bold, largely cursive scripts. Much was illegible, but what was gave the impression that it didn't matter much: it was mostly the same characters repeated again and again.
"What does it say?" she examined it cautiously, not sure what to make of it, when the other walls were so clean. "Why-?"
Letting go of Xela's arm for the moment, Septa stepped up close to the wall, trailing over a couple of the shinier words until his fingertips came away black. "Ooh, look! This one's new," he sounded proud. "It's what I like to think of as a cultural arts project," Septa told her, wiping his hand carelessly on his dark pants. "It's all the same word, but in different languages! Well, the romance ones, mainly. Since those are so popular here, aside from English, you know," he rolled his eyes. "The conqueror of all."
... Since Septa's primary mode of communication definitely seemed to be English, she had to question his taking it for granted.
"Oh no," he had an episode of muffled laughter. "We'd be a mess without it. It's enough trouble handing out cards in English and Spanish, I bet this place would dissolve if we had to cater to everyone... Of course, nearly all the kids here have to learn at least English or Spanish, if they attend camp," his voice lowered into a mutter, and he shoved his hands in his pants pockets.
Since he didn't seem to be talking to her anymore, Xela switched to trying to make out the individual letters. It looked like every one of them invariably started with 'ca'.
"I found one in Italian!" Septa cheered out of the blue, and pointed her towards a squiggle high up on the wall. "Cadere," he pronounced it with a distinct roll of his tongue, sounding very pleased. Then he proceeded to identify the others for her. "Cair, I think that's Portuguese, cădea, with the weird symbol, is Romanian, caure is Span- ah, no, Catalan, caer is Spanish. French should be here somewhere, though I don't see it..." Whilst scanning the wall, Septa stopped and grinned without warning. "Oh, but here! The root of it all, I do believe: cado," he said with far too much satisfaction, adding; "That's why they sometimes call us 'cads'."
Looking rather disgruntled at this point, Xela shoved at his shoulder, "And what's the point of this language lesson, exactly?" There was a bit of her own pride mixed up in her dissatisfaction here. She wouldn't have believed the ditzy leader capable of memorizing all that, and she hated being proven wrong.
He squeezed her arm, looking all too excited about it all, and Xela wondered what she'd gotten herself into- well, it hardly mattered, so long as Septa had chosen to take her to some modern Glaeroes art, rather than a nasty club. This was infinitely preferable, if strange and comparatively boring.
"It's like the origin story of the club!" he said, and she groaned quietly from the back of her throat. "Well, not really the origin... But listen! It was opening night of the club," definitely not an origin story then, "Well, the third, after the second got shut down..." He trailed off, and Xela decided that the leader was really quite bad at storytelling.
Septa kept on going though. "And when we closed up for the night, we found the outside had been graffitied all over in what basically amounted to 'SIN', in big letters," he hummed. "And also 'go die'. 'Rot in...' You get the idea."
Xela frowned, feeling her eyebrows turn in sympathetically. "So what did you do then?" she imaged some kind of low-hitting revenge scheme that flopped. Then her eyes widened, she looked back at the wall. "Wait, is this-" She had no desire to enter a realm for the popular types, like she gathered clubs usually were, but if it instead made her this unpopular, she wanted to even less.
He smiled. "We decided we liked the aesthetic! So now everyone who joins puts their own admission on the wall. It's not strictly allowed, of course, and it gets painted over all the time, so we switch locations and start all over. It's practically tradition now." She finally understood the fond look in his cocoa brown eyes. This was a kind of loyalty display from all his... Whatever they were to him.
"Do I have to join something?" she raised a brow, a little concerned with the hints of rule-breaking and possible hazing.
"No, no," he laughed. "Not unless you want to get the regulars' deals," he winked, "And all your drinks are already on me."
"They better be," she snorted, "Or else I wouldn't touch anything." Then she sighed, finally resigned. "Now are you going to take me to this dump, or not?"
"Take my arm and I'll lead the way! No more detours, I promise," Septa seemed awfully sincere and, dare she think it, gentlemanly in his offer, so with just a little reluctance, she took it.
Then he giggled and ruined it all, but whatever.

demon • 17 September 2016 at 10:34 PM

Given Septa's prelude to the place, Xela shouldn't at all have been surprised when he brought her to a corridor that ended in a door with the imposing three letters above it spelling out "SIN".
Somehow it still qualified to make her stop in her tracks.
"Aw come on, that's not gonna give you cold feet now is it?" His shoulders hunched inwards, shaking, while he enjoyed a silent laugh at her expense.
Xela felt a horrible flush touch on her cheeks and quickly persuaded her feet to start moving again. Of course, as Septa followed her, his snickering only seemed to grow more pronounced. It made her wonder if she wasn't really stepping into some kind of evil net designed to ensnare her- if it wasn't, then the leader didn't have to act so sinister about it!
There were people here now, milling around, queuing up by the door. They weren't as many as she'd expected, nor were they what she'd expected, come to think of it. Sure, there were some short skirts, but nothing provocative, like... booty shorts. And no really heavily made-up faces were jumping out at her either. In fact, Septa's eyeliner was about as out there as anything else. Everyone looked surprisingly normal.
Of course, she thought, glancing sideways again, no one else here was sporting anything resembling formal wear, in fact, they were bordering on casual. Septa was absolutely the only one in a yellow sweater-vest and black bow-tie. His boots were weird too, looking extremely tight and square-toed, not to mention that single long glove- whatever he was supposed to be, it didn't seem like a leader.
It was weird, but no one was even saying hi to him. He seemed to exchange looks and nods, but never a word, to anyone in passing, and that was... Kind of like they were some kind of gang, or smuggling ring. Xela didn't know whether she could relax or if she ought to tense all the way up.
Before she decided, he caught her hand again. "Well, you've seen it, now let's get in," Septa smiled, more through his eyes than his mouth. Then again, that was a constant, since they were a brown that always appeared warm.
Xela frowned her confusion and gestured towards the entrance, and he chuckled again. "As funny as it would be to make you walk through that door, there's no point of us getting in line. The staff have a different one, naturally," he poked his thumb towards his own chest, slipping her a grin.
'"There's barely a line," she pointed out if only to take him down a peg, withdrawing her hand from his. It was true too, it would probably take only a moment to get through.
"Well, yeah, we're here way early, and it's casual night, nothing special- I wanted to go easy on you." Septa reached out, seeming to have the intention to touch her hair, but on considering its arrangement, thought better. He retracted his hand with a bit of a shrug.
That pleased her. She'd wear braided buns more often if they were that intimidating.
He flicked her on the nose instead, and well, whatever. "Come on, it's just this way, and I can introduce you to the crew. They're super great," he tried to coax her, leaning in close. And making fun of her again; "You might even like one."
Oh. Of course he wanted to meet up with all of his... Friends? She couldn't expect him to be a complete stranger here- even if everyone so far mostly acted like it. Xela nodded, rueful, and followed the happily skipping leader at a more controlled pace, until they had left the entry-hall to SIN and turned two more corners.
The door was a simple affair with several 'STAFF - DO NOT ENTER' and also 'HAZCHEM' stickers in various languages, and Xela didn't catch quite how it opened without a door handle of any sort, but in a flash they were in. A literal flash, as her eyes took a few blinks to adjust to the change in lighting.
There was no nuclear green glow- it was simply more warmly lit than the cold artificial glare of the corridor- but this illuminated a different breed of poison. Xela gave the room a scant once-over before turning to the owner. "Are you really supposed to have this much?"" Her tone was tinged with dismay.
Septa paused. "Um... Don't tell everyone," he gave a smile that probably wouldn't inspire confidence in Guithe the trusting pre-teen, let alone Xela, who never felt anything remotely resembling confidence about this shifty leader.
The door on the opposite side of the storeroom was thrown open and a teen, heavily-built and looking to be branded by the sun, walked in.
"Hey!" Septa was striding forward, a friendly grin rising over his lips in greeting- when the newcomer barely gave Septa a look before moving to the side, eyes searching the shelves for a place to put the crate currently cradled in his thick arms.
It was pretty funny to see Septa pausing literally mid-stride, losing his balance and nearly toppling before he caught himself. "Manny! Mannyyyy, hey Mannyyyyy," he whined, craning in close to try and block off the guy's vision. Even from where Xela stood, she could see the way his thick eyebrows were twitching, basically jumping up his forehead every time the leader poked him. But still no response. He refused to even look twice at the leader.
Who began to look oddly deflated. "Are you mad at me?" Septa stepped back and said this in a small voice that made him sound like a puppy about to get kicked. "You know I did offer, she said she wanted to-"
Behind Xela, the door swung open and she whirled around, in time to see it close after two girls who looked both older than Xela, and much thinner, jabbering away fast in another language.
One paused, catching sight of the leader's back, and began to call out; "Sep-"
At that moment, Septa turned around, and the girl, realizing her mistake, promptly shut her mouth.
There was a rather awkward silence, tempered only with rustling of the first entrant still sorting and shifting boxes.
"Se, uh-" The girl turned back to her friend, saying, "Separating the egg white from the yolk is the hardest part for me, I just want to give up..." she explained, out of nowhere, and also suddenly in English.
"A sério? É super importante! Você tem que, hum, if you want to, um, whip it properly," answered the friend, tripping on her tongue even more smoothly, and looking really anywhere other than directly at Septa. The other grabbed her hand and started walking them briskly through the room for the exit.
As this was happening, a fourth person wandered out from behind a stack of crates, walking with their eyes down and pen scribbling away on a clipboard, as they chewed absently on a bit of their hair. Then they glanced up, saw the scene, and quickly traced their steps backwards.
Septa looked like the world had just come crashing down on him. "Oh my god guys, stop, stop!" he cried, pulling comically on his hair. He started after the girls, only to be pulled back by the dark-skinned bloke called Manny, who'd grabbed his arm.
There was a silent exchange where Manny jerked an eyebrow upwards, and gave a short nod, and Septa just followed this in confusion, then dawning understanding.
His hands flew up to the tie around his throat and tugged it out of the bow, and subsequently he yelled, "Okay, the big bad bowtie's coming off, you don't need to snub me anymore!" There was a hefty pause, a second where nobody moved, until Septa couldn't take it and called out another, desperate, "Guys!"
Manny released the skinny leader, shaking his head, muttering something that sounded an awful lot like, "Stupido".
"Hey!" Septa yelped in response, pulling his tie free from his collar and tossing it at the guy's face, who clapped his hand over it before it fell from his cheek.
He then said something short that Xela didn't get at all, but sounded an awful lot like a taunt.
Septa didn't quite blush, but his eyes went wide before narrowing sharply. "You just want a private show!" he shouted indignantly, and Xela, who had been shocked by the newly developed pair of lungs the usually sneaky and quiet leader was showing, glared and gingerly began to massage her ears. "Well, you're not getting one! Never, I say!"
There was muffled laughter from the set of shelves before the teen wearing a 'Blind Marmots' t-shirt re-emerged again, hair carefully brushed back from their face now. The girls who'd made for the door also flocked back over, but were apparently still immersed in discussing cooking in a foreign tongue.
When Manny answered with only a short, "Good," and turned away to finish his inventory task, Septa gave up on him and ran to embrace the gender-ambiguous kid who looked like they'd rather not have the attention.
"Don't pretend it's been longer than this morning since you saw me," they choked out, squeezed by Septa's tight hug.
"Afternoon, and I still missed you!" he insisted, rubbing his cheek against that of the rock enthusiast until they wouldn't put up with it any longer and shoved him away. But before that happened, Xela's watchful eyes noted the position the stranger's hands had taken on the leader during the 'friendly' hug. On his hips, really? What kind of relationship was that supposed to be??
She regretted staring, because that was what caused the dark-clad teen to notice her. "Who's that?" they asked curiously, peering over Septa's shoulder.
He spun around, giggling. "Oh, I'm so rude! This is Xe-Xe, she's new to sinning, so don't go too hard on her!"
As far as introductions go, that was not what she'd consider 'ideal'. Frowning, Xela tried to correct this. "Xela. I'm just having a look around. He practically dragged me here," she threw an accusative gesture Septa's way.
Everyone seemed to exchange a look. One of the girls said something to the other in whatever language they were using. Manny returned to inscribing something a box in red marker.
The one whose cheek Septa was pinching might have smiled, but it also might have been grimace of pain. "Hi," they gave a little wave.

asi • 17 September 2016 at 10:37 PM

"Okay," the more assertive of the girls, who'd dissolved into English at the start. "We understand that. This one is a handful," she waved towards Septa, who pouted like he'd been splashed by invisible water. "Don't let him make you do anything you don't want to," she smiled, but it was tempered with a certain degree of caution as she looked between the two of them.
The girl at her side chimed in; "Yeah! But if you do decide to do fun after all, you can find us," and Xela couldn't work out if the look she gave was supposed to be friendly or catty or what.
The first nudged her hard in the ribs, and then the pair switched languages again and descended into an agitated squabble.
Septa only seemed to be enjoying the display, if his amused grin was anything to go by, and Manny appeared to be only interested in boxes and their contents, although a furrow was building up between his eyebrows. Finally, the fourth member of the group extracted themself from the leader's side, muttering a polite, "Excuse me, I'll just-" and stepped in, speaking at a more measured pace Spanish or Portuguese or something that sounded similar to Xela's unrefined ears.
As this was going on, Xela had been sending many a glance Septa's way, trying to get any kind of feedback as to what was going on, but as he was entirely entertained, he never seemed to catch any of them. It was only when Manny finally set down his work and told him in slow, faltering, and heavily-accented English, "Sette, you, very very bad at the introduction," did Septa remember to take notice of her.
After taking the time to sneer, "Well, you're not very good at the English yet, are you? Did it take you all this time to think of that?" He smirked while the other glared.
"Shut up... And look out for your-" his speech came to a dead stop as he struggled to find the right word, murmuring his frustration under his breath, "ospite!"
Septa just wanted to snicker at him, but the Blind Marmots kid was able to pull away from the girls' fast-cooling dispute to input helpfully, "Guest?"
"Yes," Manny nodded seriously, jawline hard and set while his eyes were a softer hazel as he considered Xela. They seemed exceptionally bright in contrast to the deep, rich umber of his skin. "Guest."
Because Septa never did do things half-way when they could be done twice as big, he dragged a sturdy-looking crate out from a bottom shelf to between the power and the older male. Then he hopped on top and started intoning, in a low, gravelly voice; "Dear friends, we are gathered here today to witness the joining of Giovanni Emmanuel Touadi and Xela Cecilia Zigati in holy introductiomony! We their friends and family have come to show our support and drink all the booze-" Septa was yanked down from his stand by the group's valued translator, who gave an apologetic smile as they pressed a palm over the leader's big mouth.
"I am sorry about this. This and the whole rudeness thing. But Manuel has been known to ah, set Septa off," they distributed the blame evenly, giving Manny a fair looking-at, for which they only received a lackadaisical shrug. It was also plainly clear that Septa was licking the hand over his mouth, but they didn't even flinch, let alone squirm like Xela wanted to just from watching. "My name's James, nice to meet you." Their hands were full of bad leader so they didn't offer one.
Septa managed to get his mouth free by twisting his head to the side; "L. R. J., stands for Laurie Richmond James," he sung out before the other hand got the better of him again.
"Stop telling lies," James sighed and denied it, wiping their grossified hand off on their track-pants.
The second of the two girls pointed out with a thin, foxy smile; "Think she understood that when he named her 'Zigati', too."
Manuel perked up (having appeared rather blank throughout the onslaught of English, particularly Septa's little speech). "Zigati? Del coniglio..." Then he said something more in his native tongue.
In return, Septa snorted abruptly, face tinting pink as he held in laughter, and Manny looked at the utterly bemused and frustrated little redhead for a moment before also succumbing to a wave of chuckles.
"Okay wise guys," Xela crossed her arms and stared at everyone in the room in turn- except for James, because so far, they were mostly alright in her books, save for the slightly weird touching. Alright, she gave them a look now too. "Enough with the giggling and inside jokes, please."
Septa simultaneously nodded and shook his head, grinning.
On the other side, the second girl, with the olive skin and thinner lips, came forward with a little help from a push by the first. "I'm very sorry," she looked straight over at Xela, as she was (amazingly) almost as short as the redhead, "I did not mean all I said before! It was a mistake," she bowed her head, before glancing at her friend for a smile of approval.
"My name is Renata and this is Rebeca, though René and Beck are fine," added the first, grabbing her friend's hand, then turned to Septa, hair bouncing as she rocked on the balls of her feet, excited and impatient. "We'll be going now, there is fun to be had!"
He looked appalled. "I thought you two were going to work today!"
"Um- no," they laughed together and quickly escaped through the door. The second only paused to call back, "Xela, if you don't be a stuck-up wallflower, join us later!"
There was a moment of pulsing sound as the door was opened, then it slammed shut.
"... Now I bet you're glad you didn't give me any shifts off," James observed dryly, patting the leader hard on the back, until he started coughing. They stopped, looking inordinately guilty and grabbing his thin arms- but Septa was completely fine, probably just had something stuck in his throat, and waved them off.
"I can probably take one this evening," Septa began to offer, looking between his two friends, only for Manuel to immediately shake his head, overriding any further words from the leader.
"No, you have to look after your guest," he insisted again, looking peeved that he would consider doing anything else. "Make sure Xela has some good time," his gaze lingered on her, and she gave him a grateful nod for his care.
James agreed, sticking their hands deep in their baggy pockets. "Yeah, you also have to find Brillante. I think she might be here already."
Manuel's face twisted, looking suddenly rather unpleasant. He looked between the three of them and said, "You- you did not-"
"Okay!" James gave a wide, stretched smile, clapping their hands and rubbing them together and looking just a bit harried. "We have work to do here, so you two need to get out! Boss, you should know better than to distract your own staff. Go on, out you go!" And they literally shooed them out, shutting the door behind the power and leader before Manny had a chance to say anything further.
"Thanks babe!" Septa tried to yell through the metal, banging on it with one gloved fist. But in all likelihood, it was drowned out by the soundproofing, along with the throbbing pop music and buzzing chatter of the club just getting into, well, a modest half-swing.
It seemed busy enough to Xela of course, but there was plenty of space to move and seats to take, and from what she vaguely knew of clubs, this was not their natural state.
Her guide managed to peel himself away from the door to show her a grin and thumbs up. "And we're in! What do you think of it?"
Xela glowered at just about everything. "Not much."

demon • 17 September 2016 at 10:39 PM

To her ears, the song playing sounded like a cocktail of neon fizzy-drinks translated into sound. The place smelled like alcohol, nail polish, too much perfume and faintly, nicotine. Visually, it was a bit more appealing, she'd admit. The ambient lighting was a gorgeous deep blue-purple speckled with white pinpricks like stars, and shining off the warm and well-polished wood that made most of the furnishings. The floor glittered and sparkled too, and Xela supposed she was grateful after all that her authority on fashion Miss Cindy hadn't allowed her to go through with wearing her sneakers in. These shoes were no more comfortable, but they matched the setting. It wasn't gloriously decadent, instead, it was mostly a pretty yet practical space...
If you were into talking, drinking, dancing, and it wasn't too great for the first thing either, considering all the noise.
Xela scowled and resigned herself to it. "So what are we supposed to do?" she half-shouted her words to make sure Septa didn't break anything trying to hear them.
The little punk grinned that maniacal grin of his and yelled right in her ear; "YOU NEED TO SPEAK UP!"
She wrenched herself away, looking righteously displeased. "Okay, okay, I get it, it's not that bad."
He puffed up his chest like a cartoon bird. "I pride my club on having just the right volume for my sonorous voice to be heard," and predictably she rolled her eyes. "Anyway, first we should probably get out of the bar before people start demanding we get their drinks," he pointed out, and opened the little swing door for her, making sure she went out first.
"What a gentleman you are," she patronized him, only to get an undeniably charming smile in return. Given his choice of wardrobe, maybe he actually believed he could pull that off for more than half an ironic heartbeat... She denied that she'd ever thought of that comparison earlier.
Then he stopped, and with an air of realization, said; "There's something I forgot to do earlier." And before she could so much as ask? Because the Glaeroes' Septa never did anything only halfway, he knelt down on one knee in the edge of a public space, and kissed her knuckles- even as she was doing her best 'what no stop don't you dare' glare. The fact that he was able to gaze up at that and still composedly tell her how beautiful she looked?
He had balls, even if that put him in danger of physically losing them. "Get up or I will kick you," she warned him, no idle threat.
He scurried to his feet again, looking stupidly pleased with himself, and she really did kick him in the shin, only it hurt her just as much because Xela used the same foot she'd stubbed on him last time.
"I hate you, and also living," Xela growled under her breath, furiously rubbing the top layer of hand skin off onto her brand new dress. Actually, this action made her recall someone else doing the same just moments prior- did this mean her and that James kid had indirectly hand-kissed now...?? Septa was WEIRD as all heck.
"Eh, they just take some getting used to! I'm sure you'll learn to love both," he did that unusually soft smile again. Then it widened cheerfully, "I'll even help! Starting with showing you around. It'll help you get your bearings, and we wouldn't want you getting lost later! Ooh, and keep an eye out for Bree for me, would ya?" he implored.
Xela found herself nodding. "What does she look like?"
"She only ever wears green," was the simple answer.
There was a myriad of colors worn throughout the room, but a quick scan told her that hot pink, baby blue and passionate red were the most popular among the girls tonight, and very few wore a single color dress like Xela. A women garbed entirely in green could prove difficult to find.
For now, she allowed herself instead to focus on wherever it was Septa was intent on taking her. As they passed through the room, the party-goers naturally thickened in places, and she had to follow directly behind the leader or risk getting caught up and falling behind. Recalling what he'd said before about getting lost... The last thing Xela wanted was to get left for dead in this social jungle. She really thought someone might try to talk to her, and then no doubt eat her alive.
She decided to suffer the lesser of two evils, and took Septa's hand as he led the way.
To her relief, he said not a word.

They moved unimpeded from room to room, finding each subtly distinct in terms of interior design, and vastly so in those of lighting, music, and mood. While the first had been generally upbeat and just a touch dreamy, giving off very melodic, mainstream dance music, the second was strikingly more edgy. Xela could believe this was where James fitted in, with near everyone unanimously sporting t-shirts, shouting and pounding their feet to the music and flashing lights. Though they had the mannerisms of a good kid, it was still pretty easy to imagine. Another room was more laid-back, where music took a backseat to allow less dancing and more drinking, with a very large and favored bar, but she also spotted a few groups just sitting down to play cards and relax in the warming amber glow. There was also a blue room, where the beat was still fast but the rest more alternative, and one that could only be described as very Spanish. In between, Septa also showed her (the bathrooms and) a dark, empty room, currently unused. Apparently it was reserved for shows and event nights. She only caught sight of a large, looming karaoke machine intimidating the heck out of her from the dimness, before Septa locked the door shut on it again. She swallowed, and moved on.
They ran into the two girls from Septa's staff in the last room, the gold and flamingly Spanish one. Rebeca or Renata, Xela had already lost track of which was which, informed them finally that Brillante wasn't in after all, while the other worked away at an elaborate-looking drink, colors and creme and umbrella and tiny Spanish flag on a toothpick and all.
To Xela's dismay, the leader stuck his hand out for the server's attention. He twisted around to look at her while he waited. "What do you want?" he offered attentively, when she wished he wasn't.
"Nothing," she answered straight-forwardly, and tried not to be affected when his face fell.
"Oh, booo," said probably Beck, flicking the umbrella her way, to land on her shoe.
Probably René snatched the drink, appearing disapproving, but did encourage Xela to, "Do try something. Once won't hurt."
Xela sighed, seeing Septa's hopeful face. She probably wouldn't escape the club until much later anyway. She might as well give human culture a chance while she was trapped here... "Fine. Something," she relented.
The three of them cheered, and she was mildly embarrassed by it.
They didn't wait long, despite all the buzz around the bar. Xela even thought she saw a boy trying to use charm powers on the bartender, but clearly Septa was on the priority list, because he didn't wait a moment longer than it took for the bartender to finish pouring their present order. He ordered something sounding excitedly foreign for himself, then glanced back at Xela. "Uh," he sounded strangely nervous. "Rather than plain old alc, how would you like something... Else," he suggested vaguely, with a bit of an unhelpful hand wave.
"What do you mean?" she asked wearily, and Septa exchanged a few words with the server, who then leaned forwards to talk to her.
"He's suggesting something a bit more er, stimulating. It would be a very small dose, and only make everything a little more... Intense. Whereas people may react in a variety of ways to the standard drink, and your size means you could be very quickly and easily effected, this would be more predictable," they explained, showing her a small white dissolving-type tablet.
She looked at Septa, and he smiled.
"No," she said resolutely, "Absolutely not."
The leader appeared just a pinch disappointed, but also unconcerned, in fact he nodded understandingly. "In that case," he told the bartender. "Just get us the weakest punch you've got, alright? Thanks."
This time both the girls booed, but Septa just continued to smile, and waved them off- at the suggestion, they gladly departed for the dance floor.
Xela stood uncomfortably beside the long, black-haired, pill-peddling leader and wondered if she'd really made the right choice in coming tonight. The place itself wasn't too bad, but... Especially with this guy, she wondered.
Septa kept his eye on the bartender until they slid the glasses across the counter, boringly pale brown and carbonated liquid sloshing inside. Septa raised his to the redhead before drinking, and she felt just a little less stupid, and reassured.
She brought her own glass to her lips and tried it. It wasn't too bad. Unavoidably bitter, but surprisingly sweet. Somewhat watery, but she knew that to be for her benefit. Certainly bearable. When she made to follow Septa's suit and drain it empty, he lifted his hands, laughing. "Whoa, don't choke on that! You know you can take it easy. Just hold onto the drink and go slow," he comforted her, "And tell me where you want to dance."
Though still unnerved, she did as he advised, taking small sips, and talked him through her opinion on each of the rooms as he inquired.
Calming, she realized she hadn't really indicated earlier her stance or experience with substances, and any pressuring had probably been unintentional. Now he knew, he probably wouldn't try anything like that again. She hoped.
And talking ended up being fun. He got very animated when she critiqued the odd melancholic rush of the blue room, and that was entertaining. Similarly, he seemed dearly taken with the charm of the amber room, and was thrilled by her given preference. His hair was permanently messy, his sweater garish, his personality dodgy at best, but his eyes were aglow and he was incorrigibly enthusiastic about just being here with her.
Maybe this wasn't so bad.

asi • 17 September 2016 at 10:40 PM

They decided to return to the purple room to dance- it had the main floor, after all. Unfortunately, the whole name-by-color thing didn't really cut it, as the room had turned more of a pinkish affair while they'd been gone. When she asked about naming the individual areas, he just shook his head and said something indistinct about not having seven rooms.
Everything seemed to get a bit louder as the club began to pick up.
They squirmed their way around the pit until they'd found a spot that wasn't pushed up against the edges, and started dancing. Xela tried to imitate the people around her, while Septa tried to dance like absolutely no-one was dancing, and looked unbelievably ridiculous doing so. It was hard to believe what the people here were willing to ignore, but most seemed to not look at him twice. Not even when he rolled his hips and boogied like a grandma. He still looked so comfortable, and it made her feel much more confident about the whole thing. Xela even found herself laughing hard at him, when he started mocking pop-stars that tried too hard to be cool.
There was an ebb in the music where Septa slipped a device out of his pocket and glanced at the blue-lit screen. His lips made the shape of a little 'o' and then he pulled on her arm, dragging her out of the dancing swarm.
"What?" she shouted.
"This way!" he shouted back.
They returned the amber-gold room (it had kept its colors), and found it to be in full swing- literally. The space was mostly occupied by cozy circular table and seat arrangements, but there was a flat space available for dancing, and the kind of dancing taking place? It was swing. And the music? Electro. Swing.
There were just a few couples really going at it, while the rest hovered around the sides, forming a ring. She stared. It was so fast, and there was so much spinning and kicking. Someone was bound to get hurt. But when she suggested as much to Septa, he just laughed.
"What, these guys? No way, they're regulars," he bragged, and brought them closer.
Xela was getting worried about where this was going. "We are not," she said stiffly.
In response, he changed direction, steering them near the bar. "Liquid bravery!" he insisted, and she was going to regret this so much- later.

demon • 17 September 2016 at 10:43 PM

It turned out he did know how to dance unironically.
He freely admitted to not being a very good teacher, but he managed to walk her through a few of the most basic steps, and helped catch her every time she misstepped. They made a simple pattern, and Xela was starting to get the hang- or swing of it! Septa wasn't a bad partner, and before she knew it, he had a hand on her back and they were dancing backwards.
"Whoa!" she lunged forwards, making a narrow escape from tripping over her own feet.
He let her go, laughing. "See? You can totally do it!"
"For all of two seconds," she huffed, straightening and regaining her balance. Xela was ever so glad she was wearing completely flat shoes. Even Septa might not have been able to save her from killing herself if she had to do this in heels.
He held out his bare hand to her. It was weird that his left was always gloved, and it clearly made delicate movements more difficult, but he seemed to do fine favoring his right anyway... Maybe he was training to be ambidextrous, actually! It wasn't an uncommon practice among super kids. "... one more round?" he was saying, and Xela zoned back in and accepted the offer.
People were watching them, she saw now she didn't have to concentrate so much on the steps. There was a small crowd of observers, but they were all looking at her and Septa, instead of the snappy and accomplished sets around them-
Her heart caught in her throat, and she whipped her head around, trying to see-
They'd gone. Where were the other swing dancers? They'd all stopped dancing-
Septa seemed not to have noticed. He spun her around, and pulled her in, demanding attention. "Hey, focus!" he chided her, as she fumbled and stepped on his toes.
"Septa-" she tried to say, to warn him, but then they were in the midst of a fling outwards, held together only by the grip they had on each other's hand.
It was her turn to whirl him around like a girl, one of the last steps of their pattern, when Xela saw someone standing in the middle of the floor, behind Septa, and moreover, exactly where he was supposed to go. He was going to hit them, she was sure, and she panicked. And she accidentally let go.
Caught by surprise, Septa actually couldn't stop himself, and the next thing he knew, he was crashing- right into the intruder's arms.
The lights died. The music reached the climax of its crescendo.
A spotlight blinded the audience, then dimmed as the catchy, infectious tempo began to creep up on them.
And then? Center stage was taken in a tempest of motion. Septa had a new dance partner, and they knew how to move Energy, coordination, suspense.... Dramatics. It was hard to imagine a dance more engaging to the eye as this. That man there- was that really the silly Septa she knew?
Blinking away her disbelief, Xela backed off to the edge of the floor, nearly stepping on the person behind her, she had to whisper a hurried apology.
She glued her eyes back on the performance and nearly dropped her jaw when the girl tossed Septa over her shoulder, in a stage trick that was surely best left to professionals. But it was executed smoothly, the crowd oohed in excitement, and the pair swung on.
The girl was wearing an emerald green, over-sized sweater, a darker green pleated skort. Chunky green platform heels ensured she stood taller than her dance partner (who wasn't short, either). She was a brunette, hair piled high in curls on top of her head, also tied up in green. Big loopy green earrings, too. Overall impression? She looked like a fit trendy librarian, except even her lipstick was green. She even seemed to glow green.
Then Xela understood, This had to be the Brillante everyone was talking about.
The show ended with Septa catching her, a scary sight since the guy looked far skinnier than she did, but he set her down with apparent ease. Those bones had to be stronger than they looked. He gave a deep, flourishing bow, she a modest curtsy, and there was a smattering of applause. The lighting returned to its normal setting, and all the tension that had surrounded the scene began to leak away, people once more chattering among themselves and starting to disperse.
Xela's feet shifted uncomfortably as everyone around her moved but she remained in place, where she was. Fortunately, Septa was looking for her. With her head of fiery hair, it didn't take long before he was striding over, the green girl in tow.
"Xela, Xela!" His voice rang out, perhaps a bit raspy and dry, but very much elated by all the physical exertion he'd just had. "There's someone you have to meet!" He seemed to spring to her side. "This," Septa declared, face shining now with traces of sweat as he presented the green girl, "is Bree!"
Brillante looked her up and down, no indication of thoughts or feelings in her dark, bold features, nearly as striking as her dance moves- except a hint of boredom. "My pleasure," she said, not offering her hand but ordering Xela's.
They shook, and it was politely firm and surprisingly non-crushing.
"So what's your job?" Brillante asked, voice surprisingly low for a woman. It could've just been need for hydration after dancing like Septa's, but it sounded like one of those husky types, those voices that always sounded like the person had just been smoking and coughing simultaneously.
"My job?" Xela repeated, reaching into her mind for an answer she couldn't seem to grasp, and Bree's sharp green eyes switched over to Septa.
He looked to be having a hard time remembering, too. "You're going to be sent out soon, right? To the front lines? Oh, do you know where or with what group?" Septa wondered, these things apparently having not occurred to him before.
"No," she scowled at the leader and his disgraceful display of nonchalance for the fate of her and Guithe. He really was ready to put all the responsibility on her, and screw all the other factors!
Then he snapped his fingers. "Oh! I know," he laughed, an 'oh how silly of me' kind of laugh that really resurrected that good old murderous intent she used to feel towards the guy. "You're in Beef Jerky's group! I laughed out loud when I saw that, I mean, what a coincidence!" he babbled, grinning at the two girls both of which looked utterly unamused.
Bree took off a heel just to bonk Septa on the head with it. "Don't call him that. He has a name, and it's Manuel," she pointed out with a short snakelike hiss.
He grinned, unrepentant, back at her.
Xela interrupted. "Wait, so I'm in Manny's team?" Why didn't he say so back when he introduced them!
"Yeah, it totally slipped my mind," he continued to laugh it off. "You, Guithe, someone else I compleettelyy," he drew out the word, "forgot, and Mr Man! Sounds like a world of fun," Septa was giggling so much that he sounded downright hysterical.
Xela wanted to slap him, so she took a deep breath before she opened her mouth to speak.
But Bree bet her to the punch. "This room isn't my style, can we move along?" She seemed bored again, but if Xela had to guess, she suspected what Bree just wanted most was to move the topic along.
And it was hard to believe swing wasn't her style, but apparently she was just a master of dance, because Septa said; "But you sure made a show of it, right?" He looked up at her admiringly.
"For you, I can call in a few favors," she replied smugly, and he actually mock-swooned.
To Xela's ire, Septa readily agreed to moving rooms, only adding the stipulation that they had to get a drink first. He asked for water- understandable after all the dancing that he did. Xela consented to another glass of the weak stuff, which Brillante looked bored at and ordered something strong and tall.
Septa took one swallow of his drink and made a noise like a fire extinguisher as he forced it down. Bree laughed at him and Xela stared in shock.
"That, that was not water," he clarified, gasping, squeezing his eyes shut and furiously shaking his head.
Xela was outraged, but he quickly tried to calm her down. "No, no, I should have expected that!" he corrected her.
"How can I trust what I'm drinking?!" she did not see how this was okay, let alone funny, at all.
Septa and Bree exchanged looks, and then he just shrugged. The three of them left as soon as Bree's glass was empty, leaving two unfinished behind.

"What's your power?" Brillante asked her as they traversed through the black-and-red edgy rock room.
At this point, Xela had almost forgotten all these kids were users with super powers. Sometimes, a kid turned into a monkey on the dance floor, or a bartender juggled their glasses telepathically, or a girl went all transparent and passed right through the crowds without any hindrance.
But considering the sheer quantity of users, displays were few and far between. Then again, she found it understandable. Xela herself was hardly about to use her ability here. Because that would be trouble. In fact, this very question wasn't exactly welcome.
Septa didn't seem to hear it as the space was jarringly loud, but Bree had sidled up close enough that Xela couldn't deny that she had. "Um," she hesitated. "Laser- laser lights," she corrected awkwardly. "Lighty stuff."
Bree blinked and smiled. "Maybe we should do a light show sometime!" Then she reached forward and touched Septa's sweater-vest, which then began glowing a brilliant green.
Oh. So there was the radioactive green glow Xela had been missing earlier.
"Hey!" Septa swiveled to look back at them, laughing in protest, until Bree removed the toxic-looking thing, reverting it back to its only naturally glowing yellow.
But now she was in trouble. "How about a collaborative art piece?" Bree was asking.
"... That would be a bad idea," was all Xela could say.

asi • 17 September 2016 at 10:46 PM

When it came to dancing, Xela did definitely not feel she was in the same class as Septa and Brillante. In fact, if anyone else could keep in step with them? They weren't showing it. Anyone would be a third wheel trying to dance with those two.
Or, at least, that's what she told herself as she slunk away from the press of dancing bodies back in the room that was purple-turned-pink-turned-coquelicot-red. She'd shouted something to them about getting another drink, even though she didn't want one, and wasn't sure if they'd heard or noticed her anyway, but...
Actually, skill level hadn't really been her problem, she was fine with not being top-notch dancer like Septa (astonishingly) and this girl were. It was more about how packed the place was getting. Everyone on the dance floor was crammed in tighter than sardines in a can, and that caused the dancing to become rather... When she and the leader had danced by themselves earlier, they'd had plenty of space in between them. Now Septa and Bree didn't have any, and it didn't seem to concern them at all. And because she didn't have a dance partner, a stranger had tried to offer and she- yeah, Xela had high-tailed on out of there.
This room had altered a great deal since they were last there. In addition to spacial contractions, there was a lot more flashing of lights, and heavy thrums of bass that made the air seem to shake and want to collapse. The very space seemed to be pulsating with movement, like the room itself was alive.
She supposed this was what the club really looked like at full blast.
Fortunately, nearly everyone was on the dance floor now, so she could move around the rest of the space with ease, and the bar was utterly empty, offering seats. On the way there, she noticed something about the few people who were loitering, reluctant to dance.
They had a strange tendency to stand awkwardly in the wrong places, such as in front of doors and in the middle of the path. They weren't really doing much of anything. Except, she supposed, staring into the crowd and occasionally whispering and pointing... Actually, she discovered, they had a target. It was Septa- well, him or Bree, since it was kind of hard to tell at this point.
And looking closer, she realized some of them were also in the pit, because they weren't dancing either, but looking and pointing... At Septa. Actually, one was about to approach him. They got near- they were intercepted- a few words and gestures were exchanged- they were led away...
That was slightly ominous? Xela didn't know what to think of it. In any case, that sure was a mystery she didn't care to solve. Septa seemed happy enough being left alone to press his chest up against that girl's. The crowd shifted, and he was moved out of sight. Whatever, Xela didn't care.
She climbed up onto a seat at the bar to just watch the throng that had swallowed the leader swell and squeeze tighter, all dancing to the music. The beat had picked up to the point where she felt it had run away and left her behind. Feeling drained, Xela seriously contemplated resting her head on the bench and simply going to sleep.
A tap on her shoulder, from behind the counter; she was joined by the bartender, who had a moment's breather on the drinks' side of things with everyone being absorbed by the dance floor. They'd changed clothes, into a semi-formal white shirt black vest affair, like a bartender from the movies, but it was James.
"Hey, how are you? Doing alright?" they questioned, leaning over the bar.
She nodded and turned back to the scene.
"It can be pretty overwhelming if you're not used to it," they continued, and Xela just bobbed her head again to show she wasn't really interested in conversation.
A pause. "I'll get you something-"
"No-" she tried to interrupt, but they set two cans on the table between them.
It wasn't what she'd thought, but that liquidated sugar kind of energy drink that Alex had never tried. "Relax, it's just fizzy," they assured her, breaking the tab on their own with a carbonated hiss.
She gave in and copied them, taking a draught and practically spluttering at the intensity of the thing, while they smiled behind their drink. "Keep going, I promise you'll like it," they dared her, and she grumbled but obeyed.
"This place may seem very typical now, but you should see it on other nights. Sometimes we just play games, and turn a room into one big Twister mat. There are also nights for competitive dancing, karaoke, stand-up comedy, movies," they ticked off their fingers. "Sometimes we all drag our bedstuff over and have a big sleepover! Well, not everyone. Just the regular gang."
Xela listened, nodding. "That... Does sound kind of special," she admitted, seeing the way their eyes had gone all melty with happiness. Their irises looked to be out of sticky, piping hot peppermint, if that made any sense. It was incredibly drawing.
"Everything may be different, but," they took another swig of their drink. "I do hope you like it here..." Their short but roaming hair was pinned back by a mismatched array of hair clips, she noticed now. Aaand Xela was staring. So she tore her gaze away, down to her drink.
"I do," she found herself saying, much to her own surprise. "I just don't know how to..." The throbbing dance floor drew her eye again, and Xela sighed. "How to do this."
They looked empathetic, but a group had just approached the other end of the bar, and they were whisked away. Xela took another drink, and it really wasn't so bad. In fact it was starting to taste rather good. And it gave her a lot of energy. Made her want to do something.
She considered finding Beck and René and taking them up on their offer. Then she did find them, spotting the girls just a bit off center in the dance pit, and also very much making out, with each other. Nope, no no no, she wouldn't be interrupting that.
Actually, Xela was fine just sitting here with a drink. That wasn't bad at all.

Then the night shifted gears, again.
Shrieking. Someone screamed.
Septa laughed so loudly she could even pick it up over the roaring music. "Oh, oh you guys are awful. You guys are the literal worst," and Xela jumped at the fact that she could hear that.
She looked back at the congregation to see Septa now pulling himself up out of the pit on the side nearest to her. That explained it.
What it didn't explain was why Septa's sweater-vest was missing, and he was now down to a half buttoned shirt. And- yeah, his belt was gone too.
She raised an eyebrow, completely unimpressed, as he part-crawled, part-ran his way over to her, crying; "Xela, Xela!", all the while. He ended up clutching the sides of her stool and panting as he tried to recover his breath. Then with a paranoid look over his shoulder, he saw that others were making motions to try and follow him up, and his face went even paler.
"... Yes?" she hazarded, after a beat. What, had his indulgent partying somehow gone wrong? How terrible.
"Xela!" he clasped her hand tightly and urgently in his. "You should know... It's gonna get crazy from here on out," he told her, big wide brown eyes putting some kind of beseeching look on her that she just couldn't figure out.
She gestured indiscriminately all around with the hand that wasn't captive. "More crazy?" Xela was a skeptic.
"Much, much crazier," he confirmed, with a level of sincerity that really didn't put her heart at ease. Because that sounded scary as all heck.
"You don't have to stay any longer," he said while quickly glancing behind him again- and yes, a few had made it out and were definitely coming after him. Septa seemed to shiver in anticipation, before turning back to her urgently. "You probably want to go now, so before you do, I gotta know something," he tattled on, taking way too long for the hurry he was in.
And Xela was more impatient, now hearing that she could- and should- skedaddle. "What?"
"Will you come back? Here, again?" he looked at her with pleading eyes.
"I guess so," Xela agreed, pressed for time because she could see the clubbers were nearly upon them. She didn't know what would happen when they descended but- there were mere seconds until she'd find out.
Hearing her answer, he cheered. "Yes! That's a victory for me." Then Septa climbed onto the bar and shed his shirt... and then his pants. He was yelling, "ALRIGHT, NOW IT'S TIME TO SIN! YOU ALL BETTER BE READY TO LOSE YOUR MINDS! BECAUSE THEY'RE ABOUT TO GO MISSING, AND TRUST ME WHEN I SAY, THINGS LOST HERE DON'T GET FOUND AGAIN UNTIL MORNING! AND MAYBE NOT EVEN THEN..." That smile of his was stolen from the Cheshire cat.
And the crowd was lowly chanting, "Sep-ta, Sep-ta, Sep-ta..."
That, yeah, that was a bit too weird for her. Xela was going to call it a night now. Or to put it in another way, take Septa's advice as he raucously shouted, "IF YOU'RE NOT A REGULAR OR A WANNABE... THERE'S THE DOOR!" Along with a small stream of others, she headed out as directed, toward the chilly, quiet sanity of the calm base corridors.

demon • 17 September 2016 at 10:47 PM

Only she was accosted on the way by the only one man more out of breath than Septa probably was right now.
Manny had grabbed her arm and well, he didn't look red in his face, because his face just didn't go that color, but he looked like maybe he'd swallowed a pufferfish and was being both stabbed and poisoned from the inside, and he didn't look happy about it.
Despite how scary that face was, Xela tried to greet him cordially, with their future co-dependence in mind. "Manny, hi-"
He interrupted her, a hushed sense of urgency not necessarily making his voice and his English any more intelligible. "You, you leave now?"
Gears in Xela's head creaked for a few moments before she understood, and nodded.
"Bree! And Sette... When?" Manuel demanded, and her face twisted, but despite his incorrect choice of interrogative word, it was pretty clear what he wanted to know.
Plus the answer was equally obvious. She gestured to the scene behind her where Septa, the only clothing items retained being his boxers and single glove, was helping a Brillante in a much sparklier, skimpier green outfit up out of the clamor below and onto the bar.
Then she contemplated Manny's graying expression. "Are you going to kill anyone?"
He looked back at her, almond eyes solemn, and didn't answer. Then he stormed off towards the crowd.
Well, that certainly was something she didn't have responsibility for. She might've stayed to watch and find out what happened next, but Manny had disappeared among all the people, and Septa and Bree were... Never mind!
She turned heel and stepped out.

No more seizure-inducing lights, hypnotic beats or intoxicating and stifling air. It was both a relief, and a disappointment, and her head felt as light as a feather from it.
The walk all the way back to her room was cold and solitary, but, she didn't mind. Some... Some parts had been fun.
Septa was dodgy as all heck though, and going forwards, she was going to let him near sweet little Guithe even less.