Private Roleplay~ IOD

taffy789 • 18 September 2016 at 3:22 AM

Miles away, far away from whatever good times were being had elsewhere, the new assistant to Seven sat, slumped in his chair, really missing Wyoming.
His mind wandered, travelling back to those familiar, jutting mountains whenever the paperwork piled on his desk began to look too much like home.
This constant, distracting reminder did nothing to increase his productivity, and so the paperwork stack only grew higher, and higher still- until Everest itself couldn’t compete with the incline.
Thus he sat, despondent as he stared at the insurmountable work load, and he thoroughly considered turning to tears, as if all his problems could be solved with one well-executed mental break-down.
There was no hope.
A beeping of a pager woke the assistant from his own tortured thoughts, and he rummaged quickly around his desk space to locate it. The movement of his hands skirting around the towers of paper reminded gravity that it had a job to do. Being the cruel, unconquerable mistress that physics is, the Seventh assistant could only watch, consumed by horror, as the paper mountain crumbled to the floor around him.
From somewhere under the miles of ink, dead tree, and bureaucracy, the pager keep beeping, unaffected by the tragedy that had just unfolded around it.
Gulping down a wad of despair, the assistant resumed the search for the pager, even less carefully this time, for he knew he had nothing to lose.
Then- at last- he located the loudly beeping machine.
He then glanced at the message, fretting about what could possibly be so important and urgent-
“Eighth Division: Did you get all the paperwork processed through yet?”
…
Keith Madigan, the assistant to Seven, suddenly had the strongest feeling of hunger attack him.
He decided it best to go get food before he died from starvation, or even worse, succumbed to the depths of paperwork around him and suffocated under its weight.

Madigan kicked the loose papers away from door before he closed it, and he shut it tight, making sure it locked as to not let his eventual responsibility escape the room.
With that done, he started towards the cafeteria.
He walked aimlessly.
And the more aimlessly he walked, the more the walls spun around him, turning and shifting and buzzing- displaced in time and space. Nothing felt real, and being alone gave him a dizzying hallow feeling of vertigo.
Had it really been three months since he’d last seen his home?
It felt both longer and shorter than that; he constantly felt both far away and so close that he could reach down and touch the soft, pliable farmland molding itself around the weight of his boot.
Three months. It had been only three months.
He couldn’t believe it- couldn’t begin to wrap his head around that fact.
Three months? Three months!
It was unbelievable, and the walls turned inwards again, the steely lines zipping past him and collapsing into one another as if trapped in a kaleidoscope.
Wyoming grew up around him. The steel melted, replaced with autumn tree lines and blue skies- golds on oranges on reds on blues. His knees shook, giving out and sending him crashing to the dirt beneath him. He moved his fingers through the earth, feeling it break and crumble beneath the lightest touch.
Home.
Madigan’s head swarmed. He should’ve been happy, joyous even- but, no, something was wrong, and his stomach tossed and turned as he struggled to figure out why his brain felt on fire, as if it was overheating and on the verge of exploding-
A feeling like a punch to the stomach rammed against his brain, and Madigan’s flushed face turned beet red as vomit bypassed all inhibition and flew from his throat with a choked gasp.
His vision grew murky, and dull, yet he still saw the deep, brown dirt of Wyoming around him, could smell the great decaying autumn leaves and that fresh mountain air-
Then, it all disappeared.
As the sensation of vertigo left his body, the dirt melted, merging together until it became two big, dark eyes blinking curiously at him.
Then- a voice.
“Woooooooow! I kinda overdid there, didn’t I~?”
Madigan blinked through the pain and forced his brain to focus on the girl’s face.
Pudgy, round cheeks pouted as her eyes darted over him, pupils bouncing from corner to corner faster than super-charged bumper cars spewing nitrous.
“You’re in pretty bad shape!” the girl mused, tilting her head back and forth as if a change of angle could help her figure out why the boy looked so rough, “Didn’t think you’d vomit either!!!! That’s so groooossss, ew!!!!” She laughed, and upon her mentioning vomit, a smell that was the furthest thing from Wyoming mountain air drifted happily up Madigan’s nostrils. Recoiling fast, the boy scrambled backwards, springing from his bent knees and landing on his rear.
The girl laughed again.
“Oh my goshhhh! You’re so silly!” More giggling laughter. “And you’re new here, right? I know you are! You barely had any bad memories, and I like that a lot!”
The voice grew louder, and Madigan gasped as the girl closed the distance between them again, pushing her face closer- erk, too close- to his, and continuing on with a happy hum, “I like you~ Your memories are so nice! They really are! Barely any blood or doctors or dead people or anything nasty like that! …Soooooooo,” she leaned in closer even still, and Madigan felt his cheeks flush a deep red.
She flashed bright teeth, “You wanna go on a date?”
The question came out of left field and left Madigan feeling like he’d just been struck by lightning.
“Uh? UH.” He stammered, and stared the girl down again.
She wasn’t… ugly.
No, she wasn’t- but god did she look rather unhinged.
Her eyes blazed with all the clarity of clouded glass, and her hair was a complete mess, being colored a faded dark blue, tangled, and with the… dark brown? roots of her hair peeking through near the base of her skull. She had on an incredibly wrinkled blue tank top and stained shorts- each article of clothing looking worn and slept in, despite a sort of unhealthy dark color that unhung under her hazy eyes and made it doubtable to how much rest she’d received recently.
“UH, UH,” Madigan stammered again, a chill tapping down his spine as the girl continued to stare through him, “UH- no, I don’t want to go out with you.”
With that answer, the girl continued to stare at him, blinking once.
“Uh,” was all Madigan could say, now fearing what trouble offending the girl could bring upon him...
“Okay!” the girl suddenly grinned, bright and joyous as ever, “our date will be at the cafeteria then!”
“What.” Madigan responded, but was scared silent as the girl gripped tight- incredibly tight- around his arm and began dragging him down the hallway.

Madigan wanted to cry again.
Despite him digging his heels into the floor, the girl’s strength overcame all friction and pulled him closer and closer to what he assumed was his doom- or was at least the worst date he would ever go on. And considering the date he went on in middle school that ended with his dad’s truck stuck in a shallow pond (an incident he now referred back to as “Clustertruck”), this upcoming date being his “worst” didn’t exactly bode well for the night’s events.
He needed to escape.
When they passed others in the hallway, Madigan tried to give his potential saviors his best, most pitiful “please oh god help me” glance in their direction.
Most did double takes, meeting Madigan’s eyes and opening their mouths as if to say something or ask a question- but no, then they blinked once, shook their heads as if clearing out a thought, and turned away, leaving the girl dragging the guy and the guy being dragged to their own devices.
As he began to recognize the hallway as one that lead to the cafeteria, Madigan allowed despair to overtake him, and he accepted his fate.

awesomeness • 18 September 2016 at 3:44 AM

~
“OOOOHHHH, they have spaghetti today!” the girl squealed as he pulled her “date” inside of the cafeteria. She was so loud that the twenty odd heads present flipped around to stare at her, but when she smiled a glowing grin at the room, every face blinked, looked blank, and went straight back to eating.
She squealed again as she dragged Madigan into the lunch line with her.
After getting their trays, the girl released Madigan’s arm so he could carry his food, and he momentarily considered making a break for it until being struck with the horrible mental image of the unhinged girl chasing him down and tackling him into the metal floor. Not wanting to faceplant into his tray of spaghetti, Madigan glumly followed the girl to an empty table like a bounded prisoner following his executioner to the chopping block.
As soon as they sat down, the girl ravenously tore into her food, shoveling spaghetti into her mouth as if she hadn’t eaten in a week. Madigan watched the carnage, terrified and shaking as the deep red pasta sauce dribbled down the girl’s cheek.
She polished off her plate in a matter of seconds.
When she was finished, she licked her fork clean and turned to stare wide eyes at Madigan. “Keeeiiiitthh! Why haven’t you eaten yet? Are you not hungry?”
“…Not… anymore,” Madigan admittedly, the hunger pain in his gut having faded away after watching the girl’s poor eating habits. When it then dawned upon him that he’d never mentioned his name to her, a strange fear rose in his throat. Was this girl… some kind of super obsessive crazy stalker? He shivered and the thought, but let it go and just corrected her with a, “Call me Madigan, please. That’s what everyone else here does…”
“Kay, Maddy!” the girl giggled, and reached out like a lightning strike, snatching Madigan’s plate of spaghetti off his tray. She unceremoniously dumped the pasta onto her own empty plate and immediately began devouring the second helping. Madigan had to tear his eyes away the eating girl- it was like watching a fifty car pile-up, enticing in the raw horror of it all.
“So, uh,” Madigan stared at the empty metal wall off to his right, as if super interested in the plain nothingness it had to offer, “you know, we’re on this, uh, “date”, and I don’t even know your name..? And you apparently, like, know mine. That’s a bit, mm, strange, don’t you think?”
“The only thing I think is strange is how you’re not hungry!” the girl responded after gulping down a mouthful of pasta sauce, “It’s like, soooooooo late already~!”
Madigan shook his head. “It’s just seven. It’s not that late…”
The girl frowned, “Nu-uh! It’s twelve, Maddy! It’s tomorrow!”
“No, that’s not-” Madigan went crossed eyed, and a sinking feeling washed over him as he looked down and checked his wristwatch.
Oh, dear lord. She was right.
“12 AM” blared up at him from the digital screen, and his mouth became a waterless desert.
“You sure were wandering around for a long time, huh?” the girl remarked, rubbing a napkin against her cheeks to remove all the red sauce and small noodles clinging around her mouth.
“That’s-” Madigan stared at his watch, his mouth formed into a perfect, disbelieving “O”- “impossible! I was barely outside for a few minutes. What the heck happened..?”
“Eight!”
Madigan’s eyes shot up, soaking in the girl’s grinning face.
“That’s my name! You’d wanted to know it, right, right?” she stuck out her hand, smiling wider, “I’m Eight, an it’s soooo great to be dating ya, Maddy~”
He stared at the leader sitting across from him.
Eight. Of course. It all made sense now.
He might’ve been new, but he’d still heard the horror stories about old Crazy Eight. Her and her insanity, her mysterious ways of disappearing, her memory manipulation…
God, and here she was, smiling at him, like she was completely enamored-!
Madigan cursed his charming good looks, for they apparently could even attract the unwanted attention of the crazies. It wasn’t his fault he was so desirable..!
But this new development dragged along its own horrors, and Madigan’s heart hurt as he realized what trouble him and his handsome body had gotten themselves into. Eight wanted to date him! Him! A leader, a powerful, crazy leader with unknowable control over minds was clearly in love with him, and- considering how pushy she already was- she likely would not take a “no” or “let’s just be friends!” as an answer to her affections-!
While coming up with ideas on how to break the crazy Eighth leader’s heart without getting his memory wiped clean, Madigan stuck out his hand and met the girl’s, shaking it by way of half-hearted greeting.
“Maddy,” she cooed after dropping his hand, “tell me more about the farm with all the cute animals on it!!!! Everything was so pretty and nice where you lived, I wanna know aaaaaaaall about it!”
Standing up from her bench, Eight jumped over the table top and landed on the bench Madigan sat on, across from her. She sat, squeezed next to the boy, clinging to his arm and chatting loudly as she did so, “That Why-Roaming place was so pretty! Isn’t that where they make all the fancy cheese and stuff? I love cheese! It’s like my fifty-eighth favorite food, right behind kiwis!”
The girl chattered on aimlessly about different types of foodstuffs for a solid ten minutes following this, and all Madigan could do was nod along and wonder when the girl would eventually get tired and call an end to this “date”. He hoped it would be soon, as he needed time to escape to a nice, secluded place and think up ideas to fake his own death, so he could circumvent further “dates with Eight” in the future…
As his felt his eyes droop, Madigan began to realize that the girl would most likely never get tired, since she seemed to be nothing but endless energy and exuberant giddiness…
“Whaaaat? Maddy! Are you sleeping on our date!?”
“Huh? No, I’m not!” Madigan exclaimed, jolting up, “Promise!”
Across from him, Eight puffed out her cheeks, like an angry animal trying to make itself look bigger and intimidating, “You’re not supposed to go to sleep on dates! That’s soooo rude! Really-” here her hands went to her hips, such a hilariously serious gesture for the anything but serious girl- “I’ve dated a lot of people, and they all knew not to fall asleep-!”
“I wasn’t-” Madigan began to protest, then blinked. “Wait. You’ve dated… lots of people? …What? You?”
Eight grinned. “Of course I have! I’ve been on alotta dates! A buncha them! Hundreds!”
Madigan’s mouth fell open wide, to which Eight chided, “You’ll catch flies like that, which is groooossss… Unless you’re secretly a frog, and then that’s okay because those are, like your only food!”
At this, Madigan pursued his lips back together in a frown, but he quickly recovered and asked, “So you’ve dated… hundreds of people?”
“Yeppers!” Eight giggled, “I love dating! Like, I’ve dated alotta many people this week, because I love hangin’ out with and talkin’ to people and there’s been nobody around that I remember and it’s been lonely, which is strange, but-!” Her eyes lit up, “There’s always other people with nice memories and smiles and dating them just makes everything so much more better!”
Madigan listened to her without understanding any of it. Even trying to comprehend hurt his head, so he just. Didn’t try. Although from all that excited babble, one concept got across to him, and a thought rolled him over that he just had to ponder out loud, “So, you’ve dated a lot of people this week. It wasn’t only me…”
“Nah,” Eight answered with an easy smile, “there’s been a lotta nice memories and dates this week! It’s been fun~”
Erk- with that answer, was he blushing from embarrassment now? Because of how he’d thought the Eighth leader had dragged him to this date because she was “enamored” by him and him alone..?
Although he was incredibly relieved not to be the object of the crazy girl’s overpowering affections, Madigan’s ego couldn’t help but feel the tinsy bit bruised by the revelation…
“So, you’re the type to fall in love with anyone, huh?” Madigan muttered to himself, not sure if the thought of the girl crushing on the first person with “nice” memories she met was amusing or downright terrifying.
“Falling in love?” Eight crinkled her nose, “Like, like kissing ‘n stuff? What does that hafta do with dating?”
…

taffy789 • 18 September 2016 at 3:47 AM

“…What,” Madigan intoned, his face scrunching up in confusion, “Uh, Eight…? Do you even… Know what happens on dates?”
“Yeah, I do!” Eight exclaimed, nodding her head vigorously, “dates are for hanging out with other people! You laugh and talk with them and have fun and do a lot of stuff and get to be their friend!”
… Not wanting to be the one to have to give the “Talk” to an insane leader, Madigan averted his eyes and simply stated, “Uh, sure. That’s exactly what happens on dates. You get to be somebody’s friend.”
“See!” Eight lifted up her head triumphantly, showing off the clump of pasta sauce stuck under her chin, “I’m right! Of course I am! I’ve been on so many dates- even Spike-y took me out before he-” She blinked, then spoke to herself, quietly, “Wait, he’s… Um.”
As the girl blinked, confused by her own words, Madigan’s thoughts stirred at the mention of a familiar, haunting first name…
“Spike-y? Like, as in, Spike?” Madigan’s eyes widened, “As in, the torturer leader who could, you know, chop off my head with an axe or something without facing any consequence for it?”
“Yeah, that’s Spike-y!” Eight cheered happily, the fog clearing out from her eyes and brain as the topics were switched, “We’re like, the bestest of friends, and we go on dates all the time because he always hangs out with me, and he never disappears like everyone else, and he’s always there when I go to find him! And he was suuppppeeeer nice a few days ago, when he took me to this carnival place, and there was all sorta pretty lights, and music, and RIDES- oh, and there was a mean guy there who’s memory I wiped and there was. Also. HORSEYS. And it was SO COOL ‘cause-”
Madigan fell deathly silent as the crazy leader chattered on.
He may have been new, but from what rumors he’d already heard around the base… Well, the strange, mismatched relationship between the Second and Eighth leader wasn’t free from speculation, even if most speculation consisted of “Two keeps her around so he can mind wipe anyone he wants when he wants”. But in any case, here the Eighth leader herself was, claiming Two freely hung out with her- “dated” her, even if in the weirdly defined way Eight understood the romantic concept...
Although he knew Eight didn’t seem like the most reliable source of information, the thought that he was on a “date” with the resident torturer’s “bestest friend” still sent shockwaves of fear paralyzing Madigan in his seat.
…It was best to leave, quickly, before word got around about Eight hanging out with some new guy, and a certain terrifying leader came head hunting-!
He stood up, but a whine rang out, and a hand gripped his wrist before he could leave.
“Noooo, don’t go!” Eight complained, pulling him back down, “I’m not done talking to you yet!”
Madigan was forced to plopped back onto the bench, his freedom tugged out from his reach.
“Okay,” he winced, painfully aware of the others in the cafeteria, of the rumors that could be spread, “but can we not be here? I think- uh, people can be too nosy, right? And “dates” are better private, right?” He gave a shaky little laugh, to which Eight giggled back in reply.
“Awwww, Maddy! You don’t needa worry about all those nosy people!” She waved a dismissive hand, “Nobody even knows we’re here!”
“…” Madigan glanced around the room, which was full of at least seven other groups eating a midnight snack.
Seeing her date glance around and pull a disbelieving face made Eight pout. “Noooo! They don’t know we’re here because they don’t know it’s us! Or, well, me.” Eight frowned, then said as if it explained everything, “People don’t really know me ‘round here ‘n stuff, so it’s easy to make them think they saw and heard a person they’ve never met.” She blinked, innocently, and added with cheer, “Super easy actually! Most actually forget what they’re looking at when they look over at us, it’s great, like we’re super alone together!”
She giggled, and Madigan stared, uncomfortable.
The girl was… making everyone in the room forget about her? He glanced around, once more, at the others at the tables who, yes, were eating as if everything was perfectly normal and there wasn’t a loud, shrieking girl with blue hair a table away from them. They continued eating, completely oblivious.
Eight continued to giggle, and Madigan’s sweat turned cold.

awesomeness • 18 September 2016 at 5:55 PM

She giggled for the eternity before realizing Madigan wasn’t laughing with her, and was, in fact, staring at her as if she was a two headed chicken running around with both heads cut off.
Reaching out, she patted the boy’s arm.
“Hey! It’s okay if you don’t wanna be here after all! You don’t needa be scared of crowds!” she consoled him, obviously blind to what was actually causing him to sweat in his shirt, “We can get outta here! I’m done eating anyways, so it’s all good! Let’s go someplace else fun!”
Madigan tried to swallow the paleness that had crept up his cheeks. “Okay. What- what do you have in mind?”
Eight grinned as she dragged Madigan out of the chair and out the door.
“Oh! It’s the funnest place here! The torture wing!”
“Ahaha- no,” Madigan quickly said, now pulling away from Eight with greater force. To no avail- the girl’s grip was unyielding. He tried a different approach, racking his brain to think up something that would properly distract the crazy leader…
He thought of something.
“Hey, Eight? You said you have a lot of other friends, right? Why don’t we go try to find those people instead? Then, you can show me them, and we can all be on the date… together.” He coughed, polyamory being a vastly unappealing idea to him, especially if the triple dating involved crazy Eight. But he said it anyway, and sighed with relief when the girl’s eyes widened, her having taken the bait.
“I do! I do have a lot of friends, lots!” she gasped out, as if just now remembering herself, “A lotta friends! So many! And I know where I can find them-!”
With that exclamation, she tugged Madigan viciously to his left and ran fast down another hallway.

~~~

Madigan could hardly keep up to the girl’s speeds, and he tripped along after her, his feet comically flailing against the metal panels.
Even as she ran, the girl never stopped talking, and Madigan’s ears were assaulted with loud jabbering that went something like, “It’s so nice you want to see my other friends, Maddy! It’ll be great hanging out all together with everyone and stuff!”
“Everyone?” Madigan questioned, gasping as his legs struggled to keep up with Eight’s own, “how many people are we talking about here?”
With that question, Eight turned a sharp right corner and abruptly skidded to a stop, which caused Madigan to be flung into the girl’s shoulder blades. He let out a pained grunt, but Eight stood, uninjured, as if the large boy slamming into her back had been as light as a feather.
“How many people?” Eight repeated, and smushed her hand under her chin as if she were a scholar pondering the meaning of life, “Good question! I have no idea!”
She extended her arms, hands, and fingers out in front of her, staring at her fingernails with such intensity that she almost bore holes through them.
Madigan had peeled himself off of her back by this time, and he stared with the leader, waiting for her to start… doing whatever she was about to do.
Minutes passed, and then Eight’s fingers began dancing, up and down, curling in and out in strange patterns as she muttered incomprehensible words under her breath. At one point, her cheeks puffed up with air and her face turned red, as if she couldn’t breathe, but she eventually let out a huge gasp of air and dropped her arms.
“I got it! I counted on my fingers and I remembered all my friends! I remember them all!” She jumped up, happily, and wrapped Madigan’s left arm in both of her arms.
“Like, I remember this girl- No, wait, two! Two girls! They were my first friends here. They thought I was so weird, but they really really liked me lots! We went on alotta missions together and they were always so nice to me and always were so worried and asking if I felt okay- it was really funny! But I liked them a lot because they were super nice. But then they died, and I became leader!” She winked, so casually, at Madigan and dropped his arm. Her right hand snaked around his wrist instead, and she began walking him down the hallway. “It was sad I guess but I wasn’t that sad, but it was still sad?” She shook her head, as if not understanding that emotion felt, “But they were nice so I guess they were okay! But it didn’t really matter anywho, ‘cause I made more friends after that! Like-” her mouth involuntarily grew wide, huge, and shining- “When I became leader, I always talked to all the new people who would come in and stuff, and I made so many friends! I loved talking to them! I used to show them all around the base, and I would talk, and they would show me their memories! They were super nice too, no bad stuff at all, hardly! They never had any memories of this island place ‘cause they were never here, so it was super nice to get to know them! But they all died too.”
“…Really,” was all Madigan could reply to that with.
“Really!” Eight nodded, “They were a lot like you, Maddy! ‘Cept you’re not dead like them yet, ain’t that great?”
Madigan felt his throat close up, and he wondered if the Eighth leader’s statement would soon prove false. The spot on his wrist that Eight gripped had gone completely moist with sweat, as if close proximity to the girl was enough to make him break out into hives. Not fazed by how deathly ridge Madigan had gone, Eight continued tell loud, detailed stories about the multiple “newbie” friends she’d made over the years, and she dragged Madigan further forward.
Eight led Madigan through a maze of hallways, down a flight of stairs, up a flight of stairs, through the cafeteria once more- all around the base they went until they came to a specific hallway which made Eight jump with excitement. She stopped mid-story about a friend she called Blueberry who had once made her a pie of the same name (“Blueberry was a cannibal” Eight had begun the story with, face completely grave and serious as she said it), and Eight released Madigan’s wrist to clap her hands together.
“Oh! We made it here!”
Madigan glanced around the area. It was highly familiar- yes, it was the sixth division wing, the wing he passed everyday as he headed towards Seven’s office.
“… You’re friend lives here?” Madigan asked, and Eight pointed to a door off towards her right, “Yep!” she cheered, “I come here like, All. The. Time! Giggling, she scurried off to the door and knocked on it.
“Hey~! Hey! Let me in!”
No answer.
Eight stomped her foot, sticking out her tongue, “Hey! Let me IN! Or I’ll have to- to- break this door down!”
She kicked the door, and it opened easily without even a squeak. Smiling triumphantly, Eight hopped inside. Madigan, after a moment of deliberation, followed her up to the entrance.
He read the plaque off to the side of the door as he approached it.
“Sixth Leader Office”
… The base currently had no Sixth leader.
Blinking, Madigan glance inside and saw nothing but an empty office space, completely bare and patiently awaiting a new leader to move in.
Eight stood in the middle of the room, alone and jabbering on to Madigan,
“Tommy lives here! We worked together a lot, ya know~ He was spying and I was information, so he would come to me and then say funny things like,” her voice dropped into a low, exasperated octave as she mimicked, “Are you ever lucid or do you only act like this around me?” or “If those are the actual files I needed and not another doodle of a dog riding a skateboard, I’m going turn into a termite and eat my entire desk”. He was so funny! And he started be nicer to me too, and his comments just became funnier! Not mean and afraid anymore! And once he gave me a bag of popcorn when we had this meeting we had to do, and once he offered to teach me how to ride a skateboard, and though he liked to complain to everyone about me, he said to me that I was his friend!!! Nobody had ever said I was that before, and I knew friends were important, and friends were good, and you had no bad memories with friends, and friends liked each other, and he liked me, and I really liked him, and I’d never had a really good friend before, and he never died like the newbies and then he-”
For once, Eight cut off her own rapid blabbering.
She grew deathly quiet.
“…Oh, yeah.” She spoke softly, her glassy eyes blinking the fog away quickly and her lips forming into an annoyed pout, “Nevermind. Shortcake died. And we weren’t friends when he died, were we? We weren’t! Because Shortcake, he had- had-” Eight’s hands formed into tight balls, and she jabbed fists towards the sky, “He’d never had liked me! Not really! Not really at all, he’d always had hated me! He was never my friend, and he died, and that made me happy.” She huffed, “He deserved it too! He was so mean to me! He didn’t even remember we were friends! And I didn’t want him too either! So there! He didn’t! He died without any friends, and that's good!”
Madigan watched as Eight bounced up and down, agitated and huffing and pouting and scowling in a way that would’ve been cute if the topic wasn’t so morbid and confusing.
“I made nicer friends anyway! You were just mean and dumb and wanted to hurt me!” Eight stuck out her tongue at the ceiling, as if spiting this “Tommy’s” ghost. The leader then flipped around on her heel and rushed towards Madigan again, and this time Madigan stuck out his hand for her to grab because, oh well, it would happen despite any flinching away he did.
Eight was still pouting like an upset child as she tugged Madigan back down the hallway.

taffy789 • 21 September 2016 at 9:35 PM

The leader recovered her good cheer as soon as she turned the first hallway corner.
“Okayies!” she exclaimed, the pout erasing from her face as if like magic, “there are a lotta better places to go in this base! Places that are so much more fun!”
Madigan tried to listen, to pay attention to Eight as she chattered on. Despite… everything about the girl, Madigan was beginning to feel morbidly intrigued by her. Her apparent falling out with the old Sixth leader and her reaction to it had caught his attention, and now Madigan actively looked at Eight, really examined her, and he attempted to grasp this different view of the girl that was forming slowly in his mind. Maybe it was the painful lack of food talking, but seeing Eight’s uncharacteristic anger towards her “ex-friend” made Madigan… worry about the girl. He blamed his soft heart for the concern he felt- he could never stand seeing a girl upset!
So, Madigan resolved to be kinder to the girl.
“Where are we going next?” Madigan asked Eight, trying his hardest to be genuine.
“A fun place!” Eight cheered, pulling the boy along faster.
“Okay, trusting you,” he nodded, and muttered under his breath “as long as it isn’t the torture wing, I’ll be fine…”
Eight gasped, “Maddy! Are you a mind reader??? How did you know I was going there?!?”
“…” It was then that Madigan realized his resolution to think kindly of the girl would be tested, and tested hard.

They arrived to the second division wing in record time.
Eight rushed through the halls, having to stop every so often when a second division worker passed by and blinked. These workers always said something along the lines of, “Leader Eight? Where have you-?” before Eight cupped a hand on their chin, met their eyes, and smiled lovingly.
Madigan watched as the workers, every time without fail, walked away from them, all whistling bad pop songs and acting as if him and Eight had never existed…
He felt the overwhelming urge to run away screaming again, this time the urge arriving in the form of a mild headache.
The headache only intensified as Eight began screeching “Spike-y!!!” as she dragged Madigan down the corridors.
“Spike-y!” she yelled into every door that would open for her.
“Spike-y!” she shouted at passing by night shift workers, only to grab them by the chin and have the world’s worst staring contest before giving them a chance to reply.
“Spike-y!” she actually managed to shout into the second division intercom, and after that one she grabbed Madigan’s arm tight and hightailed it from the second division wing as more night shifters began pouring from every room, their eyes wide and bewildered.
As they escaped the mass of confusion behind them, Madigan heard Eight puffing angrily to herself, “I didn’t find Spike-y dear aaannnnyywheeerreeeee!” The last part came out as a loud whine, one that made Madigan’s ears feel like they were bleeding. As they turned a corner, out of sight of any stray torturers, Eight stopped and stomped a foot- “Spike-y should be here!!!! I don’t know why he wasn’t here, or why the people had memories of that Carebear girl, because that doesn’t make any sense, they should remember Spike-y!!!!”
Madigan watched, blinking as the girl grumbled about how weird it was that everyone forgot about “Spike-y’s” existence. Did she, uh, not know..?
…
Of course she didn’t.
“Hey, Eight?” Madigan coughed, and this caught the girl’s attention as her head whipped around to stare unblinkingly at him, “Eight, Two is, uh, not here right now?”
Eight pouted, “What do you mean? If he’s not here, then where is he!” She demanded, as if the boy was hiding the leader behind his back and wouldn’t show her.
“No, that’s not, ugh,” Madigan sighed, then explained with what little patience he had left, “Two had to go to the frontlines. He won’t be back on base for a while.”
Eight stared, uncomprehending. Then, her face scrunched up.
“No! Why would he be gone? Spike-y wouldn’t leave, he’s not like everybody else!”
“Well, he’s not dead,” Madigan added, knowing all too well how “everybody else” Eight knew had ended up, “and he’ll be back later. He’s just not here right this second…”
“No!” came Eight’s retort, and she began throwing her arms all about, thrashing wildly, “No, he can’t be gone! Why would he leave me? It’s snot fair!”
Like an angry toddler, the Eighth leader fell to the floor and began rolling around in a rage.
After staring at the scene for a good five minutes, Madigan ran exasperated fingers through his hair, at a total loss how to handle the situation. Dealing with Eight, especially when she was agitated like this, made feel like he was playing a very unfun round of extreme babysitting, crazy Falchion leader edition.
Wait.
Babysitting.
Madigan’s eyes widened at the revelation, and he turned towards the childish leader with a new plan of attack in mind.
“Eight?” he asked, forcing care into his words, “if you calm down, would you want to go do something else? Something fun?”
Closing his eyes, he prayed that his little venture would pay off…
“…Can we go get ice cream?” The request was cautious, and sounded hesitant.
“Yes,” came Madigan’s reply, and he was awestruck by how the plan had actually worked.

The following ice cream run could only be described as completely against every rule in the book and also as legal grounds for indefinite latrine duty. However, Eight’s mood had improved by a hundred and ten percent when her arms were full of fudge pops, so Madigan ignored whatever concern he had about his future punishments.
After grabbing the ice cream, Eight’s aimless walking had somehow ended them up in the pathetic indoor garden area. Looking around at the dead grass and limp shrubbery, Madigan averted his eyes away from the depressing sight of worn-out looking, bloodshot eyed teens huddled near the far off corners of the garden. Ugh, he really wished those people weren’t around. He tightened the grip on the fudge pop he was holding and began to hum an awkward tune.
He’d gotten briefed on those sorts of people when he’d arrived to IOD; the type of people who take the low road and use insidious methods of forgetting troubles and pain and allow their bodies to pay the price in return. His guide had drilled him to stay away from that crowd, as they were ignored at best and looked down upon by everyone…
Well, almost everyone.
Madigan stood awkwardly by as Eight dragged him up to the clouded, high-strung kids and began passing out her extra fudge pops to them. He couldn’t help but balk at the leader as she chatted with them, excitedly handing out ice cream like an honest-to-goodness Mother Teresa on a sugar rush.
Silently chomping on his fudge pop, Madigan watched as the kids trickled back to their corners and groups to do… whatever unhealthy substances they did, and Eight- luckily- did not follow to join them. Although given the girl’s own cloudiness, Madigan wouldn’t have thought her any different from the regular crowd…
Eight finished waving to her “friends” and jumped back around to Madigan, waving three half-eaten fudge pops in the air as she motioned for him to come seat with her on a bench.

awesomeness • 21 September 2016 at 10:25 PM

With a shrug of acceptance- really, after tonight, Madigan had experienced it all- the guy walked over to the Eighth leader and took a seat next to her on the crumbling stone bench.
They sat in near complete silence for a good minute, the awful, thunderous sounds of Eight gnawing and slurping through five straight fudge pops being a strangely fitting background music to sitting in a trashy, decaying garden at one AM while a group of kids sitting nearby were pulling out lighters for something definitely less innocuous than a cigarette.
If Madigan closed his eyes and pretended to be anywhere else but where he currently was, then everything actually began to seem alright in the world, peaceful and serene even.
It was nice.
SMACK SMACK SMACK
… Okay, maybe listening to Eight’s disgusting eating noises was less than nice, actually.
“AWWW,” the Eighth leader whined out, and Madigan’s eyelids cracked open to catch sight of Eight’s frowning, disappointed face, “I’m all out of ice cream! This isn’t fun anymore!”
“If you had wanted more ice cream, Madigan blinked, “why did you give some much of it away to those guys over there?”
“Well,” Eight answered, “it’s just a nice thing to do.” She said this as if merely repeating a memorized fact, as simple and as automated as one would spew out what the capital of Egypt was or what date World War One started on. “Giving away presents is a nice thing to do… Right?” she hummed, then nodded with further conviction, “And a guy I dated once did that after we got ice cream and you should always try to do nice things like that, right? You don’t wanna do bad things, you needa do nice things! Like give people your stuff, even if you really want it….”
Eight trailed off and began staring longingly at Madigan’s half eaten fudge pop…
Not caring very much about “nice” or “bad”, Madigan quickly deflected those puppy dog eyes by asking, “So you learned this all from some friend you had?” before shoving the rest of the ice cream bar into his cheeks.
Seeing the ice cream disappear, Eight crossed her arms and huffed, “Yeah! I learned a lot from a lotta friends~ Like this one girl taught me how to make friendship bracelets ‘cause I asked-” Eight uncrossed her arms and a twinkle lit up her eyes as she remembered more and more, “and there was this guy who tried to teach me how to cook and I almost burned down the entire kitchen and died!!! Oh, and there was a guy who let me read these stories and songs he’d written and they were all really sad and I didn’t really get them??? But they were still really cool to see!!! But my friend who taught me how to get alotta fudge pops and give them away-??? He was super nice! I really liked him!”
Her eyes shone so brightly now, so shining and clear as she remembered, “I really liked him lots! He was so nice to me, he gave me a present when he didn’t even know me! And we went on a date and he talked to me first ‘cause he’d wanted to make me happy again!!! Nobody ever did that for me before!!! It was super nice!!!” A wide smile, a brilliant smile burst to life on Eight’s cheeks, so bright that Madigan had to close his eyes to not get scorched by the blinding bliss.
“He talked to me every day for a while, and he wanted to hang out with me, and we always did fun stuff and ate alotta food! He was my best friend! Like Spike-y!” That enormous, lighthouse of a smile continued, only to slip once as her eyes clouded over, and then crack and fall completely as the haze rolled back on through her irises, “…But Spike-y is gone, huh? He left, and he’s gone, and my other friend is…”
Eight stared at her feet, to near which a dying flower displayed the wonderful colors of jaundice.
Madigan removed the popsicle stick from his mouth and glanced the girl over, taking in her sudden swing of mood with a chew of his lip and an expression of pity.
Not knowing how to console Eight, he dumbly finished the girl’s thought for her instead.
“This friend is… gone?”
Slowly, Eight raised her head, and she rubbed thoughtfully at the multitude of jangly bracelets hanging on her left wrist.
“…”
She stayed silent, and Madigan felt another hallow pang of pity, and he-
“Haha!” Eight snorted with laughter, and she stuck out her tongue out with a smile, “Yeppers! He died!”
… Madigan didn’t know how to respond, but it didn’t matter ‘cause Eight continued, grinning-
“He’s kicked the palace in the sky, gone to the bucket six feet under- he did all that kinda stuff! He died!”
“…” Nope, Madigan still had nothing to say to that. And so Eight kept going on,
“He gave me a present before he died too!” the girl hummed, “Wanna see it?”
Madigan shied away from the girl as she invaded his personal space yet again, pressing her neck right in front of his nose as she pulled down the collar of her shirt.
“… He gave you that?” Madigan questioned, eyes set on the long, pale scar that trailed along the bottom of Eight’s neck, barely skimming the jugular…
“Yep! But I guess it wasn’t him that gave me the present, but somebody else I guess!” She shrugged, hand releasing her shirt collar and letting it rubber band back to cover the scar, “ ‘Cause when I went on a mission with my friend, he turned into a big ole’ mean feral! It was very scary, and the feral was so mean!” She pouted, “It was like, the opposite of nice! It was bad, very bad!”
She waggled her finger at the air, as if the feral was right in front of her and she was scolding it, “But it wouldn’t stop being mean. So I got rid of it.”
She blinked, and Madigan began choking.
“You got… rid of it?” he exclaimed, staring at the girl and remembering the feral attack on the base all too vividly, “Your friend, he-”
“He’s dead as a doornail~” Eight sing-songed, and then pulled a face, “I, hmm, totally killed him and everything~ Sooooo, yeah, he’s gone now.” She winked, as if telling a grand old joke, “I made sure of that myself!”

taffy789 • 24 September 2016 at 4:10 PM

Her wink then fell and her face pulled again- it continued to pull- pull itself into an annoyed grimace, “But I hate that he’s gone, even if he had to go! It’s like, very annoying how everyone always has to leave! My friend left, and then she left- oh, and Spike-y has left too now!!!! It’s noooottt faaaaiiirrrrr!” Sticking out her lip, Eight threw her chocolate coated popsicle sticks to the ground in protest of the unfairness of it all.
Madigan got hung up on a word there, “Wait, she left? There was another friend? Are you talking about friendship bracelet girl or, uh-”
Eight gasped as if offended, “Nu-uh! No, she left! I don’t know why you don’t know about her, she was the most important- she was like, my bestestest friend!!!!!!!!”
“You never mentioned her until just a second ago,” Madigan muttered in a protest of his own, but was drown out by Eight’s increase in volume, “She was my bestestest friend, yes she was! She was always around when I needed her, and she kept me safe and I kept her safe, and even when things were bad and scary I knew she could handle it because she was good at handling things!!! She handled things all the time, and she did it so well ‘cause she was really smart and strong!”
Eight clapped her hands together, “She always talked to me, and her voice was so nice when it echoed in my mind, ‘cause then I knew she was with me! And she was always with me, ‘cause it’s not like she could leave, ‘cause we shared a body n’ everything! And-”
“No, what, wait,” Madigan stammered, “shared a body? Are you- you’re talking about your power? Those crazy feral things?”
“What? No, I-” Eight stared, then scrunched up her cheeks. She blinked, and clicked her tongue a couple of loud times before finally giving a small, slight nod-
“…Yeah, oh, yeah!” Eight dragged out each nod at first, but then her head picked up speed and her hair flailed wildly, “Yeah- yeah! That’s what she was, right! My power! She was my power, and she was my bestestest friend too! She was… both of those things, yeah!”
“Eight, that’s-” Madigan cut himself off, closing his eyes and remembering the feral attack, the blood coating the walls and the dead bodies and oh god, the bodies of those who hadn’t died but were just lying there bathed in their own fluids and soaking up pooling red like a crumpled Sham-Wow towel and, lord.
“Eight, your power- it- it isn’t your friend,” he struggled to state this, the passion making distracting choking noises in the back of his throat. “Powers are monsters. They can’t be your friends.”
“What?” Eight exclaimed, bouncing on the bench with surprise, “You can’t say that! It’s not truuuueeeeeeee!”
She filled her cheeks with angry air, “Powers can be nice! It’s the nasty mean ferals that are nasty and mean!” She crossed her arms, “Ferals are mean and powers are nice! That’s how it works, yep!”
Madigan let a puff of exasperated air escape his own cheeks, “Are you trying to tell me your power never did anything evil, or tried to hurt anyone? Because I can’t believe that.”
“My power..?” Eight looked confused, then gasped out as if she remembered something, “Oh! My power! That’s right! Oh, no, she never wanted to hurt anyone!” Eight giggled, “She was nice like that, my power was, yep~!” She winked, and Madigan was unsurprised to discover that he had zero confidence in the girl’s judgement.
“…How do you know it was nice?” he replied, slowly, while tugging on his fingers in an anxious, quick manner, “What did it ever do that could be considered nice?”
“What?” Eight furrowed her eyebrows and grimaced, “She just was… nice! I don’t really know what she did to be nice, but I know her, and I know that she was very very nice! She had to be nice! She was my friend, and all my friends are very nice!”
“Even the scary torturer?” was what Madigan had wanted to retort, but he was cut off by Eight’s continued rant.
“She’s been like, nice ever since I first met her! She was my very very first friend, mm, you know, when I was in that nasty place with all those mean doctors and nurses who all liked to stick things in you and watch while you burned! ‘Cause that’s what it felt like! You were burning and you were alive and you felt it all and it wasn’t a nice feeling at all, nopers!” Her eyes were cloudy and distant. “Mmm, nope, that’s right, yeah- My… power first appeared in that place, mm, right? And that wasn’t a fun place for her. For either of us, really! She appeared ‘cause the needles made us strong. Made… her strong~ Very strong, getit? Buuuuuuuut~” she clicked her tongue a few times, her head having drifted upwards, so her fogged up irises now stared intently at the metal ceiling, “But it hurt alotta.” A grimace. “ALOTTA. Like the burning I was talkin’ ‘bout!!!! Like fire, but on the inside, everywhere. And when it got too much your mind would just give out and then- poof!” Eight threw her arms towards the ceiling, wriggling her fingers for dramatization, “You’re gone! And then you’d be in charge for a little while, until you weren’t again~ And then it continued, every day, all the time, in and out, right? And it was soooo booooring, and not fun, and made you kinda just not wanna exist at all!!!! But you were there and you hadda be there, and that suuuuckeeeed!!!!”
Straightening her head to look at Madigan again, Eight stuck out her tounge and giggled, “She ‘pecially didn’t like it! She really wanted to leave! All the time! I did too, but I just wanted to see prettier places and stuff, and I didn’t want it to hurt anymore even if we were getting’ stronger! It wasn’t worth it at like, all!!!!” She hummed, “We talked about it a lot~ She was alone, and I guess I was alone too, but we were alone together ‘n when your alone together it ain’t so bad! You always had somebody to talk to and your brain was never quiet so it was really really nice! And it got even nicer when we came here and we got away from all that bad painful stuff! Now things didn’t hurt at all unless you got stabbed or something, and you could move around and do stuff a lot!”
Madigan, flushing from the pathos, didn’t dare meet the leader’s clearing eyes. “…Is that so?” was all he found himself saying, and then he closed his own eyes, just trying to imagine-
No. He couldn’t imagine it, not quite.
Eight continued to happily hum.
“Yeppers, my power girl and I were the bestestest of friends! And even with all the new friends we still talked a lot and we liked each other and sometimes we would switch but then we didn’t ‘cause-”
Eight stopped.
She closed her mouth, shutting it into a grim, tight line.
When an entire minute passed and she finally opened it again, the words trickled out slowly, almost carefully chosen and set down as if the slightest misstep could set off a bomb.
“ ‘Cause… she tried to do something I didn’t wanna do. And I stopped her, until she would stop trying to do the thing! But she never did stop trying, and she- she didn’t talk nice in my head anymore~ So I didn’t listen, nope! She was so angry, and it was almost funny!” The corners of Eight’s mouth rose, but the rest of it just sat, unmoving and glued into place. “Buuuutttt~ Then I did a… bad thing. A really bad thing, and I’d never listened, but I didn’t think it was that bad, but it was and-”
Eight’s expression contorted to reflect an emotion never before present on the leader’s face. What it was, not even Madigan could tell. Grief? Regret? Guilt?
None of the above or maybe each and every one, but whatever the emotion was, it was an emotion that caused Eight’s bottom lip to quiver and the corners of her eyes to well up with fat, watery tears-
“And she left me,” Eight finished, the fat tears only growing fatter with how greedily they drank up the sorrow, “she left me all alone, and she won’t come back even though I really want her to, and my brain is all quiet now and there’s nobody there and even when I’m hurting I can’t talk to anyone and it hurts ‘cause everything actually really hurts a lot more than I thought it would, it does but I’d never listened!”
Some of the fat, greedy tears actually began to fall, plopping onto the dying flowers and grass with crashing splashes.
“I’d never listened! And she’s gone! And- everyone is gone! Everyone is all gone and I’m alooooneeee! I never wanted to be all alone, ever! But, but-” Eight sniffled- “I am, aren’t I?”

awesomeness • 24 September 2016 at 4:11 PM

Madigan had no words.
He watched as Eight’s sniffling died down quickly enough but the quivering didn’t, and soon, the girl’s entire body shook and rocked and shuttered.
Growing concerned, Madigan stood up and positioned himself better in front of Eight, and as he placed a careful, reassuring arm on her shoulder Eight’s entire body heaved forward and she threw up fudge pops and spaghetti noodles all over his converse shoes.
“...Uh, ew,” Madigan said dumbly after he sucked in a surprised breath, “Didn’t expect, uh, that-”
He also didn’t expect Eight to be giggling so wildly again, so soon.
“Hehe, eeeewwww,” Eight giggled, “ya know, my stomach really has been hurting a lot tonight! I guess I have a tummy ache, huh?” Still giggling, her hands moved under her shirt to pull it up to her naval and rub at her stomach. Madigan, stepping away from the girl while grimacing, happened to glance back at Eight as get a glimpse of her ‘aching” belly, and- oh.
He choked.
There was a disgusting, greening, infected cut displayed for all to see on Eight’s stomach. The thing obviously hadn’t healed properly, and looked like it even had reopened slightly, only to heal itself again..?
Madigan wondered how he hadn’t noticed, but he didn’t wonder long because the answer came to him, as obvious as anything- he hadn’t noticed because Eight had displayed zero symptoms of sickness. Thinking back on it, her skin had been hot, but he’d blamed his own sweaty and nervous palms for the unnatural heat, not on anything like a life-threatening infection-!
“Eight?” Madigan said, moving closer to the girl again, “hey, you’re sick.”
Still rubbing her stomach, Eight blinked, “No, I’m not! That’s silly, I’m not sick at all~!”
“Yes, you are,” he almost rolled his eyes in reply, “We need to get you to a healer like, asap, and-”
He didn’t finish that thought, for a strong hand gripped his chin and pulled his eyes up to meet her own pair.
“Nooope,” Eight hummed close to his face, “I’m not sick, and we’re not going nowhere, ‘cause our date’s over anywho!” She hummed, went quiet, and dropped his cheeks again after a quick second, “It was really fun! I really liked talkin’ with ya, though-” she smiled, eyes cloudy and carefree, “I don’t even really remember what we’d all talked about! Oh, and you won’t either! Oh well~~~~”
With that, Eight blew a kiss towards Madigan’s blinking, confused person, turned on her heel, and skipped out of the garden, leaving Madigan standing in the middle of a flower patch with an unspeakable substance coating his only good pair of shoes.

asi • 25 September 2016 at 6:03 AM

"K-kill him?" Zan repeated incredulously, having only just barely regained his breath, a question to which Rai hummed and nodded smilingly. "You, you can't be serious."
The doctor couldn't take much more of this. His own breathing was strained and his skin sweaty out of shock from the sudden bereavement of energy. He still managed to stick a hand to his forehead and mutter an angered, "Oh, sod off," directed Rai's way.
His two subjects were proving to be uncooperative.
The power sighed, looking fed up, like his silly cat had just scattered its litter. He rolled up his sleeves. He was going to tidy this crap up. "In that case, I'll just have to do it myself-"
The two tired, beaten faces turned to stare at him in abject horror, and Rai stopped.
A pause.
Then Rai just gave them a big ol' grin that bared his teeth. "What, can't take a joke?" he scolded, pleased yet threatening smile at odds with the apparent disappointment in his tone. All the mixed signals were making the worn doctor's head ache.
Zan, with whom all was evidently not entirely well, as he sat oddly curled inwards, shivering, still found the energy to conjure up a scowl. "Y-you, your humor always did suck, w-whether you were power or user," he said to the brunet, teeth chattering over his words.
Rai's eyebrows drew in, but he didn't say anything, instead turning to the other power as she approached, a little battered and bruised around the edges, but refusing to show it in her stride. She too was smiling, albeit in a tight-lipped, if-looks-could-freeze-you-solid kind of way. It was a far sight from the unrestrained spirit of battle she'd appeared as earlier, but her eyes were no less crazed, grin no less psychopathic.
"That was so much more fun than I thought it would be!" she crossed her arms and leaned over her prone opponent. "We absolutely have to do that again sometime. I won't take no for an answer," and much to everyone's surprise, she stuck out a hand towards the ground, as if to help Zan up.
He stared at the hand like it was about to turn into a bomb and blow up in his face, until she rolled her eyes and hauled him to his feet by his elbow.
He winced, even though after Bliss's thorough job of healing, there was no pain and even his bruises were quickly clearing. Even though he was standing unsteadily, his brain was still trying to catch up with the whole upright deal, while his jaw was hard at work trying to get his mouth around that. "I- okay?" he managed shortly.
'Ver gave him a 'friendly' slap on the back that didn't hit far from his very, very fresh memories of her beating him up. "Good," she replied in satisfaction, while Zan edged a few baby steps away from her and towards Bliss and... Rai, unfortunately.
He had this knowing look on his face. "Didn't I say you'd appreciate a fight more if it was a challenge?" Rai asked her idly.
"You did," she conceded. "But you're still wrong! I only discovered I liked how responsive this one was to pain," 'Ver got this coy look on her face as she reached out and disordered his smooth dark hair. Zan looked unhappy about this, but before he knew it she had him in a headlock so the worn guy couldn't duck away.
"It's nice to see you getting along," Rai observed, dismissing all Zan's facial evidence to the contrary. He turned his attention for the first time to the room at large.
"What are you lot looking at," he seemed amused, "can't tell a fight's done when it's done?" Rai flicked his hand.
An invisible force twisted through the room, wearing through the bodies into a tangled web. Then it shifted, and everyone suddenly turned, as if synchronously pushed. They all stood, feet clapped tightly together, hands and their sides, backs ramrod straight like they were taking part in a military drill, and facing one other rebel in the room. Rai, 'Ver, Zan and Bliss were the only ones unaffected.
"You'll fight one on one, without the use of your personal abilities. You need to train your bodies," Rai instructed in a voice just loud enough to carry as needed. "We'll know if you cheat."
Then he look at the small pile on unmoving bodies at the side of the hall. "And for the dead bodies, break time is over. Freedom from your minds was granted to you. But if you want further liberty, you're going to have to work for it. Up," Rai ordered. "You weren't fooling anyone, nobody should be dying by yoga."
With a little bit of muffled snickering, those pretending to be dead (about half) resurrected themselves, and rejoined the group. The fact that some evidently HAD died by yoga, or at least getting stabbed or burned to ash during yoga was spectacularly overlooked. Once actually dead, they simply didn't exist in a power's eyes.
The energy was gone- the empty husks looked like little more than soft rocks, to them.
"If you're damaged, line up and kindly wait for our resident doctor to get to you. Otherwise: get back to training," the leader said, and everything seemed to fall into place, the training was restrained and controlled, and the only sounds were those of punches landing against arms braced to block.
It was... Oddly concordant, all of a sudden.
Bliss was relieved to be out of it, until Rai gave a tiny gesture with his hand, indicating behind him. The doctor twisted around to be confronted with the giant lumbering mass that had assaulted Zan earlier. Bliss was entirely cast in shadow, and felt a chill that had nothing to do with the loss of light whip through him.
"That's your opponent," Rai sounded awfully blasé about it. "Don't freak out, he won't break anything you can't heal... A friend of Mael's is a friend of ours, after all..."
While Bliss didn't look much comforted, there wasn't anything left to do.
"Come with me," Rai told the two powers he had remaining. "We're going to get started on the moving preparations."

taffy789 • 25 September 2016 at 3:00 PM

~~ The Next Morning ~~

After scrawling down the last necessary word, Tabs placed the pen down on her desk and stretched the cramps out of her hand.
The report was done; all the proper people having been interviewed and all the facts having been set straight.
There it was, a fifteen-page masterpiece detailing exactly how their wonderful Fifth leader ended up possessed by his power on the very first day he assumed any real leader type duties.
Tabs had poured an entire early morning’s worth of effort into the thing, waking up at three and working until six to get all her bases covered and leave nothing assumed.
The report would most likely only get scanned over once by anyone even mildly important.
Picking up one of those novelty mugs she’d stocked in the break room- her favorite one that was shaped like a tiger with the orange striped tail forming the handle- Tabs sipped lukewarm coffee and considered her next course of action.
There wasn’t much on her plate, for she hadn’t been scheduled for any scouting duty today, no, not after the attack yesterday that killed one of her scouts, made the Fifth leader lose his mind, and sent a First Divisioner to medical hold.
Speaking of the sorry states of her two remaining group members, however, Tabs grimaced and downed the rest of her coffee as she realized what she still needed to do.
The report wasn’t finished- she’d forgotten about the follow-up, the section of the report where she gave her opinion about the future outlook of the situation, and where the person reading it pretended that her opinion actually mattered.
To do the follow up, she first needed to gauge the current state of affairs.
Tabs needed to go check in on the Fifth leader.


Standing with her bare back to the bathroom mirror, Annabell ran careful, somber fingers over the large purple welts consuming both of her shoulder blades. They hurt to touch, and even to look at, so Annabell peeled her eyes away as she slowly pulled her sports bra back over her head, wincing as the cloth material tightened over the sensitive bruising. Her shirt followed soon after, and Annabell turned to face her reflection, gazing at it for a full minute.
The girl staring back at her needed rest. She seemed worn-out, ragged, and a bit defeated. Had the girl been anyone else, Annabell would’ve immediately rushed over to her, concerned and telling her to get some sleep, take it easy, and allow herself to relax for a while.
But it was always so easy to give advice. Following advice, however…
Reaching and finding the pill bottle on the sink’s counter, Annabell opened the pain medication that had been prescribed to her, took the amount required, and then returned the closed bottle to its place on the counter.
With that done, she sighed, left the restroom, left her room, and began strolling down the hallway.


“How is everything going in here?” Tabs dropped that dreaded report on the healer’s desk as she welcomed herself into the office.
The healer, who had been lazily staring at her laptop as if in a trance, jolted up when the file banged against the desktop.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, “Tabitha! I didn’t see you there!”
“Mm,” Tabs answered back, the sound apparently passing as a response, “How’s the patient holding up?”
“Five?” the healer blinked, pushing her sliding glasses further up on the bridge of her nose, “He’s uh, not doing the best. His hair color returned to normal around zero-three-hundred this morning, but he hasn’t awoken yet, and it’s not like normal hair color is indicative of being cured of…. Feralism, I guess is the best word for it. We wouldn’t know if he’s back or not until he wakes up, and he seems to be pretty out of it…”
She drifted off, staring back at the laptop screen.
Moving around to the other side of the desk, Tabs peeked over the healer’s shoulder and stared at the sorry sight caught on camera.
The picture showed a grainy, ill-connected live feed of the isolation room a wall over from them. Metal walls upon metal walls lined the room, all emitting power-resistant frequencies. Their leader in charge was pushed to the side of this sad, bland little room, strapped down to a gurney, stuck with an IV, and watched over by a looming heart monitor counting his every pulse.
His hair was black again, but his eyes were shut tight.
And just as Tabs was writing the rest of the report in her mind- “Current situation does not seem to be on the path of improvement”- Zach’s body began to jerk and move in the gurney, as if something was starting to stir-
Tabs shot a quick, commanding glance down at the healer, and the healer jumped into immediate action, “Oh, yes, yes! I’ll get the interrogators here right away, on it!”
Tabs gave a nod of appreciation to the girl, always happy to have others understand her even with the most minimal effort on her part. That being taken care of, she turned back to watch the Fifth leader’s stirring body struggle against his restraints, and she couldn’t help but wonder what he kind of monster he was facing inside the cool darkness of his own mind…

~~~
The needle sticking in your arm hurts.
A large, welling bruise has formed around it, all purple and swelling and engorged with hurt and blood.
You breathe out, slowly, and pull your eyes away from the ugly welt in the time it takes to blow that one lethargic breath from your clammy lips.
All previous panic has gone with one needle stick, but horror still swirls all around you, alive and fogged up and distorted, as if the fuzzy doctors in masks peering over you are speaking while drowning.
You can’t hear anything but undistinctive muttering and a steady, high pitched beeping.
You still know you’re going to die.
The feeling hasn’t gone away, your power hasn’t stopped sending the waves pounding down your back, vibrating your entire body as if trying to shake you into action.
In this moment, you hate your power. You wish you could shake it instead, tell it to stop, cut it out, stop telling you that you should something when you can’t do anything-
The sharp beeping is getting higher pitched, faster paced, and it makes your chest hurt, makes your power flare frantically again, as if it’s trying to explode out of you, escape from underneath your skin-!
Your breathing isn’t slow anymore and it hurts you, hurts you so much to know why- why did it hurt so much, why couldn’t it be painless? Your breathing isn’t slow anymore and suddenly you can’t breathe, and your chest explodes and the beeping becomes unbearable and suddenly you can feel twenty hands on you and suddenly-

The scene shifts, and the beeping continues.
Now everything is clear, vivid even.
So clear you can see everything- the doctors rushing about, looking as if they’re about to wet themselves; the sterilized white walls of the room, shining so hard that they hurt the eyes; the dying body of the person a table away, his face pale and sweating and choking and looking so cold-

Zach’s eyes roll to the back of his head as the heart monitor flat lines, and you could feel your own chest tightening, as if about to burst into a thousand, crushed pieces-
~~~

When the vivid, malicious memory let go of him, and Zach finally regained a shaky consciousness, the first sensation that hit was the taste of dirt flavoring his throat.
His head immediately shot up from the ground soon after, and he hacked loudly, trying to cleanse the horrible earth from his taste buds. Pushing himself off the ground, Zach continued coughing, continued fighting against the terrible taste, continued… All action paused and he at once forgot everything- the dirt, the memory- no, the nightmare?- of himself dying- he forgot it all when he opened his eyes and realized something was incredibly off about his current situation.
The closed in, suffocating walls of the underground bunker had completely disappeared, which would’ve been a great development had Zach recognized the dense, surrounding jungle that had taken their place.
He stood up, slowly, and craned his neck side to side, examining every inch of the area.
This place… wasn’t anything like area A-D on IOD; the rainforest there wasn’t so misty and impassable, as if it was more cage than foliage, as if an exit didn’t exist-
When he tried to call upon his power to tell him which direction to go in and came up with nothing, Zach’s stomach plummeted, and he winced with the disappointment- yes, his power was gone, wasn’t it? His power couldn’t give him directions out of the jungle, his power couldn’t tell him how he’d gotten here, or where “here” was, or where Raven had disappeared to, or if there was some kind of huge jungle cat stalking him in the shadows, waiting to pounce-
"Oh, hmm? The exits all around you, you really don’t need to worry about that. Everything here is created by your mind anyway, so-"
Zach whipped around to the voice, his hand instinctively reaching behind his back for a sheathed sword but ending up grasping nothing but empty air.
He cursed at this, but all anger faded, replaced by shock and confusion, as he saw the face of who’d just spoken to him.
Sitting on an overturned log a few feet away from him, a near mirror image of himself- everything the same but that dark brown hair- waved at him and rose its eyebrows.
“Hello,” it greeted, giving a pleasant, sparkling smile.

awesomeness • 26 September 2016 at 11:40 PM

Mikey shook his head disapprovingly as his roommate pulled on a t-shirt.
“Quincy,” he stated, crossing his arms to show that, nope, there was no arguing that he was wrong, “it makes zero sense for you to be up right now. Seriously, get some rest.”
“Look, I’m fine,” Quincy smoothed out the shirt over his stomach, “The picture of health and all that. I’m not even tired.”
Mikey’s bushy eyebrows furrowed over his squinting eyes- expression of somebody who heard their BS detector going off.
“… The healers were basically carrying you back here last night,” Mikey deadpanned.
“I was walking!” Quincy defended himself hotly, red rushing up to his cheeks at the memory, “They had wanted to make sure I made it back alright, is all that happened.”
“You were swaying.”
“But I’m okay now,” Quincy retorted, “And that’s all that matters.”
Mikey rolled his eyes, but relented, “Fine, go and injure yourself even more. Heck if I’m your keeper and even then what a thankless job that would be.”
Quincy snorted good-humoredly, “I won’t die from walking around base, don’t worry.”
“Just watching you constantly run around gives me a headache,” Mikey complained, flopping backwards and landing on his cot with a groan. He then quipped, “I don’t see how your boyfriend keeps up with you.”
“Pure determination?” Quincy offered with a grin, “The power of love?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Mikey muttered, flipping around and burying his head in his pillow, “When your wound reopens don’t come bleeding to me.”
Laughing, Quincy pushed open the door and exited into the hallway.



The entire situation took a moment for Zach’s brain to fully comprehend.
Realization came gradually, slowly, like dripping honey, but when it finally hit him, he recoiled backwards with a start.
His clone- his power- flicked its tongue out, annoyed by this reaction, “Come on Zach. Your face isn’t that scary, even if it tends to frown unpleasantly so much, so there’s no need to jump like a rabbit like-”
His power blinked and ducked as a thrown tree branch came sailing overhead, missing poking its eyes out by an inch, “Aaaand there’s definitely no need to throw things.” The power bemoaned, scowling in its user’s direction, “Seriously, you are so irrational. Here I was, patiently waiting for you to come out of a coma, and this is how you greet me? How you respond to my welcome? No respect, no love at all. It disappoints me, it does.”
From his spot crouching on the ground with hand frozen mid-reach for another tree branch to wield as a weapon, Zach’s eyes narrowed as he glanced his power over, as if merely staring at it could allow him to figure its game out.
“There’s no game being played here!” his power exclaimed vehemently, causing Zach to jump again at how accurate the reply to his thoughts had been, “I get the feeling of what you’re feeling~ You think I’m going to hurt you, or take you over, or betray you, or- something!” The power stood up, hands going to its hips in a weird fashion Zach had never done, so the user’s head hurt when he saw his body performing the act in front of him, “But!” the power declared, “You’ve asked me a million times already. And I’ve replied back a million times, no, I’m not going to take you over. But you still ask, you still doubt me despite me never telling you anything but what to expect next! So, why is your immediate thought that I choose this time to lie? Hasn’t past experience taught you to put trust in me yet?”
Zach studied the power, carefully. Standing up, slowly, he spoke in a measured, apprehensive tone, “No, but past experience has taught me that a power trying to overpower its user in their own mind is a very real possibility.”
“Ugh, possibility,” the power scoffed, “See, that’s where you’re going wrong. You don’t fear possibility; you should fear reality. Possibility can’t hurt you~ As such, yes, it’s possible I could fight you for dominance right now, but in reality, I just want to talk.” It grinned, “See how that works? There’s no need to fear! So simple!”
“…” Zach stared at the stupid grin on the power’s face- or was it his face? Their face?- and he fought the urge to reach down, grab the tree branch he’d been going for, and smack the power across the mouth with it.
The power blinked as it recognized the clear disdain present in Zach’s expression.
“…You… still are uncomfortable,” the power stated, frowning, “Even after I assured you that you have no reason to reject my welcome. It stuck out its tongue, displeased, “Do you really not trust me that much?”
The power sounded so offended, so hurt, that it made Zach's shocked stare melt into a scoffing, sarcastic eye roll. “Oh, okay,” Zach bit, completely unable to believe that the power was sincerely bothered by the lack of trust, “I’m stuck in the middle of a jungle that’s supposed to be my mind, staring at a strange clone of myself, and you wonder why I might feel ‘uncomfortable’?”
“The environment and my form are making you uncomfortable?” the power’s voice rose in surprise, “You could’ve said that from the beginning~”
With that, the power smiled and disappeared in the blink of an eye, causing Zach to jump backwards again, his body tense as he scanned the area for where his clone had flashed away to-
“Head straight in front of you. That’ll lead you out of the jungle.”” the familiar voice of his power echoed out around him, stemming from no specific direction.
When Zach flipped his head back around to look in front of him, a dull surprise rang out in his chest as he saw the forest foliage had cleared as if by magic, and a straight path cut through the dense jungle, leading out to what looked like some kind of clearing…
… Not having any better word to trust, Zach grabbed the tree branch from the ground and began the hesitant, skeptical crawl towards the exit his power had directed him to.

It barely felt like he’d walked half a minute before long, swaying savannah grass began to brush against his pant legs. Distance, Zach realized as he stared at the lone, dying tree that twisted up from the grass in front of him, was a concept that did not exist in his mind. He continued to stare solemnly at the tree, his thoughts attempting to process the utter BS he’d apparently had been dragged into, when his power echoed out again in the mindspace, “Sssooo glad you can make it.”
When Zach glanced around the savannah, clutching his tree branch tighter, the voice gave out a miffed “Urph” sound before hissing out, “Up HERE dummy.”
A chill shook down his spine at that clue, and Zach instinctually hurled his improvisational weapon into the limbs of the dead tree above him, causing a scared yelp to echo out while something long, brown, heavy, and scaly dropped down from above, hitting him square on the shoulders and sending him barreling to the dirt.
“Why do you keep THROWING THINGSSSS at me!” the power complained, the resonating voice making Zach press his hands to his ears with how unbearably loud and whiny it sounded, “It’sss sssnot funny, or even very effective of a ssstrategy, given my power.”
Zach, lying on his back in the dirt, stared up at a grey, tormented sky above and swore he could see his own agitation reflected in the violent, murderous movement of the swirling clouds. Then, the shaking of the clouds seemed to shiver with him as fear crept up his back, as a strange, sliding something moved against his shoulders and began curling up as a heavy weight on his chest-
He choked on the shock, and Zach’s head whiplashed down to stare at the huge, brown hood of the cobra that loomed over him, black beady eyes glinting with something dangerous, something insidious, something downright mirthful-
The king cobra flicked out its tongue and held it there, as if almost teasing. “Nice to meet you again~ Hopefully this form makes you feel less violent towards me?”
The snake almost seemed to smile smugly with his words, but suddenly, sensing something, it immediately flickered its tongue with a greater sense of urgency and commanded, “Wait, don’t you do what I know you’re about to-”
But it was too late, and Zach frantically grabbed the cobra by the tail, flinging it off his chest, away from his body, and into the side of the dead tree before the power could even finish warning his user about how it did not want to end up being desperately flung into a dead tree.
As he heard the "thud" of a large snake hitting the dirt, Zach rubbed at his on-setting headache with exhausted hands and dully wondered if slipping back into a peaceful, sane coma was an option he could willingly take.

asi • 27 September 2016 at 9:05 PM

Raven hadn't slept well.

In the middle of the night, she'd awoken in a hot sweat, breathing heavily, perhaps having just made some breakneck escape from a dream she couldn't remember.
All was still, and quiet save for the sleepy, rumbling breathing from next door. Raven recovered her breath slowly, letting the heat escape her skin and the rigidity seep out from her muscles, relaxing. Only for her to freeze, blood running cold, as she grabbed at her right arm, her injured arm, her stiff arm, that she couldn't feel at all, couldn't move, couldn't even twitch her fingers-
Raven rolled her shoulders, and the tightness that had held the limb captive was released, her elbow bent and fingers wriggled and curled in and out of a fist... Everything worked, and her heart rate eased back down to a steady thump, thump, thump.
But when she sat up and tried to stretch, it still couldn't make it over her head, while her left hadn't a problem reaching for the ceiling. This time, Raven didn't bother pushing it until it hurt.
She lay back down, closed her eyes, turned her face into the pillow.
Forced herself back to sleep.

She was interrupted once more in the early hours by loud noises outside her door, a stampede charging through her hall, shouting and beating against doors. Apparently this was a daily occurrence at this base on the front lines. But Raven was so tired at this point, she was barely conscious enough to roll over and grumble into her mattress before again drifting off...

Late morning found her slumped over a cup of coffee in the break room, feeling anything but well-rested, in fact, more like she's been dragged through thorn-bushes all last night. In fact, maybe she had been, considering the uncooperative state she'd awoke to find her hair in. Raven had dragged herself along to the showers to try and beat it down. It had flattened, but also thickened, holding all the water and not letting any of it go. But then there was the dreaded lack of decent product. And then she'd discovered the absence of a power outlet for her prized hair straightener.
... A bad hair day might have been the least of her problems, but it sure didn't help make her feel better.
It was barely held back by a lousy ponytail now, flopping down her back and weighing like it was made of bricks. Along with the t-shirt she'd barely been able to get over her head and the rough pair of jeans the base had so kindly donated her, she hardly looked the part of an assistant to anything anymore. Nothing more than hard labor would be willing to employ her. Luckily, that was all the front lines seemed to have on offer, so far, so why dress up for that?
A walking mass of long, trailing, dread-locked hair came and sat down opposite her, but she didn't look up.
"Rough night huh," they observed, leaning back in their chair as beneath their hair, dark eyes looked her up and down.
"Rough life," she returned, grimacing briefly before taking another slug of dark, hot, liquid sugar and caffeine. She'd used a hideous amount of powder in the brew, but, she had no regrets.
They gave her a look she didn't quite understand- especially since it was coming from hair- then switched gears. "The clothes, they fit well." Their gaze seemed to linger a little on the ends of her sleeves. Raven tugged at them, personally finding it a bit tight around the slight muscles of her biceps, but she wasn't going to say as much.
"They're alright," she agreed, and found she now had the energy to stare at the mug she was drinking out of in disgust. Was... Was that Eeyore and Piglet?? She wished she'd never looked.


His lids clamped hard around his single working eye, trying to squeeze more sight out of the worn thing, squinting at the page even as a sickly green shroud threatened to obscure it.
It smelled so bad, he was beginning to see it. That couldn't be good. Not to mention the bad lighting, it was so dim in his room, Izzy wouldn't be surprised if his one eye, usually a caramelized brown in color, turned a burning, itchy red from the strain.
But god forbid the miserable lumps curled up under covers on the other beds get introduced to their headaches by the artificial light of day. That, Izzy severely doubted, would make them any more bearable as roommates. One bundle shifted, groaned; Izzy froze like a dear in the headlights, fingers clutching his mechanical pencil tight enough that it might have snapped, given a moment more's pressure.
But all was silent and still, and after a short pause, he went back to scratching away at the sheet, lips tight, focus sharp but brittle as dry autumn sticks and crackling orange leaves.
Every time he breathed, residue of that stuff invaded his nostrils. Izzy tried to tell himself it could be worse than his most recent set of roommates being a bunch of potheads and stoners.
But even hours later, the stench clung to their clothes and their skin, and Izzy's sensitive little nose would always, always pick it up, and multiply it a thousandfold until it clogged up his senses... The end of his lead snapped on the paper when he pressed too hard, and he looked up nervously.
Nothing.
No, Izzy decided, eyeing the wretched, doped-out bodies, and how enviably easy they rested. These guys were the worst. He couldn't wait for his next lot. Maybe they'd be the wide-eyed, battle-fanatic type. Anything was preferable.
Izzy spared a minute to wish for the thousandth time he'd followed Quincy back to his room last night. No amount of sulking or self-frustration was worth this. He thought longingly of the warm bed and warm arms and warm sleep that he could've been having...
He was startled into dropping the pen he, in the midst of his daydream, had began to suck on, when a new weight on his bed caused the whole mattress to dip. It was one of the guys- Allen, Thompson, Bolton or Bruce, something like that anyway. Their faces, as well as their names, had long since begun blurring together in his mind.
"Like, we're... gonna have like... a few people over," the guy was speaking at the pace of a tortoise, like someone had grabbed a voice recording and played it at half speed. Izzy appreciated that it still made the dude's horrible English only more difficult to understand.
What he didn't appreciate was how a room full of people who looked like they were waiting to die, expected to have guests. He frowned, thoroughly displeased by how close this stinky guy had just gotten to his face.
In return, the guy appeared annoyed by Izzy's very continued presence. "Like... do you mind..?"
Izzy flipped his spiral notepad shut with a snap. No matter how frightfully early, that was more than enough to give him a strong resolve to leave.
He headed for the cafeteria, knowing whatever the hour, it'd be open, except for the couple when it wasn't, but he'd checked and established that wasn't now.


"Ah..! Annabell!"
Having been busy hemming and hawing outside her room for the past half hour at least, Riley had wandered a little ways down the corridor and then forgotten which door he was supposed to be eyeing up. One moment he'd been all caught up in the process of flipping through his paper documents and the notes stored on his phone, the next he was second guessing the door he was standing in front of, trying to remember if Annabell's number had ended in a 4 or a 3, and where had he written that down?
The result was that he very nearly missed her when she finally quit the room. His startled reaction to seeing her suddenly disappearing down the corridor was first to start forward, in such a careless hurry that his papers immediately flew up around him, slipping free from under his thumb and blowing up in his face.
Hence the severely delayed call, following his upset exclamation all muffled by the flapping of papers in the air.
"..." He knelt down, completely pink in the face, and started to gather them all up, the flustered and shaky state of his hands only slowing the process down. With an intense flood of embarrassment welling up side, Riley remembered when he was a Super School student and had all his notes tidily typed up, printed out and color-coded in his ring-binder... Oh how times had changed. Now he was a fumbling mess. The shirt he'd donned a mere couple of hours ago, freshly ironed, now rumpled like he'd slept in it, tie twisted and unfastened around his neck. If he had a little less energy, he'd retreat back to his room and try to start the day all over again.
But there was much to do, and he hadn't the patience to wait for himself!

taffy789 • 28 September 2016 at 8:28 PM

Spinning around at the sound of papers flapping, Annabell's sulky face broke out into concerned confusion upon seeing the rumpled, spazzy mess that was her friend battling his fleeing notes.
She rushed to his side and caught the remaining papers in five seconds flat, so fast that any stray bystanders watching would've believed her power was super speed.
"Riley, um, good morning!" she said by way of greeting, standing up and shuffling the papers so they made a neat pile in her arms. Now able to get a breath in, she sighed and ran her scrutinizing eyes over the boy, noting the messy clothes and trying to find telltale signs of tiredness in his face.
"...Before you say anything," she began, voice sternly stubborn in it's tone, "let's just do. One thing at a time."
She held out the papers to her friend while saying to him, "Like, first off! Do you um, need me to fix that tie for you or do you have it..?"



“Ah, ooowwww,” Zach could hear the snake whining and complaining, “Oh, oww, ow! That HURT, you over-anxioussss-”
Tuning out the next hissing snake sound- one that started with an “A” and ended with too many “S’s”- Zach finished rubbing his hands over his eyelids and sat up, a grumpy frown aimed right in the direction he’d thrown the dumb reptile.
“Why in the ever-living heck,” hissed out Zach in a manner very reminiscent of the snake’s own verbal ticks, “did you thinking turning into a venomous cobra and pointing your fangs at my chest would make me feel any more ‘comfortable’ than seeing my own walking, talking reflection?”
A pile of rocks at the base of the dead tree shifted as an invisible weight began to climb them. Soon, a long, brown slithering form could be seen snaking around the sharper rocks, and it paused midway up the pile for a moment to glance back at its user and make pointed eye contact with him.
It appeared to be sulking, if the forlorn way its dark hood hung was any indication.
“Persssonally,” the cobra began, its head tilting to one side as the voice echoed around the savannah, “I wasss under the impresssssion that thisss form had a much cuter and less scary and unpleasant face than the other one… sssso, yesss, that wassss my reasssson for thinking the way I did.”
His not cute, but scary and unpleasant frown deepening, Zach blinked, trying to correctly comprehend what he’d heard.
“…Are you trying to tell me that a deadly cobra’s face is more comforting to look at than mine?”
“Uh.” With a nervous forked tongue darting out the lick at its eyeballs, the snake turned away from its user, focusing on climbing the rocks again.
“Uh. Um.” It continued to stutter out, unconvincingly.
Upon reaching the apex of the rock pile, the snake positioned itself on a large, flat rock and extended itself upwards, as if reaching for the unattainable sunlight that failed to break through the dark, storming clouds raging above.
It stared at the sky, tongue continuing to brush over its eyes as it visibly pondered over this impossible question Zach had voiced to it…
Finally, an answer.
“…No,” the power concluded by means of obvious lie.
From his sitting position on the ground, Zach stared at the cobra that now was attempting to sadly sun itself on the cold, lifeless rocks.
The sight was near pitiful, even Zach had to begrudgingly accept. Pity, however, was microscopic compared to the other emotions raging through his irate brain- shame, for example, raged strong at how this annoying reptile was apparently his other half, and confusion ran rampant at everything, especially at how strange his power was, so unlike anything he’d ever thought up during those far and few times he’d even considered his power having a personality.
The pity, even, was mostly self-directed. Zach was the one having to share a brain with this thing after all, and if his power could drag him out of his dreams kicking and screaming and bring him to this place, wherever or whatever this place even was…
Although Zach hadn’t been getting much sleep before, he found himself dully doubting that he would be seeing any more of it in the near future.
The snake hissed softly, making Zach raise his head back to look at it with a scowl.
“Are we going to talk or are you just going to ssssit there and make pouty facesssss?
Although he’d originally doubted the sincerity of his power wanting to “talk”, Zach now shrugged at his power’s complaint, and he scooted forward on the ground closer to the pile of rocks, taking a seat cross legged and eye-level from the snake. He did this not because of a sudden, newfound trust he put in his power and its words, but because, after hearing his power stutter so pathetically over that weak, obvious lie of “no”, Zach became painfully aware of the fact that his power was honestly terrible at lying. This revelation on brought more tension upon Zach than relief, for new questions and confusion arose in his mind, all focused on why his power seemed to be filled with such… candid goodwill towards him.
Amicability he could understand, but why the interest in talking? Why bother fretting over its user ‘comfort’? Why-
“Sssshessssh, I jussst thought it would be nice to offisssshially talk to each other,” the snake hissed out, causing Zach’s spine to stiffen.
“Are you reading my mind?” Zach grunted, warily considering the power.
“No,” the power hummed in response, “You have a really nassssty habit of assssking quessstionsss in your mind, and I pick up on thossse becauussse-” a pause- “Well. That’ssss my job, isss it not?”
Zach scowled. “Well, cut it out while you’re here. It’s annoying.”
And freaky, Zach didn’t add, but certainly grimaced to himself.
The snake turned pointedly away from him, refusing to make eye contact. “Uh. Yesss, yesss, sssure. I will. Do that. Definitely. Yessss~”
If snakes could sweat, Zach was certain the reptile would look like it’d just been forced to run five miles in A-A. He bit back annoyance and decided to only grace the obvious lie with an eye roll.
“So,” he said, if only to make the conversation go by faster, “talking.”
The snake perked up, its hood extending with interest, “Yesss! Talking! I underssstand that you likely have many quessstionsss, sssso I thought we could firsssst anssswer those before moving onto what I wissshed to dissscussss with you. His tongue flickered in and out, almost playfully, “What’sss been on your mind?”
Zach thought about that one for a moment.
Of course, there were many questions he could ask, many of them about strange environment built up around them, many of them about his power’s strange antics, and many, many more of them some variant of the question, “When will I wake up?” and “Where the heck even is my body, still suffocating under a mountain of dirt, or-?”
But out of all those important questions, Zach could only voice one as he looked back up at the snake and saw all that uncomfortable, mirthful goodwill reflecting back at him-
“Why aren’t you trying to kill me right now?” Zach snapped at his power, irritated, as if he took his power not trying to dance over his grave as a personal offense, “It makes no sense. I believed you when you were a feeling simply saying my power wouldn’t try to take me over, but seeing you here now, I see that you have more than enough of an opportunity to strike and take me out.” He glowered and ran an agitated hand through his thick hair, “So why don’t you? What’s with all this friendliness?”
“Well, there’ssss many ansssswersss to that one,” the power’s voice echoed, sounding audibly puzzled. The confused bobbing of the snake’s head matched the tone as it continued, “The firssst, sssimplesssst anssswer being that. Living ssssuckssss.”
The snake then nodded, as if it had said something profound and not a truth Zach had discovered by about age seven. “It’sss jussst too much of a hasssssle~ Eating, fighting, breathing-” there was a particularly nasty grimace here- “And the pain!!! You do not take care of your body at all, I’d never expected it to hurt ssso much, and I can’t believe that’sss what you feel every time you get cut- it’sss horrible!” The snake bemoaned and shivered, remembering a clearly unpleasant feeling.
“Living isss jussst. Not my ssstyle. Essspecially ssssince I think it would overwhelming for me, knowing what wasss happening all around me, and then having to dessside what to do about everything I knew would happen~” The snake wriggled back and forth on the rock in an agitated manner, “It would not be fun, Zach. Sssso much of that, and I believe I would go craz-sssy with time.”
So, the power didn’t try to overtake him because it had no will, no want to. Zach could understand that, yes, he could grasp that perfectly-
“However,” the snake continued, licking another thoughtful tongue over its eyeballs, “I alsssso don’t want to take you over out of respect for you. You don’t want to be taken over, ssso I won’t do that. That appearsss to be sssomething awful to do to a sssomeone I sseee as a friend and partner in whatever cassse~”
… That, on the other hand, Zach refused to comprehend.

asi • 28 September 2016 at 11:42 PM

"Thanks so much!" he gave her a broad, grateful smile in return for all her help, a surprising heap of relief dropping down over his shoulders when he saw his papers safely cradled. Riley wasn't bad with this sort of work, he just always felt like it was trying to run away from him, with unexpected deadlines popping up out of the blue, and also the occasional literal escape attempt, like just now. Riley wished he had someone to look after this kind of thing... Actually, he had an assistant, but um, they didn't seem to fill that kind of role.
He was about say something about the papers being jumbled beforehand anyway, when Annabell shut him down, an iron edge to her tone.
He blinked mutely, obedient. He stood, received the papers, putting his phone into his pocket and tucking them securely under one arm.
Then Riley looked down at his disordered appearance, and his lips twitched in amusement at his friend's apparent priority. "Oh um, would you-? Thanks," he straightened his shirt and his back so she could get it for him, since she was offering.
His calm hardly lasted, however. Realizing how strange he might seem, out here like this and so early, Riley began to chatter out an explanation, of sorts. "I had a meeting this morning! It was with the assistants, and there was so much they had to have me authorize," he was slightly amazed by the sheer complexity of the daily operations going on behind the base. Who would have guessed so much writing and math and signatures went on behind procuring another fifty cartoons of milk for the cafeteria? It seemed like a hassle, but resources were one of their primary concerns at the moment. "Oh, Nine was there too, but her permission didn't seem to be worth as much, I guess, because they weren't swarming her..." Once Riley had started talking, he didn't seem able to stop. His green eyes were bright, and his skin had a lively and warm hue to it. He seemed... Healthy and energetic.

taffy789 • 1 October 2016 at 3:55 AM

"Hmm," Annabell hummed, brushing down the wrinkles in the shirt's shoulders, "seems like it's been a busy morning for you."
Her hands hesitated for a microsecond as they grasped the ends of the tie, wavering slightly as the significant of their actions caught up to them.
Although she'd offered to fix the tie with only the purest intentions in mind, she'd completely neglected to realize how naturally intimate of an act it was, how close her hands would have to be to another person's body-
Thankfully the red flooding her cheeks was invisible to Riley due to the downwards angle her head was leveled, but sadly he could still feel that forceful, nervous yank she gave the tie as she hurriedly tried to pull it straight around his neck-
"Oops, sorry!" she blurted out at her mistake, and a sad, frustrated little sigh followed soon after.
It was too early in the morning to feel this embarrassed.
Annabell swallowed the remaining blush and allowed her deft hands to mindlessly finish the job while she attempted conversational small talk.
"I guess it would make sense for you to be the one to sign everything though, right?" she asked more than stated, unsure of her own grasp on the politics of the base, "I mean, besides One, aren't you the highest ranking leader on base?"
Her hands finally completed their job, and she relaxed as she stepped back from the boy.
With the change of view, she managed to get a better look at her friend, and she smiled, feeling almost jealous at how healthy, excited, and alive he looked.
"You seem to be handling it pretty well though, which is great. And also pretty impressive. I know I wouldn't want to be in your shoes right now."


“Since when have we been friends?” Zach stated so bluntly, which such an intent to cut that any normal human would’ve flinched away as if they’d been bitten.
The power, however, was unmoved. The only emotion present in its voice was mild disappointment at a wrong statement as it answered, as factual as a math textbook, “Obvioussly, we’ve had a sssort of friendssship sssince your childhood, when I firssst began communicating with you~ How elssse would you explain your reliancccce on me?”
The voice boomed so innocently, so matter-of-factly that Zach couldn’t help but grit his teeth before he spat out his next refute “Just because I use you to stay alive doesn’t mean we’re friends.”
“But what other real bassisss for friendsssship makes sssense, then?” the power asked, sounding puzzled. “Why do you think I call you a friend, if not becaussse I recognize I rely on your for my sssurvival?”
… Realizing what concept of friendship his power had lifted a suffocating defiance off of Zach’s chest. He found himself almost comforted by the fact his power based “friendship” along the lines of mutually beneficial relationships- at least Zach could accept the logic underlying that choice. His shoulders relaxed, relieved from the stress of trying to understand what made his power want to act so… nice to him.
Him being an asset the power wanted to protect was an answer he could willingly accept, and even was a relationship he felt secure in being a part of, given the leverage it offered him.
“I… get it now,” Zach answered with a final puff of tension leaving his lips, “But you should’ve made that answer a lot simpler just by saying you preferred to keep me around fighting your battles for you.”
“Mm, perhaps~” answered the power, sounding a bit miffed, “But I do important work here too! It takessss both usss to ssurvive! Without me, you’d be dead!”
“Sure you might have a point there,” Zach replied, flippantly, “But I’m moving onto the next question now.”
Hissing in annoyance, the snake curled up in on itself, giving off a hurt, pouting appearance as it awaited the next answer it had to give.
It complained, muttering quietly to itself but still projecting the words into the mindspace, “Fine Zach, don’t be nicssssshh to me, it’ssssss fine.”
“Okay,” Zach frowned, “there’s a good next question. Is that hissing “s” sound you keep making really necessary?”
The power hummed. “Of coursssse it issss~”
“No.” Zach stated back blandly, “I don’t need your intuition to tell me that, no, it’s not.”
“Zacccchsss, it’ssss mossssst csssssertainly issssss~”
Zach crossed his arms, raising a bushy, no-nonsense eyebrow. “No, it issss-” he tripped and choked on his betraying tongue- “I mean, it isn’t!”
“Zachsssss thisssss issss thessss waysss sssnakessss talk- uh, talkssss?” the cobra began swaying in confusion, “Talkss? That doesn’t sound very right, does it?”
Zach’s mouth gapped open in frustration and shock as the power mused over his pronunciation.
“Ah, well,” the power began, its tail swishing sheepishly across the dusty rock, “If I have to admit it, I was only doing the hissing because I thought it was cool.”
Zach snorted, “That was absolutely not ‘cool’ in any way, shape, or form.”
Its hopes and dreams crushed, the snake shrank sadly down onto his rock.
After that inane argument had killed half of his brain cells, Zach tried and failed to think of any good, serious question to ask next. The only thought running through his mind was how exasperatingly annoying his power was, and that train of thought only led to one place-
“The spiders,” Zach stated suddenly, causing the snake to jump in surprise and yelp out a frightened “What? Where?”
“No, they’re not here,” Zach sighed, “I’m asking what’s the deal with the spiders? Why did you keep bothering me with their locations for the past week?”
“Because,” the snake shivered, “They’re horrible creatures who are certainly the most wicked, terrifying things in existence, and I won’t have one crawling on our shared body, no I can’t have that happening!”
Zach blinked. “They’re… insects.” Another blink. “Bugs- small, tiny animals. I’ve felt a less stressful reaction from you when a knife was about to plunge into my back.” He grew suddenly vehement, “Do you have any idea how annoying it is to be told something is about to kill you when that thing is a nonvenomous bug smaller than your fingernail?”
“Do you,” the power countered, “Have any idea how truly scary spiders are?”
“No, enlighten me,” Zach snapped, “what’s so terrifying about them, then?”
The power nearly whimpered.
“Too many legs.”
“… What.”
Zach frowned unpleasantly at the limbless king cobra as it continued to explain, its head bobbing up and down with fright and anxiety, “I can handle having two legs! And even the animals with four legs, though those are certainly weird! The six legged ants are barely tolerable! But eight legs??? That’s just an excessive amount of legs!” The snake curled its tail protectively around itself, “It’s just too strange, I can’t handle it!”
“…Legs,” was all Zach had to reply to that, “you’re frightened of… legs.”
“Excessive amounts of legs,” the power clarified with another whimper.
“I-” Zach began, but found that his power had stolen all intelligent thought away. “I- no, just.” He grimaced, an exhausted, fed-up hand pressing against his throbbing temple, “Just stop being so vicious when warning me about spiders. If it makes your chicken heart feel better, sure, feel free to tell me when one’s about to crawl on me- just stop with the threat of death that comes with it. Can we agree on that?”
“Yes,” the power replied, though sounding a bit reluctant. It glanced back at its user, “Do you have any more questions?”
“I think I will regret asking any more at this point.”
“Really?” the power said, hissing with displeasure, “You never even considered asking me the most important question?”
Removing his hand from his forehead, Zach looked back at the snake with a frown. “And what would that be?”
“You never asked my name,” the power hissed, irked by its user’s perceived inconsideration.
“…You have a name?”
“Of course I have a name!” the power gasped out, offended, “You have a name, don’t you? Why would I be any different? ”
“Because,” Zach replied with some hesitation, not exactly understanding, “You’re not a real person.”
“And what makes a person?” the power rebutted, its scales shimmering with rock dust as it straightened itself up on its perch, “Is it just controlling a physical body? If I took you over would you no longer be real? I have a mind, like you, and thoughts, like you, so am I not something that can have a name? Even if I do not have the same human emotions and experience as you, does it mean I’m any less real?”
Admittedly, Zach had never. Thought about that.
His power, for the longest time, had been a voice, a feeling, an urgency in the back of his head. A familiar presence that he relied on, nothing more, nothing less. But his power, being a thing with its own motivations and thought process? A second person with its own personality, sharing his mind..?
…
Surprisingly, Zach didn’t feel like the revelation changed much of anything.
His power, he finally accepted, would be nothing but annoying either way.
“Okay,” Zach relented with a shrug, “I’ll ask it then. What’s your name?”
The king cobra opened his wide maw, as if widely grinning.
“Egos~” he hissed out, pleasantly, “Nice to meet you~”

asi • 1 October 2016 at 7:11 PM

He barely felt it when she tugged too hard, too abruptly, so Riley just smiled in good humor, steady on his feet. "You've no idea how many times I've nearly strangled myself with one of these, my mother would always-"
His mind caught up to his mouth and Riley cut himself off, awkwardly looking away. He was pretty sure most girls his age would not be happy to hear themselves compared to his mom- it would at the very least be weird. He coughed into his fist in a feeble attempt to cover up his words, and was rather relieved when Annabell quickly brought the topic back around to business.
"That's not exactly the case," he replied thoughtfully, once his tie was neatly fixed. "I mean, I guess I am the highest leader here," he blinked owlishly, knowing that ought not to be the case. Three should not have gone missing, and Two's choice to lead from the front lines was certainly strange. And none of it was comforting. "But it seems I'm not the highest ranked, now that One has an assistant serving as her spokesperson. Technically she outranks me, but she said I needed to..." Practice his signature, is what she said in so many more complicated words. Riley just cleared his throat instead of relaying that. "It's kind of a relief," he finished instead, smiling to reassure Annabell.
Her compliment unexpectedly warmed his heart and skin, and he found himself searching the floor for a quick recovery. "T-thanks? I-it's funny, because I'm not sure I even slept last night," he was so surprised by his own slight stammer that he wasn't sure what to do, so Riley just self-consciously scratched at a spot behind his ear and laughed a little lamely.
"But Annabell," he looked up and his eyes caught hers then widened in concern. "You don't look a hundred percent yourself. Do you need to rest a little longer?" he'd been waiting, but he could stand to do that some more if he had to. The women in his life had been very strident on teaching him how much they valued something called 'beauty sleep', come to think of it.

taffy789 • 2 October 2016 at 6:06 PM

At the mention of himself not sleeping last night, Annabell frowned, but she found herself not able to say much on the subject, considering her own sorry state.
Instead, she just waved away his concerns with a quick, "No, I'm fine. It's just my back, is all, but that will take time to heal, so it's not like I can do anything about that."
She would've gave an unconcerned shrug if it didn't sting when she tried to move her shoulders.
"... Wait," she realized, looking Riley over once, "you were waiting outside for me, weren't you? What's the problem, is there something up, or..?"



Zach considered the power’s grin for a moment, staring at it before suddenly breaking eye contact and looking upwards, towards the grey sky, instead. The clouds above were relentless in how they refused any sunlight to shine down to the dingy grass.
“…Egos, huh?” Zach mused dully, watching the clouds rattle above, “…That’s such a dumb name.”
“Ack!” the snake winced, drawing backwards with a threatening hiss, “How dare you! You know what name I think is dumb? ” The snake puffed himself up with indignation, “Zach! It’s the dumbest name! It doesn’t even need that many letters, you could drop the “h” and it would still be the same! It’s overcomplicated and idiotic.
Though it went unsaid, an implied “just like you” was tacked onto the end of the rant, and Zach lifted one twitching eyebrow, arguing back, “Even if my name was as dumb as some other names I know, it’s not as if I had any say in the matter when I was born. And even if I could talk back then, well, I highly doubt anyone back then ever gave two craps about what I’d wanted anyway.” He gave a dismissive shrug before focusing back on the snake by waving an accusing hand in his direction, “but you? I’m assuming you named yourself, because I sure didn’t, and there’s only the two of us here. So you have no excuse for your crappy name.”
“Hey,” Egos moaned, “Yes, yes I do! The only words I know are based on what you know! If you’d known better words, then I could’ve had a better name!”
“How does that effect anything?” Zach countered, “’Egos’ isn’t even a real word.”
“And,” the power continued pointedly, “I didn’t exactly pick my name. I got a… feeling of my name, of who I am! I don’t know the exact origins of my name, but whatever it is, I’m sure it’s the best possible name out there, for it chose me~”
Seeing the smug snake flaunting its scaly skin and “perfect” name made a terrible realization click in Zach’s brain; the power was Egostisical.
…
The pun made Zach want to claw his eyeballs out and then die.
Scowling at his power with a tad bit more bitter loathing, Zach drowned out the sound of Egos chattering on about the great, surely deep and meaningful origins of his name. He looked around the area instead, since the bland, greying environment was much more interesting than listening to his power’s self-important jabber.
Behind him, Zach could see an immense, brown and green-speckled jungle- dark, dense, and more thick, dried grass and rot than picturesque colorful jungle ferns and flowers.
In front of him, a different scene laid itself out, all flat and empty savannah grassland; vast and unknowable. It looked like the very savannah he’d been trekking through only a day before, but darker, blacker- so black that it would’ve seemed fire damaged if not for the visible blades of tall, swaying grass.
Shadows draped and smothered everything. It seemed uninviting, as if almost naturally repelling him.
The area he currently sat, however, was a neutral mix of the two extremes- sparse trees and shorter grassland, everything grey and dull and limp and hanging as if it were dying.
It was strange- and slightly disconcerting- so against all better judgement he aimed another question towards his power, “What is this place, exactly?”
“Hmm?” Egos ceased defending his name for long enough to ponder over his user’s question, “Well, this place is best described as a visual representation of your mind, Zach. And my mind, as well, which explains the jungle!”
…Looking at the dying trees and cracked ground, Zach didn’t know how to feel about this place being an apparent visual representation of his mental state. He distracted himself from that self-reflecting by glancing back at Egos, “If you’re the jungle, what’s up with the savannah?”
“Well,” the snake flicked out his tongue, “I assume that represents you! It’s empty, dark, cold, and pretty scary. So I assumed. It was you. His tongue flickered out again, “Although I admit, this is one of those rare occasions where I am even puzzled on its exact meaning. I don’t have all the answers, Zach. Just most of them.”
Zach rolled his eyes at his power’s continued blasé insulting of his personality, not getting offended as much as annoyed. So, he snapped back with biting sarcasm, “It’s surprising to hear that you don’t know everything, because you sure act like it.”
“I could see how you could be under that impression~” Egos hummed pleasantly, “Considering the billions of questions I answered for you every day in those labs~
Zach paused, his shoulders tensing. “…Are you,” he scowled, glaring at his power, “trying to use my use of your power as some kind of leverage?”
“No, not really,” Egos replied, “Although now that you mention that, a thank you would be nice, for all I’ve done for you, especially after what we've went through together, both in your past and present day.”
Zach stared. “What… we went through? In my past? In the lab?" He bristled, “I don’t remember you doing anything back then, not anything for me except telling me when something was going to hurt. So sorry if I don’t want to apologize for something so utterly useless to my situation.”
“If I was so useless and unwanted,” Egos’ voice patiently echoed in the mind space, “then why did you keep asking me what would happen next?” A dangerous gleam glinted in the snake’s eyes as he struck with blinding speed, moving in for the kill, “Why did you never fail to panic when I couldn't tell you what was going to happen next?”
“I-” No, crap, Zach had nothing to say, no good reason to defend himself with.
He felt as if he’d been disarmed and a knife was pressing against his throat. A strange yet familiar tightness began winding itself in his back, nuzzling between his shoulder blades and making a comfy nest for itself. Egos hummed rather self-importantly.
“Shut up,” Zach snapped, “we haven’t been though anything together in any case. If I remember correctly, you haven’t even been awake since recently. How much have we possibly gone through together since then?”
“Well, for one, I think having to take over your body while you went into a coma was a wonderful bonding experience that showed me how much it sucks to be as tired as you always seem to be,” Egos piped up, and Zach was about to open his mouth to voice a surprised, “What?”, but the power cut him off by continuing, “But, Zach, did you really not consider me alive before this point when I became conscious enough to have a name and voice?” The power almost sounded hurt, “I’ve been with you ever since I first began informing you of the realities coming for you~ I’ve been with you for most of that terrible lab, and those experiments…” He trailed off, then, taking on a more serious tone, the cobra focused his beady, dark and unyielding eyes on his user, “Such as the burning. Do you remember it? That horrible burning?
Caught off guard, Zach scowled, folded his arms, and shifted uncomfortably on the ground. “I remember… many things,” he said, shoulders bunched up tight and hands tucked tight underneath his armpits.
He wasn’t lying.
That had been the worst thing about the nightmarish memories that had recently been plaguing any sleep he’d tried to grab- there were so many of them, too many, and if he had to cycle through every one of them there would certainly be no end in sight.
It was an annoying, headache-inducing thought to consider, so Zach didn’t, he refused to.
“Look,” he told his power honestly, “I don’t exactly care about the direction this conversation is taking anymore.”
If cobras could frown, Egos did. “You should. The burning is what I remember the most. And I’m sure you could remember it to, if you actually tried...”
“Well, sucks that I’m not,” Zach bit back, “Now, what the heck did you mean when you said you’d taken me over while I was in a coma?”

asi • 3 October 2016 at 11:02 PM

Riley returned her frown. "Then maybe they should have spent more time on your back than fussing over mine," he complained with a wave of his hand and a throwaway snort. Then he resumed his role as worried friend, leaning over her- well, towards her anyway, since Annabell was a good half-foot taller than him. "No, there's no problem," he quickly assuaged her fears, "I just wanted to complete the report on yesterday before we head out on our next mission. We'll need to discuss-" Riley muttered lowly, cutting his own words off as he thought carefully to himself, feet twitching with the subconscious urge to start pacing, though he didn't realize it.
He looked up again, searching her face closely for all signs of stress. He was looking deeper than the physical, evaluating in the practiced way of someone who knew the human mind, and knew it well. "If you'd like a delay, I can organize it if you say so now."

taffy789 • 4 October 2016 at 6:48 PM

Understanding what he wanted, Annabell gave an awkward little laugh and a slight twiddle of her thumbs, "You mean, we need to discuss how a five year old tricked us into almost drowning?"
... She had tried to make that sound joking and casual, but it had only came out as painful for everyone to hear.
"Um. So!" she clapped her hands together, red blushing on her cheeks, "No, I can help you complete your report. But, um," a finger pinched as a stray lock of hair that brushed her shoulders, "can we go get breakfast first? I'm pretty hungry, and it's always better to do business like reports over food, right?"


Egos hissed softly, leaving behind the conversation about the lab with visible reluctance. “When you’d faded away,” he began, his twitching tail curling under the hang of the rock, “I was tugged to consciousness in your place~ Your head wanted somebody running it, after all, so I was forced to fill in for you. Even if I didn’t particularly enjoy dealing with all the injuries on your tired body, the experience was definitely… something. ”
“Something.” Zach repeated, “define ‘something’. What happened when I was out?” He reached out a hand, plucking a blade of long savannah grass and twirling it between his finger’s absentmindedly, “And on a similar note, where’s my body right now? I’m assuming somewhere relatively safe, because you’re wasting time here instead of keeping it conscious and safe.”
“We’re at the camp right now,” Egos answered, “Perfectly safe. Some rescuers picked up your body soon after you’d passed out~”
“And they didn’t notice you were a power?” Zach asked, raising an eyebrow, “My hair may be dark brown, but it isn’t anywhere near that shade of brown you had.”
“Dark brown?” Egos hummed with mirth, “I’d say your hair is more like a black~”
Although Zach scowled at this, Egos didn’t bother to amend his offending statement, “And, well, no. They noticed. You’re actually laying down in a feral observation room right now~ But! I managed to get by without any trouble at all, so there’s nothing to be concerned about.”
“No trouble? At all?” Zach blinked, unbelieving. “Not even from Shadow?” He blinked a few more times as he mused over her potential reaction, “She’s had trouble with her power in her past. I wouldn’t be surprised if she attempted to pin you down or something crazy like that.” The tinge of amusement that colored his words quickly dropped as his face darkened and he aimed a grimace towards his power’s direction, “But, that’s assuming she didn’t threaten your safety.” His words grew icier as he stared at the snake and doubted the depth of his goodwill, “Egos, how exactly did you handle Raven..?”
He trailed off, body tensing as he searched the power for any signs of violence or anger or-
…embarrassment?
Because that’s how the power had reacted to his question, by flicking his tail and hissing while licking a nervous tongue over each eye in a repetitive, agitated manner. He even seemed to be blushing, despite it being physically impossible for snakes to blush.
His power was acting as if it were some kind of nervous child that was about to fess up to something it did wrong.
That… was not the reaction Zach had steeled himself to see, but he somehow found himself fearing that response even more than any bloody revelation he’d dreaded.
His power’s beady eyes looked pointedly away from his user as he hissed out in an anxious stutter, “Sss-sshe’sss safe! Rescued! At the camp! I didn’t kill her or anything, what kind of idiot do you think I am? What I did was for your own good, and-” he shook in agitation before calming down with a sigh, “Okay. I suppose we might as well begin my little part of the talk, then~ Before you make me explain more and then get all mad without hearing my idea on things. Okay?”
“I have the feeling,” Zach stated evenly, boring holes into his power’s scaly skin, “that what you’re about to tell me is anything but okay.”
“Great!” Egos cheered, “That saves me the trouble of having to answer that one with my intuition myself, then~”
“…”
No, Zach decided with finality, he would rather not be here another moment.
He closed his eyes and tried the “sinking back into a coma” trick once again, wishing and hoping it would actually work this time around.

asi • 5 October 2016 at 7:41 AM

"Yeah," Riley agreed rather hollowly, like he wasn't quite sure what to think about that- as was the case. It was possibly the weirdest thing to have happened on IOD yet, getting ambushed by a child with an insane state of hair and an even worse one of mind. It had been unnerving to say the least, and nothing more so than the eerily deliberate manner he'd had, as if his antics were as calculated as any adults.
Riley was somewhat glad he'd been spared the opportunity to read that boy's mind...
Shaken out of this train of thought by a clap, Riley just nodded obligingly. "Sure, I guess. We can go to the cafeteria."
Then he spun slowly around once, twice... Stopping to look with a rueful smile at Annabell. "Uh, which way is it again?" He wasn't even sure how he'd got there anymore.


Dreadlocks got up, walked over to the counter, made themselves a cup of coffee. She watched as they bustled around, long strands of hair swinging after every turn. Their spindly form was dressed in a long white shirt, untucked, that hung around the pockets of their pants, which were the loose and swishy kind. They looked like they were set to lounge around all day, the definition of casual. They- they were scooping peanut butter into their coffee mug.
Raven directed her inadvertent smile down at her own cup and its thick, black, caffeinated mix. She started feeling better as the steam rose up to warm her face.
Management returned to their seat, hair shifting to allow the cup behind their natural stringy curtain, where it was presumably lifted to their lips and made lighter. They then set it down on the table with a startling slap.
Raven glanced up, surprised, and tried to gauge the tracer's mood. She did this with, of course, extreme difficulty, as she'd only met the guy two days ago and since then had nary seen past their monstrous pet hair, that they possibly had a symbiotic relationship with. Still, she managed to come to the conclusion that they were-
"The veteran is in a bad mood today," they revealed softly, sticking their hands forcefully into their pockets and allowing their head to droop gloomily- or bow under the hair's weight, you know.
Raven digested this information, again with surprise. "She is?" Or rather, her question was, "She wasn't yesterday? Or the day before that?" she scrunched her brows in puzzlement.
She felt something knock against her leg under the table, and looked down to see a bare foot rubbing against that of the table. "No," Dreadlocks answered, with an odd tone that Raven couldn't place. "What did you do yesterday?" they seemed to change the subject abruptly.
Raven blinked. She'd thought they'd have known. "I went with Five on a reconnaissance mission. It was horribly eventful. We got stuck in a metal bunker and had to be picked up." She refused to remember any of the steps in between.
The hair in the seat opposite bobbed up and down impatiently, as if perhaps none of this was news to them after all. "I suppose Five ordered you to go."
"Well," Raven paused, "no." He'd sort of asked.
There was one very still moment. "Then- why?"
She wasn't sure what they meant with this reaction. In what alternative reality was she not supposed to help her leader? In any case, she defended her actions. "I'm glad I went, they could've definitely used some more support," she frowned, drinking from the dumb Winnie the Pooh mug some more.
"So you just did," they pronounced slowly, unmoving, "as you liked."
Raven glared back, struggling to believe what they were implying. That she'd want to go on a mission with Zach? Who were they kidding?? "Is that why Viki's mad?" she scoffed.
"No," Dreadlocks admitted evenly. "That's why I'm mad." At her incredulous expression, they waved their thin stickish fingers in a ghostly fashion. "You left without saying anything, and I, I was under the impression you were coming back," they explained, sounding more morose than mad about it. "But you didn't know any better," they granted, and Raven was fine with leaving it at that.
"Okay, sorry," the apology sounded a bit begrudging but it would do, "but why is Viki mad then?"
Dreadlocks was watching the contents of their cup as those long fingers of theirs rotated the vessel around in a widening spiral. Then they took her aback by offloading it into their palm. She stared at the lump of sludgy, coffee-soaked peanut butter with something akin to horror. "She's upset about Five," Dreadlocks candidly told her.
"Ah," Raven articulated intelligently, eyes still entirely transfixed by the chunky orange sludge.
"She is very unhappy with him," they confirmed, and looking up and meeting the dull pair of eyes peering through the dreadlocks, Raven felt an acute sense of unease coming directly from her stomach.
Dreadlocks offered her some of the peanut butter and she shook her head, trying and failing not to watch as they shortly devoured it.


The breakfast tray sat in the middle of his table, practically untouched, neglected by all but the baleful gaze of Izzy's eye. He mapped out the contents: to the east, a forest of pallid, deprived limbs all reaching towards a dead and distant sun- that would be the cauliflower. Flavorless to the point where one might as well being chewing rubber, Izzy stuck out his pink tongue and moved on. To the north, a bubbling, sluggish, yellow slurry practically oozed of artificial cheese flavoring, and Izzy turned up his already upturned button nose. Even by Falchion standards, that was sub-par. To the west was just sliced meat. There appeared to be nothing wrong with it, but Izzy strongly suspected it was pork. And he didn't eat pork.
He gave a low growl of disgust and shoved the stuff away from him, knowing exactly who it was he had to cuss out, and under his breath in his native language, he did just that.
He regretted ever meeting the lunch lady. If only he was smarter, he'd have steered well clear of the people who had power over his life, death, and food. The worst part was that he'd probably only ever gotten on so well with the woman because they were both as spiteful as each other. Needless to say, when he messed up in the slightest, it sucked.
But he hadn't really came here for food anyway, and slowly his temper subsided, composure rushing back like the tide returning to high sand.
The space he had in front of him was re-purposed, his sketch pad laid down, and his shoulders hunched inwards as he hunkered down over his current work. His left hand, small in size but rich in tan, moved confidently over the page, scraping lead against it with bold, sharp strokes, all followed closely by his narrowed slit of a golden-brown eye.
His spare hand rose to tug down on the beanie that clung to his hair, trying to persuade it to hide the distracting influx of cafeteria-goers that swam in through the doors. It was annoying but, amazingly, still better than his room would be right now.

taffy789 • 5 October 2016 at 10:36 PM

Mikey- Quincy bitterly conceded as he doubled over cringing from the stinging pain in his side- might've had valid concerns over the nearly healed state of his wound.
Having just jumped off the zooming treadmill, beads of sweat were rolling of his hanging head and sliding underneath the frames of his glasses, making them slip forward on the bridge of his nose. After a few seconds of panting and deep breathing, the sharp pain began to ebb away, and he straightened his back, standing upright again with relief.
He pushed his glasses back up with a slight, agitated "ugh" and started for a towel to wipe down with.
Crap. Crap was the only word running through his mind as he patted his cheeks with a towel, threw the rag around his neck, and began chugging a bottle of water.
Healers and health professionals always preached the importance of not being stressed when trying to overcome an injury, and it annoyed Quincy to no end that his go-to method of distressing just so happened to be one of those things that aggravated injuries more...
Sighing, Quincy threw the used towel back with it's other dirty friends, and he pushed out of the door's of the small gym with a new, set goal in mind.
...It was food because, gosh, was his stomach certainly grumbling.



“Zach,” the cobra began solemnly, candidly, “For you to really understand, I need for you to look up~”
Frowning at the strange, serious request, Zach nevertheless opened his eyes and looked upwards, seeing nothing but the sky above. It sat, hanging and limp, unchanged from all the previous times he’d glanced up at its weighty mass. The grey clouds, still turning and flipping vehemently as if blown about by an unseen tornado, buried all other color, never allowing a speck of the blue above to even think about peeking through. Zach felt his stomach freeze just looking at the ugly, uninviting sight looming over him and threatening to suffocate him just as it choked out any sunlight that attempted to warm the dirt below. Ignoring the chill the cold, sunless wind blew down his spine, Zach turned back to his power, lifting an eyebrow.
“The sky looks like crap. What does that have to do with anything?”
“That SKY,” Egos huffed, “is reflective of your own sorry emotional state. As you can see, it’s incredibly depressing- even I feel sad when I look at it, and I don’t exactly possess the same range of human emotion that you feel.”
“…”
Zach didn’t know how to respond to that.
“…You’re kidding me.”
Yep, it had to be a joke, he finally reasoned.
“It’s like how you claimed the savannah was reflective of my personality, which sounds dumb itself, but claiming that the sky somehow reflects my emotions?” Agitated, Zach barely registered how much faster and angrier the clouds seemed to swirl above, “That’s stupid. Who would believe such a stupid, idiotic idea?”
Offended by Zach doubting his honesty Egos hissed unpleasantly, “It’s not as stupid as you are, not being happy!” He then groaned, regressing from vibrating anger to a self-pitying mourning groan, “I’m COLD-BLOODED Zach! Warmth makes me feel nice! And there’s nothing warm about this place! Really,” he sniffed, “your emotional state is only hurting both of us.”
Zach ignored the growing chill enveloping him.
“Hurting us both?” he crossed his arms in stubborn defiance to any lack of heat he was feeling, “I’m not the cold one here.”
“Liar,” Egos groaned, “You’re the coldest one here!”
Caught in his lie, Zach relented with an eye roll. “Fine. Accepting the idiocy that the crappy weather somehow reflects my emotions or whatever-” he waved a dismissive hand- “what does that matter to me?”
Egos huffed “I already explained that. It matters because all that grey and cold and lack of all sunlight means that you’re not happy.”
Zach snorted. “What else is new?”
“And there’s been no regular sunlight present since Michelle died.”
The topic shift was so sudden, so jarring that Zach felt his stomach lurch forward twenty feet as if it had been kicked out of his gut by a user with super strength.
His mind floundered ineffectively before freezing solid- coming up with no snappy response to his power’s words. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He closed it.
If anything, the quiet, shocked part of him was still trying to comprehend the fact that he’d heard his sister’s name spoken aloud after a long six months while the other part of him-
Egos was still chattering on, completely oblivious to all the blood pouring out of that particular chink in Zach’s armor, “Which makes sense for the sunlight to go, considering she was the only person you bothered to actually care about for- well forever! And since she died, you haven’t had anyone- except for me, but it’s not like you’ve ever been particularly fond of yourself either, huh? Ah, well, I’m not offended by your self-hatred. But your refusal to be happy does make things dreadfully cold around here, and I can’t slither for that!”
-the other part of Zach, however, just felt incredibly infuriated.
He closed his eyes, as if it could block out both his power’s assertions and the bad snake puns.
“…Stop,” he commanded Egos suddenly, flatly, and his eyes snapped open, “Stop your stupid complaining. You said it yourself. The sunlight is gone- I don’t see how your whiny complaining will bring any of that back.” It was his turn to hiss like a threatening, venomous animal about to strike, “It’s obvious you’re just bringing all this crap up about my past just to avoid answering the question I’d originally asked you. I see no other freaking reason why you’d bring any of this up, if not to stall. This has nothing to do with Raven, and it’s clear you’re wasting my time so-” he glared daggers at the snake as he spat out, “just shut up already about things you know nothing about.”
Egos flicked his tongue out, now sensing his user’s agitation. He seemed relatively unconcerned, however, as he continued, “But that’s where you’re wrong, Zach~ I know what I’m talking about! I feel that it’s unhealthy for both of us for you to be so unhappy all the time. I want to help you change that, and from what I understand of humanity, social relationships are essential to everyday survival and health. Survival and health being something that we both want you to have, I think we can agree on that~ So, I simply am acknowledging that your- erhm, rather self-limited pool of social contacts was rather tragically depleted, and so I believe it is time for you to finally branch out and look for companionship in others. People who, you know,” Egos hummed, “make you feel comfortable being around them~ And that’s the thing, I’ve already sensed that your mind finds some people comforting to be around.”
Zach snorted, a bitter, disbelieving sound. His shoulders were still stubbornly tight and wound up as he snapped out a challenge of, “Yeah, people I find comforting? Who could that even be?”
Humming louder, to the point of his whole body vibrating pleasantly, Egos rose up, his black hood extending upwards, towards that dreary grey sky, “Oh??? Well, the obvious answer circles back to the topic you thought I was stalling trying to explain, funnily enough~” The cobra gave almost a malicious grin as he answered, “It’s Raven, of course~"

awesomeness • 7 October 2016 at 12:31 AM

Annabell raked her eyes over her friend, gravely concern by the implication that he had not gone to the cafeteria enough to know its location by heart.
She frowned as she wrapped a hand around him arm and began pulling him in the direction of food.
"It's this way," she sighed, fretting disappointment bleeding from her face and tone as she mentally fussed over Riley's eating habits.

Exiting the food lunch while grasping two cartons of milk tightly together in one hand, Quincy searched the cafeteria tables for a friendly face before quickly giving it up for a lost cause and sliding onto the first empty bench he saw.
After setting his milk down and pulling a protein bar from the pocket of his gym shorts, Quincy rolled his shoulders before unwrapping the bar and beginning to munch on it thoughtfully.
He allowed his mind to drift off as he thought of many things- his negative gym experience, how he was going to avoid telling his roommate that he'd been right at any cost, how the lunch lady seemed to be in a particularly foul mood this morning- but all thoughts ended up twisting and turning and somehow leading him back to the same reoccurring idea- the next mission he would be sent on.
Despite everything that had happened on the last one, Quincy's excitement to get off the base for anything more than a routine patrol in prairie couldn't seem to abate.
He couldn't help it; IOD was a place that people said killed you off in the worst ways possible, and it seemed that it had chosen to kill him off with the slow, mind-numbing poison that was Eighth division pencil pushing.
Deftly popping open the paper milk carton without even looking at it once, Quincy gulped down the drink while still wearing that pondering frown.
Sure, he considered while absentmindedly crushing the quickly emptied carton in a tight fist, sure, he'd gotten hurt, but heck if he would let that small mishap dissuade him from continuing on with the missions.
As he got up to throw away the empty carton with the protein bar wrapper stuffed inside it, it dawned upon him that, in fact, his own injuries had washed over with all the dull shock of a slowly rising pool of swampy sea water, and the only time any ceasing, frightening terror had risen in his chest was that strange time he thought he'd glimpsed an injured Izzy...
Quincy chunked his trash into the trash can, where it landed with a resounding thud.
... That thought reminded him, hadn't Izzy been checked into the healer for some kind of head injury? Although Quincy had wanted to let him rest up before knocking down his door and getting all... (admittedly) attention-demanding, he now wondered if he should go check on his boyfriend, to make sure the guy was feeling okay...
Quincy had just walked back to his table and snatched up his remaining milk carton in his hand when a familiar beanie caught his glance and caused a wide grin to break out against his cheeks.
Speak of the devil... if the devil was a pretty half-blind Egyptian boy, that is.
Feeling much less bad for demanding his boyfriend's attention when said boyfriend had already woken up, Quincy scooted slooooowly over behind Izzy, not expecting to actually surprise him but not not expecting it either- really, with Izzy things often went either way.
Accepting either outcome, Quincy called out a playful warning of "babe" before swooping down from behind and placing his chin on Izzy's left shoulder. If he turned his head ever so slightly to the right, then his lips would be ghosting up against the other boy's neck, so he did just that, grinning as he muttered a soft, "How're you feelin' today?"

taffy789 • 7 October 2016 at 11:08 PM

A cold, chilling wind suddenly ripped across the savannah.
Egos dropped to his belly, pressing flat against the rock and attempting to leech whatever little warmth he could from it. “Ow, ow- ow!” he moaned mournfully, “ Too-oo coc-cooold!”
Zach neither heard the complaint or noticed the goosebumps shivering up on his arms. He sat- half numb, half clutching tightly onto a clump of savannah grass in irritation- and was distracted by his own internal mulling.
…Raven..?
Raven, making him feel comfortable?
The very notion made zero sense, which wasn’t all that strange since it had stemmed from the mind-speak of his clearly deranged power.
Raven, making him feel comfortable?
He thought back on every interaction he’d ever had with the girl, searching for signs of this supposed truth.
From the time he’d watched, skeptical, as she collapsed into his arms on that icy mountaintop, to the time spent sparring before the Truce, to fighting off two invading ferals during the attack on the base, all the way to their most recent adventure trapped under a hill of dirt- Zach picked through every single one of these moments and all the other instances of snappy arguing in between, picking each conversation up and giving it a thorough examination, scrutinizing everything in an attempt to see what his power had evidently saw.
After that complex process, Zach begrudgingly had to admit to himself that he and Raven had collected quite the history over about the course of a month, and he could recognize that her presence was… familiar.
But comfortable?
As a general rule of thumb, people grated against Zach, and interacting with others often felt akin to pulling teeth. His body tensed just thinking about it. He couldn’t imagine anyone making him feel at ease, feel comfortable- people were horrible, selfish beings that couldn’t be trusted, so how could he rest assured when constantly surrounded by others who could potentially harm him?
And Raven, how was she any different, why would she not hurt him, when had she ever made him feel safe?
A sensation like hands moving through his hair gripped him as a memory flooded his mind and smothered every other thought. The foreign warmth spread across every inch of his head as a careful pressure tightened and wrapped itself around his skull. As it deliberately danced around the more sensitive areas of his injury, Zach clearly remembered when the strange crawling touch had invaded his personal space- that’s right, when he and Raven had been trapped together just a day ago, she’d bandaged his wound for him, hadn’t she?
The feeling of warm hands wrapping bandages around his head was one completely new to him, and the foreignness of it all made a discomfort sink into his chest- but not the familiar, fearful and furious discomfort that was normally felt when people tried to grab onto him. The tenseness only intensified as the warmth flooded downwards, reddening his throat and causing his entire face to strangely heat up and- Oh.
Oh. Oh, crap.
From his spot on the log, Egos hissed pleasantly. “Oh~? The air’s getting warmer~” He lifted himself up from his crouched, shivering position and began sunning himself against the growing warmth. The cobra turned in Zach’s direction and a smug snort of laughter echoed out across the area, “Oh? Zach? Is it too hot for you? You’re looking a little flushed~”
“…Shut up,” Zach snapped back because, no, nope, absolutely not- he was not dealing with this- this whatever the heck it even was. He refused, squashing the bubbling unease in his gut and choking back down whatever color had dared to flood his face, “Egos, just shut up already. You have no place in trying to tell me who I should or shouldn’t care about.” His voice grew only more solid, more resolved as he spoke on. His face tightened into a more stoic, steely expression, and his tone came off as unwavering and unconcerned as he concluded with the final nail in the coffin of the conversation, “Especially since you’re a power, and you don’t possess the same grasp on human feelings as I do, like you said yourself. You literally have no clue to what you think you see, or what you’ve conned yourself into thinking is true fact when it’s actually not. You’re wrong.”
Despite what Zach had thought was an irrefutable rebuttal, the end of a finished discussion, Egos was not yet done giving his two cents. In fact, at being told he was wrong, a glimmer of- anger, stubbornness, resolve?- flashed in the snake’s beady eyes for a split second, it’s intensity strong enough to strike dead. Humming, the cobra slithered forward a bit more on the rock, both moving closer to Zach and tightening every muscle in its body as if preparing for a lethal strike.

awesomeness • 7 October 2016 at 11:10 PM

“While it’s… true that I have very little emotions of my own,” Egos confessed with a small hiss, tail twitching dangerously, “you, Zach, are not free from those ties, despite however you may act. Even if you are blind to them yourself, I can see your emotions above me, plain as day!” Looking up, the cobra flickered his tongue towards the grey above, considering it with a purposeful coil of his tail around his long, brown body. “Even before I and my surrounding environment manifested ourselves in your mind, I could sense your feelings even as the dull, weak sense of a consciousness that I was. You feel a lot, Zach, and often too. And now those very feelings are even more obvious to me, as they surround my very place of residence and color my sky. And despite me seeing all of this, despite me being the one who has kept you alive this entire time,” Egos hissed, a sudden, biting bitterness spitting out in one frustrated noise, “you still doubt my judgement when I try to save you from these negative feelings that are only harming you?”
Listening to that with closed ears, Zach could only match the snake’s bitterness and growl out his own biting retort, “And how will your method of getting close to people solve any of that? I didn’t know that friends and happy feelings were so important to my survival,” Zach snorted, “because I honestly don’t see, then, how I didn’t die a long time ago. What you’re telling me doesn’t make any sense. There’s no point in trying to be particularly “feely” when you’re slated to die at any moment.”
“There’s sense!” Egos exclaimed, “It’s completely logical! Your human emotions- fear, anger, love- they and the people that evoke them drive and intensify every action, every choice made! What I find illogical is avoiding these feelings and not using them to their most beneficial usage. Your actions could have much more impact if they weren’t driven by mere necessity alone.” Egos sighed, “And if you could stand feeling something else than that awful coldness, it would do wonders for both of our healths. Which is why the sunlight should come back; which is why I think you should try to become closer to Raven…”
“No,” Zach refused.
Egos countered, “There’s nothing illogical about reaping the positive benefits of companionship~”
Squeezing his forehead in his hand, Zach stared at the dirt in utter exasperation.
His power… just wouldn’t give up. Egos wouldn’t relent, wouldn’t shut up and run out of words to say, wouldn’t allow any argument to pierce through his shimmering pillar of being correct about all things.
It had to be the most grating, irritating thing Zach had experienced in his entire life.
Especially when his power was wrong, so very wrong.
It was painfully clear to Zach were his power’s problem lay- Egos spoke of emotion as if they were simple, easy feelings that breezed right through a person without that person riding out its effects. He spoke about emotion without having felt any himself, without having to deal with the sheer ugliness and disappointment that came along with any sort of feeling had, either positive or negative.
His power, Zach thought bitterly, had no clue to what he kept blabbering on about, yet would not shut up anyway.
So, wanting desperately to leave the conversation, Zach pulled on a stoic expression, lifted his head up, shrugged his shoulders, and decided to humor Egos’ plan.
“Fine,” he gave a grumpy, relenting shrug, “I’ll try to ‘be around’ Raven more. Happy?”
“Yes,” Egos admitted, mellowing out with a smugly echoed word, “I’m glad you see it my way.”
Zach rolled his eyes at the comment before waving away the power’s gloating win with a quick remark, “It’s not like your plan will work anyway. I could follow your plan exactly how you tell me to, and you’re going to be disappointed when you look up later and still see those grey clouds.” Zach snorted, “It’s impossible for me to become closer to Raven when she’d been unable to even stand being in the same room as me lately.”
Egos hissed almost too innocently, licking his eyeballs with a deft, quick tongue. “Oh, Zach, I wouldn’t worry much about that~” The snake straightened up on his rock, a soft, too-pleasant hum breezing about the savannah plains, “Raven did enjoy being around you when she thought she was kissing you, after all~”
“…”
Zach stared.
“…What?” he finally choked out after an eternity, “What are you- wait, what DID you-”
“Oh, wow!” Egos gasped in obviously faked surprised, “Your body is waking up! You’re not stuck in a coma anymore, isn’t that good? Looks like you have to leave now, so sad to see you go, goodbye!”
“Egos-” Zach warned.
“And don’t begin to panic when you awake,” Egos made sure to add quickly, “I sense that you are going to panic when you awake. So. Try not to prove this particular prediction correct. Because that would be rather unfortunate, especially since we just now talked about you being happy and not tense and stressed and infuriated, correct?”
Concerned about too many things at once to voice a proper question about any of them, Zach could only stare, blankly, as a pushing force hurled him out of his own mind, and as the grinning snake and dreary savannah faded out of view and disappeared into an empty blackness.

asi • 8 October 2016 at 6:56 PM

"Do you know how he is?" Raven asked, worry wearing at the lines of her brow.
Dreadlocks shrugged with all of their hair, showing her the sticky sides of their hands. "Last I heard, no change," they told her, much to her disappointment.
"I see..." She looked back down at her own mug, empty as it was, failing to warm the hands cupped around it any longer. There was just what looked like a spoonful of wet dirt at the bottom. Despite her furious stirring, some of the powder had still refused to join the rest. Raven sighed in defeat, just as her companion abruptly stood.
They took the mugs away, dumped them by the sink, returned. "Come," they insisted, snaking a hand around her arm and guiding her to her feet. "Unhappy Viki wants all inventory and utilities checked by 1200," they intoned dismally, and she stared.
"Is that even possible," she asked flatly, doubting, while her feet shuffled along, trying to fall in step with Dreadlocks' strange, loping pace.
"Perhaps not," they admitted, and Raven couldn't tell if they were looking at her or everywhere else as they walked, but their body was certainly angled towards her as they replied, "But Birdie, we'd best give it a try..."
She nodded resignedly, taking the clipboard that was thrust upon her as they stepped into the mouth of an expansive storage room. At least this task would distract her from thoughts of her boss, she supposed.


At the first touch he stilled, only for his muscles to ease back down the moment his ears caught up to the rest of him. Izzy exhaled softly, tilting his head to one side to favor Quincy, providing a slight stretch more of a journey for the lips traversing his neck.
Then he drew back and twisted around a bit so he could look at his boyfriend.
"Hey you," Izzy greeted him, with a face that tried so hard to remain so carefully stoic only to fail, twitching into a pleased smile the second he saw Quincy's own. He ducked his head then, still conscious of his, ah, mistake yesterday. He ought not to be seen looking so happy, so he hid it by looking down.... At Quincy's legs. They were nice legs... "'M fine," he answered distractedly, twiddling with the knit of his cream cardigan.
As soon as he dragged his eyes away, wandering back to his art page and the maze-like intersection of lines it held, his focus improved immensely. "S'long as they don't plan t' send us on another of those awful missions today," Izzy grumbled, picking up his pen again, connecting a few more lines, sniffling all the while.
Then he glanced back at Quincy, now looking properly aloof and dispassionate. "You're... Chipper. Hope you didn't think you were sneakin' up on me, I could smell the gym coming for miles 'way," he lied, lead still rubbing against the page, shading in a corner of some box-shape with a spot of tidy cross-hatching. It wasn't like he didn't remember the state Quincy had been in last night- he'd partially stayed away in order to give him space to recover...
While apparently preoccupied with his drawing, Izzy hooked a foot around the leg of the chair next to him, shoving it of it shifted outwards, as if in crude invitation.

taffy789 • 8 October 2016 at 9:31 PM

After catching a glimpse of the small smile Izzy sent his way, Quincy’s heart fluttered with excitement, and he neither could care or notice Izzy’s measured lapse back into impassivity.
He slid quickly into the chair as it was pulled out for him, and he laughed while setting his second milk carton down on the table top, “Come on, babe, you know I could never pull the wool over your eyes~” He teased, using his now free hand to reach up and brush over Izzy’s forehead before grabbing the edge of his beanie and playfully tugging down on it a bit.
“But on a more serious note,” Quincy crinkled his nose, “do I really smell that strongly? I barely worked out at all today…” He trailed off, frowning before pulling at the strap of his muscle shirt to give it a hesitant sniff-
Quincy grimaced, his nose crinkling in further.
“Okay, never mind, note taken. I’ll jump in the shower later,” he promised with a solemn nod.
Watching Izzy’s focus shift to the scratching of the pencil against paper, Quincy shifted as well, leaning his left elbow on the table as he scooted his chair closer to Izzy and pressed their knees together. He smiled dumbly and watched his boyfriend draw for a minute or so before his leg jittered, and he began the conversation again, quietly, where'd he'd left it off at.
“Yeah, not having a mission today would be kinda nice. Since I’m usually stuck in the Eighth division until late, it’s nice to have another assignment that saves me from all that endless document filing and allows me to just, you know, hang out and about in my off time.” Quincy hummed in agreement, bumping his knee more purposefully into Izzy’s, “But honestly I don’t think we have to worry about the missions that much babe. After that last one, it’s hard to believe they can get much wilder than that. It’ll be smooth sailin’ from here on out, just wait and see.” He gave his boyfriend a bright, reassuring grin before bringing his hand back up to play with the escaped strains of hair that stuck out of the bottom of Izzy’s beanie, near the back of his neck, “But yeah, I’ll admit that last mission was pretty intense. You sure you’re okay?”
Quincy’s face filled with light concern as he moved his fingers from Izzy’s neck to gently brush over the back of his head, “Your head isn’t still hurting or anything, is it?”




Right upon regaining semi-consciousness, Zach was immediately attacked by a croaking, swollen pain resting heavily on his throat and causing him to emit low, creaking, cracking sounds in place of any breathing.
He registered the hurt before anything else, the lingering injuries devouring at his flesh; the bruises on his head and collarbone and the slight, reddened burns aching on his chest and wrist.
Exhaustion washed over next- in the mind space his previous lack of sleep had seemed almost non-existent, but that grace had apparently ended as soon as he’d awakened.
Sucking in a deep, shallow breath and biting back the sudden hurt, Zach forced his eyes to open, blinked away the blurry spots from his vision, and glanced around what he assumed was the real, actual world- not some other horrible nightmare or a jungle in his mind.
When his brain registered stark, cold, bare metal walls and the haunting feeling of a needle stuck in his wrist, Zach found himself wishing he was dreaming.
The meaning of Egos' final warning now made too much sense, but the last thing on Zach's mind was the snake's advice to keep calm as he tried to fling himself from the gurney.
To no avail- his hands and feet were strapped down, immovable.
Not for the first time this week, Zach's heart began picking up a frantic speed.
At least this time, however, his power was humming in the back of his mind, ready and full of reassurances about his safety and well-being. Although, these kind predictions hardly did anything for Zach, as he pushed his wrists up against the restraints despite the lack of reason to fear.
A few minutes of doing this, and his wrists were rubbing red and raw, and an annoying presence in the back of Zach's mind seemed to be silently protesting his "irrational" reaction to his harmless situation...
He ignored what Egos thought and- with every molecule of his body agitated and screaming and craving fast escape from his cell- Zach began thrashing his arms and kicking his legs against the restraints, as if that could do anything at all to help his situation.

“Well,” Tabs clicked her tongue, leaning in and staring at the fuzzy video feedback on the laptop. She straightened her back away from the screen, crossed her arms, and gave a smirk that appeared slightly amused, “He’s sure awake now, if he wasn’t before.”
Not able to stomach the laptop’s sight with the same smug satisfaction of Tabs, the healer jittered about in her seat, speedy eyes instead flickering towards the two others who’d come to occupy the room. The camp’s head interrogator frowned and cracked his knuckles as he watched the leader scream and cuss his restrains with that wild, strained and cracking voice. The second healer looked more quizzical, observing the video feed with enraptured fascination. It was he, with the wide, shocked mouth and dazzling eyes, who spoke his opinion first: “That’s a feral if I’ve ever seen one.”
“No crap, buddy,” the interrogator muttered, and his cracking knuckles gave off a particularly violent sound, “The other leaders won’t be happy about this.” His uneasy eyes fluttered to make hesitant contact with Tab’s, “How long is the grace period for these guys again? Three days? A week?”
The first healer made a quiet gulping sound at this, and she reached out to lightly punch the interrogator in the arm, “Don’t you be trying to kill him off already! That’s messed up!”
“Hey,” he replied, putting his palms up as if to shield himself from further rebuke, “I just want to know how long I have left before I’m only known as the guy who got put in charge of killing off a leader. Though at least I can count my stars it wasn’t somebody well-liked, ‘cause then I might face even more backlash from all these crazy girls...”
That comment earned him another punch, this one packing more force, and as the interrogator rubbed at his arm, the second healer began speaking yet again, “I mean, guys, look at it!” His body leaned forward towards the screen, the entirety of his attention wrapped around the thrashing body, “It’s so- wild! Crazy, and it’s throwing its entire self into getting out of those bonds, look at it! It has zero care for hurting itself at this point- I think it might even try to start chewing its arm off soon!”
Listening to the boy ramble on, the other healer frowned, “LG, you would’ve made a great creepy government scientist.”
“Don’t be mean,” the second healer frowned, the comment finally pulling him away from the screen, “The feral’s mind is interesting is all. Can you fault me for that?”
“Yes,” the interrogator replied, raising an eyebrow, and he received another punch in the arm from LG for the comment.
“So,” Tabs suddenly speaking made the entire group freeze and look towards their superior, “you all think it’s a feral, huh?”
“Of course,” the interrogator said first, looking back at the raging body flailing about on the screen, “Laughing said it himself, that thing is absolutely livid…” He lost confidence in his answer as he glanced over to Tab’s stony expression, “You… don’t think..?”
Tabs waved a hand, dismissing him from further reply. “I brought you three in because you’re trained to deal with this sort of predicament. I fully trust your judgement on this issue; I’m washing my hands of the final verdict, be it call him a lost cause or declare him human.”
With this, the three grew silent, not expecting the full measure of their responsibility to rear its ugly head so soon…
“…But,” Tabs continued, and the group’s ears perked up again, “I can’t have Fiver in there, feral or not, chewing off his arms trying to get out of those things.” Her eyes twinkled, if only a bit mischievously, “Laughing Gas?”
LG’s head, which had momentarily turned back to the screen, whipped around to stare at Tab’s again.
The camp admin rose one amused, calculating eyebrow, “You’re the one trained for this. Suit up and perform your specialty. Go see the feral firsthand.”
Much to the other two’s dismay, LG’s eyes lit up a bit too excitedly at that order.

asi • 18 October 2016 at 8:01 PM

Izzy's full eyelid lifted to let him run over his boyfriend's face, searching each shadow and crease. Even as his gaze seemed to shave as closely as a razor blade, there was glazed barrier between them, like Izzy was looking through a thin obscuring sheet of glass...
Whatever he did or did not find, caused him to relax, slumping further down in his seat, just out of reach of the hand that had messed with his beanie. Izzy pushed it back up to uncover his sharp, tapered eyebrows- at least one of them was still in one piece- so he could properly raise them at Quincy. "Y'know-" he paused, consciously clearing his throat before continuing, in a soft, conversational tone. "You know... I might join you, if you're not plannin' on a cold shower that is." His eyelid flickered back up as he glanced over at Quincy and intentionally shot him a quick smile.
Then the moment passed, and Izzy returned to his impartial expression as one hand briskly swept away the excess accumulation of lead on the page, clearing it of all debris, although most was just transferred to the side of his hand.
It didn't bother Izzy as he examined with a critical eye the visual record of every twist and turn they'd encountered (and a few they hadn't) in the secret underground lair of A-L. Like an architect's plan, it was an easy-to-read map of the subterranean layout from a bird's eye view, only it was hardly scarce on detail, either. Illustrations helped warn of broken glass, deep puddles, great disparities in the slope of the rock. He nodded in taxed satisfaction at the sight, and turned over the page to something with more depth, a vivid depiction of the control panels that seemed to be sunk into the page it was drawn on. Unlike the previous piece, it was less technical, some parts appearing blurred and distorted.
Izzy saw this, now that he was drawing in better light, made a noise of derision and flipped the page to begin anew, starting with a skeletal outline and a web of tidily-printed labeling that ranged from, 'breach alarm,' and 'trapdoor- connected to tides', and a big one in the corner, '20-30 years? Small chance in order after saltwater exposure'.
He responded to his boyfriend without looking up, but he did lean into the warm press at his side. "We don't re'lly know where we'll have to go, or do next," Izzy gave his own hum, but it was one of dissatisfaction. "Hafta do whatever the leader orders. And," he lied bitterly, "I'm too ill to go out today."
He kicked his legs back and forth, and conjured up a scowl with a furrow between the brows like his head was giving him trouble, when Izzy knew full well this was one of his better days.
And his stomach rumbled, but he continued to turn his nose up at the untouched tray, exiled to the edge of the table.

taffy789 • 18 October 2016 at 9:52 PM

When a door opened, Zach's head shot up.
An individual walked in, wearing gloves and holding a clipboard while smiling an all too excited smile, and the sight made Zach feel sick to his stomach.
"So, uh…Five," the individual began, scanning over both the leader and the information on the clipboard. "You seem to be a little... upset, don’t you-"
"Get me the heck out of here," Zach spat out, his hoarse voice rough and biting hard as he ended his words with a grit of teeth.
Startled by the raw anger, the individual’s eyes widened with what bordered on fascination. He stepped back and, clearing his throat, continued with a steady, "We cannot do release you at this time. We have some tests to run, you see, to make sure you're healthy, and we can't have you-"
"First off all," Zach croaked out, thoroughly peeved and balling his hands into tight fists, "shut the-" (Oh, this isn’t going to end good, Egos sighed from somewhere in Zach's conscious) "-up. Second of all-" (Egos shook his head mentally, nope, not end good at all) "-you. Third of all- get me out of here. I get what's going on. You think I'm a feral, and are trying to keep me locked up until you prove otherwise. Well, let me make your job a hundred times easier and tell you this right now- I'm not a feral. There. Isn't that easier? Let me go."
He stared down the individual, who was staring back at him, fingers opening and closing fast on the edges of his clipboard. The gloved man appeared unconvinced, yet worried, as he kept stealing glances at the heart monitor rapidly beeping off to Zach’s left…
It was at that moment Zach became aware of how flushed his own face was, just how heavy his heart thundered against his ribs-
"Look, okay,” the gloved man said, evenly, almost condescendingly, “okay, Five, nobody here thinks you’re an, uh, feral-” (he’s lying, came an utterly obvious, oh-so helpful tug at Zach’s conscious) “-so, it’ll be very helpful for everyone if you could… calm down, okay? We don’t need anyone- anyone getting hurt here. We need you to stay here for a bit and try to relax, alright?”
Zach continued staring at the individual, not saying a word until the precise, cutting moment he flung open his mouth and released a volley of unrepeatable curses on the topic of what procedures he thought the individual should follow to go "relax" himself. (And I’m the unhelpful one here? came a mental disgruntled whine soon following)
The man in gloves blinked owlishly, looking at Zach as if he were staring at some exotic zoo animal that had suddenly began to spin on its head. Fury increasing at all the dang staring, Zach heard the beeping quicken as his pulse raced to match the speed of all that blood rushing to his head-
The beeping was frantic now, and the man in gloves rustled around, looking almost sheepish as he said, casually, “…You really need to calm down, okay? Don’t worry, though, everything will be fine, you don’t need to be so anxious to get out…” His gloved hands began moving slowly to the pocket of that white coat he was wearing-
Zach knew the needle was coming before he saw it.
He growled out, "You aren't sticking me with crap."
"Listen, it’s fine, relax, stop acting so, uh," the man coughed, “murder-y now, okay? You don’t need to be so angry, it’s just a needle-”
He was right- it was just a needle, a harmless tranquilizer, but it was a harmless tranquilizer that Zach absolutely refused to let come anywhere near his body anytime soon.
However. There wasn't much Zach could do to prevent it. In the restraints, he couldn’t move, he couldn’t do anything- he was-
He was vulnerable.
...
...Except, if. Perhaps.
(oh dear)
He couldn't do anything but watch as the individual pulled a capped needle from his pocket, moved closer to the gurney, and leaned in close to press the tranquilizer into Zach's arm-
The man’s head was positioned an inch away from Zach's, and Zach waited right until the needle was about to enter his skin before he gritted his teeth together and struck, throwing his head forward with blinding force and cracking his skull against the doctor’s.


The female healer winced as the audible cracking sound echoed on the video feed, noisy playback sounding like popping Rice Crispies cereal as it continued to echo from the laptop.
Next to her, the interrogator made a slight, “Oof” sound as he watched his friend get head butted, but he followed it up with a mildly impressed “he got LG good” soon after.
The healer turned her attention back to the screen, watching as LG stumbled backwards, dropping the anesthetic-filled needle to the ground while clutching at his own forehead, in apparent immense pain. She watched as he backed up to the door, one frantic hand groping blindly behind himself for the door’s handle, and as he finally managed to open the door and slide out of the room, leaving the… feral? alone.
She gave it a few seconds, before the door connecting the interrogation room to their observation room opened and LG flew out of it, still clutching his forehead and moaning, “Mother of fu-”
The first healer stood up and nearly jumped over her desk to get to her friend.
Clutching his palms in hers, she moved LG’s hands away from the injury, frowning at the split, bloody skin the impact had left. She made a displeased noise and held her hands in front of the wound, closing it with the bright glow of an encompassing blue aura.
Leaning against the desk and watching the two healers, the interrogator snorted, “Did you get your close and personal look at the feral after all, Laughing?”
“Screw you,” Laughing Gas groaned out as the girl pulled gauze from her pockets to wipe away the blood with. Laughing Gas continued to bemoan, “The darn thing was so adamant about not being a feral too. Like, who would ever believe it now? After it attacked me?”
“...Well, I don’t know,” the girl muttered as she returned to LG’s side and began working the gauze, “he just seemed… angry to me, and that’s not exactly only a feral-y emotion…”
“Pfft,” LG huffed, “what kind of rational, human person attacks a doctor right after waking up from a coma?”
“Happens on movies all the time,” the interrogator pointed out with a smile, then sobered up and gave a more serious shrug, “Although, I think she has a point. And if this thing is lucid enough to defend its case, then maybe it’s not a feral. It could be Five, though I don’t know the guy well enough to call that or not.” He paused, thinking it over a second before flipping around with purpose, “Tabs, you’ve worked with the guy for a day. Could you possibly gauge that for us?”
His question fell on deaf ears. Tabs paid no attention to him, as her face was concentrated on the laptop screen. Her hand was on the mouse, and she periodically dragged something backwards and clicked it, eyes mesmerized by what she was watching…
“Er,” the interrogator coughed, “Tabs..?”
“His assistant,” Tabs suddenly replied, making the group jump for her intense eyes did not leave the screen for a second, “Go get Raven, and she can run the interrogation for us. She’s worked with him enough to make the final call, I believe.”
Then, Tabs fell silent as she continued to completely concentrate on the laptop screen again.
Turning back to the group, the interrogator nodded.
“I’ll go send somebody to bring Five’s assistant here, then.”

asi • 22 October 2016 at 10:13 PM

They worked for the most part in silence, amid rustling through boxes, bustling around the shelves, at a swift but sustainable pace. The inventory task soon proved itself relatively simple, though arduous in length, and Raven quickly got her hands around the checklist and held to it tightly, showing both accuracy and efficiency in her neat numbering of each column. While her hands were busy, her mind was rather less so.
She glimpsed snatches through the gaps in the boxes as they worked, of brown clumpy hair shuffling around on the other side, swaying with Dreadlocks' every movement. She wondered very much how they could at all see clearly past such a curtain, but it was long evident that they did, even while the how remained unsolved.
Raven had to admit, she was curious as to whether the camp's management had a face. Only occasionally would she catch flashes of the shadowy concealed skin, and it tempted and piqued her interest.
She was scribbling down another stack of beef jerky when she looked up and found someone looking back, through the absence of displaced boxes. Raven tried to solve for the color of those darkly gleaming eyes, but they had soon shifted out of view, with Dreadlocks setting the box down at their end, and moving to round the shelves that separated them. Beads twisted into their knotted hair clicked slightly as they approached.
"Give here." Upon request, Raven handed her clipboard over for inspection.
A spindly hand flipped through it, hair trailing down the page as they read. Then they looked up, and she thought she saw a bit of a very ordinary-looking chin. Raven wondered if, when it comes to the final face-reveal, she shouldn't prepare to be extremely disappointed. Anyway-
"Good," Dreadlocks said simply, pushing the paper back into her hands. "Can do numbers," they mused, causing Raven to raise an eyebrow- was that really on trial?
"Well, I did stuff like this all the time growing up," Raven answered, not thinking too much about what she was giving away. "And I went to school, obviously." But the math required for this job was pretty basic- was it really in short supply? She'd take that she was faster than most, though.
The hair they were twirling around a finger hesitated. "A camp?"
Raven paused too, in the middle of shifting her latest check back in position. She wasn't entirely sure if she knew all that was meant in the short question, but knew the answer. "No. Super school. Before that, an orphanage," she clarified, unsure if this was something she should have brought up at all.
They twitched, likely in confusion, inline with their questioning voice. "Some gov deal?"
She shook her head. "Private." Her mouth twisted a little in memory. "Funded mostly by church."
"So not Dalta," they said finally, causing Raven to look up.
"Delta? What's that?" she asked, frowning.
"Nothing to worry your pretty head over, Birdie," Dreadlocks assured her, sounding notably less tense than a moment ago. "Just some... Rumors about a, ah, wild group with religious undertones. Taking super-powered kids and sometimes sending them here... With instructions, if what I'm told's true," they hummed lowly, hair bobbing in turn. They seemed relaxed about taking a little break for the exchange, which gladdened her.
"So, a cult?" Raven took interest, as she always did for any news that came her way. It was how she'd gathered so much knowledge of IOD lore, after all.
Dreadlocks gave a loose shrug. "May be. Different folks say different things. But they're all highly secretive. Don't know much but that they take them young."
The great big empty storage room made a highly effective platform for the generating of goosebumps, and Raven lowered her tone into an appropriate hush. "How young?"
"Dunno," Dreadlocks replied with an unconcerned air, apparently not effected by any of the vibes Raven was picking up. She straightened her shoulders in disappointment as they continued in their ordinary tone, "But if you hear anything of them, Birdie, I'd suggest you stay your distance. I know someone-"
They cut themselves off to take a deep breath, then reached into the breast pocket of their denim for something.
Raven grimaced at the sight of the stick they pulled out, followed by a lighter. "Oh. Is that- on the job?" she questioned, ever the skeptic.
They nodded and offered. "Makes the work go faster."
She shook her head, they muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, 'later', and tucked it away into their jacket.
"But you sound useful," Dreadlocks concluded, making Raven wonder at the implications, "and we can talk more on this later. For now, back on the job. I know about this lot already," they gestured down the rest of the aisle, and Raven's knees went just a little weak with joy.
Until she saw where they were headed next.
These shelves were piled much higher than the early sets, and while Raven wasn't exactly shaking in her sneakers at the sight, her lips did form a tight line as she held to her resolve. Still, they'd only been working yet for something like an hour, and her sleeves did have potential to be rolled up further, even if it was a short-sleeved t-shirt.
Dreadlocks saw this look and patted the pocket to the right of their heart- a movement full of meaning now that Raven had learned of its contents. "Anytime," they said with a sincere tone but with a teasing edge.
"I'm good," Raven muttered, thinking it didn't sound like a bright idea even at any time- not given what she'd seen of the stoners back at headquarters. She didn't plan on losing herself here, let alone in some toked-up fantasyland. Though Dreadlocks didn't seem like that... At least, they were a different breed of weird.

demon • 22 October 2016 at 10:20 PM

The two of them got back to work, lapsing back into a comfortable silence again. It wasn't until Raven was a third of the way up the shelf that she realized this time, she had a problem.
She retracted her reaching arms, glancing back at Dreadlocks to see them digging through a box, occupied. Looking down at her fingers, she forced them to still, making sure that any sign of trembling had gone before trying again.
It didn't exactly work. With her left hand, she managed to jostle around the box until it slipped down, landing in her arms with a bit of a hefty 'oof'. Raven put on a shaky smile until she saw Dreadlocks hadn't looked, and then proceeded to check off the thing. But then... She looked up and swallowed, knowing that replacing it was beyond her alone.
She began stacking boxes. The majority of them were tightly packed and weighty, so standing on a few of them wasn't a problem. Though she was sure Dreadlocks was noticing now, she stubbornly ignored them, since it couldn't be helped. She was a bit shorter than the management in terms of height, so it shouldn't be strange that she needed help where they managed fine, because her arm... She couldn't lift it high enough...
Raven worked furiously, not sparing a second's glance away from her work, refusing to acknowledge the stinging in her eyes until it built up to the point where she couldn't see any longer and she had to wipe it away. She was scared of their expression if they realized what was wrong with her. Even if it was hidden behind all that hair. They couldn't- she wouldn't-
She was relieved when the man appeared at the end of the aisle and stopped them. When he introduced himself as the head interrogator and asked for her attendance, Raven tossed her clipboard aside completely, striding over to him in an instant.
"Wait," Dreadlocks said, and she slowed to a halt, twisting her head back to look at the slim limbs and torso, plus masses of hair that composed their strange form. It all swayed from side to side on their way over, until they settled to lean against the end of the shelf, denim-clad arms loosely interwoven across their chest. "Birdie, where are you off to now?" they questioned, causing her brow to scrunch up in confusion.
"To see Five, now that he's awake. We've got to know if he's himself or not," she basically rephrased the interrogator's words, they had been clear enough for her.
Dreadlocks seemed to retract inwards before growing again with their next breath. "It seems to me," they said slowly, "that there is no particular hurry for that."
Raven frowned further. "What?" It sounded to her like Five was strapped to some kind of metal gurney while interrogators prodded him, trying to determine who was in the driver's seat of his brain. That couldn't be comfortable.
Short, tidy nails tapped the side of their arm as Dreadlocks forced them to wait, held back for their word.
"Management," the interrogator addressed them, stepping forward. "It's hardly convenient to keep the thing on lockdown without knowing what it is. Er," he glanced at Raven, taking note of her impassive expression before progressing. "The subject's pretty distressed as it is. If it is Five, it would certainly come as a relief to let the guy go. If not, we could put him under again," he explained, using demonstrative gestures while he spoke.
Raven nodded along with it- all of it seemed very well to her, yet by the way Dreadlocks pushed themself off the wall to stand alone, she could tell they didn't think the same.
Their words were measured as they were careless and breezy. "This may be a surprise to you, but Viki is not in any kind of hurry to have Five running around freely again. Sorry for the inconvenience to your job," they nodded respectfully toward the interrogator. "But for now it might be better to give the leader a little time out," Dreadlocks concluded with an audible smile, before switching back to Raven and a more serious tone. "No harm will come to him if you leave him be as he is now," they assured her. "So I say you put it aside and do as Viki wants, for now." The shelves behind them seemed to beckon.
The interrogator looked mildly irked by this assessment, but apparently had to accept these words from management and looked to Raven for the verdict. It seemed the onus was on her, now.
Raven thought about this for a moment. While she had to admit that sometimes, leaving Zach to rot in containment was a tempting idea... No matter how she looked at it, as an assistant it was hardly reasonable as a policy!
"I'm going to see him," she announced, turned and left a dreadlocked individual forlornly behind in the vast and box-packed storage room...
As she followed the interrogator through the maze of tunnels, Raven thought about Zach's power, and what he'd asked of her if it came to this, and his user still had not returned. The plan she had implicitly agreed to, perhaps not in words but in actions. She thought about it. She walked onward.


Guithe snoring was possibly the most beautiful sound she'd ever heard. There was a low rumbling, like a tiny volcano was somehow contained in her stomach- or maybe a large dog- because Xela was quite sure a tiny girl like her couldn't make a noise that deep naturally! This was followed by a quiet 'whiffing' sound as Guithe exhaled, blowing some of her hair up in a puff each time.
Xela gave a huff of her own at the sight of that hair. After she'd taken it upon herself to shear that little lamb's fleece just a few days prior, the kid had already seen fit to replace it. Guithe had let this woman- who they'd only met yesterday, mind you- reshape it since. Now it looked like... One of those fringed, girlish bobs young warrior-princes would have in medieval-times, or at least on tv.
Such appears to have been the theme of the night, actually, as Xela had returned to find the girl clad in a huge dark blue tunic with red lining, multiple belts and a sheath for- she checked- a toy sword. Apparently the wardrobe lady stocked costumes too, and after her night at the club, Xela figured she could guess what they were used for- weirdos, she completed the thought with a roll of her eyes.
Speaking of, though it was morning now, Cindy- or whatever strange thing Septa had called her- was still here. Xela had returned to find them both having been taken, apparently on unawares, by sleep on Guithe's bed. The owner was curled up on the side, at peril of the edge, and Miss Cindy slumped against the wall, head on her shoulder and slowly tipping. Xela had nudged them both to safety and covered them with blankets, shaking her head.
She wasn't sure why this Cindy had stayed, but Xela forgave her. Guithe probably begged, or tired her out, or told her she'd be scared if she woke up alone- Xela wouldn't put it past her.
She had also been grateful to discover the resident ferret also soundly sleeping in his cage, which was correctly secured shut. The flowers that Septa had brought, too, had been taken care of, but trimmed and placed in a vase of water instead of into the trashcan like Xela would have done. Blue and yellow violets. She stared at them for a quiet moment and wondered whatever had possessed him to bother bringing them. That guy was so odd.
It was about half past nine in the morning, but the room was still bathed in blue dusk as the light had yet to be switched on. Guithe and Miss Cindy were still sleeping, and she restrained her activity to save from waking them, although they had remained blissfully unaware of the shower running in the next room just a moment ago. Still, she tiptoed closer, leaning in to get a good look at Guithe's sleeping face.
She searched it, but it was calm and peaceful. No bad dreams to be seen.
Some of Xela's escaped hair was dripping onto the blankets, and she retracted herself quickly, wandering over to her closet and easing clothes out of the drawers. Casual clothes, which she finally had, including a plain white armed Henley and dark trackpants- these she began to don eagerly. Much better than the crap she'd had to put up with before-
There was a soft tap at the door, and she froze. Who could it be? As Xela finished dressing it was repeated, whoever it was seemed prepared to wait.
The air buzzed and hummed around her as she readied herself at the door, her slanted eyes narrowed and concentrated, palm tensing over the button. Xela took a small step back, and hit it.