Private Roleplay~ IOD

taffy789 • 18 June 2017 at 12:50 AM

Although her expression had been appropriately serious and empathic for the more heartfelt parts of the conversation, a smile had cracked out on Annabell’s face when Riley mentioned the certainly indescribable personality of his sister.
The smile faded, however, as Riley caught her off guard by unabashedly saying all those… terribly nice things that wrung Annabell’s stomach like somebody twisting out all the excess water from a drenched towel. The sweet words inspired flight somewhere inside the girl, and she swallowed, hard, to prevent her fluttering heart from pulling an Icarus and leaping out from her chest and to its premature death. Instead she stayed perfectly still, unmoving except for a few blinks, as she worked to steady the sudden bout of lightheadedness she’d been so cruelly stricken by. For all this composure, Annabell couldn’t hide the visible dark red flush that now tinted every inch of her pale skin, nor could she stop the flighty palpitations of her heart from beating against her ribcage, begging to shoot out and see the sun.
Tearing away from those pretty green eyes, Annabell cleared her throat and pushed all those rising feelings down into the dark.
“Riley,” she shakily began upon regaining some composure, “that was all… really sweet of you to say.”
And she meant that. Annabell wasn’t even sure which part of that had struck her the hardest, and even now her head swam trying to remember particulars. She looked back at Riley, as if that could jog her memory, and she had to swallow hard again.
… Perhaps the particulars were lost forever in the hazy fuzz of warmth the words had left her with, but she didn’t need the exact words, for the way Riley smiled back at her said it all.
That smile offer an attentive ear, a reliable friend, and a tangible, warm body that made the spacious, vapid office space around the girl feel a little less empty and cold. That smile gave Annabell the courage to take a deep breath and finish the thought she’d trailed off on before-
“If- if you wanna know,” she mumbled, mouth dry before she gulped down the rest of her inhibition and said, stronger, “It’s that I, I feel… aggravated because I’d never felt this-”
A pause, then a confession.
“Helpless,” the word rolled of Annabell’s tongue like a heavy drop of water, and the rest of the floodgates then burst open before the drop even had the chance to explode against the floor.
“I’ve- I’ve never felt this useless, just unable to do… anything.” Her voice was rising and so did her hands to her neck, rubbing at her jawline in a slight agitation. “And it’s not like I haven’t tried, gosh, it’s not like I haven’t been trying, but- but-”
She let loose a quiet whine of frustration and, seemingly unprompted, began a rushed, somewhat frantic explanation of how Leon had disappeared from the school for three months only to come back different and closer to having his power take him over. She fumbled over how his poor sleeping and eating habits had terrified her, how vividly she recalled Leon’s gold-specked eyes widening with absolute fear as he spoke of his encroaching power, how adamantly she refused to allow another friend to die. She teared up, even, while recalling staying up to five AM with an insomniac Leon watching classic action movies, while listing every book about powers she’d read in the school’s library, while remembering how Leon pressed her not to tell anyone else and worry them, so she was left to worry alone.
She then blinked back those beginnings of the tears because, no, she wasn’t about to cry, she refused to do that out of nowhere in front of Riley like that, and Annabell concluded with a succinct summary of, “Riley I’ve been trying. I’ve tried, hard, so hard and, I- I don’t think I’ve ever… really ever said this to anyone, but I- for the past few months at the school, I think I was… entirely and utterly focused on not losing Leon to his power.”
Her hands crawled upwards from her jawline to softly squeeze at the sides of her head, and she said, small and pathetically, “… And then two seconds before they sent me to IOD, it happened anyway.”
Annabell’s elbows hit the table at the same time her head fell completely into her hands. For a long time after that utterance, she stayed deathly still and silent in that position, like she was grieving a second time over.

… Then, before Riley could think of anything to say, Annabell lifted her head up slowly, revealing a tear-free face, and sucked in a calming breath.
“But even that was workable,” Annabell started again with a gulp to steady her voice, “because I had a way to save him, or like, I- I think I have a way to save him, I-” A pained expression flashed across her face for a moment. “…Now I’ve been shown that even that way might be dangerous? Might not help at all. And even Raven had told me that it’s okay, to stay hopeful and not doubt my plan, but-”
Her voice wavered. “I… I AM optimistic Riley, that’s not the issue, I-” The unsteadiness of her words grew more volatile, shakier. “I’ve… lost things, Riley, People. Friends younger than me who didn’t deserve to die. My… old life. And- and I know I haven’t lost everything, like Leon’s not gone yet! And- and I’m trying, right? I’m trying to hold on and be optimistic about him, I really am, but then, then these stupid, stupid hang-ups happen and-”
Her hands begun to wring themselves together with anxiety.
“What I’m frustrated about is so stupid, okay? It won’t even do anything to save Leon, but I thought it was something simple, something easy that would give me… something to work with? But it didn’t, and I- I…”
As she tried to form the words she felt the nausea of emotion turn and twist, fully self-repressed right up until the moment it wasn’t, until Annabell felt her lungs swell and her words violently vomited themselves out on the next exhale.
“It feels like another kick when I’m already down, like I can’t have this, of course I couldn’t have this one, simple thing, right? Like it’s not a big deal, it won’t save Leon, and I’m stupid for feeling so… bad about it, out of everything, this bothers me the most? It’s dumb, I’m dumb, I know but-” she choked up a bit, but quickly managed to blabber on- “I apparently can’t, I apparently, really, really can’t, I’m just not allowed to help my friend, I can’t prevent him from turning feral, I might not be able to turn him normal, and I’m apparently not allowed to learn what exactly caused him to be so depressed in the first place? I’m not allowed these things, I’m not allowed to help Leon, to save anyone- I’m not even allowed to go off this island to buy some new clothes or some pink nail polish!” Growing red with aggravation, Annabell buried her forehead in her hands, and spoke down, voicing her frustrations to the table. “I- I just want to hold onto what I can, Riley. And given everything that’s happened, I’m not even sure if I’ll be allowed to do that at this point.”
Having the waterfall of words slow to a trickling stop, Annabell finally quieted and realized she had. Nothing left to confess so unabashedly frantic like that. She took the sinking, strange calm catharsis that overcame her as time to pause, to reflect over what was perhaps a rash decision, and to try not to think about all her dumb, overly-emotional words too much, or what Riley would even say in reply to all of that… stuff.
She swallowed nervously, but at the same time, she realized something inside of her had changed. She felt it keenly; that the grieving black hole inside her had shuttered and shrunk down some. In that moment, it occurred to Annabell that what Riley’s reply was didn’t matter much at all, because she hadn’t been speaking for his benefit- not really, not at all.
That thought, oddly enough, calmed her nerves for good.
She slowly but surely regained the rest of her composure after that, and she lifted her head up again, looking towards Riley but just still ashamed enough not to fully look him straight in the eye.
Choosing the next words carefully, she said,
“Um. I.”
A pause.
“… I guess that’s it, then. I’m not hopeless, Riley, I just feel.”
Another pause, but this time, Annabell considered the weight of this admission with a long, great care before finally deciding that Riley was friend enough to hear the whole truth.
“Riley, I, frankly, just feel. So freaking angry sometimes.”




At Raven’s remark, Zach scoffed, “Well, why did you think I made you come write this for me?”
Then, he dropped the subject as Raven began reading aloud from the packet.
Most of it was horribly boring and useless.
Information, procedure, guidelines- stuff that made Zach’s head spin without even having to decipher meaning from the words on the page first. Raven’s reading really sped things along, and that fact wasn’t lost on Zach as he attentively listened to her continuous drone of words.
He stayed silent for the most of it, until Raven read a passage that required his input:
“With what priority must this information be shipped with?”
“… That’s like speed right.” Zach asked from his place still laying down on his cot. “…If so, put fast, whatever makes this thing come in as quick as it can.”
Then the next question came:
“How critically necessary is the information?”
“Very,” Zach lied.
“I’m lying,” he also clarified, for Raven’s sake. “But put very.”
Finally came a hard one:
“For what greater mission purpose does revealing this information serve?”
…Zach sat up in the cot.
He twisted around and frowned in Raven’s direction as she read off that particular question. He seemed to think about it for.
A while.
Finally, utterly stumped, he shrugged in his assistant’s direction before giving one piece of advice to her- “If you haven’t been lying in that letter yet, Raven, I hope you are now.” Then Zach slowed laid back down on the cot, seemingly giving up on the tougher parts of this joint endeavor.

asi • 21 June 2017 at 11:38 PM

Listening quietly made him think.
Riley had done a lot of listening in his time- or rather, reading. Being a mind-reader had meant that he'd always had a secret window into other people's spaces- their private expression- save those who had managed to pull the curtains or blinds. But those glimpses, that insight he'd gained, it had always been the surface that he'd seen. It was one thing knowing what a house looked like on the outside. One could examine the freshness of its last coat of paint, the structure itself, and not much else. What it told the observer about its owner was very little. Seeing inside, that was another thing. What kind of color scheme, furniture and upholstery did that person have? Was their place tidy and spacious like a show home, or an incomparable mess that others would struggle just to navigate? These kinds of things, they divulged much more information about what the person who lived there was like, for sure.
It was still different to know what it was really like to be inside. The atmosphere of a house. The functions of those shapes you could merely glimpse at from outside and through the window. What was played on that television, and how it differed in the morning or in the evening, or was it in use at all? Going deeper, what about inside those walls, were they warmly insulated, or might they in fact be moldy and rotting from the inside out? Its true state of being, what was it? Until the signs started showing on the exterior, there could be no way for an outsider to know.
Even when invading others' minds, Riley had never been privy to people's innermost thoughts or feelings. And no one had left a message in the furniture with him in mind. Even then, that wouldn't be an exchange; it wasn't, and it had never been quite... like this.
"Annabell..."
What was he to say?
"I, I, I didn't know."
He'd been on IOD at that time, hadn't he? There was no way he could have... but he wished he had. Riley hadn't been there in the past when his friend had needed someone, needed help and received none, he... and now...
His eyes calmed slowly as Riley watched Annabell struggle, strung out by the heavy emotions and pressure that had kept her squeezed up tight and tense in a miserable little ball that just wasn't sustainable. Annabell couldn't be that small and helpless. She was too strong and tall for it, it was that simple!
Now she sat there, looking him in the eyes, her own tinted red around the edges, face pale with all that fear, sadness and anger that she'd expressed, the resulting complexion looking faint and sickly after the pink blush that had lit up her face before.
Riley saw all this from his outside view and stood up, leaving his chair and walking around the desk that had separated them. Now there was only negative space, filled by air, and it all felt more open, more friendly without the barrier. But he hesitated about approaching the girl with physical comfort, and just stood there, offering what little he could with words.
"I'm so sorry, and... I'm so glad you told me," he told her softly. "About what happened. Even if I can't make a difference now, it's nice... to be trusted like that." He ducked his head a little, hands in pockets- he was still a teenage boy, after all.
As for the current case of emotions at hand, his mind worked on the problem of Annabell's frustrations. She definitely felt like she needed some normality back in her life, and Riley strained his head trying to think up a fix of any kind. "What did you use to do? When you felt frustrated and angry." Maybe there was something they could do, that he could help her do, that wasn't exactly... well... directly combating the issue.
Riley thought about what he was doing himself, about his own concerns, when he badly wanted to run away and save Angel, or head west and not stop until he'd tracked Alex down. Instead of doing those things, he was running around doing chores for the Falchions. He could see how that might seem aggravating.
But... "I don't think there's anything we can directly do about Leon right now. Even if we could run off and find him, we wouldn't know what to do with him..." Riley shivered briefly, remembering how quickly that feral had knocked the lights out of him, in just a zap, a blinding flash, smell of ozone and taste of metal on his tongue.
The leader continued to try and assure Annabell; "Your friend, he seems powerful enough that he shouldn't be in any immediate danger, I think. But something like capturing him, and making him better, it's probably not something we're up to. Not right now, anyway." Riley didn't plan on taking any course of action he hadn't thoroughly prepared for first. This land was too dangerous to take unwarranted risks on.
"We need to know more. We need to be-" He slumped briefly at the thought of all they 'needed to be', before stiffening his shoulders, pulling himself together between them and straightening.
"We'll just have to keep trying, I guess."
Riley offered her a hand to help her up.


Raven's pen paused on the paper, convoluted trail of blue across the page grinding to a halt along with it. Although Raven had been making steady progress on the letter, the figures on the sheet had begun to mutate from relaxed and loopy to more and more spiked and pointy as time went on. This was in line with her mounting dissatisfaction at the absolute crap she was writing, or so Raven felt. Of course she was answering the questions given in as clear and succinct a fashion as possible with the formality the letter required... and yes, she was engaging in- she preferred the term 'the subtle art of exaggeration' rather than plain ol' lying- but there were obvious, glaring holes in her work, and they wouldn't just slink away even if Raven did beat them in a staring competition (and in her current state, she was kind of convinced she could).
Those holes? Namely, the very important information of what it was they were requesting and why they were requesting it. Not that Raven was desperate to know herself- far from it, she'd been low-key avoiding stuff related to Zach and his past- but the actual thing she was writing needed those key points. Like fish needed water, or a fish tank needed fish, otherwise it was missing the point.
Honestly, the question sheet she was reading from sounded horribly generic, and a part of Raven wondered if he even needed to jump through all these hoops. Zach was a leader, right, not a circus act? But although part of her thought this, another part didn't care enough to raise that question, and still another was more preoccupied with how flamboyant her hair was being that morning.
So she skipped some of the more the nonsense parts to get to the meat of it, asking him those important questions- albeit in a slightly less than orderly manner. Raven's faculties were still a little disordered from last night- not out of order, just not entirely in it- and it showed in a yawned beginning of the passage; "So, so what are these files, that you, you are wanting on..?"
It wasn't like fresh, crisp paperwork was a conductive ingredient to waking up well, clear-headed and peppy bright one early morning. Or afternoon, whichever it was now... Nor was what she'd smoked last night, or this morning... er, whatever the case may be.

demon • 3 July 2017 at 1:33 AM

While his partner raised her hackles and growled up a threatening storm that honestly would've had him running for the hills if he'd been on the receiving end, Dustin made a dive for the blades still scattered in the snow. When he looked up and found he'd no immediate assault to parry, he grew confused and gathered himself up onto his feet with wary languor. The rebels... hadn't seemed to have moved much, despite copious enthusiasm for it.
That leader still appeared to be talking it out with his henchmen, but it was probably the strangest negotiation scene Dustin had ever seen. The power had a hand raised as if to halt them with simple body language, but from the way a few powers were struggling, it was like they'd been caught in a web and he was physically restraining them. There was at least a full dozen of them in total, more than just the party Dustin had caught sight of before. He would have been seriously daunted, if he wasn't so distracted by their odd antics.
The honey-haired leader was shaking his head, telling the group that was just burning to attack them in a low, purposely careless tone; "Wait, wait, I was only joking." A heartless smile tugged at the corners of his lips. He was like a cruel master, tugging on the chains of his dogs as they walked- only the dogs were a rabid pack he was taunting by holding the prey just out of reach. Dustin was grateful- "You don't all need to kill them, now that wouldn't be fair." The leader gave a shrug in the form of a hand gesture, and Dustin had maybe thought too soon.
Of those rebels who weren't squirming where they stood, he seemed to consider one in particular. "You, would you do the honors?" the leader asked of a female-looking power, who had one arm cradled in a makeshift sling, looking battered and bruised in a variety of places. But though her human form seemed in bad shape, her inhumanity shone through, no different from any other bloodthirsty, battle-hungry beast.
"Gladly," she uttered, looking more than ready to cast off the sling and thoughts of earthly pains if her leader would just say the word and permit her.
She turned downcast when his deep cobalt eyes proceeded to pass her over, stopping now on a big hulking shape of a power, one that might have cast a shadow over the entire group if the snow wasn't reflecting light from every direction. Dustin worried that this power's ability had something to do with size-shifting, but it wasn't just his height. The man's back and arms were both piled high with no small load of baggage. It looked as though he was carrying for everyone, considering that no one else was burdened with a thing. Given that his size and strength had to border on the outliers of any statistics chart Dustin could imagine, especially if his ability was adding more to any of that, this man- thing- would be a difficult opponent indeed.
As for the rebel leader's unspoken request, although the monumentally tall man also said nothing in return, the way his eyes were darkly glinting made it clear he too was willing to do the job the moment his leader gave the signal.
"Not you then," the leader moved along at an easy, unhurried pace, humming a gentle tune.
To his far left was a woman with short hair and a sharp forward lean, one that put her closer to Dustin and his partner than any of the others surrounding them. If Dustin's analysis of the situation was correct... she was the only one challenging whatever psychic or invisible physical barrier their leader had conjured, and succeeding. Perhaps the reason Dustin and the cat weren't dead already was her enjoyment of the suspenseful situation. The leader definitely didn't need to bother asking her his question; it was answered in the way her face twisted around her psychotic grin, reminiscent of that elastic horror shredded and stretched out at their feet, and on her human features Dustin wasn't sure it wasn't more disturbing.
The leader's eyes settled on a fourth candidate. "How about you."
Several moments ticked by, the dark-haired, moody-looking power not speaking, and not meeting the two cornered kids' eyes, nor his leader's for a very long time.
"Zan," said the leader warningly, making it clear that he expected something from the other, even as he sulked unwillingly.
"I don't want to," replied this power coldly, crossing his arms like he was prepared to wait all day for the rest of the group to move on. If there appeared to be an anti-social outer crust that was thick like the southern continent's ice sheets, there was also a stubborn streak to him as deep as the northern ocean.
Dustin didn't know quite what possessed him to dare speak, but he did so, leaping at whatever chance this strange... lack of hostilities offered. "That's funny, I don't very much want to either," he joked, and he was surprised when this power actually let out a faintly amused 'hmmph', though its eyebrows only looked more irked by the situation. Dustin interpreted this as a 'too bad, I like this one' kind of expression, and the stuff sloshing about in his stomach seemed to curdle at the implications of that thought.
The leader was smirking now, and Dustin was hoping that it too might happen to appreciate a sense of humor- no such luck. "You be quiet now," he instructed with a quiet but unmistakable tone of self-assurance, as if just from his words he was sure Dustin would obey.
And... he did. Just like that, he felt his very own lips seem to zip up from the outside, trapping any words or noises or breath he might have inside his own mouth. Even screaming felt beyond him, and for a few painful seconds of struggling, trying to gasp through a mouth he couldn't part for a gulp of air he couldn't reach, it felt like a fate worse than death for Dustin, mind panicking too much to even think of drawing air in through his nose.
Then the cougar stepped in front of him and really growled, loosing a ripping noise like a chainsaw, one that grew and grew and ended in the boom of a lion's roar, in spite of the current form she was wearing. Immediately afterwards, Dustin felt his control snapping back to him just as suddenly as he'd lost it. He opened and closed his mouth several times, like a goldfish, just making sure and the most of the fact that he now could.
The leader looked at the cat, appearing for a moment strangely overcome. Like the cougar had won an arm-wrestling match between them just then- only they hadn't moved- and like he hadn't been expecting her to win- which made no sense because he was a boy and she, a big bloody cat. Literally, right now. It was kind of terrifying, even to Dustin, and her back was to him.
But that leader, Dustin had to admit, he didn't look like a pushover either. Especially not when his eyebrows drew into hard lines, intense, threatening, and decisive. The urgency that had been so utterly absent from his countenance for the whole of their encounter had finally surfaced, and he didn't waste time putting his orders into motion.
"End them-" Before the leader could name an executioner, his words were torn apart by a splintering of the air, a noise like a frosty firecracker as the temperature dropped and the snow rose from the ground, piling rapidly higher and higher, reaching towards the sky. The looming mass gradually coalesced from the bottom up, the puffy white snow crystallizing, growing bluish, hard, then transparent. This strange phenomenon hadn't taken form haphazardly either, but with a very specific placement and shape. A curved front effectively split the current gathering in two, with Dustin and the cougar on one side of the barrier, the rebel leader on the other, and the rest of his pack distributed more or less evenly on either side. They'd been separated by a thick frozen sheet of water, standing more or less ten meters tall, looking like it had been sliced straight from a glacier, perfectly sculpted edges both smooth and sharp. It was the kind of material that would sink a titanic. Like something out of a dream...
Dustin stared through this fantastical wall of ice, manifested seemingly out of nowhere in a matter of a few incredible split seconds, and saw only dark, indistinct figures on the other side. The sky above was clear but loose snowflakes floated all around, hailing from above, shaken out from the newly emerged wall. Pressing one gloved hand to its smooth, wet, striated surface, he felt the frigid chill even through the well insulated fabric. Though it had been constructed a little less than instantaneously, it was solid like a concrete wall in a multi-storey car park, the firmness of which the older teen was intimately familiar.
But with the weight of a long, broad tail sweeping against his leg, Dustin was fast reminded that danger still lay in every other direction around him. Hostile eyes were no doubt on his back at that very moment. He pulled his hand away from the wall, leaving a scarlet red mark behind. That sight alone flooded his veins with adrenaline.

asi • 3 July 2017 at 1:34 AM

"Run, you idiots. Run!" shouted that strange power called Zan, muffled from behind the wall of ice, just before something on the other side hit it hard, causing the whole thing to shake and shards to come splintering off. They sprinkled down into the snow below, making it sparkle like pale glitter.
Now having established that any perception of safety was clearly temporary and shrinking fast, Dustin wasted no time in spinning around and pounding his feet through the snow. He ignored the cougar as she fell upon her latest victim, pressing it down with her weight and tearing once more into fragile human shell. The cat needed no help, and with her advantage in legs she'd break no sweat obliterating any meager lead Dustin managed to forge between them-
That's when the knife he still held in one hand leapt free of his grip, began hanging independently in the air beside him, and then turned its blade on its owner, with his wide and horrified eyes as witness.
Dustin dove out of the way of its first stab, scrambled back out of the side of the snowdrift he'd landed in, and resumed running for his life, throwing his head back over his shoulder every third second to try and see when he was going to get stuck again with his own knife, for the second time that same day. Each stride was approaching more of a leap as he pushed the muscles in his body to their limits, and for a while it seemed he could outrun the sharp end of the stick.
Then it sliced its way down the back of his calf. All he could do was throw himself away, tearing his flesh free from the cold bite of steel, and then keep running. At this point, the only thing in the world that could make him stop pushing forward now would be- well, what happened next.
Dustin had been running directly towards the Arrowpeak mountain, with his sights set straight on its mist-cloaked summit, so he knew exactly when the view in front of him altered.
His head whipped from side to side, trying to make heads or tails of the information he was now gathering through his eyes. How could that be? One moment he was headed exactly for the most distinctive, skyscraping landmark in his sights; the next, his incredulous eyes were occupied with two different hills, and his feet set on the path for the narrow gully between them.
He was forced to pause, whirling around in complete bewilderment to find Mount Arrowpeak to his back, and... Looking down, his footprints were only in the snow behind him for about six feet. Dustin had a word to describe situations such as these, and that word was: crap.
Before his eyes, the scenery blurred and changed again, swapping out for a sheer cliff face straight ahead, and behind him- naturally a rebel power, what was once a gangly teenage boy. It couldn't be called something as innocent as that any longer.
This time, Dustin didn't wait to ask questions- he straight-up punched the thing in its face before it so much as had time to react. Unfortunately... although the thing staggered from his impact, it felt like solid iron and the only damage his blow did was the newfound pain burning all over his hand and wrist.
It grabbed at his agonized limb to retaliate, but it was still too slow. Dustin was able to get his other arm around its neck in a chokehold, and cutting off its oxygen seemed to be working, if he could just hold on...!
The seconds full of flailing and gritted teeth passed, and Dustin dragged himself out from partially under the heavy, limp form of what was formerly a human. Leaning heavily against the cliffside, he tried to recover his breath and awareness of his surroundings, the numbness in his limbs a constant, aching distraction.
The shifting environment had put him somewhere back near where he'd been running from, but that also meant... To his relief and amazement, he spotted the flaxen-coated cougar almost immediately, and nearly as fast as she did him. She was running his way now, on only three legs, her lame hind one hanging awkwardly over the snow, damaged from their first bout of combat, Dustin remembered worriedly.
He thought to call out to her, warn her of the unnerving space distortion that could happen at any moment- but injured or not, his four-legged partner was still incomparably fast, reaching his side in a matter of mere seconds. Her journey was probably hastened by the existance of those pursuing her, though they appeared out of sight, safely eating her dust, for now. After nudging him impatiently in greeting, she ran off along the southward stretch of the cliffside, Dustin chasing her tail in a heroic but altogether futile endeavor to try and match pace.
When boulders started raining down from the top of the cliff however, Dustin couldn't help but protest. Their fortune, wasn't it simply far too bad?
"How do they always find us?" he despaired aloud. He had to force out an extra jolt of speed every few paces to avoid becoming human pancake with every lump of mountain that was thrown down at them from above. The rock face at their side had become a hazard, but moving away from it would mean giving up their only form of shelter... Dustin pressed on, following the lead of his partner, who'd swapped shapes again during the latest barrage, as it splattered her with snow. Presumably since the cougar provided the enemy a large target.
Though it was hard while running, the lynx glanced over her shoulder and fixed him with a look when she heard his grievance. A really very serious look that could've glued his feet to the ground if he weren't running on puffy white solid water dust. It was to his shock that the big cat even skidded to a halt in her running and took the precious time to spell it out in the snow with several hurried swipes of her paw. 'AURA', she wrote, before coiling up her muscles and springing straight into a sprint again. Her written work was demolished by a crushing mass from above in a matter of seconds. But its message had been securely delivered.
With that one word, it suddenly crashed upon Dustin, the reason for all this mess; the rebels locating him with ease despite his camouflage- what was essentially visual invisibility- time and time again. It was because his aura had managed to slip back out from under his cover, the careful concealment he'd supposed to have been exercising this entire time. It was his aura that had lit him up like a 7-Eleven sign in the night, drawing the powers to him with the precision of guided, heat-seeking, top-notch missiles. Yeah, with that slip-up, he'd blown this entire mission sky-high.
After stuffing all signs of his aura deep inside himself, past detection, he felt little superior to a bed-wetting child, hiding the evidence of his act after the shameful deed had already been done. In one dramatic moment, Dustin even wondered if it wouldn't be better to simply throw himself into the path of the next incoming dump from above, and save his partner from any further inconvenience. However, the change he'd belatedly made did grant them some reprieve, as the rebel above faltered, sparing Dustin from any convenient opportunity for immediate repentance.
Or so he'd thought, taking a moment to slow and recover his breath, when another piece of the mountain was dropped- this time contacting directly with his limping partner's back. Dustin felt like someone had taken a boot directly to his chest, in that instant where he could only dash to her side and pray that-
Imagine his profound relief to find it was just a heap of snow and ice, hardly any rock mixed in at all. He helped dig the lynx out, but Dustin's heart quickly plummeted again as he realized the kind of shape she was in under it all. One leg had already been fractured, now her other hind leg appeared in a beaten state that no doctor would want to clear for running. It was apparent that she wouldn't be able to move very fast for very much longer. Even if her life depended on it, there would soon be a point where her body would have to give out. Luckily, the solution here was obvious.
"Come on, make yourself smaller," he encouraged her, and without waiting he hauled the big cat's body mass up into his arms, slinging her limp body over his shoulder in a fireman's carry. This form's weight was nothing to laugh at- and his muscles were, Dustin was a skinny teen- but if she was unable to make the change, he was desperate enough to persevere with her as is.
Fortunately, he didn't have to. The release of burden when she shifted from muscular lynx to fluffy house cat made him feel like an Atlas getting the weight of the world lifted off his back, such was the difference and the relief it gave him. On the cat's part, her green eyes thinned against the pain as she stretched her injured hind legs down into his hood, front paws digging claws into his coat to secure herself on his shoulder. Dustin winced as the pressure on his coat reminded him of the stab wound in his back, but he kept jogging, knowing that was the least of their problems.
Now that the rebels couldn't see them via his energy signal, Dustin had a choice to make. Did he continue to use the steep mountainside for protection, or diverge and risk the possibilities of the open slope? He could also attempt to lose the rebels by expending himself in a sprint, or preserve his stamina by relying on their inability to track him now... Although there was still the enemy close enough to see and throw things down on them, who remained a looming threat, one he could do little about.
Truthfully, Dustin hadn't a great deal of practical hope for their situation- if a rebel didn't kill them, a combination of the cold and their injuries likely would- but one thing was as clear to him as it had ever been: that nothing would be gained by giving up now, now would it.
Then, before he even had a chance to make his decision, Dustin saw two things that changed everything. One, the sheer cliff edge was coming to an end, melting into a gentler bank ahead, which gave him no advantage but offered the rebel atop it the perfect ramp down to fight him.
Second was a small, human-shaped figure waiting for him even before the two mountain levels merged. The low visibility conditions meant that they were only a handful of meters away when Dustin saw them, forcing him to slow. He'd just made the decision to split from the steep edge and run away, when-
The newcomer moved to intercept him, which wouldn't have stopped Dustin if it didn't mean he got close enough to catch a glimpse at that rebel's face... Not only was it not twisted into something unrecognizable as human- it was entirely too familiar to him. What color was left in Dustin's own face drained away as he realized he knew this one. It was-
"Hale!?" he shouted, unable to contain his jarring, jolted shock at the vision confronting him.
There was no more time for acknowledgement as this newcomer grabbed Dustin by the wrist (Dustin clasped onto the back of his cat with his other) and pulled them through the snowy layer, phasing deep into the dark rock core of the mountainside...

taffy789 • 3 July 2017 at 10:55 PM

The rising sun warmed Naji as he tugged anxiously at the collar of his shirt.
Next to him, Samuel whistled something "Queen" and rocked back and forth on the heels of his boots while Jorge sat in the sand near the backpacks. Blinking slowly, Jorge looked like he was about to nod off at any second- not from entirely from exhaustion, but from a lack of activity.
Despite nothing happening, Naji felt tenser than ever, and he knew it had something to do with the positioning.
He, Samuel, and Jorge all stood clumped together, to the left of the briefing tent’s door, while the large group of soldaditos remained diametrically opposite to them, pushed far away to the right.
Not one word of greeting had passed between the two groups since they’d both arrived to the briefing tent early.
At most, the soldaditos had only furtively glanced in their direction, making no move to come and talk. Which was, Naji knew, probably the best course of action to take, considering that Samuel was-
“God,” Samuel breathed out, his whistling stopping jarringly abrupt, “when the heck are these spec-ops supposed to come?”
… acting a bit high strung.
Naji shuffled from foot to foot as Samuel continued muttering on to himself. “Like, seriously, it’s past time, right? This thing should’ve been over and done with by now, jesus.”
“Hey,” Jorge piped up from his place lounging against his backpack. “Chill.”
“I’m chill.” Samuel defended himself.
“Let the spec-ops do their own thing.” Jorge suggested. “They’ll come eventually.”
Samuel shrugged. “Well, excuse me for wanting to be sent back to our tents to sleep as soon as humanly possible.”
“It’s a noble cause to be all crazy about, sure,” Jorge agreed whole-heartedly. “But still. Chill before you get a heart attack and die or something.”
Samuel glowered at that, letting out a huffy breath.
Their group lapsed into an anxious silence, and Naji drifted away from those two, staring out in the direction of the soldaditos instead.
They seemed happy- carefree.
They chatted excitedly among themselves, obviously pumped to meet Dia’s spec-ops for an utterly different reason than Samuel wanted to. They were decked out in their best mission gear, which was a stark contrast to how lazily Naji’s group had packed this morning. Naji fiddled with the cords of his drawstring bag, fully aware of how unprepared he and Samuel and Jorge were.
Although this fact was no concern to them, as they both seemed to have other worries on their mind.
The principle one, being, it seemed…
“God,” Samuel groaned, “I really need to go pee.”
Jorge, who cracked open one eye to flicker a wary side glance up at his friend, responded to that with a judging, “Dude.”
Samuel crossed his arms and bounced up and down at the knee. “Sorry. Really gotta pee.”
“Then stop talking about it and go.”
“Look,” Samuel said, his hands stubbornly tucked underneath his armpits, “If I leave and miss this briefing, and that dirtbag over there tries to pull another “oh you should’ve been here for the briefing” card like he did yesterday, then you’re not going to be able to stop me from frying somebody this time.”
Jorge sighed.
“Go find to bathroom. I’m here, and so is Naji. We’re not going to fall asleep or miss the briefing or anything, dude. We’ll fill you in later if we have to.”
Samuel paused. Then, he asked, warily, “…You sure?”
“Go. Pee.” Jorge commanded.
Samuel nodded and walked off to do just that.
As soon as Samuel was out of sight, Jorge made eye contact with Naji. Blandly, he said, “Nudge me awake before Samuel comes back” and he immediately shut his eyes against the sun and snuggled his head deeper into a backpack. He nodded off within a few minutes.
Now left standing alone, Naji felt perfectly content to quietly wait for the spec-ops to show up for the briefing. However, some frantic movement to his right drew his attention over to the soldaditos.
Jumping up and down and waving her arms wildly about, Amy was trying her hardest to signal Naji over.
Quickly turning away from the girl, Naji pretended to not have seen her.
Less hard to ignore was loud calling of “Naji! Naaaaaajjjiii!” that soon begun to echo across the desert dunes.
Blushing a bright red and not wanting his name to wake up everyone in a ten mile radius, Naji reluctantly jogged over to the soldadito group.



Annabell rubbed tiredly at dry eyes.
“I know we can’t do anything about it right now Riley, I,” she stopped there, her arms squeezing themselves back against her chest, safe and tight. She sighed.
“I know that. But. Of course we’ll keep trying.” She said this, and, looked up. She noticed Riley’s outstretched hand and sunny smile, and Annabell felt a bit lightheaded again, so very cruelly and suddenly. Gulping down the dizziness, Annabell added a confident, “Of course we’ll keep trying to help everybody” and then took hold of Riley’s hand. When she pulled herself up, her whole body felt so warm that she was oblivious to the boy’s cool skin.
Dropping his hand, she stepped back from Riley, mitigating the closeness that standing up had put between their bodies. Giving Riley a small smile, Annabell drifted back to a previous topic- the question Riley had asked about her old habits of relieving frustration.
Mimicking Riley’s earlier nervous action and shoving her hands in her jean pockets, Annabell sheepishly admitted, “Um, well, honestly Riley, about what I did when I was upset or angry, I can’t really say much…”
She thought back on her old life, racking her memories and trying to find a suitable comparison of old emotion. What she found was little, and it led her to summarize with, “Honestly, I don’t think my frustration ever really got… that bad?” She gave a tiny shrug. “I guess I’ve always had a pretty lucky, charmed life, you know? If I did get upset it was usually something that got solved quickly. I got over it, moved on fast, that kind of quiet life.” Annabell smiled, all wistful and forlorn, before her mood evened out again and she continued, musing on something.
“… But… I think I can think of this… one time…”
Now some more embarrassed pink colored her cheeks again. Although she almost did NOT want to admit this to Riley, Annabell knew she’d already said so much that a little more honesty couldn’t hurt her reputation any more than it already could’ve, right?
Her hands twisted deeper into the safety of her pockets.
“I was… in middle school and… really upset over…” Oh goodness, she immediately regretted speaking up on this train of thought, but between the spluttering words and the deep flushing of her face, she managed to choked out, “um, silly… middle school relationship drama. And-” the worst being over, she tried to calm the red bursting out on her face- “my Dad didn’t even know why I was so upset, but he pulled me out of my room anyway and took me to some fancy ice creamery.”
Annabell wasn’t meeting Riley’s eyes anymore; she’d turned to face the door long ago.
Still, she muttered out a quiet, sheepish, “…But that had made me feel a lot less upset. But I had been like, twelve back then.”


Zach lifted his head from where it was buried in his cot. His hair, already longer for a guy- poking a bit past his ears- stood messily on his head from the static of his bedsheets.
Oblivious to this, Zach answered Raven, seriously as ever, “The files are about me.”
He stood up from the cot, giving up on laying down any further. Walking over to Raven’s desk, he explained further, “Yesterday during the interrogation, Tabs pulled up a few files on me. But there was only one or two, and both Tabs and my intuition told me that the amount was strange. So, I went to go check with the Eighth division here, and look at that,” Zach scoffed, all displeased and agitated, “the girl there confirmed that any other files on me have been locked from normal view, for government eyes only. However.” Zach had made it behind Raven’s desk now, and he loomed behind her chair. He peered over her handwriting without attempting to read it, and continued, blandly, “Our One counts as “government”, and the Eighth worker says One can request these things, and she could pass them onto me to look at them. My power says there’s something important in those files, or whatever, so I’m going to. Look at them.”
Zach couldn’t have seemed more unenthused and reluctant about doing anything in his entire life as he added a moody, “I guess.”
As if to ignore the idea of having to actually come face-to-face with those dreaded files, Zach began to- very obviously- squint over Raven’s shoulder in attempt to see what she’d written so far.
…
… This went on well into a few minutes, with Zach concentrating fully on the paper, blinking every so often as if struggling to adjust his eyes. Even more shockingly, he at one point braced a hand on the back of Raven’s chair, brushing her shoulder as he leaned in more, as if getting closer to the paper could somehow make the words make more sense.
Finally, after that had gone on for longer than Zach or anyone else felt comfortable with, Zach did the only thing left to do.
He gave up.
Stepping back, to the side of the desk, he paused for a moment, as if expecting Raven to comment something.
… Before she could, however, he pressed an index finger to a particularly elaborate and fancily written “permission” before saying, unable to hide the tinge of frustration in his words, “I refuse to believe that’s an actual word written right there. Are you messing with me?”

asi • 6 July 2017 at 8:26 PM

The first thing Riley did was calmly polish off the last of his dissatisfaction from his pair of butterfly swords. When the blades and crossguards of each were shinning brightly, not a trace of dust or a smear of grease in sight, he slid both pieces smoothly back inside their sheath, readied for deployment.
By the time that was out of the way, Annabell's voice had trailed off, a signal clear as day that told him it was time to react, or else leave the blonde to stew too long in the perception an awkward atmosphere where she didn't belong.
And her words had Riley screwing up his face in consideration, until the thoughtful look gave way as he couldn't help but out with what, exactly, it was apparently tying his intestines up in knots. "Sorry, sorry, but you had me imagining you eating soft serve all frustrated and angrily, it just.... never mind," he chuckled, eyebrows bent apologetically as he pushed aside the mental image with a few waves of his hand.
Riley continued to comment on the matter in a light conversational tone, feeling it appropriate after all the heavy substance they'd just waded through. "I guess you're really not one to be frustrated, huh. In my family, we were accustomed to ah, more expressive expressions of our feelings."
He had a knowing, and even somewhat superior look to him then that would definitely rub a certain someone the wrong way were she there to see it and hear him now. "Alex would throw the craziest tantrums- she wouldn't break things or anything, much- but she sure had a set of lungs on her, and she'd stomp around the house like a... you know that big radioactive lizard monster from the movies?" he mused, then snapped his fingers.
"Godzilla. Er, maybe that's too far..." Sweating slightly, RIley had to reconsider that comparison, for it was the kind of thing his twin really would hunt him down for, with full intent to maim or injure... He scratched at his cheek sheepishly for a moment before moving on again. "Anyway. Later, when she took up karate, it was quieter, but she'd break a few more things," he mused. It was followed up by a short addition about himself; an afterthought, really. "I would just go on a walk, or a run... jog," he compromised, having thought it over too long.
It was a day like that that he first met....
Riley effectively sidestepped that train of thought by throwing his attentions back at the present with vigor.
"Right! Ice cream. We can do that. Let's go get ice cream," he announced with a willing and amiable smile. Still shaking his head in kindly amusement at Annabell's supposed remedy, Riley gathered himself to leave, before something that he had forgotten occurred to him. He paused in his tracks and then set upon a more roundabout course to the exit. One that brought him back around to the computer, briefly.
"First, I should set some of this to print while we're gone, then I can simply take it with us later and read... you know, whenever there's a chance," he murmured vaguely, too busy with manhandling his mouse and clicking buttons to provide Annabell with an explanation that didn't sound like the leadership was going to engage in reckless inattention during their mission of ambiguous danger. Or one that didn't imply a slightly alarming extended stay on the outside, but Riley wasn't thinking about either of those things right now. He was focused on ensuring all the right pages were set to print so he could get the girl there her ice cream already.
He withdrew from the machine with an appeased expression when he had the computer whirling, blowing out hot air and blustery noise in response.
Riley pushed his office chair dismissively out of the way as he stepped around to the other side of his desk again, joining Annabell to that they could quit the room together, him opening and closing the door behind them on their way out.
"We should have ice cream somewhere around here, the first division's supposed to stock it as a weekly promotion perk. Have you been to that lunch room before? I always forget and go to the general cafeteria... I'm not sure about the fancy stuff, but we can only see what they've got, right?" he chatted idly about it with her as they walked.


Raven nodded slowly in understanding. With the information Zach gave her, the little details that had been bothering her in the back of her mind receded, now making sense. She was reminded of the influence and control the government still had over all the kids here, even from so far away, where it seemed completely detached from their reality of day-to-day. Once on the island, the leaders were often presented as the be-all and end-all in regards to authority, but that really wasn't the case. They were simply the only figures that could be reached by the poor, destitute children who had been sent there to die. In reality, didn't they also have no power, only serving as figureheads to enforce the military law on the masses? And all they received in return were their quaint little dog treat privileges, living slighter longer than they might otherwise would.
Zach, who was... lurking over her shoulder, was probably one that could be bribed easily, since he enjoyed sweets so much... no. No one in their right mind would consider him an effective employee, since he was almost impossible to cooperate with. Even if he wasn't, there was no way Zach would be content doing what someone else wanted, being subject to someone else's whims, for any laughable sum. The guy had definite problems with authority, so as much as Raven could rely on gravity to always bring her down, she could also count on him to spit in the government's eye whenever he had the chance. Unfortunately, this was not said opportunity.
No, this was a suck-up job, evident in every note to this stupid formal foppery in letter form he'd had her write. Even featuring her own direct and business-like accent, it still made Raven want to cringe and wash her hair several times over. But it was necessary foppery.
This was what they had to do, to make the most of what they were given.
She wasn't bothered in the slightest by his looming, leaning or squinting, although the time he spent doing so did give the girl time to second-guess her composition... Even then, her penmanship definitely didn't spring to mind as Raven considered what she thought might be a potential source of dissatisfaction for the finicky leader, currently craning himself over her shoulder in an effort to read, a position that really looked like it could not be comfortable for a very sustained period.
Still the oddly tense moment passed without anything unusual resulting, until Zach decided to critique what had to be the least of her concerns, her handwriting, causing Raven to question if he'd even read any section of it properly.
She rolled her eyes subtly. "Wow, you caught me. That's actually a scribble masquerading as a real word, well done," she delivered in perfect deadpan, before turning her head away slightly to mutter in relatively chipper spirits, less audibly; "It's fortunate neither writing nor reading this is your job..."
She concluded the letter briefly, adding some few specifications that Zach described in order fish out only the relevant documents regarding him, then folded it straightly twice so that it could be tucked in an envelope and safely delivered, before handing the finished piece over to the man uncharacteristically close behind her. This way, he wouldn't have to strain himself unnecessarily in order to read it- if he could brave her handwriting, that is.
"There you go. You can either believe me that it's written right, or read over it yourself. Do whichever causes you the least difficulty," she said dryly, before loosening out her arms and allowing her fingers to stretch again, since they were still more used to holding a dagger than a pen. Raven stretched both arms, because she didn't want to draw attention to the only one she was worried about...
This document requesting, it wasn't a bad idea. The more information the better, and if it could or had to be obtained through this method, well, it wasn't a downside to having leaders around, who were essentially on their side, even if they had to be whipped by the government, for now. Those dog treats, they had their uses... even if it was currently only aiding on Zach's personal journey of self-discovery, whatever. Dude could certainly use it.

taffy789 • 9 July 2017 at 4:29 PM

“Good morning!” Amy called out as Naji approached. When the girl came at him, arms open wide and ready to crush him, Naji this time had a new plan of attack. Right before Amy could wrap her arms around him, Naji started coughing, loudly and violently.
The girl stopped in her tracks, dropping her arms to her sides.
He forced himself to cough for a concerning amount of time, apologizing between forced yaks and wheezes about some very unfortunate, possibly very contagious cold he’d come down with, oh so suddenly.
Amy backed off in understanding… at first. Then, exclaiming she wasn’t afraid of some cold when her friend needed her, she “helpfully” patted Naji’s back to clear him of his coughs. The strength of the girl’s palm hitting his back forced Naji to a knee.
“I’m fine I think you helped me feel better!” Naji shouted out in one swift breath as he struggled under Amy’s loving “help”.
“See! A little cold isn’t anything you can’t beat away!” Amy cheered as Naji shakily stood up. “That’s what Mom always said, at least!”
“… Your mom said that?” Naji wheezed, incredulous despite the hurt.
“Er.” Amy blinked, her cheeks flushing with childish shame. “Well. Mistress Calvez said that but. We called her Mom. Behind her back, because she didn’t like being called that. Hated it, actually! Would give corrective training to anyone who slipped up and said it to her face…”
She trailed off there, her expression going all… fuzzy. Naji noticed this, but was only confused by the unexpected shift in the girl’s mood. Noticing this confusion, Amy shot a brilliant smile towards Naji, and explained, “Well, Naji! I don’t know what they called the teachers at your training facility, but ours were called Mistresses and Misters! Or Señoras and Señors, whichever depending on the language being used that day… Oh!” She clapped her hands together. “But I’m getting all sidetracked! Anyway, like, to explain.” Amy hummed. “Mistress Calvez was one of the best there! All of us kids loved her, she was so nice to us, and she seemed to really, really care for us! Would always give us training days off when it poured rain outside, without fail!”
Naji gave a surprised, natural choking cough at this, at what Amy considered to be the standard for “really caring for us”. He felt compelled to ask her about it, but his cough had triggered Amy to look all concerned again and try to smack his cough out of his lungs.
As Naji suffered once more under the crushing blows of Amy’s palm, another soldadito took notice of the conversation and approached the two.
“Amy!” Gabriel grinned. “I heard you talking about Mistress Calvez?”
“Haha, yeah!” Amy sparkled with excitement. “I was just explaining to Naji what our teachers were like, since Naji like, went to a different facility than us, and all!”
Amy stopped banging on Naji’s back after saying that, which gave the boy time to process her words. Amy mentioned him going to a “different facility”, which was… wrong, a lie, a total lie. It confused him for a moment, but Gabriel speaking up shed some light on what he was forgetting.
“Oh yeah, Naji!” Gabriel said, smiling at the boy. “What was the name of your facility again? Johnson’s? Er, or Jameson’s?”
That name triggered a memory, and Naji paled as he recalled that, yes, he HAD lied about going to a training facility like the soldaditos had; that Amy and Gabriel and everyone else were under the impression still that he was… similar in background and training…
His heart picking up a panicked pace, Naji had zero idea about how to handle this situation.
Thinking fast, he did whatever came most naturally to him.
“Um. Johnson’s.” Naji lied, trying not to sweat bullets. “No, Jameson’s, yeah, that’s the name… something like that.”
“But like, which is it?” Amy asked, curious.
“Erhm. Actually it’s like, both,” Naji fumbled, “Er, hyphenated. Johnson-Jameson’s. The guy had two very similar last names, very weird…. Confusing for…” Naji felt his mouth go dry, and he wet his lips to stutter out, “for… um…. Confusing for everyone, yeah…”
“Oh, well,” Amy blinked, then said, candidly, “That’s… pretty cool! A very cool and interesting history for a name, huh?”
“Sure.” Naji said, feeling light-headed from those terrible lies.
Gabriel laughed. “At Johnson-Jameson’s, I’m sure they operated like at Espada.” He turned to give a joking wink to Amy. “Complete with their own versions of awesome French ex-military women for teachers.”
“Gabe,” Amy said after giggling at that, “Mistress Mom was soooo awesome.”
Gabriel looked off-put by that, and he chided the girl with a, “She didn’t like being called that.”
“Oh come on.” Amy rolled her eyes. “Everyone did it.”
“Yeah, but.” Now Gabriel flushed sheepishly. Slowly, he admitted, “I got into the habit of doing it and… accidentally said it in front of her, to her face-”
Amy snorted at that.
“-and she replied by yelling at me for twelve minutes straight-”
Amy’s chortling grew louder.
“-and after she was done she made me do twenty laps around the entire compound.”
Amy was laughing now, deep bellows of force and air. Naji glanced between the embarrassed Gabriel and laughing Amy, not finding anything much hilarious about that situation, at all.
But Amy did. When she was done laughing at Gabriel’s expense, she wiped the tears from her eyes and said, “See! This is why everyone loved Mistress Mom! Had that been anyone else that angry, you would’ve walked away with more scars on your back from the rod!”
At that sentence, Naji jumped, paling despite the so casual and giggly way Amy continued to speak, “Instead, she just made you look like a total idiot loser by running around in circles all day!”
“Haha, yep.” Gabriel admitted, a hand pressed against his collarbone in an honest, sheepish manner. “I mean, if that was Mister Keller, I might’ve had a fingertip removed for ‘insolence’ or something!”
Naji had to swallow another choke of horror at that one.
Amy only laughed, sunny as ever, “Oh yeah, Mister Keller and his ‘insolence’ punishments! All the time, say one word to him and it was always ‘insolence’, always!”
Dropping his voice to become lower, gravelly and tinged with a hint of a pretty expertly crafted American Southern accent, Gabriel mimicked, “Oh? You ‘ave a ‘tomach ache? You ‘nah what the Falc-ki-ons ‘ould call a Gla’roe wif a lil’ ole tummy ache? Easy pickins.”
Amy was shaking with laughter, and Gabriel broke into a grin too, and his accent wavered between his own giggles as he continued, “’Naw go out ‘ere and- aha, and toss that tire down field befo- ‘for I skin ‘ya for- for insolaaaaance.”
Amy was dying, wheezing and almost doubled over in the sand. Between breaths, she gasped out, “Oh my gosh! Perfect! Perfect, Gabe, perfect and amazing!”
Gabriel laughed along with her. “Mister Keller was truly. Something.”
As this went on, Naji stayed completely silent, every giggle and laughter and moment of reminiscing making him feel sicker and sicker by the second.
He didn’t want to listen to the soldaditos happily talk about their training or teachers or punishments or whatever like that, nope, it made him feel all nauseous and… bad.
Instead, Naji looked away from the two, past them and towards the rest of the soldadito group hanging out off behind them. He saw Esperanza lounging in the sand, muching through an apple. Geraldo stood nearby, holding a knife and taking practice swipes at the air every so often. Finally, there was Raquel, standing behind her twin brother and approaching him, quietly, with care…
Naji watched as Raquel pulled a baseball cap from her back pocket and, with terrifying speed, pull it down over her brother’s head.
Geraldo jumped into the air before spinning around, knife gripped tight, only to find both his sister and Esperanza laughing in his face at his reaction. Sheathing his knife, Geraldo frowned and tugged the baseball hat from his head. He appeared to then speak a curt few words to Raquel, who said something back while smiling at his expense. Rolling his eyes, Geraldo reached down and plucked a water bottle from its spot near his feet. After taking a sip, he made a motion like he was going to screw the cap back on… right before he didn’t, and instead whipped the bottle towards Raquel, splattering the front of her shirt with heavy drops of water. Startled, the girl jumped back, shouting out some words of Spanish that were even audible to Naji from meters away. Despite her volume, she didn’t look angry in the slightest as she laughed and playfully argued with Geraldo over possibly many things, such as surprise hat tricks or water bottle attacks…
Naji eventually grew too aware of himself, watching those three have fun and laugh like that, and he forced his eyes to tear themselves away from it all, away from Geraldo, from Esperanza, and from Raquel’s sparkling eyes and kinda adorable laughing expression…
He focused back on the conversation in front of him just in time to catch the tail end of Amy saying, “But isn’t that right, Naji?”
“Uhm.” Naji blinked, dumbly. “…Huh?”
Amy rolled her eyes. “Keep up silly! I was telling Gabe how you forced your teammates to get here early because yesterday I told you I’d be mad at you forever if you were late again!”
“Oh?” Naji was more caught off guard than ever, barely remembering that happening at all. “Um…” he confessed, not knowing how to reply to that, “Actually… coming early was more…. Samuel’s idea…”
Both Amy and Gabriel’s face fell at the mention of Samuel’s name, and Naji froze, immediately regretting telling the truth.
After an intense second of Amy nervously twiddling her thumbs and Gabriel scowling at a sand pile to his right, Amy piped up.
“Um! Now that you mention that guy Naji, I feel like I need to… tell you why I originally called you over here…”
A rock dropped and hit the soft bottom of Naji’s stomach- hard. A visceral bad feeling about whatever Amy wanted started to gnaw at his nerves, and the boy steeled himself for whatever surely awkward conversation was going to happen next.

awesomeness • 10 July 2017 at 11:11 PM

“I hate to ruin the funny mental image but,” Annabell contested, her cheeks flushing and now feeling the need to defend her self-image from Riley’s giggles, “I wasn’t really angrily eating the ice cream. Like, for one I doubt it’s even possible to eat ice cream and feel any type of angry but. Also I feel like I was more on the…. Sad upset side of things.”
She stopped for a moment, then asserted, “… Ice cream has always struck me as more as a sad depression food? If I had to think of an “angry” food, I feel like it would be… Um. Not sure, maybe something messy like ribs, or… spaghetti?”
Suddenly, she was struck with the mental image of someone angrily slurping up a spaghetti noodle, and. Okay, admittedly she saw the humor Riley saw in the thought of her eating ice cream while frustrated.
Dropping that topic, Annabell instead moved onto nodding in agreement with Riley as he mentioned Alex’s recent habit of throwing things while upset.
“I believe I bore witness to your twin sister, um, in one of her more upset episodes before…” Annabell crossed her arms. “I believe a chair was broken? A table may have been tossed as well… It was not very pretty.”
When Riley moved to go print out his papers, Annabell thought it strange that he wanted to take them on the mission. After all, the last one was action-packed enough as is, and every ounce of their supplies had certainly gotten soaked to the core during the course of that day’s adventure.
Walking to the door to patiently wait for Riley, Annabell decided to ask him about it later. For right now, Riley had mentioned finding ice cream…
Although normally Annabell would have shied away from her friend going through so much trouble for her, after the last few days she had, ice cream sounded like something she really wanted- needed, even, if not earned.
So, when Riley was ready to leave to the First division cafeteria, Annabell followed without any complaint.


Zach had responded to Raven’s first deadpan with one of his own.
“Scribbles have crazy loops like that. Actual letters do not.”
He then stayed relatively silent on the topic after that, content to reply to Raven’s questions and help get the letter done. When Raven finished the conclusion, signed it, and handed if off to him, Zach took it while rolling his eyes at his assistant’s sarcastic suggestion to read it over himself.
“Obviously it’s going to be ‘less difficult’ for me to believe you, but what I’m saying is that it shouldn’t have been that ‘difficult’ to do the second option there either.” Zach looked down at the folded letter in his hands, and he scowled at it. “I couldn’t understand most of those words, Raven, and I have no clue how you understand them yourself.” He stated, sourly, “It’s bad enough the letters move, they don’t need to be all loopy and bleeding into one another like that too.”

taffy789 • 16 July 2017 at 1:14 AM

“See, Naji,” Amy began, looking at her shoes and not directly at Naji. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but, um…”
“Samuel isn’t the nicest person around.” Gabriel finished for the girl as she trailed off.
Amy sniffed, and as raised her head stubbornly level with Naji’s, the boy was startled to see moisture coating her blue irises. Amy inhaled once before blurting out, passionately, “He really isn’t nice! He’s- he’s hard to work with, difficult, and doesn’t follow orders! He’s violent! He threatened Gabe when Gabe was just trying to lead the mission, and he’s- he’s a big bully!”
In a furious frustration, Amy stomped a foot on the ground, causing an explosion of sand that pelted Naji’s bare kneecaps like flying shards of glass.
Wincing at both this and the yelling, Naji only listened on as Amy continued.
“Samuel called me a soldadito, to my face! And then that Jorge kid called all of us soldaditos, so it’s obvious what they think of us!”
Naji stared at the soldadito girl, unblinking in his confusion. Finally, he had a coherent thought, and he was able to stammer out, “Is- Is…. Him calling you that a… really bad thing..?”
Amy looked taken aback.
“Of- of course!” She gasped out. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
Next to her, Gabriel shook his head.
“Naji… I know you’re new, and I hate to be the one to tell you this but… a lot of the people here… dislike us just because we were raised and trained in a government facility.” He made a face. “They ignore us… Call us dumb, mock us for doing things right... The base as a whole has seemingly decided on calling us “toy soldiers” behind our backs, or even right to our faces…” He faltered, and then confessed. “I don’t know whether or not it’s because they... Resent how prepared we are, or what. I’ve been here two months and still don’t get it, why I’m apparently so hated.” After shaking his head again, Gabriel looked up at Naji, and he smiled, pleasantly.
“But hey. Don’t let that get you down. It’s something we’ve all experienced here, right? That’s why we stick together.”
“Yeah!” Amy joined in, wiping all angry moisture away from her eyes. “We know how bad it can be for us! They may make fun of us and call us soldaditos, but you know what? Us “soldaditos” got to stick together then in that case!” Grinning, Amy reached out and grabbed Naji’s hands, yanking the boy closer to herself. “That’s why when I saw you standing all alone a few days ago, I just had to go grab you! I didn’t want you to be all lost and lonely like I felt the first few weeks I was here, before I found Gabe and everyone else!” Her eyes sparkled and shone with the most authentic, sincere joy and excitement Naji had ever seen, and a lump formed in his throat. He turned his face to the ground, ashamed by the stark honesty.
“That’s also why I pulled some strings to invite you on our missions.” Gabriel smiled. “I didn’t want you to waste away alone in that hospital tent all day. I thought you could use some people like you…” He paused, then added, “… Especially after meeting your teammates for the first time. I.” Gabriel sighed. “When I heard Samuel and Jorge had decided to join us, I was excited. I thought they were doing it for like, you. To support you like real friends would, right?” But all they did was make things difficult and cause fighting. Insult us and act like if we were dumb. Insult our leaders, even!”
Gabriel glowered, dangerously.
“Samuel isn’t a good person. And I’m afraid for you, having to work with him when he obviously doesn’t respect you and your history as a competent trained healer and warrior.”
Naji choked there, the ashamed lump violently dancing in his esophagus and making it hard to breath. Despite how wrong Gabriel was, Naji found himself unable to say anything but a frightened, choking, “Right.” of agreement.
Gabriel nodded.
“Right.” He repeated, then continued. “It’s right that it’s wrong for you to have to work with someone who’ll look down on you and call all of us “soldaditos” like that.”
“And that’s why!” Amy blurted out, exploding at the seams with her passion again, “Gabe and I have been talking, right? And like, we’ve decided that, that we’re both worried about you, and want you to be happy, and that’s why- why-”
So caught up in her excited fervor, she seemed to be having trouble getting the words out. At this, Gabriel laughed at her before matching the girl’s grin. He turned to Naji to conclude,
“That’s why, Naji, we want you to come a join OUR little squad! So you don’t have to deal with those two mocking guys over there, anymore.” Still smiling, Gabriel looked positively excited to hear Naji’s answer as he asked, “Soooo, what ya say?”
… Naji had no words.
His armpits felt soaked with sweat, his throat felt closed up, and he was absolutely terrified. In his mind, he mentally clawed at the edges of the deep, deep, deep hole he’d somehow dug himself into, and he screamed for help, for salvation, for pity.
He tried to imagine himself anywhere but here, in this moment.
He looked past Gabriel and Amy again, back at the other soldaditos as they chatted and laughed with each other in the background. He dully watched them. Raquel and Geraldo seemed to be in the midst of a serious and loud conversation while Esperanza munched still on an apple and stared into the distance, elsewhere.
He watched them, and the lump bobbed in his throat, desperately holding back his next words out of fear they’d pathetically lie and doom him again.
Naji knew he wasn’t a soldadito, but admitting to that would make these next few missions very. Very. Very incredibly hard.
He struggled over what to say for a moment, weighing the pros and cons before remembering something important.
Dia’s spec-ops.
Like a saving grace, maybe they would prevent him from going on anymore missions, like Samuel had exclaimed so confidently.
If he had no more missions to go on, then it wouldn’t matter what the spec-ops thought of him! He just had to wait out until then, and then he could finally be truthful, and never deal with the group again…
Because of this, Naji knew what he had to say.
“Umm, um.” His mouth struggled to form the words, but he somehow managed. “Um… guys, that offer is, great. Honestly. I a-appreciate it…”
The two stared up at him with an eager anticipation to hear his next few words.
Naji swallowed. “B-buut…”
Their faces fell.
Naji winced. “But I. Um. Feel. B-bad… for ditching Samuel and Jorge… because they were my assigned team and need. A. Um. Healer…” He swayed, ever so slightly, as his head spun faster with every passing lie. “I need time to think about it. Maybe until after these missions are… over…”
“Naji.” Gabriel began, seriously. “You don’t owe those two anything.”
Amy sniffed. “Gabe’s right! But!” Her sniveling grew thunderous. “But it’s so great and nice of you to do that for them! Naji! Even though they’ve been so rude, you still are all concerned about them!” The girl hadn’t stopped holding onto his hands, and she used the leverage she had to whip his arms up and down in a wild, painful fashion. “That’s just sooo selfless of you, I could like cry, I could never do that!”
“Yeah, selfless, haha, yeah that’s me.” Naji said, dumbfounded, and he felt like he needed to throw up.
He remained in this dizzy haze after Amy dropped his hands, and he stayed lost while Gabriel patted his back and tried to persuade him to, just maybe, be a little less selfless and concerned about the well-being of others- especially those who had long since proven to be rude troublemakers.
Wanting to escape this conversation, Naji turned his gaze from Amy and Gabriel again, back to Raquel and Geraldo and Esperanza. Despite the constant dazzle of the sunny smiling Raquel, Esperanza’s facial expression caught Naji’s eyes, and he focused on her as she stared… off somewhere with a grave, stoic intensity. For a second, Esperanza looked so serious, so pale that Naji feared she was about to kill someone. However, what she did next was ten times more surprising than an unexpected homicide.
Esperanza- the constantly serious, stoic girl of few words- smiled. The excitement swelling on her face alone was brighter than the light display Naji’s rich Christian neighbors used to set up on their front lawn every December. So worked up about something, Esperanza was, that she dropped her apple- half-eaten- into the sand. Her boot kicked it as she scrambled to stand up, and Naji watched as she rushed over to a group of four people who were approaching the briefing tent.
Esperanza skidded to a stop in front of the tallest one there, a young man who walked in front and towered over all. She appeared to blurt out some hurried words to which the guy smiled at and responded to by sticking out a hand in greeting. Looking uncharacteristically green and woozy, Esperanza took the hand, shaking it firmly despite the visible tremble of her unsteady legs.
Raquel and Geraldo had also rushed over to the newly arrived group, and all this clamor attracted the attention of Amy and Gabriel, who looked over and both gasped.
Without any further warning, Naji felt his arm being yanked on, hard.
He shook himself out of his daze to realize that Amy was dragging him by the hand, over to the crowd that had formed around the newcomers. Excitedly, she chattered.
“Oh! It’s them! It’s really them! I can’t believe it!”
Naji stopped trying to unclench Amy’s unyielding hand from his wrist for a moment, confused by all the sudden yelling and movement and action.
“It’s them? Who’s them?” Naji asked loudly as he was dragged along.
It was Gabriel, jogging to keep pace with Amy, who answered Naji’s question with a dazzling white grin.
“The spec-ops, buddy! They’re the spec-ops!”
Blinking once at this answer, Naji glanced over at the newly arrived group of four.
After a few moments of staring at them, the idea of them being powerful, deadly spec-ops sunk through his skull.
Naji felt his chest tighten, and he, slowly, swallowed that hard lump hanging out in his throat.

awesomeness • 17 July 2017 at 11:22 PM

As the spec-op team came into better view, Naji was able to more fully glance them over.
There were three girls and one guy- with the one guy being the most noticeable due to him being the only one engaging with the hoard of soldaditos that had surrounded them. The other three were aloof and unconcerned with their adoring admirers. Two girls, both with brown hair, chatted among themselves while the third, who sported strange, dyed dark blue dreadlocks, examined her equally blue nails with little interest towards the clamor going on around her.
That left the young man to deal with the soldaditos. Naji focused on him as he made rounds shaking everyone’s hands. The guy was tall, on the buffer side, and he couldn’t be younger than eighteen at least. He appeared Asian in ethnicity, but it wasn’t as if Naji could peg down exactly what nationality, nor did he think it right to even hazard a guess at that. When it was Naji’s turn to receive a pleasant smile and handshake from the male spec-op, Naji was alarmed by the guy’s strong, squeezing grip. Naji wasn’t sure if the strength was due to the spec-op being strong or due to himself being weak and puny, but Naji had a haunting, despairing feeling that it was most likely the latter reason.
He sulked at this as the spec-op skimmed over the group and greeted them with a surprised sounding, “Oh, well. I didn’t expect for the re-con group to be this… big.”
“Is that an issue?” Esperanza spoke up, too quickly and too concerned. “If it is a problem, we can always have less people.”
While that idea sounded like a great one to Naji (as long as he was kicked off the team to accommodate the “less people” thing), the spec-op only laughed.
“Er! No, no. It’s not a real problem. I was surprised, is all.” He ruffled a hand through his spiky jet black hair.
Behind him, another spec-op scoffed. The spec-op with the blue dreads pursed her lips, and from this action Naji could see the dark blue lipstick coating exactly half of her lips. The split was right down the middle, one side a deep blue while the other stayed its natural, full black. Before she spoke, there shone an amused glint in eye of the blue-adorned spec-op.
“Tyler, didn’t you get the memo?” She smirked now, as if laughing at herself. “Everyone coming through grew up in a training facility now, it’s part of a new program they call ‘Home Grown Glaeroes’.”
The first spec-op, whose name was apparently “Tyler”, groaned at that comment.
The soldaditos, however, grew excited.
“Is that really what’s going on?” Gabriel asked, looking too hopeful for Naji’s tastes.
“It is not.” Tyler the spec-op quickly amended, much to the disappointment of Gabriel. “Kiki’s joking.”
Behind Tyler, Kiki crossed her arms and twisted up those odd half-blue lips.
Following a lull in chatter, Amy piped up. “Sir! We’re just as surprised to see you here as you are us!”
Naji blinked in confusion at this statement, remembering how Amy had jumped at joy when being told about Dia’s spec-ops yesterday. He wondered why the girl bothered to lie as Tyler answered her with another smile.
“Ah. Well, we don’t advertise our stops that much. Although your briefer could’ve warned you about it. I’m surprised they hadn’t.”
“He did. Sir.” Esperanza said, curtly, while stepping forward. “It seems. We knew spec-ops were coming today, but our source was not… a hundred-percent truthful. It. Seems.”
Naji remained confused as ever, especially seeing that dark glint in Esperanza’s eye. He watched with some concern as the girl continued on, “But. I am glad you have arrived instead. It is an honor to meet all of you in person.”
Then Esperanza did this weird little bow thing, and Tyler gave a too-nice laugh that Naji immediately recognized as forced, and awkward.
“Ahaha, please you don’t need to do that, haha, stand up.” is what Naji heard Tyler tell Esperanza before another approaching conversation stole his attention away.
“‘Not going to fall asleep and miss the briefing my BUTT’!” came the familiar exclamation of Samuel’s voice.
“Hey dude,” Jorge complained, “drop it okay?”
“Can’t drop it, won’t drop it,” Samuel insisted. “I’m freaking out here.”
“I can tell.” Jorge sounded exhausted, but still yet tinged with that ever-present good humor.
Realizing that Amy had long ago released his arm in order to better swarm around the spec-ops, Naji wriggled his way out of the crowd to meet up with Samuel and Jorge in the back. Immediately when the two walking over noticed him, Samuel narrowed his focus directly on the boy and jogged straight to him.
“Hey, good, you’re here. Did we miss anything important?” Samuel asked, and Naji could feel the stress radiating off Samuel like heat from a stove.
Before Naji finishing answering with his “no”, Samuel had zipped away, pushing into the soldadito crowd to listen in on what the spec-ops had to say.
Next to Naji, Jorge sighed, loudly. He then elbowed Naji in the side, jabbing not hard enough to sting, but forceful enough to make the boy stumble slightly with the push.
“Dude,” Jorge frowned once Naji regained his footing. Jorge pulled his eyebrows and mouth into a comic, exaggerated pout. “I TOLD you to wake me up before Sammy got back. Why you gotta let me down like that?”
Flushing with shame, Naji began stuttering out a series of poor apologies before Jorge rolled his eyes and, with a smirk, said, “I’m joking, sheesh, chill. Everyone’s sure all uppity and strung out today, huh?”
Before Naji could stop stuttering long enough to reply to that, Samuel’s voice- loud, clear, and flat as ice- cut through the noise and clamor of the excited soldaditos to freeze both Jorge and Naji in their places.
“…You’re not Dia’s spec-ops.”
Jorge stopped smirking, his mouth thinning and lips pressing against themselves to form a fine, silent line. He turned towards the soldadito group the same time Naji did, and they both watched as Samuel pushed his way up to the front to stare accusingly at Tyler, Kiki, and the two brown-haired girls.
“You’re not Dia’s spec-ops.” He repeated, and the soldaditos had muted to a tense hush.

taffy789 • 19 July 2017 at 5:42 PM

The four spec-ops all were fully focused on the group at last. Even the two chatting brown-haired girls had ceased their conversation to mull over the kid stating an obvious truth like it was the news of the century.
Kiki looked bewildered by Samuel’s statements while Tyler looked like he was trying and failing to swallow all outward signs of confusion.
“Uh-um?” In his baffled state, Tyler made an ungraceful squeaking noise that Kiki rose her eyebrows at. From pinned under an arm, she pulled out a hefty clipboard, popped a pen out from behind an ear, and she very noticeably jotted something down. Seeing this, the two brown-haired girls eyed Tyler, their smirks oozing with schadenfreude. These things seemed to freeze Tyler for a second, but he gulped, steadied himself, and when he spoke next he was all confidence once again.
“Well, of course we’re not Dia’s spec-ops. We work for Mona.” He looked at Samuel, frowned, and then prompted, “Unless you were confused because you’ve seen me working with Dia’s spec-ops before. But I’m not doing that anymore. I got a job offer from Mona a few months back, and left Dia’s team on good terms…”
Behind him, a brown-haired girl snorted. “Good terms? Don’t they all call you a dirty blood traitor when you pass them in the hallway?”
Tyler sighed. “Not ALL of them, just the two-”
The other brown-haired girl piped up. “Didn’t one publish a really catty article about you in her newspaper after you left?”
Then the first girl laughed again. “Didn’t you show up to training once covered in shredded newspaper clippings of that same article after fighting off Dia’s assistant in a dimly lit hallway?”
“Yes, and, no!” Tyler defended himself. “Those were jokes. Especially the shredded newspaper thing, that had been some elaborate joke that had gotten out of hand. Something about using my ‘traitor’ face to line-ugh, never mind.” He shook his head, and he turned his attention away from the barbed jabs of his fellow spec-ops. He looked back towards Samuel.
He concluded. “Either way. Let’s just say that it’s completely understandable if you were confused.” His eyes flickered over to Kiki and her intimidating clipboard. “But to not waste any more time here, we need to get back to the issue at hand. The recon briefing.” Kiki nodded at that, her blue dreads bouncing with the movement of her head. She jotted something down quickly. After hearing the pen scratch against the paper, Tyler sounded more relaxed- almost relieved about something. He gave a small smile as he said, “We’ll meet up in the briefing tent in three minutes. Be there before we get in.”
The soldaditos all nodded and scattered to the wind with those few orders, perhaps finding a purpose in being bossed around or given goals to accomplish. Not everyone else was as diligent about following orders. Jorge and Naji stayed behind, watching the spec-ops turn and chat among themselves. The spec-ops remained talking with each other, and Samuel also stayed frozen in place, though he wasn’t speaking to his own teammates. His mouth was agape as he continued to stare at Mona’s spec-ops. Samuel’s mouth opened wider, and he wore a slight sneer, and simply from knowing the guy for a few days, it was hideously obvious to Naji that Samuel was about to say something highly ill-advised. Naji winced, wishing he were deaf and blind so he didn’t have to bear witness to Samuel doing something stupidly hot-headed, like accusing Mona’ spec-ops of killing Dia’s and hiding the bodies off in the desert somewhere.
Right before Samuel formed that first condemning word, Jorge placed his hands on Samuel’s shoulders and forcibly turned the guy around. Samuel spluttered in surprise as Jorge started to steer his friend towards the briefing tent as if he were driving the world’s most unwieldly car. Not wanting to be left alone with Mona’s spec-ops, Naji of course followed after them.
They were nearing the tent when Samuel gathered enough of his bearings to finally speak up again.
“God, we’re crap outta luck.”
Jorge pressed his lips together in a show of reflective silence before answering with a quiet, “Whelp. Seems so.”
Not having anything more to say, Samuel seemed content with Jorge just pushing him towards the briefing tent while the defeated absence of sound between their little group played as fitting background noise. Though when the briefing tent opened and a familiar face stepped out, the peace didn’t last for much longer.
Samuel tore himself out of Jorge’s grip.
“Hey! You!” He shouted, and the admin from yesterday spun around to find himself suddenly nose-to-nose with a furious Samuel.
As the admin made a face and took a great step backwards, Samuel continued to lay into the guy.
“What’s your deal? Lying to us like that?”
The admin raised an eyebrow at him, and said, flatly. “I honestly don’t recall when I lied to you. Not saying I didn’t. Just that you can’t expect me to remember everything I’ve ever said to people I really am starting to dislike.”
“About the spec-ops!” Samuel gesticulated towards the area where Mona’s spec-ops still stood talking.
“…Yes?” The admin looked tired, with bags under his eyes as dark as a racoon’s. He rubbed at his face, stretching the remaining baby fat on his cheek as he did so. “Look,” he said, sounding pitifully exhausted. “I have a lot on my plate today. So if you’re going to go through the trouble of chewing me out, at least be clearer about it. I have better ways to spend my time, and those better ways are apparently showing off our dunes of sand and kissing the butts of leadership.”
Samuel was momentarily caught off-guard by the admin’s indifference, but soon recovered and rolled his eyes. “Dude, you’re effin’ insufferable.”
The admin deadpanned, “Noted. Anyway like I said. Get on with it already or leave. And if you’re so angry that you’re planning to kill me, feel perfectly free to do it like. Right now.”
“My buddy Samuel here is angry about what you told us about the spec-ops yesterday.” Jorge piped up, explaining for the sake of everyone’s sanity. “You said they were going to be Dia’s spec-ops showing up today.”
“That?” The admin groaned. “God, that’s why you’re up my butt all of a sudden? For that? A stupid misunderstanding at best?” He pushed away from the group, but Samuel lashed out and gripped the guy’s wrist. Jorge jumped, alarmed by his friend’s actions, and Naji shrunk further away from the escalating confrontation, watching from afar and being eaten alive by stress.
The admin’s eyes traveled upwards from the hand around his wrist, up the offending arm, and finally to set solidly on Samuel’s reddened face. They stared at one another for a few second before the admin said, stoically. “Like I said. Feel free to kill me now.” And when Samuel made no further moves, the admin fearlessly yanked his arm away.
The admin began walking away, but stopped just before passing Naji. He threw his head over his shoulder, and said, disinterested. “You know… I do remember something now, yes. Something funny that happened yesterday… Something like.” Naji was close to the admin, close enough to feel the cold leaking out from the icy glint in the guy’s eye. “Something like two idiots assuming I meant Dia’s spec-ops when I merely mentioned a group of spec-ops coming to give a briefing. Funny, right? They probably had such high hopes about not having to go die that, had I told them, they would’ve believed Jesus effin’ Christ himself would come down from the heavens and save them, huh?” The admin’s tone was dull, cold, and edgeless- like being hit with the blunt side of a sword. “Right, isn’t that just. Hil. Arious.”
Samuel flipped the admin off.
The admin shot a finger of his own back before stomping away, heading in the direction of where Mona’s spec-ops still stood.
Jorge didn’t join in with the bird flipping this time, and the guy instead sighed in a loud, deep frustration as he watched the admin leave.
Feeling drenched in a cold, icy defeat, Naji simply plopped right into the sand, struck dumb and thoughtless by all that had just occurred.
The only one fired up by it was Samuel, who turned to Jorge with a misdirected vengeance.
“Dude!” He exclaimed, furiously. “Did you HEAR that guy, I can’t believe-”
“That we got all excited over nothing?” Jorge managed a calm but bitter laugh. “Yeah, Sammy. I believe it. Because that guy’s right- that’s exactly what had happened.”
Samuel deflated. Jorge’s unflinching comment had taken all the air from him. Unable to enflame himself without any oxygen, he admitted, quieter. “Okay, yeah, but he didn’t need to be such a jerkhole about it.”
Jorge snickered.
Samuel threw his hands up in the air. “So. Change of game plans. Unless Mona’s spec-ops have a sudden change of heart and start actin’ like Dia’s, then we’re in this crap show another day. What now?”
Jorge shrugged. “I dunno man. Why not same game plan as yesterday?”
Samuel shot his friend an unpleasant grimace. “Yesterday those soldaditos nearly killed us.”
“Buddy,” Jorge laughed, “Yeah, I know how that feels better than any of us.”
Samuel winced at that, slightly. Jorge continued on. “But our original game plan was to keep sticking together and protecting Naji and each other from dumb deadly recon missions and equally dumb, deadly soldaditos. And if that’s the plan we’re changing, then I don’t feel like changing the plan.”
Samuel looked unhappy with that, but said nothing else.
Jorge glanced over to Naji, who was still sitting pathetically in the sand, and he helped the guy up.
Naji stood shakily, and he glanced between his teammates and noted the stress everyone seemed to be burdened with. He gulped once before asking, candidly. “So um. What WERE those odds on Mona’s spec-ops having a change of heart, um, again?”
Samuel and Jorge replied by laughing as if he’d just told the funniest joke.

awesomeness • 24 July 2017 at 7:26 PM

The briefing tent was crowded and warm, but Naji stood in it, sweating and pressed closer to Samuel and Jorge’s bodies than he’d wanted to ever be.
The soldaditos were talking excitedly, so the small tent was also loud. Naji suffered in this noisy, cramped, humid condition until the tent’s door flaps opened, and both a warm breeze and hushed silence blew through the small space.
Craning his head over his shoulder, Naji caught glimpses of Tyler maneuvering his way through the dense crowd of bodies. Close behind followed Kiki, her clipboard pinned tight under an armpit. She was having less of a struggle moving through the tent. The sharpened glances she threw in the soldaditos directions had carved out an easier path for herself. As Tyler situated himself in the chair behind the desk, Kiki slipped into a chair far behind him, and she sat, watching with her pen in hand.
Tyler shuffled a few files on the desk around and began the briefing by clearing his throat.
“Well, uh. While your base’s mission coordinator is giving the grand tour to two of my… uh, co-workers, it seems I’ll be handling…” He trailed off, picking up a file from the desk and turning it nervously in his hands. “Uh. This.”
Behind Tyler, Kiki looked mildly disappointed as she scratched again on her clipboard.
Behind Naji, Jorge whispered to Samuel. “… Is it just me or does this guy seem new at this?”
Jorge was then shushed by a stern Amy, who was then shushed back by a retaliating Samuel- who was finally himself quietened by Tyler clearing his throat again. Amy flushed with shame and turned her attention back onto the spec-op, as did everyone else.
Tyler had folded open a large map on the table. He smoothed out the wrinkles with one brush of a hand. “While I know there’s a… surprisingly large amount of you, and so all of you can’t see this, uh. Bear with me here and just visualize this in your head.”
Naji lifted himself on his toes to try to see what was on the desk, but his vision was obscured by all the soldaditos in front of him doing the same. When Amy accidentally elbowed Naji hard in the gut as she tried to better position herself, Naji wheezed and dropped back down to flat feet. He decided that being in the know wasn’t worth the pain it would cost, so he listened in on the description of the mission instead.
“Today’s recon mission will be on the northern border of our front lines area. As usual, recon is the key. Finding out key enemy positions is the main goal. The use of force is of course allowed if a confrontation with the enemy happens to occur. Hopefully, however, you won’t run into any trouble today.”
Samuel scoffed, bitterly. He had pushed his way towards the front of the group and was using his lanky height advantage to tower over the shorter soldaditos. Naji knew there was no way Mona’s spec-op couldn’t have heard Samuel’s loud disagreement, but after a moment’s hesitant pause, Tyler soldiered on as if he hadn’t have heard anything.
“Originally,” Tyler said, and an audible tapping sound rang out as his fingers drummed against the map. “This mission was to take all day. However. Now seeing the… size of your group, here, I believe it’s best for me to… uh. Use my judgement and position to amend this mission to get everyone home earlier. I think I’ll split you all into two groups of four today.”
Naji’s mind blanked with a sudden, icy fear. He was only jolted back to reality upon hearing a slight gasp from Jorge, followed by the guy’s hand pressing on his shoulder in an odd sort of comforting gesture.
Meanwhile, Tyler hesitated again before turning back around to Kiki.
“That sounds like a good idea, right?” He tried to confirm.
Looking up from her clipboard, Kiki rose an amused eyebrow at him.
“Tyler,” she said sincerely, “I am Mona’s assistant, not the base’s chief strategist. Nor have I had led a mission like this in a long while… Either way. Leading this mission is what your job is right now, correct? You have the final call on what’s the best for this mission.”
“Uh yeah.” Tyler agreed. He turned back to the group. “As I was saying. Splitting up the teams. Here’s what I was thinking. After reading over your roles and abilities, here…” He picked up one of the larger files and flipped through it for a moment. He glanced it over, then said decidedly. “First group. You’ll be starting further north and working your way down south. The teleporter will drop you off near the base of the tallest cliffside in A-A. And in this group will be…” He lowered his eyes to the file, and read out, painfully slow like, “…Geraldo, Esperanza, Gabriel and…”
Naji heard that horrible team composition and felt all time slow around him.
A team of all soldaditos? Right out the gate like that?
It would be just his luck, Naji knew, for him to get thrown on that team.
Given how much the world hated him and wished for him to suffer, Naji knew what the last name was going to be, he knew who was going to be stuck, condemned to die beside those soldaditos, he knew who would-
“Jorge.” Tyler concluded, oh so easily. “Now, onto team two…”
Naji felt a bit lightheaded. He wasn’t completely sure it was due to giddy relief or alarmed panic until he felt Jorge’s hand tighten into his shoulder blade and the feeling firmly cemented itself as the latter. His stomach twisted itself into worried knots for Jorge’s sake. A quick glance over towards Samuel confirmed he wasn’t the only one fretting over this news. Samuel had gone deathly quiet and still; he’d colored a pale white hue.
Tyler finished up the rest of the briefing soon after that, designating the remaining four another portion of the northern border to cover. As the soldaditos thanked Tyler for the “wonderful” briefing and headed out to go ready themselves, Samuel remained behind once again.
This time, however, Jorge didn’t get around to pulling him away before he could speak up.
Kiki had stood, stretching, from her chair, and Tyler was gathering up the files from the desk when Samuel spoke, curtly, “You gotta change up that grouping, man.”
Tyler looked up at him. “Excuse me?”
Jorge groaned. “Dude, stop. It’s not worth-”
“You need to put all the soldaditos together.” Samuel said louder. “Like. Look. Us three?” He motioned between himself, Jorge, and Naji. At being mentioned, Naji ducked behind Jorge, not wanting to play any part of Samuel’s speech. Samuel continued on, “We’re all not like them, we’re not soldaditos. We don’t have a freakin’ death wish, we just got stuck here on this mission due to some stupid bs, and we’re not looking to die like they are. Put us three in the same group, come on man.”
Kiki had stepped closer to the desk now, clearly paying attention to the conversation at hand.
Tyler looked over Samuel before drifting over to where Naji was cowering behind an exasperated Jorge. “… You guys not being “soldaditos”, or whatever you’d like to call them makes sense.” He admitted after a few seconds.
“So you’ll help us.” Samuel said, sounding hopeful.
“Well…” Tyler hesitated. His eyes drifted over, towards Kiki…
Samuel bristled. “Come on dude. You’re a freakin’ spec-op. You used to be on Dia’s spec-op team! They’d stop these missions!”
Tyler’s focus whipped back towards Samuel.
“And I am not,” he clarified, “working as part of Dia’s spec-op team anymore. I’m fulfilling the admin duties inherent to Mona’s spec-ops, and-”
Samuel had turned red with stress, and he exploded. “And you should still freakin’ care about people dying!”
“Dude!” Jorge exclaimed, his stance going ridged with pent-up tension of its own.
Tyler stiffened as well, and his expression looked lost for a moment before his body relaxed itself. He turned to look at Kiki one last time. The girl had her clipboard in hand. She thoughtfully pursed her two-toned lips before saying, forcefully. “… This is your decision. Go with whatever idea seems the best to you.”
Tyler turned back to Samuel, thinking it over before finally saying, all suddenly confident:
“Both Mona and Dia… have expressed explicit desire for these recon missions to go on. Mona is the leader of this base, so we can’t overturn his plans. And… Dia’s spec-ops were admittedly not in the right to get into the… habit of taking up other missions.” He said this blandly, as if not fully committed to his words just yet. Though Kiki nodded in subdued agreement, and so Tyler’s general confidence remained as he continued on, “If you have any further issues about these recon missions, feel free to take it up with Dia tomorrow.”
“Wait,” Jorge choked with surprise, “Dia? Here? Tomorrow...?”
“Finally,” Tyler said as if there hadn’t been an interruption, “I think it… wise to have a non-facility-raised person on a team. So. My decision to have one of you on the team with the other three “soldaditos” stands.” Tyler looked down, shuffling files on the desk again. “Although you can feel free to swap who it is. We’ll be out to see you off once you made your decision.”
Samuel blinked at that.
“So.” When he spoke, it was nothing but venom. “So what you’re saying is that… we’re stuck babysitting the soldaditos because you don’t want to… what? Not help? Not mess up this mission?”
Tyler didn’t look up from the files he was shuffling, and Samuel pressed him, growing louder. “This useless fuc-”
He was cut off by Jorge clenching a tight hand around his arm and dragging him outside. Samuel snapped at Jorge to let him go but, Jorge’s face was colored a stark pale of resolve. Naji watched as his teammates exited the tent, and he made no movement to follow, so twisted up with the stress his stomach felt.
Off to the side, he heard Kiki say to Tyler, distinctly, “…Well, that little briefing didn’t go as planned, huh? Wasn’t the best time to conduct your evaluation. Though I commend you on your efforts to work under pressure…” She trailed off. “… Wait, what does that last one want to yell about?”
Realizing she was speaking about him, Naji hurried from the tent without looking back.

taffy789 • 25 July 2017 at 11:16 PM

As soon as Naji stepped outside, he heard the arguing.
“And I could’ve made him change his mind, Jorge!”
“Sure, yeah dude. But we gotta look past that. At what’s most important.”
“Oh, and what’s that?”
Naji followed the voices around the tent. He found his two teammates just as Jorge smirked with a muted glee.
“… Important being that I was totally right about Mona, dude.” Jorge pointed out smugly. “I told you. I heard from reputable sources before this. Mona’s a guy.”
Samuel groaned. “Hey, knock it off. I’m being serious here.”
“And I am too.” Jorge countered, completely unserious. “Can’t I just enjoy this one last victory over you before I like, dunno, go get dragged to my death or whatever?”
Samuel flinched, hard. Recovering, he said, slowly. “…Stop cracking jokes already.”
“Dude.” Jorge grimaced. “Come on. Is this what our friendship has come to? Am I not allowed to make jokes anymore?”
“You’re not allowed to be so chill about this.” Samuel harshly snapped back.
“Um.” Naji cleared his throat a little, to announce his presence so it didn’t seem like he was just sneaking up on them and listening in on their conversation. Although it quickly became apparent that this fact didn’t matter, since neither of the boys acknowledged him, and they continued on as if he was only thin air.
“Hey.” Jorge ran his fingers through his own dark hair, tangling it around the top. “It’s fine, alright? Just some gallows humor. I’m tryin’ to feel light about it myself. It’s okay-”
“How is this okay?” The words shot out of Samuel’s mouth like poison-laced knives. The cutting words weren’t even aimed at Naji and the boy still flinched with fear. “How is any of this even remotely okay?”
Jorge lowered his hands to his sides, resigned. He faced the furious Samuel tiredly, without cowering away or raising his voice in return. He remained completely stoic as Samuel raved on.
“It isn’t okay! You can’t just say you’re okay with this! Not after yesterday, not when those stupid soldaditos dragged us into a useless fight and nearly killed us!” Samuel threw his hands up in the air. “What if one of us gets injured, and we’re not in the same group as Naji? Who would heal us then? What if that had happened yesterday? What if that repeats itself today? What if those idiots end up getting us killed?”
Naji shrunk further with the mention of his name and healing in the same sentence.
Jorge stayed quiet, deathly so. His body stood stiff and unmovable, and Naji wasn’t a hundred percent positive that the real Jorge hadn’t long ago left the conversation only to leave a convincing cardboard cutout in his place. But, no, the Jorge standing in front of him soon proved to be real with a simple, singular blink of both eyes.
Carefully, he asked while staring right at his friend.
“… Samuel. Is this… super stressed stuff really about the soldaditos and the mission, or.” Hesitation. “…What happened yesterday? With me?”
Samuel recoiled. “No!” was his obvious knee-jerk reaction, but then he spluttered, frustrated, “It’s… not just one, it’s not… that… why do you keep saying I'm- ARUGH!” Letting loose that monster of an agitated groan, Samuel spun on his heels and stomped through the sand, away from his friend.
Jorge’s hands were moving again, and they rose up to rub exasperated circles into the sides of his face.
Naji stood lamely to the side, not knowing how to react to that all until Jorge turned to him with a sort of helpless look in his eyes that didn’t sit right with Naji. When the guy sighed, tiredly, the helplessness disappeared only some.
“… I’ll be fine. Let’s just go grab the stuff we ditched and go get ready for our respective missions, kay?”
With a small nod, Naji agreed to that simple plan.


Amy and Raquel were chatting nearby when Naji and Jorge came back for their abandoned bags.
Upon seeing them approach, Raquel waved, and Amy bounded over and skidded to a stop in front of Naji.
“Naji!” she cheered with that characteristic overjoy, “Isn’t it just totally awesome we got put on the same team?”
Jorge had not been stopped by Amy, and so he gave Naji a comforting “good luck” pat on the shoulder before leaving to grab his own bags.
A wave of nausea hit Naji as soon as he was so cruelly ditched in that manner. He was face-to-face with an excitable Amy, and he could do nothing but try and fail miserably to match the girl’s glowing enthusiasm about being on the same team.
“Um. Yeah!” was the ‘uber excited’ reply Naji finally came up with. Knowing himself to be woefully unadapt at the ‘acting joyful’ stuff, he came up with the plan to grab his bag and leave as quickly as possible, just as Jorge had done. Aiming for his bag, Naji started to carefully sneak around the girl, keeping a good two foot’s distance between himself and those arms that delivered crushing bear hugs… “It’s really… great we’re together.” He added, for good measure.
“It is!” Amy echoed, and she smiled at Naji as she watched him pick up his small drawstring bag and slip it over his shoulders. As Naji looked up from adjusting his bag, he noticed an odd shadow of confusion had fallen over the girl’s face.
Before he could ask what was wrong, Amy blurted out, “Naji! What happened to your backpack yesterday?”
“…Ah.” Naji flushed at that question. He remembered the scene too clearly, the moment when dragging a semi-conscious Jorge across the desert that he’d realized he had…. Completely left his backpack in the sands somewhere. Wherever the Falchion had thrown it during their fight yesterday, that’s where the thing still most likely sat, waiting patiently for someone to retrieve it. It was a painful memory; a testament to his own forgetfulness under extreme stress. It hurt Naji to admit it, so he simply said, “Oh, that? I. Um. Didn’t want to bring it today. Too heavy.”
“Oh.” Amy blinked, then chided, “Well! Hey! I could’ve carried it for you, silly!”
“Um. Thanks for the offer but, um. I’d feel bad.”
“You didn’t have to…” Amy trailed off. A glint of a memory suddenly sparked in her eye, and she asked, “Oh! But Naji! You burned the map from yesterday, right?”
“Um?” Naji blinked, confused.
“The map!” Amy shouted, and then frowned. “You know~ The one that Samuel guy drew our base on despite me saying he shouldn’t?”
“Ah-?” Naji squeaked in surprise, not having remembered any map like that at all. “Ummmmm, oh, yeah! I. Oh. Totally burned that, I remember now!” Naji lied, feeling uncomfortably sweaty.
Amy clapped her hands together. “Well, good for you Naji! I’m glad SOMEBODY here understands the importance of keeping some information secret, huh?”
“Yeah.” Naji agreed, his lips sticking together with how dry his mouth had gone. “Weeeell. I’m just going to… Go… do… something…. Else, like! Go find Samuel, er, now…”
“And get him back over here for our mission?” Amy lifted an eyebrow.
“Yeah!” Naji exclaimed, too loudly. “That! Definitely!”
He then left the conversation with his tail between his legs, hoping to out-run all the bad bad lies he’d just told.

awesomeness • 30 July 2017 at 1:27 AM

Naji couldn’t find Samuel, but he ran into Jorge easily enough.
Raquel had gravitated over to Jorge, and she was talking to him in slow Spanish as the guy made struggling faces to try and comprehend.
Naji silently watched the conversation go on before Jorge noticed him and waved him over.
Sheepishly, Naji approached. Raquel smiled at him, and Naji felt his stomach drop.
“Hey,” Jorge greeted him. “Is it almost time for the teams to head out?”
Naji shrugged at that. “I dunno. I can’t find Samuel anywhere…”
Jorge’s face fell.
“But he’s probably around.” Naji quickly amended.
“Yeah.” Jorge answered hollowly.
There was a beat of awkward silence after that, and Raquel blinked, confused, between the two.
Sighing, Jorge finally said, “I’ll be fine on my own. And Samuel, he’ll be fine too, he’s just all.” Frustrated, Jorge blew a spluttering puff of air past his lips. “Stressed out, about everything I guess, dude. What happened yesterday with me, uh, bleeding out and everything, I think it made him even angrier with the, uh, ya know.” He vaguely motioned towards Raquel, whose thin almond eyes widened at the gesture. She then clicked her tongue, looking offended at the possibility of her being discussed in another language.
“… Those guys, that group, ya know.” Jorge finished without flare before turning to Raquel and assuring her that she wasn’t being spoken poorly about. How much of Jorge’s slow, broken Spanish translated correctly was up to debate, but it seemed to be enough, because the girl began to look amused rather than offended.
Kicking at the sand piles under his boots, Naji blandly agreed about how Samuel definitely seemed stressed out. As Jorge finished speaking to Raquel, he looked back at Naji. Raising a slight eyebrow, he told Naji, softly. “… Don’t tell Samuel this but like. I think he’s being a bit too harsh about these facility kids.” He looked tired as he said, “They’re… misguided, yeah. And don’t really get IOD, yeah. But they aren’t… the devil. And Samuel fighting with them like they are is just making everything like. Worse.” Jorge’s frown deepened as he said, “I want us to survive these missions, but I also… would prefer everyone to survive these missions. I just… fear, with all this fighting and stuff, that. That Samuel’s dumb stressed hatred stuff is going to end up getting people hurt? And that he doesn’t like, realize that enough.”
Jorge looked straight at Naji for this next part.
“… What I’m trying to say is, dude. Just like. Watch out for Sammy on this next mission, kay? I haven’t seen him like this before, this bad. I feel like he’s about to pull something real dumb.”
Naji gulped.
Jorge looked expectantly at him, and Naji knew this was the part he was supposed to agree or something, to tell Jorge that, yeah, he’d keep Samuel in line…. But….
Naji looked to the side, being unable to meet Jorge’s eye.
He knew he wouldn’t be able to fulfill that promise, no, not at all.
Jorge blinked at Naji’s silence, and he opened his mouth to ask something but was cut off by a voice saying suddenly, “Oh, are you guys all ready now?”
Naji and Jorge snapped their heads to the left to see Tyler approaching them, with Kiki nowhere in sight.
Jorge straightened out his spine, standing taller. “Uhhh. Yeah. I’m ready. Just chatting a bit.”
Tyler nodded. “Good. We need to get a move on, the teleporter will be back any moment from dropping off the other team.”
Jorge stiffened, and Naji blinked in confusion.
“… What?” Jorge asked after swallowing a hitched breath.
“The other team left.” Tyler clarified, then glanced wary eyes over the shocked expression of the two boys. “… Did your friend not tell you he was leaving so soon…?”
Stuttering at that, Naji looked over to Jorge for guidance to an answer.
He found nothing.
Jorge vengefully clutched the straps of his backpack in one hand, but with his face, he showed off a polite, tightened smile.
“Samuel didn’t say he was leaving this early, nah.” He replied easily, tone unnaturally evened out. “But it’s no big deal.”
Tyler glanced the group over once more before sighing, saying “good then”, and herding them towards the send-off point.

Naji suffered through a quiet walk towards the edge of camp while trailing behind a silently seething Jorge and a confused, lost Raquel.
As they approached the place they were meeting up with the teleporter, Amy came into view, and so did Kiki, who the girl was excitedly chatting with…. Or uh, chatting towards.
Naji’s group came closer to them, and Amy’s booming voice became all the clearer.
“And Espe, I know she didn’t brag or anything, but I think she’d be like a, perfect fit for any team, you know?”
“Uhm.” came a wordless reply from Kiki. Mona’s assistant seemed to be distracted by something in her hand as Amy chattered on. She wasn’t even looking at the other girl as Amy talked. “And like! People say all the time that us ‘soldaditos’, or whatever they like to call us, can’t get anywhere on our own but, but like, that’s not true! I mean…”
Amy trailed off, looking right up at Kiki.
“You understand how that’s not true, right?”
Kiki lifted an eyebrow, but she didn’t say much else as her fingers tapped away at whatever it was she held.
“I mean!” Amy flushed. “Miss Kiki, I don’t want to sound rude, but like!” She balled her hands up into tight, determined fists. “We can be spec-ops too, right? For anyone?”
Tilting her head back, Kiki’s long blue dreadlocks dangled and swayed side-to-side with that slight, wavering head movement. Then they swooshed left as Kiki turned her body right, facing Amy now.
Naji’s group had now come close enough to the scene that Naji could clearly see the smartphone in Kiki’s hand before she slipped it away, into her pocket. He watched the phone with awe as it disappeared before him, feeling like he was a cavemen seeing fire for the first time. It had been so long since he’d seen any sort of technology like that, and he would’ve given Jorge a happy nudge about it if Jorge wasn’t currently still simmering over Samuel’s group-switching trick.
Feeling quite alone in his excitement over relics from his past, Naji returned to watching Kiki as she glanced over Amy.
“… Sweetheart,” was what Kiki said as she finally spoke. She stepped forward, closer to Amy, and Amy’s expression exploded with surprise as Kiki reached down and, almost affectionately, tugged at the girl’s nose.
“Oh, sweetheart.” Kiki sighed. “I get what you’re trying to do for your friend, I really do. But if she wants the job that badly, she needs to come after it herself.” Kiki didn’t let Amy’s nose go, not yet. She paused, then added, slowly, deliberately.
“… That isn’t to say that soldaditos don’t have a chance at achieving what I have. But.”
Now Amy’s nose was freed, and as Kiki’s hands moved back towards their owner, Naji noticed two fingertips missing from that right hand of hers.
Kiki used this maimed hand to brush a long blue dreadlock behind her ear.
“But,” she concluded, curtly. “Your friend will first need to learn what I did. To think for herself.”
And with that, Kiki glanced over to Tyler, nodded at him, and then swept away from the scene.
Naji watched Mona’s assistant leave before turning back to Amy and seeing the blonde girl lightly touching on her nose as if it had just been blessed by god itself.
Tyler cleared his throat to begin the mission briefing, and Naji spaced out as he dully took stock of the people standing off to either side of him.
There was Amy, the star-struck, and Jorge, who was tapping with foot in the sand with a subdued agitation. Then there was Raquel, making adorable but annoyed faces at all the English being thrown around without anyone translating for her…
… Naji briefly worried to himself if this was really the best team for him to be stuck on a dangerous mission with, but then he remembered the current make-up of the second group.
…. By comparison, even Naji had to admit to himself that his group did not seem as woefully ill-fated.

asi • 6 August 2017 at 11:02 PM

She had him.
Well, she had Cindy, barely managing to squirm in her iron grip, eyes still blank with shock from the sudden blow the foolish debutante hadn't seen, hadn't even dreamed was coming. She had Cindy because Xela's earlier attempts at literally pinning Septa down had proved about as effective as thrusting one's bare hands into riverside muck, grasping about for an eel in the mud... Sick of dirtying her hands so- her toes still ached from inadvertently kicking him in the shin- she'd resorted to a more indirect approach.
Xela took a moment to savor the expression on his face. It was... not at all surprised. Disbelieving, maybe, but more in a, 'I don't really want to deal with this', than a, 'oh no, how could this possibly happen', kind of way. It was disappointed, like he'd stepped outside, taking his chances on an overcast day, only for it to immediately begin pouring down on his stupid big hair the minute he closed the door behind him. Septa was drenched in the bitter waters of betrayal, but his expression... It was kind of a downer on Xela's whole power trip. Briefly, it caused her to recall the needless misgivings Guithe had propounded beforehand; all proven completely unnecessary of course! With this move, she'd succeeded at revealing the integral flaws in Septa's strategy- now he'd have to reveal the true nature of it, or admit his defeat by way of this fundamental error of judgement. Either way she'd proved him a fool, or herself no fool, and in both cases it was Xela's victory. She'd almost have a toast- that was what humans did to celebrate this sort of thing, right? But her hands were a bit full at the moment.
Looking down, there was a more fitting sight. Glassy eyes that reflected despair and destruction better fed into the hungry power's ego, and she watched the scene play out across her victim's face; like a fly, caught in a spider's web, Cindy could only flail faintly while the venom of inescapable defeat slowly consumed her from within.
Xela wore a smug look as her restraints held firmly against these feeble strugglings, and she showed this to Septa with the callous kind of satisfaction a child might wear when stamping out the life of an insignificant insect. She appealed to him with cold, ruthless vigor, "Look at this."
Needing only one arm to keep Cindy in lockdown, she used the other to gesture at the captive girl, then to yank away one of the hands grappling futilely with Xela's forearm. "How feebly she struggles. Even if she had reacted in time, she couldn't have mustered a proper strike against me. Holding her down like this, it's child's play, hardly requiring an ounce of effort from me!" Under Xela's control, the puny pale limb flopped excessively about, possessing the agency of a dead fish and proving the ease with which Xela could bend the powerless blonde to her will. In terms of strength, there was really no comparison.
As Septa watched her expressionlessly, no doubt unable to refute her impeccable point, Xela lightly shook her head, continuing; "At first I didn't believe they could be this bad, but..." Below her, Cindy quivered. Though the shock should have worn off by now, she still wasn't making much sound. Just as her movements were strangled by the pressure placed on her- where Xela's knees dug into the sides of her back, and her calves ached from where Xela's legs twisted around to bind them in place- so too was her voice, as her neck was pulled back by Xela's arm so that her entire torso was bent from the force of it, and trembling under the strain. But she barely attempted to even gurgle in protest, eyes instead appearing dull and detached from the scene.
"It seems to be true that she and James have no offensive abilities, not to mention what Bree can apparently do. No power, no skill and no strength..." She recited these three points with the kind of reverence some saved for religion, while her final question hit an accusatory note like belonged in a courtroom drama. "Why keep something like this around, Septa!?" she challenged.
"Alright..." He began cautiously, looking her and Cindy up and down, like he was speculating what their combined mass might be, or some other estimable variable like that. "It's because I like them," Septa revealed along with a small, heartfelt smile. This was the one with warmth that finally matched the light found in his deep brown eyes, that granted them color out of the darkness. "I like them just fine as they are."
Xela's frown deepened at this nonsense answer, lines around her eyes darkening. The vivid blue-green color shone out of them all the stronger. "That's a crappy reason."
Septa seemed immune to her scorn. "Who could need a better one?" he asked softly.
In reply, Xela explained her own reasoning. "Guithe is every bit as powerful as me, that's why I'm working with her. It's a mutually beneficial arrangement. You ally yourself with them because they're not sticks in the mud, but as far as usefulness goes, you may as well ally yourself with literal sticks? That's what it feels like I've got here anyway," she tugged on one of Cindy's scary thin arms to show it, and the utter absence of any substantial muscle or fat in the limb painted an eerie picture, as skin that appeared like it didn't have anywhere to shift, did. It all looked sickly and pallid beneath the cover of her inky colored tattoos. "Everything else is all very well, but power is what we need to have!"
Idly, the fingers of his ungloved hand twirled around a lock of his wild black hair, as Septa seemed to cease paying Xela any attention, at least with his eyes. "I'm not that strong either, not like you," he said lowly, but meant it in a different way than the untamed force of pure energy before him did.
She didn't reply that, merely raised a red eyebrow as she tightened her grip on the struggling girl below her, pale and sweating from strain and exertion, trying simultaneously to breathe and make broken sounds of pain. As Xela bent her neck back by the underside of her chin, the blonde tried to use her long, artfully manicured nails to scratch at Xela's chokehold arm, but with what force Cindy could muster, the fit and thinly muscular girl on top of her barely considered this more than a negligible nuisance. With her other hand, Xela took retribution for it anyway, grabbing those skinny little fingers and bending them back until the girl turned almost utterly limp and unable to use her throat, except for the one last thing Cindy managed to spit out in a panic; "Septa...!"
The young man's face didn't change one bit on hearing that, and he continued to talk with the power in a steady voice, though his tone also didn't pretend that he was unaffected. "Xela, let Cindy go," Septa asked of her, exhibiting a kind of dire, desperate calm, the type to prelude much more extreme measures should this one fall through. "We can talk about your many criticisms of me without Cindy in such an uncomfortable position... Please," he pleaded, a terse tremor sounding in the last note as Septa taxed his vocal chords with feeling.
Xela appeared to be swayed by his appeal, staring over at him with an aghast kind of look, and he could tell from her expression exactly what she was wondering- had she gone too far? She was hesitating, face torn with indecision, then something changed in it. He guessed she must have looked past him and glimpsed Guithe at his side, and maybe the look the little girl wore was what did it... Regardless of what, something definitely caused her to release Cindy in a hurry, dropping Cindy's cruelly contorted upper body unceremoniously onto the ground, while she picked herself up off the girl's pinned lower half, stepping away and finally putting some air between herself and her victim.
"Miss Cindy, are you okay..?" Guithe padded over, and while she wore a face of simple worry for the other's wellbeing, the blonde couldn't be blamed for immediately recoiling from the relative stranger, given the treacherous event that had just transpired, and then scrambling across to the other side of the room, towards Septa.
"Antonia..." He said in quiet concern as she ducked behind his back, grabbing for the door.
Before leaving, she spared just a moment to turn and shout into the room, in a voice audibly devoid of snoot and instead composed entirely of panic, the debutante's almost implacable composure a thing of the past; "You, you are crazy Xela! I can't believe you either Septa, friends with one of those." With both her voice and the visual picture she tendered- hairdo awry and stringy, clothes hanging limply off her porcelain body, and then her face... Cindy served an emotional dish of disarray, with a side of scathing anger, and more than a pinch of fear.
The door slammed, and everyone left in the room winced.
"... Well, I hope you realize what a terrible decision that was," Septa broke the silence finally, still looking back after Cindy. His tone was normal, he said it almost cheerily, but that was the only thing about him in the ordinary. His eyes were shadowed and appeared practically black. From what Xela could see of his largely obscured face, by hair and the turn of his head... he was far removed from his usual smiling.
Xela shook some red hair out of her own face, huffing bitterly; "I don't care what she thinks of me. What I care about is my safety," and her blue-green eyes looked at him meaningfully, full intensity, "Trusting you."
"Do you think hurting others makes you safer?" he questioned, suddenly in perfect monotone.
And she'd seen the way Guithe had begun to shrink back, closer to Septa, away from her. "No!" She denied it on reflex, before amending carefully; "Not if they're not a threat to me."
"Think hurting them will make me trust you any more than I do?" he continued, emotionlessly, with just as little tonal variation. It was an interrogation, that Xela could tell, but somehow she still couldn't suppress her reactions, which handed her honest answers straight across the table to him, free of charge.
"I, I guess not," Xela actually stumbled over her words, feeling in that instant something wrong with her stomach, like it was suddenly suspended, swimming in some kind of bodily fluid, so ill at ease was she.
Quietly; "Then why..."
"So I can understand!" She burst out with it, the things she'd been thinking falling straight out of her mouth the moment she let them. "Your priorities are all messed up. How can I trust someone like that?" Her voice lost slightly in volume towards the end as she questioned; "Don't I need to understand you to trust you?"
Septa started to laugh. "Ohhh boy," he exhaled, hands stuck in back pockets, seeming in good humor. "I don't even know the reasons for things I do myself, half the time," he informed the power, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet and heels.
She looked at him with an expression of displeasure, one which gradually caused him to sober once more. "They're the people who need me," he said, timbre smooth, flat and balanced, like he was unsure whether it was worth the effort of trying to empathize and entreat her anymore. "Surely even you can understand that."
But from the flash of hot emotion in her eyes, he could tell that she did. It mixed with the cool shade of blue-green that she wore, an image of a cold sea turned troubled.
"You know it's still something you have to choose," Septa reminded her from his place by the door. The distance between them seemed to have grown without either moving, as Xela continued not to speak.
She just had one question burning up in her head, blazing too strongly to allow light for any other thoughts she might have given voice. What happens if I choose not to? But she didn't ask, and thus received no answer from him. Xela preferred to stare at the floor, waiting for Septa to say, do something else, anything so she could focus on that instead.
Or she'd ignore him until he left, she thought as he did turn for the door.
In a serious, matter-of-fact way, he offered her a few words of warning in lieu of a formal parting. "I thought you wanted to play this like a human, Xela. Throughout that entire encounter, your power was showing. You know that if you keep this up, you'll give yourself away."
Raising her face, she glared across the room at him. "It's not that easy, human! Powers and users, they couldn't be more different. I don't know if I could begin to understand you. Keeping such weak people around. You're setting yourself up for failure by having 'friends' who can't even look after themselves. Guithe and I are far more worthy than they," Xela announced, chin still held resolutely up in the air, despite all she'd felt during their exchange. After everything, her stubbornness was always a force to be reckoned with.
"Xela... About being human... Try harder," Septa said at last, and smiled at her in a way that wasn't warm at all before following Miss Cindy out.

demon • 6 August 2017 at 11:05 PM

He was trying hard to remember the last time he'd felt that angry at someone, when a very distraught Cindy practically fell on top of him. Although her weight was next to nothing, the impact effectively knocked that anger out of Septa. All the red that he'd been seeing was washed away as Septa was forced to support that girl's horrifically light frame, and gently, for fear of agitating any of the blonde's new-forming bruises. His hands went on her shoulders, just resting, not daring to exacerbate her condition with any pressure.
He spoke his apologies into her hair. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, I never thought she'd act out like that..." He stopped when he realized that fluttering in the air was her breathing.
Cindy was stammering, sounding so unlike herself; "I, I thought she a Falchion, or feral, or, I, it was so-!" Her words dissolved into a series of sounds that made no sense to him, raining down on the thin fabric of his t-shirt. Though he had no knowledge of the language she sobbed against his chest, couldn't understand the real meaning the syllables all strung together, his body felt every word as they were released, and it was almost like the same thing.
He tried to reassure her, murmuring; "She's nothing like that, Tonia. She- she's just having a tough time of it right now."
"She, she's having a tough time!" Cindy exclaimed, giving an awful, mocking laugh at the excuse he gave. Still she leaned on him to the full extent of her weight, not moving away. Her hands remained cradled between their two chests, clasped protectively against her own.
So Septa hushed her softly and persisted. "She's new here, having difficulty adjusting. She was in a tough place, and she's scared because, she's being sent out again so soon," he crooned these reassurances to her, meanwhile stroking- well, not her hair, but her neck, her shoulders, her cheek despite its coat of makeup. Basically everywhere else he could on the back of her, for what good it could do. In return, her hands began to twist some of his shirt between her fingers, clenching the fabric for assurance. The cool, giving material likely felt good, after those fingers had been bent back so harshly. Knowing this, his quiet words were tempered with understanding and reason. "She's scared and plagued with doubts like the rest of us. Moreso, she has nothing to rely on and Guithe to look after." As he said this, Septa's eyes closed tightly with the realized regret of his own reactions in the room. He could have played things differently, he could have...
Cindy's countenance stayed cold and bitter despite his words, although less afraid. "It did not sound like she is doing much of that. Do not try and excuse what she did!" she instructed him, or his shirt. One of the two.
He warmed her head lightly with the heat of his sigh. "Of course not, Cenerentola, that was unacceptable. She realizes that now though, I promise. Don't worry about Xela now." He pulled his head a little away so he could look at her properly; "Are you alright?"
She wiped her face onto his shirt, leaving faint, pale powder smudges on the dyed black cotton, then lifted herself up by her toes, face upturned so that she could softly kiss Septa on the lips. It was something he returned only passively, lasting several short, quiet moments before Cindy drew away again. He looked down at her with deep, brown, somber eyes, waiting for the answer that he needed.
"I'm... not really hurt. I will be fine. I am only... shaken, that is all," she stuck her nose up high in true, prideful prom queen form, inciting him and her both to giggle. And when he tried to imitate her pose, she snorted harder, until the tears were pressed out of her eyes, leaving them dry.
Seeing this, his eyes took on a shade more warmth. "I'm glad," Septa said, finally letting her go from his hold, as she pulled away as well.
Then she stopped, looking down at his chest suddenly. Her nails caught lightly on the weave, while her mind snagged more firmly on the design, as it finally registered what she'd been using as a giant tissue. "That... Is that not J's shirt..."
The item in question was black cotton with a pink and blue print of a robot with a heart, encapsulated by the decorative words; 'Voodoo Love Machine'. She removed her hands from his front in order to stare at it and the person wearing it better.
"I don't know, is it?" Septa appeared to wonder, looking it over and ruining the show by smirking the answer away. He looked too proud and pleased about it to pretend otherwise or further feign ignorance.
"Yes, idiot, ze had it on last night," Cindy muttered, then turned slightly away, a set of knuckles held pressed to her mouth. "Sometimes I think you two are a little too much..."
Septa's contemplative air was shed as he immediately launched into a tirade of pouty, comedic corrections, alleging; "But I wore a shirt from you and another from Bree yesterday- not to mention Beefcake's pants and I'm not even dating him- haven't even ever-" he huffed, as if offended by the fact that he hadn't.
"All very well, but," Cindy waved these things away and then poked him hard in the ribs with her pointer finger. "Those were the clean items, this-" She paused, realizing what exactly she was touching, and hurriedly retracted her finger, rubbing her hands together all over in an attempt to wipe the invisible uncleanliness away. "You have not washed this- you, you-" she spluttered, positively glaring up at him, feet involuntarily stumbling out a few steps' retreat before stabilizing.
With wide, innocent, artless brown eyes, he beckoned her closer, and reluctantly, against her better judgment, Cindy was drawn in.
It only took one deep breath in through her nose and suddenly it all registered at once, culminating in a wheezing attack, Cindy gagging as if Xela had suddenly resumed squeezing her throat like from just mere minutes ago, on the other side of the door they stood outside. "Ugh, Septa! Gross! You even smell like hem too," she grimaced, breathing forcefully through her mouth once again.
This gave the leader's a moment's pause, he itched at the side of his jaw with a silly expression, simultaneously amused and off-guard. "Uh... I do?"
"Like oil. Petroleum. Was ze raised in a garage? J has no taste." her lips were now primly pursed together in distaste, like for her anything worse was beyond imagining.
"Oh, hir deodorant," Septa clicked his fingers in realization, then began laughing lightly; "Ha... Ha haha, yeah..." A shadow of distraction passed over his eyes as Septa giggled to himself, gaze focused not on this world but on something composed of fantasy and memory combined- one more than the other, thanks to apparently recent events.
She saw this and cringed. "You are gross. To think I just," she cut herself off with a wipe of the back of a hand over her mouth, muttering, "Never again."
"Okay," he snickered, before starting up again, eyes a dreamy shade of bole brown, a potent brew of both heaven and earth, as he couldn't seem to resist telling her; "Mmmm, but speaking of, last night was sooo great," Septa enthused, stretching his arms up and out to their full extent as if to quantify it. All this did was prompt his one-man audience to shudder in response. His shirt followed his movement and she tugged it back down over his skin in a hurry.
"I do not want to hear it, tell it to literally anyone else!" Cindy bristled automatically, but the fumes rising off her then quickly died back down, spark fizzling out as another thought returned to her. Then, still holding the hem of his shirt, in a much more tentative voice, she started to say to him; "Septa, about J..."

asi • 6 August 2017 at 11:07 PM

Raven sighed and, leaning back, allowed her leader's diatribe of complaints to roll out its own course, only half-listening to a word he said. Instead she spent most of the quality Zach-time wondering if this was exactly what ordinary working adults went through on a day-to-day basis at their own jobs, in addition to the general humdrum of repetitive everyday life and its fearsome trap of routine.
If so, she was beginning to understand why the older people had always seemed so harried and disenfranchised with the world- not that she'd ever considered it a mystery before, Raven had just never given adults so much credit.
Unfortunately Zach only lasted for a meager few sentences before desiring her input. She sat back up again and looked at him expectantly, hopeful he might give the letter back to her before he found something new to criticize- or more of the old. Raven responded to him with a dismissive, uninterested tone, saying; "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is it done, or do you want me to write it again?"
It was a few beats later that she processed the last bit of what Zach had said, and frowned. "Wait, did you say the letters move?" She continued without too much acute concern; "You should probably see a doctor for that."
It probably wasn't fatal, so she wasn't going to make a big deal about it. Unless it resulted in him trying to trap her in paperwork heck for all eternity, that is.

taffy789 • 8 August 2017 at 12:21 AM

Sitting in a cold, uninviting chair in the Ninth Division interrogation wing, Mikey watched Jane pace back and forth over clacking metal tiles. The Ninth divisioner that had left to go inform Nine of the arrival of Eight’s… reluctant entourage hadn’t come back yet, and that had left Eight’s assistant on edge.
…. The actual leader herself, however…
“Cats aren’t supposed to be blue.” a resolute voice echoed from the middle of the room. “But I’d rather cats be blue ‘cause all those other cat colors are UNPRETTY.”
“Ha. Ha.” Came the forced reply of Tina, who sounded like she was being held hostage. “Yeah.”
Mikey sunk further into his chair, not very digging his current situation that much.
Eight- his leader, er, technically- was… healed up and okay.
Gone were the infections and illnesses from yesterday; the healers had taken care of that overnight.
She was fine now, not sick and perfectly herself again.
“Brown is an icky color like mud.” Eight continued to sniff as her crayon scratched across the pages of a coloring book. “I don’t see how some people like mud? It’s grossssss. But some people do and they’re weird and I dated one.”
Tina shuffled awkwardly at that comment, adjusting her legs under her. She sat on the ground with the leader, facing a coffee table turned canvas due to Eight’s habit of neither coloring inside the lines or on the page. Crayons of all sorts rolled around on the wax-coated glass, and Tina herself passively colored a butterfly pink as she kept the leader company. The three fingers of her left hand struggled with the task of pressing a crayon against the paper without use of a thumb, but the girl seemed determined to complete the task nonetheless.
Mikey watched Tina pinkify her butterfly and had to admire the girl’s tenacity. That kind of resolve was something he himself didn’t possess, he knew that for sure. For a few solid months after losing his leg, he used it as an excuse to make other people go get things for him when he didn’t feel like getting up…
He blanked out, sitting bored in his chair and thinking back on those times. Honestly, he preferred them, those lazier days where he wasn’t expected to do much. Then again, he wasn’t a Tina, or a Quincy, who both were clearly not the type content with simply wasting away in the Eighth division all day. If Mikey were being perfectly honest with himself, even tasks like babysitting Eight grated on his resignation to accomplishing nothing. The thinking being that, if he was going to be stuck sitting in a chair all day, he would much rather do it in the comfort of his own office space than having to walk all the way to the interrogation wing.
Groaning, Mikey lolled his head back, and the dark lens of his sunglasses dimmed the bright overhead lights shining down directly above him.
To his right, there was the sound of a door creaking open.
“… Nine has been informed of your arrival,” said the quiet ninth division worker.
Jane footfalls fell silent as the girl stopped pacing.
“Oh. Goodie.” She sighed, and the footfalls picked up again as she crossed the room at a quickened pace.
Blinking, Mikey stretched out his neck and reached for his cane.
“Miss Jane?” He questioned Eight’s assistant as she reached the door. “You going out for a smoke? ‘Cuz I’ll join you.”
“Oh, no.” Jane turned to Mikey and explained, looking a bit sheepish and flustered. “I need to… discuss a few things with Nine. I’ll be back soon enough, however. Please continue to look after Eight for me?”
Feeling cursed with monotony, Mikey pushed his cane back against the wall. “Yeah. Alright.”
Smiling in thanks, Jane slipped out from the room.



Zach appeared to receive Raven’s comment about seeing a doctor in the same manner one would a direct threat to one’s life.
He stiffened up, as if expecting said doctor to crawl out of some shadow-laden closet like a swarm of insidious cockroaches from beneath an overturned manhole covering.
Though- maybe since there was no closet to be found in the concrete bunker- he quickly recovered from whatever anxiety he had. Replying with a curt “No. I’m fine.”, Zach moved the letter to the hand further away from Raven, as if hiding it from her grasp.
“They only move when I’ve been focusing on a word for too long, anyway,” he added, to drive the point home that he certainly did not need a doctor. “It’s normal.”
He moved away from Raven now, heading toward the door. “Anyway. The letter’s fine. Probably. I’m going to take it back to that Eighth worker.” Zach paused at the doorway, leaning his back against it as he turned to Raven and waited for her to gather up her things to leave.
He turned the sealed envelope impatiently in his hands until the action began to annoy him and he stopped himself. Although, Zach continued to stare down at the paper as he asked Raven, surprisingly conversationally, “Do you have any plans for today?”
Then, with a hint of amusement, “No useless tasks assigned to you by the veteran?”
Then, the tone dropped, and he asked, now very less amused. “…Wait, were you all messed up earlier because of whatever the veteran did yesterday...?”

asi • 19 August 2017 at 11:22 PM

But her murmur of speech was lost on his ears to the sound of a door abruptly opening just a little down and across the corridor, with a young woman swiftly stepping out. She noticed their presence almost immediately, recognized the leader in the same second, and approached right up until the point that she discerned the lingering signs of Cindy's emotional distress, and that she'd just recently been crying. Then the very dark-skinned lady stopped and looking between the two of them, warily asked; "Is everything okay here?" though it was clearly directed largely to the blonde.
Seeing that Cindy wasn't in a state where she really wanted to talk to anyone else, Septa stepped up to try and quell the awkward and steadily growing tension in the silent hallway, with a casual greeting and a pleasing smile. "Hey there. Why, it's lovely to see you, too! Don't you look nice? Oh yeah, how's the team going, huh? New kid doin' alright?" he tried to distract her with a flood of ingratiating pleasantries.
"No," she told him with a sickened tone, looking all the more morose and aggrieved by the question. "It's awful, but it's got nothing to do with you." She turned back to Cindy, appearing visibly perturbed by the situation she was in. "He's not upsetting you, is he?"
The stiff moment escalated as the noises in the room the older girl had originated from increased in volume, voices and movements that would soon be heading their way, while Septa could only stand there and smile, everything else out of his power. So he felt a little relief when Cindy's arms wrapped around his waist, and she nodded to the other girl, effectively deescalating the situation with one simple act- begrudgingly swallowing her pride for both their sakes.
Once that was swiftly resolved, the assuaged young woman took one look at the emerging group and began walking briskly off, apparently not wanting to spend another moment in their presence.
Septa, on the other hand, willingly called out to them, Cindy still closely at his side. "Hi guys!" he waved at them conspicuously, and since they all had to troop past him in order to follow their other female companion, the encounter was really unavoidable anyway; they could hardly pretend not to notice the incredibly distinctive figure.
The boys exchanged a look- at least two of them did, before one of those bounded his way up to Septa, dirty blond hair bouncing over his well tanned skin. This one accosted him and Cindy while the others just lingered in the background, watching and chattering between themselves- a move that was well justified. Their excitable leading guy could out-talk all the rest of them combined, as it happened. "Hi Septa, and Antonia right? How are things?"
The leader replied with a sunny smile, "Great, I-"
"Oh, nice, have fun doing that! We're heading out on a mission actually, tomorrow. More of a warm-up gig than anything, but still," the boy asserted pretty confidently, rolling his shoulders and winding one arm around for a stretch as he talked.
Septa commented; "That's..."
The blond nodded immediately in return. "I know, right? Well, you can never be too ready. We're gonna spend the day preparing now, make sure everyone's every inch is in shape, you know, the works," he prattled on.
"Wow, you," Whether Septa was being appreciate or sarcastic here, to no one else was it clear. The other guy, he just kept on talking.
"Hey, if this big one goes well, we might stand a chance of getting on one of the good teams. You know those op-spots are still open. Or maybe you don't, since your people don't really stand a chance at them if you don't do any real work," the golden blond said all this very fast and much of the time he spent looking at Cindy. It was only when his mind caught up to his mouth that he paused, looking like he really wanted to amend what he'd just said, when someone else cut in-
"Luck," Septa simply said with a thoroughly entertained expression on his face, and leaned back in satisfaction to watch it all unravel.
The other kid's brain seemed to stall for a full minute, the steamrolling pace he'd been pushing his lines out at grinding to a complete halt as he tried to process Septa's perfectly succinct, one word response. Slowly the meaning of it all seemed to dawn on the boy, and he looked over at the leader with some very marginal amount of apologetic in his face, saying; "Oh, sorry, I've been doing it again haven't I?"
"...." The rest of his troop looked at him with an art collection full of vexed and exhausted expressions, causing Septa to giggle some silly sounds into the fist of his sleek black glove, which really failed to effectively stifle anything. "It's always a pleasure talking to you, Twisty," Septa said cheerfully and with deliberate slowness, while the guy seemed to suffer in silent agony waiting for the leader to finish his sentence.
The very second the last syllable left the leader's mouth, he turned back to Cindy with some genuine regret now displaying in his features, attempting to mend his previous babbling; "Yeah, and with the work thing, no offence, I'm sure you do plenty of stuff, you know, with that pet club of yours."
"We really do not, so none taken," Cindy spoke up to answer him in a no-nonsense fashion, but with something sour hidden in the undertone that it took Septa's sensitive ear and familiarity with the girl just to pick up on it.
With that, Septa decided to cut this impromptu little shindig short, waving the motormouth male away with an arrogant and dismissive kind of hand gesture, accompanied by an equally condescending smile- all very much in jest, of course, as everyone who knew him even a little knew that. "Now run along kiddo, and let me know if you ever want a little something for all that hyperactivity. Or some other kind of outlet, of course~!" Septa called all this out after the boy as he started walking speedily away after that other girl, nodding his head rapidly all the while.
As the rest of the pack trailed after him, passing them by, the remaining girl paused to convey some well-meaning excuses to the leader in her embarrassment, murmuring in a strongly southern American accent; "Sorry about Tristán, he didn't mean no disrespect... What with all his interrupting an' all," she clarified, feet shifting beneath her just a little.
She was met with an entirely reassuring smile. "No worries, I'm used to having my words kidnapped and mutilated in casual conversation, so it doesn't bother me any," Septa mused ironically, garnering a range of different odd looks from all parties that overheard.
The girl somewhat shyly nodded and went to join the rest of her team on their way out, but as soon as she turned her back on Septa, the friendly face he wore dissipated into thin air, replaced for a split-second by something much more ominous... before that too quickly faded into a safely neutral look, not a foreboding trace left for a careful eye to see.
Before they left, he called out. "Hey, sweetheart!" The girl halted, turning back curiously, and everyone else stopped to wait.
He lured her back to them with a flick of his hand, and then advanced on her quickly, starting with a bat of his eyelashes that had her half in a daze already, before he even spoke. "Come by the club tonight. I'll upgrade you," Septa promised with a flatteringly flirtatious smile, leaning towards her with an arm extended as he asked her if she had a pen on hand.
"You mean... just like that?" The girl was certainly flustered by the attention, blushing and fidgeting quite excessively as she willingly passed over the utensil to the amiably interested young man. "I'm not, I'm not a regular," she admitted with some reluctance, clearly worrying that such a thing might disqualify her from receiving the sudden privilege he offered.
Naturally, he wasn't fazed at all, only murmuring sympathetically; "Aw, you should be," as he uncapped the pen with the corner of his mouth. "At least come tonight. For you, this top-notch merch can be free of charge," he granted her oh-so-generously, while seeming to suck on the lid of her pen as he thought. The pen was poised in his bare hand to write, tip not yet touching the skin of her hand, which was held reverently in his gloved left. "Hey, you're going on a trip, right? So exciting~. I'll give you the trippy ones then," Septa hummed, scribbling across her hand, without too much pressure but using plenty of ink. He punctuated the final flourish with a playful wink before releasing her.
"I- maybe," the girl told him, semi-nervous as she recovered her hand from his. She examined briefly the mark he'd given her, temporary and very disposable though it was in nature. "No promises though!" she disclaimed to his forgiving nod, before jogging to catch up with her group, falling into step with their pace in effortless ease. Immediately the others seemed to discover what had transpired with Septa- and were none too happy about it, judging from the noises.
"Courtney, you can't! It'll hurt your chances of getting chosen," the blond and golden-skinned boy could be heard insisting as the group vanished around the hallway's bend. A minute later and the sounds they made followed them, disappearing completely from the reach of the senses of the two left standing still.
Cindy continued to watch the barren corridor for a long while after they were gone, making sure no one would return before stumbling slightly, no doubt feeling a weight fall off her shoulders as soon as she regained the comforting sense that they were alone, and she clutched Septa's waist all the more for support. He waited patiently for her to speak, and when she did, he listened.
"Look at them. Going out to risk their lives, and so confident." Her voice was steady though reticent. She only told and showed him just enough of what she was thinking and feeling for him to understand- they knew each other that well. Cindy didn't need to meet his eyes but kept staring after the ones that had left them behind. "We have nothing in common." As her pain festered with the newly inflicted humiliation and disgrace she'd suffered, she lowered her head in fear of his reply. It felt like anything, just one word could reduce the charred cinders of her spirit into dust beneath others' shoes...
Rather than directly answering, Septa looked at her instead, giving Cindy an unexpected fright by making a loud suction noise suddenly with the pen's cap still held up solely by two puckered lips. It formed such a stupid expression out of his pretty face, that what could only be described as a horribly shocked laugh was forced out of her now winded lungs.
"Stop that," she yanked the thing out of the leader's mouth, then immediately proceeding to wipe the thing off on Septa's admittedly already messy band shirt. At least when animated with disgust, her face looked a little enlivened again.
It couldn't last, couldn't sustain itself. Her hands slowed in their movements, her face crumbled back into despair. "She's right, though. I am useless," she mumbled, fingers shaking like the little plastic cap might slip through their hold at any second.
Septa caught her hands in both of his, holding them all together so nothing could fall apart. "You're not," he told her straight, like he'd assured her a million times before. "You know you do lots of things for me. You do so much. More than I ever could have asked-"
"Like make sure you dress right," she quipped, thin blonde strands falling down over her downturned face. Her hair was so untidy, she might have just emerged from a hurricane. She sounded about that worn down.
He looked at her carefully; "Among other things..." Because she wasn't wrong. Septa leaned in to tuck some of those hairs back behind her ear with his bare hand. His gloved one was still clasped around her own.
"Clothes..." Cindy exhaled the word like it was an obscenity she couldn't keep in, continuing; "They are the only thing I ever felt myself any good at. Clothes, only clothes, what good are they out here?" she cursed, and even the smoothly arched eyebrows she'd drawn on this morning couldn't hide the acuteness of her despairing frown. "I am useless, there is nothing I am good for. They... all knew that," she sniffed, tears springing up in her fawny brown eyes- a much lighter shade than his own, those which were wide and gazing back without reserve before closing briefly. Just longer than a blink. "That's why they sent me here..." At that thought, the girl looked close to breaking.
Septa squeezed her fingers lightly, needing to draw her attention away from that dark place. "You're not a tool. You don't have to be for anything," he tried to reach her, but the destination grew further apart as she turned away, severing their eye contact.
The pen cap dropped.
"Why do I listen to you," she said hollowly, and her limbs hung limply, like her hands just wanted to fall away, but he wouldn't let them.
Septa pressed her on that thought; "Why do you listen to anyone?" A beat. "They can all go suck it," he muttered with a consciously petty look of his face, snide in a humorous fashion.
No response, he tried again. Waving his arms in an exaggerated manner, speaking like a thespian on stage, for whatever would provoke some reaction. "For that matter, why listen to yourself? You're clearly a terrible judge of your own self-worth," he even dared to badmouth her- if shaking her fragile self-esteem was what it took-
She finally made a light scoffing noise, though it sounded too dry and wounded for comfort. "Great, another thing I am bad at," Cindy noted dully, and he could hear in her voice the weight of all the other entries on her list. It was a list that didn't exist, yet Septa knew it was all too real for her.
He kept talking. "Well the other option is that you're good at it, then see, you're good at it! Not so bad after all." He just wouldn't shut up. "That or I'm right, and you're good at many, many other things! Either way, you're definitely good at some things, so... c'mon, Cenerentola." Gently he turned her face toward him, seeking the soft brown of her eyes once more. And Septa demanded praise from her with all the stupid, childish pride his tone and his face could communicate. "I just proved you can't be bad at everything!"
Cindy sighed, and it was clear such a dark scar on her heart could not be healed so easily, with just a little laughter. "You did not prove crap." But she smiled, and it helped.

demon • 20 August 2017 at 12:00 AM

She had her hands hugging her upper arms as if to keep warm as she faintly said aloud to him; "I cannot help but to feel useless..." Cindy rubbed them gingerly, and maybe she really was cold with so little flesh on her bones. Unfortunately Septa himself had only a tight-fitting t-shirt himself and couldn't do anything for her there. "It does not help that most agree with me and not you, but that is not... that is not it, not all of it," she looked away then, eyelashes still heavy with dampness.
"I know," he reassured her, a similarly dark, distant look overtaking his browner eyes, wearing the same kind of expression on his face, all empathy. "I know how you feel..." Septa was silent for a moment then admitted quietly; "I feel the same way."
Cindy considered this for a few more minutes before crossing her shivering arms, and wondering about his case; "They do say that about you, do they not, even though you are a leader. You never did tell to me, how you..." She hesitated, looking up at Septa. "What is your power?"
"..." He didn't answer immediately, musing the question over. He wore an untellingly brooding expression, his hair seeming to cast him in shadow. "I'll tell you some other time, kid," was all that Septa ended up saying in reply.
"Kid, from you..." She shook her head in distaste. "That is the worst thing anyone has said to me all day."
"Cenny, you're beautiful," he said softly and with a sweet, adoring smile, while she pretended not to hear.
"So," she rubbed her cheeks again before asking, clearly not wanting to linger around here any longer; "Where are we- where did you want to go now?"
"I was going to the office." He showed her the courtesy of saying nothing about the slip of her tongue.
Cindy stood up straighter, lowering her arms and slowly continuing to gain in confidence as her mind turned to moving on. "Where is Molly, anyway?" she questioned further.
"I think one of her partners is making her late again," Septa divulged to her amidst the release of a reluctantly amused sigh. She watched, eyes following closely as he threaded some of his fingers artistically through his jet black hair- a movement no one with digits could be blamed for wanting to emulate, to feel the same thing.
Paying attention solely to his words- or trying to- Cindy turned to her side so that they could begin making their way to the place Septa had named. "Again?" A wave of her hand prompting him to follow.
"Ah, maybe you'd have more luck if you lowered your standards," came the perfunctory tease, all natural, unthinking reflex. After all, Septa couldn't imagine her putting up with anyone who made her late. Then, seeing the expression on her face, retracted; "No, forget I said that, your standards are very low, I agree," he consoled her attentively, although there was a sarcastic edge, that quirk at the corner of his mouth that couldn't easily be ignored. Somewhere there in that awful audacious head of his there was a joke- one about Cinderella lowering herself to settle for Prince Charming- parading around, she could tell just by looking at him.
"Shut up Septa," Cindy retaliated in true form, as per their usual banter, and added firmly; "I don't need to date anybody else."
"You're right, none of them are good enough for you anyway." Before they left, he gave one last glance at the door to that room, wondering... What had Guithe been saying in there to Xela all this time, had she managed to talk her around for good? At least for now, it seemed best that he leave it in her hands, remarkably small though they were... They were certainly no less capable than his, he'd be the last person to doubt that.
"Sure, sure," Cindy rolled her eyes, and they walked together, side by side, away from that place. The walk featured for some moments just companionable silence, until Cindy remembered and found it on her ready tongue to bring up a thought that had come to mind and been cast aside earlier.
"You know all those guys hate you though, right?" she referred to the group that had so rudely interrupted them before. "Tristán only talks to you because he's a suck-up. Not a very good one at that," she disparaged the blond on the leader's behalf, then watched for his reaction.
Septa made an absent-minded noise of agreement, "Oh yeah."
Thus disappointed, she chided him, with some idea of enlightening him in mind; "You do not have to treat them nice, you know that." The arc of her eyebrow was all suggestion.
"But I like them," he told her, before stopping to smirk and declare; "They're just jealous of me. See, this is why I don't have boyfriends!" Septa slumped dramatically at the end in a striking portrayal of dejection. It was the same look he used with some regularity to have girls cooing all over him, displaying the overwhelming sympathy they seemed to keep in reserve for just such a handsome man. Come to think of it, it really was true that it didn't seem to work so effectively on other men.
Cindy sighed, the perfect picture of exasperated endearment. Because she knew him far too well. "That Tristán, he is fairly attractive, is he not."
"He's sooo attractive," Septa moaned like he'd been long suffering for wanting to say it, even though he'd only been struggling to hold it in for the entirety of these past two minutes. "It's too bad he doesn't have more problems to drink over, other than being chronically rude," he snickered at the social difficulties the other boy's power came packaged with. As far as these things went, it was pretty quaint, though persistent enough to be obnoxious. "I could always give him some, though!" he added with a cheeky chirp and an appropriately sociopathic smile.
"You, you are joking," Cindy pointed out, a very skeptic twitch now to the arch of her eyebrow.
"I am," he smiled back brightly, and went on, "And you know what, it's kind of a good thing, can you imagine if we were dating?" With his hands crossed behind his neck, the bottom of his shirt lifted to bare his midriff again some, while Septa shook his head in a faux-disappointed manner. "So unsatisfying. He'd always finish before me!"
"You mean... Ugh, what did I tell to you?? Do not. Tell me! Yuck!!" she exclaimed, while he basked in the warmth of Cindy's own deep, ringing laughter, that superseded in importance any pittance of complaints she might also be making on his particularly unclean sense of humor. It was definitely worth it, he thought, gazing dearly down on her, as seeing her in such healthy spirits eased his own. At the sight of a slightly impish glint in her eye, they even leapt a little before settling along with the poker face Cindy had just donned, not allowing him any more enjoyment from her mirth, whether she cast it aside or kept it all for herself.
"Should I tell to anyone sorry for kissing you?" she inquired of him with use of that serious expression, winding a lock of his black hair around one of her fingers- it looped nicely given its slight natural curl and springy bounce.
He let her play with his hair as she liked but huffed at her words, "Don't be silly, Cen-"
She rolled her eyes fondly, then asked what she really meant. "Are you seeing anyone tonight?"
"Umm..." Septa thought about it and paused before admitting, with a sorry smile; "I made plans to spend today with Xela... To get to know her better."
"I say it not to her, then," she fumed, then, seeing the placative expression on his face, intended to soothe, Cindy burned up further, thrusting one hand out far to one side in a forceful throw-away gesture. "Forget about her, she is a crazy soldadito at best, right?! That is no good for you! Even you, you cannot do anything for that much crazy." Her feet moved back, away from Septa as she continued to face him, but the situation from earlier with their hands had now reversed, with both of hers now hugging onto his gloved one, tugging and trying to draw him towards her, lead him away. "Come on," the blonde entreated him, "Let us hide in the costume room from everyone and play stupid music all today, Septa..." When he hesitated, she held on tighter. "Stay with me..."
"I-" he lowered his head. "I would, but..." Septa's mutter trailed off as if there was nothing more to be said.
Cindy looked at him and realized what he meant, even against his wishes. "Oh, I get it. That is tonight, isn't it." She dropped his hand as though it suddenly weighed like a brick, looking resigned to losing him, for now.
"Yes, but- Cindy..." He looked up, deep dark brown eyes meeting wider, cooler, lighter ones.
She shook her head. "Go do the thing. Even I do not want to be seeing the base go up in flames. Give the people their stuff, or we have maybe a bigger problem than those crazy soldaditos."
He gave a precarious, lopsided grin, unsteady from the kind of excitement specially reserved for doing something one knew they weren't supposed to, or that no one else knew about. "Don't let anyone catch you saying that..." Septa teased her, a sharply mischievous look in his eye. "We wouldn't want it getting out, now would we~," his smile continued to widen, showing off his straight, white rows of teeth.
But Cindy didn't pay any particular attention to his words, only nodded vacantly in understanding as their feet continued to move, hers in a fashion more robotic than anything else.
Septa's face fell as he recognized this particular brand of detachment again, saw her dissociating before his eyes. He spoke quickly to her, promising; "Listen, I'll have Molly get R.J. for you, ze's always good company, right? And I know for a fact ze's not doing anything important. You and hem can have a lot of fun today, even if it's not quite the same-"
To his relief, she looked up. "It's pretty similar, actually," Cindy lied blatantly to him, not even properly meeting his eyes, more like staring down the wall to one side of his head.
Yet for a foolish moment Septa sounded persuaded to believe her. "Huh. Do you two ever make out, I always wondered..." he seemed just intrigued enough to pry, all idle curiosity. "Not even once?" he asked of her incredulous expression, and when she frowned, Septa guessed again. "Much more than once?"
"The answer to that is..." Cindy kept him hanging long enough to make him squirm, before finally dropping him flat on his butt, metaphorically speaking, with an equally flat and candid answer; the verbal equivalent to braining him with an especially blunt rock. "No. We're friends, Septa, we do not feel that way about the other," she said in no uncertain terms.
But this was Septa, and he was harder to convince than that. "Some friends do that stuff as well-" he contended, with an allure to his voice that was rather convincing in of itself, though slightly cheapened by the tacky eyebrow waggle performed alongside it.
"Septa-" Cindy bit out, interrupting him, only for him to do the same.
"If anyone was good enough for you-" he started.
Cindy pinched the bridge of her nose as she felt a headache coming on. She couldn't believe she was having this conversation- then again, it was so like Septa. Exhaling forcibly with her full body ended those mindless movements of his mouth, words that she'd immediately begun blocking out as he began speaking them. The second they were gone she jumped on his silence, intending to wring out of it the greatest effect she could, asserting with eyes flared wide; "The complete lack of interest between the two of us is- it is astronomically astounding. Scientists, they look to the stars and say, how can they be so far apart?!" Examining Septa's unimpressed guise, Cindy let loose a frustrated noise that put all past such expressions to shame. "For god's sake... I think I know us enough to know that if you even try to set us up?" she threatened, clutching the flannel of her matching pajamas; "You would make us miserable, you idiot."
"Oh come on, it couldn't be that bad?" he was smiling indulgently at her objections. "You two are best friends! And ze's always-"
She humphed, a posh and uppity sound, but no less meaningful for it. "That is some trust you have, huh."
He looked at her- seeming surprised.
Cindy sighed. "J is not always good company. Maybe to you, but sometimes ze can be-" When she fumbled for the word, Septa couldn't help but override her with disbelief.
"What? You don't think so?! But it's James... How could that be," he laughed it aside, hardly thinking on it a moment further, except to joke; "Hey, does R.J. have a deep dark secret ze's not telling me?? Do you know? If ze's been keeping something important from me, I'll never forgive hem," he insisted with childishly comedic humor, pouting those silly, soft, talented lips.
She gave him a look. "Let us go get hem, then." She didn't need to tell him, Cindy had a better plan; she going to show Septa exactly what she meant...
She had planned to get him there by walking, but as it turned out, he had a little something else in mind.
"What are you... Septa!" she exclaimed, pleasantly taken back by his taking of both her hands, turning her to face him squarely. Given the way his hands cupped her own, it didn't take Cindy long to figure out what, exactly, he had planned.
"Come on, look, you're here! May as well enjoy it~," he hummed, and began to lead her through the hallways in a simple, slow, two-step dance, one her feet had no trouble following despite how her head had yet to properly catch up with the absurd reality she found herself in. That happened as soon as they weren't alone, and Cindy caught sight of someone staring at them over Septa's shoulder. She realized then what a public spectacle they had to be making of themselves, and her immediate instinct was to cut it out.
"This is ridiculous," Cindy muttered, feet faltering and hands trying to drop from his and back to her own sides- but failing, because what Septa said next caught her attention.
"I always used to do this for Bree when she got self-conscious." He seemed to reflect nostalgically on the memory, while his form continued to nudge hers onwards without needing any thought or conscious participation from her. The relaxed rhythm of the step felt so easy to fall into, it almost perpetuated itself without any need for input.
Finding what he'd said hard to swallow, Cindy asked, "She did?"
He deliberated a moment on what he should tell her, then; "Her fear used to always prevent her from doing the things she wanted." Septa said it soberly, concise.
"Hard to believe now," she returned, eyebrow raised.
He was really a little melancholy, for a moment, before sending her spinning away, letting go with one hand. "Oh, sometimes it still does." In response to that, Cindy said not a word, until he reached out to offer her his arm again. "So, be my new dance partner?" Fluidly, he turned the gesture into an excessively elaborate and flourishing bow.
She stared at the outstretched limb, hesitating to take it. "I'm no good-"
"Who said we have to be any of that?" Looking up from his pose, he reminded her with a smile. And it was funny to think that Septa, of all people, could be so reassuring.
She grasped his hand again, and with the corridors as their dancefloor, it didn't seem to matter anymore what anyone thought, if everyone stopped to stare, or how annoyed they were when the two-stepping couple got in their way or slowed all the foot traffic down. As Cindy was increasingly lost in the motion, Septa couldn't help but think on how beautiful she was, regardless of the make-up smeared on her face, when she was happy.
He kept telling her so, even though she would never believe him.

asi • 29 August 2017 at 1:40 AM

Karen had just begun to move from her office to work in a room in the punishment wing, when one of her subordinates came hurrying after her, looking... just ever so slightly on edge. She understood as soon as they told her who exactly was waiting for her in the interrogation wing. "I see. I'll be right there then, you can resume your duties-" When the messenger began walking back the same way they had come, and the same way Nine had to go, the dismissive phrase she had used became... less than entirely apt.
The subordinate clarified with a light, fake cough; "My duty is this way."
"Of course. Lead the way then." Karen tried not to bite down on her own tongue in biting out those self-reprimanding words. Honestly, she couldn't help but feel heavy-handed in her interactions with the workers lately, ever since her assistant had been admitted to hospital... at the hands of some of her other underlings. She felt a little unbalanced without the presence of another to mitigate the load of her authority, handle the more intricate minutia of day-to-day workings and so forth. And... Karen could never be sure who else shared the same values as the two responsible for that cruel and reprehensible act. Conventional wisdom suggested that all had been socialized into the norms and mores that made Two's former division so effective, but... Karen's keen sense of justice meant that she couldn't treat these people as if they were all to blame. She could only continue to present each one with the same respect she had always given- even as it created such a confusing dilemma inside her head.
It seemed her current companion was also thinking along the same lines and they walked, because after a time spent in silence, the girl spoke up, beginning with some lightly experimental hedging around the topic. "Uh, Nine. There are some things you should know... In the absence of your assistant, some of us took it upon ourselves to compile a report of... the current state of the division's workings."
"Thanks." Regardless of her worries, Nine couldn't help but appreciate her division's initiative. "So what's going on?"
The Ninth worker straightened in her stride, physically preparing herself to report. "Well, you're going to need to appoint some replacements for positions in the policing department-" she began.
The leader cut in before she got any further, with a sharp questioning. "What? Why?"
"Well," the Ninth girl said again, but slower this time. "Because of the resignations, I guess."
This caused a frown to burrow its way across the leader's forehead, though the intimidating effect was largely hidden by the shadow of Karen's baseball cap. "What?" What were resignations? As far as Nine was aware, one couldn't resign at IOD- they were all conscripted child soldiers, after all, and there was nowhere else to go.
"Well, some fourteen members from Two's administration decided, since things were obviously going to be a bit different around here from now on, to apply to other divisions..."
"I don't understand." Punishment and Interrogation was a relatively desirable division to be in, given the limited field time. Its positions weren't numerous, in contrast to the more active, outgoing and combative units. Perhaps it held less prestige and glamour now that it only bore the title of Ninth, but still. Unless the person had particularly special circumstances and could somehow land a cushy desk job in Eighth or the like- Karen continued walking swiftly, but with her head down and swirling with grim thoughts. She looked back over at the girl on a conclusion reached. "They'd rather fight, or follow Two?"
The worker shook her head, not in the most vehement of denials, but in a testament to valuing the accuracy of facts as she recounted; "Five of them made it into First division. A couple moved horizontally into Third- they'll keep their ranking there- and one transferred down to Fifth." She shrugged as if to say, 'no accounting for taste'. "Probably just as good a time as any to do it," the girl observed, even though directly before Truce month ended had been the time most rife with and accommodating for such changes.
"And the rest? You said there were fourteen." Karen couldn't help but wonder if that number had included the boy and girl who had (saved her from Dani? beat up her incorrigible, impossible assistant?)... that she'd punished for their unwarranted act of violence against their superior. Having witnessed some of their combat prowess firsthand, she had no doubt about their ability to make it into First, with or without her recommendation. She didn't even feel the need to ask, so she didn't.
"Did... go to the new Second," the Ninth girl admitted, after a beat. Hearing this expected reply, Nine only nodded in understanding, and the girl continued in her report. "However, those were only enforcers. None of the torturers have made any moves- presumably they realize they couldn't do the same job anywhere else."
"That's true," Nine gave a tight smile at the comment, before questioning herself on if there was even any humor to be found in that statement. It was hard to tell, in a place so twisted as this.
"There's just one thing..." The girl's hesitance from earlier resurfaced again. She even twitched and faltered as she spoke, so whatever it was seemed even more awkward than the news before. "Some of those who resigned... Were the most practiced at handling Eight. Not that it ever really did them any good but, at least they weren't running in the opposite direction on hearing her name," she sounded apologetic even as she shrunk inwards just upon mentioning the word others apparently ran from. Karen had to wonder how bad an experience she had to have had with the leader- or had heard about others having- or couldn't remember. Whatever the case, Nine found it hard to condemn her for her shrinking... or any shirking of hospitality.
Still, the implication she was left with was one Nine found inherently distasteful. "So my division is currently... Hiding from Eight," she inferred, and wanted to hang her head for shame at the revelation. She should have ensured that her division was prepared to play host to Eight, before setting this up.
The girl scratched at her cheek in a sheepish confession. "Er, kinda yeah. Jane's there, and she brought some other attendants to help as well, but. Without Two or his leadership- things are kinda-"
"I got it." Karen massaged at her temple briefly where the cap had began to wear her head down. When they stopped walking, just within the bounds of the interrogation wing, Nine turned to the girl for confirmation; "Eight's just ahead then?" to which the other girl just nodded and headed off in her own direction.
Karen had only taken a few steps by herself before she noticed Jane was waiting for her outside the waiting room. She nodded her acknowledgment of the Eighth assistant as soon as they made eye contact, and proceeded to approach until the two stood within comfortable distance of each other to speak. "Jane, thanks for coming," she began, when-
"Hey, it's Nine!" She was interrupted by a yell very uncharacteristic of the Punishment division's quiet halls.
It was tempered slightly with a far more measured counsel, a male at the first speaker's side who berated, "Well don't shout at her, we're not looking for Nine-"
"But Eight's supposed to be with her, come on," insisted the girl as she towed her companion forward until they also stood before Nine, though neither seemed to notice or pay much heed to the other with whom they were supposedly competing for NIne's attention. Both newcomers had straight backs, low shoulders, and good posture most everywhere else, as well as a degree of confidence uncommon among other teenagers on the base. Karen recognized the boy on the right as Four's assistant, after a beat. The other...
The blonde introduced herself more than readily. "I'm Teija, assistant to Two. He sent me to meet Eight, and Eighth division sent me here. But if now's not a good time for the introduction, I can wait... I have plenty of reading material," she gestured to the papers in Buick's hands, which had that warm, inky, freshly printed scent still clinging to them, to which Karen was secretly partial.
"Er..." Nine had never anticipated this scenario, so she could be forgiven for not having a fluid or prepared response ready for it. "I don't see why not, you can come in," she said, before remembering properly just who this was again. Two's assistant... he had sent her to spy on Nine's interview with Eight? So there really was some deep collaboration between the two of them... Or it was just some lucky coincidence, that events seemed to have conspired to have his direct representative in the room as the interview was about to take place. Nine eyed the girl more warily now, wondering why Two had elected to promote her so abruptly.
Nine couldn't help but notice the girl's most prominent assets.
Two was a male, in his late teens, undeniably powerful and- she reluctantly supposed- good-looking. Maybe this was his girlfriend.
But no, that didn't seem in-character for the Two she'd studied this far at all. Karen shook herself out of that terrible train of thought, tearing her eyes away from the perky platinum blonde's chest, and onto her face instead. "If you want to talk to her in private, maybe you'd better set something up for later, but if a quick introduction's all you want..." She looked rather pointedly, almost desperately to Jane at this point, hoping these two kids would get the hint and allow Eight's assistant just a moment to speak up already, but-
"That's fine! Thanks Nine," Teij beamed, and began steering her companion towards the door Nine had gestured to, and straight past Jane.
"Wait, why am I still with you," Buick seemed to ask out loud rather belatedly, resisting being pulled forward by just the skin of his heels.
"Come on! You don't want me telling my boss you've been unhelpful, right? He'll cut you up! Probably starting with that weird emo hair of yours, so chop chop," Teija tried to usher the boy into the room with some colorful threats that quickly colored Karen bemused.
There was almost no way Two would do any of the things she claimed for her, unless they really did have that kind of relationship, right? So why would Buick, usually a guy of sense, listen... Never mind, the blonde's energetic vigor was scary enough in its own right- and she was attractive. But why would Two hire a character like that, completely at odds with his own attitude?
She'd find out, soon enough.
"Oh, hi Jane," Four's assistant finally registered the other girl in the corridor, with which he must have worked with numerous times on numerous projects and seen at numerous meetings, yet saw only now, while struggling against that indomitable force of will that was apparently the new Second assistant.
Karen adjusted her cap just a little lower over her eyes, tempted to smoosh the bill right over her face as a variant of the ever popular facepalm, but narrowly resisted making this encounter even less comfortable in so doing.

demon • 29 August 2017 at 8:56 PM

Raven noticed this exceptionally bad reaction to her suggestion of a simple 'is this human functioning properly' health examination, the flinching and the defensive, avoidant movements away from her. Like he didn't think it out of the question that she might violently snatch that letter out of his grasp and- Raven wasn't sure- thrust those treacherous, apparently illegible scribbles in his face until the ensuring headache burned his brain out from the inside?
... She felt like maybe Tracy had been right and the stuff she'd taken last night had enhanced her creativity somehow.
In any case, Raven warily withdrew her hand and the offer to take that letter which he now guarded so mistrustfully, and just stored the information on his literacy troubles away for later use. He clearly expected her to get ready to come with him now, so she stood, casually brushing the pens and other utensils on his desk into a more orderly arrangement before pushing the chair in after herself.
And Zach's latest supposition distracted her too much for any follow-up questions on the moving-words subject, especially as the pleasantly shocking sound of his rare good humor was replaced by solemnity.
"No," she denied with a hair-trigger reaction, before briefly stalling. "It was... Well yeah, kinda, but... I wasn't 'messed up'," Raven insisted with an impatient flick of her unruly hair, "I didn't do that much anyway!"
Then she proceeded to almost trip on the leg of Zach's desk, knocking the pens she'd reordered neatly back out of order. Face glowing slightly in embarrassment, she gripped the table edge to steady herself, feeling that increasing familiar tingling strain lightly make its presence known in her right arm in response. "I could use those coffee privileges though," Raven muttered reluctantly, before looking up almost suddenly, inadvertently tossing her thick black mop of hair back as she did so.
"I think there's someone... outside the door," she said, meeting Zach's gaze with eyes wide with warning.

taffy789 • 30 August 2017 at 1:34 AM

“Do that much what?” Zach asked, watching with some degree of alarm as Raven continued to be as clumsy as a wobbly newborn deer trying to stand up for the first time. This questioning concern turned to a tensed shock at his assistant’s warning about the door. His intuition raced to confirm their safety and- yes, Zach’s shoulders visibly relaxed as the presence outside was deemed harmless by Egos.
Which, Zach blinked, was all very good and well, but something about that exchange rubbed him the wrong way. It was an itch not even his power could scratch, and so Zach raked a discerning gaze over Raven once, before asking, flatly,
“Since when did you develop an intuition power better than mine?”
He waited for a response, appearing legitimately bewildered by the idea of someone calling out a potential hazard before he could feel it. While it made sense in this situation, given his power had learned over time to only point out hazards and didn’t tend to bother with benign occurrences when he felt this comfortable, Zach still struggled with accepting that Raven had better intuition than him in this moment. Sure, he supposed it could’ve been a lucky guess, but in his seventeen years of life, Zach had only known one person who had possessed that amount of sheer “luck”, and it sure as heck wasn’t his assistant.
A knock at the door turned Zach’s attention away from being pissy about Raven being better at him at the one thing he considered himself good at (paranoid hypervigilance), and he turned, grumpily, to the offending sound ringing out behind him.
“Raven,” he began, reaching for the doorknob. “Knowing how we’ve been chased down by the veteran’s cronies these last few days, I don’t need my intuitions to tell me who’s at the door.”
Then, without any further pomp nor circumstance, Zach cracked open the door.
“Hi.” Tabithia said. In her arms she cradled a bundle of tied up folders. Ever calmly, she explained. “You missed a rather important meeting just now.”
Expressionlessly, Zach stared Tabs down. Then, deliberately slow, he pulled the door’s handle back towards himself until the door shut with a soft “click”.

Outside in the hallway, Tabs sighed, and she waited.
And waited.
And waited some more.
... When what felt like a good five minutes passed without the door opening again, Tabs rolled her eyes and knelt down. She plucked the tie from around the folders, rummaged through them, and eventually she pulled the necessary item out from the files to the satisfying sound of paper grating against paper.
Putting the rest of the folders aside, she then shoved the paper underneath the door. Feeling accomplished enough with that being done, Tabs was just about to stand when, almost indignantly, the paper scraped back underneath the door to her.
With some admitted shock, she stared back at that petty display of rejection and was stoically resisting the urge to bang her head on the concrete walls of the bunker when a chill iced up her neck.
She craned her head to her direct right, eyes momentarily widening to see the obscured face of Tracy haunting the hallway, standing there completely quiet and motionless as if they were that pair of creepy twins in the Shining. Recovering from that surprise with a slight shiver, Tabs turned back to the paper on the floor, picking it up and placing it back on top of the folders.
“…Management.” She greeted her co-worker, the formality of that title more of an inside-joke than an attempt at hiding malice. Tabs turned towards Tracy, raising an eyebrow at them. “If you get any quieter moving around here, we’re gunna to have to put a bell on you.”
She drifted off, looking back towards the shut door she was still kneeling in front of as she continued on. “Some news about Area A plans came in today, just now. It’s some big stuff, the Eighth Division briefed some of the admins on it. I didn’t see you there, but there’s not much to do from our end anyway except be in the know. Our Eighth guys are holding a more in-depth brief with Viki right now. More info to come, or whatever.”
Tabs fell quiet again, staring intently at the closed door to Five’s living space with those dulled yet deep and intelligent brown eyes.
Piping up again, she remarked, a bit sourly. “Guess who made the mistake of offering to pass the information onto our dear leader Fiv-”
She was cut off from that sentence because the door had opened again without a warning and slammed right into her nose.
The blow knocked Tabs back onto her butt, and her hand flew up to pressed tight against her aching nostrils. The folders near her had scattered around the hallway, and, through this pain and turmoil she glared up at the two bodies standing in the doorway. While it was impossible for her to tell who’d actually had opened the door on her- Five or his assistant- she could clearly read the posture of the leader as he gripped a hand on the door handle. Despite the obvious aid that Tabs could certainly use, the Fifth leader looked about ready to close the door on the girl instead of help, or at least apologize, or anything.
Tabs boiled and simmered as Five seemed to again make the slow move to simply shut out the ruckus instead of attempting to properly deal with it.

asi • 30 August 2017 at 9:24 AM

"Ummm," Raven stalled under Zach's piercing gaze, struggling to come up with an acceptable answer when all her dusty shelves seemed to have in stock for her was the overly vague, 'I just had a feeling?' shrug, or the snarky yet culturally unappealing reply of 'it's called being a woman'. Finding both options reprehensible Raven was reduced to merely frowning helplessly at the guy and muttering a purely unintentional, accidental, "Sorry?" most likely in response to the odd and seriously disgruntled look on Zach's face (which she found ever so slightly entertaining). The end result, in hindsight, was worse than either of the other choices she'd considered so distasteful.
But regardless of that momentarily unfavorable outcome, any ensuing unpleasantness was averted when that feeling the assistant had so convincingly had was proven unequivocally correct by the person announcing their presence themself with a solid tap on the bunker door.
"Well Zach," Raven coughed at his choice of poor words as Zach went to get the door, "You do know we came here to work-" She didn't get any further than that as Zach pushed at the door... and didn't get it any further than an inch open before just as quickly closing it again, without so much as a word in reply to Tabs on the other side.
Raven paused, only very slowly processing the absurdity of that exchange. "Did you just... close the door on her, just like that?" she asked Zach incredulously.
When he only seemed to shrug and scowl churlishly in return, Raven was just about ready to throw her hands up in hopeless defeat... She didn't though, because Raven was tough as nails and never gave up without wearing them down to stubs.
Instead, she wasted her efforts on giving Zach a totally ineffectual, "We need to work with these people and help them so they can help us!" speech... to which he paid slack attention only to interject and grumble things like, "These people haven't done anything but annoy us, I fail to see how it's not 'reciprocating' by doing the same to them," and similarly unhelpful quips that just seemed to send Raven off a different, but progressively frustrated tangent.
They carried on in this manner for a full five minutes until there was a scratchy shuffling noise coming from under the door. Raven almost didn't get a good look at the item squeezed into the room before it was cruelly expelled from it by a well-placed kick back of the foot, the heel sliding it straight back out into the cold.
Raven stared at the impossible leader in disbelief. "Was that a message? You just..! I can't believe you," she huffed, and started for the door, meaning to physically wrest it open. That way the utter child Zach wouldn't be able to play games with her or give the others the 'silent tantrum treatment' any longer.
She wasn't, however, expecting to meet resistance of the arm-flapping, chick-flick catfight variety. But after an initial reaction of stifled outrage, Raven definitely wasn't prepared to back down either.

Outside the door, Tracy shrugged to their fellow admin, in a friendly manner, all fifty or so of their dark dreadlocks following the motion with a gentle pendulum sway.
"Funny, Birdie said'a like thing the other day," they said, responding affably to Tabs' banterful greeting.
Tracy listened then in casual silence and stillness to the update Tabs had to give, only occasionally offering an unperturbed bob of the head and hair to show their attentiveness and comprehension of the matter.
And then, just before the girl could finish what appeared to be shaping up to be an enjoyably disparaging thought at the Fifth leader's expense, she was silenced in what proved to be an unforgivable act of ruthless brutality.

At some point in the midst of having her face pushed back by a palm smooshing her chin, while something like Zach's elbow uncomfortably jostled her boobs, Raven realized his other hand had inadvertently slipped down to grip the doorknob for support. And that was her way out of this disastrous flailing mess, where the two combatants kept ineffectually pawing and slapping at each other without any real force behind any effort.
This was hands-down the stupidest fight Raven had ever participated in, and when yanking down on Zach's supporting elbow successfully induced his hand into turning and the door into swinging open, Raven was more than ready to call victory in her favor, only then-
She belatedly realized the inexplicable hard impact the door had made contact with was what had cast the waiting Tabs down onto the floor, her papers strewed about in chaos and hand clutching the center of her face out of pain. So... not good.
"Christ, are you okay?" Raven pulled herself hurriedly away from that limby entanglement with Zach in order to stride over to Tabs' side, ensuring first that the girl wasn't too badly hurt. "These stupid outward-swinging doors," Raven cursed with some shame to her voice, because though the critical moment had been most of an unthinking panic, she wasn't any less aware of the pivotal part she'd played in the whole affair.
She chose not to directly acknowledge that, however, but instead directed her grievances quickly elsewhere, commanding impatiently of Zach in regards to the scattered papers; "Hey, pick that stuff up won't you?" But before he could even move to do so Tracy was already doing as she said, compiling the disordered files in their own long spindly arms.
Raven sighed at this and with a strong, firm grip, helped Tabs up to her feet, ascertaining that the other girl was steady before moving to let go. "I'm really sorry about that. Do you uh, need a tissue?"

demon • 31 August 2017 at 2:45 AM

"The rest of you, don't bother chasing them!" Rai barked out the order, glowering like a bulldog through the thick vertical sheet of ice that separated him and half of his troop. Their hazy figures on the other side of the screen wavered, hearing his voice, and several obeyed, but a number had already departed, running off in pursuit of the fleeing prey.
But the ice didn't just form a straight wall, no. What couldn't be simply realized from the other side was that the barricade actually curved into a full circle, one that had entrapped Rai and the others on his side entirely within its girth. It was a flat, smooth, shining surface of towering ice all the way around, only interrupted above and below for the expressionless sky and the sparkling snow.
Rai stuffed his fingers through his strawberry blond hair, brow clenching into a shadow-filled scowl as he surveyed the situation. On his side of the barrier, several of the rebels were trying to take down the ice, mostly with pure brute force. 'Ver's ramming of it did leave a resounding dent that she seemed to enjoy, so as long as they were having fun, Rai left them to it.
One of their number actually had the presence of mind to try and rush the wall's conjurer- Rai knew the poor fool to be no match for the ice power, and so spared them the pain and humiliation of defeat by merely tossing them aside on his own way to that rebellious Zan.
Who had his arms crossed, bored look carefully maintained while his pale blue eyes refused to meet Rai's darker, bluer own. Until, that is, the leader stepped directly in front of him, invading his line of sight so that the disobedient power had no choice but to recognize him. He had the pride, at least, not to close his eyes or plug his ears when Rai confronted him.
"Now Zan, take that wall down now," instructed Rai with a stiff, strenuous quality to his voice that tacitly implied that his patience may be wearing thin.
In response, Zan acted like just about every moody teenager asked to do some unsatisfactory chore; "Do I have to?" This received a humorless look from Rai, causing the younger male to shrug and explain, with that simple phrase he was all too apt to use; "I'm too lazy."
"You're going to regret crossing me," Rai just had time to answer with, before their exchange was interrupted by a strong gust of wind, seeming to spiral down from above. Realizing exactly what this phenomenon heralded, Rai instinctively took a step backwards to create some more room for the new arrival, completely unnecessary though it was.
In that generously open space, Angel landed nearby with a light, barely audible 'flump' of impact, as the gust parted a layer of white beneath her feet and tossed it up in a shower of snowflakes, all fluttering and spinning through the air just as her hair flowed in waves about her head. At Angel's side was a much taller form that seemed smaller than it was from all the cowering it was doing. In fact, the human appeared quite ill and may have fallen over immediately if the teenage girl didn't have one arm around his side to steady him.
"Bliss is fine, he just got his foot stuck in a snowfall, again," Angel shook her head and tangled blonde curls in good humor. "Silly Blissey..." she hummed fondly, making the quiet white mountainscape sing briefly with the echo of her musical note.
The man she'd swept over in a literal whirlwind stepped away from her in order to shake and look pale in his own space. As soon as he removed himself from Angel's support, however, Bliss found himself half-pressed into the snow, head still woozily hot and dizzy. The sudden and new experience of unsupported flight had not been kind to the shut-in doctor-scientist. Particularly his digestive tract. But more than any physical symptoms, the faintness of his aura was plain for everyone there to see. It was much weaker than usual, barely pulsing.
Rai looked down on him disdainfully, no empathy but only contempt available in his expression as he moved, sidling close to Angel while still examining that pitiful exhibition of humanity collapsed before them. "I'm very tempted to just leave him here," Rai confided in her, a joking undertone to his voice that Zan was beginning to pick up on with some accuracy.
The ethereal being beside him saw it just as well in one glance- but interpreted it rather differently than Zan was inclined to. "Riley! You wouldn't do that," she laughed trustingly, faintly purple eyes glowing in shared amusement.
"I know," Rai had an idea, and clicked his fingers as if to show it. Those fingers indicated towards Zan now. "You, carry him. You'll do that much, won't you?" The force of his gaze smoldered the ice-power with the anger and annoyance simmering just below the surface.
But in the face of it, Zan remained eternally cool... despite the actual content of the demand fazing him somewhat. "I'm not sure I'm physically capable of such a feat," Zan frowned unhappily, though he also didn't dare try ask the leader for a more lenient proposal.
"Metaphysically, then," Rai dismissed him and any concerns he might have, turning away and towards the others in the group. By then, 'Ver had succeeded in smashing a hole through the barrier, allowing the rebels to waltz out of the ice prison and join the remaining lot on the other side. With her leader's nod of acknowledgement and approval secured, 'Ver joined them in marching through, leaving only Rai, Angel, Zan and the weedy body of Bliss that he was reluctantly endeavoring to help crawl, still inside the translucent crystal structure.
"Riley, what does that mean?" The blonde was tugging on the rebel leader's arm curiously.
Looking up at her face, it still seemed much too pale even against the cold setting, no doubt due to lack of sun during the length of her stint underground. He answered idly, seeming carefully unaffected; "Well, he could start by reexamining his place in the universe..."
Angel blinked down at him. "Riley, that's cold," she admonished him, a disappointed tilt to her eyebrows.
"He should be fine with that," Rai countered, and stalked away. Angel drifted closely behind him, just a few inches off the ground as they quit too the icy little roofless igloo Zan had crafted.
Zan was left to wallow in his woes with only the miserably out-of-sorts healer, who seemed to be lacking in the strength to even pull himself up onto his own two feet. The dude's weight rested heavily on Zan's side as he tried to nudge and encourage Bliss to get up, move on his own, look lively- to little or no avail.
"Jeez, the cold's really getting to this guy," he muttered, eyeing the way the man's fingers appeared to be turning a chilling blue at the tips. Zan was no doctor, but even he was sure it wasn't a sign of good health.
"Maybe it's 'cause he's human," Zan noted the difference between Bliss' discoloration and his own complexion, where his fingers remained a reassuring caucasian, perhaps in fact a little redder than they were apt to be. He certainly didn't seem to be dying of the cold himself- though he personally was very accustomed to it, the others like him seemed similarly at ease, or at least, coping better than this sorry specimen was. With that feeble aura... "A user, I suppose," he surmised after a moment's contemplation. Then he blew out a short, forceful 'hmph' down towards his bent knees and toes. "Unbelievable, what does one do when the doctor takes sick..."
Bliss gave a particularly violent sneeze as if to confirm it, looking over at Zan through scrunched-up and running eyes. Worse than looking through Zan's ice, he'd be surprised if Bliss could see anything beyond his own tears. The dude was ill, and freezing out here was unlikely to improve the matter. Clothes, if he only had better clothes, like the thick winter attire worn by that user they'd encountered- the one not shaped like a cat.
Unfortunately, Zan didn't see what help any of what he had on him could be- he was only wearing a shirt and pants, and a pair of human shoes to boot. He wasn't even wearing socks, because his had got too dirty and he hadn't had a chance to wash them or get replacements- but ah! He did still have them with him. He retrieved the grubby things from inside his pockets, stilling briefly as a tiny clinking reminded him of the little vials he'd wrapped inside them for safekeeping. Precious ingredients for the experiments they'd never managed to make anything of yet.
After sparing a look around to ensure that no one was peeking in on him, through 'Ver's splintered exit or otherwise, Zan unraveled the vials from the socks and tucked them back inside his pockets, set to endure their tinkling with his every movement henceforth. The socks he pulled over Bliss' cold hands like thumbless mittens, rubbing them together to create warmth before stuffing them into the joint pocket of the human's hoody. Bliss making it through this with fingers intact would be up to him now.
As for moving the guy... A moment of Zan's concentration and a sweep of one arm resulted in a new formation of ice, taking the shape of a basic sled. It took a few moments of grunting manual labor, but Zan was able to roll the poor human Bliss onto the ice-made platform, and, wrapping his hands around the shining new back handles, began to push.
After just a few minutes and as many meters of painstaking progress, he found himself outside the encirclement he'd constructed, and sweaty all over from the exertion. The snowy covering helped slide it along, but where rocks jutted out of the ground Zan struggled, head down and back straining, caught between wanting to force the sled forwards, and worrying about the fragility of his creation.
All the while, Zan chanted lowly to himself, under his breath; "I hate this world. I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it. Everything's... so much effort..."
That is until he became aware of a signal to his right, more like a slow-burning flame than a sudden flare, but the aura only caught his attention when the edges fringed around his own- it tweaked Zan's whiskers and he spun his head around to eye up the other power on the ever popular lagging-behind scene.

asi • 31 August 2017 at 2:47 AM

Broad, hulking shoulders, heavy brow on a constantly scowling face, and a prominent neck that craned over Zan, making him wonder if it didn't have a extra vertebrae or two from the guy's close relationship to a bird. A big one, mind you. It was the guy who had assaulted Zan during gym class on 'Ver's order, then later beat up Bliss on Rai's command. Er, there were a lot of powers who fitted that description among the rebels, but only one that stood about as tall as a single-story building. And was built like out of bricks, only with muscles. Muscles that flexed and bulged as he leaned over, having caught Zan's attention, and then brusquely stole the sled, burden and all, from the flimsy weak ice-power by also grabbing the handles but pushing much harder. Zan was quickly left behind in the snowy dust, empty-handed, despite the fact that the other power was adopting this mass in addition to what he was already saddled with on his back.
"... Thanks?" It was more of a question than an actual display of manners or gratitude, because Zan was definitely too skeptical to feel the latter.
The big man slowed to shrug his pack off his shoulders, jerking a thumb in Rai's direction before he bent down to set the rest of his load also upon the sled construction. It seemed even big guys like him got tired muscles, sometimes, causing the ice power to blink wearily at the man. He suddenly seemed a lot more... relatable... once Zan knew he also suffered something of the terrible discomfort he experienced with every waking moment spent in this world. And would occasionally do things more constructive than beating someone up, but mostly the former.
With a tired wave of his hand, Zan did his bit to add reinforcements, ensuring that the ice, brittle a material though it was, had grown thick enough that it would only chip where it encountered rocks, and not snap apart- not anytime soon.
The bigger power didn't acknowledge him, but simply forged on ahead, Bliss's body now secured on board with icy seatbelt straps, jostled a little as the sled glided over the snowy slopes. The pack laying above the healer's dirty blond head might even serve as some insulation for the poor sod. Zan took only small comfort in the fact that Rai wasn't trying to march the human to death, because even those he wasn't trying to kill, the leader's rough treatment made sure they were never let off easy. In Rai's regime, death by accident was positively commonplace. But Bliss was as secure as anyone here could be, and Zan couldn't forget the reason why. The doctor's strange friendship with the big boss, that malignant child Mael.
Zan still didn't know where he and Bliss stood, as he remained physically unmoving while watching Bliss, his sled and the big power pushing it fade into the blankness of the snow.
Now there was nothing left to be done but follow the others on the mindless trudge through the soulless wintry landscape. Although being out in such a favorable, almost hospitable environment for him should have replenished Zan's spirits, he knew... there was no freedom to it. The cold didn't truly comfort so much as console him.
Running away would achieve nothing but his own demise. That much had been made clear at the outset of this journey.
Some time passed and his agonizingly gloomy ruminations must have propelled Zan forward faster than he'd realized, because eventually he saw Angel ahead, even though she had earlier gone on much ahead. He not just felt her presence, as he always remained vaguely aware of the others, but could see the bounce of her lightly curled blonde hair through the fog and white mist.
She appeared like a vision to him, shining with power, but her back was turned and she remained at a seemingly unreachable distance from him, like a dream that would fade away upon approach. Then Rai came into view at her side, and there was no need for imagined barriers anymore, not when Zan had a real one.
He closed his eyes and still saw them.
They were walking slowly, apparently conversing with each other, only just so close that the pale violet and the steely cobalt of their auras began to blur at the edges, though Angel's had twice the spread and glow of his. But there was something different about Rai's aura too. Like it was somehow much more dense and concentrated than any other, the deep gray-blue color burning much more vividly than seemed natural. Like it was not just a flat, solid hue, but two overlapping tones, of blue and gray. The more he looked, the harder looking got. In comparison, Angel's lilac was soft and soothing to his senses.
Opening his ice blue eyes again, Zan took in the physical sight again and found himself muttering just over his breath, "What are you doing with him?" clearly directed at her, though he didn't expect for her to actually hear.
Despite his intent, Angel's head seemed to turn on cue to look back at him, the side of her face Zan could see remaining completely unreadable, before it was eclipsed again by her curly head of hair as she turned away. Zan didn't fail to notice how she then grabbed Rai's hand from his side, without prompting, and twisted her fingers around his.
To this Rai didn't seem to react, other than to look at her face and speak some words to her- related or otherwise, Zan couldn't tell. After that, either the couple walked faster or Zan walked slower, because soon they'd faded once more out of his direct sight, and he certainly lacked the motivation to chase them.
"Angel..." Zan sighed, too worried and dispirited now to do much other than hang his head and drag his feet through the snow.
It was then that again, Zan noticed another power signal that had veered unusually close to him. He looked over to his right to see Stella's power, with ash gray hair like woven iron thread and aluminum wire, and eyes glinting with the silver of a menacingly sharpened sword as she watched him.
Perceiving him now staring back, the female power gave him a particularly blank look and finally said, "What are you looking at?" as if he'd started it, or he was the one making her uncomfortable.
"Nothing. What are you?" Zan said back, far more offhandedly than she'd managed.
She stared at him harder, then; "Nothing!" she answered rather less patiently, and marched away.
Zan had a bit of a moment watching her go... What, the girl had attributes that were aesthetically pleasing, after all, something he'd enjoyed making a bit of a pastime of commenting on to his user, when it wasn't just him on his lonesome... Then he started walking faster, moving ahead in order to keep better track of the big guy pushing his sleigh. He didn't want to let it get outside the range of his perception, after all.
At some point not much later in the march, he began catching wind of Rai's conversation with 'Ver, taking place just ahead. Angel had departed since he last looked, no doubt having taken to the skies once more. Zan envied her ability, if just for a moment.
"-regroup, get everyone back in line as soon as possible. We don't want things to get disorderly, and end up leaving anyone too alive behind," Rai instructed in a strict business tone, not seeming at all in the mood to be swayed by any argument that propounded idling or 'taking their time' now.
"What about killing those users?" 'Ver complained hungrily, bloodlust just dripping from her tone, warm like the fires in an active crematory incinerator.
Rai pointedly ignored it, dismissing her question instead. "If you think I really care about what happens to two of their little spies, you're sorely mistaken. They already knew we were here, figured that we'd leave, and will find out that we're gone soon enough regardless. As long as they aren't able to follow where we're going... I trust we've secured that much at least," he surmised with just a pinch of smug satisfaction, the last Zan heard before any more discussion that took place was once again stolen by the fickle inclinations of the wind.
And Zan was left thinking: at least those two, at least they might make it out of this nightmare alive...

taffy789 • 2 September 2017 at 12:57 AM

Zach watched on as Raven helped Tabs up, and as Tabs pulled her hand away from her face to reveal two blood-free nostrils.
“I’m good.” Tabs said, seeming to shake off the pain of getting smacked with a door. Zach watched as the admin’s direct line of sight centered on himself. He rose an eyebrow as Tabs emphasized, “With no help or concern from some.”
Zach got that message, loud and clear. He shrugged in reply, choosing to lean in the doorframe and adjust the hem of his dirty black tank top instead of gracing Tabs with any words. He didn’t owe her anything anyway. His focus was entirely on his own person.
His shirt had been rolled on top of his belt during that… weird fight with Raven, and he worked to undo the minimal damage to his person she’d inflicted. Which, if he admitted it to himself, wasn’t any actual physical damage, but the sudden gain in proximity had unnerved him, somewhat.
Zach finished patting his tank top flat, and he sniffed, recalling that Raven had been pressed so close to him that her scent still lingered around him….
… And Zach grimaced, because Raven had needed a shower.

Tabs had also taken note of Raven’s rumpled state of being, and her judging eyes swept up and down on the assistant before she remarked, “I’m surprised you haven’t started braiding your hair yet.”
She continued on, conversationally, “It’s much easier to maintain than the straightening you’d done when you first got here. And much cleaner, too. …That is, if you take care of them…”
Here Tab’s eyes flickered over to her co-worker as they scooped up the fluttering papers and scattered files into their arms. The look of flat disappointment and bitterness towards Tracy’s unkempt dreadlocks was stark and tangible. Her eyes locked back onto Raven quick enough.
“If you ever need someone to braid for you, I used to do my little sister’s hair for school all the time.” Tabs offered this, her normally expressionless cracking into something conveying fondness at that memory.
Now looking past Raven, she fixated next on Fifth leader’s sorrier state, and the fondness lingering on Tabs’ face collapsed upon realizing something about the leader’s outfit.
“…Isn’t that the same thing you were wearing when we pulled you out of the cave-in two days ago?” she asked, voice steady yet inquiring.
The Fifth leader glanced down at his dirty tank top, processing the question as slowly as an outdated computer.
After what appeared to be some unnecessarily strenuous memory work on his part, the leader raised his head again, met Tab’s gaze head-on, and he merely shrugged, as if admitting, ”Yeah, it is, what of it?”
The resulting disgust on Tab’s face was real.

asi • 2 September 2017 at 8:05 AM

Hearing Tabs' emphasized words, Raven winced slightly, knowing how useless the strategy of trying to appeal to Zach's sense of guilt or shame would be- namely because he didn't have that one. "Yeah well, I'm pretty sure having his concern would be more likely to cause an affliction than cure one," Raven muttered with a slightly humorous lilt, hoping to draw the other girl's mind away from anything more confrontational than that.
Then Tabs remarked upon her appearance and Raven winced again, this time for herself at the reminder of her current downtrodden state. It was obvious that her hair was a mess, to the point where Tabs just couldn't help commenting on it. So much for acting like a professional, one night of easing up on the reins and it was all blown to the winds, it seened. Raven's physical form curled inwards on itself, as if to shrink and hide. That, of course, was a hopeless dream, since her big puffy hair would immediately give her away. If she still could, Raven would have cloaked herself in shadows and attempted to sink into them completely.
Then Tabs said something that sounded like a genuine offer to help her with her hair, and Raven suddenly felt an awful lot better. "Oh, really? Thanks!" Her hazel eyes were even wide and swimming with hope. In that moment, Tabs seemed like the nicest person she'd ever met..!
She was feeling oddly giddy and realized the cause of it slowly. Ah. This was probably her coming down from last night. She tried her best to look a little more subdued then, and took tips from Tracy's unconcerned chill even on receiving Tabs' discontented looks in order to achieve it.
Then Tabs seriously questioned Zach's presentation and looking at him too, Raven felt mildly embarrassed she'd been so concerned about herself. At this point he really did look like a hygiene disaster, and she blamed her currently woozy brain and evidently poor sense of smell for her not being disturbed by it before.
She then hastily agreed with Tabs. "You know what, we should definitely, definitely take a break now to get cleaned up. A shower sounds wonderful." Raven felt really dehydrated, dry all over. Running some cold water everywhere would definitely do her some good.
Then she could turn her attention onto her hair.
After handing off the papers they'd gathered back to the owner, Tracy flowed over with a suggestion issuing from behind their dark veil of dreadlocks. "Do ya remember the way to them? 'Cause if not I'll show ya."
"Uh," Raven's eyes shifted over to Tabs uncertainly, wondering if the girl was busy or if her offer could be redeemed at any time, but not at all feeling up to voicing that kind of question. And she wasn't sure either whether she knew where to go yet, or not. This place was a labyrinth of tunnels, but it also couldn't be that hard. Right?
She could possibly feel a headache coming on.

taffy789 • 2 September 2017 at 10:28 PM

Tabs caught the side-eye Raven gave her, and she immediately understood the unasked question.
“I can do the braids whenever, but first I gotta-” she turned towards where the Fifth leader had been standing only to discover his body had been replaced by thin air.
Confusion flashed in her eyes, and she swiveled her head around, looking for where the leader had disappeared to and finding him halfway down the hallway. Apparently, he’d decided to leave without bothering to give any quick goodbyes.
Tabs let out a small grunt of displeasure as she watched the retreating back of the Fifth leader vanish behind a tight corner.
“…But first I gotta deal with… that.” Tabs shifted the stack of files in her arms, pressing it tighter to her chest. “Feel free to come and get me later.”
Before she stepped off to chase after the runaway leader, she threw her head over her shoulder to look back at Raven, and mentioned casually, “I’m still not a hundred percent positive how you manage to… manage him.” A slow eyebrow quirked at the assistant before Tabs left after the Fifth leader.




The tight smile Jane had given Nine in greeting flipped upside-down as soon as Taji’s boisterous yell had rattled down the hallways. The assistant to Eight had stepped backwards during the ensuring conversation between the second assistant and Nine, and she’d remained quiet, lips anxiously puckered as she waited for the pleasantries to recede. She appeared relieved when Teji finally began to pull Buick away to talk to Eight, but her impatience illuminated when she responded to Buick’s greeting with a polite yet curt, “Yes, hello Buick, nice to see you.” The words sounded perfectly pleasant, but the tone was undercut with a sharpness meant to efficiently sever her obligation to conversing with the other assistant any longer than necessary.
As this tactic worked and Buick was mercilessly dragged in for the Eight visitation by Teji, Jane fluttered anxiously back to Nine, twittering about.
“Oh dear,” she sighed, and her hands jittered at her sides. Her chewed fingernails bit nervously into her palms as her fingers curled and uncurled themselves to the fast beat of Jane’s own heart.
“I really did not anticipate the new assistant to the Second leader being present for this.” Although she spoke out loud, Jane appeared to be muttering moreso to herself, looking pale with a realization of some sort. “It puts a wrench into it, it truly does…. But...” She seemed to steel herself to a resolve, and behind those square purple glasses, her brown eyes narrowed with focus.
She took a deep breath, and lifted her chin up until her determined eyes met Nine’s.
“Nine. Before this interro- erhm, interview begins, I possess some critical information and background that I personally feel should be addressed, or taken into consideration before you decide how to go about this… “talk” with Eight. And while I am acutely aware it may not be my place to declare this, I nevertheless believe-”
The sound of footsteps moving through the hallway froze Jane up. A Ninth division worker approached from behind, politely excusing themselves as they bustled past the leader and assistant and continued their path down the hall. Jane remained completely still and tensed until the Ninth worker vanished from sight.
“…I believe,” Jane finished, her stiff posture slowly melting, “that we should best discuss this subject matter somewhere more… private.”
After a quick glance around the area, Jane discovered an empty break room and politely herded Nine into it to continue the discussion there.


Mikey had noticed the door opening before Tina, as Tina had been too distracted trying to perfect her coloring technique with her injured hand.
A strangled “Oh. Uhhhhhhhh, hi!” coming from Mikey had caught Tina’s attention, however, and she broke concentration from her half pink butterfly to look up and see what had gotten Mikey sounding like he was being choked like that.
One inattentive glimpse up and Tina already had the full story- Mikey was standing face-to-face with some beautiful, well-endowed blonde.
The girl sighed and returned to coloring.
Poor, poor Mikey, that huge pathetic sap. Tina had barely been working the archival room for a few weeks now yet she could already read his entire deal like a book, and not a book with a particularly high reading level at that. The guy reeked of loneliness and talked often of being tormented by a roommate who practiced PDA as often as breathing air. His friend group consisted of people he knew from work in the Eighth division, but any other attempts at branching out seemed doomed to fail. From what Tina could tell, he hadn’t really mastered the elegant art form of not turning every first impression into a painfully awkward ordeal that made getting your teeth pulled at the dentist office seem like the kinder way to spend your evening.
As Mikey continued to say hello to the pretty girl and ask her what she needed, Tina shook her head in a bitter amusement. God, it was exactly the same fumbling manner he’d greeted that other girl, yesterday, this time sans Quincy to cover for him. Also, sans Quincy to give him a smug, knowing grin at his fumbling, so Tina took it upon herself to provide that for him.
As she watched the unfolding Mikey-disaster scene with that crap-eating look plastered on her face, Tina again glanced over the new object of Mikey’s infatuation.
Considering this new girl, it was obvious Mikey had a type. Blonde, and out of his league, and-
… and familiar???
Tina stood up so fast that she knocked her knee against the coffee table, both sending a ring of pain resonating through her skeletal system and causing the crayons on the tabletop to jump up in surprise.
To her left, Eight whined out, “Heeeeey~ You made me put a LINE through my kitty’s FACE!” but Tina was already on the move, rushing over to where Mikey stood fumbling.
“Teij!” She called out in an uncharacteristically exhilarated manner. “You’re okay!”
Her vocals gradually flattened out as she began gaining breath back, “I’ve been out of commission from the squad for a while now, and last I’ve heard about you, you’d been put in the infirmary, and…” She swallowed and regained all composure. “…I’ve heard… other rumors between then. But everything is a rumor in the Eighth division. Because all everyone does there is gossip and shoot the bull all day.”
“Hey,” Mikey piped up, crossing his arms. “I and every more permanent Eighth worker resent that.”
Tina glanced over at the boy. “Mikey, you were the one who told me that’s all you guys do when I first got there.”
“I know.” Mikey frowned. “That was sarcasm. Tina,” he chided in good-humor, “this is why they say teleporters don’t have a funny bone in their body.”
Tina matched his frown. “… And you say that, in front of not one, but two teleporters…”
Mikey blinked, looked at Tina, then looked at Teija, then back at Tina, then back at Teija, and-
His eyes widened, and it finally clicked.
Immediately Mikey seemed to be having a harder time facing Teji’s general direction despite all previous inclination he showed towards the girl. As he shrunk backwards, Tina couldn’t help but feel some sort of accomplishment, or perhaps that was just pure schadenfreude.


After Nine had been settled into a seat in the empty break room, Jane remained standing, and pacing, and she both stood while pacing in front of the seated Nine.
Her once resolute and focused nerves had shattered again into a cracking frame of shaky indecision and fretting panic. The anxiety that grasped her seemed to seep into her very words, dislocating thoughts and making her sentences extend and expand, tumbling never-ending run-ons and ideas that seemed to never find their correct place in her underdeveloped syntax.
She spoke on, like,
“I despise asking this of you, I truly do. I am well aware of your thoughts on the subject; I’ve heard your opinion for I am not deaf. But I maintain that this is imperative, and is something I’ve given much, much, so much thought and consideration into and if now is not the optimal time to act, then I am not sure what is.”
Before transitioning on, into,
“The appearance of Two’s assistant does vex me but it should not be a problematic issue, correct? She’s busy, and certainly should not linger for long, correct? However, if she does sit on in for the… “talk”, then…”
And finally spiraling down into her own thoughts, with,
“But there’s no other chance of knowing! Anything else would be a missed opportunity, and there’s too much to know, so much that doesn’t make sense, and-”
Eventually having had enough of Jane’s lack of explanation to the reason behind this private meeting, Nine spoke up, and Jane shut her mouth.
She composed herself, and when she finally gathered the courage to speak again, it was this time with a clearer purpose.
“…Right. I must explain myself more succinctly.”
Jane took a deep breath, and stood taller.
“…Nine. I’ve approached you today asking something of you that I know you may disapprove of. Yesterday you scoffed at my idea at interrogating the leaders above you, but today, I’m asking just that of you.”
Jane closed her eyes, then opened them again, concentrating that steady yet anxious gaze on the leader.
“I would like to request of you to make your “talk” with Eight something a tad more… able to achieve real results. And!” Jane added quickly, “No, I’m not talking about any physical threat of harm, just moving Eight to a more… confined and… forceful setting?”
Jane winced, slightly, at her own words.
“And before you judge this suggestion, Nine, I need to request two more things from you. First. Please think about how little you know about Eight, about her status and history as someone in a position of leadership on our base. And. Secondly.”
Jane moved, slowly, to a chair and took a seat across from Nine. She clasped her hands in her lap and fidgeted with them for a moment.
Finally, she spoke. “…I want you to please listen as I tell you everything I know and have learned about Eight.”

awesomeness • 4 September 2017 at 6:28 PM

“To begin,” Jane said, and her voice was soft, and nearly muted. “We must go back in time to about two year ago. I remember it well. I’d been sixteen at the time, and a bit of a ‘rising star’ in the First division. I’d gotten much attention from the higher ups for my work renovating the method in which supplies are allocated on the front lines. I’d received praise for my ability to not be so…. Short-sighted.” There was a small smile, at the power-based pun. She continued, “I’d basically been guaranteed a vital logistics manager job gathering intel and making recommendations on the spread of resources and troops over IOD. My name had even been floated up to One’s assistant and went through to the old One…”
Jane gave a small, reminiscing sigh at that, as if recalling a simpler, better time for herself. Then, wistfully, she tore herself away from that memory and moved on.
“That changed, however, after I was called into the assistant of One’s office a few months after the Truce that year.” Breaking eye contact with Nine, Jane nervously stared down at her lap and fiddled with her hands.
“Once in the presence of One’s assistant, I was informed about the current situation regarding one of our newest leaders, a girl by the name of…” Here Jane faltered, her eyes going distant, cloudy, as if searching for something yet not finding it. “… Something I can’t remember.” She finally admitted, bitterly. “But now most know her as “Eight”.
Jane’s hands untangled from each other, and one rose up to cup her cheek as she leaned into it, as if for comfort.
“Eight’s reign as leader would’ve been all just fine and dandy, sure, if only Eight hadn’t quickly proven herself unable- or unwilling- to accomplish the most basic leadership duties. The Eighth section fell apart almost overnight. She managed to chase away three assistants over the course of two months. Eight was sent out on more missions than any other leader during this short time, in what I believe was a ploy by some higher-ups to get rid of her… or at least provide her assistants some time to get the Eighth division back in order. Nothing seemed to work, however. Eventually a final straw was had and Eight was threatened with some harsher punishment, but it was then that the girl revealed that she was not going to be uprooted from her station any time soon.” Jane frowned. “According to Eight. During a recon mission shortly after the Truce, her group had run into a powerful Glaeroe counter-intelligence force. Led by, shockingly enough, the Tetra of the Glaeroes side at the time- the fourth highest leader of the Glaeroes so says our own intel. According to what Eight told One’s assistant during a debriefing, the Tetra’s power had compelled her to reveal her memory’s worth of information on the Falchions. Which, considering she was the leader of the information section… possibly includes all sorts of damaging intel. Eight however claimed to have rectified this information slip by eventually fighting back and erasing the memories of the encounter from Tetra’s mind. However.”
Jane’s hand left her cheek now, hovering anxiously over her mouth. She stared past Nine, at the back wall to the right of the girl’s head.
“…However Eight did make the point that. At any time while Tetra still lived, the embargo Eight had placed on his memories could fail, and it would certainly fail if Eight died…” Jane grew quieter here, “Which the unsaid implication that Eight could choose to unleash those dangerous memories at any time she wanted being clear to One, of course.”
Jane cleared her throat.
“Either way. A lie-sensing user proved to the best of their ability that Eight was telling what she knew to be the truth. Eight wasn’t to be gotten rid of, erhm, at least until the Tetra died. In the meanwhile, Eight was pulled from any more missions, was allowed amnesty from any Truce match, and was moved to working with Two on interrogation work. The thinking there being that Two would be the one best able to keep her in line as the Tetra issue was figured out. As for the Eighth division, it was decided by the higher-ups that, since Eight was not a suitable leader, someone should take on the responsibilities of the Eighth leader in place and run the section without the title. For that duty, One themselves had greenlighted me as the perfect candidate for the job. And I’ve been working at it ever since.”
Jane let loose a heartbreaking sigh at this. “The true Eighth leader of this base masquerading as the Eighth assistant, I’m here, always at your service.”
Jane went back to pressing her hands against her face in a flighty, agitated manner.
“Tetra never died,” she continued on, quickly. “Assassination attempts were made by order of One’s command, but they never got off the ground. Eventually it was tasked to Two, but by that time he and Eight had been working together for some time, and… as I’ve heard through the grapevine, Two was apparently greatly disinterested with carrying out that order. Whether or not it was because of what would befall Eight, who’s to say? Not me, of course not. These past few years have taken a toll on me and I, I,” Jane’s voice wavered here, “I can honestly say I often can’t recall a fifth of it. No matter how hard I try, some things, some random inconsequential things slip onto the tip of my tongue but remain just out of reach for my mind to grasp, and I, I-!”
She was shaking, her shoulders quivering like dying leaves in a strong autumn breeze. A gasp of calming air was sucked into her lungs and she exhaled slowly, steadily, and coughed once, to fully calm her nerves down.
“…In summary. That is what you haven’t known about Eight. In all honesty, I’m not sure I was even allowed to tell you all this, technically. It was kept pretty hushed up, for obvious reasons. Can’t have everyone figuring out how to play the system, as there are always imitators. Now. To the reason I’ve risked telling you all of this.”
Jane rose her head up, meeting Nine’s eyes again, finally. The assistant had regained a sense of determination, and it shone through her irises.
“Although it seems the higher-ups have pushed the issue of Eight under the rug due to my handling of the Eighth division, I have not forgotten what the girl has done. Yet all my attempts to… figure her out, solve this puzzle… they have all failed due to Eight’s natural tendency to be… difficult when it comes to answering even the easiest of questions directly. I am well aware that you’ve approached this interview with Eight learning about Two in mind, but I must reiterate,” Jane wrung her hands together, “that your chances of gathering concrete information about Two are slim due to Eight’s uncanny ability to derail and misunderstand any conversation. Which is why I’m suggesting this “interview” become an “interrogation”. An interrogation at least in terms of Eight being in a locked room that’s difficult for her to even weasel her way out of, if you feel inclined to restrict the interrogation to merely… those terms…”
Jane sighed. “Nine. As I’ve said, I loathe having to put this decision on you. But from what you’ve said yesterday, you seemed committed to finding out the truth, at whatever the cost. And I see a kinship between our ideals here! By interrogating Eight, you have a much greater chance of gathering the information you need… as well as, helping me answer some of my own questions about the Eighth leader, perhaps?” The girl coughed, then wavered, slightly.
“…Furthermore. If you’re worried about potential consequences, well,” she coughed, again. “I’ve told you how the old One had viewed Eight. And I’ve confessed to my… more-or-less accepted status as the de facto Eighth leader. Taking these things into consideration…”
Jane’s eyes again darted broke their concentration on Nine’s face. She didn’t seem to have the courage to look at Nine directly while admitting this.
“….Nine. You interrogating Eight... Isn’t something anybody has to care about.”