Private Roleplay~ IOD

in Roleplaying

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asi • 10 December 2017 at 7:08 PM

Nine's hand, having been pressed prudently to the device inside her ear to ensure every word above the static was heard, and to also alleviate the nuisance of a momentary itch, dropped back down to the table where it lay inert as if dead.
Across the table from her, Eight was giggling and chattering uncontrollably, like any input Nine might have given may as well have taken place in an alternate universe, for all the notice she took. The brunette never took her eyes of the girl, but continued to stare bluntly and piercingly at the Eighth leader all the while... to no effect.
Karen had heard every word Jane had said, and it sounded very... encouraging. In that she hadn't somehow managed to trigger an episode of psychosis in Eight that was hitherto unexperienced and that they needed to cart her off to the psych ward right now. That was definitely reassuring. But also in the sense that Jane sounded completely on board with continuing the interrogation... in a manner rather different from the relatively careful, respectful one Karen had thus far been plying. This assurance did not put Nine at ease.
In a way, she didn't like being led into a situation that could look very compromising for her if seen by the wrong eyes. Especially if the information Jane had given her turned out to be misleading in some way... If Nine had had the time and opportunity, she should have requested that her assistant to verify Jane's story with the appropriate authorities. Were this to somehow be a set-up-
But she didn't have an assistant to rely upon. One was lying prone in a hospital bed, and the other... was worse.
Instead, Nine had decided to rely on herself. That included her own instincts, which had told her that what Jane had said hadn't been false. Because this was the kind of risk she had to take, if she wanted any chance of uncovering the truth of the strange conspiracy seemingly underfoot. And Karen was every bit as determined as Jane appeared to get some answers as to what was going on.
Her gaze shifted downwards, moving from Eight's face to fixate on her nearby arm instead. Nine barely twitched, and energy pulsed through her hand, to settle poised in her fingertips, thrumming with pent-up power, waiting to be released. All it took was her reaching out and touching that part of Eight's skin that was closest, and like a jolt of electricity, it was transmitted. Spreading throughout the girl's system as quickly as lightning, enveloping Eight in her will.
She was going to achieve it through her own power.
With deliberate slowness, Nine leaned forward. She spoke with deadly seriousness into the narrow space between her and the paralyzed leader, just tauntingly within easy reach, but it was a gap Eight in that state couldn't possibly overcome. "You're going to tell me everything you know about that could hurt the Falchions or compromise our safety."
She shifted back into place. Karen pretended to brush a hand casually by her ear, looking unconcerned, when really she was adjusting her hearing tool to a degree bordering on paranoia, listening intently for any updated instructions that might come through in response to the rapid change of tactics. Some distance regained, she continued; "I'll be nice if you let me, but I'll be mean if you make me, so think carefully about how you answer this time," she instructed brutally, before releasing her from Nine's power enough to allow the girl's mouth to talk.

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taffy789 • 11 December 2017 at 11:23 PM

From that close of a distance, the blurry, far-away vapidity of Eight’s grinning expression had been visible to Karen as she chose to freeze the girl in place.
More noticeable then became Eight’s pupils- those foggy irises- widening with a sudden, surprised clarity.
And starker still was how the mist dispelled itself slowly from her eyes, with Eight’s face frozen in a loopy grin but her pupils narrowing, thinking, fixating onto Karen as the interrogator dominated the space between their bodies.
When Karen leaned back and allowed Eight’s mouth to move, the first action it took was to drop the smile and become a tight, flat frown.
Then followed a thunderous hum of energy pressing violently against Karen’s own.
What felt like a brick wall exerted a steady, threatening pressure against the interrogator’s energy, a thick, gray woolen blanket fighting to entrap and smother anything it could throw itself over. Eight’s entire face, slowly, oh so slowly, began to shift into a more tightened-up and concentrating pout, and her eyes remained staring straight at the other leader. Focused.
Moments continued to pass and the hum grew steadily louder, and Eight’s body was moving faster now, rebelling more freely against its invisible chains. Her finger nails, flaked with chipped, dark blue polish, dug into the right armrest of the chair, and her right arm began to lift, inch by inch, from the chair in a jittery, shaky motion. On the other side, her left wrist lifted slightly from the cuffs as her body lethargically propelled itself forward, pushing off the chair with the clear intent and aim towards Karen, no matter how slowly her body moved.
In Karen’s head, the energy pushed back, more forcefully, more recklessly, growing in strength and focus and looking to win, to overcome, to destroy anything that would try to hurt it. Eight’s stare hadn’t yet ceased its concentration on Karen’s sunglasses.
In this tense moment, the static in Karen’s earpiece crackled to life, and a sharp, clear, one-word warning of #Nine!# was exclaimed by Jane.

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asi • 12 December 2017 at 5:32 AM

Karen drew back sharply, as if the onslaught of energy resisting her own had delivered a physical slap to her face. The discomforted feeling in the pit of her stomach on seeing that uncanny, alert look in Eight's eyes certainly was physical in nature, but didn't even compare to the ache brought about in her head where Eight's defiance had fiercely and relentlessly pressed back against her.
The minute Karen heard Jane exclaiming her title in cold warning was the same one that the paralyzer let her already slipping grip fall free, releasing the completely from Nine's influence. It was a less than entirely voluntary motion.
Her power had never... been fought so thoroughly before.
The truth was, she rarely exerted herself in this manner. Robbing others of all agency of their own bodies was not usually the way Karen would go. The reasoning for that? Lack of opportunity more than anything else. As it happened, even when she was fighting in the main forces under Ivory, the previous Nine, being deployed on one grueling mission after another, where clawing Glaeroes bloody just for survival twice a week was her standard fare... getting a skin-to-skin touch on a mortal enemy was barely ever easier than directly slicing them with a sword or knife. For a power whose entire purpose was putting a stop to living things... it was ironic how obsolete lethal weapons as ancient as the Bronze Age made it seem.
But now Karen had been repurposed as Nine, and her tools would have to adapt in function along with the position. This was good training. It was just inconvenient timing, that she was learning now, in front of what was technically her superior... if she didn't consider Eight herself as such, then Jane. And her mind had been battered against to the point of her physically recoiling. She noticed then, glancing down, that parts of her were still quivering in response to the fight-or-flight trigger, small symptomatic signs of the greater internal assault, as short-lived as it had lasted.
Karen hurried to dispel these tiny physiological betrayals, as swiftly as she could recovering her composure, any trace of shaky fingers eliminated in the eyes of the outside world. If anyone beyond the room had indeed noticed her momentary lapse of control... she had no way of knowing right now anyway, and could only move forward.
Thus resolved, she cleared her throat briefly, staring unwaveringly back at the wide-eyed Eight through her dark sunglasses. Nine was not going to spare another unnecessary thought over the disturbing contest of mental strength that had just occurred.
"Now do I have your focused attention?" she demanded, one hand on the table still clutching the top of the cap she'd worn overnight, short-clipped fingernails sinking in with steely determination, not one bit lessened.
Because if nothing else, the striking and unsettling forcefulness of the encounter had told Karen that Eight was certainly capable of it.

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taffy789 • 20 December 2017 at 3:17 AM

There was something about the entire scenario that was giving Mikey a sickening, soured feeling of déjà vu.
The memory was intense, and it was vivid.
A woman, furtively breastfeeding in the back corner of the room; toddlers shoving Gerber-brand yogurt chips into their mouths by the fistfuls. The scent of his Tia’s cheap perfume filling the small, crowded room, and the fumes clogging his pores on contact with his exposed skin.
His baby cousin- B-B, as his family called her- babbled nonsense and teethed on a red plastic building block as Mikey bounced her up and down on the leg he’d once had. Somewhere to his left a mother was scolding a child for drooling over the missalette. Over a crackling pair of ancient speakers, a low, booming voice preached.
On the other side of the glass and out of the nauseatingly familiar memory, Nine had stopped Eight’s movements, leaned in low, and had just threatened her.


“Oh, it’s well, pretty dumb, actually,” Tina had said right after Teija’s prompt to spill the information. Suddenly worrying her trivia fact wouldn’t live up to any hype, she elaborated further on.
“I feel the need to disclaimer that all this religious terminology stuff could just be rumors.”
Tina fiddled with the dials, and a sharp, sound of static cut through the air. She grimaced and quickly readjusted the sound to a dull, quiet hum of white noise.
She continued,
“But whatever. According to these rumors, the isolation chambers had been known as “purgatory”, and the “punishment” rooms were called “Hell”, and according to who you asked and how dark humored they felt that day, either the morgue’s furnaces or the second division break rooms were aptly titled “Heaven”.”
Tina stopped fiddling with the dials, her hands resting loosely on top of them. A low, constant hum of static sucked the sounds of her breath from the room, draining out that small sign of life.
“… Apparently this type of ‘fun’ nick-naming stopped a while after our current Two had taken charge of the place. Which was good and well, I suppose. Since the extended analogy meant the second division leader was of course given the title of “God”, and, no offense to your new boss Teija, but that guy already had enough fanatics worshipping at his feet and thinking him some kind of minor deity for him to have a title like THAT given to him, even as a freakin’ second division inside-joke.”
From the poorly hidden contempt seeping out of Tina’s tone, it was obviously clear the kind of regard she held those worshippers of Two in. ¬Of how she viewed the leader and his actions herself.
“…Also interestingly though,” Tina continued on while unaware that, on the other side of the glass, that Eight’s eyes had started to widen, and her energy had started to push back, “…the interrogators themselves had a different nickname when actually like, interrogating people in those rooms. They had been called…”


Mass had never been all that exciting to Mikey, but somehow being confined to a small, crowded room with a bunch of crying children had always made it more tolerable.
It was always just so much more less stressful.
Sitting out there, in the crowd of pews and people paying penance, it had always felt so sweaty, impersonal, serious, uncomfortable.
The sound of squirming, noisy babies never failed to add a human element to what was otherwise a painfully boring mundane occurrence, like an appointment to the dentist to get one’s teeth pulled. Cleaning dribble off of B-B’s chin always took the hard edge away from the harsh words preaching about the new Hell of the week, or whatever the sermon was going on about. Back then, the room behind the glass provided a detached feeling from the rest of the mass that allowed Mikey to catch his breath, to pay more attention to making sure his baby cousin wasn’t shoving his Tia’s car keys down her throat again than to bother listening to the words crackling over the speakers in the room.
But the room this time was so very different than the one in his memory.
The words, the actions behind the glass, in the interrogation room, was all Mikey could find himself focusing on. The shielded room he was in was empty and uncrowded, yet still more suffocating. Jane stood still and lifeless near the glass, her stoic and flat expression reflecting into it. The end of Nine’s words still crackled their last breaths of life into the commanding speaker bellowing out into the room. They were words Mikey had to pay attention to, because this time there was no baby cousin being bounced on a leg he still had.
On the other side of the glass, Nine finished threatening Eight, and had leaned away from her. The Eighth leader sat still as a statue, and the air itself tasted like tension, and the last remnants of Mikey’s déjà vu burned to ash in his mind, leaving a dust coating his mouth and making him crave a cigarette.
Everything remained still right until Eight started to move.
Jane reacted violently.
Her body jerked backwards with a snap, as if something hard and heavy had repulsed her back from the glass. Her hand, with nails tightly dug into the window sill, caught herself before she moved arms reach from the wall. As her grip instinctively pulled her back, her shaky free hand fumbled with the push-to-talk. She pressed the button.
“Nine!” That warning came from Jane, but Eight had already stood up by that time, having completely broken free from her statue-like posture. Something made Mikey’s blood run cold in the way Eight faced down Nine in that moment, that split second, but a sudden, unexpected squeak from Jane flipped his attention back into the room.
Mikey barely had any time to stand before he saw the push-to-talk slip out of the sweaty, shaky palms of Jane and clatter to the floor, pulling the earphones down with it.

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awesomeness • 20 December 2017 at 3:22 AM

“Saint Peter, you know like, from the gate?” Tina talked on as Eight took that first, furious step towards Nine. “And yeah, I know what you’re thinking. That’s dumb. But it was more for the novelty anyway, I think.” She shrugged, a turned a dial. The humming became distant, clearer.
“Either way. The interrogators were considered to be Saint Peter because of like, judgement and all that. If they thought you were truthful, they’d let you off easy, with a quick death. If not…” She let her silence speak for itself.
“…Whatever. All this second division gruesome religious-cult inside-joke trivia is probably just half out Eighth division gossip anyway, that’s where I learned most of it, and there’s a few Eighth divisioners who themselves go in and edit the Eighth division’s “IOD Lore And Mythos” files just because they’re BORED.” Tina shook her head in disgust with her currently assigned division. “They are. Quite the bunch, I’ll tell you. But. To get back on track. About what THIS room was allegedly called…”
Through the speaker, Nine’s question of Eight’s attention went unheard through the static.


Through the speaker above him, Mikey heard Nine speak just fine.
He just wasn’t focused on that, at the moment.
Jane gripped the thin window sill in front of her with both hands, her knuckles turning white around it.
Her arms, legs, body was shaking.
“… Miss Jane?” was all Mikey could say, uselessly. He was standing at her side, at least attempting to offer a comforting presence. “Hey? Do you need me to go get someone? Hey? Hey?”
Jane didn’t respond.
On the other side of the glass, Eight stopped moving towards Nine, and instead, she smiled.

“Well,” Tina explained, “it makes sense for the room where people go and sit behind glass and scream unheard at something that can’t hear them to be only called one thing.” She said this, and she spun a dial to the hard right, and the static over her speaker became crisp, clean.
“The cry room.” She finally answered, smugly admiring her handiwork with the speaker dials.

Mikey didn’t know what to do when the tears began pooling at the corners of Jane’s eyes.
The girl pressed her head against the glass, her knuckles still white, and she closed her eyes, tight, before Mikey could even begin to ponder the implications of the tears.
They were gone by the time she opened them again, when Mikey asked once more, “Hey, are you hurt?”
“No-“ Jane answered, and she sounded exhausted, as if months or years of exhausting life had just been thrust upon her.
“No-“ Jane said again, and the rest of her voice caught up to her, croaking out in a small, even scared whisper- “I- I just… remembered something.”

Tina was still admiring her own handiwork when the fruits of her labor crackled to life over the speaker in the room her and Teija stood in.
A singular, utterly recognizable female voice. Bright and sunny, curious and child-like, but now sporting an almost steely, threatened edge to that tone as she asked, almost sounding upset-
“Do you think I’m trying to hurt people?”
Hearing Eight for the first time startled Tina, and, in her shock, she looked over to who she considered the more capable Teija for some sort of guidance to her own reaction.

Eight had stood up as soon as Karen had yielded. Her expression had been unreadable as she stepped towards Karen, but when the other girl addressed her, Eight had stopped in her tracks. Slowly, as if remembering who she was, a big, bright smile ironed itself out onto her face.
She laughed, loudly.
“Attention? Hrmm? Sure, Karebear! You wanted to taaaalkkkkkk right? About BAD things? About things that HURT right?”
As Eight talked, she danced backwards, skillfully, around the large dentist’s chair without moving her own eyes off of Karen’s. Once enough distance was between her and the other leader, Eight fiddled her fingers against her skirt, rubbing at the cloth material.
She looked almost uncomfortably present, focused on Karen’s next movement as she reasoned out, carefully, “You wanna… talk about the things that hurt because you… don’t want to be hurt?” Eight cocked her head to the side, as if remembering that, no, that didn’t sound quite right.
“Becaaauuuuusseeeeeeee~” Eight drew the word out, as if making all those syllables helped her think what she was going to say next through.
“….Because you wanna not hurt… our people…” In a moment of realization, Eight’s eyes went wide with upset. “And you just tried to hurt ME because you- you.”
Eight’s bottom lip quivered now.
“Do you think I’m trying to hurt people?” she exclaimed, and she quickly devolved into unmeasured agitation. “Because that’s not true!!! It’s really not!”
Eight had exploded to life now, all upset movements and high-pitched protests.
“I’m good! I try not to do bad things! I try to share things and give presents to people because they’re GOOD things even if I don’t WANT TO GIVE THINGS AWAY! I try to help people because I want them to be HAPPY even though if making them HAPPY sometimes makes them SAD later and even if that’s a BAD THING I still wanted to do a GOOD thing because I think everyone should be HAPPY!”
There were tears now, moistening Eight’s eyes. Agitated tears, upset tears, or even tears of passion- who could know? Not even Eight seemed to be aware of them as she stomped a childish foot onto the ground and exclaimed, for all to hear, “I’m GOOD! I really, really am! I don’t want to be MEAN AND BAD! I like when people are HAPPY and have HAPPY MEMORIES and you shouldn’t do BAD things to people and give them BAD memories because then you’d be mean! And hurting people! And I don’t want to hurt people!”
Eight continued to insist her goodness, and, behind that glass, where Karen could not see nor hear, Jane’s knuckles tightened into a stark-white, furious grip.

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asi • 24 December 2017 at 4:10 PM

"That's kinda on the nose huh," Teija commented jokingly, subconsciously rubbing her own nose while Tina explained the scare-quoted 'fun' and creepily religious nicknaming conventions the Punishment and Interrogation division were rumored to have engaged in in the past. The overt references to gods and saints made her wrinkle her nose, but Teija didn't express an opinion on the subject, or react to the tacit but obvious tone of Tina's. She had turned in the meantime from examining the observation room- now learned to be dubbed the 'cry room', for reasons the assistant didn't entirely grasp- back to watching the events outside the glass.
Something strange seemed to be happening with Nine and Eight, a tense atmosphere around them as the latter advanced, an eerie and uncharacteristically serious look on her round, chubby little face.
"It's-" Teija began to say, meaning to make some kind of remark, either critiquing division creativity or congratulating Tina's fruitful technological labor; but whatever it was, it was quickly forgotten, since several things began happening at once.
Eight spoke and the two teleporters heard her, only it was something quite alien, so different to what they'd already been exposed to, that Teija had to forcefully choke down the bubbling, startled, inappropriate laughter that threatened to break loose.
There was action in the interrogation room now, Eight moving lithely back around the dentist's chair, fiddling with her skirt in a way both so similar to what Teij had seen before, yet so completely removed that the blonde's head began to spin. At the same time, it seemed by her words and lucidity of vision that Eight was finally and truly beginning to realize the kind of situation she was in. And it was nothing but a surprise, for everyone involved.
It was then that the door to the right opened and Teij, caught yet again by surprise, quickly but belatedly turned at the movement. A slender girl had slipped quietly into the cry room, closing the door behind her. She paid barely any notice to the two teleporters already occupying the room, just sidled up to the window and preceded to watch the goings-on through the glass.
"Oh, don't mind me," the strange girl said softly, when Teij, too uncertain from the unexpected presence, was unable to relax, or even concentrate on Eight's new protests in the next room. "I'm just the overseer. Given the importance of Nine's... guest, I thought I'd better watch this in person, rather than through the grainy footage on the observation deck."
Eight started shouting shrilly, hitting max volume on the speakers, causing more than one girl in that room to flinch.
The overseer's appearance remained serenely composed, even as she leaned towards the glass and observed; "But it seems things got heated during my transit."
Teij could only shrug in response.

"That's right," Karen responded measuredly, refusing to be influenced by any human misgivings the leader's unexpected transformation might normally have given. And while simplistic, Eight's theorem for what Nine was doing with her in this room was... objectively correct.
Unfortunately, that seemed to be as far as Eight's self-controlled reason would take her, as immediately after realizing Nine's suspicions of her, Eight broke down into childish insistence for her own morality. Still, Nine couldn't deny... if those were Eight's genuinely held beliefs that she was espousing now, then that would make Nine's justice-seeking quest a lot easier in these regards. If everyone comprehended right and wrong, good and evil like a child... But contrary to her straight-forward-seeming nature, Karen was someone who valued nuance. Without it, how could she discover the truth of the matter? And more than that... She wanted the licence to punish those who wronged the Falchions. In a morally binary world, Nine couldn't have that.
Luckily the laws of this world tended towards Karen's side.
To get Eight to stop shouting, Karen raised both hands, showing the girl her empty, pale-skinned palms, relative to the rest of her darkly tanned skin. "Okay, I believe you," she assured Eight, hoping that this admission would assuage the stomping leader's tantrum somewhat, getting the girl to quiet while holding in reservation all the while her motto- innocent until proven guilty. Belief meant little or nothing to Karen in regards to investigation, so she could claim it in any direction while intending nothing. She felt only a slight weight on her consciousness every time she said it.
Pushing aside the bulk of Eight's concerns- for the girl could clearly avow her own innocence all day and never tire, while Nine surely would- she pointed out another option the other leader seemed yet to have considered. "Still, you may have helped someone else meaning to harm, without realizing the consequences," Nine suggested carefully, watching for anything of interest in Eight's reaction. "Someone like that could have used you to severely damage the Falchions, regardless of your intent."

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taffy789 • 27 December 2017 at 4:01 AM

With a slow, careful movement, Mikey retrieved the headset and push-to-talk from the ground at Jane’s feet.
The girl continued to mutter, more so to herself than talking towards him.
“Something. Something! A lot of sometimes. Months worth of somethings.” Jane cringed, violently. “Lyla! Crap! You'd asked me to change your mission dates right before she wiped me again. Crap! I wouldn’t have forgotten that on any other day. I could have… helped you… I could… have had-” Her voice went small, to a quiet whimper. Her fingers were still tight, wrapped around the window sill. She looked so pale, as if she had been struck with a sudden sickness.
As he fiddled with the headset piece, Mikey dully wondered if he should go grab a plastic bag or something for Jane to barf into if she needed to, but after seeing how shaken and bad Jane looked, he decided against it in favor of continuing to monitor her condition.

When Karen told Eight she believed her goodness, the Eighth leader immediately ceased her agitated insistence.
She straightened up instead, blinking at Karen and sniffing loudly and glancing over the interrogator with quick, judging eyeballs.
Eight listened, frowning, as Karen went on to explain the concept of being “used” to her. As the Ninth leader finished conveying her idea, the other girl’s expression morphed into an uglier, confused grimace, as if she’d just drank spoiled milk once thought good.
“Whaaaaaat?” Eight exclaimed, blinking fast. “I don’t… think that’s happened!” She crinkled up her nose.
“I would’ve… known if I did bad! Yeah, right away! Especially if it were gunna hurt us falcons or whoever! I don’t want the falcons to be hurt again like we were with all the mean bad ferals that attacked us all!”
Something then seemed to alight in Eight’s eyes, and it burned, so brightly. Her hands became very agitated, clingy, and their fingers began to interlace with one another.
“…BuuuuUUUuuuuUUuuuuut~” she sing-songed, now swaying back and forth on the heels of her shoes. “But but but! But if I…. HAD done something good that turned out to be very very bad, and now something bad was gunna happen cuz of it…”
She trailed off, her hands now having moved on from each other. Now the left one played absentmindedly with the big bracelets on her right wrist, turning them and fidgeting with them as she thought.
“Hm!” Eight made that noise and then, sharply, giggled. Her face broke out into a wide, big smile.
“Then I’d guess I’d just have to get rid of the bad thing!” She laughed, and the sound was loud, was like a clanging bell. “ ‘Pecially if it was hurting the falcon people!” She giggled on, and then shot Karen a quick wink before adding, “I like the falcon people ‘cuz they make me food and stuff!” She hummed, pleasantly. “Yeaaaaahhhhh~ The falcon people are nice and the eagle people are meaner to me but-” She cut herself off, abruptly, and her head swiveled about the room, as if almost startled by something, caught off guard.
When her body had relaxed, and Eight looked back at Karen, a familiar fog had settled unsettlingly over Eight’s irises.
“Huh?” Eight giggled, and when she grinned, she grinned right at the head interrogator. “But the eagle people are usually treated a lot meaner in here, right Karen~?”

“Why?” Jane croaked out, and Mikey was fast to reply with a confused, “What?”
“Why?” She repeated, again, her quiet voice almost hoarse with the strain. “It’s the one thing. The one single thing. I’m not remembering. It’s fuzzy. It’s almost there. Almost. I-”
Gritting her teeth against another wave of ache, Jane’s body shook again, as if being rocked on a sea of nausea.
“Why!” she exclaimed out, in a gasp, after the feeling apparently passed. “Why she does this. To me. I’d wanted to know even before I remembered, I’d, I’d had this feeling. Even Claire had had this… this feeling…”
Before Mikey could ask who Claire was, Jane shook her head, effectively shushing him.
“Gosh… Claire was right. There was no need to feel so selfish because of this entire interrogation. About wanting these questions answered. I- I- I’m owed that much, darn it!”
“Miss JANE,” Mikey said, throwing all the weight and force behind the words he could muster up this time, despite however shaken he himself felt.
This time, Jane finally heard him.
As she raised her head up, and looked up at him, her fingers unclenched themselves from the windowsill. They, slowly, began to regain their color.

At a similarly gradual speed, the fog dispersed from Eight’s eyes.
When she stepped backwards, retreating again from Karen, she was laughing.
“But that ain’t important, righto Karebear?” She said, her hands again twirling her bracelets around her wrist with a wild, reckless abandon.
“We were talking about BAD THINGS that could hurt the FALCONS, and how I wanna stop any bad things from hurting friends, ‘pecially if I caused them!”
There, Eight blinked. The bracelet being twirled around her wrist reached mach speeds.
“Well~” She clicked her tongue. “We were talking about SOMETHING like that!”
Giggling again, she continued, “Yeah! Anyway if something bad like that was out there I’d tots wanna stomp it like a nasty ole mean bug!” To emphasis her commitment to crushing bad things, Eight left her bracelet alone to smash a fist into the palm of her other hand in an universal “let’s pound ‘em!” expression.
Buzzing with energy, Eight stared directly at Karen with present, focused eyes.
“So if you’re ever ready to help take down any bad things, I’ll help you if you help me~!”

“I’m so, so sorry.” Were the first words out of Jane’s mouth aimed directly for Mikey’s ears.
Awkwardly, the boy rubbed at the back of his neck with his free hand. The “half kneeling half standing” position Mikey had assumed to watch Jane was painfully uncomfortable by this point, and his prosthetic rubbed against his leg in an agitating, almost itchy way. Still, he grunted out a concerned “It’s no problem” to the girl.
“No.” Jane weakly shook her head. “I should be. Ha… almost accustomed to this by this point. Apparently. But no. Every time this happens. I feel like this. Sick. Like I have a fever and don’t know where I am. I-” She cut herself off, her voice tightening with emotion.
Mikey looked away from her. He looked up, past the glass, into the interrogation room. His eyes drew themselves to the brightest, most colorful thing in the stark white space.
He sucked in a sharp breath.
“…This is…. Eight?” He questioned, and Jane only nodded.
Mikey gulped. A cold, harsh feeling settled itself into his stomach, as if it had just iced itself over and would start dying of hypothermia any moment now.
Jane found her voice again.
“It’s. It’s always Eight. I remember that, now. I remember that just like I remember. Months of my life. Just once ripped away. Out of nowhere. Gone.” She whimpered. “I don’t know why she did it but I have a few guesses.” She gulped. A deep breath. A shaky one.
“But honestly? I think the main reason is that she hates me. And I didn’t even need to remember that one.”
“Miss Jane-” Mikey began to say, but was cut off.
“And!” Jane said, and she laughed. An embittered laugh that was the coldest thing Mikey ever felt, and coming from him, that was saying something. When she spoke next, it was without concern for her words. No stuttering hesitation was present in the Eighth assistant’s voice. “It’s funny to think that. A part of me. A small, minute part of me. Had felt a smidge guilty for wanting Nine to torture the truth out of Eight in there.”
At that, Mikey stood up, with a start.
He was just taking a step back when Eight’s voice crackled to life over the speakers. Jane tensed at first, and only tightened up more after she understood the meaning of the words “I’ll help you if you help me~!”
Her hand shot out, towards Mikey, palm up and asking for the headset back.
Mikey still felt that horrible chill in him, looking at the hand, at the stern, wound-up Jane. He could feel the same cold in his gut bloom when he tried to glance into the interrogation room, where Eight stood.
Instead of freezing solid in place, Mikey’s arms began to move, and he pressed the headset back into Jane’s waiting hand.

On Karen’s end, a voice crackled to life in her ear.
It sounded shaky. Strung out. Bordering frantic.
# …Nine? Oh, Nine. Please. Listen. Don’t listen to Eight. She’s- she’s not- #
In front of Karen, Eight smiled again. Her teeth were all white and bright and shiny.
“Karebear~ I’m all for answering questions and junk! I don’t know who you think did bad things but I’ll help you catch ‘em!”
# She’s not… cooperative. She won’t be, not fully.# The voice was evening out, smoothing. The tension in it remained, but now it hid itself obviously behind kinder words. Words that sounded suspiciously engineered as what Karen may have responded best to. Forced, measured words full of now audible emotion unable to hide intentions as fully as they once did.
# She’s… going to try something tricky. Escape. You’re so much better just trying to. Pin her down again, um-”#
Eight was as cooperative and present as ever. She looked at Karen with those clear, bright eyes, and she said, candidly, “Since I’m not bad, I like being good, and I’ll help you figure out who is bad if you wanna know that, whoever it is!”
A harsh, choking sound erupted over the static in Karen’s earpiece.
# No! No, she isn’t, she’s-# Fully unable to hide itself now, the emotion shook itself out over the static, falling onto every word. # Nine please. Please listen. Eight- she can’t help you! She’s. She’s... bad. I can’t tell you why but- but- #
But to Karen, Eight offered to answer any question about any bad people on base. To Karen, Eight showed not one malicious bone in her body as she stepped forward, not within reach of the other leader still, but at least aiming to close the gap between them slightly. To Karen, Eight smiled, cheerfully.

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asi • 29 December 2017 at 6:20 PM

The ninth leader was taking some time to respond to Eight's latest bout of exclamations- she seemed the slow, thorough and relentless type, so in the cry room one of the girls took the opportunity of the lull to turn and properly address the two teleporters lingering rather unofficially in the room.
It would be misleading to say that the overseer wasn't in the least bit curious about their presence. But instead of accusing them of anything, the sleek figure preferred a more subtle approach. Sweeping her dark flowing hair loosely to one side, she noted publicly in a coolly conversational tone; "This kind of interview could have political ramifications for the whole base. I'm also here to represent Nine's interests from a more removed position. I've held my position since the previous administration, so I can offer some perspective," she sedately reflected, while giving both girls a quietly deliberate look.
It was just enough to unsettle Teija into replying in turn. "Well, I'm representing Two," she fearlessly announced, never one to spare the big name when she thought it could be played to her advantage.
"So you are Two's new assistant." The blonde was examined with a coolly critical eye. Even during the inspection, the ninth divisioner's eyes were blank like the shallowest rainwater pools and gave no cues as to what she was thinking.
"That's right. Teija," she introduced herself proudly, thrusting her chest forward along with her handshake arm in greeting. It was the same boastful, thoughtlessly bombastic manner in which she used to proclaim herself 'best teleporter' or 'top transporting dawg' back in her squad days, and almost always drew ire or a laugh.
This girl remained smoothly composed when confronted by Teija's boldness. "Selene." A crescent moon earring, formed of a simple twisted paperclip, dangled neatly from the one ear her hair was tucked behind. Selene did not accept the physical gesture of introduction, but continued fatalistically; "Hopefully you'll never have the misfortune to encounter me again."
Teija lowered her arm with a carefree shrug, though it did take some effort to keep her face straight and composed against the other girl's casual coldness. "Why's that?" the assistant asked with lighthearted curiosity.
"Under Nine, I'm also head torturer here," she said with a slim smile, and even Teija couldn't help but slightly draw back. Selene wasn't as tall as Nine, about half a head shorter, but given the stature of the two teleporters in the room, that was still saying a lot. The slim torturer towered over the two of them, and the effect wasn't at all lacking in intimidation.
"I see," after a moment, Teij grinned back. "I guess I should really be hoping you never see me again," she said, jerking a thumb towards the discreet camera visible in the top corner of the room, just beside the glass.
"That would cover your bases, yes," Selene answered, while fishing the ends of her silky black hair over one shoulder, where it draped and pooled elegantly around her collarbone.
"I'll be sure not to get into trouble," Teija replied with a playful wink. "You too Tina, right?" she nudged her insistently, not going easy on the girl's ribs in her animation.
Selene nodded, wearing a slight smirk, while keeping one eye steadily fixed on the interrogation room on her right.

Internally, Karen was pleased by the fact that she seemed to be making progress with Eight. Not only was the girl responding in a direct and comprehensive fashion, she also appeared fully willing to cooperate with Nine's investigation. Whether or not the answers Eight gave were truths or falsehoods hardly mattered so much- as long as statements that made sense were being given, the ninth leader could fact-check them later. That's how she'd determine Eight's degree of trustworthiness.
Though... Her secret smile was gradually, piece by piece replaced by a frown. The impression Eight had just made gave Karen the idea that someone as inarguably smart as Two could have manipulated circles around Eight with her none the wiser, if she was truly so naive as to how using someone might go. The point about the moral ambiguity of torturing Glaeroes aside, because without any outwardly changing expression or acknowledgment, Nine agreed that the question was not important. The answer was nuanced and included numbers, relative advantage and an us-versus-them mentality, all of which the ninth leader would rather not get into explaining to the childish eighth if she could help it. For that reason, the comment about eagle people was dismissed without even a turn of Nine's head.
On the surface in front of her, the hard rim of Karen's cap cast a curved shadow on the barren gray of the metal desk. She considered it briefly while deciding on what to tell Eight, to focus the girl's helpful mood away from stomping on bugs and onto telling Nine as much as information as possible that could be of use. She wondered even more fleetingly where the inside guidance she thought she had procured had gotten to, since Nine hadn't heard from Jane in a while, and would have thought the developments with Eight should have more than solicited it by now. Still, she could only interpret the lack of need for prompting as a good sign, right? Taking the earpiece's silence as encouragement seemed a fine idea at the time.
She said, taking the moment to stand up also and leave her chair; "The best thing you can do to help me is to tell me everything about important, unauthorized activities that you know. Specifically about rebel and feral movements." Karen concurred with Eight's remarks from earlier with a muted and temperate nod. With that said, she dared to possibly provoke the leader further, letting her know, with some of Eight's same simplistic language to get the message down smoothly; "You see, I have reason to suspect your... former coworker to have connections to bad people." Karen paused significantly, partially to ensure that Eight's fragile mind was still following along, and slightly for dramatic effect. She'd picked that up off her high-school theater-fanatic friend. "The very same ones responsible for those bad ferals that attacked us before."
It was then that her earpiece came alive again, and everything about the interrogation abruptly seemed to go to hell. With Jane trying with urgent desperation to convince her one way, and Eight smiling invitingly, giving a perfectly reasonable-sounding offer... it was a strange position to be mired in, for sure. Her co-conspirator that Nine had planned this with now sounded shot with nerves, while the girl they may as well have dragged in kicking and screaming (she'd done more than a fair amount of that since) was now calm, willing and confident.
But while one direction coincided directly with Nine's goals, Jane's... didn't. Instead of questioning for as much information they could get, it was now as if Jane wanted her to shut her ears entirely on whatever Eight was prepared to tell her. But that was Karen's job- to listen and determine the truth. She was at a loss as to why the girl would suddenly ask her to abandon it.
Well, Nine could hardly blame Jane if she was losing her cool a little- it wasn't like the eighth assistant had been trained for interrogation guidance. Admittedly, it was true Nine was a little frustrated at the amount of insight the earpiece arrangement had thus far awarded her- except the announcement of dubious evidence that Eight was 'bad'. Nine had to be forgiven for not being swept away with excitement at this apparent revelation, if she couldn't even be told why. Not that she'd been nursing hopes so high as to be disappointed either, but on the other hand, Karen was hardly thrilled.
Still, let it not be said she was one for carelessly ignoring her respected colleague's warnings without ceremony. Nine's insides hummed with cautious energy, hairs all over her skin sticking up as if in warning of the terrible paralysis just one touch of her could inflict on any human, unsuspecting or otherwise. She did not believe she would get caught off guard. Still...
Karen got the distinct feeling she was stuck between a rock and a hard place. And the latter uncomfortably resembled Eight's white, bright, shiny rows of teeth.
At least those were human and not sharp and pointy at the ends... Nine found her relief in small mercies such as this, and resolutely proceeded to finish explaining the situation aloud to Eight. "For that reason, I am undertaking an investigation of Two... and by extension, through your close association with him, you've been pulled into question." After delivering this, Karen paced one side of the room, crossing in front of the door and only exit before adding, in a voice quieter and rather less promising; "However, with your unreserved cooperation, no harm will come to you... or relatively less, depending on findings."
Then Karen paused, turned and altogether stopped pacing. She stood directly between Eight and the door, at the downstage center of the room as she envisioned it, although in reality the audience could be on either side of her through the glass, she'd forgotten which. "So tell me, did Two ever have you wipe the mind of someone, particularly of memories with something to do with the rebels, or of... him?" she postulated, without any real reason for suspecting so, save for some idle thought experiments Nine had humored, wherein she'd tried to emulate the thinking of a hypothetical master criminal Two, imagining what she'd do were Karen somehow in the exact position he'd held. Callous and cutthroat philosophy and all.

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taffy789 • 30 December 2017 at 3:03 AM

Tina had tensed when the overseer had entered the room, and the subsequent unfriendly banter between Selene and Teija only made Tina’s jaw clench down tighter on itself.
As Selene threatened them, Tina felt her flight-or-fight response kick in, and she spent most of her mental energy preoccupied with noting the fastest ways to exit the room while, in her fear, forgetting the fact she had teleportation powers and could hypothetically blink away whenever she wanted. But then Teija started to incessantly elbow her, and Tina had to appreciate the steady confidence of her friend.
She could only pray some of that dazzling self-assurance could rub off on her.
“Uh-uh yeah!” Tina squeaked out, at Teija’s insistence, “No trouble here!”
… Nevermind, that was the last time she was praying for anything.
Thankfully for Tina, her embarrassment didn’t have to last long, for the scene behind the glass began to pick up again.

At the first few requests, Eight remained perfectly compliant.
Especially at the mention of rebel and feral movements, Eight perked up with interest.
“Oooohhh? Feral movements? I think my division tracks those!” The girl swayed her arms about, in an almost delighted little motion. “And like, I remember! Lately there’s been like! Big explosions! Across IOD! Apparently it’s a big ole’ nasty feral!” Eight winked there. “I think my assistant Junie is tracking it around! You can ask her ‘bout it! But it seems bad, and I think we need to go kill it like we kill every mean ole’ feral on IOD!”
It was what Karen said after the general rebel and feral talk, when she narrowed the issue to TWO- that’s when Eight’s sunny expression visibly faltered. As Karen moved to guard the exit, Eight stepped in the opposite direction, further against the far back wall.
Although Karen was too far away to see the fog threatening to creep back into Eight’s hazy eyes, there was an unmistakable, clear quiver in the leader’s voice as she told her interrogator, softly, “I don’t. WANT to talk about Two-y~”
There was a silence in the interrogation room after that. For Karen, it lasted up until the a static-filled breath filled her ears.
# Nine. I. See you wish to proceed with the interrogation. And I. Understand your reasoning. # More silence. Then.
# There is something I just. Remembered.” Oh, if there wasn’t a dark, cold emphasis placed on that one, singular word. # Eight is hiding something. I know that much. And I apologize to have to say this so bluntly but. #
A sigh crinkled out over the ear piece.
# Nine, you won’t get very far with Eight by being good cop. #

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asi • 30 December 2017 at 10:26 PM

"Anything not being openly done within your division," Nine explained her focus further, trying her best to see if she could extract anything more secretive from the girl. It was true that the part about an explosive feral was news to Karen, but from what Eight had said about it, the thing sounded more like a bona fide wild monster than a rebel conspiracy- though she didn't rule out the idea they could still be connected, general destruction of the landscape came more under the jurisdictions of Two, Four and Five now than her own. Besides, she was sure Jane could clarify anything about the subject much more clearly and competently than Eight could. "Something Jane doesn't know about, maybe?" she suggested, sure it would please the assistant as well; "That would interest me."
When it seemed apparent she wasn't going to have any more luck chasing down this line of questioning, Karen sighed. She had heard what Jane had had to say.
Nine stepped forward, and placed her hands on the back of her chair before looking that faltering face in the eyes. It was through the shade of her sunglasses, but she still saw and heard the frailty in Eight enough to know it could be taken advantage of. She spoke lowly and plainly, with immense gravity. "I'm afraid this is not about what YOU want to talk about."
She gave Eight the high privilege of another deep-voiced warning before things got really serious. Karen stepped carefully around the chair until she was directly in front of the desk again, the one physical thing between herself and Eight, halting her advance. "You're going to have to tell me what you know, or suffer the consequences."
A short pause.
She slammed her palms down hard on the metal table, a heavy-handed gesture that was her automatic favorite interrogation technique ever since Two had passed her off a list and she'd found it quietly sitting in between several much more menacing options that Two had already demonstrated for her. On reading the entry, Karen had immediately enjoyed a flashback to a more innocent time, spent sitting on a couch in her family house's basement, watching a generically-named crime drama tv show while her parents hosted some boring family or job-related guests upstairs.
On asking Two to perform the movement for her, it had become rather less of a thing of family-friendly entertainment. In fact in its wake, the evening had evolved into a lesson of trying to master that same cold and dangerous expression Two had wielded to such effect, she had surmised he could probably have frozen hellfire solid with it if he tried.
The desk-slam? It was designed to shock the subject into submission.
The terrorizing intimidation came from the eyes.
... Which were right now hidden behind a pair of very dark shades, Nine was aware, but she hoped the spirit of the movement got through to her witness nonetheless!
The foreknowledge allowing Nine to recover quickly from the impact of the thunderous bang on both her eardrums and tingling palms, Nine continued, adopting a quieter tone that still seemed loud in the silence she'd left behind. "If he's threatened you, I understand," she started, although not sympathetically. "But you'll soon find out that I can be a lot more scary than even him if I try. And right now, I'm here," she pointed out, dark eyes slowing circling the room before returning purposefully to fix onto Eight. "He's not."
Karen's right hand still rested lightly on the metal desk's surface. "And I don't care what I have to do to make you tell me what I need to know."
She began to step towards moving around one side of the desk. "So... Tell me."

The desk-slam came across rather too well through the crackly cry room speakers, and it felt like the whole room couldn't help but jump from the brunt force of the collision.
"Is this standard interview procedure?" Teija couldn't help but question lightly, after a few minutes of watching Nine looming over Eight with a forceful, demanding presence. Apparently she was determined to dig up anything the other girl was keeping buried inside- even if it meant splaying Eight's guts open on the desk beside her for all to see.
The head torturer and overseer of the ninth division replied with uncanny steadiness and an interesting dry edge too; "In my experience, threats should usually consist of fears the torturer can believably carry through on." Selene pursed her lips. Her long, glossy and decorated nails slid down the adjacent wall, thoughtful. "However, I suppose it is preferable to see Nine handling Eight with woolen gloves than not," she conceded with a small roll of her shoulders, black hair slipping back off them.
The blonde's face scrunched up in somewhat perturbed amusement, as she said with a shake of the head; "This wouldn't be scary enough for you, would it?"
"If you answer directly to Two now, you'd best be prepared for much worse than this throughout your employment," Selene responded impassively, never once looking Teij's way throughout the exchange.
"Oh... yeah," Teija scratched the side of one cheek on remembering the ugly bruises she'd worn not so long ago. Granted that came from directly disobeying the leader, and she'd suffered- not worse, but similar abuse in the past for less reason, and much less reward- but... Glancing over at Tina still remaining at her side in the room, she decided to put on a brave, brightly smiling face and not think or speak on that matter any further.
They wouldn't understand the world she and Two came from, anyway.
"That's a cool cap Nine has, right Tina?" Teij pointed out gaily, just as a distraction. The item was still sitting peaceably on the metal desk in the other room, having bounced once during the slam earlier. It appeared in direct juxtaposition to just about everything else in the room at that moment. "'Living salty'... What does that mean?" Teija questioned with a genuinely bewildered expression.

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taffy789 • 31 December 2017 at 3:52 AM

Eight had drew back, instinctually, as Karen erased some of the empty space between them. The haze cleared as Eight’s body tensed, ready to defend herself against the other leader.
But then Karen’s hands hit the table and Eight’s posture crumbled completely.
Eight’s hands pressed upwards, into that messy green-gray bob of hair, as Karen threatened and pressed further. When she shook her head, the stringy, dry strands of hair flung themselves wildly about.
“No!” Eight protested. “You don’t get it! Spike-y never hurt ME! Not me! He- he never-”
Fog and water swam in Eight’s eyes, and she spoke, retreating further back with every word.
“I LIKE Spike-y! He’s my FRIEND! He’s my friend and I want him to be happy because- ‘cuz EVERYONE deserves to be happy, and Spike-y deserves to be happy, and- and-” Her back was pressed against the far wall now, pinned to it, with nowhere left to run.
“I just don’t-” Haze threatened to swarm Eight, overtake her again, pull her away. But Karen was fast approaching, so Eight clung onto clarity, with nowhere left to retreat to. No happy places left.
Eight’s voice wavered. “I just don’t want to BE HERE. I don’t want to remember.”
And with that, the floodgates opened, and Eight’s back slid, slowly, down the wall. She fell softly to the floor and sat there, her knees pulled protectively towards her chest. Her hands tangled themselves into the roots of her hair.
From this balled-up position, she muttered, up at Karen. “But- but… YOU want me to remember.” Her tone was blatantly accusatory. “YOU keep asking me about the BAD THINGS I know about on IOD! About Two! About hurt and- and-!”
Her head rose up, angling itself straight towards Karen, and Eight’s hazy, watery eyes focused straight onto the girl. “I’ve never wanted to REMEMBER that stuff! I like GOOD MEMORIES! Happy things! Not bad things! I’d- I’d… never wanted the bad things…”
With that, her voice was lost, and the haze seemed to almost completely overtake Eight’s eyes, and the girl’s body gave a shudder, and her shoulders seemed to sag a bit more, and-
And with a start, Eight managed to shake all that off, and she stood, was on her feet with a quick edge to her movement.
She took away from the wall, now moving towards Karen.
“BuuuUUUuuut~ Karebear, you want to know about the Bad Things, right? About the hurt?”
She stepped faster towards Karen now, slipping around the large dentist’s chair.
“You want me to tell you, but I can do all better than that, if you really want to know about all the. Bad things I remember!” Eight had moved to the other side of the desk now, within Karen’s reach but now unafraid of those slamming hands. She hummed. “I can show you.”
Perhaps it was the smaller distance between the two girls, or more likely it was because Karen could see more clearly past Eight’s hazy eyes despite the overcast of her sunglasses, but now to Karen, Eight’s swirling, powerful irises shone a dark, wine red shade.
Eight smiled, and her reflection gleamed in the black sunglasses of the other leader.
“So, Karebear~” Eight giggled. “Yes or no. Do you really want to know what I remember~?”

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asi • 31 December 2017 at 7:50 AM

"Sometimes," Karen said softly, standing over Eight and looking down at the balled-up girl with a completely stoic expression. Her lips pressed firmly together and holding against the bombardment of hurt and distressed emotions arising from her victim below. "Sometimes," she said again, and continued; "You have to remember the bad, in order for the future to be good."
And Karen wanted, she sincerely wanted to convey that hope across to Eight, and promise that with her cooperation, good things eventually would come. She wanted to swear that she'd make it happen.
But all that came out was a dark glare through thick lenses, weighing heavily on the bridge of her nose and the joins of her ears. The glasses felt like a barrier between her and Eight, despite the greatly increased proximity Nine had gained on her over the past few seconds and just so many strides. More than that, she could see now, when Eight raised her head, that there was something else, something in the other girl's eyes as well, that seemed strange and obscuring. Looking into those cloudy, shrouded eyes, Karen worried that the signals she sent weren't getting through but coming out scrambled and mixed up. But... there was no way of really knowing if what one person was seeing and hearing was the same as what another thought it ought to be.
Karen wanted to help, but what if she wasn't able to make Eight understand that?
And, as Eight took to her feet again with a startlingly fast movement, now on the advance, she thought; what if Nine's terrorizing of her had been too much, and caused Eight to want to hurt back? And what if she could?
The dark brunette hesitated, taken aback by the other's sudden loss of the fear that moments ago had held her shivering and clutching her hair. "I-"
She took a single, inadvertent step backwards when Eight gained in haste, own heart-rate quickening, but then Karen forced herself to stop. As she did so Eight did as well, standing close, well within reach. She breathed deeply, looking into Eight's clear and mesmerizing eyes, that she could now see to be a deep and captivating, darkly brilliant hue of red, and she heard Eight's offer. The girl's voice ringing in her mind like a bell sounding around a mountainside, simultaneously seeming both near and far. Immediate in its urgency, yet full of promise for things to come, and echoing those already gone.
She felt the unexplainable urge to pull off the interfering sunglasses and see those strange wine-shaded eyes uninterrupted, find if they really were so beautiful as they now appeared. But as for answering it- oh, as for answering...
A chill ran down Nine's spine and at her side, one hand already hanging loosely in a fist tightened and clenched under the tension. There was only one answer she knew she could give.
"Yes," Karen dared in her low and warning tone, for with that one word she felt dauntingly, terrifyingly far from satisfied. "But I want to be told!" she insisted back at the other leader with a desperate edge. She thought she could feel the sharped corners of the room closing in as Eight smiled. And her first instinct was to try and tell it to stop. Even though her voice seemed to be growing weaker the longer she stared. "I don't want to be shown..!"
She couldn't allow herself to be paralyzed again-

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demon • 27 February 2018 at 8:15 PM

Bright, cold lights above. The sound of human teens chattering, moving noisily about, sneakers clapping and scuffing on the linoleum floor. A power stepped into place at the end of the queue, holding the plastic tray she'd picked up by the door protectively in front of her torso. She was eyeing the room and its inhabitants warily, not wanting to get caught up in any mess. Given the war zone she had seen it become yesterday, her trepidation made contextual sense. Though Xela didn't suppose he'd attempt the same thing again today. Especially given how they'd parted not much more than an hour prior. She remembered with some unease the expression on his face right before he closed the door behind him. And then, worse, what happened directly after.
Guithe had given her a fiercely stern look, which after barely one sustained second had collapsed, dams breaking and her face flooding with tears. "Y-you said you were only gonna talk, now Cindy's upset and Septa's angry, you got Cindy hurt and, and, and now she's not gonna plait my hair anymore!" she cried, first using words small and shortly spoken, and then beginning to wail in her increasing distress. "W-why'd you do it, Xelaaa...?!" Though olive-skinned, the girl's face was subtly beginning to darken and turn red from exertion as she sobbed her heart out in the middle of the softly lit bedroom.
Meanwhile, not knowing at all how to react, Xela just stood there, unmoving, apparently unable to even address her partner's concerns. That only seemed to exacerbate Guithe's feelings, as the prolonged lack of acknowledgment further spurred her shouting out; "Xela, you're m-mean!" a lash that bit into the power as harshly as any tangible whip might.
The very real, involuntary, physical reaction Xela had provoked her into finally responding. "I'm practical!" Xela defended herself furiously, forcefully reminding the girl; "Septa's unreliable. You can't count on him for protection-"
Guithe had stopped crying in order to listen to Xela. She was still sniffling and rubbing at her eyes, but she sounded a great deal clearer when she interrupted. "He already offered me a place on his stay-at-home staff. H-he said if that's what I want, he can keep me as much as possible out of harm's way," she said, crossing her arms and glaring tearfully at Xela on the last note.
Xela stopped in her tracks. "Then- then- you should..." She found it hard to finish with Guithe's dark blue eyes staring back, shining with unhappy liquid. It was possibly the most disconcerting spectacle she had encountered in all her time of being in possession of a body.
"But I don't want to be protected like that," Guithe countered, a desperate, earnest inflection in her voice as she seemed to tuck her glossy dark hair back behind one ear, looking down at her shoes. She was somewhat shy, timid, not without doubt for herself, but she also had a steely backbone of determination that would never allow her to crumble when bravery was demanded of her. "I want to keep working together with you..."
"Well I don't know if you should!" her voice rang out with unintended volume, and Xela stumbled backwards in the ringing silence that ensued, suddenly unsure of her position. Of the words she'd just said. What... exactly was she arguing for, now?
Guithe also paused. She was breathing heavily, but still spoke with surprising clarity, despite trembling. "Is that what I am to you? A burden, that needs to be protected? I thought of all people, you'd understand-!" She was beginning to cry again as Xela cut back in.
"No!" The power denied fiercely, convinced at least of this fact; "It's best for me if you continue to aid me in combat- you are an asset- but-" Xela's argument faltered, her raised voice lurching to a halt as she searched for the words to describe what she needed so desperately to get across. Unfortunately, Guithe was far from out of steam and had no problem filling the stunted silence provided.
"Then fine!" Guithe thrust a hand sharply downwards, punching the air, stopping just short of a matching stomp. Her tear-filled eyes both glowered and pleaded with the taller, older girl. "Why shouldn't we do that, Xela?!"
"Because..." While she began with a low growl, the heavy reverberation quickly broke under pressure and gave way to impassioned yelling. "You should be selfish! Do what's best for you!" Internally, she fretted. Why couldn't this tiny, infuriating girl just make logical sense! Not that Xela had an issue with using humanity's strange self-sacrificing culture against them, to her own advantage, but this wasn't just any human. This was Guithe... This was Guithe's life..! And she was brandishing it so foolishly.
Across the room, Rambo made some scratching noises in his pen. Guithe went over and lifted a gentle hand to assure him, looking down into black and beady eyes. "I want to do what's best for my family," she explained, now composed, while Xela also slowed her breath. "I have to help them."
Xela unemotionally stated; "I'm not your family."
"No, but- you'll help me find them?" Guithe looked at her hopefully.
"No way!" Xela hissed back, incredulous of how this human girl's expectations had apparently escalated in the time they'd spent together. Where did assumptions like that one even come from? "We came here for one reason, to find one person, and that's all I agreed to before. That's all I'm willing to agree to right now," she crossed her arms sternly and ignored whatever weaponized look the little girl tried to shoot her way next.
Seeing her obstinancy, Guithe sighed, small shoulders slumping.
There was a period in which neither one of them spoke, but each looked at the other or indiscriminately around the room with mounting frustration and unhappiness with the current stalemate they'd landed at. The only one willing to express anything was Rambo, who was very satisfied with the neck-rubs he was receiving, in a mood much at odds with the rest of the room.
They both initiated speaking again at the same time.
"That's why Septa-" Guithe started, until she realized the other was also trying to talk.
"You should do what's best for you-" Xela went back to insisting with a concerned kind of vehemence that was beginning to rather contradict her own philosophical claims, until she realized that Guithe had begun to say something new and interesting right up to the moment that Xela had cut her off.
Grudgingly, she shrugged at the younger girl; "Fine, you first."
Guithe smiled softly in return before completing her sentence, sure to instill as much resolve and conviction as she'd intended the first time; "This's why he didn't want to tell you... because he didn't want us fighting over it!" She waved her hands wildly about as if to show what a self-demonstrating article they'd made of themselves- Xela just turned her head and scowled skeptically. Undiscouraged, Guithe continued entreating; "So Xela, please... I know it seems risky, but please, please try to trust him a little more!" Eyes wide and emotional, her argument now consisted of little more than a few scattered insistences, but- "If he really wanted to hurt us he could've already, and. They're all nice to me, and that means they're good, because... Bad people don't have lots of good friends!" she cried out, fists balled, every bit of her compelling in nature and punctuated by a purr of agreement from her pet ferret, who had stretched out and now yawned widely underneath Guithe's hovering hand. Rambo's mouth was on full display, sharp pink tongue flicking around the points of his canines.
Tearing her gaze away from the sight of sharp little teeth, Xela met Guithe's eyes again. "Guithe..." she said, and then didn't know what to say.
"I don't wanna fight with Xe-Xe. Or Miss Cindy. O-or Septa, so..." Guithe also trailed off, wringing her hands anxiously, and even if Xela had found something to say, she wasn't sure she'd be able to bring herself to speak it, for fear that wobbly look on that little girl's face would dissolve again into redness and tears.
After that she took a seat on one bed, just glaring habitually at the gauzy canopy curtain hanging from the bedpost opposite to her, as she was apt to, and not long later her companion mentioned that she was hungry. So that was all that was said on the matter at the time.

Xela wasn't sure whether she believed Guithe about Septa, but Guithe did. The younger girl could make her own judgments and decisions based on that, since Xela didn't claim to control her. But because Xela valued the human's partnership so highly, she couldn't completely disregard her opinion, either. Xela...
Xela didn't notice she was staring too hard until the plastic in her hands gradually began to grow heated and rather more malleable than it ought to be. Hurriedly she lowered the tray outside the danger zone and began to surreptitiously wave the thing in order to cool it before she got near the head of the line and its loading bay. Fortunately for her, the second tray she'd kept pressed into the shape of the first hadn't fused together with it to form a thicker, inseparable and precisely half as useful mass.
She was nudged and jostled along in line by the more rowdy and pushy group behind her, and when she got there, she laid both trays down and appealed to the lunchlord for more once the first was filled. "My roommate. She can't come here herself-" Xela started, only for the impatient boy to immediately shake his head and usher her on.
"She's sick-" she tried to insist, but to no avail. Short of actually enacting violence, it was clear that Xela wasn't going to be able to change this person's mind. And Guithe had forcefully extracted a promise that she wouldn't do violence before she'd been allowed to leave! Did this count as provocation..?
Even if Xela had wanted to reduce that unfortunate worker to a miserable pile of ash, it wouldn't have proved fatal, as in the next second the inconsiderate teens behind Xela shoved her out of line, greedily surging forward to occupy the space in which she'd stood.
In her disgust at this entire encounter, Xela tossed the unused tray from one hand into the trash, gaining some small satisfaction from the small clutter and splat noises it made upon hitting the bottom. Now with only one tray in hand, she had to wonder what to do next, sighing and looking over towards the door.
That was when suddenly, she spotted two faintly familiar figures, an unlikely pair sitting across from each other at a cafeteria table. Molly's back was facing her, while from where Xela was standing, she could see Manny's face. He seemed to be listening to whatever the large, blonde assistant was saying, but with a slightly bored, partially uncomprehending expression. One hand had dug itself into what little short black hair he had on his head, offering structural support constructive to keeping his face off the lunch in front of him. His other hand was unenthusiastically pushing around a fork inside the standard-issue lunch tray he'd received, identical to Xela's own. On the other side of the table, Molly was enjoying a large salad bowl with several plastic-wrapped sandwiches on the side for later. Spec-op privileges, indeed.
It became clear she'd been looking directly that way for too long when Xela inadvertently found herself in locked gaze with a pair of dark eyes; Manny had caught her staring. Not to be cowed by even the awkwardest of human moments, Xela refused to break stare- and she didn't, even when shortly she became distracted by sight of movement nearby on the table- Manny's hand being slowly lowered from his head.
And then, without breaking contact, Manny slid his hand across the table and swiped a package of Molly's sandwiches without the blonde even seeming to notice! Given that Xela had caught the entirety of the action just by looking at him, it wasn't that his sleight of the hand was just that smooth. It was more like Molly was so totally absorbed in her own conversation, waving little salad fork circles in the air as she animatedly talked, that anything below Manny's shoulder level passed her by, and everything above gave nothing incriminating away. She still continued to watch, utterly intrigued by what she'd witnessed, but he merely gave her an oddly meaningful look before he resumed paying attention to the girl talking in front of him- albeit with a glaze across his eyes that indicated he wasn't putting all that much effort into it.
Xela, having won the stare-off, could see little else to do but give up for now and go home.
In her path to leave, Xela had to pass directly by their shared table, stationed as it was near the door. When she rounded the table's side, she saw the sandwich again- held in one hand neatly tucked behind Manny's back.
Xela stared in bewilderment at the shiny wrapped meal, watching while it seemed like he was waggling it at her. She only had a split-second to make the decision as she walked by, or risk drawing attention to herself.
So she reached out and grabbed it in passing, the foreign hand surrendering the parcel easily, without the least bit of resistance. From behind his back, the now-empty hand waved and withdrew, returning back to its place resting innocuously atop the cafeteria table.
She looked at this strange proof of human kindness in her hands, a strange unbidden smile lighting her face. Tentative, but unquestionably pleased, as she exited the cafeteria with this prize.
Despite his objective loss, it felt an awful lot like a victory for the both of them.
In the coming week, Manny and her were supposed to be on one team. This made her think that maybe working together wouldn't be such a bad thing. Reflecting on what she'd seen of him before, Xela decided she didn't really blame Manny in the argument that had happened. She wouldn't want her girlfriend anywhere near Septa, either.
With feet lithe and notably more buoyant striding through the corridors, the power navigated a path back to the room she and Guithe shared. In her two steady hands she carried a tray, two mismatched servings of lunch secured on board.

Back within the warm and rosy pink-toned confines of their shared suite, she stepped carefully over the colorful artwork and crayons spread out across the floor... to find the young girl already scoffing down a plate piled high with noodles from off of her lap. It seemed like lunch had been delivered after all. Sans Xela.
Well, she thought, looking down at the contents of her hands again and reevaluting the immediate plans for her human stomach: the extra provisions were nice. Okay, the cafeteria food wasn't interesting at all, and it would be even less appealing when cold, but the special spec-op sandwiches... Xela spent a moment staring with a kind of detached fascination at the tidy, attractive package. It interested her. Not just for what it represented, the curious human practice of teamwork, but also on its own merits. The intrinsic capacity for internal pleasure it offered. This caused her to remember with distaste the nights of clawing hunger she'd experienced traveling the arid lands in between stolen meals. It hadn't seemed to matter much to her at the time, but since then...
Xela discreetly wiped a sliver of human saliva from the corner of her mouth while she put the extra lunch away for now. She better not tell Guithe that part had been stolen. From one of Septa's friends. That would have to stay Xela's little secret. Also by one of Septa's... friends? It was complicated, but plotting herself a midnight sandwich snack was much less so.
With that happy conclusion reached, Xela sat down beside Guithe to do similar damage to a second plate that had been laid out for her. The younger girl offered a somewhat messy grin as she joined her. They talked lightly in between bites, carried largely by short chirps and shorter acknowledgments, of nothing of great importance.
Guithe seemed much more relaxed now, all easy smiles and good humor over the course of the meal. Xela could feel the wondrous effects of human food affecting her, too. At times the process of eating seemed dull, monotonous and bland, and yet at others it felt... strangely empowering. She was halfway through her lunch and already feeling contentment from deep in her stomach. Perhaps it was because of that that she didn't seem at all prepared for what happened next.
It was then that Guithe gave her the ultimatum.
Setting her fork down on her greasy but otherwise clean plate, Guithe announced in a voice that was sudden and strong, despite her weedy, childish vocal chords; "If you don't want to go out with him tonight, I'll go instead," she declared boldly.
Xela nearly choked on her noodles. "I'll go," she said when her passage was clear, and Guithe appeared surprised by her quick assent.
The girl swept a hand across her fringe purely out of habit rather than necessity, as thanks to Cindy's cut the hair no longer even teased at her brows. "Um, you won't attack anyone, will you?" she checked again, a tremulous note betraying the worry that she fought so hard and so often to conceal.
"I won't, I won't!" Xela waved her hand and the little girl's worries aside. Too quickly, as in the next second she thought about it and had to include an addendum. "... Provided they don't attack or threaten me first," she asserted, as per their cafeteria agreement.
Guithe giggled nervously. "I guess that's okay then." When she stretched out along the floor to grab a chubby crayon that had rolled away from her, it looked like the conversation was over, for now. Guithe hummed as she drew and Xela struggled greatly not to admit to herself that it was just about the cutest thing ever, period.
Although Xela didn't stop eyeing the scheming child warily, she picked up her own fork again and resumed slowly eating, more careful of the choking hazard this time. As Guithe raised the brightly colored crayon up to her face and seemed to contemplate it intensely, Xela considered both of their choking hazards.
But it was a calm awareness. There was no sense of tension, or urgency, save for the slowly looming deadline of the coming Monday. At which time anything she might wish to accomplish on base would be taken off the cards; like a sensible mother, aware of her greedy child's intentions, using her long arms to smartly move the delectable cookie jar up onto the highest shelf and firmly out of reach. What happened after that would be beyond Xela's control, out of her hands. With that in mind, Xela finally began thinking on what she'd say to Septa when they met later that night.

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