“Jacq, no,” said Dirk suddenly taken aback, “you can’t split the group.”
“Dirk’s right,” said Tenz, “bad idea. I think maybe you’re putting too much pressure on yourself…” he looked around and saw that Jacquie had shown some slight political acumen already: Tatiana, Spirit and Valor already knew of the idea, even if Spirit wasn’t convinced yet.
“I must,” she replied. “I believe if I journey to the Legion, I can help push things in the right direction. Find out who the right people are to gear up for Mordru’s attack. Condo and Vi know us, but they haven’t seen all that we’ve seen. Their fellow Legionnaires most likely believe what we told them, but its all still distant to them. If I actually go there, that will be a completely different thing all together, considering how much I’ve actually experienced in regards to Mordru.”
“Jacq,” said Dirk, but she cut him off again.
“Nura, Maziah’s sister, is there, and so is Irma. You don’t know Irma, Dirk, but Maziah, Tatiana and I do, and she understands the larger picture too. She can be our ally.”
“Then why don’t we all go?” said Dirk. “We’re still not sure what’s next for us all. So let’s all go to the United States. I lived most my life there and I know it better than any of you, including the two Legionnaires. I know New York, where the Legion is.”
“Because Dirk,” said Jacquie, feeling more guilty, “because you’re all needed here. There’s still a great deal of work to be done here, in this part of the world. The U.N., including finding out who Mordru’s mole is, since we know he must have one. Keeping a close eye on the Khundian advance. And…”
“…And Maziah,” said Tatiana. “Maziah is still out here somewhere. We need to find her. You know that’s true Dirk,” she said.
“Of course I know,” said Dirk. “How do we know Maziah is alright? That’s she’s still close by us?”
<font face="Lucida Sans Unicode">“She is alright, Dirk,”</font f> said Blok, <font face="Lucida Sans Unicode">“I know that much. Jacqueline is again right, there is much to do here still. On this, you must trust me, as you have so often in the past. There is much to do here, and I will need help to do it, otherwise, I too would go. For I believe the Princess is right. With the Legion she will find great allies, and powerful ones. With a vibrant new idea that could combat the Dark Lord. And perhaps, she can find out most powerful ally of all.</font f>”
“You haven’t led me wrong yet Blok,” said Mon-El, “so I do trust you. But I hope you know what you’re doing Jacquie. Consider how many enemies you’ve made since you and I have known each other. Vampires. Demons. Entire Nations. Secret Societies. And let's not forget your blood enemy, the Emerald Empress. Any of these may attempt to overtake you on your journey. Even still, if they do not, you’ll still be in a land you’ve only ever heard about, trying to contact a group who may not be pleased with the contact when it happens.” She looked at him, trying to figure out how to reply to his words. They all looked up to Mon-El so much, including her.
It was Valor who answered for her though. “I will go with her,” he said. “For added protection, and because I know the Legion, and my presence can help ease this transition.”
Now Spirit was surprised. “Val, you know they must be so angry with us,” she began, but he cut her off.
“I trained almost every one of them in how to fight. I have probably had an intimate moment with each one of them at one time or another in that regard, which is more than anyone else in the Legion can say.”
“Its not the Legionnaires I’m worried about,” Spirit replied.
“Chu, then? The U.N.? SHIELD? Luthor even? I never did, and never will, answer to any of them. So I don’t care what they think.”
“Okay,” said Spirit knowing full well things wouldn’t be that easy.
“You’ll need me too then,” said Hasim suddenly. Until now, he had hardly moved in his chair. “For added protection, like Karate Kid said,” he added, emphasizing his new moniker for Val at the same time. “I’ll go too.”
Jacquie turned to him, and this time, she actually walked over two seats to lean in front of him. “Hasim…” she began, but couldn’t finish. “…you don’t need to…”
“I want to,” he said sternly.
From the very beginning, when Hasim’s attitude and words lost him friends among the group, it was Jacquie who made sure he was okay and included. It was Jacquie who essentially cared for him when he pushed all the others away. Perhaps it was because she was the leader of the group and saw it as her job to do so. But all of them knew it, that Hasim saw Jacquie as much more than a leader or a friend. Hasim loved Jacquie. None of them could tell if there were any feelings that Jacquie had for Hasim, given the nature of her powers making it so hard to read her. And then in Zerox, when Jacquie watched Hasim kill that man O’Ryan, when Hasim was doing it specifically to save her…well, that made things that much harder to read.
Now Dirk could see how complicated all these feelings really were. He knew Jacquie better than many of the others, and in a way, better than even the girls whom she had communicated with telepathically her whole life. They had become tight and relied on each other’s opinions, and Dirk had somehow pierced through Jacquie’s shell and begun to see she did have a budding attraction—to Val. Val obviously cared about her too, and Hasim could easily see that. Now Hasim desperately wanted to be sure those feelings wouldn’t be reciprocated.
Jacquie stared at Hasim’s face, the two locked eye to eye. At last she spoke: “alright,” she said. Val closed his eyes and quietly leaned back, and Dirk knew he was disappointed.
“You’re really going then,” said Tenz. “You three are going to America and the Legion, and the six of us will be stuck here on a Greek Island.”
“Seven,” said Jacquie, “because you need to find Maziah.”
“Right. Absolutely,” said Tenz. “But…when Condo left, he said ‘this is the Breaking of the Fellowship’ because I knows I would think the Tolkien reference would be cool. But now…now it really feels like this is the Breaking of the Fellowship.”
“We’ll meet up again, Ten Zil,” said Valor.
“Yeah, during the fight against Mordru. I’ll wave to you when he turns Tenz and me into frogs,” said Dirk, half-kidding, half-serious.
Tatiana walked over to Jacquie and hugged her friend tightly. Two tears rolled down her cheeks. “Say hullo to Irma and Nura for me,” she said.
“Okay,” said Jacq with a small sniff. “Say hi to Maziah for me.”
“Hey, the goodbyes can wait until tomorrow at least!” said Tina. “I don’t want to start crying yet!” They all laughed a little. “I’ll give you some messages to take to various Legionnaires, Jacq. I know which ones might be the ones that will help you most, and I maybe if they see something from me they’ll know my trip over here with Val wasn’t in vain.”
“That would be great Tina,” said Jacq. “I’ll tell Nura about what we heard in Khundia too,” she said again.
“More secrets?” said Hasim, but then waved her off before she could reply. “Don’t bother; we all have them anyway…”
Blok put his hand on Jacquie’s shoulder, and another one on Valor’s. <font face="Lucida Sans Unicode">“What you will do is for the good of all of us, and it requires courage and commitment, which I know you both have. This war cannot be one by those of us in the shadows alone. You do right to reveal to the entire world.”</font f>
-----------------------------------
Not far off, the Black Pirate watched with great interest, seeing for the first time an alliance against Mordru being formed and taking action. He surprised himself as for the first time in a long while since he had been a ghost, he felt the familiar rush of excitement flow through him.
Even farther, in Khundia, the girl known as Veilmist wondered if she had made the right choice and exactly what the boy Dirk Morgna could possibly do that could ever help her.
Farther still, in Manhattan, Nura bint Mordru bin Ahmad Al-Nayal, the Legionnaire known as Dreamer, looked up at the same stars, though only just becoming night, and wondered again about recent dreams. She smiled to herself. At last, she thought, I can meet another friend for the first time.
-------------------------------------
The goodbye was brief the next morning, but surprisingly more sad and tear-filled than any of them thought it would be. Val nodded and shook some of their hands, while Hasim waited quietly, not giving a word of goodbye to any. Jacquie hugged them all, and Tatiana especially tight, both shedding some tears. She also hugged Dirk tightly, and the two exchanged some whispered words of encouragement.
A decision to see this through the bitter end had been made.
With the rest of all of their combined money and a little help via illusions, the three young teenagers purchased three tickets aboard Oceanic Flight 823 to the United States.
[ March 19, 2008, 07:10 AM: Message edited by: Cobalt Kid ]
From: If you don't want my peaches, honey... | Registered: Sep 2003
| IP: Logged |
Lorna sighed as she looked out the window of the taxi. NYC certainly hadn't got any less... crowded in the time she'd been away.
[...]
Eventually, simultaneously, the two released one another.
Cos broke the silence. "I missed you," he said gently, brushing a strand of her hair back.
"I missed you too," she smiled.
[...]
Neutral noticed a strange blob in Cos' pocket. "What's that?" she asked, pointing at it.
"Stress ball thing. Apparently, it was sent to me a couple of months back, but it only filtered down through the parcel-checking systems not long after you left. ."
He moved to hand it to her, but as it came in contact with her hand, before he released it, something happened...
He felt a wave of dizziness hit him...
She felt her 'sisters' rushing towards her in a forced merger...
And both of them felt the world burn to white...
Welcome Back? Level 2 - Desolation
Trinity awoke to a sea, not of white but of black. A seemingly endless, lightless expanse.
"Cos? Cos!? COS!!??" She got no answer. "...anybody?" she asked, in a low voice...
Remembering her day alone in McCauley's Black Room before her brainwashing, she struggled to control her panic, and instinctively split into her three trifurcated selves. Then she heard screaming. Three loud screams. It took a moment to filter through the pain which had suddenly assailed her that the screams were hers.
They fell to the ground, teeth clenched, as Orange continued to scream before it faded to a whimper. As if from far away, they heard Cos' shout, and Purple just managed to raise her head to call out to him before falling again. They heard footsteps, and suddenly felt a foot kicking into Orange's leg and the sound of a fall.
He said something they couldn't hear, then felt along until he found their heads. He said something that might have included "happened". Purple just moaned in pain that the split hurt. He asked if they could remerge, getting louder, more frantic as he asked again. Purple strained to say that they would try, and to get back.
They heard him step back, and tried to focus past the pain until they felt themselves begin to flow, three bodies rejoining to one.
She managed to call out that she was alright before she fainted. _____________
The foul smell under her nose woke her up. She squirmed, and it was withdrawn as the hand underneath her pushed her forward to a sitting position.
"What happened?"
Cos' voice came from above her head "You fainted after you remerged - I hope, I felt around for more of you, but in this pitch black... you did merge, didn't you?"
She paused for a moment, "Yeah, just me. I'm all in here." A longer moment. "That's never happened before. It felt like my heads were going to explode."
"You're okay now though - I mean, as just the one of you?"
"I think so. Are your powers working okay? Where are we?"
"I'm not sure - they seem to be working normally, but with no sight and nothing at distance to latch onto, I can't be 100% sure. Where? No idea where we are, but it's certainly not LHQ."
"That stress ball thing was a teleporter?"
"Looks like it. It must have been set to trigger when two people touched it at once, because I've had it for weeks and half the team's touched it at one point or another. It's not exactly standard tech. Someone went to a lot of trouble to set a booby-trap like that."
"It doesn't have to be tech - the elf-girl McCauley used to catch me - Clarice? - was a teleporter, but she used spears to open her portals. Someone else might be able to do the same thing with more control."
"Maybe..." Cos' voice trailed off, and he took her hand. "Right now though, unless you've got it, I don't think it makes much difference how it works."
"You don't have it."
"I didn't wake up with it in my hand anyway. In this black, there's not much chance of finding it even if it came with us."
"Lovely." She sat down, and tugged his hand to indicate that he should too. He felt her hand shiver, and clasped it tight.
"N-no, it's ok-kay Cos. I'm just c-cold." Trinity stuttered, teeth chattering. He remembered that she'd just been wearing a T-shirt before they'd been whisked away, while he'd been wearing his insulated costume, minus the gauntlets.
"Lu..." Cos pulled his short cloak off and put it round her shoulders. "Are you sure that's all it is?"
"S-sure. What el-lse would it be?"
"You tell me."
"N-nothing."
"Are you sure?"
She set her jaw and focused, trying not to think about the Black Room. "Yeah, I'm sure."
"It's not connected to anything that happened when... you know?"
"Not everything's about that Cos. You're not trying to pull a Gene, are y-"
"Lu, I'm the one who spent hours arguing to and with Gene after what happened to STOP you getting kicked off the team! Do you have any idea how much scrutiny we're under these days?"
"Huh"?
"Well, firstly, Luthor, obviously. Technically, he's got no power over us, but he's got 'influence' and that's nearly as bad. It took him months to get out from under the pile of dung we dropped him in in Columbia, and he STILL got elected within a year - what does that tell you?"
"Red States vote blindly?"
"You know what I mean. I've met him twice with Gene - trust me, he's not forgiven us for that. Plus, we've weakened our own position - half the team disappeared off on their own private missions; including us, and we marked our cards even if we technically got away with it because of the sheer volume of evidence. And then there's Tina's group. If they're lucky, they'll "only" get formal reprimands - final warnings - and if there were ready replacements, they WOULD be kicked out.
That's one of the main reasons for the Academy - out of a hundred or so students, at most five, plus Gates and the other two powered teachers, a Ms. Moonstar and a Ms. Lonestar, might be ready to join now. And four of those eight were asked and said no, two were decided to be too borderline, and Moonstar's tutoring experience was decided to be too valuable if they wanted it to work out. Just one even said "maybe" - she asked until the New Year to think it over - and it'll be at least a year before there'll be anybody else.
And even WITH that, as I say, if Tina's group ever decide to show their faces again, they'll be lucky to stay members. I'm not even sure Irma could save them."
"And here's me with a 'marked card', words like 'compromised', 'split personality' and 'low-powered' on my file."
"Right. I don't want you to be the scapegoat if anything happens. Plus, I don't want anything happening to YOU - any of you."
"...what do I need to do?"
"You're sure y..."
"Like you said, if I don't come back now, what are the odds I'll get back on that bike again? What do I need to do to prove I can hack it?"
"Two things - as soon as your leave of absence is officially over, you'll be sent for mandatory counselling, the same way Paul and Ella were - and are - after they were unbrainwashed. If Dr Ryker's report gives you a basic all-clear, you'll be readded to the formal "Active" roster - and in the meantime, you'll just be training & so on After that, you'll just need to show you can, as you put it, 'hack it' like you did before."
She fell silent for a minute. Cos then added, with a smile in his voice, "Oh, and not scream in pain when you split."
"HEY!" She glared through the obsidian air at him for a minute, then relented. "It's this place, it's interfering with my powers somehow. You saw me split back at HQ before this happened, remember."
"I know." After a moment, his tone lightened a little, "I still had to say it though, Lu." He felt for her hand again, and clasped it tightly, then stood up with her hand still in his.
She smiled. A pause. "Why do you always call me that?"
"What, Lu?"
"Yeah. You've called me it since the first time I spoke to you. How come?"
"It's a bit embarrassing... are you sure you want to know?"
"I asked, didn't I?"
"Just remember - you're the one that stuck me with 'Cosmic Boy', so you don't have a leg to stand on..."
"Tell me!"
"Back on that first day, I didn't catch your name, and you reminded me of my Aunt Lu. You didn't react, and I kept calling you it. That's all."
"No great plan, huh?"
"No great secret. I'm surprised you never asked before." He smiled and said, "We need to start moving, to try and find a way out of here."
"Shouldn't we stay here? If they get Gates in, or Clarice, and they find our trail, shouldn't we stay here so that they can reach us without needing to search through this?"
"I'd say yes, but for one thing."
"What's that?"
"Starboy was talking to Gates in the rec room when you arrived. It's been nearly an hour and a half by my reckoning, and if he could see a trail, they'd have got it by now. And, as for Clarice, she isn't ready to have any pressure of any sort put on her yet - they're terrified that she'll shut down to the point they can't reach her., throwing her into a life-or-death situation probably isn't a risk they'd want to take, especially when she only might be able to help.
Basically, we've got no food, no water, and nobody's got any means of tracing us."
"When you p-put it like that..." she shivered again as she pulled herself up against Cos.
They started walking. ________________
At first, they talked, but after the first hour that tailed off, and they walked hand-in-hand in silence but for the tapping of their feet on the rough ground. Occasionally, they tripped, but usually caught each other before they hit the ground.
It was hours before Cos realised that he didn't feel hungry, or thirsty, or tired. He stopped abruptly, leading Trinity to almost fall again.
"How long have we been walking, Lu?"
"I don't know. An hour?"
"It's a lot longer than that. It has to be. Didn't you have a watch?"
"It doesn't light up. Are you sure - my feet would be getting sore by now from all this walking, surely?"
"That's what's worrying me. Surely we should be getting hungry, or needing the toilet or something. I have to think to realise how long it's been. Something's very wrong here."
"But..."
"But?"
"But there isn't anything we can do, is there?"
"We can stop. Check your feet - are they okay?"
They sat down and felt. "Cos... can you feel yours? I'm touching my feet, but I can't feel anything." A note of panic began to creep into Lorna's voice.
"...no. And I can move my toes, but my feet should be sweaty after that walk, and they're not."
"There's something about this place, isn't there?"
"Lu, calm down. The last thing you want to do here is split, remember."
She breathed harder. "But it's eating away at us. I can't split properly. We don't feel warnings we should. Our feet are going numb. What next?"
"Just focus. Count to one hundred..."
He heard the whistle of breathing through clenched teeth. "Lu..."
"I-I can't hold it..."
She split.
The three Lornas screamed at the top of their voices again, but this time they did not fall to the ground, but stood, sweat suddenly pouring down their faces and eyes watering from the pain, holding each other on their feet in the pitch blackness.
"Lu, you've got to remerge." He felt at one of her foreheads, and waited a moment. "LORNA! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? MERGE!"
"R-R-R-Re-x-x-x-x... I..." Three voices stuttered in unison, unable to finish the sentence.
"TRINITY. MERGE. NOW."
Three sets of bloodshot eyes looked in the direction of his voice, then pulled their eyes to each other. Then T-Orange and T-Purple, the outer two, felt a hand on their outer shoulders."
"Please. For me."
Their bodies started to flow together, until the merged Trinity stood momentarily, then fell to the ground. ___________
The foul smell under her nose woke her up. She squirmed, feeling the cold ground underneath her, and tried to push herself up.
"Sorry Cos, I-" she stopped when she realised the smell was still there. Not wanting to open her eyes, she felt the broken smelling salts bottle on the ground. Listening, she couldn't hear anything except her own breathing. Opening her eyes, she looked around and saw no-one on the brown, rocky ground.
"Cos?"
She looked around again.
"Cos...?"
"Cos?........"
To Be Continued
-------------------- My views are my own and do not reflect those of everyone else... and I wouldn't have it any other way.
"Hello again old man", Dani whispered under her breath, as the mansion which was to become the official Legion Academy came into view.
"Sorry ma'am, did you say something?" The driver who had been sent to take her from the airport interrupted as he stopped at the gate.
"Huh? Oh, nothing. Just talking to ghosts." A nervous look came over him, and she had to hold back her laughter, "No, not literally. Just thinking out loud about the last time I was here."
"Ma'am? They told me..."
"Oh, it was years ago. Just before the old man's heart finally gave out." She looked up at the building again. "He'd have approved."
"I'm sure ma'am." The gate opened, and less than a minute later the car pulled up at the entrance. The driver got out, preparing to open the door for her, but she beat him to it.
A man was standing a short distance away, and once she'd pulled her overnight bag from the car, he walked over to meet her with his hand outstretched.
He was oddly nondescript. Dani found it difficult to place his age, or pick out any features on a face that had been designed for anonymity. In this world at least, noting his white skin and sandy hair as she took his hand.
"Ms. Moonstar? John Jones, headmaster," he said in a voice that held no readily discernable accent.
"Danielle Moonstar, head of... 'Special Training', is it still? It's changed enough times I'm not sure whether I missed one."
"For now at least," he smiled.
"Two weeks until opening and they still don't have it locked?"
"Three weeks. Some of the conversion work won't be ready in time, I was told earlier today."
She sighed indignantly.
He looked apologetic, "I'm sorry. It's out of my hands."
She sighed again, more out of resignation this time, "I know. That doesn't make it any less annoying. Private tutoring's a lot less... frustrating."
"I'm sure it is. Before I introduce you to your team, have you been shown pictures of them?"
"No, why?"
"Ahhh... try not to stare."
"?!" ____________
It was good advice, Dani reflected. She was used to the occasional stare herself, so she knew how rude it would have been, but a grey woman with green hair and a human-sized bug naturally... caught the eye.
"Moonstar, I take it?"
She jumped. She knew she shouldn't have, but she jumped when the bug talked.
He sighed impatiently and repeated "Danielle Moonstar?"
Pulling herself together she held out her hand and confirmed it, "And you must be Tikhik Miraz."
"Yes." He didn't raise his claw. She switched to the other figure rather than make an issue of it. "Shikari Lonestar?"
"Yes, Danielle teacher" Her accent was bizarre, like nothing Dani had ever heard before, and the yellow eyes below the short green hair said something. She felt like she was being seen right through. She shook off the feeling and settled down to start discussing the practicalities of her department with them. ________________
"Hi Sul." Ming Sul jumped as Noriko Ashida suddenly appeared behind her.
"Nori, I don't know how many times I've asked you not to do that when I'm studyi-" she finally turned round to face her and stopped dead. "What is that you're wearing?"
Nori, instead of her usual crop-top and baggy pants, was wearing something vaguely resembling a gown, with tight cuffs at the wrists and ankles.
"The latest hare-brained idea to come from Mr "Twelve times smarter than You" - it's got a layer of copper in it to 'electrically screen' me. The cage is arriving for my bed later."
"CAGE?!"
"I only wish I was joking. It's a box of thin copper mesh - same idea as these clothes, to keep the electricity out, not me in."
"Umm... is it doing any good?"
"Not sure yet. One thing I am sure about though is that it's hot and heavy in a bad way. By the way, I'm getting a single room out of it."
"Maybe my next roommate'll know how to clean the shower after using it..."
"Hey, water and electricity! I'm only meant to stay in for-" she adopted a bad Dox impression, "'the bare minimum of time', remember?"
"Explains why you smell too then, huh?"
Nori stood there a moment too long.
"Whatever you say'll just dig you deeper. Just admit defeat." Sul smirked, Nori just made a face in reply. "Seriously, you'll be fine."
"Without your snoring? I might get some sleep. What makes you so sure you won't get this place to yourself?"
"Numbers. According to Tik, they've got double what they expected at this point - they counted on McCauley's prisoners plus a few, and they got McCauley's prisoners plus a lot. Many more and they'll have to build an extension just to house them, never mind the teacher shortage - the 'normal' subjects are just about covered, but they can't fill the practical powers posts for love nor money. Right now, they've got Tik, some winged woman they found teaching some kindergarden in Scotland, and a 'Danielle Moonsar' who's the only one with experience on the subject."
"Ah." Nori unconsciously played with her collar. "He was asking you to switch sides again?"
"Yup. If - hypothetically I ended up teaching though, I would never get the chance to finish school. If that didn't bother me, I probably wouldn't have turned the Legion down to start with."
"Still no chance then?"
"Legion or teaching?"
"Both, I guess."
"Legion... see if they ask me again in a year. Teaching... if they keep bugging me, I might help out when I can, but classes & homework come first." ____________
The meeting was done, finally. Shikari lost no time in heading out, but Tikhik hung about for a few moments. Dani decided to take the opportunity to ask him something.
"Just wondering - do you know any of the female students?"
"A couple - Ming Sul & Noriko Ashida. I had to teleport from Australia to the USA by the scenic route and we ended up picking them up along the way. Why?"
"I'm a bit worried about Sofia, my - well, I sort of adopted her, after her mother died and she had a big... Umm... fall-out with her dad. She's sixteen, and powered so she'll be coming here too, and she can be a bit... open.... at times. And I don't want her rooming with anyone who'd take advantage of that or anything of the sort. Would either of them...?"
"I think Nori's being moved to her own room because of her power problems. Sul, Sul should be teaching with us as far as her power control stands, but she's more concerned about other subjects. She may do it, but you should ask her." ____________
Sul sat up from her book. She felt like she was going cross-eyed from staring at equations, formulae and proofs for hours, and she was beginning to get hungry. Nori had gone down to the canteen almost an hour before, and looking at the clock she realised she was leaving it late if she wanted to eat anything at all. Stretching, she stood up when there was a knock at the door. She walked over and opened it.
"Hi Tik."
"THis is Danielle Moonstar, the head of my department. She wanted to ask a favour from you, and I promised I'd take her up so that she didn't get lost."
"Not sticking around?" She noticed the portal, off to the side and still glowing.
"I'm starving, and it's not a favour for me." He stepped through the portal and was gone, to Dani's surprise. Sul was relaxed.
"He's like that - a good guy, but snippy sometimes. You get used to it. Come in." She opened the door wider and Dani walked into the room.
Directing Dani to the seat she'd been in, she perched on her bed. "So, what was it you wanted Ms Moonstar? Sorry if I'm being snippy now, but I haven't eaten either and I need to get down there in the next twenty minutes if I want to."
"It's 'Dani' if you're not in one of my classes - and according to Tikhik, you might as well be teaching one."
"Only if I dumped all my other classes. I'll help out if you want, but..." She shrugged. "Anyway..."
"One thing." Dani proceeded to give her the same basic explanation she gave Tikhik, ending with, "so, could you keep an eye on her for me?"
"Sure, my roommate's being moved to a single room and I wasn't expecting to get this to myself anyway. What's her power?"
"She's an aerokinetic."
"Say what?"
Dani smiled. "Sorry, I slip into using technical terms sometimes. She can move air around, to create winds and suchlike."
"Ah."
"So you'd be alright with that then?"
"Sure."
"Thanks. I'll let you get down and eat then."
"You've eaten?"
"I promised an old friend I'd have dinner with them tonight before I realised how far we were from New York City. I'd better get moving." ___________
Sul just got the last of the pasta bake, and found Tik halfway through his own dinner in the nearly empty canteen. "Nori say to you about what they're putting her through?"
"I spoke to her, and then the Legion scientists, before I had to meet Moonstar. If it helps her retain control after Igor's collar fails, it's a good thing. I'm sure you remember how she was back in Japan and Canada."
"I remember. I'm just worried."
"I am too, but as long as she can control her power, she can take care of herself."
"Yeah, but that's 'as long as' - remember how sick she got in Canada after being discharged for a while? What if the collar fails during the night?"
"She might incinerate the whole room."
"That's not likely though, is it?"
"If she has the presence of mind to discharge, it might be. And if she doesn't, there's a heavily shielded warning system wired into the cage that triggers if a circuit is drained. She's at risk Sul, but you might be too if you shared a room with her when it happened."
"Fine. I get the point. By the way, was it just me, or do you not like Dani?
"Right now? I've no strong feelings towards her in either direction. Ask me again after I've had to work with her." ___________
Dani collapsed into bed as soon as she could when she finally made it back to the Academy building. It wasn't her old room - that had been in one of the now-student wings - but it felt familiar all the same. She wondered how it would be when she was living here day in, day out for a few minutes, before turning out the light. She was asleep in minutes.
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