Holly smiles as she and Isaiah dance. one of the few groups dancing at a slower tune, almost a waltz. it feels good to dance with someone, but this isn't real. she feels it whenever she tries to move with him. his movements are perfect, but they allow no give and take. it is like dancing on the show. technically perfect, but not enough emotion.
But, Holly, this is the best you get. most boys are scared of you, a TV-star and a superhero. other supers aren't, but from them, you have Rory, who's Kayla's... whatever, and Shin, who's Shin, and Isaiah, who's more Pinocchio than prince charming... this is what you get, Holly
As the dance end, she thanks Isaiah, and excuses herself, slipping out the secondary exit, and going putside. looking around and finding only Kylie and Kayla, she lets her smiling facade drop. You two had enough of it in there too?
Kayla sits up and nods, rubbing a tear from her eye. ”Yeah. I’m beginning to think this was a bad idea. That maybe...maybe people like us don’t get to enjoy the things everyone else does. That we are just...cursed.”
"Hey, Kayla. It's okay. You can't think about them 24/7, and it's hard enough to carve out anything resembling a normal life into what time you're left with.
"I'm sure if they could tell you, they'd be glad you're able to find the time to dance with a cute boy. All parents just want their kids to be happy."
It was convenient that Kayla had just asked her not to use her mind-voice. Lips and tongues made better liars.
Kylie put her arm around her friend, putting up a light mindfog so they wouldn't be disturbed by anyone who shouldn't see her like this, and just held her for a moment
"But look at this team we've got. We will find them. Remember, if it is Infini-Corp that took them, then they probably haven't... they probably still have them. Powers like your parents have are too important for anyone who thinks in spreadsheets to even think about getting rid of them."
When Holly came out to join them, Kylie gave Praetoria's shoulder a squeeze that she wasn't quite sure the invulnerable girl would be able feel, and dropped the fog.
"Just needed a little air." "If it got much more hormonal in there I was gonna have trouble breathing," she sent to Holly.
"But I don't think it was a bad idea. Aside from all the upsides for the team that a sympathetic public presence brings, it's probably good for us to not get too detached. And just because we get to enjoy things most people never get to experience shouldn't mean we don't get to find other happiness too."
Kayla shakes her head, ”No...no they wouldn’t. They pulled me from school the day I got my powers. They wanted me to focus on learning to use them instead of being distracted by friends and socializing,” she says as Kylie’s words sink in.
She’s right. I’m not like them. I’ll never be normal.
She hangs her head, her blonde hair falling in a shroud around her face. ”I should probably go back to Praetor Tower. I’m probably in enough trouble already...”
Yeah. people like us don't get to have normal stuff. But at least we both got a dance. Holly says, waving goodbye as Albert pulls up. She dismisses the shards that had formed her fancy dress for the night, showing the plain tanktop and shorts, and unties her hair as she gets into the car.
Finished with his introspection, Shin comes up behind Rory after Kayla leaves him on the dance floor and shrugs, nudging him in a friendly manner.
"Broads, you can never know what they're thinking...well Kylie can, but that doesn't count since she is one. Least your sister's showing how she can take care of herself. Dunno what that fight's about, but it's not coming to blows." He comments with a toothy grin.
"Don't worry too much about Kayla, though. She's a tough dame, but you obviously like her and she likes you. Just got to get over caring too damn much about what the papers will print. We just got to keep doing good things for the city and then who cares who Praetoria is smooching in the gardens as long as we keep people safe?" He says with some machismo, trying to match the attitude of the other young men he's encountered.
"Come on, let's scram and get us a nice slice of pie. Want to wind the day down trying to figure out this Internet thing Gallowglass keeps trying to show me. Wait, is she still here?" He asks as he moves towards the exit.
"I don't think you should go back to the Tower unless that's what you really want. You're Praetoria. Other people shouldn't be making that decision for you."
She turns to face Holly as well, Kylie's facial expressions are usually very subtle, and with her glasses on she's even harder to read, but it's clear that this Matters to her. "There'll be plenty of times when the Sentinels all go our separate ways, and unless we install more showers in the Lair of Ice and Fire that's a good thing, but let's be a team tonight."
Kayla smiles a bit at Holly’s words, but then to Kylie, she shakes her head.
”That’s just it, Kylie. I am Praetoria. And that comes with certain expectations and responsibilities that I have to live up to. The President comes to the Tower to speak with my family, for heavens sake! But...but I’ll stay at the base tonight. See how things go...”
As Holly makes for her car, Kayla looks at her confused ”Are you not going there too?”
"Bro, you don't call babes broads nowadays, it offensive... or some s%##. We need to get you a phrase book or something. Alright lets bounce" Rory heads for the doors he saw the girls go through.
Mattie grins evilly as Psyche passes on the information. ”I think maybe you should get off my dance floor Amber. Don’t rush home too quickly though. You wouldn’t want to get stopped by another cop. You might stain another dress.
Amber stands wide-eyed and shocked, her mouth working out something to say but nothing coming out. Realization dawns on her and her beautiful face contorts to something furious. She leans forward and hisses at Mattie, "If I find out you used some kind of mind-f&#kery on me, I will end you!" She stomps away, leaving Jade and Alexis to toss their hair in a dismissive shrug. They spin on their heels and follow Amber out.
They don't return that evening, even for Journey.
A bigger student comes up to you, his arm draped around the shoulders of another youth to whom puberty has not been kind. "So, Arrow Lass, right? Could you shoot an apple off my friend's head, here?" The bigger student looks vastly amused, but the smaller one looks decidedly less enthusiastic about the prospect.
Gallowglass chuckles, and ruffles the hair of the bigger kid. "Nah. He doesn't look like such an enthusiatic volunteer...but your head looks like it would work fine, if you'd like."
She winks and adds, "This works out just fine almost all the time.
"Oh, and the name's Gallowglass. G-A-L-L-O-W-G-L-A-S-S. Google it."
Not really interested in showing off for him, Ness follows Praetoria out on the floor and has fun letting loose in a circle with the other girls.
When the others start to disappear, she's a bit slow to notice--too caught up in singing along with Katy Perry while she moves on the floor--but when that high dies down she realizes her friends have faded.
Coming outside, Ness says, "Hey, what happened? You know you just missed Firework?!?"
Isaiah hangs back in the building until everyone starts leaving, keeping an eye on things.
____
Inquiry, parked outside among the cars, speaks up in Isaiah's voice.
"Hey, responsibilty can be a pretty hefty burden; we all can understand that. But even machines have to rest every now and then; there's a reason there's more than one super team in the city. If you need to take a break from being Praetoria, or any of us, really, there will be people to cover for you."
The ship shifted a little, but settled down to maintain its disguise.
"And if the thing with your parents is really chewing you up that much, I might know a way to try to find them. No guarantees, hear me, but there are a few tricks I could try."
Kayla turns to the “van” and climbs inside so she doesn’t look crazy talking to a car.
”What? What could you do to find them!?!?”
"Whoa, no need to yell! Anyway, if I dig a bit into my aid budget, I could probably put together a one-shot sympathetic tracker. Real old magic, that. The whole 'what was once whole, forever shares a connection' stuff. You wouldn't happen to have any hair clippings, toenails, that kind of thing, would you?"
Isaiah meanwhile came out of the building (likely along with the other slowpokes) aiming to make this conversation a bit less awkward by being able to do it face-to-face.
”...Maybe...maybe at home. Their suite hasn’t been messed with, far as I know...”
"An unwashed shirt or something like that would do in a pinch, but the farther you get from direct body bits, the less likely everything is to actually work. And if whoever's holding them is prepared right, you can block it... but a lot of people forget the old wards, so it's worth a shot."
Psyche kept her face neutral. She hadn't known The Praetorian or Ultra-Star particularly well, and she had no real idea where in the world they would be kept, if they were still alive, so a broadwave scan had been pretty unlikely to work, especially if they were shielded. So she hadn't told Kayla that she'd found nothing, hadn't even told her she'd tried.
There were too many other explanations to give her one more reason to suspect the worst.
***
"You know, Gallowglass, if you'd just been excited a little louder we might have come back in," Psyche's mental voice gently teases, "Katy Perry is an incredible draw."
Kayla, her excitement growing, jumped out of the van when she see’s Isaiah exit. She runs over to him and wraps the machine up in a hug and lifts him up effortlessly.
”Thank you thank you thank you!” she says repeatedly to him before setting him down. Ness coming outside in close proximity puts her next in line to face the energetic jubilant wrath of Kayla. She picks her up and hugs her as well, spinning her around before setting her down and saying ”Isaiah’s gonna find my parents!”
She wheels around to him again before saying ”I’ll go get what I can! I’ll meet you at the base!” before lifting off into the air in a blur!
_________
Kayla enters the tower in a flash, her excitement at a solution to her families loss finally feeling near and bolstering her speed. As soon as the elevator door opens, she starts to dart straight to her parents master suite, but is stopped by the sight of her great-grandmother standing there with folded arms, and her younger brother standing behind her to the side with a smug look on his face...
"Bro, you don't call babes broads nowadays, it offensive... or some s+~!. We need to get you a phrase book or something. Alright lets bounce" Rory heads for the doors he saw the girls go through.
"Offensive? What's wrong with broad? Wait, what does bounce mean?" Shin asks as he glances and waves at Ness while they exit, merging up with the rest of the group by Inquiry. The current discussion about Kayla wanting to search for her parents and Isaiah's suggestions for helping seemed good. However, he had to bring up something.
"So, if your parents are missing, then shouldn't the other big heroes already be looking for them? They probably have better resources than we do, even with our cool alien chum- and she's not listening and she's gone," He groaned, crossing his arms and turning to Isaiah. "Right, back to base then. Or wherever home is for us, I guess."
He hops into the shapeshifting van, seeing Holly ride off, knowing everyone else has powers that give them better mobility, and feels exceptionally normal. Which is great, but there's also a fear in his mind. He felt somewhat better talking it over with Kylie, so he tries to get her attention.
So, want to ride with me in the flying saucer and talk about nothing while hiding our fears? Or just tell me why diet soda tastes like sewage.
Maybe I should have tried the tracking, and only then told her if I got a fix.
"Well, that was a bit more energetic than I was expecting. But it may do her some good to get worked up about something... now I just really hope this works. At the very least, there's different failure modes for 'Target out of range', 'Target does not exist' and 'Target under ward'. So even if it fails, how it fails gives some info."
”And just what do you think you are doing, Kayla?” she asked.
”Grammie, I don’t have time to explain. But-“
”You have all the time in the world, young lady!” she says sternly. ”What did we tell you about seeing that boy?” As she asks her question, Shane holds up his iPhone which has a Twitter clip of her not-so-discrete dancing with Rory at the Academy.
Kayla blushed, ”We were just dancing, celebrating. But that doesn’t matter right n-“
”I will tell you what matters! Maintaining the image of this family is what matters! Not dressing like a harlot and making a fool of us all on a dance floor with some street thug with powers!”
Kayla clenched her fists. ”He’s not some street thug! He’s a good guy! And we are on the same team!”
”A mistake I should have never let your Uncle talk me into. But there is no going back now. It would be too much bad publicity, on top of what your half-naked shenanigans have already done! Your father, grandfather, and his father...they would be ashamed,” Eternia says scathingly. ”But for now, you are grounded. No leaving the Tower except for official business for your team that I, and only I, deem appropriate. Is that understood?”
Shane smirks in the background as his sister gets raked over the coals.
”Grammie! You don’t understand! Isaiah said he-“ Kayla stammers before being interrupted yet again.
”No, Kayla. You don’t understand. Your parents are gone. You and your brother are the future of this family, and it’s time you started acting like it!”
”They’re not gone! We can find them! We-“
”Stop living in a dream world! It’s been too long. Whatever happened to them, it was likely fatal. It is time you accepted that fact,” she says as she turns to walk off. ”Tomorrow you begin training in politics and diplomacy in the new Situation Room.”
”What? Situation Room?” she asks, confused and frustrated all at once.
”Yes,” Eternia says as she picks up a glass of wine and gulps the red liquid down. ”I hired some of the best renovators in Halcyon to come and turn the tomb that was your parents suite into a proper place of learning for you and your brother to learn the finer arts of diplomacy and political intrigue.”
Kayla pales and gasps before flying off to where her parents room was. The whole thing has been gutted and redone in just a day! Where they once lived was now filled with maps, computers, and a large table covered with a hologram of a political world map! She sank to her knees as she muttered ”No, no, no, no...”
”Well I think it looks cool,” her brothers voice called out from behind her.
”Do you know what this means?” Kayla asks, her voice cracking. ”I had a way to find them...but it’s gone. She...she ruined any hope I had...” Kayla stood up and stormed off to her room, and started throwing some of her things into a bag. She then changed out of the party dress and into a pair of sweats and a tank top.
”And just where do you think you are going, Praetoria? You’re grounded, remember?” Shane said as he watched her from the door to her room.
”Feel free to try and stop me. And tell Grammie she can remodel my room too, if she wants. I don’t care!” Kayla says as she pulls her hair back into a pony tail before storming off and to the elevator. When the controls won’t work for her, she growls in frustration as her brother snickered.
Kayla glares at him before marching over to the window. She drew her hand back and punched the reinforced glass, causing it to shake. ”You know that glass won’t break!” Shane says mockingly, ”It’s Hyper-Glass! Made to withstand-“
CRASH
The glass shattered to her next punch, leaving her brother standing there gawking as Kayla flew off into the night.
__________
The ping of the elevator landing precedes a very distraught looking Kayla as she slowly walks into the common room, clutching a pink duffle bag in a comforting hug. ”I...I am going to need to stay here a while. I’ll...I’ll find a spot out of the way...” she says as she makes her way over to the bean bag chair, setting her bag down beside it, fully expecting to be sleeping there tonight.
"I'm pretty sure there are like six other bedrooms here, we may have to clean them out but it beats people going four to a room, or sleeping in the common area," Rory grabs two sodas and offers Kayla one as he sits next to her, although, pretty sure there is only one water heater..."
She didn't really like the idea of riding around in vehicles when she could help it. After all, she could fly, one of those powers people literally dreamed about. And it wasn't like she couldn't carry on a conversation with Shin while she was flying. He'd probably be less distracted if he couldn't see her. But she knew that wasn't the point, even if it should have been.
"Sure, our chariot awaits."
She keeps it light for a while ("Because if diet soda tasted better, it wouldn't trick people into thinking that it doesn't make them fat anyways. Trust me, you didn't miss anything there.")
But the way everyone keeps comparing her presence in their minds to Dusk's devices is weighing on her, and eventually she asks. "I know I scare you, so why are you okay talking like this?"
People can get fat off of diet soda? That seems crazy, Horizon replies on the way back to the hideout. He wanted to ride with Kylie because even when they were having a mind to mind chat, he wanted to look at her face and see her expression. It was his way of reading her back, so to speak.
When she asked the question about why he wanted to talk to her like this, he replied honestly. Kylie, a week ago I was living in a world where Germany had just started to take over Europe, I listened to baseball on the radio and dreamed of becoming a physicist like my dad. Now I'm fighting my freaky future self and giant robot crabs with crazy radiation powers and even crazier teammates. If I don't try to adjust to the new normal, I'm gonna crack like an egg left in the boiler. There's a lot that I think is cool about the future...but I also find so much about it utterly terrifying too. Except for people like you trying to accept me, He admits with a nervous smile.
So I'm going to try and fight past my fears, bit by bit. Starting with my hang ups about mind reading. I want to trust that you won't pry without permission. Even though I worry that if you read my future self's mind, you might think reading my own that I'll become him, He tells her, wringing his hands together.
----------------------
Horizon has taken up a bedroom for his own and requisitioned a computer. He's still in the middle of trying to figure out how to use the Internet and at least manages to open up the browser. Why they call the pointer a mouse he wasn't entirely sure about.
He knows what's most important to him, but he's still scared. Dusk was a bad guy, but just how bad could he be? He needed to know, typing in the search terms one finger at a time and pressing the clicking pointer to start the search. What comes up is something called a wikipedia article on himself.
He reads the beginning parts of the article, a chill running through him as he does. Feeling uneasy, he skims through past 'Early Hero Career' and a section called 'Start of Criminal Career'. The web article is shorter than he thought it would be, not getting into much detail. One paragraph sticks out to him though.
Battle with the Praetorian
This battle on the Halcyon City Bridge ended the first Praetorian's career. Throughout his tenure, the Praetorian had fought with and against Dusk as both a hero and a villain, culminating in this last stand between their ideologies. Having kidnapped his infant grandson to lure him out, Dusk created a public spectacle to call out the Praetorian, alleging him of secretly protecting white supremacy groups and spreading pamphlets with alleged evidence of his wrongdoings to the spectators on the bridge. The battle that followed required the evacuation of the bridge, ending with Dusk captured and put into custody, but leaving the original Praetorian with live-threatening and crippling injuries that would prevent him from performing heroic duties for the rest of his life.
He turned away from the glare of the screen, squeezing his eyes shut and stepping out of his room, the blood rushing in his head as he tries to come to terms with what he's learned here. How could he have done something like that? It was monstrous, and purposeful. It made him sick to his stomach, as he noticed Kayla by the beanbag chair.
Did she know? He wanted to ask, but he was too afraid of the answer, so he just put on a smile and swallowed his fear as he approached. "Well, I definitely approve of this co-ed living situation. You'd normally get broa- err, dolls like yourselves living in all girls boarding houses, with some sour faced house mother beating away the guys."
"Maybe you will become him. It's possible Dusk even remembers what you're doing now, and there's nothing you can do to change your future. But I like to think we don't have to become the monsters people fear we will; I know a little about that.
"There's a movie my mom's made me watch every birthday since my bat mitzvah -since I became a woman-. It's old, though I guess it won't come out for a couple decades when you're from; it's called Village of the Damned. It's about how much powers like mine scare most people, and how far they'll go to kill what scares them, even if they know that thing, even if they've raised her themselves. It's what really got through to me that I had to be a hero. Because if I wasn't, a monster was the only other option people would understand.
"So are you a supervillain in waiting? Of course you could be, but I've worked really hard based on the idea that you don't have to live up to your worst potential."
Kayla takes the soda with a small smile, but doesn’t drink much of it. She just sits quietly the rest of the evening before saying her good nights and starting off to bed. As she leaves, she stops briefly by Isaiah to mutter ”It’s all gone. So...thanks anyway...” before heading off to bed.
The next morning, Kayla is up before anyone, except likely Isaiah, unless he needed to recharge somehow. She wasn’t able to sleep well her mind in a thousand places. She decided to try and work out her problems with exercise, and tossed on a pair of yoga shorts and a sports bra and began quietly walking through the base looking for somewhere suitable.
She ultimately settles on a small corner of the common room. She had hoped to go for a run, but not knowing if there was a treadmill and not wanting to risk much noise looking for one was a problem, as was a public jog. So she settled for some sit ups and push ups. After a light work out of a thousand reps of each, keeping her mind focused on the count, she felt herself starting to relax and transitioned to some yoga, focusing on the proper form for each position.
"...997
998
999
1000"
Okay, finally she's done.
Normally someone counting in their head was the kind of thing Psyche shut out as a matter of course. But when the counting was Really Important it was a lot harder. Normally that meant someone trying hard not to lose their temper, but Kayla straining not to think about anything but the count had much the same effect.
Then the names of her yoga poses started echoing through her head.
Okay, guess I'm not going back to sleep.
I hope I didn't wake her up. It didn't happen all the time, for most people, but sleeping near Psyche usually meant that she'd show up in your dreams. Frequently she was just there in the background, but she'd overheard too many Very strange dreams with her at their center to think it was just coincidence.
She wasn't sure if company would be welcome, so before getting up to grab her own workout clothes, she sent Kayla a questioning image of both of them going through a Salutation to the sun.
If she wanted company, great, if not, well she'd just send a hug instead.
A short while later Kylie floats into the room in a very similar outfit to Kayla's, though her desire to hide any bruises led her to choose pants over shorts.
"Sorry, didn't want to accidentally wake anyone up if you wanted some alone time."
She begins moving through her own warm-up, giving a brief, but not particularly concealed, grunt of pain as she works through some of yesterday's injuries.
"You want to talk about it?" A brief squeeze of Kayla's shoulder punctuates the question, though of course Kylie doesn't relax her own pose to do so.
Kayla sighs. ”They destroyed it all, Kylie. Turned their room into a damned classroom for me and Shane. I have no idea what they did with their things.”
She moves into the next position before adding. ”It’s almost like they have given up. No...they have given up.”
Isaiah walks through the hall, a large fuel canister hefted on one shoulder, and hears some talking in the common room. Figuring he might as well check it out.
Walking into the room, Isaiah is not too surprised to see Kylie and Kayla in the room. Praetoria had had a rough day, it sounded like... and psychics tended to wake up whenever anyone else did. Besides, there was a noticable drop in Mana output when Kylie woke up and stopped leaking psychic energy all over the place.
He set the heavy canister down, and it sloshed a little, a small window giving view to its brightly glowing contents.
"Rough day for you yesterday, huh? Sorry I wasn't able to help out after all. I can leave if you two would rather talk it out without me."
Kayla holds her pose and turns her head to listen to Isaiah. ”It’s okay. Thanks anyway, I really appreciated the offer. And feel free to stay. My instructor isn’t here to critique my posture. If you want and can access them with your web access, can you let me know if my positioning is off on my form?”
She briefly considers what she just asked “him” to do, and a short lived pang of embarrassment rushes through her. But then she remembers he’s not even a living creature, but an AI. So it became less creepy and made more sense to her the more she thought about it.
"We can still keep looking. We can at least find out what Infini-Corp knows. And I think we've got the tools to do so without a lot of bad headlines to boot."
"Y'know, maybe yesterday would've been less rough if you hadn't gotten her hopes up like that." Her voice is frosty with anger as it pops into Isaiah's mind.
She had intended to keep going, point out that humans had plenty of ways to find things even if they weren't fancy robots, but then she felt Kayla's pulse of embarrassment, and her anger melted away in resigned amusement. Homeschool kids. Taking her away from where she could learn to ogle and be ogled clearly was about as effective as abstinence-only sex ed. Didn't get rid of the problem, just made sure it'd be harder to deal with.
Kayla holds her current position silently until time to change, and then instead rolls over and sits back, leaning forward onto her knees and looks to Kylie. ”Why are you so on board with me that Infini-Corp is behind it? Everyone else my family even remotely suggests it to finds the idea absurd and laughable.”
"Alright, sure. Lets see... Okay looks like this one... Hm, looks like maybe you need to shift your back leg just a little bit outward? Looks like there's some minor variations based on teacher preference."
"And yeah, we can definitely keep looking. You never know when something might show up. Frankly, if they really just disappeared, that says something. Either they're hiding, someone is hiding them, or they left the planet or something. And several months isn't an unrealistic travel time in that last case."
"Yeah, I realized that afterward. Should've known it could end badly. Still, I did want to help, and it's not exactly like I could just go into the tower myself and search for nail clippings.
...And to tell the truth, there are other things I technically could try, but that there's no way I'm getting authorization for."
He's trapped in that chamber. Frozen and unable to move. He can only watch through a tiny view port window out into the world. Watching a terrible fight between himself and the Praetorian - except he blinks, and its Kayla instead. He blinks again and it's Kylie. Ness. Yukiho. Mattie. Rory. Holly. Isaiah. The world is burning all around them as he watches that pale, white haired older version of himself melt his friends down to charred bones, cold fury on his face as a void black blade of particle energy stabs Kylie through her chest.
Then he's no longer looking from outside, but as Dusk, staring at her face as it starts to droop and decay, rotting away. This was his fault. He was going to kill them all. He-
-Snapped open his eyes and flailed around in his bedsheets before rolling off of the mattress and landing on the floor with a dull smack. "Ow." He muttered, getting back up to his feet. Just a nightmare. Where he murdered his friends as his awful future self. Good luck getting sleep again after that.
He put on his glasses and massaged his temples before heading out to the kitchen to fix up some breakfast. Lucky for him that there was rice in the pantry, as he set out a pan and poured water into the vessel, placing a lid on top to let it cook. That was the only luck though, as there was a lack of fish to fry. He wandered to the common room to maybe see if there was anything there.
He saw instead Kylie and Kayla wearing what amounted to undergarments and chatting with Isaiah.
Turning right around with a blush on his face, he decided that eggs with rice should be fine for this morning after all, heading back into the kitchen. At least the image seared away the lingering terror of his nightmare.
Kayla noticed Shin walk in and get embarrassed. Where earlier she had been a bit embarrassed herself at the idea of asking Isaiah to basically leer at them, now a mischievous idea came across Kayla’s mind.
She smirked and motioned her head towards the kitchen at Kylie before standing up and making her way there. Her bare feet padded softly on the floor as she slipped in a few moments after Shin. ”Good morning,” she says as she walks over to where he was cooking. She hops up onto the counter near him and says ”Smells good. Fixing enough for all of us?” she asks as she rocks her legs back and forth, feet crossed at the ankles.
"Kayla, the people you've suggested that to, how many of them were in positions of power, or super-waspy, or even had investments in Infini-Corp? There are plenty of people in the world who have stories of family members disappeared or mistreated by the governments or people that wind up on top of the pile. We know that people will blind themselves to what they don't want to see for as long as they possibly can.
"And what? I'm supposed to think you and some of the best superheroes of all time just picked a name out of a hat? I trust you."
And between me and Isaiah,we might be able to prove it. We'll figure out the authorization later.
***
Kylie floated in after Kayla, withdrawing from the blaze in Shin's mind.
"Good morning," she greeted Shin, with a smaller, quieter smile than her pageant-best.
"Kayla, he's gonna have a coronary. Be nice..." Her stern thoughts were somewhat undercut by the sensation of her amusement that went with them, like little bubbles popping in Kayla's mind.
"Ohayou," Shin mumbled to Kayla as he hunched over the stove. He's got the rice boiling, stirring up some eggs in a bowl with some soy sauce and sugar added. Slices of bread were on the back burner, as he flipped them over on the coils, toasting them on each side. The two wooden skewers he was using in one hand were deftly moving from piece to piece, an imitation of his mother's cooking methods.
"...Ah, sorry, not quite awake yet," He apologized, keeping his eyes to himself and not on the long legs rocking around near him. "I guess I am making a lot..." He said, looking at how much was there, before pouring a little of the egg into the pan, slowly rolling it up a little at a time. "Used to making enough for me and my siblings. Ever since my mother started getting sick I'd been making breakfast to let her rest in the morning..."
Kylie was just another person that he couldn't look at directly, like they were both bright spotlights beaming directly into his face. All the exposed skin was enticing, but he was trying to be good and not stare like a goon. "...So, uh, what were you guys doing up so early? In your...sleepwear?"
”This is work out clothes, hun,” Kayla said with a giggle. ”I was clearing my head after last night. Getting some morning reps and yoga in before anyone woke up. Kylie joined me later on. Does this lair have an actual gym, by the way?” she asks everyone present.
"Well, I'm not sure if Infini-Corp is behind it or not... but they very well could be. Big company like that, you could hide a mad science division in one corner of it and the rest of the corporation might not even know about it. That, and the probability of their technology being involved so often with your problems is pretty low, unless they're behind it, backing whoever is, or are being intentionally framed. More to the point, I don't really believe in big-time supers just up and disappearing with no fanfare on their own."
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"It probably does, but I'm not the one to ask about that. Not really any point in working out for me; I wouldn't get any stronger, and I don't build muscle memory either."
Kayla nods at Kylie’s and Isaiah’s explanations. ”I appreciate what is essentially the blind faith you guys are placing in me. Well, us really, as it’s a Family thing. But no one has ever been able to create anything more than what my Uncle calls ‘circumstantial’ evidence,” Kayla says, making air quotes with her fingers for emphasis. ”He says everything that we’ve ever found, for several decades, has amounted to nothing more than a problem for us, legally. He said that if we went forward with what little we had, we would be opening the family and city up to a counter suit for ‘slander,’” she elaborates.
She reaches over to the frying pan and carefully picks out a bit of egg and tosses it into her mouth. ”So,” she says as she chews, ”what’s our plan for today? We have anything scheduled or are we just gonna train or go on patrol or what? Nobody has any homework or anything, right?”
Holly wakes late, and begins her morning routine. shower, hair, makeup, a bit of time in the gym. A little more time on strength building than normal. she was a hero, not just an ingenue anymore.
After that, she takes a seat at the table. Albert she asks the butler as he sets an egg white omelette in front of her. Did you manage to get anything useful about Darcy McGovern? I have an interview later today, want to go prepared
Flames envelop the small space. Confusion. They run up the walls and over the ceiling emanating hear and light that fill her with energy, with fear... with power. Figures writhe in the all-encompassing heat, bathing in its aura, their indistinguishable features screaming in pain until everything went,.... cold.
Sitting up with a jolt and breathing hard, Mattie focussed herself and calmed herself, just as she had been taught by Ms. Quinn, drawing the heat from the baking room into herself. The dreams came nightly and she had long-since grown used to them - it had been months since she’d set fire to her bedclothes. Climbing out of bed, Mattie quickly performed the few morning stretches that she habitually did before breakfast, and the commencement of the gruelling exercise and training reigeme that, despite her best efforts, she’d been unable to convince the Silver Shield were unnecessary.
Still dressed in the oversized t-shirt she’d ‘Borrowed’ from her brother, and that she wore to sleep, she slipped out into the common area and towards the kitchen where she found some of the others talking.
”Morning.” she greeted them. Do I smell breakfast?
”Hey Mattie,” Kayla replies, still not sure how things stood between them.
Gallowglass emerges from her room already in costume: she still wasn't sure if she was ready to reveal her secret identity to everyone on the team.
In her hand is an open laptop. "I have an idea! I'm going to need a new job anyway. We kinda blew up my last one, as a docent at the museum.
"If we want to know what's going on at Infini-Corp, maybe we need someone on the inside?" She grins. "I'm just looking at the 'careers' page on their website. Data Entry, Filing, Administrative Assistant...maybe I can get one of these."
Mattie smiles at Kayla’s greeting. Hi Kayla. Sleep ok? she asks as she bakes her way over to join the others around Shin, apparently unaware of the effect of the other girls’ state of dress on the poor boy, and unconcerned that her the shirt and boxer shorts she’s wearing might make him uncomfortable. Reaching forward, she grabs a bit. mmmm., this is pretty good. Nice work!
"Oha- uh, hi Mattie," Shin says to her as she enters, as he cracks a few more eggs to add to the mix, figuring that he was going to need them to feed everyone. He's trying his best to get used to the lax situation with how people dressed in the morning, which was harder when so many of them were attractive young women. He checks the rice, turning off the heat and letting it finish under the remaining heat, stacking toast on a plate for people who preferred it to rice.
"My plan for today involves more future research, training to use my powers without killing everyone around me, and then studying some of the decades of history I skipped on my way here," He tells them. "Oh, yeah, and I need a phone. Like Holly's, with the futuristic screen that responds to your fingers? I think it'll help me blend in."
He uncovers the fluffy white rice, spooning out cups onto plates, as he starts laying out layers of egg on top of them, hot and steaming. He makes enough for everyone, including Rory, taking his plate and sitting down before adding some more soy sauce on top of it. He's in button up pajamas today, so he looks quite formal sitting at the table taking chopsticks to the eggs. "Mattie, if your brother doesn't mind, I can try grocery shopping for you guys. There's a lack of fresh vegetables that I dislike. Where's the nearest green grocer?"