[color=palegreen][h2]Hekat Bakshi[/h2][/color]
And all at once, time seemed to grind to a halt as Hekat's name was called. She was frozen for a moment, lips parting in shock as she stared up at the Councilwoman. Distantly, the rumble of thunder seemed to be growing louder, and somehow through the silence she heard the faintest sob.

[i]That would be Amma, then,[/i] she thought numbly, keeping her face turned forward to avoid her mother's anguished eyes as she forced her feet to start moving towards the stage.  As the last living Bakshi leviathan, there were no family members to embrace her—no comfort but to glare back into the steely gaze of the Councilwoman as she ascended the steps.

She'd thought, for a moment, when Zolkin had been called, that she was safe. That this would pass as a momentary shot of adrenaline like the last three Choosings she'd been forced to attend. That she'd be able to go back to the too-crowded tenement housing at the end of the day, look out over the side of the mountain she called home, and continue to plan patiently like she'd done for the last seven years.

Fate, it seemed, had other ideas.

As Hekat took her place to the left of the Mayor, she clenched her hands together behind her back—both to project a solid stance and to hide her shaking hands from her family. After the initial moment of stunned blankness, panic had quickly filled the void. She was good, she knew that, both with her powers and her physical talents, but was she good enough? She'd scrapped with other leviathans as a child, but never in a real fight, much less with ones from other sectors. She could see it in her relatives' eyes—if she faltered and fell during this Battle, her family might not recover...

[i]No,[/i] she told herself firmly as the Councilwoman droned on, eliciting a few halfhearted claps from a handful of those gathered, the rest glaring in stony silence. [i]Now is not the time to doubt. I can win. I [b]can.[/b][/i]

Lightning flashed in the distance as the Mayor finished her closing remarks. With a wary eye on the sky, the heavily-armed, rubber-armored police stepped forward, hands on their weapons. Hekat looked back defiantly, but with a glance at Alva, acquiesced. She leaned forward to meet the other woman, and the pair shook hands—one hand almost frostbite-cold, the other crackling with static electricity that the guards watched warily. Perhaps some other sectors still produced defiance—here in Sector Five, they knew better. In years past, leviathans who had tried to run had been gunned down, simply replaced by another name from the pot. With a district full of such dangerous leviathans, anti-Council sentiment ran deep and discipline was harsh; Sector Five was known as the 'unruly one.'

The two leviathans released each other with an appraising glance, and were nudged towards the open doors of the well-insulated train by the touch of batons on their backs. Hekat kept her shoulders back and her chin high—to anyone watching, she looked practically calm. But while the tall man in front of her stepped inside without hesitation, she couldn't resist glancing back at the crowd, trying to catch a glimpse of her family. Through a gap in the masses, she saw them for a split second—her youngest brother, only twelve years old, sobbing into her mother's shoulder.

Hekat's eyes narrowed, and with an instant of crystal-clear thought, no less than three lightning bolts cracked down from the heavy clouds above and struck the abandoned microphone in the center of the emptying stage.

Almost immediately, a baton cracked down across the back of her shoulders and an armored hand planted itself in the middle of her back, sending her stumbling forward into the train, but the damage was done. The murmuring of the crowd took on a darkly approving tone, and the Mayor was looking significantly less dignified with her short-cropped hair standing on end, as she'd been standing closest when the lightning struck. Alva looked at her with a glance only slightly more approving than before, even as she turned to walk quickly down the train corridor, but even she seemed to understand. The guards were only to happy to slam the plastic and glass doors behind her and send them on their way with no more ceremony.

Hekat whirled, ignoring the smarting of her shoulders as she pressed as close to the glass as possible. Her mother was pushing through the crowd to the edges, the rest of her children trailing behind her. She was shouting something, but between the distance and the barriers between them, Hekat couldn't hear a word.

Instead, she simply lifted her right hand, held it briefly to her lips, and then pressed it against the glass before her. Cameras or no, she needed to have that one last connection as the train began to pull from the station, because if she didn't come back—

Well. She'd just have to come back.