[sub][sup][h3][color=FFFF00]B E L L E   D ' V O I R E[/color][/h3][/sup][/sub][hr]
Jonas' explanation, when it finally came out, was so... classically tragic. A tattered remnant of former glory, still clinging on to the rags of his past, simply because he had no other direction. A righteous, moral heart, unguided and adrift, now anchored on a singular purpose with hand-chosen charges. Belle felt...cared for, in a peculiar, holistic way. The man in front of her was but a small part of a far greater network that had devoted itself to hidden guardianship, and now this network had splintered into her life and the lives of her classmates. 'Hyperhumans' seemed an extravagent term but her life, now, was grander than it had been before, and it had begun to show even before this 'fieldtrip' - she felt part of a stronger whole among her peers in Social Conscience, led by a noble mentor. And now, they were being explicitly told that they were to become a new chapter of these 'Venari'. Belle [i]smiled[/i].

*

A few days later, Belle's lips still curved as they made their way back to the van. How all so...[i]exciting[/i]. To be a chosen guardian of this city and those that lived within...gathering herself as the class returned to the city proper, she reached out, somehow feeling the low thrum of the million insect lives she touched and guided. Absentmindedly, she scratched at her shoulder.

The smile didn't last as Jonas was taken away, the accusations levied against him falling hard upon Belle and her classmates; the police's question fell harder, the psychological poking and prodding and soft, half-hearted comforts falling on numb ears. Belle shrugged off the officer's efforts to console her about trauma that never happened - she [i]knew[/i] about trauma already - and instead wandered home alone to lay on her bed and spiral around her mind about a grander fate being torn so cruelly away from her. 

Outside her bedroom window, the hive she had been cultivating for the last week or so buzzed harshly, wasps vacating their nest to sit on the window pane, grouping up into pulsating blobs of black and yellow, a few insects batting against the glass in their efforts to get to her. Belle opened her eyes and stood up, grabbing her phone from her pocket and snapping a photo of the polka-dot window before standing with her forehead on the glass. On the other side, wasps congregated around where her skin met the window, and she felt their hum for a few seconds, comforted by her power over them. Straightening up, she issued a new command - and slowly, wasps drifted up to the top of their hive, carefully, painstakingly biting and tearing. 20 seconds later, the whole hive fell the three storeys down to the ground, shattering completely upon impact with the patio below Belle's room. Its inhabitants poured out, furious and frightened, and Belle relinquished all control, watching them as they fled wildly and spastically away from the scene of their catastrophe. Their queen, immobile and defenseless, lay on her back in the wreckage. Belle shut her blinds, and went to sleep.

[hr]

The school loomed over Belle like an enemy she could not or would not overcome, a self-inflicted, compulsive opposition. Never had Mather Memorial stood so ominously, had its hallways filled with naught but hollow air and the ghosts of accusations. On every other day of Belle's academic career, she had arrived with an anxious fervour to learn, to educate, to study and excel in those studies. But today...she merely drifted through her syllabi, half-there, her mind consumed by thoughts of Social Conscience; Jonas had not been released from county, but the class had not been cancelled. But this personal forum of Jonas' own making, with its own hidden purpose...what possible substitute could accomplish what Jonas had set out to achieve?

The hours dripped by, every tick of every clock hand in the school knocking on Belle's skull from day's start to its inevitable, agonizing end. Belle stood among her classmates, petrified by the unanswered question, posed by the classroom's door, that hung on every molecule of air, dangling above them like vicious hooks adorned with beautiful lures. Belle scratched her shoulder again.

It was, of course, the ever-vivacious Sebastian who broke the stupour, cutting through the silence with a strong, focused voice as he pushed the door open and walked through the threshold, a task so simple that had still felt near insurmountable mere seconds ago. They sat, and waited. [i]What happens now?[/i]

And then something extraordinary and terrifying happened. 
Kit Renard happened.

His introduction speech was as entrancing as it was repulsive, simultaneously compelling and deeply unnerving. He insulted and charmed in equal measure, making it clear that he wished to impress while also being transparent in his apathy towards the class - an apathy that felt more dangerous than contempt. Kit's bizzare, facetious veneer pinned him to magic the way Jonas' silent, alluring mystery did, but the contrast between the two couldn't have been more stark; Jonas was comforting, protecting - Kit's every movement was painted with indirect menace. Belle couldn't help but wonder if Kit was here on Jonas' word - she wondered if Kit was the reason Jonas wasn't here in the first place. She brushed his cool dismissal of her away, and instead stood up - shoulders locked, fists clenched, brow furrowed heavily, Belle in a defensive, assertive stance.

[color=FFFF00][i]"What do you know."[/i][/color] She asked, the question posing a hundred different queries, each one as desperately important as the last.