[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/TxnykVW.png[/img][/center]

[color=gray][sup][b][color=#76424e]INTERACTIONS:[/color][/b] Virgil [@Hound55]
[b][color=#76424e]MENTIONS:[/color][/b] Holt, Wes, Haven, Nat, Seo, and Noah
[b][color=#76424e]LOCATION:[/color][/b] Welcoming Area—Alcatraz, San Fransico, California, US[/sup][/color]
[hr][indent][indent][color=gray]“Why don’t you just turn that off,”[/color] one of the guards remarked while pointing at Rex’s entire body. The guard was an inch short of being perfectly round, and if Rex remembered correctly his name was Ted. The other guard, a man that was the physical opposite to his partner, made a face. His name was Jeff. Rex had dealt with Jeff, and they’d formed an understanding. A very [i]terse[/i] one. Ted was new, though. 

[color=#76424e]“Sure, let me get out my rock remote,”[/color] Rex said. Ted gave him a strange look, but Jeff rolled his eyes knowing what was next. Rex fished around in the pockets of his pants as if he was really looking for something. He then reached into his right pocket and pulled his hand out, middle finger extended. [color=#76424e]“Fuck you.”[/color] 

Ted turned as red as the apple he was. He reared back. Jeff placed a hand on his shoulder. [color=slategray]“Ted, you’re just going to break your hand on his face. And both you and I know that you won’t get worker’s comp for that.” [/color] 

Ted deflated like a balloon, and his shoulders slumped. [color=gray]“You’re right. Sorry,”[/color]  he then clarified, [color=gray]“not to you Mister Kingsley. I’m apologizing to Jeff.”[/color]  He turned away from Rex and rubbed the side of his face and the well-kempt beard that outlined it. [color=gray]“Things with Cecilia haven’t been going well.”[/color]  He leaned into his seat which was just a leather bench with the metallic inside of the van forming the “back.”

[color=slategray]“Oh, Ted. You mentioned going to therapy with her?”[/color]  Jeff asked. Suddenly, Rex felt like the weirdest third wheel imaginable. If they wanted him to stop antagonizing them, they sure picked the right way to do it. He just crossed his arms over his chest. The granite scraped together and made a noise that he’d spent a while getting over. It wasn’t pleasant, but like someone feeling their bones popping underneath their skin every time they moved, it could be blocked out. 

The large white van hit a bump. Instead of jostling them around, it scraped against the ground in anguish. Rex hadn’t been chained to the interior for safety reasons. Not his safety. It was for the other people in the van, the people outside of the van, and the road itself. He’d agreed to it. Not like he wanted to draw more attention to himself while in the state of Georgia. He was one more headline away from them chasing into the ocean with flaming torches—tiki torches in this climate. In return, they stuck two guards with him. Despite him acting as if they wouldn’t be a challenge, they would be. Both were armed with aerosols that could knock him out in less than a second. So, there was this tense peace between them. 

Right now, though, Rex just ignored their conversation. [i]Therapy[/i]. After everything that happened with his dad, psychiatrists and therapists practically climbed over each other to talk to him and his mother. The aftereffects of an extended period of mind control hadn’t been researched, according to them, and this would be groundbreaking information. And sure, they got their fucking data points, but Rex couldn’t say he had worked through anything. Seventeen years passed, and his father made sure he never felt the natural ebb and flow of emotions. Anger. Nope. Sadness. Never. Anxiety. Pfft. Even teenage awkwardness had been evaded by his dad commanding that Rex not engage with it. So, when Trent Kingsley was locked away in a supermax of his own making, Rex suddenly had to deal with an onslaught of emotions. If he had the chance, like all kids, to work through it slowly he would have been fine. But he had to grasp everything—[i]at once.[/i] It was through his failure to do so that he realized he was a metahuman. Had his father known? Or had he been tranquilized for so long that neither of them was aware of it?

The first time it happened, he was able to slough the stone from his body. The second time, a few deep breaths dealt with it. Like a rubber band that was popped in short intervals, it bounced back. Until that fateful evening—something he didn’t want to revisit—he could control it. That was the night the rubber band was stretched too far for too long. It couldn’t snap back. No. [i]He couldn’t turn it off.[/i] He didn’t know if he could snap back.

The van came to a complete stop in front of the airport, and Rex was unloaded with expediency. The van rocked hard and sent both guards tumbling back in as he stepped out. He didn’t run, but instead, he just laughed. Both Jeff and Ted shot him a look.

Whatever revenge they wished upon him was swiftly enacted as Rex was pushed through the TSA, all cavities searched, and then placed onto a plane. He was sat in the very back while everyone else balanced out in the front. He had to be perfectly in the middle. So, no window seat for him. Just the carpet that smelled of urine and cleaner.

They landed, he was unloaded like luggage and then ferried through the back of the airport until he was at the second pick-up of the day. Rex shoved down a yawn as he looked at his traveling companion. He hadn’t spoken to the other kid, but he figured since the other kid was waiting for the crazy bus, he was a metahuman as well. 

When the said van pulled up, Rex noted that it was constructed far sturdier than anything he’d ridden in recently. Still, it jostled as he pulled himself into it. He grimaced as he made his way to a free seat. The bus rocked as he plopped down. Rex probably should have apologized. He just crossed his arms. If anyone looked his way, he just responded with a terse, [color=#76424e]“What?”[/color] 

Then came probably the most awkward bus ride he’d ever been on, and he’d been on the team bus when the cheerleaders were allowed on as well and the driver was so high he could only focus on the road. Viola hadn’t been a cheerleader. So, Rex had been knee-deep in the musk of everyone else’s hormones while he stared out the window and at the rolling, bland scenery. Now he couldn’t decide what was more interesting, the scenery outside the bus or inside. He’d never been to San Francisco. He’d also never been sardined between so many weirdos—he thought while being the king of the weirdos. At least he didn’t have to worry about any hormones. He was entirely made of granite. When asked if that fact traveled down to his [i]you know[/i], he’d just shrug. Yes—he was entirely made of rock. And the less that everyone dwelled on that, the better. He couldn’t fuck, and he could bet that no one else on this bus had that problem. 

Yet, it was not a hill he wanted to die on or a record he wanted to hold—especially among this group. There were some confusingly attractive metahumans on this bus. Rex ran his hand over his face, trying not to think about any of that. The scraping of rock against rock was audible in the eerie silence of the bus, but it was not the only noise. There was the soft hum of music in the background and the muffled noise of a few different people’s headphones. One a kid in front of him who—for all intents and purposes—looked socially awkward. Another was from a hot girl—not literally, as he had to make that distinction in the bus of kids with powers—with red hair. She was dead asleep, though. 

They eventually made their last stop, to the confusion of the British nerd up front. Rex found that his position as royalty was quickly dethroned as an otter climbed onto the bus. Fine. The otter could have the crown. Wear it snug on his cute, little otter head. Fuck. He and the otter had something in common—neither of them could fuck. Why. How. Was this the thing that brought him to the same level as the mammal? Wait. Otters were mammals, right? Shit.

As Rex racked his brain about that, they pulled up to the ferry. As they all got off the bus, it rocked as he stepped down onto the ground. He looked at the boat, the sea, the boat, the AEGIS personnel, and then back at the boat again. [color=#76424e]“If this fucking sinks, so do I. Hey. At least I’ll get to see the bottom of the sea. Me and the otter will have that in common.”[/color] He paused. [color=#76424e]“Unless it’s a freshwater otter. You know what—fuck it.”[/color] 

He was treated with the same care and concern as a hundred-year-old woman would be as he boarded the boat. It rocked. He tried not to panic. It then settled. There was a caw from a seagull overhead. Rex dared for it to land on him. He’d rip its damn head off and apologize to the winged girl later. There were so many insults to his character today that his minimal patience was as threadbare as a sorority house’s couch. 

Rex crossed his arms as they made their way across the water toward Alcatraz—his new home. At least it was a roomy prison. Not like the one they’d thrown him into in Atlanta. That one hadn’t been surrounded by water, though. He didn’t know which he preferred. The girl with the wings was here, the nerdy kid with the headphones, the otter, and an awkward girl in green. They’d left the bulk of the kids back on the shore. That was another slight that Rex would just ignore for now. Had they brought everyone that would survive a boat capsize? The otter and the flying girl would—at least. Well, if he wasn’t a freshwater otter. Why was he dwelling on that? Probably because it was easier than to think about how he’d be trapped underwater for days, weeks, months, or maybe even years. His arms wrapped tighter around his torso, pulling at his shirt. It was already clinging to dear life across his thick shoulders and “muscular” chest. 

When they got off the boat, he went from a concerned scowl to a frustrated one. They’d made sure he’d worn thick-soled boots so he couldn’t easily access the ground beneath him. He still felt the pulse from the rock below tickle his senses. It was—comforting. Like a weighted blanket. If the silicon beads were instead tectonic plates. 

Another awkward cavity search. The AEGIS agents didn’t have anything on the TSA, though. And Rex was now confronted with it—his immediate future. Next thing he knew they were lined up like cosmopolitan cattle, and the director walked along the length of them—taking each one of them in. It was a spiel that was laced with pretty words. But like slapping a doily on a lion, Rex knew the fangs that waited for him underneath all the fancy crochet. He would be fucked if he tried to escape. But escape to where? The only thing that awaited him was the abyss and after that—probably a mixture of crabs and seagulls but more realistically—shitty and angry people. At least here he was offered some measure of safety. That being said, he didn’t have to be happy about it.

[color=#76424e]“Fuck you very much, Mister Warden.”[/color] He paused. [color=#76424e]“Shit. I meant ‘thank you.’ Thank you very much, Mister Fuckden.”[/color] He couldn’t help it. His nature was to be chewed on by the lion and dragged back to the pride to eat. Pride for a pride—if he’d been smart enough to make that play on words.[/indent][/indent][hr]