[center][img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1131065754469539920/1131065953820610652/Zero.gif[/img][/center][color=gray][sup][b][color=#AACCDD]MENTIONS:[/color][/b] -
[b][color=#AACCDD]INTERACTIONS:[/color][/b] None
[b][color=#AACCDD]LOCATION:[/color][/b] New Alcatraz, San Francisco, California, US
[b][color=#AACCDD]NOW PLAYING:[/color][/b] [url=https://open.spotify.com/track/4Nwrh5BlZ8I31znYQULS7G?si=6b31228356064f55]♫ Spectre - Radiohead ♫[/url][/sup][/color]
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[indent][indent]This wasn't the first time Zee crossed the States alone on a bus, but it was the first time she saw this many metahumans in one place.

[i]Metahumans[/i]. The notion still didn't sit right in her mind. Once upon a time, she had been nothing more than a upper-middle-class WASP well on her way to college. Now, she knew that she wasn't even human. Part woman, part force of nature, a sub-zero body that froze anything it touched. Tony and Liv DiAngelo, her own parents, found that out the hard way. Nothing about this sat right with Zee. Her parents were cold, dead corpses, their pained screams haunted her head, and for the sake of 'safety', she was being shipped to Alcatraz of all places. Her life was flipped on its head, she should have broke. She should have raged against the machine. But she didn't.

She [i]couldn't.[/i]

The unbearable weight of circumstance and all Zee felt was the slightest discomfort. Like a primordial monster slumbering under miles and miles of ice, the pain was imprisoned under her frozen disposition and she could not feel what she should have been feeling. Was that another part of her curse; tragedy with no way of processing it healthily, like a human? Was that another one of the universe's sick jokes?

[center][sup][i]"Spectre, how he laughs..."[/i][/sup][/center]
So went the train of thought that she forgot to put on her gloves before getting on the bus to Alcatraz. The metal parts of the bus seat began to freeze over. [color=#AACCDD][i]"Shit,"[/i][/color] Zee swore under her frosty breath. Pulling her hand away, she immediately slipped on a pair of cloth gloves. Only then was she calm enough to sit down. The old Zee might have been bothered on how public that was. How many people saw her almost freeze a seat? The old Zee's answer would have been 'enough to be embarrassed'. Now, her answer was 'not enough to care'. The side-eyes and glances bounced off her icy exterior like winter sunlight against a frozen lake. Nothing seemed to faze her.

Not even when an otter pitter-pattered its way into the bus.

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The entire ferry ride, Zee's eyes were glued to the waters of San Francisco Bay. It felt...strange. She had always been leery of water any deeper that she was tall, since her idea of swimming was 'paddling helplessly until her head was above the water'. Now, she had ample reason to fear water. For all she knew, she could freeze the entire bay if she gave it so much as a touch. Already, stray splashes from the ferry that fell onto the frigid Zee condensed into slurry and mist. She was already responsible for two deaths, let's not add crippling an entire city's maritime ecosystem to the list.

Maybe Aegis had a point with the whole Alcatraz thing.

The inescapable compound was an intimidating structure no matter how many coats of paint it received, once home to such notable criminals as Al Capone, the Birdman, and Sean Connery in that spy thriller movie. Zee had her own initial misgivings at the thought of teenagers and young adults having to live their lives in such a daunting compound. It was a prison of stone inside a prison of water. And yet the more she put her mind to it, there was no place safer. How many of these youngbloods had powers just as destructive as Zee's? How many of them had much more destructive psyches than hers? The world they used to call home was inherently (and rightfully) mistrustful of the inhuman. People have lost their lives to the mob for much, much less. A secure philanthrophist facility where the young metahumans would learn how to be...metahuman.

Zee's mouth curled into a silent sneer at the thought. Maybe she was just looking for reasons why she felt nothing upon seeing their newfound home of a compound. Why she felt a profound nothing at the inspection and seizure of forbidden items. Whe she felt that very same nothing when the Director—Virgil, was it?—gave his matriculation speech, even as her fellows raved and chafed against their bindings. The chiseled jock and the other New England blonde made their juvenile displeasure clear as day. Others awkwardly looked around and mumbled their own ways of assent or dissent. Some bastard even tried to nick a feather from a winged girl and got a wicked smack for the trouble. Life at Alcatraz was to be exciting, this she could see. This she could understand.

And still, Zee felt [i]nothing.[/i]

[center][sup][i]"A spectre of my mortal soul,"[/i][/sup][/center]
She could only imagine how it must have looked like to the others. This stark bleached blonde with a stone cold disposition, standing there motionless, emotionless, frozen even as the flames of youth were stoked around her. Pale eyes looked onwards, but it was as if there was nothing behind them. Maybe there really was nothing behind them. Maybe Zee DiAngelo really did freeze over on her graduation day, just like her parents. And this was all that was left.

[color=#AACCDD]Just Zero.[/color]

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