[IC] The Masks We Wear (Full for Now)

[Dragonite777]

Cecelia grinned back when Daw smiled. "Nice to meet you, too. Oh," remembering the bunny clutched to her chest, "this is Fluffy. I've had him since I was..." Cecelia takes a moment to count back, mumbling numbers and months, "Five years old. I think it's super cool that we all have powers now. Espe-" the bunny-clutching teen stopped mid-sentence to gaze at the frozen wall when someone called loudly into the room saying big piece of ice. "Oh, sorry. Frozen wall behind you. Anyways, what were you writing? Did I miss an english assignment, because there's a lot of people writing in notebooks. I don't wanna be behind on day one." Cecelia rambled on to Daw, stopping because she realized how much she'd been talking. After realizing, she blushed and said "I'm sorry for talking so much. I'm just usually alone at home or with my mom." After seeing the ice melt to water, she looks over at the other girl, who seemed to have melted it without touching any of it, and asks "you ok over there?"

[The15thSpycrab]

Chuck looked up from his drawing at the sound of people yelling, and glanced over at the now-melting wall of ice. He watched as the striking blond deftly maneuvered the water back into its container, impressed by how competent she was with her power. Of the few people he had met with supernatural abilities, she seemed to be the most comfortable. Since their teacher had yet to arrive, Chuck thought it would be a good time to make introductions. He stood, careful not to overturn his desk and the precariously balanced pencils on it, and walked over to where the girl was standing.

"Hi," he said, with a confident grin. "My name's Chuck. Are you new around here? I don't recall having seen you before, and I'm certain you're someone I would remember."

Chuck felt a little awkward about his greeting, especially the cheesy "someone I'd remember" part. Perhaps he should have watched some romance shows before school started back. Too late now, the greeting had already been said. Man, it would be cool to have a power to undo mistakes. A redo, like on those racing games. Crud, he'd been standing there for a few seconds, the girl must think he was an idiot. Was his breath okay? He brushed regularly, but maybe it was time to get some mouthwash. He thought he was pretty good at getting girls, but this one was making him feel even more stupid than he normally was.

[BlackCat]

" It's nothing. It was given go me. I just write down anything I deem important," Daw told Cecelia in response to her talking about it. She felt threatened. Like Cecelia was invading her mind trying to burrow into the few memories Daw had. In her fear Daw's grip on the book loosened and a few newspaper clipping slipped out. Daw fumbled trying to catch the newspaper articles. They were about a series of kidnapping. And they ranged over a six year period. The kids disappearance. No ransom. Articles on the fact that none of them were ever found.

[Dragonite777]

"Ooooh, ok." Cecelia smiled again, but saw some paper fall out, she tried to help, but she was only able to grab one, which happened to glide her way. She grabbed it, saw the word "kidnap" on the newspaper clip she caught, but thought nothing of it as she gave it back, holding out the clip, but looking at Daw. "You must have a lot of important stuff. Have you used your powers for crime fighting yet? I've only used mine to scare away some guy that broke into our house. He had a gun, but I had the element of surprise, and Fluffy in the shape of a gun, heehee." Cecelia giggled at the thought, as though she pulled a prank on a friend, not a gun on a burglar. Still having not read the article in her hand, Cecelia remembered she was holding it "oh, right. I caught this one for ya. Here you go" she offered it with a smile and eye contact.

[ScarlettWaters16]

@The15thSpycrab

Aqua jumps at the sound of his voice and all of the water that she has in her grasp slips and falls onto the ground. Her cheeks flush an even darker red when she realizes it's an extremely cute guy. She tucks a piece of hair behind her ear and begins to maneuver the water again, trying to keep it steady even though her hands are shaking. "Hi," she says back. "And yeah, I am a little bit. I came to this school about two months ago, everything went weird and now I'm back!" She cringes at her own comment and takes a deep breath, moving the shaky, splashing water into her container. "My name's Aquamarine, but most people call me Aqua. It's nice to meet you Chuck." She caps her little horn and turns to face him. She holds out her hand awkwardly for him to shake.

In doing so, she accidentally hits the lid of the horn, causing it to pop off and some of the water to spill out. She cringes again and quickly catches most of the water, moving it back into the horn and placing the lid back on, this time sealing it tight. She smiles sheepishly at him and holds her hand back out to him. This time a little more slowly so she doesn't embarrass herself further.

[BlackCat]

"Thanks," Jackdaw timidly said, taking back the newspaper clipping. She then reached down to grab some of the others that had fallen. Once, she had gotten them all, Daw opened her notebook to a page in the middle. There were newspaper clippings, images, everything that Daw had found about the kidnapping. All to try and find out who she had really been before.
"I haven't really had the chance to use my power yet. For good or for evil. My family really just wants me to bond with them," Daw's smile faded ever so slightly.

[Dragonite777]

"You must be really interested in the news." Cecelia observed, as she saw mostly newspaper clippings. After hearing about her family wanting to bond, some sadness came to her eyes "I'm glad your family wants to bond. My dad works a lot, and mom cleans a lot, so if I want to bond with family, I gotta help my mom with the house chores. My dad is away at work most of the day, and he does a lot of work on the computer when he gets home, so he's busy a lot. Whenever I need him to sign something, I knock on the door to the computer room and go in. He's usually kinda sweaty and out of breath, so his work must get physically demanding, too. But," Cecelia chips in, a little happier, "at least we have dinner together most nights. Dad sometimes is a little late from work, but I can almost always count on all three of us to have dinner together at the table." Cecelia blushes again, realized that she'd been talking a lot. Again. "I'm sorry for all the talking I do"

[The15thSpycrab]

"Aqua," Chuck repeated, shaking her hand. "That's a beautiful name, and quite fitting, too. I'm a copycat." Chuck's confident grin turned into an awkward one, and his cheeks tinted rose as he realized what he'd said. "Sorry, that didn't quite come out right. I mean my power is a copycat, sort of. I can do stuff after I've seen someone else do it. Like Ronin or Taskmaster, from the Marvel comics."

He realized that he was still holding her hand, and his cheeks turned even redder as he let go. Cheesy, dumb, and now creepy, he must be making a wonderful impression. "Hey, um, it was really nice meeting you. I'll just, uh, go back to my desk now. Class should be starting soon." He turned and went back to his desk, hitting himself twice on the forehead with the palm of his hand as soon as he was sure she wouldn't see. Great job, Chuck. First day back at school, you meet a wonderful girl, and you have to go and ruin it. That couldn't have gone any worse.

[ScienMalefica]

Artemis already in the English classroom closed her notebook after checking she had everything she'd have to say a lot. Seems good. She leaned back slightly looking around the classroom. It wasn't really like she could get someone's attention by saying 'Hi' if they weren't looking, so Artemis sighed and just looked around silently. "Phew I made it," Jason said to everyone in the classroom as he walked in. Despite getting to school early he somehow managed not to make it to the classroom until now.

Idiot Artemis thought and shook her head. Jason sensed a variety of emotions and personalities in the room. He tried to send out an overall wave of happiness as he took a seat. Sending stuff to many people at once was normally a lot less effective than a focused beam, but he figured it should at least give someone the chirpiness to want to talk to him, the stupid seeming kid with rainbow hair. Artemis, meanwhile, decided to put her head on the desk, but not after opening her notebook to where it said 'I'm mute but not deaf, I talk by writing on this notebook but can hear fine, if you wanna talk just get my attention'.

A teacher with greying hair and wrinkled skin, obvious signs of age, walked into the classroom. "My name is Mr. Pike, and I will be teaching English for you today," the teacher said in a monotonous voice, missing the wave of slight happiness, going straight into the English class like he expected students who were going to have superpower training later in the day to pay attention. Artemis didn't even bother moving her head from the table, and Jason yawned, hoping someone would talk to him.

[Dragonite777]

Cecelia turned to face the front of the classroom when the teacher said he was going to be teaching. "Good morning, Mr. Pike" Cecelia responded to the teacher, initially strong, thinking it was a call-and-response, but by the time she said "Pike," her voice was timid and her face got really hot. Nononononononononono... I just made an idiot of myself. Cecelia kept her composure, fighting the urge to slide down her seat until she was eye level with the desk or pull her hood over her face and squirm in her seat. Her whole body tensed up from her nervousness.

[ScarlettWaters16]

Aqua looks after Chuck curiously before hearing the teacher walk in. Making a quick split second decision, she quickly grabs her bag and walks over and sits down in the seat directly next to Chuck. She smiles at him and leans back in her seat, pulling on a small bit of water again and begins to twist the water around her fingers like she had been doing before. She adjusts her mask slightly before looking forward at the teacher.

She grins as she looks at the teacher and then looks over at Chuck. "You think that one of us has the power to bring back people from the dead? Because we might need that very, very soon," she whispers to him, jerking her thumb toward the elderly teacher. She giggles at her own joke before freezing and unfreezing the water in her hand. She smiles calmly at Chuck, remembering his hand on hers, and her cheeks flush as she faces forward again, still smiling.

@The15thSpycrab

[Asuu]

Ryder had been silent this entire time, simply watching the others with bored, yet sharp eyes that were hidden behind the darkness that his hair cast. The horned shadow ghost goat had disappeared a while ago, and he was alone, bored, once again. As Mr. Pikes entered, he lied his head onto his desk, blanketing his body completely in darkness, which he allowed to absorb him farther into the Shadow Realm. The Shadow Realm, he learned a while ago, was basically a world where everything was literal dark. Pitch black. He was basically floating in a void, now.

Floating onto his back, Ryder rose a hand, making a flat-screen television made of darkness, that showcased what was going on in the class, from a bird's eye POV. He watched as a darkness clone, virtually the same as himself, formed in the class and sat down again. Great, so he can just skip class this way. Of course, he'd have to watch his clone, but at least he could float around and do things.

[ScienMalefica]

Jason turned to the girl who just responded to the teacher when noone else bothered to sitting behind him and, seeing her tense body language, he sent a wave of acceptance to her, hoping it would work as planned and lessen her embarrassment and tension. To help that out the old fashioned way, he smiled to her and said, "Don't worry about it, you's be laughing your head off if you heard some of the things I ended up doing accidentally at my old school before I came to Eden City High the start of this year," Jason said with a smile, then bites his lip, focusing on sending the emotion of acceptance to her. It put some strain on Jason, acceptance being a third-level form of admiration and trying to send it so she felt it inwardly. (@Dragonite777)

Mewanwhile Artemis got up lazily and saw another boy with his head on the desk sitting two desks to her right. Flicking to the page she wrote 'Hi' she put it in front of the boy the message facing the roof, moving to the seat next to him. She normally found people annoying but he seemed to not be too annoying so she gave a weak smile to herself and leaving the message waiting for him to wake up and see it, oblivious to the fact he was not in fact there. (@Asuu)

[Dragonite777]

Cecelia turns to the source of the young voice, and giggles at his comment, feeling a little better. She felt a wave of acceptance wash over her, not knowing where, but still letting her loosen her tense muscles. She smiled at him, especially when he bit his lip, wondering what he was so concentrated on. "I bet. I wish I had some stories. The most significant thing that's happened to me is the time I missed the bus and had to run to school" Cecelia responded to the boy's kind words, and kept smiling. His hair is pretty was Cecelia's next thought.

[Asuu]

Ryder watched as the Shadow Clone slowly rose it's head, sleepily glancing at the girl, before glancing down at the note. Feeling a smirk tugging at his legs, Ryder formed a shadowy game controller. Grabbing it, he began moving the Shadow Clone, much like one would control a character in a video game, such as GTA or something similar. The Shadow Clone followed his actions, grabbing the paper and taking a pen out of the shadow of the paper. Tapping it against his lip, the Shadow Clone smirked before writing down the words in Ryder's lazy, yet readable cursive. 'Yo.'

[ScienMalefica]

Artemis turned a page to a page where, figuring someone would try to write to talk to her at some point, wrote 'I'm mute, but I can hear you if you talk back out loud' and looked at the boy. He seemed lazy and like any other random loser, but it was too late now to back out of talking to him. Why must I always be so unlucky Artemis thought to herself, shaking her head.

Jason, smiling that either his power or his words had soothed the girl. "I'm Jason, and what would your name be and your adorable stuffed bunny's name be?" he said with a smile, looking at the stuffed bunny. It was a bit odd for her to be carrying it around but odd didn't mean bad, odd often means it's an awesome idea nobody else has though of yet. He looked back up at the girl, wondering what her power was as he listened to her response. All the while Mr. Pike continued writing on the board and giving some lecture about some grammar thing Jason and Artemis were both too focused on a student to pay attention to.

[Dragonite777]

Cecelia's cheeks got really hot when the rainbow-boy asked her and Fluffy's names. "I'm Cecelia, people usually call me Cece, and this is Fluffy," holding Fluffy under the arms to showcase the raggedy dark-purple stuffed animal she's had since childhood, "he's been my best friend since preschool." Realizing what she said, Cecelia blushed and gave in to throwing her bunny-eared hood over her face and groaning out of embarassment. She decides to continue the conversation without sight, asking, while slightly muffled by her hood "what's your name?"

[ScienMalefica]

"I'm Jason, pleased to meet you Cecelia and Fluffy," Jason said with a smile even though the girl couldn't see it. Casually leaning forward to take her hood back off he said, "You don't need to hide," with an almost childishly innocent smile. "So what'd the virus make you be able to do? Shapeshifting into a rabbit would be pretty cool," Jason said jokingly, knowing that guess would probably be totally off the mark.

[Asuu]

Artemis turned a page to a page where, figuring someone would try to write to talk to her at some point, wrote 'I'm mute, but I can hear you if you talk back out loud' and looked at the boy. He seemed lazy and like any other random loser, but it was too late now to back out of talking to him. Why must I always be so unlucky Artemis thought to herself, shaking her head.

Jason, smiling that either his power or his words had soothed the girl. "I'm Jason, and what would your name be and your adorable stuffed bunny's name be?" he said with a smile, looking at the stuffed bunny. It was a bit odd for her to be carrying it around but odd didn't mean bad, odd often means it's an awesome idea nobody else has though of yet. He looked back up at the girl, wondering what her power was as he listened to her response. All the while Mr. Pike continued writing on the board and giving some lecture about some grammar thing Jason and Artemis were both too focused on a student to pay attention to.

@ScienMalefica

In his Realm, Ryder snickered, floating back and doing a half-backflip. After a second, he glanced at the screen, almost blanching when he realized what the stupid clone was writing. He made a fly-dash for the controller, but it had already written 'I can't talk. I'm made of shadow-' before Ryder hurriedly gained control, making the clone fall face-first into the desk. "Idiot." He growled hotly, opening a portal and sticking his head through. In the classroom, it looked like his head popped out of the clone's shadow, his body following suit. As he landed on the clone, it dissipated, the shadows floating back into Ryder's body. "Sorry about that. Name's Ryder." He offered a half-smirk, his black eyes flickering towards the teacher. Great, the man didn't notice. Damn stupid clones.

[Dragonite777]

Cecelia blushed when Jason took her hood off and giggled at his guess at her power. "The closest I could do to that is turn my hoodie into a bunny suid," Cecelia said as she giggled to the thought of that, "I can turn things into other things. Watch." She nodded her head at Fluffy and concentrated really hard, then turned Fluffy into a pencil. "See? What's your power? Making your friends feel better? Cause you're super good at that," Cecelia said jokingly.