[center][color=00a99d][h2]Ernest Mars[/h2][/color][/center] [center][img]http://i68.tinypic.com/63x8xz.jpg[/img][/center] [center][img]http://i.imgur.com/3R5vYYi.png?2[/img][/center] [hr][center][color=silver]π•Šπ•–π•‘π•₯. 𝟟, 𝟚𝟘𝟚𝟘 / / π•Œπ•Šπ”Έβ„π•€π•ƒβ„• 𝔼𝕒𝕀π•₯ / / π”Ήπ•¦π•šπ•π••π•šπ•Ÿπ•˜ 𝔹 / / ~πŸ™πŸ‘πŸ˜πŸ˜[/color][/center][hr] It all seemed to happen in an instant. First he was shrugging off Allison's cold response to his shit apology. Then he was chatting with Rain. Then... Ernie found himself looking up at Building B, an uncharacteristically loose bundle of his clothes, some papers and his tomahawk in his frozen hands. At least his feet remembered the way back. His mind was far too busy processing whatever the fuck just happened. The silence smothered him as he entered the dorm, the emptiness serving only to letting his thoughts and doubts surge through the mental floodgates. [i]What the hell.[/i] The Aberration stepped hurriedly through his room. He unfolded the laundry basket from his luggage, tossing his weapon and Rain's paperwork onto the desk and his damp pants into the basket. After a moment's reconsideration, the pants were picked back up. Who knew what sort of gross bacteria was in that stale water? They needed to be washed immediately. The Aberration dorms here didn't have their own freaking bathrooms so he'd need to handwash them in the communal area. The area shared by the dozens of filthy, mentally unstable teens in the same apartment building. Ernie glowered violently while he went through his bags. That pink-haired girl actually tried to escape! Seriously gave a shit about Ernie's stupid jabs. Seriously just went... somewhere, and disappeared, leaving nothing but a bunch of confused guards and distraught staff mages in her wake. Yes, that was it. Just a dumb magic act. Rain probably dropped down into the sewers from the first match and made a break for it. USARILN security would find that reckless idiot in no time, probably cuff her with four limiters this time. It was a wonder how that whole mess even managed to happen. This was the scenario Ernie satisfied his wandering mind with as he took a quick shower and washed his pants. He didn't let himself remember Rosa's sobbing form on the ground as Fredric harshly dismissed them. He didn't think about Rain's intangibility. He didn't connect the dots between Rain needing to hold her breath to go through things and dropping through the ground and falling through that dark rock and what would happen if her breath ran out and... Ernie slammed the faucet. His shower was done. Even after seven months outside of the lounge, Ernie's showers never lasted longer than five minutes. He packed his various soaps and fabric detergents and carried his shower pack back to the dorm, now dressed in a casual t-shirt and sweatpants combination. The newly washed pants were hung in the closet. The shower pack stayed on his desk, next to the manila folder Rain had given him before... A quick flip through showed that it was just a bunch of profiles of people in his class, including ones of him and 'Rain le Blanc'. Other than the full names provided, it was useless to Ernie. He'd have to return it soon, when Rain came back. Ernie caught that line of thinking, faintly pleased that he still thought of it as a 'when' and not an 'if'. Because Rain was coming back. And Ernie hadn't done anything stupid or horribly wrong except goad a classmate into a silly prank. The Aberration pushed the memory of Rosa's tears away. Maybe she was just bad under stressful situations! And how would she know if anything bad happened down there? Nothing bad happened to Rain. Nothing bad happened because of Ernie. He brushed his undried hair and wrangled it into a rough ponytail before heading out to dinner. The scratching in his chest had long since been sated by Allison's injury, replaced by uncertainty instead. The uneasiness and guilt rising in him would hopefully be quelled by a full stomach.