[b]Lynn[/b]

Lynn was pissed. Amelia had implicated herself in all the shit that was going down - [i]you brought all this to me, I was going to keep my fucking head down, but you brought this [/i] - and immediately tried to run off to narc to whoever her handler was. Spoons had found some large, tree-shaped spoons to bend, which was doing wonders for keeping whoever did this from noticing there were witnesses. Archie had grown a foot, which as previously mentioned, really only increased the already insurmountable height advantage most people had on Lynn, but it had the unfortunate effect of making her feet dangle a few inches off the ground. This undercut any pretense of authority Lynn previously possessed. Historically speaking, most had realized that it was unwise to point this out to her. Last but not least there was Denim, who was hyperventilating but covering her face up, standing still. Before Archie had started to grow bigger he'd mentioned picking flowers, which made Lynn's eyes narrow further and the temperature of her body jump up a few more degrees. [i]That graffiti-spraying idiot was right,[/i] Lynn fumed (literally). She knew Archie wasn't as dumb as he looked. [i]Cesar would be proud.[/i]

Lynn looked around at this clownfuckery. All of them were acting like it was the first time they'd seen a dead body. Jesus. Any one of them was going to bring the heat down on all of them, which notably meant also bringing the heat down on Lynn, who did not fancy getting assigned Spoons' old necklace. Spoons was making enough chaos to alert the cops back on Earth, Amelia couldn't have looked more guilty if she was running away in a white Bronco at ten miles per hour, and Archie was about to kill them all. To Denim's credit, she was at least standing still and quiet, although she looked too scared to move. [i]You're all acting like a bunch of children,[/i] Lynn wanted to scream.

Lynn paused.

She took a deep, deep breath. [i]Lucy. The oldest sister at the Johnsons. First house. What was the sort of thing Lucy would always do when shit like this was happening?[/i]

Lynn forced her glow to dimmer down, the air temperature immediately around her and Archie dropping back to normal and Lynn's hair settling to a faintly pulsing red. She kept her tone steady and sharp but tried to keep from shouting, which was difficult, because any one of them, namely Amelia's conspiratorial ass, was going to get her killed. Lucy always kept her voice calm and didn't try to yell over them. Her logic was it just made everybody yell more. Lynn hoped the same principle applied to de-escalating superpowered teenagers.

"All of you - " she started, biting her tongue. She was planning on saying [i]Stop acting like you're in first class and see the South Tower on the horizon[/i] but decided that was most decidedly [i]not[/i] what Lucy would have said to the other girls. "Look - you - " she bit her lip and forced herself not to absolutely lose her shit on these kids. [i]They're kids. Treat them like kids. They're just Clarita and Megan.[/i] "Spoons, keep crying and sitting there. You're gonna be fine." Lynn realizing the callousness of this statement seemed unlikely. "Archie, I want you to sit down and sit on your hands. Sit on them. Right now." She had no idea what the fuck that would accomplish but it seemed like it would occupy his non-lizard brain for a minute, and buy her a half second of time if he snapped. She turned over to Denim. Keat? Keats? Ketty? Was Ketty a name? "Denim," Lynn said. "You are the star fucking pupil of the day. Stay there. Keep breathing. Try not to throw up on your second jacket." Lynn let go of Archie - notably [i]not[/i] when he tried to pry her off, because Lynn did not do things because people wanted her to do them, and would not brook any insinuations she did - and moved over to Amelia, grabbing her by the other wrist. Lynn let enough heat to serve as a pleasant reminder come back into her hand. "If any of you would like a cigarette, I suggest you get one." she pulled out her pack with her free hand and threw it to the ground, apparently forgetting no one else could light them with a literal snap of their fingers. 

Lynn did not like this one bit. If she had free rein, she would've been looking through Amelia's teeth for some kind of dental forensics that might point to some answers. Unfortunately, Lynn figured violence was just going to make any of the others lose their minds, and there was a one in three chance that doing so resulted in getting her ass beat by a giant lizard. This left the girl who could throw a tree at Lynn's head at the speed of sound and the mystery girl who shows up as soon as they find the corpse. These were not what Lynn considered ideal possible outcomes.  [i]At least,[/i] Lynn thought, [i]You tried.[/i] She was not exactly succeeding at being the older sister figure. [i]Well, Lucy got pregnant like four years later anyway.[/i] For a brief, bewildering moment, Lynn realized Lucy was younger when she got knocked up than she was at this present moment. That startled her, but she pushed it aside for the moment. She tried to force herself to see them all as about ten years younger, which made their behavior more excusable. [i]Denim's older than me,[/i] Lynn thought. [i]Why's she even nauseous? That wasn't that bad. Just make it go away.[/i] That was what Che had taught them, after all. You just made it go away and you could do anything. 

However, there were too many coincidences here for Lynn to fully believe what her better judgment - which sounded increasingly and suspiciously like her court-ordered therapist - was saying, that their behavior was excusable. Amelia, at least, had information, and while they were far too close to the scene of the crime for Lynn's liking, she wasn't going to give the teleporter a chance to weasel away. Lynn figured at least they were all dying that way.

"I too," Lynn said, not breaking eye contact with Amelia, "Have questions." Lynn figured she had a chance of tanking a hit from the lizard or Spoons. Denim, who the hell knew. But if Amelia decided to blink the both of them into outer space, kick Lynn towards the nearest black hole, and blink back inside, she was going to make sure she was reading her copy of [i]Snitches Weekly[/i] in Braille for the rest of her life. Lynn forced her tone to stay steady. This was such a mess. Either she didn't find out why this girl knew so much about the corpse, and they put her under the needle for breaking probation by being involved with a murder on her first week, or she got the straight truth a fist at a time and Archie and Spoons turned her into a well-cooked mound of bloody paste. Archie was still a good eight inches too tall for Lynn's liking. Spoons was probably one bloody nose away from snapping again, but she seemed to have collapsed, so she was probably fine for a while. Amelia certainly wasn't running with any gangs. "And would love to hear some answers. None of us are going anywhere until you tell us what's up, and also importantly, none of us are going to say [i]shit[/i] about this dead body when we do leave here." Lynn glanced around briefly. "Which should be soon. Start talking."