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[color=goldenrod]“I think it’ll have to do, won’t it?”[/color] said Penny, looking sullen as she stared at the marker in her hand. She still felt defeated, but if Caelea actually did become an Apparition then it was nice to know that Apparitions like the Nurturing Will existed. Odessa’s story had given Penny some of her fleeting hope back. It wasn’t exactly what she had hoped for, but it was more than she had expected. Penny sighed and leaned back on the stairs. 

[color=goldenrod]“I’m from Shimmer,”[/color] said Penny. So, Paradise brought in people from different universes. [color=goldenrod]“Hagan, Zoey, Caelea, we’re all from a town called Farmer Hill.  We’re students at this dumb academy. That League of yours was using our town as a prison for this thing called the Glutton, this world-eating son of a bitch masquerading as a God. Things went to shit as they tend to do, it tried to kill a bunch of us, and we eventually unmade the damn thing. Everything got reset, but it was hard to go back to a normal life after that, you know?”

“Guess what I’m trying to say is that I get feeling lost and I get not knowing who I really am. I know I had a life before everything with the Glutton but the further I get away from it all the less and less of it I remember,”[/color] said Penny. Her childhood and early teen years were nothing but shredded images. She couldn’t tell if the loss was just part of growing older or something more dire. [color=goldenrod]“The real sad thing is that fighting things like the Glutton might be the only thing I’m actually any good at.”[/color]

And she wasn’t even that good at it as her mind looped the image of Caelea getting ripped in two. Penny leaned forward and choked out, [color=goldenrod]“What’s really frustrating is that because of that everyone just looks to me like I know what the fuck I’m doing when I don’t have a goddamn clue when it comes to any of this shit!”[/color] 

She closed her eyes and knitted her brow as an old, familiar anger boiled inside of her. No, it wasn't just starting to heat up. It had been bubbling for a while like a volcano primed to explode.  Odessa didn’t ask to hear any of this, but Penny had to vent. She couldn’t hold in her disgust any longer. Zoey and Hagan should’ve stopped Caelea. Caelea shouldn’t have been an idiot and try to talk to something that had attempted to kill them. Penny shouldn’t have been stupid enough to let them be on their own. The others shouldn’t have distracted her. Just one little release of the pressure and she’d be fine. She knew Odessa would be able to handle it. She seemed unflappable, perhaps one of the positive traits of giving up her humanity.

[color=goldenrod]“Like, I try—”[/color]

"Uh, could I get some help? It started glowing when I played and I don't know what'll happen if I sing what I wrote," said Stacey as he walked down to the girls.

He could not have had worse timing in the world. 

[color=goldenrod]“Stacey!”[/color]

There was no hiding the seething annoyance in her voice as Penny jumped to her feet and turned to glare at the boy. She felt like she was his goddamn mom the way he always ran to her when he had the slightest of problems. Couldn’t he bother someone else for once? She didn’t even notice the glowing guitar as she raised her hand holding the marker and cocked it behind her head.

[center][color=goldenrod][b]“Fuck!”[/b][/color][/center]

She chucked the marker downward with frustration. It repulsed away from her and exploded into a mist of black ink at the boy’s feet. Any higher and it would've hit him, doing who knows what kind of damage. Penny hands morphed into fists as she shoved them down to her side and took one step towards the boy. Her face was red, puffy, and twisted into an hateful, ugly expression of pure rage and utter revulsion like she’d just stepped into a pile of dogshit. From the way her hands were shaking, it seemed apparent that she was going to be scrapping something on the concrete. She took one more step towards Stacey and screamed the loudest she has ever in her life, spittle flying out of her jaws like a rabid animal.

[right][color=goldenrod][b][i]“OFF!”[/i][/b][/color][/right]