[center][img]https://i.postimg.cc/8zfY3hBF/Untitled-design.png[/img][/center] [hr] [color=gray][center][h1][i][b] Tuesday 6:16am Skies Over Claremont (and beyond...) [/b][/i][/h1][/center][/color] Flying to work like that should’ve been a dream come true. Instead Alaine was just nervous. Being up there in the sky always brought her some level of peace, but today it was minimal. Her eyes kept darting around, sure she’d run into some other flying hero before the rain started and they’d somehow recognize her, even though she’d never seen any of them in the flesh before and none of them had ever seen her in that suit. John had told her to wear the one with white. She probably should’ve, yeah, but she’d gone with the black instead. She liked the color better and she preferred the way it didn’t stand out so much as the white. She'd gone with the lower half of the mask too, the "optional" part. Plenty of heroes wore full face coverage, yeah? It wouldn't stand out. She'd popped her earbuds in under the mask before leaving the park -- she'd taken flight from the park. Didn't want anyone catching her leaving her apartment -- and as she flew the next track in her playlist came up. Like magic, she felt a calm settle in the ever-shifting stardust of her veins. Not because the music itself was calming -- more because the lyrics seemed to understand her. [i][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51XUr7uEcq8]♫ Smoke in my vision, so hazy[/url] Shots in the dark can't make me fall Decisions in the past what made me All these eyes on me, can't breathe... ♫[/i] Alaine took a deep breath as the lyrics drifted into her head, fresh air filling her lungs. It was a hard thing to do sometimes but it was easier when she was up there to stop thinking and just feel. The wind in her hair, the weightlessness. The way she felt so much closer to a universe that was just out of reach. Her course strayed from a straight line to a drift, coasting on the wind ahead of the rainy weather slinking its way towards town. Muscles relaxing, body moving with the atmosphere rather than through it. [i]♫ Catch a breath, count to ten Take a sec, stomach feeling nauseous Say I'm fine, lie again These thoughts weighing on my conscience... ♫[/i] John had told her she wasn't her bad decisions but Alaine knew better. She was. She knew because she knew that she'd still make some of those decisions even then if the circumstances were right. Did that mean there was something wrong with her? Well, there was something wrong with everybody, right? Alaine took another deep inhale, wind rising as she closed her eyes. [i]♫ Gotta keep from falling (falling) I've been running, but the past keeps calling (calling) Took a risk even though it might hurt me But the fire in my chest keeps burning (burning) I'ma prove I deserve it... ♫[/i] Up she went, her own voice humming along but barely audible in her ears over the sound of the air and music. Head bobbing, arms moving along -- micro-dancing mid-flight, she shifted one leg subconsciously to put a little spin into her horizontal flight. Rolling with the movement, she let herself sink into the darkness behind her eyes. It wasn't really dark, not anymore. Those days she so often saw stars behind her eyelids... Or something that looked like stars, anyway, glittering and sparkling like it was a very part of her physiology and not some kind of mental trip. With her eyes closed, it was like the sky around her had transformed. She could feel herself moving through it, the shift of gravity and equilibrium as she gently kicked one one boot like pushing off an invisible foothold; up her legs went, body turning smoothly upside-down for a brief second before he followed through with the motion, coming rightside-up again. She could smell that rain coming. Better hurry up... well, maybe not. She didn't have to be there until maybe 12pm. She had a lot of time before she needed to report for duty. She could spend a little while up there... Up [i]there[/i]. The song faded out, the end of her playlist. Alaine's eyes opened but there was no one there to see the way they flashed behind the mask with an ethereal, starry light as she shifted, turning and shooting upwards with a sudden burst of speed. [i]Higher[/i]. Through the sting of overcast clouds and bursting through the top. [i]Higher[/i]. Beyond the level of low-laying clouds to the next one, higher up and wispy. She cut through that too, the chill of the heights beginning to sink into the material of her suit. [i]Higher[/i]. She chased the lack of oxygen like it was a surplus, the thinning atmosphere offering her nothing but a stab of cold as she held her breath. [i]Higher--[/i] One arm stretched up, fingers outstretched like she could claw her way further out of the mesosphere. There were only two layers more. A little further and she could be a star. It was a dream she had a concerning amount, that. [i]Being a star.[/i] Cold and brilliant, a solitary light of a thousand colors. Drifting through nebulae and a darkness that wasn't dark at all, full to bursting with lights and worlds no one would ever see. When she woke and came back to her senses, she thought it had to be a side effect of... whatever had happened to her. Alaine's lungs burned painfully in her ribs as she tried to push it just a little farther. She could probably do it -- it wasn't a lack of ability to fly, it was a lack of ability to breathe. Not today. She stopped pushing and floated for a moment, caught between atmospheres as she let the strain permeate her lungs and ground her again. [i]Ah, well.[/i] If she couldn't be a drifting star out there in the universe -- she'd be a falling one. No one would see that early, probably. People looked at the sky less and less those days. Letting go of flight, she started to fall in a controlled arc, turning over to stretch her arms out in front of herself and creating a small buffer against the force of the air. She picked up speed rapidly, and with the speed came a glow -- a light that enveloped her in a shimmering haze, that from the ground or any distance would make her nothing but a shooting star in the early-morning sky. Down she went, a glowing trail of stardust twinkling out through the mesosphere, the stratosphere, and finally the upper troposphere. She slowed there, arms breaking from the spearhead formation to spread on either side of herself as she spun, the luminosity dying away within seconds. From afar, it would look as if the shooting star had burnt up and finally disappeared. Of course, now that she checked her location, she wasn't actually anywhere near Claremont anymore. [i]Oops.[/i] [hr] [color=gray][center][h1][i][b] Tuesday 11:10am Claremont SDN [/b][/i][/h1][/center][/color] It had taken her a while to get back, but she'd made it. Everything worked out alright, the flight had actually used up the time she had to spare. The smart thing to do would've been to [i]not[/i] get up so early, but she'd been working an overnight shift for the past year and a half so that ingrained sleep-cycle -- also nerves -- had kept her up that morning. In any case, Alaine was just in time to meet with HR and get her picture taken and SDN ID card made. She could tell the woman taking the picture wanted her to remove the lower half of her mask, probably, but that wasn't happening. Looking at the photo on the pass as she made her way back to the lobby, she realized it was the first time she'd looked at a picture of herself and not been dissatisfied with how it turned out. Probably because literally all you could see of her face was the top of her forehead and her hair. [i]Nice.[/i] What wasn't nice was the way she [i]immediately[/i] forgot the secretary's verbal directions. Luckily, her wandering led her right to one of her new coworkers -- none other than Lightning Girl herself. The woman seemed friendly. Helpful, at the least. Alaine appreciated the way she showed her up to the offices where she was supposed to be, and she did her best to remember the information she was given. Especially about her other team members. Eclipse, Payback, Princess, Solaris, Madcap, Asteroid. She was curious about that last one, if only because Lightning Girl had said they were like her "doppleganger". Alaine wondered how. Suit-wise? Power-wise? Couldn't be personality or looks-wise, because Miss Sparkplug didn't know enough about her in either of those regards. Meeting the team in person would have to wait until later though, as she had her [i]favorite[/i] part of the onboarding process to do first. That was sarcasm. She hated paperwork. But John had warned her about it, so she was prepared. She'd memorized the fake stuff, or at least the bits she'd need to fill in, which she did promptly and quietly when the dispatcher, James, handed it over to her. His comment, as she handed back the papers she'd filled, caught her attention. [quote][color=lightblue]"I looked at your record. Impressive, and while there’s gaps… you’ll fit right in."[/color][/quote] Blackstar probably looked eerie for a second then, staring over at him from behind black lenses, face unreadable thanks to the way she was hiding it. [i]Impressive.[/i] She knew. John had made it up. Most of it -- she'd gone out and done a few things that could be referenced by witnesses, at John's prompting, but the rest of it? Lies. She hadn't spent the last two and a half years steadily working up her hero status, helping old ladies cross the street and handing over petty criminals to the cops. Alaine blinked, not that James would know, and snapped out of her split-second reverie. [color=gray][b]"Thank you,"[/b][/color] she said, polite as ever. [color=gray][b]"And yeah, just let me know whenever you want me to work on that paperwork, I'll get right on it."[/b][/color] [i]Be normal. Be normal. Act like you've never killed anyone.[/i] She took the transponder and earpiece, standing as he told her where the others on her team would be. [i]Act like you wouldn't do it again.[/i] [hr] [color=gray][center][h1][i][b] Tuesday 12:47am Break Room Claremont SDN [/b][/i][/h1][/center][/color] Nobody else was in the breakroom yet so Blackstar popped right on over to the vending machine for a water then quickly settled in a corner. Removing the lower portion of her mask, she took a moment to reach under the upper portion and remove her own earbuds; these were put away into an inner pocket of her jacket, which she'd elected to wear because of the forecasted sprinkling. And because she liked the jacket and just wanted to wear it. The earbuds were replaced with the SDN earpiece, and once it was in place she left the lower half of the mask off for a few moments, sipping on her water while the break room was briefly empty. When the first person entered it took her by surprise (as she'd briefly gotten lost in her thoughts), and Alaine snapped the mask back on so quickly that it hurt the bridge of her nose. Her other hand, which held the water, nearly spilled the beverage in her haste to straighten up and look... hero-y. Uncertain whether to speak up or or if she should just wait to be spoken to, Alaine was content to just linger unobtrusively on the edge of the room until a familiar face appeared in the form of Lightning Girl. Even then -- well, she'd never been the first one to speak up in a group, had she? Always better to watch and get a feel for the people around her first. Besides. Despite how John had encouraged her, she wasn't there to make friends. That was a bad idea. A small bob of the head was the only response Blackstar gave Lightning Girl for the moment, and she focused on keeping the bottoms of her boots securely on the ground instead of hovering. She'd noticed she did that when uncomfortable, hover. Usually just an inch or so off the ground, but she didn't want anyone to start realizing it was a nervous tic. In an effort to distract her body from the urge to levitate, she busied her hands with slowly screwing on the lid of her water bottle like it was an exact science.