Blizz

Young Justice

How the hell was she going to handle this?

If Black Canary was right, maybe just talking about this whole thing was enough to make it worse for all three of them. But still, Cora was really fucking glad that Metamorph was back. There were three different ways she was thinking this could go. Kila would probably just give it to her straight, Ja was Ja… She wasn’t familiar with the third guy yet.

For the first time in a few days, Cora floated instead of walked, making her way down a hall where their room was. That was deliberate, so if they were actually down here, they’d hopefully notice that Cora was around and not get startled. She didn’t want that, even if she wasn’t giving off as much energy after that day with Static.

And she hovered outside his door for a moment, before knocking.

”Hey… Anyone home?”

”Not in there,” His voice came from several feet behind her. The young lion walked down the hall with a guitar case slung over his shoulder. His expression was calm and alert, though his mind still seemed to be elsewhere as his brown eyes regarded her.

”Do you need my help with something?”

”Nope. Sorta the opposite,” She answered. ”I’ve been pretty worried about everyone lately, and I just wanted to talk. If you’re not busy.”

He eyed his door for a moment, debating with himself…or at least this currently in control version of himself. He’d been doing his best to keep his emotions at bay, and for the most part it has been successful. The base had many distractions, and Kassy helped move miniature mountains of tension.

Still, it wouldn’t help to keep it away from the others indefinitely. From prior memory, he remembered Cora to be an empathetic soul, if not kind. There surely wouldn’t be an undercurrent of confrontation in talking to her. With the decision made, he shook his head.

”It’s fine, I am not busy.” Was his answer, though waving his hand to follow past his room to the lounge area.

He opted for a more open area as, really, he was trying to avoid the narrative of being some sort of problematic enigma to the newer members of their squad. Granted, the savannah son didn’t anticipate any of the others coming to interject on their conversation anyway. He found a chair nearest to one of the windows and set his case beside him.

”You have questions…?”

”Yeah.” She floated to the ground and tilted backwards, rocking back and forth on her feet. ”Are you guys okay?” She asked as if all three of them were standing next to each other, in separate bodies.

Kila’s head leaned to the side in contemplation. ”Honestly, I am not sure. I feel physically healthy, but I’m sure that’s not what you’re asking.” He started, but paused to open his guitar case. Inside was…what looked like the framework of a guitar to the untrained eye. Though one simple question would lead to the answer of it being a Yamaha ‘silent’ guitar. His nails tapped a few of the strings before he continued.

”My mind is more or less scattered. It is as though my thoughts are like the stars in the sky; right there where I could see them, but almost impossible to reach. Between my DID discovery, and how to address a certain betrayal, I’ve simply been trying to exist…How are you recovering?”

”Getting there. I can fly without feeling like I’m being rotated in a microwave again,” Cora answered. ”Not sitting still helps, makes it harder to stand back if I sit around too long.”

The young lion nodded, beginning to play along to a song that had been stuck in his head for several days. ”I haven’t exactly gotten around to everyone to apologize for putting you all at risk during that mission. If I didn’t take the bait, perhaps they wouldn’t have engaged the way that they did.”

”I think everyone was about as pissed at each other as they were at you, really. Everyone was mad for one reason or another, but you did what you had to do, Kila. If you weren’t gonna fall for it, it wasn’t gonna happen. And you wouldn’t have gone if you didn’t have some plan in mind for getting back, right?”

”For once…I didn’t. As ironic as this now sounds, I’d say that I wasn’t really in my right mind. I wasn’t sure who they were sending, and part of me feared that I was already too late. Where I come from, we were trained to hunt other metahumans…I was originally going to just warn you all and get out. But then I saw you knocked out and Vincent getting overwhelmed.—“ He misplayed a few notes, retracting his strumming fingers to recompose himself and begin again.

”...Can’t be prepared for everything.” It complicated things when she went nuclear out there. They had to retrieve her, they didn’t know what was wrong. She could’ve helped Vincent if she found another way to get free.

”No one’s dead, we’re all back together. We know better now. We can make sure it happens less in the future.”

”That’s true…Failure is our greatest teacher. We would just have to be willing students…”

Cora nodded in a sagely way. ”Speaking of that, do you remember hearing anything weird back at the bank mission? The third guy came out near the end and- We were all talking and I noticed it might have had something to do with a sound gun I picked up after it was over.”

That seemed to give him pause, even pressing his palm against the strings to mute them. Did he hear anything strange? Not necessarily. But the sound gun that she mentioned gave him an indication of something. This ‘third guy’, referring to this side of himself that was not ‘Ja’, possibly having something to do with a sound gun…a trigger perhaps? He hadn’t considered it, but it was feasible…but why—?

”I did not…Though I was shot with one of the sound weapons, except, I don’t recall being hit with concussive force. I thought that I knocked out the thief that held the hostages but then I suddenly felt a pain in my head and blacked out.”

”That’s… Yeah. He was found, you weren’t at the wheel anymore. He went off on those guys, and none of them were killed but it wasn’t pretty. That sound gun was found near him. I don’t think he likes me after I flashbanged him at the harbor.”

She fidgeted. ”Ja, the one we all actually know, he has animal powers if you didn’t know that yet. He can pick one and do something it does. He runs real fast like a horse, hears things humans can’t but dogs can… The frequency on that gun’s high enough we can’t hear it. But you were able to, which- I didn’t know you could do stuff like that.”

Kila rested his wrist against the frame thoughtfully.

”I am aware of that at least. All my life I have grown up hearing about what I should be capable of…even after that mission. Despite having some odd lucid dream sort of influence to keep from killing them, Pei still saw to it that I was scolded for my actions…

Though from what you are explaining to me, this occurrence wasn’t a natural reaction from my instinctive side. I saw what happened when those weapons fired at the others, the destroyed infrastructure and your, albeit small, injuries…It would mean it was a provocation…but…” He gripped the guitar frame a little more tightly, staring a hole into the floor.

”I was never free…They…she never stopped hunting me…”

”She? Who’s she?”

The young lion blinked, silently shifting in place to recompose himself. With a deep breath, he shook his head.

”Someone that used to look after me. I have one mother but many aunts, is how I will phrase it…There was a tracking device from Buredunia that I found and destroyed before I came to warn you all on the last mission. It was how I figured out that the mission was a trap. What I fear is how long it was there.”

That didn’t sound good. ”…There probably isn't a way to tell if it’s destroyed, yeah. You could maybe trace its signal back to where it was transmitted to, and then break into a system on that end. But- Yeah.”

Unless… ”Well, actually, I haven’t been able to put a lid on the interference stuff I give off until recently. So… If you found the tracker in a place I walk past a lot, maybe that means it wasn’t there for long?” She suggested. It was a stretch, but she was spitballing. ”Since I haven’t been here that long, and if I didn’t fry it, that means it was pretty sturdy. I know that probably sounds ridiculous, but that’s about all I can think of. Where’d you find it?”

Kila looked out the window. ”The strains of promethium used by Buredunia vary with the equipment they give us. Most typically the trackers, from what I understand, don’t transmit a constant signal, but more of a radar every so often. Otherwise, it is off, so as to keep from arousing suspicion.

It is less likely that you would have blown it just from your presence, as it is designed to endure surges up to a certain limit. It was designed with meta-humans in mind…The only reason I discovered it was because it was attached to Iwi—“ He cut himself off and paused. Not now. Saying her name hurt, now that he knew what he knew… Breathe, try again. He looked at his fingers against the guitar’s frets and started playing again.

”…the gold colored bands of promethium that I wear as part of my uniform. They mean a lot to me, so I maintain them as best as I can…With that said, I threw the tracker into the ocean while I was on my way to all of you.

”Promethium… Yeah, I dunno,” she admitted. ”It’s in the past now. It’s not your fault for falling for it. I would’ve fallen for it too, if I was stuck here and all of you were in danger. That’s not being weak, that's just being human.”

Kila nodded his head appreciatively. For a little while, he kept quiet while playing, occasionally swaying his head to the melody.

Cora listened quietly for a bit. He was good at that.

”…If you want, I think I remember where I put that sound gun,” Cora suggested. ”You don’t have to, but if we ever run into something like that again, I figured you’d maybe wanna know what it is so you aren’t surprised again. I’ve been meaning to take it apart, anyway.”

As the song reached its conclusion, his eyes wandered from left to right across the floor contemplatively. At first there was unease, but Kila’s music paired with talking through all of those suspicions and musings helped to recenter him. It was more weight lifted from his shoulders, which prompted him to look up to the one to help him lift it. A corner of his lip became a smile and he put his guitar back into his case.

”I think it is about time I see it…and, so it is not lost, I’m grateful for this talk you came to have with me.”

[Cancelled]

deez

---

You already know what the fuck boutta happen

Camp Athens - Closed

Azariah got herself a map and listened in on everything the woman called Andromeda had to say. Food, magic cabins, apparently someone was around here who felt like they had authority… The usual. Well, about as usual as a bunch of demigods holed up somewhere in the woods could possibly be. It was a pretty quick announcement, really. She made a mental note to keep an eye out for this “surfer dude” to see how easy he was to irritate, vex, inconvenience or otherwise irk in some amusing way.

The backpack hanging off of Azariah’s shoulders unzipped itself open, and the map floated inside, before it magically zipped itself back up. She’d pick a cabin later. Right now, she was curious about this other stuff that Andromeda had mentioned, so she walked towards the doors back outside.

She heard a commotion outside, and got curious enough to go looking for someone to pester.

(here’s Blair’s random shit to toss wherever lol)
Blair looked over toward the entrance where a raven hair girl looked a little worse for wear. She grimaced watching her wipe snot on her sleeve… and was that in her mouth? Gross. "Unless you consider getting munched on by a cannibal horse fun, then it’s Pee-Wee’s playhouse," she replied with a droll sarcastic tone. "I fucking hate it here, being perfectly honest. But the boys…" She added, turning her attention back to Osée. "Do make up for some of its less than stellar qualities."

No sooner had Rosalia processed the response to her rhetorical remark than the “boy” in question suggested with a little smile, [i]"The Mamsel here may be in more need of your rarely offered help. I am thinking we should be finding at the least a coffee, perhaps something to eat."

Rosalia shook her head firmly. She let out a strained, breathy sigh, and simply responded, “Right, maybe I’ll join you once I’ve gotten settled…and freshened up.”

As she grasped her other suitcase’s handle and went to move, another voice weighed in.

”And here I went and hoped that a place with this many godly children prancing around would be more than a camp full of pretty faces.”

She came around the bend and saw a few women standing there by the entrance. One in sunglasses looked to be in rough shape.

”You look like you walked the entire way here,” She commented. As if there was a bus that took Azariah here. ”I just got here too. Let me help you with that…”

Azariah tapped her magical staff against the snowy ground and flicked a finger in the direction of Rosalia’s bags, causing them to start floating as if it were light as a feather. The other one with even more luggage probably had a way to sort that out somewhere in there.

”Magic makes things like that easier.”

Rosalia tightened her grip on the handles of her suitcases and squinted to get a good look at the woman offering her help. Magic. Rosalia had seen it herself—she’d done something of the sort herself—and yet the entire thing still felt surreal, even patently ridiculous.

“Thank you,” she wheezed. Her mouth drew into a tight-lipped smile as she took a final deep breath through her nose. Just as quickly, her smile faltered and muddled into something of a concerned frown. She released her grip on her suitcases.

“You mean y’all ain’t walked here?” she groaned, already anticipating an answer she wasn’t expecting to like, “I had to shlep my bags all over creation. Had to. My…uh…guide to get here was in paces.”

”I took a plane to get here, first,” she answered. ”Then I walked. It’s a lot easier when you aren’t carrying an entire house on your back.” Azariah only had one backpack, and no suitcases. It was easy to get here.

Rosalia nodded along. Her mouth pulled to the side in a little frown.

“Yeah, I flew too,” she replied, “It’s the part afterwards that sucked. My understanding was that we were gonna be here a while. So it was either take this with me or pitch it, ‘cus my folks’re gonna repurpose my room now I’m gone.”

Rosalia shrugged, and started moving forwards with her newly lightened load.

“No undoin’ it now, anyway,” she conceded, “Either way, I gotta get to Cabin 38 so I can set this down and get myself cleaned up. Hopefully they got the water pressure how I asked…”

”I don’t know where that is, but I do have a map… Want to walk there?” Azariah asked. ”I need to find my own cabin anyway.”

Rosalia nodded gently.

“Yes, I’d appreciate that…”

She clicked her tongue, and added, “Thank you again. My name’s Rosalia, by the way. Nice to meet you.”

”Azariah. Kid of Hecate, if that matters.”

She waved her magical staff around, and the floating luggage started drifting forward. Azariah turned around on her heel and started walking off into the distance where many unclaimed cabins lay.

”So… God camp. I wonder how many of these demigods are happy to be here.”

Rosalia sighed. “Wouldn’t know,” she responded, “Probably depends on if the others are better parents than Zeus, if I had to guess. I had to fuss at his messenger to get any kind of useful instructions.”

”Instructions?” Azariah smirked. ”The most I was given was a hint that something interesting would be happening in a certain direction. I wasn’t even told what.” Hecate was mysterious like that.

Rosalia let out an amused snort.

“Tried pulling that shit with me too. I wouldn’t let it go till I had the details. Probably why they made me walk, though. Seems like some folks hardly had to,” she mused.

”I guess not. Though… You would think they could have just had one of the gods’ children come to everyone. It would’ve been much easier and more believable, that way.”

Azariah wasn’t sure, but she could imagine that a lot of the demigods didn’t know they were demigods until recently. She knew her whole life, but it might not have been the same for everyone else.

Rosalia was quiet for a moment as they proceeded on, taking in her first look at the camp intently. She furrowed her brow.

“Nothing about this is believable. If I didn’t have the proof in my own bones, I wouldn’t believe it,” she commented.

”By the time I was 15, Hecate had already appeared in the woods and told me everything,” Azariah noted. ”Sometimes, the only difference between what is and isn’t true is who you’re asking. I used to think gods were just a myth, but then, one day, I was running through the woods on four legs instead of two.”

Rosalia shook her head with a little smile.

“I reckon it’s gon’ be a while ‘fore I run out of new things to see,” she chuckled, “So, she tell you if there are any other gods than the Greek ones?”

”Hecate barely tells me anything. She only comes and gives me enough to figure it out myself, and then leaves me to do just that. If there are, I wouldn’t know.”

“Because why would we need to know!” Rosalia exclaimed, “Almost as bad as the capital-G God with these ineffable plans, Lord’ve mercy!”

Rosalia pulled her phone from her coat pocket and pulled off one of her gloves. Fumbling with it briefly, she finally pulled up a scan of a map of campus, not unlike those available near the entrance.

“You wouldn’t believe how much fussin’ I needed to throw at Zeus’ guy to get an idea of where I was supposed to be. Hope they listened to me when I asked.”

She clicked her tongue, and took a scanning look around.

“Should…be…right over there,” she drawled, pointing her phone towards a path. She looked to Azariah again.

“I think I got it from here. I don’t wanna keep ya from getting unpacked.”

”I don’t think I’ll be getting unpacked just yet, anyway,” Azariah said. Rosalia’s things floated forward ahead of them both, and Azariah took a step backwards. ”I’m going to go explore and see if anything interesting is going on.”

Rosalia nodded and went for her things. She plucked her bags from the air and pulled them back on, one by one.

“Well I hope you find what you’re lookin’ for,” Rosalia responded. She pulled her suitcases in towards herself, and started on her way.

“I gotta get myself set up before anything else. So thank you, Azariah, I really do appreciate it,” Rosalia concluded.

”Not a problem.”

That wasn’t the same voice Azariah just had. In fact, that also wasn’t the same body she had either.

When Rosalia wasn’t looking, Azariah suddenly became a taller male. He was still wearing the same clothes, still holding the staff. His hair was much shorter now, and his voice had gotten deeper.

”I’ll be around.”

Avengers Academy: X of Swords ⚔️

A Rock and a Hard Place

---

It had been only three months now, since Leah enrolled in this school and blended in with normal people. It had been… interesting, in a way. They gave her a specific set of clothes she had to wear like a lot of the schools only rich kids went to. Leah had to give the school demonstrations with her earth powers and her strength, which she displayed by beating the shit out of robotic test dummies. They had asked her about how she learned to fight like that, since she tore one’s head clean off with a high kick, and she didn’t give them a real answer.

It was enough that someone decided Leah didn’t necessarily need a beginner’s course in combat, but could still benefit from learning from “official” instructors. So she was put in a group of people her age who had, for the most part, never thrown a punch in their lives. One absolute twink of a boy flinched every time someone went for his face, it was painful to watch. But eventually, she stopped being the only one among them capable of some amount of fighting.

And this was the part of it that Leah really didn’t like.

A few times a week, the whole class was lined up, and their teacher would pick someone at random. They’d pick someone to fight, and the whole class would watch to “learn” from them.

He picked that bitchy blonde who always looked too fragile to even be here, today.

The bitchy blonde in question was Sabine.

Full of anger and condemnation for the world at large, Sabine’s time at school started on a rough note. She made it everyone’s problem. Despite how good she was in the classwork she would often make remarks to the teachers, to other students, even to those she was considered a friend to. Sabine felt the icy chill in her veins, the same feeling each time she was accused of doing something she never would. Her mother made sure she understood the risks, but now she was gone. And despite her father being alive, he was gone too.

She didn’t care if people disliked her. People already judged her so she may as well lean into the villain she was painted out to be.

She watched in classes, seeing others fight over and over again. She knew she was not physically the strongest, but she was damn sure she surpassed everyone else in intelligence. So when she was picked to fight in class, she stood in front of her target.

She knew very little about the girl in front of her apart from her hair looking ratty and unkempt, much like her overall demeanor. Despite this, Sabine knew the girl could hold her own. There was anger behind her fists. So Sabine knew the battle started even before the first punch was thrown.

”Excuse me, but could you maybe pick someone else? It seems like life has already beaten her down to a pulp and I would feel just so guilty if I made it worse than it already was for her.” The intention being: knock her down first.

”Did anyone ask, you stupid bitch?” Leah spat. ”You don’t even belong here… I’m picking her.”

Leah was sick of her shit. The rich girl always had some bitchy comment or look to give her, always had more makeup plastered on her face than personality in her brain. She walked over to the space where fights happened and gave Sabine a death glare.

”Get over here. Now.”

”That’s the difference between you and me. Leaders don’t wait to be asked. They just do. But sure, scream into the void what a bitch I am. Only makes you look weak.” Sabine strode forward to the space she needed to stand in. ”Never mind. I’ll gladly take part in this, if for no other reason than to put the garbage where it belongs.”

She clenched and unclenched her fists. Sabine met Leah’s glare with her own. ”Bring it on, dirt.”

”Dirt?”

Leah angled her arm into a ninety-degree angle, and made a fist. A piece of the floor tore itself open, as a rock shot out, appearing in front of Sabine’s face.

”Fine.”

The rock exploded on a molecular level, turning into a small cloud of dust to cake Sabine’s face.

She wanted dirt, she got dirt.

As the dirt hit her face, Sabine shut her mouth for once, letting the debris cake her. She had asked for it. Sabine opened her eyes and wiped some of if off with her hand. She nodded. ”Cute. My turn.”

Sabine launched her psyche into Leah’s mind. There was an intense emotional block, but Sabien found anger easy to get through because the brain was going a mile a minute. Once she got through Sabine picked a memory at random, one that seemed to be on the top of Leah’s mind.

And, for a moment, Sabine hesitated. But she got through it. The bitch wanted a fight, she would give her a fight.

Sabine amplified the memory; the moment Leah heard the gunshot that took her mom. She increased the sound, having it echo throughout the memory. She added a voice. ”It’s your fault. Your fault she died. You could have saved her but you are too weak. Your own mother. Pitiful. Weak. A monster. You are a monster!” The words would play through Leah’s mind.

Sabine pulled back out, letting the memory take control for however long. Sabine prepared for retaliation.

Leah went inside herself, closing off the world for a second. On the outside, it looked like she just blinked and didn’t react… Until her face slowly twisted into a scowl.

The floor rumbled, and there was a snap. Leah rushed her down, pushing off the floor and leaving a dent in it. She got in Sabine’s face like a dog going after a cat, dropped low, and swung an uppercut at the sassy fucker’s jaw.

How fucking dare she bring that shit back up?

”Fuck you!”

Sabine arched back, avoiding the uppercut but falling flat on her ass. She scrambled quickly, getting back in Leah’s face. ”What, you get to fling dirt around but I can’t? Mine just happened to be better. If you can’t handle your own trauma what good are you?” Yeah, big talk Sabine, pull the other leg now.

”Count yourself lucky that’s all I did. You just need a therapy session and you’ll be all right I could have permanently bedridden you while you eat mashed potatoes out of a tube. So step off with this bullshit pretending you know what you are doing. You’re lower than worthless, how the hell did you even get into this school?”

The answer to that was a falling elbow aimed directly at Sabine’s diaphragm.

”I fucking chose this, you idiot,” Leah answered. ”You probably wouldn’t come here unless your fucking rich dad paid someone to let you in.”

Sabine felt the wind knock out of her as Leah elbowed her. Sabine started coughing, grasping at her throat as Leah started screaming at her. She barely heard a word though she did catch that last bit.

Sabine took a breath and, once she was able to do so fully, stood back up, cocked her fist, and punched Leah in the eye.

And it hurt like a bitch. But if it hurt Leah, it was worth it.

She rubbed her now bruised hand, but she pressed on. ”I auditioned, same as you. The difference being I’m not a scholarship applicant, one the faculty took pity on. Hell, maybe use you in advertisements. ‘If we can accept her, we can accept anyone.’”

Leah had rolled over and, with muscle memory, gotten to her feet while basically blinded by a punch to the soft parts of her face. It was a miracle the bitch didn’t lose her hand by hitting her hair.

Leah swung both her arms upwards in a table-flipping motion. The spot on the ground where Sabine was laying shot upwards, with the intent to springboard the fuck out of her.

”It doesn’t even cost fucking money to go here, are you fucking stupid?!”

Sabine felt her feet lift as the earth beneath her shot upward, sending her flying backward, landing on her back. Not only did her hand hurt, but now her upper back was throbbing. ”All the more reason you’re a pity applicant! No one in their right mind would have you here.” Sabine launched her psyche back in to Leah, this time instead of grabbing a memory she wanted to do as much damage as possible. If she couldn’t beat her from the outside, she would do so from the inside.

Sabine let out a psychic burst, intending to cause a massive migraine headache, a ringing in Leah’s ears that wouldn’t go away quickly. Anything she could hold on to to break her was up for grabs.

Leah clenched her head and wailed like an animal that just had its leg broken. Her head throbbed, her vision started blurring. This bitch was one of those telepathic assholes that played with minds and didn’t actually fight back.

With a growl, she stomped the floor and caused a miniature earthquake that shook the whole room. It sounded like a fighter jet was roaring over their heads.

Sabine and the other students, the teacher, all felt the rumble beneath their feet. Some fell over while others braced. Sabine fell to the ground on her knees as the mini earthquake erupted. She knew she was hurting Leah, but Leah was holding out. Sabine tried not to be impressed, but couldn’t. Leah was strong.

Sabine let go of the psychic hold she had on Leah and stood up. ”There’s no need for collateral damage.” It was clear Leah outmatched her in physical strength, but Sabine was sure her mental aptitude was far beyond Leah’s. Almost equals. Possibly friends if life experiences happened another way.

”I’ll yield if you do.” Sabine took some deep breaths. She wouldn’t admit it, but this was a lot of fun for her. No one ever challenged her before. But she wouldn’t admit it. Not to her.

Leah’s face was a scowl.

Who did this bitch think she was? Digging up those memories that Leah had tried to bury, then acting high and mighty and wanting a fucking draw?

She stomped over to her and drove an elbow into the blonde girl’s jaw.

”Fuck you. I win, it’s over.”

And the teacher immediately got between them about it, calling Leah’s behavior unacceptable and unheroic. As if that mattered.

Sabine wasn’t surprised. She knew the fight would have ended with both of them exhausted, beaten down, and possibly in need of medical and psychiatric care. So when Leah ran over and decked her she knew it was coming from a place of genuine anger.

Sabine knew. She saw Leah’s memories. She knew Leah was hurting and she pulled on that string. She didn’t feel bad about it. She was challenged to a fight and she used what was at her disposal.

Sabine took a beat, took a breath, and stood up.

She wiped the blood off the side of her mouth. She would be bruised. ”Fine. You win. Enjoy the hollow victory.” She looked at the teacher and nodded, signifying she was all right. ”After all, a villain isn’t going to just give up. They are going to do whatever they can to bring the hero down. Like, for example, concede defeat and let the hero beat them. Let that one person punch them as they stand there and admit they lost. Imagine what that looks like, to see someone you think of as a hero beat down someone willingly accepting the loss. Well, that person would be a monster, wouldn’t they?”

Sabine cracked her neck. ”Seems I am in need of a cold compress or something. I would get something for that eye also. I’ll go to the nurse’s office.” Sabine turned and started to walk away. But she stopped and turned to face Leah again. ”I had it right, you are a monster.”

Being petty, Leah stomped the floor and made a chunk of stone fly up to smack Sabine over the head.

”I’m not the one who fucks with brains, bitch.”

Sabine felt the rock collide. It hurt, again. She took another breath. ”Are you quite sure about that?” And she continued to walk, leaving Leah to sit in her feelings.

And she had a lot of them.

She stood there in the middle of the room, surrounded by others who were watching in shock or dismay at how disordered the fight was. Leah had a mean, unheroic look on her face. Sabine was right, she wasn’t much of a hero if this was how she handled petty shit like that. She wasn’t much of a hero if she responded to a surrender with a punch to the face.

And she was right about what she saw, too. It was Leah’s fault.

The teacher was giving her a look.

”Yeah. I’ll fix it.”

✨ Under Black Stars ✨

It wasn't approval that Jack looked down at her with. Or, if it was, it was so damn difficult to tell. Jack's face was always hard to read, and he usually only conveyed things vocally, and not with body language. He showed love through the things he did, more than what he expressed.

And he simply nodded. "You have advanced more quickly than I did, when I was your age. You've done well for now, child. Rest. The world will be here when you wake."

His silhouette blurred against the dark room, until he was just a faint imprint on her vision. Jack disappeared, and the day was over.

When it began again, Nochalla pattered up the stairs and around the corner. The house was bigger indoors than what it appeared to be outdoors; There were doors and angles in hallways that weren't always present, like old remnants of shapes it had been configured into in the past. The cat, with its three eyes, had a way of seeing all these shapes at once. She never got lost, she never got caught of guard. It was easy for her to get around because of this, easy for her to seemingly appear anywhere in this house with the same ease as its human master.

Nochalla scampered down the hallway past doors as she'd done countless times before. But then she stopped.

Creak.

A small noise, something only her feline ears could pick up. It wasn't Jack's favorite chair in the study, he was in the kitchen. It wasn't Annika tossing around in bed, because Jack made sure she was at ease last night. It made her ears twitch.

In Annika's room, Nochalla sat on the girl's chest, pawing at her face to wake her up.

"Mreh," said the three-eyed cat.

Camp Athens - Closed

	Azariah Willow Child of Hecate * Camp Entrance

Azariah was a long, long way from home. Not that she had a problem with that.

A gentle poof of a stick accompanied the hardy crunch of boots walking through snow. In the form of a stout woman, Azariah strolled through the woods one winter morning. Today was the last day of the year, and she was spending it on the move. Once upon a time, that would've made a bit more sense, given that people traveled for holidays. But this? Oh, no, this wasn't even the same country. This wasn't the United States, and getting a passport took some time. Of course, navigating a whole new country whose language she didn't speak certainly didn't help, nor did Hecate being Hecate about the whole situation.

That fact made Azariah grin, for all it was worth.

She used her staff to periodically blow away any falling snow, shoving it this was and that way with a bit of telekinetic force. She did dress for this weather, with thick pants, a heavy parka and some wool gloves. Though, where Azariah was from, it usually didn’t snow this much in winter. She considered just turning into a bird and flying through the trees to avoid a lot of it. The only reason she didn’t was that, allegedly, the gods were laying close attention to this area. And by extension, so would their kids. She didn’t want to turn into an animal in case some demigod with a magic bow came through thinking she was an easy sacrifice.

Azariah had to wonder what they were saying, back in that small town where she never seemed to want to leave. He never went to college, where are they going now? Why didn't he tell anyone he had a job- Was it a job? There wasn't any real reason to fool them, her mom or dad or anyone else in town, about where she was going. Azariah could've just told them she'd been putting money away to move out somewhere and lied about where. Telling people why wasn't an option. Though, it was more habit than anything that she'd left them all completely blindsided. It just happened to go over her head.

The gate came into view.

Walking up to it, it didn't seem like it was magic or made of fancy god metals. There was a keypad on it, and putting two and two together -Hecate's suggestions making two, and this making four- Azariah stuck her thumb on the fingerprint reader. When the gate opened for her, there were so many people milling about at this hour. She assumed they were demigods. After all, it was a pain in the ass to get here, and there was no way in all hell that every last one of these people were Greek by nationality alone. There were cabins in the distance, loudspeakers up around the place, and looking off into the distance... Was that just a literal coliseum? There were cabins everywhere, and they all looked pretty distinct from each other.

Azariah picked a direction and started walking towards the closest building, the main hall.

	Marlen Ross Child of Apollo * Camp Entrance

There exists a point where someone has too much of a good thing. When the medicine for what ails becomes the poison and should therefore be withheld. Apollo had once told Marlen that they should just do what they felt they needed to do for themselves, and as a god of medicine and general well-being, it was hard to argue that he had a point. But that was years ago, and Marlen considered Apollo to at least have some sense in his divine head. He told Marlen that there was a place for their kind, the demigods from all over Earth, and framed it in a way that made sense: It was good for a person to change every now and then, and socialize.

It wasn’t hard to reason with Marlen. Both them and Apollo knew that much, and though he wasn’t very hands-on throughout their life, he’d been watching like any godly parent would. He watched Marlen coast from place to place, hopping trains and seeing the world, and knew that it was healthy for them. They were a strange kid who eventually grew up to be a strange adult. Their own needs were something they valued highly, being on the road so much, so Apollo knew just how to convince them without any serious arm-twisting. Getting here from the United States presented its own problems, but gods as their witnesses, Marlen pulled through.

For the last two months, they'd been a stowaway on a passenger ship. Marlen was lucky that they hadn't completely sold out rooms aboard it, and even luckier that this one happened to cross hemispheres. A day after the ship had cast off, Marlen just approached a worker, wearing stolen clothes, and told him there must've been a mistake because his room and keycard weren't ever given to him. The worker was, of course, too damn busy to scrutinize. So he just escorted Marlen to an empty cabin and took down some basic information. And just like that, Marlen had blended in and was able to eat food and sleep in peace. It felt so weird getting away with that, they had to wonder if Apollo had asked Poseidon to just brainwash the guy and let it be.

That ship landed in France, several countries away from where they needed to go.

It took another month to hop trains and cross through valleys, jump over rivers and navigate towns with different languages, to end up in the right country. From there, it was another week to get to this snowy forest. All of that was Marlen's life for years, so it was like clockwork to them. Anyone else probably would've taken a week just to find where this place was, let alone make it here in person.

All to end up before a metal gate with some weird contraption out front. Marlen curiously touched it with their gloved hand, and it beeped. They pulled a pan flute out thin air and swatted at it to make it stop beeping. The gate slid open, and Marlen came to the conclusion it was some sort of security thing, like all the gates and checkpoints used to keep people from going somewhere they shouldn't. They'd had to deal with a lot of those, especially here on this continent where public transport was way more common.

In they went.

Avengers Academy: X of Swords ⚔️

Mayra Pavon

---

Location: The Sonoran Desert
4 years ago

---

The early morning sun beat down on the rocks and reflected off the sky. It wasn’t anything Mayra didn’t know well enough already. It was warm, it was always warm here. Dad was busy doing something in Phoenix, so she convinced him to let her get home herself. That meant taking sandstone and turning it into a small platform that she used to soar over the desert until she found the house.

It was hard to find, but anyone who lived with any form of nature in the backyard learned how to navigate quickly. A steep cliff that overlooked a field of verbenas was the sign that it was close. Then, one only had to walk under the cliff and turn left. And their house was there, build into the rock like a nuclear bunker. Even though many people lived in this desert, dad seemed to like it for some reason.

She wasn’t used to flying over things like that, but Mayra gave it maybe an hour before he got here. That meant if they could get out and away from him quick then maybe they’d be fine.

Mayra’s hands flew over a keypad, putting in a 12-character code that was, apparently, mathematically impossible to crack in less than an hour. The sandy-brown walls shuddered, and a door slid open. Mayra booked it inside, down a narrow corridor barely wide enough for two people. Her heart was beating faster the further she walked, until Mayra found the stairs. This house was always so damn weird to get around in, compared to other places that dad would take her when he was on trips. Up a flight of stairs, and then she found another hallway.

The halls were lit by fluorescent lights, motion activated so no one had to flip a switch. She passed three doors that she had never opened before, and wound up at the living room. It was a big, spacious place that had all the markers of a modern, egotistically rich house. Floor-to ceiling windows holographically modified to be one-way, with fake rock on the outside. Stark white floors, stark white ceilings, and no walls between it and a kitchen that could’ve been at least the same size.

"¿Ya estás en casa?" You're already home?

Her mom was sitting there at the kitchen table. Mayra looked a lot more like her than dad. Practically identical, without the earrings. Though, mom didn't have the same thing going on with her hair that Mayra did. Her head was bowed low, and she was staring into a glass of something, probably water.

Mayra was trembling a little. She hurried over to her.

"Hey- Feeling good or bad?" She asked.

Her mom's head twisted slowly, facing Mayra but barely tilting upwards. She didn't answer.

"¿Puedes moverte hoy?" Can you move around today? If you can, we've got to go." Mom sometimes didn't get either language fully, it was easier to talk to her in both. She was more familiar with Spanish, but it still jogged her thoughts more to hear English.

Her mom nodded, and she immediately started to stand.

Mayra took her hand. "Tenemos que irnos antes de que regrese." Her voice hitched We need to leave before he's back.

"Hm?" Her head tilted, and she finally looked at Mayra. "...You're scared?"

Yeah, she was. So very, very scared. This was the perfect time to slip out from under him, take mom and find something other than this. Mayra wasn't really sure what they'd do, given the way mom was, but fuck. She'd been to enough places that she could find something, probably. Maybe she could fake a passport like dad did, or just stay in the country long enough for him to leave first.

And here she was, fumbling already.

"Dad- He's- It's-" There was a lump in her throat. Her mom stared blankly. "Did he ever tell you what he does for money?"

She shook her head.

"He's... Evil. He's bad, he hurts people, and he has superpowers like me."

He always told her not to say that.

That got something out of her face. A confused expression. "I don't understand."

"¡Es un supervillano!" She shouted, without meaning to. "¡Estoy tratando de alejarnos de él! Lo explicaré más tarde" He's a supervillain. I'm trying to get us away from him! I'll explain later.

It felt bad, yelling at her. But they had to move.

"...Okay. What does he-" She searched for the words. "Is he strong like you?"

"No- We need to leave. What do you need to bring? I'll get it. Just get ready and I'll-"

She cupped Mayra's hands in her own. "Where are we going?"

Mayra didn't know either, but the touch helped calm her down. "Later, okay? If we go now, we can figure that out after we're out of the desert-"

A snapping sound cut her off.

Her mom's hands tightened around hers, twitching suddenly. Mayra looked up at them and saw dark blood coming down her face, with a gaping hole where her left eye was just moments ago.

She fell backwards, not quite limp, but gently convulsing on the ground.

Mayra screamed instead of turning around. She bent down and tried to do something. But she smelled smoke.

It was coming from behind her.

---

He's dead.

The sun was going down, and Mayra was following it wherever it would land. The wind ripped past her, making it feel about ten degrees colder than it really was.

The Sonoran Desert was a warm place, dotted with one cactus species after another, palms and sparse grass and more everywhere she went. She soared over the rocks and mounds of sandy soil on a stone platform, trying her best to focus on moving forward. She clothes were stained with blood, and caked in rock dust. She sunk the house under the spire of stone it was built into. Mayra barely got out herself, and that was hours ago. She had crossed into a different region of the desert, since it was big enough to have several.

I killed him. It's done. If I was faster, she'd still be alive.

I'm sorry, mom.

She felt tired, she felt angry, she felt ready to break down and sob like a baby. But she couldn't. If she stopped, she'd probably stay there in the sand and wait for a mountain lion to come by and test its luck.

He said something to her, and Mayra barely heard it over the blood rushing into her ears. Before she knew it, she had wheeled around on him and shattered the foundation of the house. Then, the ceiling came crashing down like the sky had been broken by a hammer. It didn't matter anymore, she may as well have just flown off and not returned. Mom would've lived, then.

Mayra tried to shield her from the rocks, thinking that maybe, maybe that bullet hadn't gone past her eye socket. Maybe it didn't make it into her brain. But her body had stopped moving, she didn't even react when Mayra had lifted her up. She was already dead when she hit the floor, and she didn't even realize what was happening.

She was replaying it over and over in her head. Bang. Bang. Bang. That sound, the gun going off. It was quiet enough that it didn't blow her eardrums out, but it wasn't quiet enough to be quiet. Why didn't she hear the door opening? It was louder. Why hadn't she been eyeing the fucking door? Why didn't Mayra just grab mom and haul her out without explaining?

It was her fault. The only person in her life she actually cared about, her own fucking mother. Dead.

The thought of that wouldn't let her go. Wouldn't let her think of anything else.

So the rock she rode on clipped something, dipping low enough due to her lack of concentration. It was like a motorcycle hitting a pothole and flipping wheels-over-seat. Mayra went flying off ahead, and the rock tumbled down into a pit somewhere.

She banged her head against a cactus and rolled into cold sand.

And then she stopped to really think.

The sand caked itself against her clothes, it mingled with the blood that somehow wasn't dry yet. She heard the clattering of stone against stone, somewhere off in the distance.

Her back against the ground, the sun going down, Mayra was still enough to take things in.

Dad shot her mom, now she was an orphan. No more going overseas, no more "business trips" to shady places. No more scared attempts to hide herself from dad at home.

No more taking care of mom when she couldn't move around.

Mayra sat up on the ground. She looked around and didn’t hear any animals coming closer. No scorpions getting testy, just a cactus sheared in half by her hair and the stars overhead.

She brought her knees up to her chest and screamed into them. The sand around her lifted into the air, like gravity had just been shut off somehow. A sandstorm whipped up and around her, spiraling up like a tornado.

It lasted ten minutes, and then she balled the sand up into another rock to fly on. She had to keep moving and do something.

Keep the momentum going. Don’t stop for too long.

If she could get to the Colorado River, she could stop and clean the blood and sand off. And if she could do that, then people wouldn’t gawk at her so much. That was her first plan.

Mayra didn’t know what her second plan would be.

---

Three days had passed. On the first, she had found some food in the desert before she left, in the form of agave plants that she'd torn to pieces. On the second, she broke into a gas station to make up for the lack of it when she ran out. The cameras were the first to go, just for good measure. On third, she slept under a bridge stretching over the Colorado River.

Today, she grabbed a rock and made her way here. She stared out at the sun coming up. She sat on top of a two-story building made of brick, watching cars and people pass by. None of them paid attention to her, they were too busy.

Los Angeles, California.

It was so loud, here. Most cities were, because of the cars and clamor of foot traffic. It smelled like any other city, too. Smog, oil, the oily, early-morning street food being sold down below that smelled like carnitas.

Over the last few days, she had made a plan. She wasn’t Mayra anymore. It was a thing her dad told her about, sometimes. Most people didn’t question someone’s name and just took it for what it was. So if anyone asked, she’d call herself Leah.

It didn’t feel right to call herself that. Mayra was a name her mom gave her. But her mom wasn’t around to protest. So Leah made the decision to come to a big city, where there would be so many people that she was just one face in a crowd. Who would remember her if something happened here? Probably no one. But there was more to it than that.

She noticed fliers about a school. One for people with superpowers. The Avengers had a hand in it, Leah knew that much. Dad always takes about how easy it would have been to get rid of them. Mutants went there, like her. It didn’t matter much to her that she was a mutant, that was never an identity that she cared one way or the other about, but they couldn’t really blame a mutant for coming from a fucked up background, could they?

They wouldn’t push it too hard if she didn’t answer many questions. Right?

One of the fliers Leah grabbed said they’d be opening up “auditions” today. Meaning anyone could sign up and land a place there. It was one of those schools people lived at. All she had to do was show them she could handle her powers, and they’d let her sleep in a bed. She had other schemes in mind, but that was a start. Leah wanted to grow her hair out, just in case one of dad's criminal friends went looking for her. It was also just nice in theory, since no one could touch it and not get hurt, especially in this big of a city.

She leaned back and rested flat against the roof. Leah was tired, in a way she wasn't used to feeling.

Did she want to be a hero? Sort of, but not to save lives. It was a better life than what was set out for here. But she felt more interested in hurting bad people than protecting the good ones.

People like him.

I'm better than him. I'll do it.

It would be a few more hours before Margaret Carter opened up and started taking names. She jumped down into an alleyway and walked out into the streets. Her clothes were mostly free of bloodstains, and she used her powers to get the sand and dust out of them.

Leah Jordan bought a carnita at the truck with stolen cash, and went for a walk down the street.

It was going to be a long, long day.

Recollections: Primal Sinister

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