Blizz

✨ Under Black Stars ✨

Jack craned his head to look at Nochalla, as if she were an actual human being and not a three-eyed housecat. She blinked slowly, like she was answering a question. Her ears twitched in response to something Jack could not hear. Nochalla was a strange creature, who Jack could, strangely enough, trust the well-being of his daughter to and count on them both to stay out of trouble.

Relatively speaking.

”By all means. I am needed on Earth, today. An old friend found something strange and has asked me to inspect it, which may take minutes or hours, depending on what we find,” He said.

That meant Annika would probably be alone all day.

”You’re more than capable of taking care of yourself. Stay within the Everdark today, but feel free to explore as you want.”

[Cancelled]

Emil Kolya

"It’s every day. Every damned day."

_______________________________________________ Emil Alexei Kolya He/Him | 28 | Russian American | 5’10” | 196 lbs _______________________________________________ Tired _______________________________________________ Skills & Talents "I’ll figure something out." ___________________________________ [+] Fixing Shit ⫻ You can’t always afford to have someone else fix your car or your leaky roof. Emil learned how to do shit like that the hard way, making him good at figuring out what’s broken and how to make it right. Scrapper ⫻ Watching a 40 year old man get drunk and smack his wife didn’t sit right with Emil when he was a kid. So he started standing up and doing something about it, and he quickly learned how to fight dirty. Going for the eyes, kicking the shins out from under someone, and the classic throat punch are how Emil beats someone up. Mechanic ⫻ Emil works in a car shop, so the thing he’s best at fixing is usually a car. If it’s not working right, he can probably find some way to get it back into shape or hold things over for a while. Fucking Deal With It ⫻ Emil has learned, time and time again, that shit is rough. He has the near supernatural ability to think, “It is what it is” about so many things. Whether it’s an unbelievable amount of patience or just being too tired to give a shit, Emil gets through it.

Appearance ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "It’s raining again? Damn." Emil is younger than he looks. His unkept facial hair and the tired look in his eyes make him seem like he’s in his late thirties, but he’s still in his late twenties. The man tends to have a battered, thrown-together “Homeless Chic” aesthetic consisting of multiple hooded shirts and old jeans worn long enough to be confused for sweatpants. He tends to dress im layers because he’s used to bring outside in the cold a lot. His hands are calloused to hell and back, and though Emil doesn’t have any kind of tattoos or body mods, you can tell he’s got some road miles on him.

_{Psychology
^{▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔}}
"Боже, черт возьми, все это, черт возьми! …What? Nothing."

MAIN GOAL ⫻ Having goals implies there's some kind of future. Emil hasn't really been in a good enough mindset of late to feel like he can make those kinds of plans. His first priority has been to get a better opportunity and find more stability in life. Emil wants to find a way to know where he's going to be in the next month before he starts planning for the next year.

PHILOSOPHY ⫻ Life isn't fair. Same shit, different day. You can expect a fair hand, but you won't always get one. When bad things happen, the best way to get over them is to get through them. Just keep fucking moving.

SECRETS ⫻ When Emil was 13, he watched a kid drown. He could’ve done something about it, but he didn’t because he was afraid he’d drown too.

SEXUALITY ⫻ Eh.

FEARS ⫻ Emil really doesn’t like being high up off the ground, it makes his head spin. Oh, and he’s also afraid he’s going to die before his life actually gets better.

REPUTATION IN SHADOW ⫻ Emil was the guy you knew in high school, and wondered about after he dropped off the radar for the rest of your life. The guy who just went completely incommunicado and left no trace of where he went with his future. People don't know Emil, they knew him at some point or another in the past, before he fell to their wayside, and then another wayside again and again.

FLAWS ⫻ Emil habitually assumes the worst about a lot of things. This new job is probably going to fall through, that girl his friend from work introduced him to probably isn’t interested, the rain is probably about to leak through the roof, and so on and so forth. He isn’t used to looking at things positively, and he expects people to turn their backs on him when he isn’t looking.

_{Backstory
^{▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔}}
"It is what it is."

Once upon a time, there was a sleepy town assailed by an army of the dead for reasons unknown. Day after day, night after night, the Emil Kolya of this town would wade through the slain undead to take power for himself and turn it into weapons with which he would protect his hometown. He became a kind of gritty, respected hero that took the opportunity for magic by the horns and put himself on the level of Adepts. People were fascinated by the sealing techniques he cobbled together that shouldn’t have worked, but did. And after that chapter of his life came to a close, he went on to become a well-renown monster hunter with an arsenal of magical tools at his disposal.

His counterpart from Shadow wasn’t so fortunate.

His sleepy town didn’t have much going for it. It was about half an hour from a big city known as Hayweather, just far enough not to benefit from things like tourism or any kind of local business. This Emil’s parents came from Shadow’s Russia to its America in the wake of his father’s newest job opportunity. They lived in Hayweather for roughly ten years before they had a kid and decided not to raise him in such a noisy environment.

It wasn’t a bad decision. Less people, less crime, less chaos from being in such a populated area… But it wasn’t the right decision, either. Emil grew up with just a single father, because his mother had died in childbirth, the town didn’t have its own hospital and they weren’t in a position to make it to Hayweather before it was too late. And then his dad started working overtime in a remote job he held for years, both to distract himself and to deal with raising a kid alone.

And if that wasn’t enough, lots of people in the town weren’t particularly nice to him. Things sucked, he’d go to school and get into scuffles with other kids, and then go home to a place where the kitchen tablet’s chairs were stuck to the floor because they hadn’t been moved in so long. Someone in town sold drugs, and Emil had reported it for obvious reasons. That made him a few more enemies before he was even 17.

Eventually, Emil got out of high school and things at home at gotten better. His dad had eventually moved on from the past, and was in a good enough financial position that he considered heading back to Russia with his son. They both had family over there that Emil had never been introduced to, and it would’ve made things easier on both of them for a whole slew of reasons Emil didn’t fully get. But it sounded better than the shitty town he grew up in.

So they left America. A month later, they were on the other side of the planet, and with a lot of help at home, Emil learned his native language enough to speak as if he’d been born there. He met his uncle and the entire family on that side of the tree, moved into a house just down the street from them, and things were generally fine. Shadow’s Moscow was vibrant and full of things to do. Emil spent two years settling in with his dad, getting to know things and enjoying a new page in the book of his life.

It only lasted that long, though. In time, Emil learned that his uncle, Pavel, had a habit of putting hands on his wife and arguing about politics in a way that wasn’t very safe for drywall. And his kids who were several years younger than Emil himself occasionally had bruises on their elbows when they walked past his house. Emil’s old man wasn’t too happy about it, but he always told his son that family was the only thing they had at the end of the day.

What his father hadn’t said was that he was sick for a long time. Emil found out when he came home from a day out with a girl, to find that Pavel and his wife were both there sobbing over a corpse with a gun between its fingers. He left a note saying he didn’t know how long he had to live, and that he wanted to leave America because he feared it wasn’t very long once. Emil’s father didn’t leave any indication of what he had, it could’ve been cancer or it could’ve been early dementia. But no one ever found out.

Emil had no choice but to move in with his uncle’s family. Pavel didn’t mind, neither did his wife Irina. But Emil eventually got to a point where he’d break Pavel’s face in half when he caught the man abusing his own family. So by the time he was 20 and unable to get into college, he had to move out and find a job.

The next few years were a blurry, stagnant haze until the day Emil stepped down a hallway and saw himself staring back.

_{Abstraction
^{▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔}}
"A shovel? What am I supposed to do with-"

TYPE ⫻ Agent

ABSTRACTION ⫻ The Gravedigger

ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻ When Emil fell into Kindle, he found an oversized shovel embedded in concrete like a sword meant for a king. It absorbs the essence of anything it is used to kill, alive or undead, and uses that as fuel to conjure up dead things. Recently killed creatures can be resurrected, ghosts can be summoned. The shovel acts like a battery for death, which Emil can pull out and used as a way to sustain the minions.

LIMITS ⫻ No matter the conditions of the undead summoned, they’re products of the Gravedigger. Unless they originate from elsewhere, they’re on a timer. These undead lack an internal source of power, unlike other zombies or ghouls that can exist indefinitely. These undead have to be nourished by Emil, using the internal well of death that the Gravedigger builds up. If it depletes fully, its only use is as a hefty tool for cleaving and bludgeoning.

WEAKNESSES ⫻ (DO NOT FILL THIS OUT, I WILL PROVIDE IT FOR YOU)

^{Other
_{▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔}}
"Yeah. This is rough."

Anyyyything else?

The Gravedigger

THE.GRAVEDIGGER
| Death’s Authority | "For when the unquiet dead get too loud." ORIGINS & CREATIONS: | The Gravedigger was created by Emil Kolya of Kindle during his childhood, as a way to get through a horrific crisis. An undead invasion occurred and no one came to help, so he figured it out himself. | TYPE: | Necromantic Weapon | LOCATION: | Kindle | NOTABLE OWNERS: | Emil Kolya of Kindle: Creator of the Gravedigger | ABSTRACTION-GRANTING: | No | .............................................................................	As a kid, Emil Kolya of Kindle once spent three long weeks in a town beset on all sides by the undead. Having no magical experience beforehand, he had to learn quickly or die try. So he grabbed the closest thing to a weapon that he could find, a hefty shovel, and started slashing. Zombies were dismembered, ghouls were tossed into holes filled with flammable material, and the occasional ghost had its face smacked in. It worked for a whole, but then the undead intensified. As more and more them appeared, Emil eventually worked out a method to use their power for himself. He learned a method of dealing, but his novice skills meant that he bit off more than he could chew. The Gravedigger is a long shovel, big enough to be used as a spear, with a handle made of death driftwood. The head was originally polished steel, but has since ossified and now resembles cracked bone. It is a vessel for necromantic energy, eating death at every opportunity- Anything living or undead killed by the Gravedigger is drained of whatever kept it going, and this power can be used to reanimate or summon the dead. Every time a zombie is laid to rest, or a ghost is smacked out of existence, its captured essence allows it to be brought back out. Undead summoned this way are stripped of all their innate power, and so they have to be sustained by the Gravedigger’s internal well of death. Without this power, a corpse will begin to slow down until nothing keeps it moving, and incorporeal undead will simply fade until there’s nothing left.

X-Men: GenetiX

The funny thing about being made of sheer capital-N Nothingness for so long was that Umbra hadn’t accounted for pain. The sensation of flesh being flayed from bone, the hot and debilitating throb of burning meat, the numbness of lightning- Everybody had a tolerance for pain that sat somewhere, he wasn’t used to it. It overwhelmed it, his senses on the verge of rushing to a foreign brain to throw a foreign, metaphorical breaker to shut everything down.

It left him open to damn near anything Xavier could do on the mental front, no less.

Hearing the commotion ahead, Ryder booked it and whirred her laser gun to life. She hit the bottom of the elevator shaft with a grinding noise as her telekinesis cushioned the fall against twisted metal, and saw the chaos. Lasers flickering off walls, Wolverine going mad in Umbra faces, Beast doing beastly things… That was what she hoped for. Becker was gone, but Umbra’s consciousness occupied the body the exact same way. And Umbra was barely clinging to reality as it was now that several highly trained mutants were unloading hell and fury into him. Storm’s lightning barely gave him the chance to move.

Becker was an ordinary human. Umbra was being flogged so much his loose footholds over reality meant damn near nothing.

NO.

NO. NO. NO.

The hallway shuttered.

Ryder pointed the gun at his face, and another beam filled the hall. Neon blue, unlike the bright red from Cyclops’ powers. It left a nice hole where his jaw was five seconds ago.

But he still existed.

SHE IS MINE.

No, I’m fucking not.

In the lightness abyss that Xavier had dropped himself into, Ryder appeared. Not unlike the first time they properly interacted, her presence weighed down on this space like an anvil. The walls that were and weren’t there became nails on a chalkboard. She was what he wanted, but he could no longer reach for her.

Your fucking master plan came apart. And it’s your own damn fault, you piece of shit.

✨ Under Black Stars ✨

Things in the kitchen floated around Jack, going this way and that while he overlooked some notes scrawled onto paper. By the time Annika got downstairs, a piece of fresh, seasoned garlic bread and a glass of orange juice waited for her. He would’ve put something more together for her, but he knew Annika was old enough to make her own food if she ever wanted. The kitchen smelled good, and it always did. When Jack was Annika's age, he never would have dreamed he'd be cooking food this nice for anyone at all.

Nochalla scampered in after Annika, and hopped up into a chair that had a cushion on it. That chair was for her, and her alone. No one was ever allowed to sit in, or even move that chair. The last time anyone did, Nochalla spent the next week not as a housecat, but as a panther.

Annika wasn't here when that happened, but Jack warned her about it.

"I suggest you avoid any intense use of your magic today, Annika," Jack told her. "You should rest, but you did well yesterday."

"Mrp," Nochalla commented. Her ears twitched. Something weird was going on.

The Season of the Enlightened

yes

Blizz's Vault of Stuff

Emil Kolya

"It’s every day. Every damned day."

_______________________________________________ Emil Alexei Kolya He/Him | 28 | Russian American | 5’10” | 196 lbs _______________________________________________ Tired _______________________________________________ Skills & Talents "I’ll figure something out." ___________________________________ [+] Fixing Shit ⫻ You can’t always afford to have someone else fix your car or your leaky roof. Emil learned how to do shit like that the hard way, making him good at figuring out what’s broken and how to make it right. Scrapper ⫻ Watching a 40 year old man get drunk and smack his wife didn’t sit right with Emil when he was a kid. So he started standing up and doing something about it, and he quickly learned how to fight dirty. Going for the eyes, kicking the shins out from under someone, and the classic throat punch are how Emil beats someone up. Mechanic ⫻ Emil works in a car shop, so the thing he’s best at fixing is usually a car. If it’s not working right, he can probably find some way to get it back into shape or hold things over for a while. Fucking Deal With It ⫻ Emil has learned, time and time again, that shit is rough. He has the near supernatural ability to think, “It is what it is” about so many things. Whether it’s an unbelievable amount of patience or just being too tired to give a shit, Emil gets through it.

Appearance ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ "It’s raining again? Damn." Emil is younger than he looks. His unkept facial hair and the tired look in his eyes make him seem like he’s in his late thirties, but he’s still in his late twenties. The man tends to have a battered, thrown-together “Homeless Chic” aesthetic consisting of multiple hooded shirts and old jeans worn long enough to be confused for sweatpants. He tends to dress im layers because he’s used to bring outside in the cold a lot. His hands are calloused to hell and back, and though Emil doesn’t have any kind of tattoos or body mods, you can tell he’s got some road miles on him.

_{Psychology
^{▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔}}
"Боже, черт возьми, все это, черт возьми! …What? Nothing."

MAIN GOAL ⫻ Having goals implies there's some kind of future. Emil hasn't really been in a good enough mindset of late to feel like he can make those kinds of plans. His first priority has been to get a better opportunity and find more stability in life. Emil wants to find a way to know where he's going to be in the next month before he starts planning for the next year.

PHILOSOPHY ⫻ Life isn't fair. Same shit, different day. You can expect a fair hand, but you won't always get one. When bad things happen, the best way to get over them is to get through them. Just keep fucking moving.

SECRETS ⫻ When Emil was 13, he watched a kid drown. He could’ve done something about it, but he didn’t because he was afraid he’d drown too.

SEXUALITY ⫻ Eh.

FEARS ⫻ Emil really doesn’t like being high up off the ground, it makes his head spin. Oh, and he’s also afraid he’s going to die before his life actually gets better.

REPUTATION IN SHADOW ⫻ Emil was the guy you knew in high school, and wondered about after he dropped off the radar for the rest of your life. The guy who just went completely incommunicado and left no trace of where he went with his future. People don't know Emil, they knew him at some point or another in the past, before he fell to their wayside, and then another wayside again and again.

FLAWS ⫻ Emil habitually assumes the worst about a lot of things. This new job is probably going to fall through, that girl his friend from work introduced him to probably isn’t interested, the rain is probably about to leak through the roof, and so on and so forth. He isn’t used to looking at things positively, and he expects people to turn their backs on him when he isn’t looking.

_{Backstory
^{▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔}}
"It is what it is."

Once upon a time, there was a sleepy town assailed by an army of the dead for reasons unknown. Day after day, night after night, the Emil Kolya of this town would wade through the slain undead to take power for himself and turn it into weapons with which he would protect his hometown. He became a kind of gritty, respected hero that took the opportunity for magic by the horns and put himself on the level of Adepts. People were fascinated by the sealing techniques he cobbled together that shouldn’t have worked, but did. And after that chapter of his life came to a close, he went on to become a well-renown monster hunter with an arsenal of magical tools at his disposal.

His counterpart from Shadow wasn’t so fortunate.

His sleepy town didn’t have much going for it. It was about half an hour from a big city known as Hayweather, just far enough not to benefit from things like tourism or any kind of local business. This Emil’s parents came from Shadow’s Russia to its America in the wake of his father’s newest job opportunity. They lived in Hayweather for roughly ten years before they had a kid and decided not to raise him in such a noisy environment.

It wasn’t a bad decision. Less people, less crime, less chaos from being in such a populated area… But it wasn’t the right decision, either. Emil grew up with just a single father, because his mother had died in childbirth, the town didn’t have its own hospital and they weren’t in a position to make it to Hayweather before it was too late. And then his dad started working overtime in a remote job he held for years, both to distract himself and to deal with raising a kid alone.

And if that wasn’t enough, lots of people in the town weren’t particularly nice to him. Things sucked, he’d go to school and get into scuffles with other kids, and then go home to a place where the kitchen tablet’s chairs were stuck to the floor because they hadn’t been moved in so long. Someone in town sold drugs, and Emil had reported it for obvious reasons. That made him a few more enemies before he was even 17.

Eventually, Emil got out of high school and things at home at gotten better. His dad had eventually moved on from the past, and was in a good enough financial position that he considered heading back to Russia with his son. They both had family over there that Emil had never been introduced to, and it would’ve made things easier on both of them for a whole slew of reasons Emil didn’t fully get. But it sounded better than the shitty town he grew up in.

So they left America. A month later, they were on the other side of the planet, and with a lot of help at home, Emil learned his native language enough to speak as if he’d been born there. He met his uncle and the entire family on that side of the tree, moved into a house just down the street from them, and things were generally fine. Shadow’s Moscow was vibrant and full of things to do. Emil spent two years settling in with his dad, getting to know things and enjoying a new page in the book of his life.

It only lasted that long, though. In time, Emil learned that his uncle, Pavel, had a habit of putting hands on his wife and arguing about politics in a way that wasn’t very safe for drywall. And his kids who were several years younger than Emil himself occasionally had bruises on their elbows when they walked past his house. Emil’s old man wasn’t too happy about it, but he always told his son that family was the only thing they had at the end of the day.

What his father hadn’t said was that he was sick for a long time. Emil found out when he came home from a day out with a girl, to find that Pavel and his wife were both there sobbing over a corpse with a gun between its fingers. He left a note saying he didn’t know how long he had to live, and that he wanted to leave America because he feared it wasn’t very long once. Emil’s father didn’t leave any indication of what he had, it could’ve been cancer or it could’ve been early dementia. But no one ever found out.

Emil had no choice but to move in with his uncle’s family. Pavel didn’t mind, neither did his wife Irina. But Emil eventually got to a point where he’d break Pavel’s face in half when he caught the man abusing his own family. So by the time he was 20 and unable to get into college, he had to move out and find a job.

The next few years were a blurry, stagnant haze until the day Emil stepped down a hallway and saw himself staring back.

_{Abstraction
^{▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔}}
"A shovel? What am I supposed to do with-"

TYPE ⫻ Agent

ABSTRACTION ⫻ The Gravedigger

ABSTRACTION DESCRIPTION ⫻ When Emil fell into Kindle, he found an oversized shovel embedded in concrete like a sword meant for a king. It absorbs the essence of anything it is used to kill, alive or undead, and uses that as fuel to conjure up dead things. Recently killed creatures can be resurrected, ghosts can be summoned. The shovel acts like a battery for death, which Emil can pull out and used as a way to sustain the minions.

LIMITS ⫻ No matter the conditions of the undead summoned, they’re products of the Gravedigger. Unless they originate from elsewhere, they’re on a timer. These undead lack an internal source of power, unlike other zombies or ghouls that can exist indefinitely. These undead have to be nourished by Emil, using the internal well of death that the Gravedigger builds up. If it depletes fully, its only use is as a hefty tool for cleaving and bludgeoning.

WEAKNESSES ⫻ (DO NOT FILL THIS OUT, I WILL PROVIDE IT FOR YOU)

^{Other
_{▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔}}
"Yeah. This is rough."

Anyyyything else?

The Gravedigger

THE.GRAVEDIGGER
| Death’s Authority | "For when the unquiet dead get too loud." ORIGINS & CREATIONS: | The Gravedigger was created by Emil Kolya of Kindle during his childhood, as a way to get through a horrific crisis. An undead invasion occurred and no one came to help, so he figured it out himself. | TYPE: | Necromantic Weapon | LOCATION: | Kindle | NOTABLE OWNERS: | Emil Kolya of Kindle: Creator of the Gravedigger | ABSTRACTION-GRANTING: | No | .............................................................................	As a kid, Emil Kolya of Kindle once spent three long weeks in a town beset on all sides by the undead. Having no magical experience beforehand, he had to learn quickly or die try. So he grabbed the closest thing to a weapon that he could find, a hefty shovel, and started slashing. Zombies were dismembered, ghouls were tossed into holes filled with flammable material, and the occasional ghost had its face smacked in. It worked for a whole, but then the undead intensified. As more and more them appeared, Emil eventually worked out a method to use their power for himself. He learned a method of dealing, but his novice skills meant that he bit off more than he could chew. The Gravedigger is a long shovel, big enough to be used as a spear, with a handle made of death driftwood. The head was originally polished steel, but has since ossified and now resembles cracked bone. It is a vessel for necromantic energy, eating death at every opportunity- Anything living or undead killed by the Gravedigger is drained of whatever kept it going, and this power can be used to reanimate or summon the dead. Every time a zombie is laid to rest, or a ghost is smacked out of existence, its captured essence allows it to be brought back out. Undead summoned this way are stripped of all their innate power, and so they have to be sustained by the Gravedigger’s internal well of death. Without this power, a corpse will begin to slow down until nothing keeps it moving, and incorporeal undead will simply fade until there’s nothing left.

Camp Athens - Closed

lmao

anyway @The Savant I am a firm believer in characters doing questionable shit. they've slept through worse and didnt always have a tree for that. they're a weird, feral mf and theyll stop being that eventually but not today

Camp Athens - Closed

Who tf is Marlene

Camp Athens - Closed

Marlen Ross ~ Child of Apollo ~ Iliana Remington-Taylor ~ Daughter of Demeter

---

Marlen was just looking around and not really sure where in the almighty fuck they were meant to go. To the big building where all the other people were going? It looked important, to be sure. But a lot of these buildings looked convoluted enough that they were fucking with Marlen’s ability to gauge their importance at a glance. If they squinted, they could see a house made of glass off in the distance.

But then someone walked up to them.

”Huh? Oh. Yeah… I just got here. Not really sure what’s what. Did a god send you here too?” They asked.

Iliana cocked her head to the side. She wasn’t expecting a question like that, but she figured it was best to answer the person.

”Well, yes, but I came here several months ago. My mom is Demeter and I was sent here for my own protection. Are you hungry or do you want to find a cabin? I can’t remember which cabins are open. I only know the location of mine and a few others. If you’re hungry, the main hall is right here. We get all of our meals here.”

That was one thing she really needed to work on though, knowing whose cabins belong to whom. Maybe she could ask Nelly for help on that since she had perfect memory.

”Yeah. I haven’t had real food in days,” They said. Though, Marlen didn’t consider what they had on that damn boat to be real food because it didn’t come out of a can. They were used to eating not-so-great food on the road.

”Name’s Marlen. I’m Apollo’s kid.”

The instant Apollo’s name came up, Iliana’s eyes lit up and her entire demeanor changed from shy to cheerful.

“Apollo’s your dad?! Oh, he’s amazing. He’s done a lot for me . . . after some things happened before I came to camp.”

She almost mentioned her injuries from her captivity, but managed to stop herself. As happy as she was to meet another one of his children, she wasn’t ready to talk about her ordeal to a complete stranger. Maybe if they got to know each other better, she might be willing. For now, it was baby steps. It was then she remembered Marlen mentioned they hadn’t eaten well in awhile.

”You must be famished then! Let’s get some food in you then,” Iliana said before taking their hand and leading them into the Main Hall.

She saw that people were still inside. Letting go of Marlen’s hand, she turned to him.
”Get whatever you like. There’s plenty of variety. Do you want me to keep you company or I can leave if you want.”

The last thing she wanted to be was a bother.

”Uh-“ There was a lot of food in here. Most definitely not the kind of food a person would get out of a can or out of a vending machine, which was pretty damn unusual to Marlen.

”You’re fine, just… Hm.” Marlen grabbed an apple and a bottle of water. They weren’t that hungry at the moment, but they figured they might as well get full while the food’s there. Instead of eating anything fancy that this camp probably ate on the regular, they went for the bare minimum.

”There we go,” They said, with a loud crunch.

Looked like Marlen didn’t need much. Then again, didn’t say they had some food already? Not one to question their choices, Iliana merely nodded. Besides, she loved apples too. She couldn’t cook for the life of her, but she liked making salads, which included a fruit salad.

”Okay, shall we try to find you a cabin then? If you have any questions, I can try to answer them since I’ve been here for several months.”

She thought about asking for help about available cabins from Andy or Wes, but both were preoccupied and she did not want to interrupt them.

Marlen made a pff sound. ”I dunno, is that what I’m supposed to be doing? All I heard was there were other godly kids here. Didn’t plan on staying too long, unless we’re meant to? Are we?”

Their questions made Iliana think. Honestly she didn’t know how long they were meant to stay there. Her mother or Athena never mentioned how long they would live there.

Honestly, I don’t know the answer to the last question. All my mother told me was to come here with my adopted brother and another friend at the time. My friend did leave, but only because he wanted to finish college. As for what we’ll be doing here. Mostly it’ll be to train. Tonight we’re having a New Year’s Party since for the past few months we’ve been rebuilding due to an incident that happened here that caused a lot of damage. I know I need help with controlling my abilities. So I am glad I am here. Being here has helped me more than living with my brother’s family, although I am really grateful to them. I lost my father at a young age and since my mom couldn’t take care of me, they took me in. My brother is Athena’s son. Just so you are aware, always be honest with him. He’s an expert lie detector. His name is Heath and he’s a tall man with shoulder length blonde hair.”

Iliana was rambling for once, and realizing she was, she clamped her mouth shut and blushed a little. Maybe Nelly was having an effect on her. Suddenly, she felt a tingle go up her spine and she looked to see another new face at a table, with a plant she instantly recognized as a Minthe. She saw what he did before turning back to Marlen. She didn’t know the guy, but he felt familiar. Still she didn’t want to ignore Marlen.

”So was there anything else you’d like to know?”

Well. That was a lot.

Marlen stared at her, eyes wide. ”Uh… Yeah. There is… Training for what? Did I come all this way just to get drafted into the Greek god army? And- What incident? What did I get myself into here?”

Apollo hadn’t said shit about what was going on in this camp. He didn’t tell Marlen about fighting or about people dying or anything like that. Maybe they could get away with defying a god if this turned out to be a mess after all.

Iliana heard what Marlen asked, but she was still a bit embarrassed by all she said. A few minutes later, she finally answered them.

”Well, uh, . . . hmmm. I was never given those answers about our reason for training in general. I was just told why I had to train. Believe me I need it since I have powers that hurt others.”

She left that last part a bit ambiguous for she didn’t lie, but she didn’t want them to know she had hurt and killed before. It was the biggest reason why she never condone Alex’s actions since she had done the exact same things. Thinking of the Valises, she couldn’t help but be envious of them, but that was in the past. She certainly didn’t blame others for disliking them, but she just never could. Wanting to get outside, she turned to Marlen.

”Are you ready to find a cabin now? And about those last two questions, well, as for the incident, are you sure you want to know? It wasn’t a good thing that happened. And I am afraid I can’t answer that last one about what you got yourself into, sorry.”

”Whatever you can tell me, please and thank you.” Marlen held up a map of the place and started walking. ”Going that way, so yeah, lemme see what’s not taken.”

They’d probably just sleep in a tree, though.

As they walked, Iliana tried to think how to explain what happened. She really didn’t want to go into that much detail. And even though she knew what happened to the others, she didn’t know how to talk about them. Should she even mention what happened to them? Maybe she can just summarize? Yes, that was probably best.

”Well, a couple of months ago there was a battle here. There were a lot of monsters and everyone in camp at the time got involved. It happened in the middle of the night, so all of us were taken unaware. Not all of us survived it, but most did. A few left the camp after that. All of us were injured in some form though. I was one of the lucky ones, I only suffered a broken leg. Even though I am no healer, I tried making more healing ointment using flora I grow in my own Greenhouse. It can only help with minor injuries though. As we were healing, some of us, who were able, started rebuilding. The gate was built to help protect the camp.”

She kept quiet after that. She saw the map Marlen had. She didn’t remember there being a map of the camp. She wouldn’t worry about it and just followed Marlen.

”That’s rough, man,” Marlen commented, seeming to know exactly where they were going. ”Never seen anything like that myself, but I can fix stuff if someone’s hurt. Y’know, Apollo and such.”

They were walking in a straight line towards the cabins. ”I bet I can figure the rest of this out myself, if you’re busy.”

Iliana was glad they were willing to help out. That was a good sign for sure. Once he mentioned he was going to be okay from here, Iliana nodded her head.

”All right. Oh, there is a New Years party tonight. I forget where it’ll be but I wanted to make you aware if you decided to go. I am trying to be more social so I’ll be going. For how long will be the question. It was nice meeting you Marlen. Hope you find yourself a decent cabin.”

With that, Iliana smiled and waved before departing.

”Yeah. Thanks…”

Marlen watched her skip off and looked down at their map…

…They were definitely sleeping in a tree tonight.

Young Justice

One of the things Jessica Cruz had told Pei to try was something called ‘mindfulness exercises’. As such, she was sitting cross legged on the floor of the training area, in a full training get up, staring so hard at a bowl of raisins it looked like her eyes might explode.

”...Pei, what the fuck are you doing?”

Cora walked in, not floated in, holding a metal water bottle full of something that was absolutely not water, or safe for normal humans to consume. She had training stuff on, too.

Exasperated, Pei threw out her hands and feet and fell onto her back like she was making snow angels. ”Ugh!”

She grabbed her pink hair. ”I don’t know! I’m being mindful! The raisins make me a better person. If I stare at the raisins long enough, I get a Green Lantern ring.” Pei said.

Cora burst out laughing, nearly choking on the vile concoction she was drinking. ”What? That- No, Pei- What? Aren’t you supposed to eat them?” She walked over and grabbed a raisin out of the bowl, committing what could’ve been an act of sacrilege in mockery of the Green Lanterns.

As Cora approached, Pei picked up the bowl with her foot and lifted it to meet her. ”Help yourself. I’m giving the fuck up for today. I can’t explain how she put it. Some shit like…” She waved the bowl around before setting it down. ”Examine the mundane in a new way or something… I already did taste, that was the easy part. Then touch and smell. Sight I’m stumped on. Let along hearing.” She was still layed on the gym floor.

”Who’s “she?” Sounds like you’ve been hanging around Daphne when she was on something special…” Cora grabbed the bowl. ”I don’t think staring at a bowl of raisins is gonna get you into space. I would’ve tried that already, if it worked.”

”Jessica Cruz. My temp mentor, a Green Lantern. She told me a whole buncha shit but I was, I was too nervous to remember most of it.” She facepalms.

Cora made a snrk sound. ”Reasonable reaction. Static helped me build stuff, and figure out power things. Raisins were not involved. Maybe I should’ve asked…”
”That’s so cool. Static’s so cool. He’s a real inspiration. One day I’m gonna go back to Coast City and kick so much ass. I’ll have my own rogue’s gallery.” Pei said wistfully.

”Green Lantern probably gave me some good advice. It’s just…how the fuck do you get more ‘willpower’? More ‘mindfulness’? By finding meaning in staring at raisins, probably. Powers and building stuff is way more obviously useful, y’know.” Pei said.

”Well… I don’t know how they do it.” Cora took a contemplative sip from her bottle which was labelled “Battery acid.” ”But I’ve been taken out by my own powers once or twice. You ever have trouble lifting your own hand up in the morning because there’s nothing there to move it with?”

Pei shrugs on the ground. ”Haha, no. It’s okay, though, Cora. I heard what happened. She snuck up on you, you zapped yourself. It happens.” She said, assuming the aftermath of Cora being in the wheelchair was what she was referring to.

”Point being, you don’t really learn how to do stuff, no matter how much you can’t, by not needing to, I think. I think you need to end up in some real shitty place for that. It’s not nothing you just figure out.”

It took hours for Cora just to sit up, after she fried herself. The next few days, it stung just to float an inch off the ground. It sucked.

”...Wah?” Pei asked, genuinely confused.

”Okay, okay,” Cora made a waving gesture with her battery acid. ”So… When I was lying in bed feeling like death? It was hard to do literally anything. Green Lanterns do hard stuff every day. They didn’t start that way, you know? They’ve probably had so many bad days, the worst ones are stuff we’ve never gone through. That’s how they got good at the willpower thing.”

”Yeah, maybe.” She says. ”But I think the raisin test has something to do with it.”

”What are ya drinkin’? Battery acid?” She asks.

”Something like it.” It smelled like battery acid. ”Half a gram of salt and potassium, plus some other stuff. The rest is mostly just water. It’s a power thing.”

”Like, it gives you powers?” She asks with a tilt of her head. Still laying on the floor.

”No… Humans are mostly water, but water is a really bad conductor of electricity. So that’s what this stuff is for.”

”I guess?” Pei says with a little laugh and a raise of an eyebrow.

”And water stops being water when it’s electrocuted. So this hopefully helps me not fry myself more the next time I have to zap something. Static helped, but I can probably do more.”

”Don’t think I ever had that problem. Sounds unlucky.” Pei scratches the side of her head. ”So, what? Does it…hurt? When you use your powers? You zap yourself?”

Cora shrugged. ”Kind of. Not at first, but the more I do it, the worse it gets. The lightning comes out of me, it electrocutes me. If you zapped me with anything normal, like a taser? I wouldn’t feel it. My powers aren’t normal electricity, though.”

Pei clasps her hands together over her midsection. ”Huh! Well I’m glad Static helped. I’d hate for you to be hurting yourself on our missions, y’know?” She said.

She stammered a bit. ”I mean- y’know- hurting yourself as just a matter of course. Rather than extreme circumstances that can be avoided.”

”Yeah.” Cora didn’t really want to get too into all that. She had a feeling Pei would get on her ass about it if she knew the rest.

”I’m pretty sure stuff like that isn’t going to happen again,” she said.

”We just gotta watch each other’s backs, is all.” She performed a kip-up maneuver to her feet and moved to sling her arm around Cora’s shoulders. ”Team tactics. Cool as ice. Hot as lightning.”

”Hot as-“ Cora blinked. ”Uh- I mean…” She completely misinterpreted that.

”Hot as lightning. We’re cool. Remember I said we should look out for each other?” Pei jostled Cora lightly.

”Yeah, you did say that.” Stop being a dumbass, holy shit. She did NOT just call you hot.

”…I completely forgot what I walked in here for.”

”Well it definitely wasn’t training.” Pei teased, grabbing Cora’s arm and trying to circle it with her finger and thumb.

”Well- Um.” This escalated quickly. ”I guess not.” Cora was still slightly sore in a lot of places, after she exploded in the swamp. But that didn’t hurt, weirdly enough.

She very awkwardly took another sip from her battery acid. A long one.

”Look, see? It practically goes all the way around. Super heroes need super training. I could be your spotter!” Pei exclaimed.

”Oh- Right. I don’t usually do anything intense enough to need one,” Cora said. ”I’m skin and bone, I mostly just run on a treadmill or spar with someone if they’re around.”

”Never too late to pump it up!” Pei declared. ”But that’s okay. I’ve done all my raisin training for the day. So I guess unless you really want to shoot lightning at me I can call it a day and leave the gym to you?” Pei detached from Cora and shot a couple of finger guns at her.

”I think that would probably kill you, actually.” Cora sat her battery acid on the ground against the wall. ”I’m surprised it didn’t kill me.”

”Well, obviously you wouldn’t blast me full force with lightning.” Pei said with a good natured roll of her eyes.

”Doesn’t have to be full force to kill someone. Nah, I’ll blast something else. Like a target or something.”

”I’ve seen you use lightning on bad guys before. You’re just trying to seem cool. Well, for your information, ice powers can also be pretty dangerous.” Pei says, crossing her arms and wiggling her head.

Cora shrugged. ”I thought I was cool.”

”Oh-ho, believe me, I can tell.” Pei said cheekily, leaning towards Cora with a toothy grin.

”…Yeah.” Cora was doing that thing people did where their eyes went left and right constantly, but it just looked like she was staring right into Pei’s.

”I’m gonna… Go do that thing, now.”

Pei hopped up, standing up straight, giving Cora a reassuring pat on the shoulder. ”I’ll leave ya to it! See you later, I’m done trying hard today so I’m gonna go find something to fuck with. Bye bye!” She waved, turned, and transitioned her quick walk into a happy little skip as she left the room, leaving Cora alone with a bowl of raisins.

”Heh. Yeah.”

When Pei was gone, Cora looked down at the bowl of raisins. And she felt confused.

”Was she hitting on me?”