Luminous Beings

The Promise - Second Star to the Right, and Straight on 'til Morning.

Lynn

There were a lot of things about Amelia that pissed Lynn off. Chief among them was that this bitch was insufferably sharp. Lynn did not like that one iota. Now, she was completely off the mark with her two-timing comment - as if Lynn would even have a sliver of feelings for Archie was ridiculous - but Lynn did not like how observant she was.

"Yeah," Lynn said neutrally. "Molotov." That worked or whatever. Lynn pulled out a cigarette from the pocket of her jeans and put it between her lips, the tip beginning to smoke without the use of a lighter. Lynn was by no means perfect (end sentence), least of all in the art of concealing her emotions. In Lynn's experience, however, the more someone knew you was the more they could use against you. Lynn did not like what that nickname made her remember, but she was going to be damned if the Hollister anarchist saw her squirm. Especially -

Lynn blinked and looked back at her, genuine surprise splashed across her feelings. "Tagging?" She cocked her head and looked at Amelia, trying to figure out the colors of her outfit. "Who...who did you run with?" That certainly hadn't tracked. This girl had no tattoos. Maybe she was...no, Lynn could truly think of no gang that would take Amelia as she was. Maybe she screwed her way in, Lynn thought, which was among the lower echelons of respect one could occupy in Lynn's mind. Although something in her admitted that seemed unlikely, tempting an idea to indulge in as it was. Before Lynn could interrogate her further about her criminal history, she'd commented on her and Archie. Lynn began to bristle at that, but Denim had approached, and for once Lynn saw no reason to add fuel to the fire. She's testing you, Lynn thought. She's trying to size you up. She must be rattled. If she didn't see what happened to Archie she saw the footage. Or saw the fucking hole in the cafeteria wall. No need for them to know how many gallons of oil were involved. Still, Lynn didn't like this shit one bit. She had Amelia trying to needle her apart and figure out what made her tick over here, Archie and Natalie skulking over in the shadows, and Denim showing up a little too unprompted.

Something clicked in Lynn's mind. Amelia went after that steel toed boot guy. She went running after him. He'd been the one to set Archie off, interrupt the headmaster, and cause this whole ruckus. Lynn did not for one minute believe he was operating independently of the Promise's authority. No, this was a chance for them to...to what? Their security forces had looked like a total joke, they'd been out of place. It'd been up to her and Natalie -

Lynn stared away, zoning out of the conversation for a moment. Her cigarette was half consumed.

It was a fucking hit. On me and Spoons. And if we took out Archie in the process, all the better.

So simple. They'd spared her the needle to make her an example for all the goody-two-shoes who grew up at private schools with mommy and daddy. Lynn's hair began to turn white, her blue eyes flecked with white dots as well. Well, it only took me a week to figure out your scheme, Lynn thought. And I turned it pretty well on its ass.

Then Denim had to go and mention the flowers. Was she trying to test her too? Lynn was sick of this shit. "Didn't have them when he came to me," Lynn said quickly. "I - " then this girl mentioned Freaky D coming by her. Yeah, that was the tap dancer's name. Lynn really did not know what to think now. Had Lynn ever sat down to play Clue, she would've felt very much like the player with the fewest clues a turn before the game ends. I do not like this one bit. Why does he come by her? How does Amelia know this prick? And what in the name of fuck are those two still talking about? Lynn did not possess anything bordering emotional intelligence. She didn't know exactly what she felt about Natalie and Archie plotting. Not betrayal, because Lynn wasn't dumb enough to get betrayed, but - well, she had expected a basic level of camaraderie between them, given recent events, and this was a quick turnaround. That wasn't getting betrayed, which only happened to idiots, that was just expecting someone to not be a complete douchebag. Lynn had sobered quickly to the quality of people on the Promise. You try to give people a chance to be decent and this is what they do. Jesus.

Lynn turned back to Keaton. Fuck this skull and dagger crap. "We're not all really friends," Lynn said. "Don't really know each other." This one was older, and Lynn didn't think she was here under the needle either. Gears whirled in her head. The fact was that everyone here was a threat in the way everyday people hadn't been back home, but trying to figure out how they were a threat was the challenge. Could they throw her through the airlock door like Spoons, or could they screw with her mind and make her terrified of stuff that wasn't there? Lynn briefly considered the idea there were telepaths on this space station. I don't care about probation, I'm whipping their ass if I find them.

"Yeah, I - " Lynn froze as Archie screamed. The cigarette between her teeth charred to ash in a moment and her short hair sparked like aluminum foil in a microwave before glowing yellow, her eyes matching. A faint smell of smoke curled up off her, but not enough to singe her clothes. "Oh if I have to kill that motherfucking lizard again," Lynn said, moving towards the woods. Her hands were curled up into fists. Your back is to those two. Not that it matters with the teleporter. You don't know what the other one can do, but there's no getting around that. Maybe she can only talk to squirrels or something. Spoons is to the right - she's not going to throw the first punch, she's scared. You need to hit whatever it is fast before Archie roids out again, and before anyone -

Lynn came over to Archie and saw the corpse. Lynn immediately looked around for what caused it, but she knew it was in vain. This body wasn't fresh. There was nothing in the trees and nothing in the water she could see. Curiosity pulled her a half step closer. White. Brown hair. Blue eyes. No tattoos. A staff uniform. His face was all kinds of fucked up. This body was ditched here. Lynn noted. The body didn't bother the sixteen year old. She'd seen them before. Like this? Carved up and tortured in the face? Some part of her felt nauseous, but it was the faraway part, the part that didn't know what to think about flowers or couldn't sleep at night sometimes. That part that was easy to tell to shut the fuck up when her hair was glowing and her knuckles close to splitting. Somebody wanted this guy to suffer.

Lynn was no one's fool. Archie finds this body as Denim approaches? As Amelia follows the tap dancer?

"Archie," Lynn said, grabbing his arm and pulling him backward. Her fingers were warm, on the verge of being hot, but not painfully so. Not yet. "Get the fuck out of here. Did you touch him? Did you leave prints? Hair?" She took her free hand and pulled her own hood up. Inside her hood jumped some dozen degrees as she did this, and Lynn forced her temperature back down to keep from charring the inside of her sweatshirt. They are not pinning this shit on me. Lynn glanced around again. They're always watching, she realized. All it takes is that AI fabricating some voice recordings and I'm out the airlock. Damn them. Damn them.

A part of Lynn pieced something together. She didn't think any of these, excluding potentially Spoons - but she really didn't think so - had seen some real, real shit. Or done real shit. Cesar, Lynn thought briefly, intrusively, before forcing that out, with the part of her that was trying to think of how painful it was to have your face carved like that. What she was thinking was that they weren't realizing what she was. This wasn't a dealer who went to the wrong street corner or a drunk moron who slapped the wrong girl's ass. This guy had made somebody real, real mad, and she was willing to bet that uniform was put on them as a sign.

The people who did that kind of thing were fine killing kids. Only kids who saw too much. If her Freaky D as a false flag theory was right, this was the Ruby to the Oswald. "Get the fuck up. Get up and walk away. C'mon." Lynn's tone was hard and serious. Lynn kept her hand on Archie's arm, trying to feel if it was getting bigger, but that was hard to tell, given that her small hands couldn't fit around his arm to begin with. Lynn turned back to the others. One of them had to be involved. Who? Spoons was waiting here at the river, as was Amelia. But Denim had known exactly where to find them.

She looked back down at Archie.

And all that assumes, she realized, He really can't control his little lizard problem.

Lynn kept her hand on his arm like a vise. One should keep friends close and enemies closer. Cordelia Lynn Holmes had only the latter.

The Promise - Second Star to the Right, and Straight on 'til Morning.

Lynn

Spoons and the Breakfast Club were talking about high school books. I have to spend eight years in this place. Good Lord. At least Archie will probably manage to tear my head off by year three, max. Amelia looked up at her and said -

Just throw it.
I don't know.
Do it. You have to do it. Don't you care about me?
Y-yes, but - but this is -
C'mon. Be tough. Be tough or -

"Human molotov cocktail," Lynn said back somewhat neutrally. Her coffee cup steamed up a bit. "That one's new," she muttered. Molotov cocktails were something she could do. She could do those really well. Lynn shook herself. Fuckin' daydreaming. They'll spot you're not focused from a mile away, and start talking about what you were in that hospital for. Man up and get a handle on yourself. Spoons is watching. So is Archie, even if he's too dumb to admit it to himself. The lizard part of him certainly was. That's everyone on this tin can, Lynn told herself. All of them are that hungry somewhere deep down. They just don't all flip it on and off as easy as Archie does. But they'll eat the meat off your bones the minute they run out of food.

Lynn smiled. Anyone who tried to eat her was going to burn the hell out of their tongue and be left hungry at the end. Natalie and Archie took off away from earshot, which made Lynn start for a moment. What were they talking about? Lynn figured just an apology, but he didn't have flowers for her, which she couldn't suss out. They glanced back in their direction and Lynn couldnt figure out if it was at her or just the nervous askance eyes of people who aren't committed to what they're doing. They're talking about you, Lynn thought. He reached out and grabbed Natalie's hands. Her eyes narrowed. She'd known it. This one was playing games. He might play dumb, but this was textbook fucking around. Did he think a handful of roses and an extended hand would get her guard down? Maybe Natalie would be dumb enough to fall for something like that, but not Lynn. She turned back to Amelia, her suspicions validated. That was equally problematic. If Amelia brought up more books or something she was going to throw herself in that river. Lynn could not recall an assigned school book she had ever read. The list of non-assigned books was not much longer, either.

Fortunately, a third party approached Lynn and Amelia. Lynn eyed her. One of Lynn's traits which some would call useful, and others would call highly concerning, was a kind of hypervigilance. Lynn had learned fairly early on in her rather dangerous life choices that not keeping an eye out, or having a knack for faces, was a good way to wind up in trouble with one side of the law or the other. Girl from the hospital, Lynn's gut confirmed. Did she track us? This didn't bother Lynn a terrible amount. A drawback of Lynn's abilities was that she was never terribly difficult to track down - she did not have a gift for subtlety, and anyone with a nose for smoke could track her relatively easily depending on the wind. This to say nothing of thermal vision. So which one is it? Lynn wondered, looking her over. Not much makeup. Not much taller than Lynn, but she filled it out a lot better. Whatever. Lots of denim. Well that was certainly familiar, but -

Keaton confirmed it. Lynn chastised herself for not remembering, although she supposed it had been a particularly busy day. Or even week. Lynn was interested in why Keaton had tracked her out here. And asking about the hospital as well - everyone wants a fucking piece of me. "Hospital survived me," Lynn said, eyeing Keaton for a moment. "I'm Lynn." Lynn looked over her jacket. She'd asked for it, hadn't she - but this one was different, wasn't it? "I'm guessing your other jacket got fucked up something bad, huh?" Lynn took a sip of the coffee, pulling up the sleeves of her hoodie as she brought the cup back down. Lynn didn't bother trying to make introductions for Amelia. She figured Amelia would start talking when she was ready, and besides, Lynn wasn't anybody's mom. She cast a sideways glance at Spoons and Boat Farmer off to the side. Alright, then. Lynn turned back to Keaton, racking her brains. She had been focused on more immediate, scaly issues when she and Keaton had crossed paths previously. "What brings you out here?" Lynn asked. She figured that was pretty straight up. Lynn was tired of this double-talk, skulking around, subtext-ridden bullcrap.

And she'd been walking around outside for twenty minutes.

The Promise - Second Star to the Right, and Straight on 'til Morning.

Lynn

Lynn had glanced a familiar-looking girl at the front desk of the hospital, asking about an Amy. Lynn couldn't put a finger on where she knew her from, which irritated her, but she observed her for a minute. Definitely not from before. The event? Lynn only remembered really Natalie, the punk one, and Archie from When Shit Went Down. Hmm. Lynn would figure it out at some point. She looked a bit older than Lynn - maybe 20? - and had some rough-looking fingernails. But not coke nails, Lynn noted. Hm. She'd deal with that later.

Archie came out of the bathroom quiet and a bit off, but Lynn figured he'd just taken a particularly traumatic dump or something. She made a brief stop to get a cup of coffee. Lynn's power had many side effects that were not immediately obvious at first glance, some positive, some negative. She'd been a constant pain in the ass for most of her foster families as a result of the absurd air conditioning bills they'd had in the summer (although her presence was more welcome in the winter). More to the point, the pots that Lynn watched always boiled, and her coffee was no exception. It stayed at a perfectly toasty just-brewed temperature cupped in her hand, which Lynn was not complaining about. Lynn was by no means a coffee connoisseur - Lynn thought that being able to get coffee the same place you could get gas station hot dogs was like the sickest fucking business plan of all time - but she enjoyed it, and they hadn't let her have any in the hospital. She'd also grabbed a pastry she couldn't pronounce, relieved to be free from the bland fare of the hospital. She munched somewhat noisily, taking in all of the Promise. Archie seemed pretty nonplussed by it, which tracked given that he'd have more time to wander around. These lab coats kept Godzilla under lockdown less than they did me, Lynn realized, suddenly pretty pissed about that. She balled up her paper wrapping and let it casually start smoking in her hand, not seeing a trash can anywhere nearby. Lynn's hair changed color slowly and subtly, shifting from yellow to a red that was almost strawberry blonde - just more vivid - over the course of a few minutes. It was darker and pretty, which didn't bother Lynn. She was a mostly nocturnal creature. Vaguely, she figured she might need to get a job at some point to try and make a bit more money, but that was a concern for later.

Archie stayed mostly quiet, which Lynn appreciated. Some people just wouldn't stop talking. She wiped the powdered sugar off her face and drank another sip of coffee. He really was a big clumsy thing. Lynn could tell he'd not had a particularly rough upbringing. Lynn figured from his build - he looked plenty strong, even out of lizard form - and the scars and whatnot - that he'd been working, and if he was indeed a Boat Farmer, that tracked. But Lynn didn't think he'd gotten his ass beat regularly or grown up in the hood. He walked kinda hunched over and lost in his own thoughts, which was a good way to get kindly asked for your wallet and other belongings in certain neighborhoods. Then again, they had Big Brother always watching here. This wasn't a tremendous paradigm shift for Lynn - the cops had always been the bigger danger in her life, she had felt. For a minute, Lynn remembered the scratchy feeling of the juvy clothes, and there was a brief minute when her coffee practically smoked with heat before she calmed back down. Those fuckin' traitors. If I ever get back planetside I am going to roast each and every one of them. Lynn drank her coffee again, focusing on the pretty trees or whatever. She didn't want a rep as someone who couldn't keep her cool.

"Home?" Lynn frowned. That was a hell of an opener question. "I dunno, man, kinda all over." Archie had asked something similar back at lunch, she remembered. She couldn't recall exactly what the question was, but it was something like that. Was he fishing for information? Lynn hadn't taken a walk out to the river alone at night much as a threat, but the possibility was definitely there. Maybe he doesn't like competition at the top, Lynn thought. She wished she'd gotten another pastry. Lynn glanced around quickly, looking for anything useful in a fight as her heart rate picked up just a bit. Nothing but water. And her coffee. She had about a third left, and stopped sipping on it.

Wait, there was something. There was a bench nearby, with Spoons and the punk one. "It's a reunion," Lynn said. "Let's see who she's wearing today." Lynn walked over towards the bench, where Spoons was reading some absolute mind-numbing, Nyquil looking book. That didn't raelly surprise her. Lynn hadn't seen - Amy? - that was the name the other girl was asking for in the hospital. No, no, Amethyst. No, wait, that's a rock. Shit. Lynn had taken her jacket, which she appeared to have recovered. That was pretty fortunate. Lynn wasn't planning on buying anyone any replacements.

"What's up, Spoons?" Lynn asked, looking down at her book. Spoons looked mildly irritated from Punk Girl's presence, which made Lynn grin a little bit. A more astute listener might have picked up on something as well - Lynn's comments the week before had been snide, her tone sharp and acidic. There was respect to Lynn's voice now. She wasn't sure if Spoons had fought the lizardling out of utter panic or some kind of Vietnam vet breakdown rage, or if she'd actually rolled up her sleeves and stood her ground, but Lynn figured any of the three merited some respect. Lynn could dig her leave me alone vibe a little better now. "Hope there was something good to eat in that freezer." Lynn looked Natalie over. No burns, I can see. She glanced up at Amelia and gave her a nod. "'Sup." She didn't really know what to say. She figured Archie would come over and ask a really soul-searching question, or maybe he'd want to apologize to Spoons or something.

Lynn started to take another sip of her coffee and something hit her - how come Archie didn't have any flowers for Spoons? That didn't make any sense. That didn't make any sense at all. Lynn lowered her cup and swirled it in her hand idly. Lynn was one of those people who always had to be moving. What's his angle here? Lynn wasn't really looking to stand around and discuss literature for the next half hour, as Lynn could not remember the last time she read a book, but she didn't want to brush these two off. Well, the jury was still out on Amelia. Lynn wanted to find out what this girl's deal was, which necessitated hanging around her a little bit. None of these people were entirely in the clear in Lynn's book, although Spoons was doing some good work. You'd think for somebody who can bench press a mountain she'd have filled out a little better. Lynn chewed on her lip. I'm probably not one to talk, there.

The Promise - Second Star to the Right, and Straight on 'til Morning.

Lynn

Archie went and started fiddling with the flowers in the water, which was awfully convenient for Lynn. It also made her a bit irritated - that takes a certain amount of balls to turn his back on her given recent events. Lynn let the fingers in her formerly-fucked-up hand dance for a minute, eyes on Archie. Sure, he seemed nice enough. I mean, even Lynn couldn't deny that he had literally brought her flowers. But Lynn wasn't about to play the fool for the first smiling face that came along. Again. Lynn, at some level, was seeing Archie very much differently, but in ways she wasn't quite sure she could put into words or fully process yet. She was a bit more afraid of him, but also less afraid at the same time. Natalie and I put an ass whipping on him the first go round, Lynn mused. If I had more time to prepare I might've been able to do it alone. Might. She watched him for a moment, wondering how much it took to put him in that state. One kick. Granted, a steel-toed kick out of absolutely nowhere, but...

He'd been strong. Very strong. Lynn felt something almost like respect.

Amidst her attempt to suss out Archie's motives - because she could not shake the feeling this was all convenient, that Archie had been triggered into going beast mode on the first day by a stowaway who had no business being here, who no one could track down. Lynn could tell a disavowable asset when she saw one, although she'd no familiarity with that term in particular. Lynn knew all too well how that game worked. Lynn figured there was another angle to Archie that she couldn't quite piece together - and more importantly, trying to figure that out helped get her thoughts gathered back together, keeping her tongue in order. If Archie was on the level about growing up, Lynn had another mote of grudging respect for him. Even she'd had a phone - a shitty one, four or five years old, and admittedly not a legally acquired one, but still. She had a lot more to learn about Boat Farmer. Someone is pulling all these strings, Lynn thought to herself. And you'll have to be dumber than Spoons is sad to let yourself get tangled up in them. He's a bad day away from turning into that thing again. And you're one glance in the other direction away from getting your head cut off.

He was thanking her for trying to help him, which Lynn had quite frankly forgotten about in the rush of things. He said he wouldn't hurt her again, and Lynn realized his hand was still on hers. The back of Lynn's mind was full of very annoying thoughts, like wondering how plants could live in such a hot environment, or the last time -

Strings, strings, strings - and, of course, Lynn's favorite way to solve a knot.

"You're right," Lynn said, drawing her hand back and crossing her arms. "You won't." She began to stand up, pulling the IV out. Underweight. Fuck you, I'm underweight, I ate a two ton lizard for lunch last week. She cursed at the trickle of blood that oozed out of the crook of her arm for just a minute before grunting and cauterizing the wound shut. Lynn had to keep her powers as idle as possible to not melt the plastic too quickly, and even then they'd been changing out needles and IV bags constantly on her. None of the medication they tried to put in her seemed to work very well after the first day or two, which she had told them would be the case. Lynn slid on the tennis shoes that the facilities had provided for her, as some kind of courtesy. They were ugly as sin, Lynn thought, and entirely too new. Regardless, she began lacing them up. There's gotta be somewhere to buy shoes on this place. Lynn did have a moment of excitement at the idea of wandering around the Promise - she truly had no idea how there was a river on a space station, but wasn't about to look like an idiot saying that. She'd never been anywhere this big or fancy, and wasn't about to let that on with comments like that. The more these people knew, the more they could use against her. She wouldn't mind trying to sniff out the Metal Head, either. She wondered how isolated this river was. She'd heard you could talk to the ship at any time, which meant that the ship was listening at any time. Maybe the river was less eavesdropped upon. Did Archie have something he wanted to talk about? Or maybe a secluded location to get the drop on her. The flowers would be a good way to get her guard down, Lynn figured. She felt foolish for getting tongue-tied before. Just what he wanted, you idiot. Lynn didn't have any idea what game these people were playing, but that had never once stopped Lynn from trying to win (or, some may say, never once prompted her to try to learn the rules). Lynn's initial cornrows had been completely undone by the events of the last week, and she ran a hand through her hair periodically. It was perhaps three inches in length, and looking choppy and messy. For whatever flaws her wardrobe had and whatever scars were on her person, Lynn's hair was always pretty healthy - an element of her powers sorely wasted upon her.

"A walk literally anywhere but here sounds freaking amazing," Lynn said. "They kept me here mostly to ask questions," Lynn lied. "I reckon I saw the most. Chefs came by, and they were pretty pissed." She frowned, looking at the door. "And I'm not asking for Seabiscuit's permission. Besides, you're some kind of thick if you think any of these doctors are going to tell the two of us no." she chuckled. "They have insurance premiums." Lynn stood up. She was fairly confident she was going to be discharged later that day anyway- and as a matter of fact, they'd given her an hour or two to walk around yesterday, in a fundamentally misguided attempt to pacify her, but she thought it seemed better if she was a rulebreaker. Archie was still an unknown variable. Lynn looked at the wildflowers again. A very confusing unknown variable.

Lynn grabbed the notepad and pen off her table and wrote "RETURN TO MY DORM" and went to put it on her bag. She paused. Archie was over by the door, her body between the notepad and him. and the flowers she added in a smaller script at the bottom. Stupid. "Cool, let's bounce." Lynn led the way out, flicking the lights as she went. "I will literally burn this place to the ground if we stay here any longer."

The Promise - Second Star to the Right, and Straight on 'til Morning.

Lynn

Lynn woke up chilly, which she took for a sigh of relief. She blinked and began thrashing, scrambling - the lizard, Christ, she had to -

She was bound to the bed. "Oh motherfucker," Lynn muttered, although her voice sounded strange. She blinked again. There was something strapped to her face. An oxygen tube. Huh. Well, at least these halfwits had figured something out. Lynn shook her head as best she was able. Something scratched against the pillow behind her. Her hair was starting to grow back, at least. There was an IV in Lynn's arm - one in each arm - and Lynn had a suspicion they strapped her down partially to keep her from pulling them out with the other arm. Not incorrect. Lynn lay back and glanced around for any kind of panic button, her initial skyrocketing fear subsiding. She'd...she'd blown up the cafeteria. Yeah, that was it. Had she killed the lizard? Or Natalie?

Lynn's eyes settled on the corner, where someone had lain her hoodie. That calmed her down a bit. After about ten thousand years of staring at the ceiling, or fifteen chronological minutes, a nurse came by and unstrapped her. Lynn shifted uncomfortably in the paper gown. She was asking how Lynn felt.

"I got blown through a wall," Lynn said.

The nurse did not seem pleased with this response. Lynn chewed on her lip for a minute and worked up the nerve for her next question, like she had to push the words up from her gut into her throat and out her mouth with one long shove.

"You guys have confidentiality agreements, right? Like you can't narc to anybody?"

"Yes, it's called HIPPA, and we- "

"Did anyone see?"

"...yes, the explosion was quite massive, but - "

"No, I mean after, did anyone..."

The nurse paused for a minute. Damnit. Lynn leaned back into the pillow even before hearing her answer, some nothing about camera footage but covering her with a blanket as quickly as possible. The nurse went on to describe the symptoms of hypothermia, which Lynn was somehow suffering from despite being partially on fire when they found her. Lynn cursed, which made the nurse startle. Now they have it on file, she thought wearily. Day one and they know. They all know.

Lynn was ready to go after a day or two, her shoulder aching but by no means unusable. Her hair had grown back out to what would be considered an alternative length, and changed color once every hour or so. The doctors wanted to continue to monitor her for a variety of reasons, including any lasting effects of hypothermia, which involved a lot of needle pinpricks to her fingers and someone taking her temperature like every thirty minutes. She was hovering somewhere around 90 degrees the first day, but was back up to normal by the next.

"I am fine," Lynn said. "Just let me eat and get out of here." They'd at least unstrapped her, but she still wasn't allowed to leave without supervision. Fortunately, they gave her a TV. Lynn watched Maury. She was politely asked to keep her voice down, as her heckling was disturbing fellow patients.

"Well, why aren't they watching?" Lynn asked. "Just trying to enjoy the TV in here. Not much else to do. You want to scream at me for smiling?"

There was then a rather awkward exchange, in which a child psychologist and the nurse, whom Lynn had given a variety of nicknames in her mind, largely relating to her rather equestrian features and Lynn's theories about the lack of sex the nurse was having. The psychologist began to talk to Lynn about a disorder called anorexia, and body dysmorphia, and -

"Oh cut this shit out," Lynn said. "I'm not fucked in the head, I just burn through more calories because -"

"Mental illness isn't being 'fucked in the head'," the psychologist said with the patient tone of someone who has had this conversation a million times before, which just made Lynn more irritated. The last thing she needed was for everyone in the school seeing her naked and bald and throwing up ash on the first day, and then rumors going around that she was some special snowflake who neeeded people to hold her hand. The doctor told Lynn that one of the IV's was supplementing her with nutrients to ensure she got back up to a healthy weight.

"Dude, I'll eat food."

The doctors nodded politely and continued with their presentation, which at one point included sock puppets that learned not to make fun of their classmates for being too skinny or too fat.

"But that one puppet is a fatass. Like that's just a fact."

"Do you feel like that puppet, Lynn?"

"I feel like wearing your asshole like that puppet, Doc."

"Angry outbursts are common, Lynn," the doctor said, smiling unshakably.

This continued for several days, in which Lynn devoured every bite of food they put before her. The nurse quickly figured out that mentioning that Lynn couldn't do something was a pretty surefire way to accomplish it, although Lynn had no real reason to spite her on this. She was still starving days after the whole mess. If she'd only had another few meals in her before she'd had to throw down, she thought, she could've lasted a bit longer. She also offered to eat one of the nurses, having not learned that outbursts were not conducive to being released from the hospital more quickly. Fortunately, by a week's time, she'd gained several pounds and her hair was still a short shock, but it was flashing different colors every few minutes. She started melting their thermometers to piss them off. I will destroy your bottom line one thermometer at a time.

Lynn had a lot of time, during commercial breaks of Judge Judy, to wonder what went down. They hadn't shown her the footage, which she had been pleased by. Apparently, she'd fucked up the cafeteria and the kitchens pretty good, but Spoons had made it out alright, as had Archie. Lynn grinned at that. Yeah, that's right, you big ass lizard. Lynn Holmes, punching above her weight class. Lynn did wonder how Archie - non lizard Archie - had turned out. She was pretty impressed with Spoons, she had to admit. Spoons had punched that thing like Tyson. She wanted to talk to her at some point and see how she made it out. Truthfully, Lynn hadn't had any idea if that walk-in freezer thing would work, so it was pretty cool Spoons hadn't died.

"Well well," Lynn drawled. They had removed the oxygen tank after Lynn asked them to rewatch footage of the explosion, so she didn't have any crap on her face. Lynn had also gotten them to let her wear her hoodie instead of that scratchy paper gown. She felt weird having her cheeks on a hospital bed. "You lost weight, Boat Farmer." She paused. "Oh, fuck me, don't tell them I said that, they're convinced - " Lynn looked at his hands. Flowers. Lynn opened her mouth and closed it. What was this? Did...that's..."I..." Lynn's voice tapered off into some kind of stammer. "I, geez, Arch, you, nobody died, I..." she shut her mouth. Motherfucker. Trying to mess with my head. Thinks he can play mind games.

The truth was that Lynn really didn't hold Archie accountable, in an act of emotional maturity from her that would surprise most. Lynn had gotten chewed out so many times for after-effects of her powers that she couldn't hold it against him. A lot of her friends would bitch that their cigarettes only lasted half as long when she was around, amongst other things. Heh. I still remember that time J shot himself in the foot because I made that gun go off. Good times. On top of that, Lynn had enjoyed the tussle. A part of her liked that the station knew she could throw down with the best of them on day one. She hadn't been planning on starting any fights, but sometimes, one just has to get knocked around a bit. Lynn was cool with that. Archie manning up and apologizing was pretty cool of him, too. Lynn couldn't fault him for that.

And maybe, in a corner of Lynn's mind she wouldn't admit, there was a sliver of her that was afraid of that thing, and didn't want to be on the wrong side. But until then, she was happy to throw a tennis ball for the human golden retriever every now and then.

The flowers. "Um, thanks. That's...that's, uh, cool of you." She looked around. Chromatic changes in her hair and eyes were normal for Lynn, but her face was as red as her hair this time. "Look if you can bust me out of here that'd be really cool, I don't know why I'm still here." Everyone was going to think Archie had fucked her up, which she also did not want. Lynn thought maybe she needed to get a PR agent or something. She thought about asking Archie about what he'd heard about things - if that footage had gone around, but she thought better of it. Only security and stuff would've pulled you out of there, she thought. This was strange. She didn't know what to say. She felt like something was crawling around inside her. Why did he come by? Now she was sure this was some kind of power play. "Do you watch Maury?" she blurted out. "This - this asshole won't pay his child support. It's fuckin' great."

The other thing that Lynn could not engineer a conspiracy theory or questionable motive or ulterior goal for was that no one had ever brought Cordelia Lynn Holmes flowers of any kind. They're pretty. she thought for a moment, before she gave herself a mental slap to the face. Stop being a complete sissy. The dude threw a table at you.

The Promise - Second Star to the Right, and Straight on 'til Morning.

Lynn

This is the stupidest thing I've ever done. I could've run. I could've left Spoons and gotten clear, I could've -

Archie came into the kitchen, angry and hulking. Whatever damage Natalie had put on him was still there to some extent, but he was already licking his wounds pretty well. For a brief moment, one that Lynn would have difficulty admitting to herself happened afterwards, she thought deliriously that she had seen Clarita running out of the cafteria, or that Cesar might take off the lizard head and everyone would come out laughing, but that moment passed.

The one advantage of this thing being twice Lynn's size and easily forty-five times her weight was that it took a while to build up momentum. Lynn always got smoked by the taller guys on a straightaway, but she could dart and duck around them all day. Lynn pressed herself back into the tile, the dull whoosh of the flames around her in her ear. She waited as Archie came into the kitchen, having to slow down for just a second to change direction. That was one thing, at least - he wasn't going for Natalie, or whatever scrappy little fuckers were dumb enough to hang around in the cafeteria still. Just a second to pick its speed back up. All she needed. All she needed. This was the first time Lynn had gotten a really good look at the thing. This close? Fifteen feet away? It was tremendous. It was massive. Lynn felt nothing short of utter horror. God it could eat me. It could rip my arms out. It could -

Lynn snapped herself back to reality. The lizard was ten feet away now because she'd screwed around, and Cordelia Lynn Holmes was not about to go out whimpering and shaking.

Lynn spared one second to glance down at her useless arm. "Ka-boom," she said, her voice hoarse.

Lynn inhaled sharply, and on the exhale, put all the strength she had into her fire. There was a strange sucking noise in the room as all the oxygen immediately whooshed in. The burning aura around Lynn burst up a good two or three feet, melting a hole in the ceiling above her as the oil in her hand ignited. The air pulsated off her, rippling out and turning the entire kitchen into a convection oven, rattling the cabinets and sending pots and pans clanging off the shelves and racks. As it did, the ovens began to burn as hot as their wiring allowed. The fryers shook violently against their metal frames, their frames glowing and bending and warping. The water, both from the ceiling and idling about as moisture in the air, turned to steam in a split second, and there was a brief acrid smell as Lynn's clothes were seared off her. Lynn's feet were no longer wearing shoes, but some puddle of melted rubber and cloth that, even amongst everything else, sent up a particularly awful reek.

Then came the fun part.

The oil Lynn had spilled all over the floor - oil that so happened to be underneath Archie at this present moment, as all ten feet and two and a half tons of him barrelled towards her - caught.

Everything was fire. The air, the ground, Lynn, the metal in the room, everything that was not literally water. The metal fryers, oven coils, and all the metal in Lynn's immediate vicinity went white-hot for an instant, immediately cooling back down to red as Lynn's supernatural haymaker passed. Lynn flared white herself for a moment, something blindingly bright and sharp as all her senses were numbed to heat and sound. For a second, she burned like a star. Just a second. There wasn't enough oxygen, or fuel, or enough Lynn. Somewhere, Lynn's plan of dropping knives in the fryer came to fruition, as red hot blades - or, rather, pieces of them - exploded out across the kitchen, knocking holes in cabinets, the ceiling, putting a dent in the fridge, and slicing into Lynn's side (she did not feel this - unsurprisingly, it was cauterized rather quickly). This was compounded by the shrapnel of everything else that exploded, which was quite a number of things. Lynn had not anticipated there being as much oil in the cabinets as there was. She hoped at least some of it hit Archie, with enough force and heat to slice through his side. All of this happened as more water rushed into the room, and whatever wasn't converted into steam splattered the grease further, egging the fire to spurt and explode further. Lynn's power meant everything flammable became more flammable, and everything not flammable had an asterisk next to it that said partially flammable. Everything that could boil boiled more easily and everything that could blow up just needed a mild suggestion instead of proper ignition.

All the oil met Lynn met the fryer grease met the open air and a forty five foot plume of flame blasted out the window of the kitchen, liquidating the nearest table and charring the ones after. Whether by an active part of Lynn's supernatural subconscious, or lucky positioning, or divine intervention, Lynn's hoodie was spared. The heat and fire that blasted upwards briefly liquefied the metal ceiling, along with the lightbulbs, wiring, and everything else above the oil fire. With Lynn's presence - and her powers - removed, they were rapidly cooling, but even the purely-non-parahuman thermal energy left in the room kept a few drops of everything that had been above them dripping down, hardening on the floor. It didn't need to be parahuman hot in there. It was still really fucking hot in there. Lynn had just gotten the ball rolling.

Lynn had a brief momnet of lucidity as she realized the ringing in her ears was her eardrums exploding from the noise. She could not see anything through the steam and smoke. To indulge in a cliche, Lynn was not entirely convinced that she was still on the mortal plane. It certainly looked a lot like hell.

She blinked around, struggling to move, but most of her body was not cooperating. Her head was spinning and her arm wasn't working. Was it not working before? Molten plastic dripped off her fingers. The jug. Lynn blinked. She was no longer in the kitchen. Lynn was almost certain she had been in the kitchen a moment before. She had, in fact, blasted herself through the kitchen wall into the storeroom, where a few industrial sized containers of food were idly blazing around her. There was too much smoke and steam and fire inside the kitchen to see if she'd even fucking scratched Archie or not. It would be just her luck that the lizard was fireproof.

Get up. Get up you fucking bitch. Lynn heaved and pushed herself up, and then it happened. Lynn threw up ash onto the ground, something clotty and dry and black. She gasped for air, Christ she couldn't breathe - but only smoke came out, her eyes watering as the bitter taste flooded her mouth. Lynn thought she said no, but her lungs wouldn't work. Lynn began to shiver, and she could feel the heat of her hair die back down. Her leg wasn't holding her weight, and wouldn't bend to help her stand up. She looked down at her arms, which were covered in charred something or another. The entire path from where she'd been, some thirty feet in front of her, to where she was, was covered in ash and soot. Well fuck me. Nothing ends easy. If she hadn't kicked up enough smoke and ash to blind that thing, it was not exactly going to have a difficult time following where she went. Unbeknownst to Lynn, her back had not taken the force of being thrown through a wall so easily, and there were a number of deep lacerations that made her phoenix tattoo a rather avant-garde piece at the present moment. Lynn managed to put all of her weight on her good arm, pulling herself an inch at a time behind a sack of corn. Lynn pushed herself as far against the wall as she would go.

I'm not going to die shivering. Stand up. Stand up! She felt small, she was naked and cold and she couldn't even stand up. She was pathetic. No wonder the lizard thrashed her. Stupid. Stupid! Lynn managed to turn herself around against the wall and looked down, trying to pull her legs under her and sgrab the bag of whatever was next to her to pull herself up.

There was half of a butcher's knife, still red-hot, sticking out of her right kneecap.

Lynn reached to grab it, thinking that it shouldn't be there, she should yank it out. She reached out. Why is there plastic on my fingers? she wondered. She tried to grab at the blade but her hand missed it. She missed it so badly she slumped over.

"Oh," Lynn murmured. She blinked. There was a warm breeze from the next room over. She was shaking. But that warm air coming in - that was nice. She was getting cold.

The Promise - Second Star to the Right, and Straight on 'til Morning.

Lynn

Lynn, for a brief moment, had a wide, childlike smile as a table came hurtling towards her - This is the most WWE shit I have ever seen - before ducking down. Well, ducking down isn't completely accurate. Lynn let her momentum slip and and she fell, knocking everything off a table as she fell and hit the bench of the table next to her. Fortunately, Lynn was a small target - the table hurtled a good foot over her, the beast's tremendous strength arcing it just a bit too high. Lynn scrambled back up, the spilled soda on her tanktop hissing and curling off in steam as the fabric quickly became littered with burn spots. Lynn's clothes looked like someone had put out a thousand cigarettes on her as her hair and eyes burned brighter, a flickering golden corona forming around her. For perhaps a foot around her in every direction, there were the rippling waves of a heat mirage as Lynn pushed herself harder.

Lynn jumped onto the next table, approaching the doors of the kitchens. Natalie, she had to admit, was putting an industrial grade can of ass whooping upon that thing. Lynn figured she might be a trifle nicer to her in the future, but this was in no way a concession that Natalie could beat Lynn in a fight. As is so depressingly common in life, Lynn's kindness bit her in the ass - at the moment that Archie got staggered back, Lynn turned to make sure all the kids had gotten clear of ground zero.

She looked back and saw Natalie hurtling towards her.

For an instant, Lynn didn't care - if you cool down, the lizard will kill you - but Lynn couldn't go through with it. She braced to grab her and turned her heat down as much as she dared, taking Natalie square against her chest. The force threw her into the kitchen doors, which Lynn had very wrongly assumed were both opened. At the outbreak of the hostilities, one of the cooks had managed to lock one before seeing Archie hurl a table and flee in terror.

The door edge hit Lynn, cradling Natalie in her glowing arms, square in the left shoulderblade. Lynn screamed and fell to the ground. Her slow falling hadn't been able to completely mititgate just how much force Natalie had hit her with - much less when she was containing her powers to not burn the girl's skin off.

Lynn managed to pull herself up shakily, only the roots of her hair glowing like embers, and looked at her left arm. Her shoulder was torn out of socket, hangling limply and loosely. She tried to wiggle her fingers to no avail. Fuck. Fuck. FUCK!

Lynn, breathing hard and struggling to stay upright, looked up at Archie. Christ, Natalie had put a haymaker on him. Lynn had no time to make sure Natalie's spinal cord didn't look like a pretzel from the impact, and less to care about burning her. She grabbed her with her right hand and pulled her back into the kitchen, wheezing from the effort. "Natalie," she said, her voice ragged, a chainsmoker's gasp. "Please listen to me. If you do not get into that walk-in freezer right now, you are going to fucking die." Lynn staggered back over to the kitchens. They'd left everything on in panic, which is what Lynn was praying for. Lynn had spent a fair amount of time in kitchens - washing dishes was a good way to earn some cash under the table, and hanging out with Cesar, she'd -

Lynn gritted her teeth. She knew that she was very likely going to die now. You dumb bitch. You stupid, slow bitch. I can't move my arm. She was not going to die thinking of Cesar like some absolute coward. Lynn scanned the top shelves for the gallons of grease and began to let herself heat back up. She didn't have enough left in reserve to go as powerfully as she had before - especially with her body working to fix her shoulder. It wouldn't be usable in time. Lynn managed to clamber up onto an oventop, shoes' rubber burning and melting from the heat, and pull three gallons of peanut oil down off the top shelves. She frantically looked around, flaming hair falling down into her face. Knives. Lynn grabbed all the kitchen knives off the magnetic strip and began dropping in the grease cookers, then fumbled with the oven switches, turning them to the highest heat possible and throwing the doors down. She glanced out the window, where Archie was pissed.

"Please go in the freezer," Lynn said, to herself, or Natalie, or maybe God, she wasn't quite sure. Lynn cursed as she fumbled to open one of the gallons with just one hand. She grunted and began to pour it on herself. Lynn's hair immediately whooshed into an intense blue, and the fire alarms in the kitchen went mayday. Sprinklers began splashing water down, colliding with Lynn's superheated aura. Steam started to fill the kitchen, intertwined with smoke as her outfit curled and blackened. The ovens began to heat supernaturally fast, hot air bursting out into the kitchen air. All the grease cookers began to bubble violently, grease splattering viciously as water came into contact with them. Lynn, too, was splattering and sputtering, her fire too hot to put out - for now - and splashing grease onto everything around her.

Lynn backed herself into a corner, hoping that the lizard would come through the doors they had. She grabbed the gallon of grease with her good hand and splashed a bit at her feet. The other two were on the ground, oozing out grease onto the ground. Lynn gritted her teeth and forced her power down, down. This meant the pain from her shoulder was blinding, unmitigated by her phoenix form. "C'mon," Lynn said, shaking from the exertion. "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon." Lynn blinked her eyes, aware but unperturbed by the smoke and steam that was filling the kitchens.

Please be in that freezer, and please don't go after the kids.

Lynn put the gallon of oil down and grabbed a metal pot, banging it against the oven next to her. It began to glow red hot around the rim, denting like paper on each impact. "C'MERE BOAT FARMER! I GOT A TREAT FOR YOU!" If reptiles were like sharks, Lynn figured, he was coming after the wounded prey. Around her, water evaporated into a steam a foot from touching her, sapping Lynn's strength a touch more with each drop. If she stopped holding herself, it wouldn't have been as difficult, but this was a situation requiring precision, which was not exactly Lynn's forte.

Lynn threw the pot down and got ready. There was about a fifteen second window where this could work. She had been in some pretty bad scrapes before - none so bad as this, she had to admit, but enough to keep her nerve. And the positive side was if she couldn't stay gutsy for long, it wouldn't matter. At least I won't die cold.

The Promise - Second Star to the Right, and Straight on 'til Morning.

Lynn

Lynn barely had time to react before Boat Farmer picked her up and hurled her - Lynn would have been worried, but as per usual, she was a bit floatier than the laws of physics would normally suggest she be, which was a nifty skill Lynn had. Given her size and tendency to shit talk larger individuals, she had a history of being thrown around. Lynn rolled without much damage, the force radiated off as heat as she went. Lynn stood up, watching Archie freak out.

"Alright Fish Boy," she said, a grin spreading across her face. "Let's fuckin' dance." Explained why they had him locked down. Spoons caught a table the same way Lynn figured she tended to catch verbal trauma and put it down. Least she had someone still on Team Vaguely Human.

Lynn turned to see the kids remaining in the cafeteria.

Kids. A lot of them young.

There was no choice at that point. She would have anyway, but she was really in this now.

She took off her hoodie, revealing the white tanktop underneath, tucked into her jeans. The tanktop was an extra small and still hung off her frame a bit, her arms thin and wiry, the black wings of her phoenix tattoo stretching from underneath the shoulder straps into visibility. Lynn was quite literally half the height of Archie at this point, the beast stretching and bursting out.

"Oy! Spoons! Kick the fuck out of him before he's up and angry!" Lynn said. She turned to the terrified group of teenagers and kids. "Hey, all of you," Lynn shouted. As she did so, she began to fuel her power, letting the air around her rush in. Her hair bust in flame and her eyes began to burn to match, a golden light that flickered around her as heat started to roil off her form. The smell of smoke and charcoal came off her, which she was hoping for. She wanted Archie's nose on her and none of those little brats. "Get out of here and find something to bar the door shut. Someone call for help if any of these worthless security officers are still around." Her false flag theory was starting to hold a little weight, after all.
If Spoons could buy her some time, she might be able to melt the doors shut and trap Boat Farmer in here. That, of course, would pose some problems for them, but not too big a problem. Lynn may not have paid much attention in school, but she had, by academics or necessity, learned a few things about biochemistry. The first was that everyone needs oxygen, and big motherfuckers need it a lot more than little motherfuckers. If they could dance around this guy, Lynn could smoke him out eventually.

Lynn lay her hoodie down gently beside her and watched Spoons for a minute. She'd ripped off her inhibitor necklace, which made Lynn wonder what it did in the first place. "About time, Spoons!" she shouted, hoping to draw Archie's attention as well. "Now that your nuva ring is off, go ahead and fuck him!"

Lynn took a minute to assess her surroundings. If this really was him, it was a bad sign, but Lynn figured it wasn't. He was way too much of a puppy dog to be in the driver's seat right now. That hopefully meant he was stupid, which was good. Stupid and big was a lot better than smart and big. Lynn had gotten her ass whipped by both, and the latter tended to be far more painful. This was also about as perfect a situation as Lynn could ask for. There was no way she got in trouble for beating the fuck out of this thing, given that the security had vanished into thin air, and she also maintained mad street cred with everyone for doing so. Win-win.

Now Lynn wasn't going to deny Archie was turning into one big motherfucker. But Lynn had fought big before. Maybe not this big, but pretty big. If you have over five inches on someone in a fight, in Lynn's book, the rest was gravy. She was going to have to get in close the same as if he was only six feet tall. So that was familiar territory. Lynn took a deep breath and smoke began to curl off her, her tanktop singing and burning along with her jeans. She was burning bright now, the air around her heating like a convection oven. Lynn didn't know much about lizards, but she was pretty sure snakes had like heat-seeking vision or something, and she was operating off a similar principle. She glanced up at the sprinklers. We'll make them work for us. Let's cook this bastard. Superheated water was only a friend to her in this room. A lot of steam would help - and big guys didn't like slipping and falling very well. Lynn thought. She had to be careful with her powers, and had learned a long time ago to notice what was around her before she really lost her cool - a punch or two was fine, but this was going to take some big guns, and Lynn didn't intend to asphyxiate herself in an airtight room or blow herself into space because of -

Ah. Lynn turned and glanced over at the kitchens. French fries. She didn't care how tough those scales of his were. Lynn's brain was scrambling to put together a haymaker he'd feel tomorrow.

Lynn jumped up onto one of the tables, some thirty feet away from the beast. "Ay Spoons!" Lynn shouted. "Get your fuckin' dancing shoes on. Get him in there, alright?" she shouted, pointing towards the kitchens. That was away from the kids, and towards the place where Lynn had a bit more firepower. Lynn turned to Archie, letting her fingers dance and limber up. She hoped Natalie had more guts than she had at lunch. Lynn figured she was at menopause levels of rage right now, which is what Lynn was hoping for. They needed to trip Big Ugly up long enough to let the munchkins scramble off.

"Hey Rainbow Fish!" she shouted, making her form as bright as she could, her semi-digested meal wicked away for calories, the air around her getting hotter. Lynn's hair began to glow intensely, bright yellow at the edges and a flickering blue at the roots. "You're missing a fuckin' scale!" The hard plastic of the lunch table beneath her began to melt, which was what she wanted. Sparks burst off her shoulders, the phoenix tattoo burning white. Then she hopped to the next one and started moving towards the next table, eyes on the lizard. Away from the munchkins. Look at me, you big ugly lizard. I bet those eyes aren't heat-resistant.

The Promise - Second Star to the Right, and Straight on 'til Morning.

Lynn

If one had been paying attention only to Lynn - and this was unlikely, given the freakish helmet man that fell from the rafters and crashed onto their table (knocking Lynn's plate into her lap and sending her silverware scattering away; a split-second later, Lynn reached for a knife that was not there), they would've seen Lynn light up. Quite literally - her eyes and hair began to glow brightly for a moment, and any thought of the power-monitoring nanotech in her veins was ignored. Lynn was up on her feet and ready to throw down but he was moving along, and even Lynn couldn't see anything particularly malicious in his behavior. He looks like they sent an astronaut up here but they let Hot Topic run his wardrobe instead of NASA.

What the hell? He still deserved an ass-whooping for startling her. Lynn would've started swinging, but they played by different rules here. I'm not getting the Spoons treatment on day one, Lynn told herself, forcing her curled up fists down to her sides. Still, Lynn figured they couldn't get mad at her for self-defense, and she kept her eyes on the -

...no. What else was going on? This seemed an awful lot like a distraction. Lynn scanned the room, looking around. Was this just some lone wolf fuckery? She figured it might be some kind of orientation stunt, but that helmet looked awfully expensive to be a prank. Lynn had seen (and, perhaps, participated in) enough street hustles to know this set-up. Wave one hand at somebody and pick their pocket with the other. Lynn looked around the dining hall but saw nothing. This could've been a pretty good excuse to flood the place with security if they were trying to make a move on Spoons or something, but she figured that couldn't be it, because the security here was woefully incompetent. Lynn considered flooring the prankster just to show them up, but that would've meant doing the security a favor, and Lynn was not about to be seen as, considered, or even fall vaguely into the realm of narc-dom.

Lynn looked back (missing Archie's attempt to apprehend the helmet man) to see Archie take a mean boot to the face. Lynn grimaced. She'd taken one or two before. Lynn, with the sort of law degree that comes from being arrested, also knew that qualified as assault with a deadly weapon. Aim below the waist, bro. Hurts more and they can't pin attempted murder on you. Lynn did bristle up at that. She and Boat Farmer and Spoons and the Cranky One weren't exactly buddy-buddy, but Lynn, for a myriad of reasons, wasn't going to let anybody come on in and kick around the top dogs and scamper off. Lynn moved to melt that helmet into his skull but he was already gone. Christ, Boats, you got your ass beat by a tap dancer. That kick did look pretty serious, and there was no way this place had competent help coming. As long as this guy kept making a joke of them, the more she got a feel for what the Promise's security was like. So far, she wasn't terribly impressed. The steel boot wasn't a cool move, but Lynn figured she might've done the same in his position. I wouldn't have gotten grabbed, though, and also I wouldn't be dancing.

Lynn moved over to Archie, coming around the table. Her hair flickered rapidly, yellow and red, and her eyes glowed softly. There was a faint light pulsing from her skin in rhythm with the hair, but Lynn didn't push things further. She was staying under the radar, but if she got a hand on the Helmet man, he was going down. Have fun tap-dancing with rubber melted to your feet. He was farther down the table, though, and Lynn wasn't concerned about him coming back. The cafeteria was in pure chaos, which Lynn did find amusing. Lynn, given the height differential, had some difficulty reaching up to Archie's face. She also couldn't remember his name, which was unfortunate. "Hold still," she told him, her tone completely devoid of bedside manner. "You're going to be fine."

This was a boldfaced lie. Dude took a steel boot to the face. Lynn figured he might be concussed at best or starring in inspirational hallmark movies about people who spent ten years learning how to walk again at worse. Or, maybe whatever parahuman tricks were up his sleeve made him tough like her. Lynn looked into his eyes and grunted for a minute, making her own flare up for a second. His eyes didn't dilate. Lynn had picked up that trick a while back, given the disturbing propensity for head trauma in the last crew she ran with. "Okay, Fish Boy. You're fucked. Lay down before Daft Punk comes back and curbstomps you or something." Lynn put her hand on the side of his face and kept her heat at a steady, low level, figuring that might help.

Lynn blinked. Why am I doing this? I should just let him seizure out or something. Lynn chewed on her lip for a second. She didn't care about these people, you know, and she wanted to make that clear - but, at the same time, it...well, truthfully, Lynn couldn't really find a good justifiation for why she was doing it. Part of her, for a second, thought that Archie looked like Megan or Clarita had, with their bruises and scrapes, small and shaking, but that thought flickered out of her mind as quickly as it came. This guy was strapped up when they brought him in. He was a threat, and she was helping him. That pissed her off, and she wasn't about to let people say she was being a little bitch by helping someone out. Time to clarify that.

"Hey, you two," she said to Amelia and Natalie. "One of you go sort through the pile of dipshits that run this place and find a doctor." Lynn turned and saw a girl dressed entirely in denim. "Hey, Denim," she shouted to Keaton. Gimme your jacket." She looked back at Amelia. "You too. We gotta, like, prop his head up or some shit." Lynn had absolutely no idea what she was doing, but that was not about to stop her. For a moment, she figured she should probably take off her own hooodie if she was asking these two to do the same, but that was not happening if Lynn could help it. She knew they couldn't let him fall asleep, though, or he would die. Not that Lynn was particularly concerned - that meant there'd be one less contender for king of the mountain. But, Lynn thought, and this thought bore a sneaking resemblance to the shrink, He's really only been nice to you, and helping him doesn't make you look weak. Oh well. Time to sort that out later.

"Hey," she told Archie, looking down at him. The smell of smoke began to drift off her. "Tell me, like, who the president is, or whatever. You still alive in there?" Lynn contemplated telling him that if he stroked out and started shooting laser beams or lightning bolts at her, she was going to hit him a hell of a lot harder than that guy did, but she figured that may not be necessary. She kept one hand where the boot at had hit, and the other at her side, fingers dancing, light flickering around them. Lynn alternated her glances between Archie, where the Helmet Man had run off, and at the rafters. You won't catch me off-guard again.

The Promise - Second Star to the Right, and Straight on 'til Morning.

Lynn

Lynn was content - there was still some game here, most certainly, but she was confident she was at least winning. The punk girl had backed off a bit, and Natalie had gone all quiet. She didn't care if Spoons could pick her up and throw her back to Earth one-handed, as long as nobody was trying to start shit with one Cordelia Lynn Holmes, her pride was intact. Now Archie was the one throwing her for a loop. She had told him the next best thing to fuck right off, but he'd bounced back like a tackling dummy and started talking about love. Love? Who had said anything about that? Lynn shifted in her seat. This didn't make sense. They must have set this up. Surely. All three of them coming here together to sit by her? They were acting like strangers and sizing her up, yes, it was the only thing that made sense, and Lynn wasn't nobody's fool, she wasn't gonna -

Lynn stared down at her plate. It was empty.

She glanced back up at them, chewing on her lip.

None of them looked like they had any tattoos - at least not the kinds Lynn had an eye out for. Noses weren't crooked. Nobody'd been punching their ears. No close attention to color schemes. Boat Farmer either had the best poker face Lynn had ever seen or was on the up and up. Spoons seemed very seriously driven to not start any shit, and Lynn figured that was more parahuman that probationary in nature. Lynn could've put down Amelia's outfit to cover rent at the last place she'd stayed at (there was a brief jolt at that, and Lynn zoned out of the conversation for a second, bitter), which didn't lend her to think she was involved in anything.

Lynn was forced to concede there was - slightly, ever so slightly - the possibility they were just looking for conversation. And if - and Lynn wasn't admitting that this was the case - they were just doing that, she would just look like an asshole if she antagonized them further. And that would prove very bad if Spoons was as big a bruiser as she was letting on, or if Archie's puppy dog act was hiding one mean bite. So maybe she'd just...just let them think it was working, Hrng. She didn't like these mind games.

They were talking about what they did - Lynn was scrambling to figure out what answer to that question she could put together that would not immediately alienate them when the other two started talking about their powers. Lynn wasn't used to people not playing their cards so close to their chest. She wasn't about to spill all her secrets then and there, but at the same time, she'd look like a total bitch if she didn't. Ugh. This is why I sat alone.

"Teleporting's neat," Lynn said idly. She turned and looked at the huge glass window, the planet that was ten minutes and however many hundreds of miles away. She let her eyes linger for a minute and then glanced back at Amelia. She didn't have much hope - and hope was dumb, anyways - given that she struggled to clear a first down if people were watching (God, between her and Spoons, what with the performance issues at this school? Am I the only well-adjusted one?), Lynn wasn't expecting a get out of jail free ticket, but once again, she - through gritted, grinding teeth - was forced to admit it might behoove her slightly to not be a total dick to Amelia. She gave it a moment of quiet, choosing her words. A strand of hair fell loose from where she'd bound it all back, slowly shifting to blue. "I'm nothing fancy. Just a real firecracker."