Jason sat, his chair tipped back, as he surveyed the room in front of him.
Two of that Lethal Force group had appeared. A solo he hadn't been expecting sitting with them. Was she a new recruit? Not that he really knew much about them, but he didn't think there were so many ladies before. Or was he thinking of a different group? Fuck it.
Purge and Exhale. The mob. Scary in their own right, especially since no one really knew what Purge did himself.
Neither of the official big boys from the Rockers had shown. That was... Disappointing, he guessed.
Retcon. Another quirky one. Best to not think too hard on that one.
Ah, enough with the people. They either were unknowns or knowns, nothing he could do about it.
He tapped the table, sightly irritated at the whole reason this was happening.
The damned Community. If even half the rumors running wild were true..... Well, at least this was a mission he could get behind.
He glanced at Whimsy, frowning beneath his helmet. His special request for a helmet that filtered sounds through an electronic system, able to make him essentially deaf to the world... And with built in comms for ease. He wasn't going to risk another fiasco with Chatterbox....
Same basic design as before, but the inside was what changed. Heh, even with him.
He felt... Idly better about their last mission after the whole ice cream talk they'd had. He almost felt like a big brother at this point. Almost.
He glanced at the clock, ready for this to all start. Just to make sure everyone made it....
Whip
The room was fancy. Too fancy. The place fake, the people fake. Everything fake.
She skittered into the room, possibly the last one to enter, and spotted the male half of the Twin. She snorted, slapping the back of his head as she sat down. "Other is better," she whispered to him, a fox grin on her face as she let her hood down. "This one is...tainted."
Lillian sat behind her little booth, beaming behind her updated wardrobe. A proper costume, for a proper event. Her upper face was hidden behind special visor Decoy had whipped up, looking not unlike her Dino form's face. It covered more of her face, while leaving her mouth and nose open so her senses could still be useful. The rest of her outfit was not unlike many popular Wards in material and design, colored in a gray, scale-like texture of light armored padding designed for maneuverability. A small skirt added depth without being in the way over the leggings half of the suit.
A tiger lily flower was in her hair, a gift from a young boy who had been one of the first to approach her earlier. She had been surprised at the amount of people who had visited her, actually, and her hand hurt a little from the signatures. She'd talked a bit about overcoming adversity, but she mostly wanted to help on a more individual basis, but that wasn't happening here. Maybe she could spend a little more time on PHO in the PMs?
She glanced over towards Alessa, glad her mask was covering the blush that was creeping across her cheeks. Standing up, since things seemed to be winding down at the moment.
This was great. All of it. There were tons of fantastic people around, from the Protectorate to the local Capes like Furnace to all the Wards....
Her gaze turned back to Alessa before she looked down and rolled her eyes at herself.
With a slight skip in her step she headed over. "Isn't this just wonderful, Messiah?" she asked brightly, waving at a kid nearby who was walking away from Furnace with the biggest smile she'd ever seen. The sight caused her to giggle a little. Really she felt high with happiness today, and she supposed it was leaking through. "Did you say hi to Furnace? He's pretty neat. I kinda feel bad for G4M3R though. But it's so good to see Noble and Captain Morales back. There's so many nice people and it's been so much fun and it's almost as nice as the day we...." Okay, her ears were definitely red now as she clamped her mouth shut. "Errr, I'm rambling. Sorry, hehe," she tried to cover, running a hand along her neck.
Mantis was out following what little they could figure out about that Intel, which seemed to be a basement level apartment in a not so terrible part of Denver.
Pulling up, the area seemed largely devoid of people. Mostly just concrete and furnishings on the upper balconies. There was a single flight of stairs leading down to the lower floors from the outside, a rusty railing that seemed ready to disintegrate upon touch guiding the way. Am observant passerby might notice the high quality camera latched to the bottom of the second story balcony above the stairs, capturing any who came near, or down, the entrance. A small thing, partially hidden in the shadow of the balcony.
The door was solid metal, a poorly painted beige over rusty red, with a large knocker hastily welded onto it and what looked like a speakeasy slide built into it.
A small sign hung on the handle: No Soliciting!
There appeared to be no immediate way to open the door, the handle was really more of a protruding object for pulling on than an actual way to open the door.
Before Mantis could do much of anything but approach the door, the slide moved and a glint from something caught the light.
"What do you want? I don't have any appointments scheduled today." The voice was definitely female.... And undeniably irritated. "Well? Hurry up, I'm a busy person."
@Spiffy I've actually got a plan for that. If you would like to make a Mantis post to set for the scene for what he's doing at the moment, he can have a little Adventure until the rest LF + Whip get free from the meeting.
First off, this is an interest check for an ongoing game by ProPro which can be found here.
Now, a lot of people can get discouraged by such a large amount of CSs and IC / OOC posts, but I assure you you can be caught up on relevant information very quickly, and the GMs (of which I am one) are more than happy to assist interested people with anything to help ease them into the setting.
IC is entering it's second timeskip. The CSs have a large number of characters no longer in use and now turned NPCs, dead characters, and characters not yet entered into the RP proper.
So, what's this RP about in TLDR form? Simple, really: Super powers and everything that comes with them.
While there is a main plot that advances the timeline, there's opportunities to create your own plots and ideas. We are, again, more than happy to help you with such.
There's also a Discord, for those interested in such things.
Judah stared out his window deep in thought. It was early in the morning, but Judah had not slept a wink. After the horrible encounter at the warehouse he had felt shook. Judah glanced at the bottle in his hand and took another swig. Right now it was all he could to to keep his nerves calm. That and....make a plan to hunt down the start of all this mess in the first place. Patriarch. Sure that woman had killed Zach, but she was only acting out in response to what had been done to her. The cycle of revenge would continue indefinitely if the start of it was not put 6 feet under. Judah intended to find out his whereabouts.
Judah looked at the unlikely group who had followed him home after the previous night. They had all taken different places to rest for the night. Even the strange spider woman. After exchanging some information they had learned about one another they had come to more of an understanding of one another. If it hadn't been for Healer, Judah knew he wouldn't have survived that deadly knife. Judah gave it a good long look in his hand. Maybe he could one day use it to end him..
“This shit is fucked,” Gaia said as she threw a bouncy ball against the ground next to Judah. “Dunn’s been silent in my head for a day. That’s not a good sign.“ Normally Dunn would have something to comment on the situation, but right now it was just an empty mind. It was really unsettling to be honest. With every thud of the ball, Gaia thought harder. “What’re we gonna do for Zach? I feel awful for just leaving him there unceremoniously.”
Whip stood in the corner, leaning against a matrix of string as she listened to this useless rabble. They'd tried to ask her shit, and wouldn't stop, so she had given simple, often singular, responses in return. They were under him, couldn't they see it? He was playing their master. She couldn't stand it. She very much wanted to just bisect him.....
But she couldn't. She couldn't guarantee she could escape. And that brainwashed girl would just save him again. No. She couldn't.
"Save the girls from themselves," she spoke up finally. "Save them and then kill him. Obvious."
Alone for the moment, Genevieve held a glass underneath the kitchen sink faucet to drink some much needed, room-temperature water. As she slowly sipped on the beverage, images from the night of the fight danced in her head. She had more than likely saved Judah's life by removing the knife from his leg, and even though she didn't have anything against the guy-in fact, she liked him-she would sooner or later dangle that little bit of truth over him in order to get him to help her with her own mission.
A few moments later, Genevieve walked over to where the others were, the slight tension in the room hard to miss.
Axel sat on the ground nearby and watched the ball Gaia threw very closely. When the opportune moment presented itself he leaped forward and snatched it out of the air. He seemed mighty pleased with himself as he then dropped it at Gaia's feet in triumph.
Judah smiled at the sight. Then he replied to Gaia, "There is nothing we can do for Zach. It would have been worse for us all if we had taken him. The authorities will most likely investigate the death of a parahuman and try to find the ones responsible. It works in our favor." He paused trying to bury the emotions down.
That's when Whipstitch spoke up up about saving the girls and killing "him?" Judah eyed her warily. He was grateful for her help last night, but her emotional state was filled with contradictions. So much so that Judah had a hard time keeping focused. "I'm assuming you mean Patriarch," he replied, " We need a plan to take him on and find more information on his group."
Just then Genevieve walked in. Judah looked with a contemplation at her for a few seconds. He finally spoke up, " Thanks for bringing me out of death's door. I owe you," he said as he flipped the knife over handle facing her to take.
Whip huffed, picking a bit of dirt from her hair and flicking it in Judah's general direction. Asinine. Utter shit.
"Of course, he's the biggest. Remove the head, remove the rest, remove the left. Those two were tainted. Remove the taint, remove the ass. Drop venom in his eyes, destroy the painter," she said in a singsong tone, glaring in Judah's general direction without looking at him.
"Listen, hear, words float into your ears. Know when to strike. Remove the taint."
Gaia looked at Judah after throwing the ball for Axel once again. “I know. I contemplated taking his body, but I figured it’d be more trouble than it would be worth...” Gaia sat there for a moment as she pondered what to say. “I still feel like we need to give him a proper funeral, even if it’s just us.”
Looking to Whip, Gaia tilted her head. Whip was a... weird one, to put it lightly. She didn’t really know what to expect of the woman yet, but she didn’t really care to know either. To be frank, she was kind of afraid of the idea of knowing. “Getting to Patriarch is gonna be a lot harder than that, though.“
Seeing Genevieve walk in, Gaia gave a small wave as she smiled at the woman. She didn’t know what to say to her just yet, seeing as she was new and saw the team have a bit of a nasty run in. What was there to even say about this, really?
Genevieve shrugged her shoulders, walking over to take the knife from Judah. "I think any one of us would have done the same in my shoes." She grabbed the knife from him before she made her way over to the corner spot, sipping on her water some more as she took a seat, her pointer finger very delicately tapping the point of the blade with no particular rhythm. Genevieve didn't know what to expect next, what to do, or where to go. She was simply waiting to see where the team, or Judah, in that regard, would take it from there.
Judah ignored the dirt thrown at him and replied to Gaia, "With that info we picked up last night, finding him may be easier then you think. That is our next move.."
With that Judah motioned for Gaia to reveal what they found that night If it contained information they needed, perhaps it could lead them one step closer to Patriarch.
"... I don't suppose any of you guys can solve this puzzle," Gaia had already had the intel out on the counter.
The Intel, it turned out, appeared to be a series of directions scrambled in some kind of code leading to.... Something? Without breaking the code and finding the starting point, it would be useless to the group.
"Just a jumble of shit I can't figure out. Not even Dunn can guess his way through this." The entire ordeal had been like Calculus to Gaia, and she wasn't good at math. Dunn was, and even he was stumped. "If you guys wanna try it, please do. I might call up Chilly if we can't solve it, see if he knows anything."
Whip looked over Gaia's shoulder, frowning. "That looks like trash."
Judah walked over and took a good long look at the Intel. Finally something he could use all his energy for. He spent a few minutes looking for any clues to the code as well as on the back of the document. This could take some time...
Having spent a few moments watching, Genevieve finally put the glass down beside her and stood up. "I can help with that," she said, walking over to where Judah stood. "I'm a bit rusty, but nothing a few extra keystrokes won't fix."
Caesar touched ground, moving to the front of the groups and looking up at the large cliff faces near them. He blew a stream of O's from his special cigar, looking around as a cannonball flew overhead and nearly struck there ships.
Mhmmm. This was....
He heard the song of beating feet and shouting voices pricked at his ears, just as Hachirou and the odd Ninja man had stated.
The crowd was varied, full of pirates following this strange man. But they were all short, the poor little things.
Boone was willing to accept the offer, which Caesar nodded in agreement before flicking his nearly gone cigar into the crowd.
"Aye, let's get this hassle over with already, eh?" He spoke around a yawn, smoke snaking out from his open mouth. "Oh, yeah, Bonekid.... I'm gonna need more of that herb after this. It's almost gone."
What kind of fights would this be? Maybe there would be tests of skills? Ugh, such a burden. And against such surely pathetic beings...
He frowned, sitting on the edge of the dock and letting his foot sit lazily in the water as he lit up another cigar with the last of his stash.
"What do we get when we win?" he called across no-man's-land between the two groups.
Erin waited patiently for everyone else, smiling lightly at Elizabeth for reaching a similar conclusion through her own means.
That, however, was the end of her enjoyment as Alonzo attempted to shift suspicion back to herself with lies!
How dare he call her a liar with lies. How dare he threaten her.
How dare he.
Erin let go of the little Carn, pushing the girl gently back into the sofa behind her.
"You dare to spout such lies? Such low, miserable, worthless tactics. And you dare to level such threats? You have no hope of matching me, child." Her voice was ice, smooth and deadly to those caught inside. "Parlor tricks such as levitation, misdirection, and other pathetic acts are for street performers. You are no warlock for hire. You are a street performer in fancy clothes. Your poor deflections only enhance your guilt. Threaten me again, and you will not get the chance to regret the action."
With a sudden flip, she smiled again. "Why, I dare say you couldn't tell me where on my person I keep a weapon and what my singular mission in life is," she challenged, voice like honey. Inside was still fire and fury, however. No one knows. Dare him to lie again. I'll kill him. No one will stop me from gaining what I need. For her. Always for her. I won't let this dirty lying bastard besmirch her. No no no no. "Or even what my Gifts are, since you so blatantly lied about my magical powers."
He knows nothing. What I've sacrificed. What I'll sacrifice. His guilt is sealed.
With a light smirk she turned to the other woman, Mallaidh, whom the vagrant had wrongfully accused. "Don't worry, dear, none of our fellows could hardly be so dense as to believe his lies. The poor fellow needed to pull that brain out so he could have one."
The sailing had been surprisingly smooth, and surprising short, but Caesar looked up lazily from his seat against the mast.
The island in front of them wasn't necessarily large, but the Jolly Rodger was certainly interesting. Cannons with arms? That was...odd, yeah. Maybe this would be someone who trained a lot? Or maybe they were like Boone and had a thing for cannons?
What was it with people and weird obsessions? Must have something to do with them being so short....
Why was everyone so short, for that matter? Was it something in the water that these constant boat people breathed? Would he get short one day too?
He growled at the thought. No. He would stay tall and strong. Yeah....
It had been a week since the meeting. The debriefing. A week of daily therapy, a week of recovery.
Lillian sighed. Her leg was still bandaged, but not for much longer. Her side had healed, but scarred, and she still had a faint bruise from the....
She shook her head, looking up at the ceiling above her. Plain. Boring. Bright. With another soft sigh she kicked her legs lightly, toes scraping against the floor briefly with each swing.
She was sitting in a hallway at the HQ, having just recently finished today's session herself. Inside she was a mixture of emotions, and being honest she wasn't sure what to feel about a lot of things anymore.
"Can't a girl get an easy break?" she muttered.
Alessa was, for once, distressingly tired. She'd been noted as having a tendency to overwork herself in the past already, but as of late, she'd found that she'd barely been able to get to sleep at all. That, she felt, wasn't surprising, not when it felt like half her waking thoughts revolved around what had happened a week ago.
Not when she'd woken up in the middle of the very first night after the fact to find she'd set her bedroom on fire.
She'd had a lot of trouble sleeping since then, and refused to sleep at her foster family's house at all. No permanent damage had been done to anything, or anyone, in part due to her own heat-absorption power, but the question kept passing through her mind: what if she had killed or injured somebody? What if she lost control again, the way she had at the warehouse, and wound up burning somebody to death in her sleep, or giving them cancer or radiation poisoning, or setting another building on fire, or or or? There were too many variables, too many possible ways that she could destroy a person as a result of her newly-formed night terrors, so she simply tried to avoid falling asleep until she couldn't stay awake any longer.
She therefore wasn't in the most aware state when she headed up to the therapist's office that day, a few minutes before her session was due to start, and wound up nearly tripping over Lillian on the floor.
'S-sorry,' Alessa mumbled, only half-registering her teammate's identity for a moment before snapping back to proper awareness. 'Oh, um. Hey, Lily. You doing okay?' she asked gently, hovering between leaning up against the wall and sliding down to sit next to the girl. If Alessa was suffering, then Lillian was suffering two-fold - she'd had practically the same experience, but wore a big bruise on her side to boot, necessitating physical recovery on top of mental. Alessa's heart broke for the dinosaur girl, and she had been visiting her and the rest of the Wards relatively often, if only because she'd give herself something positive to do by supporting their own recoveries.
Lillian's eyes roamed slowly towards Alessa's before focusing. Making eye contact, she held the gaze before a red flush spread across her face and she looked down.
"Oh, uhm, heyyyyyyy...." she said with a small shake in her voice. "I'm doing fantastic. Great. Just amay-" she coughed, wrapping her arms around her knees. "Honestly, I'm just confused and lonely. Could we - errrr - would you want to maybe get lunch when you're done?"
'You and me both,' Alessa agreed grimly. 'Everything's been a bit tough sin-' Nonononono, don't talk about that. The therapist specifically said not to do that. To stop you reminding yourself nonono ducks, think about ducks, or other cute things. Puppies, sure.
'I'd love to grab lunch, yeah,' she eventually decided. 'I need to interact with you guys more anyway. I feel like I've been pushing myself into a leadership role more and more, when I should try to be a friend, too. Anywhere in mind?'
Lillian visibly brightened, practically bouncing in place with enthusiasm. "There's this really nice little sandwich place really close. It's like a block away if you take a right out the front doors. Gor-in-gene-knees? I - I think that's how you say it?"
Jumping up, Lillian pushed a few stray strands of hair out of her eyes before continuing. "I'll wait for you outside, okay?"
Alessa smiled at Lillian's enthusiasm - she knew theplace the dino-girl was referring to, and she'd had a couple of pretty good sandwiches and toasties there. Perhaps this'd be useful for both of them, at the end of the day.
'Sounds good,' she replied, patting Lillian on the shoulder as she in turn stood back up. 'I'll see you then!' And with that, she continued on her way to the therapist's office. This, she felt, was going to be a long discussion.
She left the HQ feeling... not necessarily better, but more informed. Most notably, she'd been given a couple of techniques to help her try and destress, and had been heavily chided about her excessive lack of sleep. From now on, she was to get a full eight hours of sleep each and every night if she could help it, even if it'd cut into her work and patrolling, doctor's orders. That stung, and whilst there was logic behind it, she really didn't want to comply. How could she stop crime if she was asleep, after all? Her being asleep meant lives lost, surely.
Still, she'd had something to look forward to. She smiled as she saw Lillian outside, waving as she greeted her.
'You ready to grab some sandwiches, Lillian?' she asked, already considering what might be worth grabbing. The ham and cucumber sandwiches were alright, but since this wasn't just a light meal, it'd probably make sense to grab something a bit heavier... well, there'd be a menu.
"Yeah, let's get going, it's getting cold again." Lillian seemed cheery enough, a slight skip to her step as she led the way. "I'm so happy it's a pretty day, though. It's nice to see some sun shine."
The building itself seemed rather stereotypical of an 'Italian joint', proudly colored with the Italian flag hung in the front display window. Once inside, Lillian dropped back, letting Alessa go first.
'Yeah, the weather's always interesting here,' Alessa considered as she followed after Lillian, more subdued than her teammate. 'I don't know why, but... it always seems to change on a dime. I think we'll be walking back to the HQ in rain or something.'
Once they got to the place, Alessa found herself entering before Lillian, and took a seat at a table for two, complete with menus already laid out for whoever sat there. Their service was always pretty good like that, she'd found, with a lot of foresight. Now, what to get, what to get... 'Any idea of what you might like, Lily?' she asked, curious as to what she might prefer. She'd never really eaten with her other teammates before, actually- well, a fair number of them, at least. Certainly not the newer ones, at any rate.
"I normally just get the turkey sandwich with some veggies on the side," Lillian replied quietly, flipping through the menu much too fast to actually read anything. "Uhm, what about you?"
She'd put her hair down upon entry, suddenly remembering the bruise on her neck and face. That wouldn't do to be seen. Then people would ask questions, and questions meant thinking about the past, and that meant -
She clenched the table hard enough to turn her knuckles white, forcing a smile back into her face.
This was supposed to be a nice lunch. She couldn't mess it up. She couldn't.
'Hmm...' Alessa thought for a moment, not sure why Lillian suddenly had her hair down, but nonetheless a bit too tired and preoccupied to consider it further. There was always such a selection at any restaurant that sometimes she had a hard time choosing... but, she eventually made a choice.
'I'm gonna go with the BLT, but add guacamole to it,' she explained with an unnecessary grin, 'to turn it into an LGBT. Aheh... heheheheh. Ahem. Sorry, bad joke.' She was a bit too tired to be making jokes, frankly. There were serious matters to consider.
No there weren't. Puppies, Alessa, puppies...
Lillian giggled at the joke, relaxing as she breathed. "Heh, I guess I can add funny to the list," she muttered, mostly to herself, as someone came for their order. As they walked away, she looked back across the table with her head leaning on a palm.
"Uhm, if you don't mind.... I was wondering if we could maybe talk about ourselves? Get to know the real us better?"
What had Lillian said just now? Alessa had missed it. Eh, it was probably nothing, no need to worry. As for talking about themselves...
'Sure thing,' Alessa nodded, mimicking Lillian's pose on the grounds of comfort. 'As far as I go, I'm sure you've noticed that I head off to krav maga sessions every week. I'm not the greatest at it, I only started a year ago, but for a martial art that's supposedly intended to be lethal, there's a lot of non-lethal holds and, uh, pre-kill positions you can pull off with it. Of course I'd never actually KILL anyone with it,' she reassured the girl, only to trail off as the warehouse nonoNO puppies, come on, think about something else. Move on, move on.
'Uh, but, uh, it's surprising how compliant people can get when they think they're about to die, you know? Er, morbidly so, honestly. Sometimes I wonder if a non-lethal martial art would've been more appropriate, like judo, or something.' Was she blathering? She was, wasn't she? She ought to let Lillian say something before she got carried away.
Lillian smiled gently, etching circles into the tablecloth. "I've learned that there is no changing the past, simply how you are affected by it. Taking Krav Maga over Judo is a testimony to your dedication to protecting others, I think. You don't have to kill anyone, but you can still defend yourself and others."
She tapped the table with a nail, frowning. "I worry a lot, honestly. Because there's people out there with Kill Orders on their head. There's never time for anything it feels like. So what happens if you're on a situation where you have to kill? What do you do when there's no proper win to the situation? You can't decide now because you just don't know in the end. But I'm useless if I'm human, other than like a scout, and...." she hesitated, picking at a defect in the cloth. "Could I - do you think I'd be able to learn too? I don't want to be a targ...." she trailed off as the memory of the collision burst into her head, causing her to shudder.
Well, Lily had certainly made a good point. With krav maga, she had more control over how much damage she did than with a lot of other martial arts, judo included - and occasionally, yes, she would have to actively kill somebody who she couldn't simply injure with her power, which would make krav maga a much appreciated skill. All in all, Alessa couldn't help but nod along to Lillian's tune.
Then she asked if she might be able to learn too. And... and why shouldn't she, Alessa realised? She was just as capable as Alessa herself, if not moreso.
'Of course you can, Lily,' Alessa replied, smiling gently toward the girl. 'You could build up your combat skills and, perhaps, develop your physique in the process. Just be-' She put a hand on her ally's shoulder at this point. 'Even if you don't, though, you should be aware that I don't see you as less capable than any of the other Wards. You all have your own strengths and weaknesses, and it's working out how bes-'
Her speech slammed to a halt as her eyes widened with shock. The other Wards.
'...you should all join my classes,' she said, as if in revelation. 'Not just you, but the others too; we can all learn krav maga. There's- oh, oh boy,' she murmured, giggling slightly at the thought, oh boy oh jeez, this could be great for, for, was her sleep deprivation getting to her? Yeah, a little bit, but but but, 'We'll all be great at it, and it'll be amazing, and, and...' Okay, Alessa, time to chill out. Deep breaths, no need to hyperventilate yourself into a stupor, just relax so that you can process this thought properly. But it was a great thought, and she'd absolutely thank Lillian for sparking it once she came up with a good response. Or a reward? Maybe that wasn't necessary, but thanks were in order for sure.
Lillian giggled lightly at the sudden burst of excitement from Alessa, smiling fully for the first time in... Well, a long while it seemed. "It could be good team bonding, too," she followed up on Alessa's idea. It really was a good one, getting everyone involved to help sharpen themselves so that they wouldn't be in the same situation as they had been at the -
No, she wasn't ready. Not to think about it so easily. Her smile slipped for a moment before she brought it back.
'Yeah, yeah, team bonding, for sure!' Alessa agreed exuberantly, nodding rapidly. 'If, uh, if nothing else, I can maybe help you guys train a little bit- well, maybe not, but if you need help with the techniques, then yeah, for sure, for sure!' Another deep inhalation brought her mostly back to her senses, and it was perhaps luck that she caught Lillian's smile slipping. Oh, jeez, that was no good. Something was on her mind. To be fair, she wouldn't be surprised if the warehouse mission wasn't getting to her too.
Yeah, no, thanks brain, that's fine, just put Dean exploding there again.
'...we're not going to let what happened at the warehouse happen again,' she stated. 'We'll grow stronger, and we'll do better next time, you hear me, Lily?' That, she hoped, was a promise she could keep.
It was about now when their sandwiches turned up. Ah, perfect, exactly what she'd been hoping for! That LGBT looked goooood.
Lillian released her breath in a long whoosh over her sandwich. Taking a few minutes of silence take a few bites, she finally replied.
"It won't happen again. Because I know there's people worth fighting for. Protecting. And it still bothers me, yeah, but it'll be okay. Because I've got Mom and you." Lillian turned bright red and coughed, diverting into eating her sandwich.
Awkward
Lily seemed contemplative for a bit, so Alessa started eating her own sandwich too. It was actually pretty damn good, given that the guac added a bit of extra flavour to the rest of the sandwich without detracting from the textures at all. About halfway through, Lillian started to talk again, suggesting that she wouldn't let it happen again. She had people worth fighting for. Her mother, and... Alessa herself?
Wait, what? Why was she being mentioned next to Lillian's mother, of all people?
'Uh, yeah, probably,' she considered with a confused frown, taking another bite to give herself some time to think up a proper answer, eventually smiling as she spoke.
'I, for one, would hope I could protect as many people as possible. All of the Wards, and indeed every single mother in the city. The warehouse was at least isolated, but I'd want to avoid something like that happening in public. That'd end poorly, for everyone.'
Yeah, she nailed that one. And she managed to get past the warehouse matter as quickly as possible! She didn't need to keep considering the warehouse, not when it was... covered in...
Puppies and kittens, Alessa, puppies and kittens...
Lillian nodded as she finished her sandwich, talking a few moments to reply. "But, uh, anyways... Do you have any plans this evening? I was thinking, if you're up for it anyways, maybe you'd like to join me on a walk? I feel like it helps, like, center myself. And I'd like to continue talking..."
'Plans? Uh... well, no, not really,' she confirmed, thinking it over on another mouthful of sandwich. Not that she remembered, anyway... God, maybe she should have a nap before then. She was not in a good state of mind at the moment.
'A walk might be nice, yeah. I've enjoyed this chat a lot so far, though I'd hate to cut it off in the middle when it's going so well.' She finished the sandwich off as Lillian responded, fairly sure beforehand that anything she said would have a good sentiment behind it.
Lillian beamed at the agreement of the older Ward, folding up her used napkin methodically as she grinned goofily at the table. "I never was around people I could really talk to like this. Or someone who wouldn't just make me wake up if I fell asleep in their room. Not that I've ever done that, that I know of." She laughed lightly. "I don't have to worry about what I say, not really. It's... Weird? Is this what friends are like?"
With that last question she looked up at Alessa, tilting her head sideways a little.
Huh. So Alessa was considered one of Lillian's friends... that was actually a good thing. Alessa often didn't have time to make friends, at least not after her trigger event, too much important work to do, so if she was one of Lillian's friends...
'I guess it is,' she uttered. 'That's... that's actually great, that you and I are friends. We can talk about stuff if we're bothered, right, or just stuff that's on our minds? It's probably good for both of us - and probably good for all of the Wards, if we can all be, you know, friends with one another.'
Lillian smiled, shrugging a little. "Yeah, but Elliot is a butthead..." she said as she scrunched up her nose in mock disgust. "Have you been on the boards a lot?"
'He's certainly, ah, interesting,' Alessa agreed tentatively. 'Perhaps troubled, but then aren't we all? Ahem... uh, the boards, the boards, right. No, not much,' she admitted, rubbing the back of her head. 'I tend to find that they... sometimes don't offer much conversation. And, well, I can't help but try to make people feel better about things, but I think sometimes that winds up coming off as insincere, to put it lightly.'
"Yeah, well, with the rumors people are being stupid. I hope they aren't true...I really don't like Masters," Lillian said with a scowl.
'Hey, now,' Alessa chided lightly, smiling a little, 'you know Evelyn's a Master too. And... well,' she continued, her face dropping as she considered her next topic. 'I guess you didn't know Dean, but he was a good person, though "troubled" was certainly truer for him than for anyone else. I don't know what happened to him. Maybe Patriarch had something to do with it, maybe it was somebody else... I don't know about people going to better places, but at least he's not suffering anymore.'
He wouldn't die slowly, at least. Not after being blown to bits.
Puppies, puppies, puppies...
Lillian's smile turned sad for a moment before she stuck her tongue out. "She's not controlling my brain or trying to take over the city."
She scratched am itch behind her ear before continuing. "So... You've never talked about yourself much...."
Alessa giggled a bit when Lillian pointed out Lyn's inability to take over people's minds. Technically, that was true, just so long as she didn't have her tulpa take a power from another Master.
Then the topic of Alessa herself came up. Oh boy. Yeah, that was a matter. 'Uh... well, there's not a whole lot to talk about,' she uttered somewhat lamely. 'My childhood was mostly good, I was given a reason to want better for the world... then, erm, most of my family died, and I triggered as a result, the details of that are in official records. Now I do what I can to keep Denver safe. And that's, uh, a fairly full-time task, I reckon.' Alessa shrugged to herself sadly. She didn't like talking about her family. It was a healed wound by now, the trauma rather overridden by newfound purpose at the time, but she'd rather not open it up. Not like...
Puppies, kittens, cute bunnies... damn it, why do you keep going back to the warehouse? What is wrong with- puppies, puppies, puppies, God DAMN IT IT WON'T STOP.
'I, uh, need to take a quick bathroom break,' Alessa murmured, trying to keep her breathing under control as she stood and walked toward the WCs, blinking to try and force the images of raw meat spraying blood over her and all the crates and tables around her out of her mind. Shit, shit, shit, shut up brain, shut up, shut up, why would you DO THIS?
She wasn't quite sure how long it took to get to the bathroom and lock herself into a stall, but she quickly collapsed to her knees over the bowl, heaving as she tried not to empty the contents of her stomach into it. That'd just be a waste of a good sandwich.
Lillian watched Alessa go, frowning at the sudden shift and abrupt change. It concerned her, if she was being honest, and if her own difficulties were anything to judge, she could imagine Alessa was experiencing something along those lines.
So she did what she felt any friend would do and followed after her a few moments later.
Pushing into the bathroom, which was thankfully empty minus the two of them, she heard the sounds of her friend attempting to not barf. The noises gave her a knee-jerk reaction that she pushed down as put her hair back up.
This next part was questionable, but it felt like the right thing to do. Lillian carefully squeezed herself under the door gap and sat behind Alessa, gently laying a hand on the girl's back as she sat behind her on her knees.
"Pushing it away doesn't help. Coming to terms and not letting it overwhelm you. It's... Not easy," Lillian said softly, pulling Alessa's hair back in case she blew chunks. "Having people to help makes a difference. And... And I'll be here when you're ready to talk about it and heal and whatever else you need."
Her voice faltered at the end. She was... Definitely out of her depth here but she had to do something.
Alessa barely registered Lillian squeezing under the stall's door, and flinched at the first touch on her back, but kept herself together enough to listen to the girl's speech; and through that, she got herself under control, forced her breathing patterns into check, was brought back into the real world again, a world of... sure, sometimes of darkness and death, but then again of so many good things too.
Like Lily. She was so earnest in her desire to help - a mirror, perhaps, of Alessa's own burning drive to push the world to greater heights. She had no doubt that Lillian would ultimately do the same.
'Thanks,' she got out, choking up with emotion a little as she turned and hugged the girl. 'Thank you.' Christ, this wasn't usual of her... but, perhaps it wasn't all bad. She couldn't just let herself shut down, not again, not every time some failure hit her or the Wards. It wasn't leaderly of her, after all.
'I'll do better next time.'
"It's not about doing better." Lillian's voice was slightly muffled as she returned the hug. "You know you can always talk to me about anything, alright? I don't like seeing you sad. I want to help make you smile all the time, okay?"
Now Alessa laughed whole-heartedly. Dammit, she was cute. 'You know what?' she said, pulling out of the hug to grasp Lily's shoulders and smile to her. 'If it'll make you happy, then I'll do my best to smile more. And... you know, if you need to talk to me about anything, feel free to do so, too. I want to be there for everyone, and that includes you.'
Strange, really, how a heartfelt conversation between friends could improve one's mood so. Alessa reckoned the rest of the day was going to be alright.
Lillian winked, grinning like an idiot. "Great, because I like it when you smile. Now, about that walk..."
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