DreamLyrics™ Play-by-Post Forums Alternate Reality PHX: Phoenix Reform Academy Phx: Confessions

Soon enough, everyone finds themselves in a different room, same teacher. Previous sessions have been basics, history, law, how both relate to the powered. This somehow feels different coming in.

Grey is up front.

“Today, we have something different in mind. Sometimes the best lessons are nothing one can find in a book. They are what has happened. They are the past of people you have met.”

There is a long pause.

“You may have guessed that, aside from perhaps Kemp, none of us here are precisely Boy Scouts. We are flawed. I am no exception. In my early life, I found it much too easy to be obeyed. To be in charge. To get what I want because others would want it too. When you are able to do things that other cannot match, it is much to easy to get away with things. I am sure, Lamar, you know this first hand.”

She gives him a steady look.

“All of you have either seen this or done this to some extent, how easy it is to be ... superior. Some of you have been on the other end of the equation.”

Another long pause.

“There are those right now who wish to use their power to be in control against those without. Not all. Are villains. People are complicated. Some of those complicated people are determined to use you. Are you willing to be used?”

Anne

She didn't say a word, but it was clear that she was listening. Especially when she gave a full negative toss of her head. It seemed unconscious even though it was certainly not a small movement.

She made her choice the night she chose not to kill the man her mother wanted her to destroy just for the lesson of it. Never mind the night she went to try and stop her mother and Alchemy.

Ben

"Never. You can be incarcerated, killed, forced to do something. But for someone to use you, you have to give them permission. The end result might not change but the permission...that is the difference."

Lamar

“I could certainly give the impression of willingness if necessary.” Commented the one called out. “Give them the impression that their demands are being heeded, should doing so provide a potential tactical or strategic advantage.”

Grey

“I think you well understand that people both here and there wish to use you. That sometimes villainy is a matter of degree and shades of grey. That no one. Not you, not me, no hero, no villain - is a cardboard cutout. Not even Alchemy. Not even Nyx. None are evil in their own mind. Good, evil, both are a matter of choices in the now. Hard or easy. Pain for yourself or pain to others. I made my choices and seized them on my own terms. You are having the choice forced upon you, but nonetheless it remains a choice.”

She spares a small look at Cadence.

“It is quite possible in the very near future that things will be happening. That darkness is falling. At that point there will no longer be a choice to be had. It is a weight on your shoulders that no one young should have, but the moment you were born you were destined one way or the other to make it.”

Ben

He couldn't have agreed more with her on the first part. He knew his parents engaged in actions that were criminal but they had still been good parents, had been kind to others and charitable. No one was all black or white, but Grey. A fitting name for his teacher as well it seemed.

Her second statement though brought a frown to his face.

"What darkness are you talking about?"

Anne

"More like what happened the other night is to come?" Her voice carried all the consulted emotions that ran through her.

She hadn't intended to speak out quite so quickly, but concern got the better of her.

Cadence Marie Weathers

She listened. She was doing a lot of that. The idea that she was in a class-room environment (even if it was a school for powered misfits and screw-ups like herself) felt odd and 'wrong'. Maybe not wrong, but she still hadn't accepted that she had been allowed to have any measure of freedom. There were things about her powers that she was coming to realize and she wasn't sure that anyone, save for Mariel... maybe... Oh, and Grey, because she could read minds or something, truly understood. Cadence herself had just enough understanding of the known science related to dark matter and dark energy, and it wasn't much, to be a true hazard. In her test, Mariel had her perceive things from the middle state, for the lack of a better word, and when she did she realized that her powers were at the core of what the Inky-doo guy was trying to achieve. Mariel and Hadasha, maybe even her... 'cousin' Anne as well. Cadence glanced sidelong at Anne as she asked if there was more to come like the 'other' night. Could this place really even hold her? They put the heavy duty anklet on her and maybe it would work. Maybe it wouldn't. The prime aspect in how she used it was to slip from one state of being to another by going through a portal. Kind of like her Mother's power, except she was confined to the known states of matter and energy. Cadence thought on the reality that was the difference between her and Hadasha... If Inky-doo had done something to Dash and it was considered a failure... then, would Cadence be considered a success? It felt mind numbing to her... and sort of pointless.

"You're wrong Ben," she said aloud. "You don't need to give your permission to be used by someone else... especially if they're playing chess while you're playing checkers."

Lamar

He nodded at Cadence's words, a somewhat wry expression on his face. "Cadence is right. Some can manipulate forces far beyond mortal ken. Some can manipulate people with the same level of proficiency, either directly..."

He inclined his head towards Grey,

"...or indirectly. In either case, you'd have no more say at the time than a lump of inert material levitated by a gravity controller. That at the time is the important part, given people have memories and the capacity for reason, and manipulators can't be at all places at all times. They can certainly plant pernicious seeds and hope we water them, however."

Grey

“Yes, you need to learn to play the game - to be able to beat the game. How far are you willing to go to prevent worse? What are you willing to give up? To some degree, I made an intellectual decision to change my own mind, directly and literally - because I came to the conclusion that I no longer wished to be what I was. I have become that new person I created for myself. But one could argue that in a very real sense I committed suicide in doing so. You must decide what to embrace and what to leave behind. Some of you are in a state of relative innocence - and those are lucky. There is no guilt to expunge from your soul. You have the precious opportunity to build on a clean slate. For many others, you have your demons. Those you will have to fight, because I highly suspect that you may be pawns, possibly more than pawns - on the board. I realize fully we are open to the accusation that we are merely attempting to instead be the chess masters. All I can offer is that my best hope is to enable you to make your own moves when the time comes. I know it has not been long, but I am going to be completely honest with you here, including perhaps things which I should not be telling you.”

Ben

He simply sits quietly now, listening to Grey and not commenting.

Lamar

'Things I should not be telling you' was either a drawing-back of the curtain, or one hell of a good tag line to manipulate people into paying attention. Either way, it worked, and Lamar was all ears.

Anne

She seemed more interested in this class than she had been earlier. Though exactly why probably wasn't quite as apparent.

Ben

"Please continue. You have our attention." he said in encouragement.

Grey:

“Quite frankly, all of us - me, Mariel, Kemp - Carver and his ... sources ... do not believe that having Alchemy - and other - in prison is actually having them under control. We know Nyx is missing. We have reasons to believe that others - Inanna and others - are involved. Convincing Eidolon among others, of this is no easy task. In fact it has so far been an impossible one. They just don’t think that way.

Lamar

He went perfectly, impossibly still as Grey went on. Something she said caught his attention like nothing else, resulting in a poker face on exactly the wrong side of the uncanny valley for several seconds. It was one thing to halfheartedly believe something, quite another to have it explicitly stated.

Why would Inanna have gotten herself caught, and him with her? Was it all a setup, an elaborate ruse? He couldn’t discount the possibility, nor could he be surprised at the more strait-laced and orthodox of the powers that be from doing so. So, presume Grey is right. A bunch of heavy hitters getting incarcerated on purpose. Why? Going in to get out, to take others with them. Maybe to render it useless both as a location and an idea. Maybe that was entirely incidental and their grand prize was... a Yorktown. A decisive strike on an overconfident and unaware opponent guilty of the worst underestimation.

Lamar unfroze, watching Grey like a hawk.

Cadence Marie Weathers

Ben ignored her. It wasn't like he couldn't hear her. They were in the same room. She said his name when she countered his assertion that in order for someone to use you, you have to give them permission. What if they take every option from you and doing nothing at all still gives them what they want? What if they twist all the answers, all the reason, all the emotions, all the logic... until none of it makes sense and whatever you do is what they want? What if they reduce you to the state of feeling less than human, worthless, and devoid of a reason to live yet powerless to die? catchy quote-like phrases work well for twitter sized replies, but in a real world where even the good guys don't really care for anything other than themselves or their brand or whatever it is that lets others know that they care.

Whatever. She didn't know him and he didn't know her.

"That's what I have been saying," she said slowly, feigning some disinterest in all of this. "Plans within plans." The truth was, she felt like she was screaming at the top of her lungs to these people that her mother was more dangerous now that she was inside. Cadence didn't know how, but just felt that whatever Alchemy was having her do by channeling dark energy through the ground at the Black Hole was for reasons others wouldn't understand.

There was more she wanted to say, but she would only be guessing. But, as much as it sucked that she was the biological daughter of an evil sociopathic mastermind, she had some idea how Alchemy thought now.

Ben

"Chess and checkers." he said quietly, looking at her and nodding. He had indeed heard her but Lamar had answered and then Grey started to talk and it had been interesting to hear what she had to say.

Cadence Marie Weathers

"It's all like theater... Good Guys vs Bad Guys... Bad Guy tries to rob a bank, and a good guy goes out to stop them. Or as many good guys as it takes. Maybe two bad guys decide they can do something big, then more good guys are called out. And there's a mastermind and a couple bad guys who try to take over he world, so all the good guy get together and save the day. What happens when all the bad guys get together and realize that if they actually work together that things might end differently for them? Maybe they find out there aren't enough good guys to stop all of them at once? What if they already know this... and several masterminds are already working together? What if? Are the Good Guys so stuck in their roles, and their rules that they can't see that this could be coming?"

Cadence shrugged.

"Bad guys don't care about the rules or your morals. My biological mother is a sociopath and the only life she cares about is her own. She will sacrifice all the pawns... on both sides. She plays a whole different kind of chess."

Lamar

Speaking up, he added,

"Even that's a bit too much of a simplification. Because those who prefer to be thought of as good are not necessarily upstandingly moral. Some might prefer to be controlling and find that aligning with society and civility hides a multitude of sins, particularly whilst others are being blatant, unrepentant and obvious. All as Grey alluded to at the start. This isn't a two-sided battle between good and evil, and that in and of itself is one of the angles being exploited."

Anne

She sat there an odd look on her face. Her eyes dashed to Cadence and around. It was very clear to anyone who could read the most basic of emotions upon a countenance that she was struggling with something.

Finally, she said "The reason I am concerned that you feel there is more coming, is because I have felt that way from the very first night. I had intended to not say a word about who my parent is, or what she is capable of, but it is particularly germane to what we are discussing.

"My mother is the other half of the dastardly duo. Nyx." She left that hanging in the air for a moment before continuing. "When she met Alchemy to enact whatever they had planned. The fact that Nyx is at large is an important piece of the puzzle, of what is coming. At least in my estimation.

"I am sure we are not allowed to know the inner workings of what makes up the Hole. I think that also is germane to exactly what is planned."

She looked as if she had just given voice to something really horrible. She didn't think she would throw up but she felt like it was really close. Part of why she had changed her name was to hide from exactly what she just said.

Grey:

“I on the other hand know exactly what goes on in the Hole. I make my judgement from a position of knowledge. You are more or less right, Cadence. Eidolon can’t think like that. Most of the Boy Scouts they have sitting on that side can’t think that way. Most of them are too stuck in the illusion that they are in control. I am not interested in stopping evil people. I am - we are - interested in stopping evil events. Myself, Mariel, Carver, Eric in his own way, all had one foot on the other side of the imaginary line at one point or another. I can say that none of us has a purely white hat history, and our perspective is colored as a result. Kemp ... I think Kemp is just old enough to have perspective which is perhaps lacking elsewhere. I have not entered your minds, and will not without your permission. But I can feel your strong emotions. And I consider myself a judge of people. And I think none of you would want that world which would result from them getting their way. The thing about pawns is that they can be some of the most critical pieces on the chess board. The positions of the pawns, in fact, can be said to decide the game.”

Ben

"So you all would like to turn us into pawns for your game of chess?" he asked, glancing at Grey.

Lamar

“‘Turn into’?” Scoffed the shapeshifter. “We were already on the board, long before we came here.”

He glanced over at Anne, his expression carefully controlled. He indicated himself with a flick of his finger as he spake the next word, “Inanna. I wouldn’t put her in the same category of deliberate malevolence, but she’s never let mortal morality constrain her, and I really, strongly doubt that the Black Hole is remotely capable of holding her, and that’s on her own by herself. In collaboration with even one or two of the possibilities mooted here and now? Yeah.”

Grey

“Turn you into? No. The fact of the matter is that we are pawns in a game where one side wishes to destroy the game board and recast the rules. What I want is for you to be given the tools to take matters into your own hands. If I wanted you to be a pawn, I wouldn’t be having this talk.”

Ben

"Okay then. I look forward to seeing how this works out." he said, looking at Grey for a moment before sitting back. His eyes drift over his fellow students, pausing for a few moments on those with kinship to the more destructive agents of chaos out there.

Anne

She says nothing to Grey's answer. Though it doesn't take anyone much effort to discern she is very uncomfortable.

Cadence Marie Weathers

She felt the eyes of Anne and tried to keep a blank expression when she talked about her own mother, cadence's biological aunt... Nyx. Cadence already knew she was related to Anne. That was one of the first revelations that Mariel dropped on her that first night. Or was it the... whatever. It all blurred together.

After grey finished speaking about pawns on this metaphorical chessboard, and how they should be aware of it... or something... she could see Ben, from the corner of her eye, watching her and Anne.

"It feels like this is off the script a bit. You aren't following the curriculum anymore, are you? You believe something is going to happen... soon. I think there more than a couple of us who agree with you. I'd say so what, we know, we agree, what can we do? Right? But you're not done. Where is this all leading?"

Grey:

“There is no longer a script. We are off the edge of the map.”

She pauses.

“Officially we are still a school. Unofficially? You’ve been thrown into the deep end, and I truly apologize for that. We don’t know what ‘soon’ may be, but Carver would guess at best we are talking months. The lines get a bit fuzzy outside of that.”

She looks over at Ben.

“I realize you didn’t ask for any of this, but ask or not, it is. If there is ever any chance of your seeing your parents again in a way that lets you live a life anywhere near normal, this needs to fail. That means you need to be trained. While still keeping up images that that is not what we are doing.”

Lamar

"Training us on the sly, the children of the likely ringleaders of the coming storm, in order that we might prove effective against our own families, or own kin, our own blood, or own legacy of powers? I hope what you've got planned is good, because they've got a hell of a lot more experience and practise than we could hope to have even on the most intensive of crash courses. That said, keeping up a false face is second nature, so that part I'm pretty sure I've got covered."

The shifter was deliberately blanking his expression currently, but there was no shortage of emotion in his tone.

Ben

"Intense training is fine with me and a chance to put down or lock up the more crazy of our type...I can get behind that. Chaos and mayhem for its own sake is stupidand dangerous to all of us."

Anne

A steely look enters her eyes. "I stood then, and I stand now, against what my mother and Alchemy were trying to do. I would stop her if I am able." It was simple and forthright. But there was no denying the truth of her words, she believed it with every fiber of her being.

Dash shrugs.

“Might as well.”

Grey:

“That in mind. We need to start letting you know things. Involve you in this planning. I know you are underage, and I truly apologize for that, but I just don’t have the time and can’t get the more potent of our sort involved - for one reason or another. I know some of you aren’t comfortable using your abilities. We are going to have to get past that.”

Cadence

Cadence didn't add her voice to the chorus of volunteers in Grey's Army. She had told the the whole assembly of administrators of this place that she did not and would not use her powers again. It wasn't a mea culpa, as there was no atonement for her crimes. It wasn't a plea for mercy. She wanted them to lock her away forever. She knew what she was doing and wearing that mantle of Judge, Jury, and Executioner she decided that killing Alchemy was worth the collateral damage. Except Alchemy didn't die... everyone on that rooftop did though.

I know some of you aren’t comfortable using your abilities. We are going to have to get past that.

Never again. They sat at that table and told her that were wishes wouldn't be granted. A part of her was thankful. But she told them she wouldn't use the powers again. She grudgingly underwent the testing procedure as it was a condition of her confinement in this place as versus the Black Hole, but even then she held back.

Cadence shook her head in frustration, "You planned on doing this all along. You knew my feelings on this, and you made me think you understood and accepted... but all along you knew that you were lying to me."

Grey:
Very quietly she replies.

“No, Cadence. You are not going to be made to do anything. Anything you do will be by your own choice, or it will be counterproductive at best. I meant what I said. If this is without your abilities than it is what it is.”

Ben

He looked between Grey and the girl, wondering just what had transpired. He could understand if she didn't want to use her powers, whatever they were. It was a personal choice and looking into Candence's eyes, he thought that whatever had happened had been traumatic.

Lamar

Lamar watched the interplay between Cadence and Grey, shrugging.

"Seems a waste. You don't need powers to do unspeakably evil things to people, you can do that with baseline human strength and a few choice words. Likewise, no power is limited to unspeakably evil ends. But you do you and more power to you for shaping your own path."

Anne

"I can't know what anyone else has gone through," she started softly without actually looking at Candace or anyone else. Keeping her eyes down in front of her she continues "that being said. I think the best way anyone can forge a better world is by action. I chose to stand against my mother and so far I am alive. I am not entirely sure that I will remain that way. But I made a choice. I made it last night, and I reaffirm it now. I will help.

"If fighting my mother's and other's unspeakable powers with my own, even though I like Candace don't want to use them, would help. Then I am all in. I recognize the naivete in those words. I am not a fool. I am not experienced enough to know the pain I am actively seeking. I just refuse to allow my mother to dominate me anymore. If my actions can even hinder her for a moment and prevent evil, I will do what is necessary." She didn't add that she wouldn't kill, and that might actually be the one thing she will have to do one day. She would burn that bridge when she got there.

Her words were meant as support to Candace's choice. Yet it might not be taken that way.

Cadence Marie Weathers

Cadence sat there in a state of anxious tension. She felt everyone's eyes, well, those that did look at her. She heard their words. But her eyes were fixed on grey. Her words rang hollow. Maybe it was a misunderstanding, but grey was just that. She played all sides it seemed. She had an end goal and didn't mind crossing lines to get there. It was probably why she called herself Grey. Cadence pursed her lips. Her thoughts were frazzled and she was just making things up in her mind to fill the little voids when other thoughts started to repeat over and over for a lack of any better clarity. it felt like a cycle that was upsetting her and making her spiral. It was one of the many techniques her mother tortured her with, psychologically to keep her perpetually off balance and more pliable. Play to her anger and rage, and induce this spiraling descent into negative emotions.

She had to stop it, or else she was going to find out whether or not the ankle cuff really could hold her whether she wanted to or not. She took several deep breaths and and tried to slow her thoughts down. There was a way out of it, so long as her mother wasn't pushing at her. It was how she regained her focus on the hill the other night. Her eyes darted from one to another in the room, everyone assembled. The way out wasn't going to be easy, nor was it going to be comfortable.

"I don't know how many people I killed..."

Her sudden admission was a tumble of words.

"You saw... you saw the news right? It was on the TV in the rec room... Maybe you were there? Outside the Black Hole? That was me... I'm the one who killed all those people on the roof. I had the power and I used it. I wanted to kill Alchemy..."

Her eyes shifted the Lamar. I have to speak the evil... I made a choice. I unleashed every bit of my power on my power as she held all those people hostage, taunting the ... the hero types... That was her plan. I was doing something else while she kept them focused on her. Those people were never going to survive... I didn't even try to help them. I killed them when I tried to kill her."

It was a catharsis of words, spoken too fast. Not Dash fast, but fast enough. But owning it, right now was the only way she could see how to come to terms with the torrent of emotions that threatened to explode within her.

"I killed them, and I knew it was going to happen. A choice... the unspeakable evil... spoken. My mother named me Forsaken. That became my name. The only name she would call me, her and Nyx... for nine months as they turned me into their tool, their weapon. It was a plan they have had for years, since I was a baby and they took me to Inky-doo and he altered me, altered the powers I was born with..."

She fell silent. The unspeakable evil was spoken. She wanted to run and hide, leave the room and race back to her bed... better yet, escape this place and just keep running forever. But it was a race against her self, her true self... whether that was Cadence or Forsaken, she didn't know ye. But either way, it was a race she knew she couldn't win.

Ben

He sat there and listened quietly to the girl as she spoke and bared her soul with all of the pain so evident that it was like a bright light that was hard to look at. But look at it you needed to do to see the person behind the pain. The soul that was anguished from what she had done, had become.

Ben got to his feet and came over to stand next to where she was sitting.

"I can't imagine the pain that you are feeling Cadence. I haven't had to face that yet. But it wasn't your fault. Two very evil women bent and tormented you into becoming something that you weren't and didn't chose to be. You were all alone when they did this to you. But you aren't alone anymore. None of us are. If you don't feel that you can do this. That it isn't right for you then I will support that decision. But if you want to try to become more than their tool, to free yourself from that then I will stand beside you." he said quietly.

Anne

She listened and nodded. "It was merely the fact that you acted first. I was about to attempt to kill them both. I was there. I learned where they were meeting and I came to stop them. I was going to kill the woman who claimed to be my mother though she never treated me with love.

"I am sorry that you were first. But I stood there ready to do what you did without thought of the people that would die because it was necessary.

" That is why I chose change my name. I was known as Tenebros or Darkness because of what I can do. If anyone in here can understand what you might be feeling, I think cousin that I might. Know that I choose what my path will be. You have already made horrible choices but they are better than being a part of whatever it is that our mothers had in mind.

"I fear that we are not done with the tough choices by any stretch of the imagination."

Lamar

He listened to the cathartic outpouring without further interjection. This was a truth from the heart, something that had preyed on their classmate since doing the deed. He couldn't help but consider his own upbringing, Inanna's indelible fingerprints all over his psyche, his education. Was he any less a weapon shaped by her as Cadence was by the duo?

"The thought occurs that if you're Forsaken by them, you're not beholden to them. You're not the only person here to have used potentially lethal force against those who didn't deserve it, but yours was pointing against a villainess rather than protecting one. Puts you a notch up on me, at least, and I have no problems going to sleep of a night."

Grey:

She takes a long look at Cadence and speaks in a measured, quiet tone.

“I think that you don’t quite believe me. I’m not reading your mind. I don’t need to. When I say you have the power of choice, Cadence, I completely mean it. And if anyone gets in the way of your choice, if anyone tries to force you, then it will be me facing them down. If I force you, I become Alchemy, and at that point I am not ‘Grey’ I am pitch black. Besides, if I did that, Mariel would hunt me down. And that is a confrontation I do not want. You are Cadence. And who you are, who you will be, is up to your soul and your conscience and no other. Not your mother. Not Nyx. Not Eidolon. Not me. That is a scary thing and in its own way much more difficult than merely being ‘Forsaken’ which is it’s own comfort of certainty in an odd way. As long as you are Forsaken you are this broken and unfixable thing. It is a powerful talisman. And a hard one to give up.”

Cadence

She listened to each of them in turn; giving them the fullness of her attention to the point of a hyper-focused intensity. Each of them deserved no less than that. The words made sense but couldn't fill he void in her heart. Each and every one of them had some sorrow or grief, or perhaps regret, that they carried about as though it were the burdens of the sins they experienced or created in life. None of them were unscarred. But it wasn't a contest either. What was it then?

There was a weight to be born, worn like a giant sea bird, in taking a life and maybe that was the just price she had to bear just to know she wasn't a sociopath. But, then again, she wasn't psychologist either, so what did she know about unknowable things made metaphor?

In certain points, each of them was right, but, even together, none of them helped her see the wholeness of a picture she refused to accept as her truth. Until Grey spoke...

Cadence had her doubts as to whether or not grey's claims would prove true, but not because Grey was actually lying, but rather that Grey simply couldn't predict all the variables even if she perched herself in the middle between all the forces that wanted to move the pieces on the board or change he rules of the game. But it was the latter part of her statement that hit closest to him... Grey was right. Cadence didn't want to admit it. Clinging to Forsaken as she was created and thrust upon her had become a shelter from the harrowing anxiety and fear that came with self examination and self realization. Being the 'Broken Thing' kept the pain front and center in her psyche as though she could both hide from it and behind it at the same time. Grey's words were so sharp and cutting that she couldn't respond to them, and all she could manage was to divert back to the former promises that were made.

"We'll see."

Dash had been very quiet to this point - so quiet perhaps that her presence in the classroom might have been almost unnoticed but the she finally speaks.

‘I think ... “

She takes a long pause as if collecting thoughts and trying to figure out how to say something without stumbling too much over the words.

“I’m a di... thrown out pawn. Got crack in me. Not on any radar. Broken thing.”

She looks over at Cadence with a nervous half smile, as if she both looked up to her and was scared by her in some way.

“But ... people like that. ‘Kidu, your mother, your mother - all of them. People who would make you, me, make ... living tool ... with no thought to what tool might think, we can’t let then h... let them get what they want. Don’t want to be a damn victim. Tired of. Tired of all. If I have to run mys... run me to nothing but echo in the air, I can’t let there be more of me. More failed project. More s.. more rectangle peg, round hole. Need to run at rather than away from. Be good have people to run along.

At times, when she was able to gather her thoughts and get them to line up in order, perhaps it was hard to remember Dash’s true age.

Ben

He sat back down near Cadence while Dash spoke and waited to see what happened next. It was turning out to be an interesting day.

Lamar

Glancing around at the occupants of the room, he mused,

"Anyone here a definite 'no', by the by?"

Cadence listened to Hadasha as she spoke. She certainly put things into a more refined perspective. She had more reason than most to have hate and anger in her heart, and yet she didn't. Cadence, in Dash's presence had to question her own emotional responses and couldn't help but view them as a little bit more than selfish. What Cadence had endured at Alchemy' and Nyx's hands was hard, but it wasn't a lifetime of hard brought on by being used as a test subject for interlacing dark energy into a person's molecular frame. What was the point of it anyway. Cadence had been changed and altered at a very young age and so 'Inky-doo' obviously knew what to do. But didn't possess complete control over dark matter and dark energy. At Alchemy's instructions he created the entity that Alchemy would call Forsaken and create someone who actually could harness all four states without disastrous side-affects. Mental torture was just an added bonus though, that her biological mother decided was necessary.

Sitting there, listening was one thing, but she also watched Dash. One of the side-affects of being who she was presented itself in a way that Cadence kept private. But she believed Mariel realized it, and probably grey as well, in that Cadence could see all four states of matter and energy without having to touch her powers. It was a maddening things when alchemy and Nyx 'trained' her to do it. It was the first step in 'waking up' her latent abilities that had been hardwired into her genetic design.

Listening to Dash was one thing, but watching her was another. Dr Sorenson had theories about Dash's sate and they had obviously spent a lot of time trying to help the girl. But Cadence could see her, really see her. She even believed she could actually help her. But it would mean touching the power and using it on Dash. What if she hurt the girl? What if she killed the girl? She hadn't found the courage to tell grey that she might be able to 'adjust the balance and give Dash a little more peace. But what id her idea, her theory was wrong?

Lamar's question brought her attention back around to the present. She looked at him and offered a weak shrug and a shake of her head. She had said she would wait and see and she meant it.

Peri

She'd been silent a long time, lost in thought, but Lamar's question brought her back.

"I don't want this. Any of this. I don't want to be used by anyone."

She pointedly looked at Grey.

"Anyone. My powers only work around other people with powers, right? If I just left, went somewhere far away from anyone with powers, then I'd just blend in. I want to go back to being nobody and nothing."

“I understand, I really do ... but that is unlikely to happen. You have been noticed. When we came to get you we were not the only ones interested.”