DreamLyrics™ Play-by-Post Forums Alternate Reality PHX: Phoenix Reform Academy Mariel’s office

The room is largely done in dark blues and blacks, various musical instruments on the walls and usually the sound of a violin playing softly in the background. The desk is fine grained oak, looks well made. A couple of chairs and a sofa are in the room, as well as a small book case and an old fashioned record player.

Later that day there was a knock at her door.

Ben was outside and waited until she invited him inside to meet with her.

"I am sorry if I am interrupting. I wanted to go over a couple of things with you if I could."

Mariel

“Come in, come in.”

She is sitting at the desk rubbing her eyes' still looking rather tired. It did look like she had found the time to wash her face and change clothes however.

“I’ve got hot tea, cokes, juice, cold water ...”

She motions to a mini fridge which has a pot on top of it.

“Want something, take it.”


“Then tell me what I can help you with.”

Ben

He paused just inside the door, looking at her for a moment before going to the refreshment area and poured a hot tea, making it strong and then coming over to place it on the desk in front of her.

"If you are not going to be going right to sleep, then you need that." he said, seeing the fatigue in her eyes.

Ben took a set in front of her desk, crossing his legs and took out two slips of paper.

"I will keep it brief. I am sure that you have not had the time yet to check on my employees from home with the lawyers about their severance. If possible, I would like a few personal items from home. I wrote out a short list here. Mostly a few pictures from my room of family, a copy of the Odyssey and the Illead that my mother gave me when I was young and some clothing that will not be easy to replace, especially my suits and tux. Since I am not sure what is going to happen to the contents of the house that is." he said, placing one of the slips of paper on the desk.

"There are also some text books that I was using. If we could get those then that would negate having to replace them for studying."

She nods slightly.

“I’ll coordinate with the officials. Some personal effects would be fine. I am sure I can swing that.”

She pauses for a bit.

“Ben, I do want you to understand something. I understand the efforts you are making. I understand why you are trying them. I think you also should understand that if you try to look into case law on the subject, a good bit of what you will look at will be me. Sometimes you rail against the system. But I can with fair certainty assure you that most of the angles you will think of have already been tried.”

She tilts her head to one side and looks at him a while longer.

Ben

He nodded quietly as she spoke, folding his hands on his lap.

"I understand and appreciate your advise and in some of the cases here I can understand the need for this, for those that have already used their gifts for destructive purposes but can be given a chance to change. I can even understand their caution in regards to myself but since my only crime is my birth then by principal I have to speak up. It is discrimination, just the same as if it were my skin color or gender choice. They do not hold the children born to their heros to the same standard. Those children are as likely to use their abilities for ill."

He shrugged.

"But I will endeavour to succeed here for my time period until my 18th birthday. By next fall I plan to be in Boston attending college and putting all of this behind me. I have my own future to forge."

Mariel

“They are registered. They are trained. If those children of heroes do not have those things happen and are going as an unregistered talent ... then in theory they could end up here. They have before, although it does not happen often. It isn’t cut and dry. Regardless understand one thing: if you leave here, are eighteen and an unregistered class one talent you would be right back in confinement, only this time it would be an adult facility. That is not something they have a sense of humor about. Do you understand that? Potentially deadly talents cannot be unregistered. Rail against it, call it unfair, whatever you wish, but it is what it is.”

Ben

"Oh, I do not have a problem with registering my abilities since they can be dangerous. The only problem I have is them confining me when I have not broken a significant law. But like you said, it is what it is. I know that I have had a comfortable life and I suspect some of the other students have not. I hope that this program is a benefit for them."

He got to his feet.

"No hard feelings from before. You should try to get some rest when you can."

Mariel

She studies him a while longer.

“Might eventually even happen.”

She snorts a little.

“But first. I have paperwork.”

Ben

"Good evening then Mariel." he said, excusing himself and shutting the door behind him.

Anne

Seeing Ben leave Mariel's office, she knows she is no longer first, and she doesn't want to be last. So she moves and knocks on the door when Ben has walked far enough that he isn't going to return for something.

She straightens up again, pulls her hair back.

“Come in. You want something, there’s a fridge on the side.”

She can see that she’s cleaned her face and thrown on a different dress, but she’s pretty sure she still hasn’t showered or slept.

Anne

She stepped in and shut the door. "I have a couple of quick questions if you have time. Though you look like sleep would be better, and my questions can wait. Shall I come back later?" She looks as if she wants to say something more, but holds it back.

Mariel

“Sit, Anne. I’m not going to fall asleep anytime soon anyway. If you could refill my teacup from that pot before sitting though, it would be very appreciated.”

Anne

She walks to the desk and gets the cup to take it over to the fridge and refill it. Walking back an odd look crosses her face. "This isn't my question, but my powers involve draining people generally. That is all that my mother was interested in. However, I suspect that it is more of a teeter totter. I might be able to offer you some of the fitful rest I got earlier, if that is something you want to try. Though now that I think on it, it might be best to experiment under controlled conditions. I don't want to hurt you." She didn't comment about it possibly hurting or even killing herself, it didn't even occur to her.

She sets down the cup her hands shaking a bit at the offer she just made. She had never even thought of it before this moment.

Continuing on before Mariel has a chance to comment anything she says "I came in to ask about monetary funds. My family has had money for a very long time. Even though my mother is..." her voice trailed off.

"I have some money in my own accounts and I wondered if that were available to offset my expenses here. I don't want anyone to have to take care of me, if I have the ability to take care of myself. If that makes any sense."

She remained standing, not by intention more by afterthought.

Mariel:

“Sit, Anne. Please.”

“We are looking into the funds Nyx has hidden away, it is made somewhat harder by the fact that she is unaccounted for.”

She says evenly.

“Still - we have several funds we can draw on and if possible may take advantage of your offer.”

Anne

She takes a seat and says "my mother wasn't very forthcoming with many things. other than discipline when I didn't behave the way she wanted right at that moment."

She looked down at the front of the desk and her hands before continuing. "In all honesty I am not sure if I want my mother to have survived, or if I wish she didn't. It is a mixed up situation."

She paused then she looked up "the offer does stand both for the money, and if you would like to see if I can cause whatever it is I draw to flow both ways. Nyx always said life, but I suspect it is much more complicated than that."

Mariel

“Yeah, you are right about that. If there was ever one thing that she was consistent about it was her temper.”

It almost sounded like someone who knew her to some degree, but she breezed past before the situation could be further addressed.

“I’ve been thinking about it, and I think you may be right about your abilities. But although I’m a Bit of a rebel, I’m not sure I want to experiment with that without some controls in place.”

Anne

"That seems wise." She nodded in agreement. "It almost sounded like you knew her first hand?" She inquired.

She pauses a long while.

‘So a little story. Once upon a time, before you were born, there were still, of course, supervillains. Some of them you still know. Enkidu. Phobos. Another was an individual known as Singularity. A particularly unpleasant individual, destructive and wanting to bring things crashing down because he knew better. Now Singularity had three offspring, three girls. One from his first wife. That wife ... died. The others came from a second wife. The one daughter was never all that close to the other two.”

She pauses, watching Anne carefully while speaking.

Anne

She was listening intently leaning forward in her chair a bit. Nyx had never told her anything about what came before. It was just mother and daughter.

“Now the younger two were, when Singularity decided to make his move, too young to come along. They stayed home. The older one celebrated her sixteenth birthday the day before, and came along. She was quite sure she was ready. And so, she found herself in the middle of a city, standing on top of a building beside her father. Watching as he started to collapse the building. Collapse a hospital. To get to one man.”

That girl made a decision. That decision led to the death of that father, and it also ended with her in the care of one Martin Kemp, who got it into his head that he thought she was salvageable. She teaches at this school right now, in fact.”

She gives Anne a long look into her eyes, and waits.

Anne

She settled back a bit. "I can't say that I haven't thought about it. But I can't know what went through your mind then or even now. I acted because I just couldn't take it anymore. That I understand. I still don't know how to live with that choice."

She looked at Mariel. "What made you make that choice? What was the straw? So to speak?"

She wanted to know who the other two were too, she suspected Alchemy and Nyx, but that was just an intuitive guess.

Mariel:

“Couldn’t tell you. It wasn’t really a logical chain. In the moment sometimes a series of hooks just snag, one thread gets pulled and the sweater unravels. A pebble starts an avalanche. In the moment you make a decision. Grey would call it a shatter point.”

A long pause.

“Needless to say, some people shattered in different ways.”

Anne


"I can see that," she admits. "Were your sisters who I think they were? My mother and Alchemy?"