DreamLyrics™ Play-by-Post Forums Alternate Reality PHX: Phoenix Reform Academy Cadence Power Test

A rather plain but large basement room, the walls obviously thick and reinforced. They arrive here by going down an elevator shaft. The walls show signs of soot scars and other markings.

Present are Eric, Mariel, kemp and Grey.

Cadence

Cadence sat on the bed provided for her, in the room provided for her. It wasn't hers though. Her bedroom was gone, destroyed, burned to the ground in the explosions and chaos created by Alchemy. No loose ends. No witnesses. No survivors. Cadence had been awake since 4am, feeling the dread of the impending activities. They said they were going to test her powers and measure her powers and catalogue her powers. That meant they were going to make her use her powers. She didn't want to use them. She didn't want them to turn off whatever devices they were suing to reign her in. She wasn't sure that their devices could actually do what they told her they were designed to do because they didn't really know what she was designed to do. Neither did she. Not completely that is.

407am. That's what the alarm clock said. Yeah, the alarm clock provided for her to make sure she would be on time to whatever morning activities and events that were going to be scheduled for her and the other... 'residents'. 407am was not the time she set the clock for though. It was the time that the nightmares faded, and she was left staring into the relative darkness of the ceiling above her, tears streaming in two rivulets toward her ears as gravity dictated. Always the same dreams turned horror show. Masks and monsters... not superhero masks though, monsters wearing medical masks. Staring over her, down at her, talking to each other, about her, but their words made no sense. Their mouths moved and her ears heard but her brain refused to understand the word. Sharp things and the crying and screaming. She was young, very young, too young. She hadn't had that dream since she was 12 year old, and before that it was rare. But tonight the dreams didn't end there. Instead, like all the nightmares over the last 9 months, she watched helplessly as the childhood horror switched to the teen horror so seamlessly that she could even tell that one had ended and the other began. Now, as a monster tore her home apart, ripping at the bricks and beams of wood, she could feel the heat of the burning fires. This was Gun Barrel City, or whatever was going to be left of it at the end of the nightmare. Her mother, the one who raised her, screamed, but Cadence was screaming as well. She clawed at the monster as the very dark heart of evil laughed at her, tossed her aside, and then made her watch as her mother's life was extinguished in front of her. Her mother's dying scream was echoed by Cadence's own scream of anger and revulsion and fear. They both screamed but it was only her scream that she could hear. Flashes of light, explosions of energy. Laughter and crying. And then there was only the darkness of the ceiling as she had woke to sound of her own voice shattering her violent sleep.

Had anyone else heard her?

Another generic hoodie sweatshirt and shorts from a big box store, and there she sat, cross-legged, staring at the walls now. She told them she wouldn't touch her power again. it wasn't a promise she was making to them. It was a plea for their understanding. They didn't understand what it meant to use this power. They couldn't understand either. Perhaps they didn't care.

Cadence waited in her room until someone actually knocked on the door and said that she was the last one and that they were waiting for her. Dead Girl Walking. The grim march to from her room, down the steps to their common room, into the hall. Her steps were slow and deliberate. Her mood was solemn and somber. The last time she used this power she knew she was killing people in the hopes of stopping Alchemy. She still didn't know what the final outcome was, but she wasn't sure she wanted to know. The weight of unknowing was already feeling heavier than she could bear. She unconsciously rubbed her left forearm as if she were trying to remind herself of something, or perhaps forget something else. The elevator was open and waiting for her. She stood there for a long few moments, looking both left and right along the hallway. Finally, with a sigh, she stepped forward into the enclosed space and the doors closed behind her. Down and down, in a box. How very apropos. The metaphor seemed perfectly macabre.

The doors opened and she walked as mall hallway that only had a single door at the end. Her hands trembled as she reached for the door handle. It was cold to the touch but she paused a moment to steel herself as best she could before opening it and entering. It certainly felt like the final steps before execution. The only question that remained in this grim thread of thought was who was going to die next at her hands?

Cadence stood before four people, all of who she recognized. Her hands started shaking and her pulse was pounding in her ears. She could only take in short, shallow breaths. Her racing heart was the surest sign that she was moments away from a full blown panic attack. She tried not to look at any of them directly. That only made things worse. She didn't want to be here and she couldn't hide that with any snarky commentary either.

She stood there and said nothing.

Mariel was the first to speak, in a soft tone.

“I spent many days down here when I was younger than you. Didn’t like it then either.”


“I want to start with something simple. The one simple thing I’m going to start with is you doing nothing but watching me and telling me what you see. Not what you see that everyone else can, but what you see when you use your powers. Watch for that, and tell me if you see something when I act. Does that make sense?”

Cadence

Cadence looked around the room as Mariel spoke. Her hands were shaking as the woman explained what she wanted Cadence to do. Cadence made the barest shaking motion of her head for as long as Mariel spoke, even after. Not as a refusal though, but more like she was not in agreement with the whole concept. At the final question, her right hand wrapped around her left firearm, fingers over the top,thumb underneath. It looked very much like a closed off, defensive posture with right hand crossing her body and slowly sliding up and down her left forearm. It seemed to be a coping gesture to calm herself.

"If... If I say No... You're just gonna send me to the Black Hole, aren't you?"

Mariel:

Her voice is again soft.

“Would I? No. I would not. But I might not be given a choice. If it were the choice of Eidolon, if it was the choice of _them_ you would be in there, with her. I happen to think that would be one of the worst ideas in a long history of bad ideas. I’m not sure I need to actually see you do much to understand your ability enough to explain it to Grey to the degree needed for registration. In fact, it’s entirely possible I might not need you to use it at all, if my little experiments here tell me what I need to know. And for those all I need is your observation, and for me t tell me what you see.”

Cadence

"With her?" Her face was a frozen mask. Fear for herself and fear for them? Did they know? Did they take the proper precautions? She put that out of her thoughts and tried to re,main focused on what Mariel wanted from her.

Cadence looked at the other people who watching her. None of them had said a word. Were they judging her? Her crimes certainly warranted judgment, but they refused to carry out the punishment she felt she deserved two nights ago and now they wanted to understand her. Was she a performing side show freak now? She closed her eyes, pressing her thumb into her forearm to feel the pressure and the discomfort.

She let go of the building anxiety and the fear that was ramping up her distrust and anger. She focused on the discomfort and wished it felt deeper, more focused right now.

"I tried to tell you that night I didn't want to touch it again... I have to feel a certain way. That's how I was taught to control it, to balance it... and I don't like feeling that way. That's not who I want to be Miss Mariel. I have to go in-between... be in both places to see it and you."

Mariel:

“Just trust me, and watch. You lose nothing by watching and both you and I might learn something. I don’t need you to do anything. Fair enough?”

Kemp:

“We are trying to find a way. Middle paths are not always easy, but they are there.”

Cadence pressed her thumb a little tighter and nodded.

She wished for this to be over, but the only way to the other side was through...

"Okay..."

Mariel concentrates, and it looks like purple lightning is moving through her body until it suffuses her entirely as she seems to grow insubstantial. When she stops it almost looks like a colony of softly flashing purple fireflies have taken up residence in her form, winking in and out. She had only seen this level of interaction in a few other people. Herself. Alchemy. Nyx.

Cadence

The young Texan Cheerleader from a rural town in a rural county waited nervously and watched. She kept that pressure on her forearm to remind her that she was in control of something, if only it was to be in control of knowing she had no control. When Mariel lit up in purple, Cadence's eyes flitted all over the woman's body as though she could follow every little purple lightning bug. Once or twice she glanced at the others, especially grey, who was probably doing the passive mental thing she did. Cadence wasn't sure what others could see when Mariel did this, but neither was she sure what others could see when Alchemy and Nix engaged their full powers either.

The fact that Cadence could see this when other's couldn't was something that Cadence worried over as well. it meant that no matter how hard she tried to avoid her abilities, they were intrinsically part of her being and therefore... inescapable.

It was in these moments of Mariel's demonstration, the one that was intended to reveal more about Cadence than Mariel, that Cadence realized a number of things that brought tears to her eyes.

"I see it... I see it all... You can stop..."

But one of those realizations outweighed the others by a significant margin and it was crushing to her. It meant that her whole life was a lie. That the thoughts she used to counter the nightmares could never have come true. It meant that everything that had happened in her life was always going to happen because... because...

"no...," she whimpered. She could only rationalize and absorb these things one at a time.

"I'm related to you, aren't I?"

The others remained silent for this. Mariel solidified and became less diffuse.

When she spoke, it was in a soft and somewhat subdued tone.

“My father had two wives. The first had but one child, named Mariel and died not too long thereafter. I highly suspect it was not natural causes. He had a second wife, she had two children. Their names, for the record, were Shani and Hala, if it matters any more. I suppose I would be a half aunt. I didn’t know the other two all that well. I never really wanted to.”

Cadence composed herself.

"I knew I was adopted at a young age, I didn't much look like my Mom and Dad. They were a bit older than parents should be I guess. But they didn't try to hide it. My Daddy taught me to ride a bike. He taught how change the oil on the car when I was 12 and how to change a tire too... He said that was so I would never be dependent on anyone in an emergency. He taught to hunt and fish, and clean what I killed and never to waste it. Momma drove me to all my Gymnastics practices and then later it was Cheer Squad when I wanted to do that... I don't know if you realize that these aren't cheap activities and we didn't have much money. But they sacrificed for me. They were at all my meets and we lived pretty far out there in the sticks. Family ain't about who gave birth to you. It's about who raised you and loved you and took care of you. That's family."

She paused.

"And then one day, it was all gone. They were dead... killed by a madwoman who told me she was my real mother and that I was going with her... She killed a lot of people and said she would keep killing people until I gave up and went with her..."

"I knew she was right. I looked a lot more like her than anyone else. "

Cadence shrugged, "I don't know why I'm telling ya'll this. That's not why we're here... I'm sure ya'll want to get back to whatever is next on your list... figuring out what I do and how I do it... So I can never do it again. So, what do you want to know... or what do you want me to do..."

The understanding was settling in. Seeing Mariel demonstrate her ability, a phasing kind of thing brought the possibility of a terrible truth to her mind. She hoped she wasn't right about it... but there's no way a sociopath like Alchemy had a child unless there was a plan behind it all. It certainly wasn't about love. Alchemy was incapable of love. At least that's what 11th grade psychology class had taught her about sociopaths anyway. That and reruns of Criminal Minds. Her Daddy loved all those police shows, where the good guys win at the end. Newsflash, the good guys don't always win in reality and the abducted child doesn't always get rescued in time.

Mariel

“There is something at least as important as your powers here. Your conscience. You have one. You are not Alchemy. I am not my father. Anne is not Nyx. Genetics are not destiny. I’m not sure what you will become, but that story is not yet written. I realize you might not fully accept that right now. I’m not asking you to. But I just ask you to consider this. You decide for what purpose you exist. No one and nothing else can do that for or to you.”

Cadence

Cadence stood there quietly, head slightly bowed but her eyes were on Mariel, occasionally darting to see the expressions of the face of the others in attendance. Their silence was starting to unnerve her. It felt like judgement. It felt as if buttons were being pushed to see what triggered her or something like that. They were all waiting to see if she would react or how. She tried hard to stop pushing her thumbnail into her arm through the sleeve of her hoodie. That was followed by several slow breaths in and out through her nose.

"Is she alive?"

Kemp:

“Alchemy? Yes.”

He says bluntly.

“And Nyx is missing.”

Grey: “That was against my advice. However, my sway does not extend that far. “

Cadence

She cast her eyes toward the floor. Ut was an internal debate and a struggle. Did hey understnad exactly what was happening out there at the Black Hole? Cadence didn't know for sure, but she knew what she was supposed to do, her part, and piecing it together gave her a theory. Alchemy never shared the layers on layers, circles within circles. Cadence was just a tool to her. Cadence looked up again, this time squarely at Grey.

If they didn't know or understand, would telling them them her theory make things better or worse? Maybe Alchemy planned for the possibility of betrayal by her tool. Circles inside circles. And if she survived, then she could heal herself with her matter/energy powers. She kept her eyes on grey for a long moment more.

And Grey locks eyes with her and ... nods?

Cadence

Cadence slowly brought her attention back to Mariel.

"Do you need me to describe what I saw? Or What? Do you need to see me gather the shadows? Or do you want me tell you what I think I know about what I do... what you do? If you want me to tell you how it works... Not that I understand it in the way Mr Eric wants to understand it over there," she said a glance to him at the end. "Just tell me what you want me to do or say."

Mariel.

“Tell me ... what happens, what it feels like. What she tried to teach you. I wonder if the daughter teaches the same way as the father. I want the figure out how to help you. I also want to figure out more of how her mind works. What has changed. I hope some of this might ... help.”

Cadence

"What happens?"

Cadence seemed confused by the question stated as a request. Maybe it was all the statements, like topics of discussion, or a checklist to 'tick' off.

"If you mean when I watched you... It didn't feel like anything... I didn't do anything, not really. I looked at you and could see you getting very close to the middle place."

Cadence shrugged, "But if you are asking about the Darkness... I'm not sure I could describe it. It's like you have to experience it to know it. Words... words just don't exist..."

She paused and closed her eyes for a moment and thought about it, remembered it, but didn't touch it. She wasn't sure how effective he ankle cuff really was, but cased upon something she had been told about the amount of power freedom she was allowed here, she wondered if they could actually control her at all. Her access to the power worked based upon the very thing they allowed her to do.

With her eyes closed she spoke softly, "It's intense. A rush to step into it, but stepping isn't the right word either. It's a bit addictive too. You can feel it, you feel strong. Where I go, to stand in the middle, that's the total power of our reality, but sides of it. I'm not really me when I'm there... sorry, that's not how I want to say that."

She shook her head in a mild frustration. The words just didn't tell the visual image she had in her head.

"As for Alchemy... She expected perfection. You get one failure on any new lesson and then... she could do as much harm with her words as Nyx could with hands and feet. But she had a temper and timeline, so most times there was zero patience."She shook her head, and that eerie intense moment was gone.

A shrug this time.

"Look, I'm not a sciencey nerd. But I have read everything I could find about Dark Matter and Dark Energy... and it's not much... a lot of theories... Because you can't see it, touch, or feel it unless you are it... Not even you Miss Mariel. Not my Mother and not Nyx. If this Inky-doo guy is the father of all three of you, then I can see how your powers could use the Dark Energy, like breathing in air coming through the window screen. Your science still applies to what your doing, just not how... It's different for me when I'm there... either in the middle or on the other side... It's no longer theory and that's scares me. It's incredible too. But it isn't quite real either."

"Now that I have seen what you can do, I know I can do it as well. That's how my mother taught me to do what she does... Convert matter and energy back and forth. It's how I learned to do what Nyx could do as well. I just had to watch them do it. I'm not sure if they understand how much I can see. It was hard to explain it to them... Not because I'm smarter than anyone else... I'm not. And that's the point. I feel it and it works, but I can't explain it in the ways she wanted me too. It's because I can see something they can't and somehow I can use it and they can't. My mother is crazy evil smart, off the scale... So maybe she knows I was learning things she couldn't teach, but she knew how to hurt me and scare me and control me- so I was tool to her. She waned to unlock me but she just hadn't figured out how... And I think that's why she was at the prison. I think that's why she had me in the first place... She figured out a way to get the power she wanted, she just needed to be able to take it from me."

MAriel:

She pauses a while.

"Father is - father was - Singularity. I moved him from an is to a was myself. Enkidu ... I'm not sure he has any children of his own. He ... changes ... those of other people. We think possibly ... enhances them. Alters them."

She pauses a long while.

"I am pretty sure I could do more than I do. If I wanted to go down another route. Sometimes I almost feel like I can see ...something, through a glass darkly. When I am completely phased, there is something, if just shadowy images. Not something can reach out and grab, but as if there is something sitting on the other side of a Plexiglas window."

She pauses a moment.

"I think that father had some of the same ideas with us that Alchemy has with you. I suspect that Alchemy wanted someone from on the inside of the prison for that purpose. I am still trying to figure out exactly who. There is a piece of the puzzle missing."

Eric

He finally speaks up.

"I think there is at least some chance.

he says with a pause.

"That your mother employed Enkidu to ... alter you. As he Altered Hadassa, altered many others."

Cadence

"Ohh..." And here she thought that Inky-doo was the architect of her biological families reign of terror. But, as it turns out, she's not even related to him... except perhaps tinkering with her an a young child. She shrugged for Eric's benefit.

And that dream... nightmare she has had for years, that had been quiet for a while now, but just came back hard when she got here that started making more sense... less a nightmare and more a repressed memory. Oh how she hated her junior year psych class.

She returned her attention to Mariel. "I think you get very close to the middle when you do what you do... but I would have to be in the middle to know for sure."

And, as Mariel mentioned her suspicions of Alchemy's intentions, Cadence bowed her head and sighed.

"I... tried to kill her..." As Cadence was speaking her voice trembled and she shook her head side to side, without making eye contact.

"Not because I want to kill anyone... I don't. I don't want to hurt anyone... but that's all I did was hurt and kill and not even her... and so whoever they were, they died for nothing. They were always going to die but I became their killer... And I have to carry that weight. I know what I did, but not who or how many... I knew nothing about them. I'm not sure I could handle that either, but maybe I have to... that's my sin to bear now."

"Do you understand how her ability works? Like mine except I can do it in 4 points instead of two, but I'm not as strong as she is in her two. Hard to explain... I am about even across matter and energy both here and there, But she's stronger here. Just like, I'm sure I wouldn't be as strong as you in your phasing thing, or Nyx's energy drain thing. And it's that power that makes her so hard to stop. You see, if you can't completely overwhelm her and kill her right then and there... If she can find a way to touch energy, then she can change herself... and once there, she can heal.... but it's not like that... she reassembles herself when she changes back to matter. I thought I had an idea... not really a plan though. I just wanted to stop her. I used everything I had left... and it wasn't enough."

Cadence took a deep breath, slowly, and then even more slowly she exhaled it. Trying to collect her emotions, especially self anger and a bottled up grief.

"I didn't know her plan, only what she told me to do, only what she wanted from me... but it was enough for me to make a guess about somethings. I hope I'm wrong, but you should know..."

She wanted in that prison and she didn't care how she got there. If I could break it open, and feed the energy inside, she planned to ride it in... You were so focused on her and then I showed up like a defense or a distraction... No, she was the distraction... even the lightning I sent was a distraction. You can't see dark energy. What you saw was me pushing dark energy into this side and the interaction of this side getting pushed by something that didn't belong there... me forcing it across the sky.... that's what the purple is... whenever you see it in yourself or in Dash... that's just dark energy and bary... something energy reacting to each other... What you didn't see what me forcing dark matter and dark energy through the ground to make pathways that she could fill with energy."

"I don't know why she wanted in, but she wanted in... and what I was doing was her escape route... It's still there... I couldn't kill her and you put her inside. How could you know?"

Mariel:

“Yes. And now she is inside, and quite coincidentally there was a bumper crop of villains captured, all at once. Some on anonymous tips. No, I don’t like it.”

Kemp:

“I would hope you are wrong too, but I would suspect that you are not. At least that is the operative theory we are going with.”

Cadence

She looked from one to the next, all four of them in turn. She waited for them to tell her what was next. More questions? Not a lot had been accomplished up to this point, at least from her perspective, but she told them what she could and answered their questions. So far they hadn't asked for her to touch the power, but maybe hat was coming. They held her fate in their hands. If she didn't co-operate then she would be going elsewhere, right? But knowing what they know, would they really send her into the Black Hole? With Alchemy?

She waited and watched them... as they watched her.

Grey

“Right now, Cadence, I am not - we are not - asking you to tap in to the power. I think Mariel understands what it is well enough to classify it for purposes of this registration. It is not our intention to force you, although in time I think it is in your best interest if you begin to learn new ways to deal with this power other than the warped ways that were taught by Alchemy. If she insisted that something was the proper way to interact - do you necessarily believe her?”