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Cadence

Cadence had been looking at Kemp and then shifting her attention to Eric when Grey spoke. She quickly looked to the woman.

"I... I didn't know what else to believe... I still don't know what to believe. Right and wrong. I know what that is but things got blurred. She didn't try to make me evil... To her, that was a word people who didn't understand her used to describe her... to her. And she kept at me, twisting my thoughts. I didn't sleep much, lessons happened whenever. I didn't know when it was day or night. She took away my name and said that it was never my real name. I had to earn my name. She called me only Forsaken... but that wasn't my name. It was, I don't know... just a word... That i had been forsaken. And after weeks and months... I don't know how long. I tried to make it my name. I needed something to hold onto because I lost everything and no one was coming to help me. None of you were coming to help me. You didn't know anything about me... But she did... she held the rope while I was drowning in the ocean... just enough to keep me alive and make me desperate for her... willing to give her whatever she wanted. When she wasn't twisting my thoughts and feelings, she made me train with Nyx... At first it was Nyx beating me up, not really teaching me... and when I begged for it to stop, Nyx would laugh and leave me lying there in pain... When she came back she told me that if I wanted it to stop then I would have to Prove I was strong enough. I tried, but she just kept beating me until I begged her to teach me something, anything.... So, yeah... she screwed with my head as well... But I didn't know that it was happening like that. So I guess they broke me and made me into what they wanted me to be..."

Cadence no longer wanted to stand there facing them across the room. She simply sat on the floor in front of them, unable or unwilling to make eye contact.

"I wanted to be Forsaken because I had been forsaken. It was a name."

With a shrug and a shake of her head, she continued the stream of consciousness that told her recollection of what she endured over nine months.

"I feel like... at times I couldn't remember what my old name was anymore. It was too painful and I was losing grip on the feelings I had when my mother and father were ... were killed by Alchemy. As if there was a mirror, but not a mirror. If I tried hard enough, I could barely see through it to my old life, but only if there was a light back there. I can't explain it.... Mostly I was just looking at this person who stared back at me that wasn't me.... and I wondered if that was a part of me, another part that was me and not me but getting stronger... It became harder and harder to find any light at all to see through that mirror image of myself. Another night of no sleep and more pain from Nyx and then mind games from Alchemy...."

Cadence looked up at them, tears tracing lines down her cheeks.

"Do I believe her? Yes... She said she would crush me body and soul... and she did... she said she would remake me in the way I was born to be... and she did... She told me she was going to make me into a weapon... and she did... She told me that she was going to taunt you on the rooftop and use people as shields... and she did... She said she would make all of you helpless before her... and she did... she said she was going to kill them no matter what else happened... and I believed her..."

"On my side of that mirror was a voice that was mine and hers and I thought I couldn't hear my own voice anymore. I thought I couldn't see through that mirror anymore... and then I was standing there on that hall overlooking the prison, and she was on that building with her hostages. I couldn't really see them though. I just knew they were there because she said they were there and she had never lied to me... that's what it means to be a sociopath, you know... Even if it's a lie to the world, it's still true to them because they create their own world... And I lived in her world because my world was on the other side of a mirror I couldn't see through."

Her voice trembled as she spoke, as though she was reliving it all over again.

"I remember.... when that hero flew up to attack her, or maybe just to get a better look at her... and I lashed out with Dark Energy and the lightning ripped across the sky, and I mixed it into a wave of solid matter and energy to knock him out of the sky... He never saw it coming until it was too late... I remember in that moment that I hurt him... and I hoped I didn't kill him... I didn't want to kill him... I didn't want to do any of it... In that moment I caught a glimpse through the mirror because I was standing there with a light behind myself looking at me on that hill... And I knew... I knew she was about to start killing them all... I knew... I had already done what she wanted me to do, and now she needed all of you to come at her... to leave your positions in front of the prison and come at her..."

Her head fell again.

"Do I believe her? Yes, because she turned me into HER, and I killed people because... because... I decided that ending her was worth any cost... My right intentions came with wrong actions... That's the world she made me live in.... a world where I can believe that what I am doing is right when the rest of the world sees it as wrong... That's her world, her mental illness... And I'm scared I live in it as well now..."

Mariel

She speaks in a low and earnest voice, listening to her voice tones it is in retrospect easy to believe her related to Alchemy. The timbre and inflections are there. Yet, it was also definitely not her. There was little empathy in Alchemy.

“I am in fact dead certain, Cadence, that you are not her. That you are not firmly in her world. Because Alchemy, for all of her mind games, for all of her manipulation, would never be here saying the things you just said. She wouldn’t be concerned about what she might become or had become. She would be reveling in it. You are not her because to you your impact on others matters. You have ... empathy. You have a conscience. It’s what makes you say ‘no’ in the best way you can when your circumstances demand that you say yes. So whatever flaws you may have - you are not her by any stretch.”

Cadence

Cadence wiped her eyes, and then did it again. She even looked around for tissue in the testing room, that might as well be sterile for the lack of everything by 5 people a table and some chairs. There was none to be found and so she snuffled deeply so that she could respond to Mariel.

"What if I don't even realize that all of this is programmed into me, and really I'm like her and she ... Never mind. It didn't sound as stupid in my head."

She shifted to a kneeling position, not quite ready to get back up and face the panel. I was hard to make eye contact now because she was realizing just how badly she had decompensated. But it was an outburst that was long overdue.

"I don't know what to think... or what to believe... I don't know which side of the mirror I'm on anymore... .... ... And I'm trying very hard to keep anyone from knowing that," she admitted at the end.

Mariel:

"Cadence, I have something for you to believe. What I want you to believe, is that I will be here, we will be here. Will you let us try to undo what Alchemy has done to you, to plant you firmly on this side of the mirror?"

THe others seem to be letting Mariel handle this for now.

Cadence

Cadence stared at Mariel. She was breathing in and out through her nose to return her composure to that closed off self. With only a glance at any of the others, she shrugged and nodded. By that point she was mostly hidden away under the shield of her faux persona again. Snarky Texas cheerleader.

"I guess... but if I see any rooms with scalpels and test tubes then all bets are off... 'Kay?"

Mariel

She gives her a solemn look.

“I promise that if Eric so much as looks at a test tube or scalpel in your presence, I’ll make him miserable in ways he could not even begin to imagine.”

And cracks a half-smirk.

The aforementioned Eric actually looks slightly nervous.

Grey

“You are registered. If Eidolon wants to argue with me, then they will find out just how stubborn I am. Besides. Bastard owes me his life.”

Cadence

Cadence almost smiled at Mariel's remark, but she looked at Eric for his reaction. She had the feeling he didn't much like her. That was fine though. His first exposure to her outside the Black Hole didn't present her in a redeemable light. But when Grey spoke Cadence was a little confused. Who was she calling a Bastard... or was that someone's name. If so, that's unfortunate.

"Am I not supposed to be registered? Or not allowed?"

Grey

“Technically someone could try to claim that we did not invoke your power in our presence and therefore did not precisely ‘test’ it. However, I maintain that we probably gained about as much information as we would have by doing so. All of us save Eric have also seen the ability in use, albeit at a distance. I have acted in my discretion to waive the necessity for a direct test. If Eidolon wishes to complain about it, then it will be an interesting day, because I don’t back down when I stand in principle.”

Cadence

There wasn't anything she could say. And saying nothing was probably a good idea right now.