Sky High [IC Thread]

[Kat]

Grace

Grace looked around, her blue eyes, having lightened from stormy to spring, roaming over everything.

She scowled at Dart, and a confused look passed over her face as her eyes touched on Zenith. As her eyes slid over the books, Grace smiled contentedly. Then she recalled why she had come to the library in the first place.

"Oh!" she looked sheepishly at Awa. "I have to shelve books, I volunteered to help out here when I have spare time. Do you wanna help, or go watch the newbies?"

[TrickyLA]

Awa

Awa frowned, then smiled. Of course her friend would volunteer for something like this, she did love books afterall. Giggling slightly, Awa shook her head.

"....I don't know if I'd make it through without screwing it all up......AH! But....uhm....you know I would stay and help you......then we could leave a little early to watch some of the newbies....maybe?"

She thought it was a good compromise, but she didn't want to take away from Grace's precious library time either. She rather liked the library herself, not alot of people talked to her in there. She could go by relatively unnoticed, head buried in a nice book. She sighed contently before running a hand over some of the books needing shelving. I wasn't too much work really, with the two of them flying around, she was sure it would be relatively quick and fun.

[charli]

Eliza fidgeted in her seat. A familiar turmoil was stirring up in her chest, and a sharp pain stabbed her right temple. Was it being so close to Kiba's insanity that had triggered this fit? Or was it the abnormal amount of socialization in general? Either way, Eliza absolutely could not lose control here with a bunch of trigger happy freshmen with God only knew what powers. Usually she was concerned for the safety of others, but now her own worried Eliza.

"Excuse me," she said to Jonathan, standing perhaps too abruptly. "I actually have a headache. The noise from Power Placement will only make it worse, so I think I'll go the library. I'll see you around Jonathan."

Air rippled around her, practically shoving her forward as she fled. Once in the hall, she forced herself to stop, take a few deep breaths. As she walked down the hall, her fingers trailed along the wall, the cool cinder blocks smooth beneath her skin. I can't lose control in school. Or out in the real world. Or anywhere. I can't ever lose control.

The enormity of everything hit Eliza like a ton of bricks, and it was all she could do to stumble into the library before crumpling down onto a couch. She wrapped her arms around her shaking body as if to hold herself together, but she could feel herself slipping.

[TheTimeSweeper]

Zenith

Zenith looked up from his book at the girl who staggered into the library just then before turning his attention back to the pages. Out of the corner of his eye, she looked like she was under a lot of stress after sitting on the plush upholstered couch and he didn’t think that she needed any immediate attention. It could be nothing more than a personal problem; Zenith didn’t really know, but he did plan to offer some help if she needed any.

“Wow, a lot of girls coming in here today so far,” he noted.

[tomaszavenger]

"Hmm... you're right..." Dart said, deciding to finally release the book of human accomplishments.

"It's funny how the Guiness book of Records now has to test if you're a hero..." Dart said with a laughter to Zenith.

"I wonder if any of these girls are villains, no?" Dart looked at Zenith with more laughter. His shell moved about when he had laughed.

[charli]

It was the minion's laughter that pushed Elizabeth over the edge. She knew that were she to look into a mirror now, her eyes would be glowing a deep blood red. But why the hell did she come to the library? She honestly didn't want to hurt the books. Fuck dammit, that was exactly why she was here. Like she would stay calm if there were books all around her?

Fine, then she wouldn't hurt the books. Standing, she aligned herself with the minion so that it was straight shot from him to the wall. She blasted him with a jet of hot air, throwing him neatly between the bookcases and through the wall into the hallway. "Do you have any idea how annoying that laugh is, minion?" she asked, her lips curling up into a smile. Lifting into the air, she levitated towards him, fire and lightning crackling around her hands. "I think I might just rip out your vocal cords here. Keep me from ever having to hear your stupid voice again."

[TheTimeSweeper]

Zenith

Zenith’s eyes widened as Dart was forced through the wall into the hallway by the girl who only moments before looked like she was about to have a nervous breakdown. Zenith surmised that Dart’s laughter must have triggered something and sent her over the edge. He then calmly set his book down on the table and got up from his chair before exiting the library into the hallway.

“Dart, Dart, Dart…..asking that question out loud and then laughing was really not the smartest thing to do. You probably should have kept that to yourself.”

[charli]

"And what the hell are you doing here?" Elizabeth demanded, rounding on Zenith. "Don't you know to keep your nose out of other people's business?" Deftly, Elizabeth upped the oxygen content in the air around Zenith and then ignited the fuel, the flames burning hotter than a natural fire.

[TheTimeSweeper]

Zenith

Zenith could feel the heat around him rising intensely and the stench of burning hair and clothes filled his nostrils. He knew that if he didn’t do something fast he would turn into a charred corpse. He then quickly formed a cloud over his head that drenched him with a downpour, effectively extinguishing the flames. His shirt and pants were heavily burnt and soaking wet and the horrible stench of burnt hair lingered around him. His skin was burnt in several places as well, but that wasn’t his concern right now. His main concern was why this girl had suddenly attacked him.

“Any particular reason why you did that?” he asked the girl in a calm tone as smoke billowed around him from the dowsed fire. “I wasn’t even talking to you and you just attacked me.”

[Nekoman]

Jonathan's face remained unchanged as Eliza excused herself, but One and Two were going at it, arguing whose fault it was that she had been run off.

"Dammit, One! I'm sure she saw it; I could see you trying to force your words into poor Jon's mouth!"

"Two, I swear if you're trying to pin this on me.. She's obviously a villain, your goody-little-two-shoes aura musta reeked out!"

Jon didn't like where this was going, so he tuned out the others, and abruptly left the gym. He headed to his locker, he didn't want to have to course through the rest of the day like this, best fake sick and go home. He deftly opened his locker, four years fo the same numbers were drilled into his reactions. As he reached into the locker, though,a powerful surge came from his gut. He doubled over and vomited, which was painful due to the fact that one and two were too occupied this morning to get breakfast. He stumbled backwards into a wall, and blinked hard.

One eye was taken over in blackness, whereas the outlines of objects were traced over in white. the combining of the two eye's images confused and nauseated him further, and he vomited again, this one forcing him to his knees. One and Two rushed back into his senses, but Two was in terrible agony, he was screaming as if something were tearing him in two.

One was yelling as if trying to aid his companion, but the scene was percieved no better by Jon, who remained in a dizzy, crumpled pile on the floor. One tried to force a scream fromJon, but it came out in an agonized wail that stole his breath and quickly died down, ending with a sonic blast accompanied by blood.

Two seemed to vanish, though a small flicker of his essence remained, and one was depleted of energy, completely. Neither could support each other, much less Jonathan.

Accepting this, he tried to pull himself from the ground, and trudged a few steps, only to suffer a torrent of blood from his mouth and eventual collapsing.

Dizzy, he passed out, One's echoes trying fruitlessly to rouse him.

[charli]

"A reason?" Elizabeth sneered. "Why should I need a reason for anything. I do as I please." She turned back to Dart. "Speaking of doing as I please..." Her lips parted in a grin as lightning shot from her fingers to course through the minion's body.

[tomaszavenger]

"Admiring my shell villain? I'm sure you are... and you can try and rip out my vocal cords, but you'll have a faceful full of hypervelocity reading materials. Now, please desist your idle threats, unless you're willing to recruit me? And I promise, no more laughter..." Dart said.

Better to be passive than offensive to this villain. She looks like a berserker, except she's not clad in red.

[charli]

The 'idle threats' comment irked Elizabeth, and she almost offed Dart right then and there. But being called a villain struck a chord with Eliza. She hung in the air as her two sides raged internally, then slowly set down on the tiled floor. Her knees shook a bit - the fit had exhausted her as usual - and the crimson cleared from her vision to be replaced by black around the edges. "The nurse..." she murmured, staggering towards the infirmary. "I need the nurse..."

[TrickyLA]

Awa

Awa blinked several times, scooting closer to the many shelves of books in the library. That girl, Eliza, had gone completely nuts.

Again.

Awa sighed, glad it was over. Eliza was a third year, like Grace, so she knew what to expect from the girl.

More or less.

Awa gulped a bit despite herself. She didn't like seeing the poor girl let loose like that. You didn't mess with Elizabeth, if you did you'd be dead. Luckily for her victims, Eliza had been snapped back pretty quickly. If only she could figure out how they had managed that. Shaking her head lightly, Awa grabbed another book to place somewhere. She had paused to look on at the fight quietly.

She was a Hero, so she might've been needed at some point. She sighed again, glad that at least the books were safe.

Speaking of books....

She really hoped that Grace wouldn't go batshit!angry at Eliza and start a fight over the books. She didn't want anyone getting hurt.......

Sighing once more, she carefully placed a book back on its correct shelf.

[TheTimeSweeper]

Zenith

Zenith raised an eyebrow as he silently watched the girl slowly make her way to the medical wing of the school. Even though he knew that she was a third year and thus had attended the school before, Zenith had never actually witnessed one of Elizabeth’s bouts of rage. He only knew what she was capable of from the gossip he heard around the school. Still, he was surprised that he was on the receiving end of one of her attacks that could have easily killed him. If Dart’s laughter was all that it took for her to get riled up, he wasn’t totally sure if he wanted to know what else could make her angry. For a few moments, he just stood in the middle of the hallway continuing to watch her stagger away, before he sighed and caught up with her. If she tried anything funny, he would be ready with one of his own lightning attacks.

“Here, let me walk you down there. I should probably get these burns checked out anyway.”

[charli]

Eliza glanced at Zenith and saw the tension in his body. "Thank you, and... I'm sorry... But, you don't have to worry, now. I'm too tired. The fits cost too much energy."

God, she was going to have to call her parents. They were both heroes. How disappointed would they be that Elizabeth had reared her ugly head on the first day back?

[TheTimeSweeper]

Zenith

Zenith could see the sincerity in Eliza’s eyes and relaxed a little.

“It’s alright. I’m sure that you had your reasons as to why you attacked me other than that you do as you please. If you truly wanted a fight, I would have been more than willing to challenge you. It certainly would have been interesting to see if our lightning attacks rivaled each other. Maybe some other time.”

As Zenith continued his walk alongside Eliza to the infirmary, he stopped briefly at his locker along the way and withdrew a new pair of pants as well as a black T-shirt with a red lightning bolt-shaped letter Z on the front.

“I always store a few extra clothes in my locker in case of emergencies,” he explained to her.

[Yetisarge]

Sig had heard the scream and he sprinted into the hallways and found the twins. One.. or two which ever it was he could never tell the difference was on the floor.

"Damn it what the hell is with this school year?" he practically yelled as he called the infirmary up and he rushed the three of them to the infirmary along with the help of nearby teacher.

"I have no idea what happened. I was just in the gym as placement was about to begin and I heard a scream." He explained as the nurse began to work as best as she could to help the twins and Jon.

[charli]

"I'll pay for the clothes I burnt," Eliza offered as they entered the nurse's office. Apologetically, she turned to the nurse. "Zenith has some burns, and I need to use the phone."

"Of course," the nurse waived absently. "Dial nine." She was leaning over a student covered in blood.

"Jonathan?" Eliza mused, recognizing the face. But her vision was going black again, and she staggered to the phone sitting next to it before dialing her home number. Her mother picked up. "Mom?" Eliza said, her voice small. "I lost it again. I'm sorry. Another student annoyed me and that made me snap, but I don't know why it came on in the first place."

"Oh, honey," Rebeccah Paine - or Night Mare, as she was known to the general public - cooed. "Was anyone hurt? Are you alright?"

Eliza sighed. "I'm tired. And I burnt one of the fourth year heroes acci- No, it wasn't accidental was it?" She shot a remorseful glance at Zenith.

"Do you want to come home?"

Eliza thought for a moment, then answered, "No, I'll try to stay the rest of the day. I met a freshman who's in Power Placement right now, and I want to see how he does. He... He has fits like I do."

The hope in her mother's voice could almost be seen. "Do you think the two of you can figure out a cure?"

"I sure hope so."

"Well, get some rest, honey. I'll see you this afternoon."

"Bye, Mom." Eliza's hand shook slightly as she hung up the receiver, and she let her head fall back heavily against the wall. Her leaden eyelids drooped down, and within moments, she was asleep.

[TheTimeSweeper]

Zenith

“You really don’t have to do that, but thanks for the offer,” replied Zenith. “When you work with chemicals as much as I do, it’s always helpful to have extra clothes on hand when things get out of control.”

“So is that what happened this time again, Zenith?” asked a different nurse as she walked over to him. “I’m sure you know how dangerous pure Bromine can be.”

Zenith chuckled. “No, it wasn’t a chemical burn this time. I got set on fire and then had to dowse myself with a cloudburst.”

“How in the world did that happen?”

Zenith shot a quick glance at Eliza before answering.

“I was in one of the chemistry labs lighting a Bunsen burner. There must have been some combustible fumes left over from a previous experiment and, well, you can guess the rest.”

The nurse chuckled. “You know, Zenith, if you’re not careful with those experiments that you’re always doing, you’re liable to blow yourself up one of these days.”

“That’s why I always spend time in the library reading about the chemicals that I work with,” he replied as he grinned back at her.

“Heh, you’ve got a point there. You and your elements…”

Zenith chuckled and carefully pulled off his shirt, but kept his pants on. He then noticed that Eliza was asleep with her head against the wall so he ended up removing his pants as well. The nurse saw him staring at her and chuckled as she started to tend to his burns.

“Girlfriend of yours?”

Zenith whipped his head around in surprise.

“…What?”

The nurse grinned. “I saw the way you were looking at her and thought that you might have a thing for her.”

Zenith raised an eyebrow at her. “No; I just saw her in the library not too long ago. She stumbled in looking pretty stressed and I was just concerned about her.”

“Ah, I see. Concerned about her. Gotcha.”

“Look, it’s not what you think!”

The nurse winked back at him. “Whatever you say, Zenith.”

“Can we just drop this please?”

The nurse didn’t say anything, but merely grinned as she applied bandages to the burn spots on his torso, arms, and legs.

“There you go; patched up as usual. And try to be more careful next time. If you come in here again glowing like a Christmas tree light or something, you’re on your own.”

“Thanks for everything, and no, that’s not going to happen.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if it did though,” she replied, laughing, as she left him with the other nurse who was still tending to Jonathon’s injuries.

Zenith chuckled as he changed into the clothes from his locker before sitting in a chair next to Eliza.

“I might as well wait for her to wake up so that she is properly attended to,” he said as he glanced at her sleeping form.

[Nekoman]

[Sorry, Yeti, I guess I should have made it clearer, Jon is the only one there, the twins were still in his mind. They're all one person.]

Jonathan, still semiconscious, felt himself dragged through the hall and thrown onto a cot. He couldn't hear the voices clearly, but gathered there were a few people in the room he was in. and by the smell, he was in the nurse's office.

"Jonathan? Jonathan, are you okay?" One's voice resonated through his mind, soft at first, then progressively clearer.

I'm fine, just.. out of it. How is Two?

"He's.. I don't know.. I can feel him, but he's nowhere in here.."

What the hell happened?

"I don't know, a creature had entered your mind somehow, and left just as mysteriously.."

A creature? What did it look like?

"It was mostly a blur, it moved to rapidly, but it looked human.."

An invasive student?

"There was noone around, and I doubt the first years are this.. powerful.."

Maybe there's another..

"How? Yin and Yang are final, there's no third aspect.."

Maybe there's some gray area.. or maybe you two aren't defined simply as good and bad.

One was silent for a moment, but responded as serious as he could be. "This will take some looking into.. I just hope the creature dosen't come back.. as for Two, try splitting again. Maybe that will bring him back.."

Jonathan did as he was told. In a moment, One was lying on the bed where Jonathan had been. He slowly sat up, an ugly grimace crossed his face, as it usually did. He looked around, and Two was on the bed opposite him, but as soon as One had spied him, he disappeared. One jumped from the bed, but Two reassured him, though noone spoke. Then One saw the thoughts of those around him, and realized Two was in his omnipotent form, probably conserving valuable materialized energy.

"Two, don't waste your energy, I don't need to know what they're thinking."

[Yetisarge]

(Well that makes things a bit less confusing.)

Sig decided to leave the Infirmiry in case something else freaky happened during the placement tests.

"This is turning out to be an extremely weird school year right now. That it is." He said trying to figure out who the hell the parents were to these kids this year.

[charli]

A nurse prodded Eliza, waking her up. "Come on, hon," the woman said as she pressed a mug of coffee into Eliza's hands. "If you're going to stay in school, then you need to actually go to class."

Tentatively, Eliza took a sip of the drink. The brew itself might have been good had it not been completely saturated with sugar. But Eliza couldn't deny that it was already waking her up, and she took a long slug of the joe, her throat healing the burns as the coffee went down. It was sweet enough to be nauseating, but Eliza finished it. Grimacing, she turned to Zenith who was sitting next to her. "You've been taken care of?"

((FYI, Magic, Elizabeth is the psycho. Eliza is normal.))

[TheTimeSweeper]

Zenith

“Hey, you’re awake. How are you feeling? And yes, I have been taken care of.”

He then stood up from his seat and tentatively offered her a hand.

“We should probably be getting to our first classes now.”


(I edited my previous post so that it says Eliza instead of Elizabeth)

[charli]

((Okay, since we don't really know what day it is, and schools always start on weird days, it's Wednesday.))

Eliza checked her watch. "Still first block. So... History. Woo-hoo. Because I just love hearing the ignorant, facist Nazi side of the Second World War." She tried to stand on her own, but she couldn't quite manage just yet. With a slightly wounded pride, she took Zenith's hand to haul herself up. His palm was rough and raw. She remembered when they had classes together their freshman year, he always had a chemical burn somewhere from his experiments.

Standing, Eliza reclaimed her hand and forced herself to keep her body language casual, to keep her shoulders down and her arms relaxed, to keep herself from becoming invisible. They walked into the hall and Eliza padded her steps with air cushions. As much as she loved the height boost heels gave her, she did not love the almost obnoxious clunking. "I'm sorry again. For flipping out on you. I've been working on controlling that better."

[TheTimeSweeper]

Zenith

Zenith walked down the hallway next to Eliza as she walked along on her air cushions.

“It’s fine. Let’s just go with that you were not in your right mind at the time. It was bound to happen sooner or later to me by someone anyway; I just didn’t expect it so soon.” He shrugged and added, “It seems like every year I get attacked by someone. I would think that by now I would recognize the signs that I shouldn’t get involved with other people’s business, but I still do it anyway.”

Zenith knew that he had to pass the library anyway before he got to his first class, so he figured that he might as well shelve the book that he left on the table.

“So, how is controlling the outbursts coming along if you don’t mind me asking?”

[charli]

Eliza grimaced when she saw the mess she had made of the library's wall and the hallway. "Honestly? Not that great. So far, the best I can manage is to get away from people and get to someplace relatively safe and sturdy before I snap. I thought that I wouldn't do anything in the library since I love books, but... Guess it takes more than that to contain me."

[TheTimeSweeper]

Zenith

“Or maybe Dart was just being an idiot and in the wrong place at the wrong time. If he wasn’t there or had kept his mouth shut, the wall wouldn’t look like someone had taken a rocket launcher to it.” Zenith sighed. “Sometimes I don’t know why I put up with him, but he can be fun to be around at times.”

He entered the library through the wall and walked over to the table where his book was. He quickly shelved it and then walked out through the hole, passing Grace and Awa along the way.

“Grace; Awa,” he nodded to each girl in turn, smiling. “See you two in class later?”

Zenith then rejoined Eliza in the hallway and continued his walk to the first class with her.

[TrickyLA]

Awa

Awa jolted, being acknowledged wasn't something that happened very often. She sent back a quiet 'see you in class', but she didn't think Zenith heard her. Sighing, she stared into the hallway at Eliza. She seemed okay now, no real reason to be worried.

Still, she was.

"Hey Grace......what do you think about Eliza....?"

She was a bit curious, and she didn't bother asking about Zenith. She knew Grace liked him somewhat, she had just been pissed before.

[charli]

A bit of insecurity flared in Eliza. Grace and Awa were staring at her, Awa with an expression of concern. Eliza would bet money on what Awa was worried about. When was Eliza Paine going to snap for real and kill everybody? It seemed like everyone wondered that, and Eliza hated it. Couldn't people see how much pain her fits caused her?

Her history class wasn't far past the library, and Eliza practically ran to it. But she paused outside the door. She could hear one of the other students, a particularly cruel villain capable of inflicting pain with the blink of an eye, laughing to his pack about how he was going to give "that freak Paine a taste of what her name really means". Groaning, Eliza turned away from the door and leaned heavily against the lockers. She had tried telling people before that her name was from her ancestor, the writer Thomas Paine, but when it became clear the students didn't really care, Eliza had stopped trying.

"Why the fuck didn't I go home when I had the chance?" Eliza cursed softly.