Athwart History (Closed)

Marie’s arm twitches as soon as he touches her, movement and instinct deeper than thought-a flex of the toned limb and shoulder and a short, very short bit of movement that stops dead when consciousness catches up with muscle memory. Like the hand holding, like the hug, it’s nonviolent physical touch, and the instinctive reaction is always to either jerk away or strike out. It wasn’t that she mistrusted him, thought he’d heel turn and hurt her-she just wasn’t at all accustomed to it, anymore. Everything had been extreme and brutal violence or solitude.

Dark eyes remain rooted to his simple movement of the held cotton ball he dabs at her skin, ignoring the sting and then the coolness applied after. She doesn’t understand how he always turns outward. She can do this herself, and would have bluntly said so and protested his coddling-but she’s the only one here to ‘look after’, and he seems taken aback or at least troubled by the question, she’s not sure.

But he answers, and Marie processes the provided information in silence. She considers incidents she has details on, fights and video footage she studied. Comes back stronger…

“There was a note.” She states, making no noise about what he had previously said-brain soaking up the details and reflecting on them as she moves for another puzzle piece, more of the picture before she comments on that picture. “A high pitched bell.” She knows what that meant. She knows he knows.

Dark eyes flick up to his face, her gaze focused and analytical, more than a little intense in the impassive mask she wore.

“But you kept going. Expended more energy, afterwards, turned to starlight. Leveled a building.” That was seemingly nothing, but it had either been a risk-which seemed foolishly negligent-or there was no risk at all, which went against what she and the other Front members had been educated on, what she knew about the process and it’s terrible effects.

Elias isn't any happier at this turn of the conversation, but at least it's information that's important to other people and something he's had to explain before. A little of the tension leaks from his shoulders and his eyes flick up to meet Marie's again. "Yeah. I Catalyze. If it'd kill someone else, I just - pop up another level. It adapts. Whatever hurt me that bad doesn't work anymore. I get stronger, tougher. And I just go on and do whatever I was doing."

He shrugs, a bitter mix of frustration and rueful acknowledgement crossing his face, twisting his lips. "I don't know why it works like that, but it does. I'll bet it's the reason Vivienne can't stand me. Catalyzing ruined her whole life. Killed a bunch of the people she knows, gets along with. And then there's me, with a free ticket out."

Elias pauses in applying the lotion to reach up and run a hand through his hair. "I wish I could give you an explanation. Rowan used to theorize about it with me. Something like - the closer your power is to you, to humanity and life and shit, the less the influx changes you. He does wood, right? When he pops, he lives too - but he petrifies into wood for years. Comes out young, healed. He's never told me how old he is. Pretty sure it's a long time."

He shrugs again, more uncomfortable. "He said that since my power is, so far as anyone can tell, me - I could probably just do it infinitely."

"Would she rather you be re-added to the body count?" Marie growls, a flicker of venomous temper in that intensive stare. Her eyes dart away from his blue ones, the full force of her ever ready anger hitting them, impassive expression darkening. Her sharp glance to the array of monitors sees everything and yet nothing, dismissing the flare of anger at Vivienne with effort before ruminating on what he said.

The worst physical pain she had experienced was in the crash. Twisted, jagged metal had punctured through her thighs, sheared muscle from bone as rock blasted through the cockpit mere feet too far to the left. She'd been pumped so full of adrenaline that the pain, while blinding, hadn't consumed her thought processes. No, that came when the nose crushed in on her, when she'd tried to free herself. The water sucked into her lungs in that unbidden scream.

She considers this, and considers his actual, honest to God death and the injuries that proceeded it, the disbelieving reports that Adamant had been reduced to a shining skeleton-and yet persisted. And yet fought. He had been grievously injured before, but never quite as bad as that. And yet? And yet before that? It was one thing to take a bullet for someone else. Heroes made sacrifices all the time. It was quite another to take those proverbial bullets, and those eviscerations, and all the vilest of attacks the worst of the scum and the monsters could lob at him, over and over and over, changing and adapting for reasons and ways he doesn't fully comprehend or understand.

How was he not utterly insane? That sort of physical trauma? At least hateful and bitter, spitting venom at Cid and Vivienne, at everything, everyone. Everyone using him as a meat shield, everyone lazily, arrogantly operating with the knowledge of his eventual recovery, his invulnerability.

But he doesn't. Just signs up for it anyway, again and again.

His purpose.

Hn.

Dark eyes flick back to the first aid he was inexplicably applying, then his face again as he confesses his own lack of knowledge or explanation. Weighs the truth in what he says, and whether he was lying to her or not about the not knowing. He shrugs, as uncomfortable as she's ever seen him-and continues on to the conclusion she's already drawn.

Her eyes drop back to her arm, narrow a fraction. There's no ire or surprise, no...anything. Just contemplative thought, those dark eyes unfathomable and secret. Her first curls against the arm of the chair, expression still impassive and her eyes almost thoughtful as she looks at the scars across her knuckles, the slight swell to them.

"My whole life, I’ve fought." Marie says out of nowhere. The lean, toned muscles in her arm tense beneath the olive skin, beneath the bug bites and scratches, the dozens of little nicks and scars from her many, many fights.

"Both lives. Physically, internally."

Against a world that always seemed so deadset against her. She hates and she rages and she feeds the fires that fuel her. She was at odds with everything and everyone and they were at odds with her-and that was just fine. She fights because it’s what she knows, and she fights because her ugly demands it.

But Elias...

No part of Elias was ugly. He was good, shines so very brightly, and not just in the literal sense. The world doesn’t deserve him. Doesn’t deserve any of the heroes, but definitely not him.

“I don’t know how to do anything else. But at the end, whether hell or oblivion, it’ll be over.” Finally, finally fucking over. But not for him. And he'd keep soaking up the damage, forever, so long as people thought it didn't affect him, that he wasn't feeling.

“...I didn’t know.” She finally says, trying to figure what else to say, to do. She's so useless at all of this. Something. Should say something, do something-anything normal or reasonable, anything-what, comforting?

She thinks she can offer comfort?

Marie retracts her arm, eyes still rooted to her fist a moment, teetering and uncertain, for a moment. And then her eyes trail back to his, and her hand opens, relaxes-and reaches for the shoulder closest to her. The copied movement extended to her, previously.

Elias exhales. His breathing is deliberately steady and paced, but his eyes were distant. "On the second day I can remember, I killed three men. Los Dovos, doing a drug deal outside the old City United Methodist Church. Abandoned, now. They executed someone in the street, and I watched it happen from inside. Watched the argument build. That man get pushed around. Knocked down. Beaten. Killed."

He opens his mouth again, and stops - closes it. His eyes lower and the corner of his mouth curves in something abrasive. "So. Yeah. All my life, too. Always. Always."

The heavy emphasis, that second time around. Not just the past; he knows that this is what he will be always doing. Forever, until such a time as he can no longer make that choice.

His head tilts, cheek brushing against Marie's knuckles in something very close to a nuzzle. "At least someone gets it, you know. It's something."

Those blue eyes flicker over to her as he straightens back. They crinkle. "I'll take it. Thanks, Marie."

Marie hadn’t actually done anything for him or his curse, couldn’t do anything- but his eyes crinkle and he thanks her anyway.

His earlier defense of her traps, how he had understood exactly what her situation had been, had always been. That’d he’d left her the fuck alone and to her own devices when the husks started pouring in-there when it was required, and properly busy when it wasn’t. A team. Maybe...maybe it is nice. To be understood. To have someone get it.

They each understand something about the other, now.

Marie nodded mutely and took her hand back, and for once-a social something had gone well, despite her direct involvement. It’s a strange feeling.
Though...second day he could remember? But no-she’d made him uncomfortable enough as it was. Heavy answers for heavy, pointed questions. Besides-there are matters to attend to.

Her hands lower to her wheels so she can roll backwards, not even bothering with the other arm or more first aid, mind turning to other things, Jasper already back on the console. She hopes she's taking good enough care of his cat. She'll have to talk to him about it at some point-she's cat sat for a long while, and she can't see why Jasper wasn't allowed at his house. The furniture maybe? Hn, distracting.

“Is it possible Cid is harboring something of Paul’s?” Elias knew more about that goddamned thing than she does.

Elias shrugs, a little uncertain. "Paul's powers have always been difficult to figure the extents of. Does he have to fully colonize a host to influence what he does? Can he cultivate parasites that alter neurochemistry on a subtle level? I don't know, and I don't know what he considers worth his time. Trying to put together a profile or M.O. of him is so difficult because -"

He gropes for words for a moment, then shrugs. "He's not human," he says finally. "The rest of us are still people, even criminally violent wastes like Rush or Mindmelt - wastes of human skin, but still human. But I don't even know if Paul even still has a brain in the standard sense, or what makes it tick. Or if he's a compound nervous system spread across multiple hosts, or -"

Elias clicks his tongue and looks at Marie. "You get what I'm saying? I have no way of knowing, and I can't find him to know more. And Cid is just as much a black box, so I've got no way of knowing anything about that either. In the absence of evidence, though, assume the worst: so many metahumans in the same space? Paul would at least be interested. He'd have eyes on. Anything past that I can't look for. Maybe get a scanner to detect Paul's - nest shit - out to Sarah, and she can do an unobtrusive sweep."

"I wish I could give you more, but that's my best guess."

"Less scum, more fabled monster? Hn."

Marie considers this.

A cat seems to be cruelly 'playing' with its prey, but it's instinctively tiring it out, limiting its own risk of injury when it goes for the kill. It doesn't hold grudges, doesn't seek to avenge the slight of an escape.

Paul had no worry of injury. She has heard him described as not liking to be defied. He was targeting Jenna specifically, Elias had said. He’d been worried about sending her home to her family, that he’d flay them all. Yes, there are pieces of a 'human' puzzle, even if the full picture is ultimately utterly alien.

“Still a sentient something. Hunting the Apex beings of humanity specifically. Those people were just...abandoned diseased things. But he’s particularly cruel to metahumans. Fixated.”

Singles them out and eliminates them one by one, potentially wearing the face of an old ally or friend. But overlooks the Tower? She remembers the message delivered to and through Jenna about containment, that report of hers. Was it too public, too messy? Did Paul have fear of a superior? Or was only one aspect of Paul contained and there was no actual central hub? Elias thought it a possibility.

Or, was the Tower, a group killing simply not as thrilling as the solo murders?

Marie's jaw tightens as she decides on the familiar, leaving the undetermined questions alone for now. For all his surprising practicalness, Marie thinks maybe Elias isn’t as intimately familiar with just how monstrous some humans could be. Steps beyond even Rush and Mindmelt. Maybe miles.

She suddenly feels tired. She shakes the feeling off, refocuses. "Not Sarah." Marie says, but unlike before there's no bite or derision. If either of them suggest such a thing, Marie doubts it'd go over well. "Lana would be a better candidate. Not emotionally involved. Will have her guard up." She doubts he is a host, but she doesn't deal in maybes, she deals in facts. And it is suspicious timing-Sarah and two Wards came to see Elias. Then Rush finally makes a move using -her- trap. Her trap, apparently stolen years ago. Rush had taken a long time to draw the girl there, though. Trying to tire her out? Trying to avoid Adamant?

Trying to see if she could somehow cause Jenna to vanish?

On her tablet she pulls up the data from earlier, moves from it to the keyboard. After a few moments she finds what she's looking for in Laura's old files. A quad of monitors compile and sort through the data on Jenna's run, drawing up a graph to match the one pulled from Laura's backed up League drive.

The energy signatures on Jenna's graph, when compared to the one for Laura, were astronomically higher all throughout-each dip containing several jagged spikes before things climbed, the amount of Speed Force energy being utilized astronomical compared to Laura's despite similar speeds-and still climbing when the line suddenly went flat at zero-the crash of the software.

Marie just looks at the data for a moment, silent. And then her eyes flick back to him from within that impassive mask. “Neutralizing Rush,” She starts, her gaze intense, dark eyes watchful and opaque. No windows to the soul here, no view of anything that she was. “Was a very good idea.”

Elias nods, frustration flickering across his face in how his lips pale and his eyes tighten. "Yes. Particularly with me and Jenna - anyone that can survive him, in particular. I've been fighting him off and on for about eight years: he shows up with some new horrible trick, I survive it, and then I beat his host into paste."

He shrugs it off with a shoulder. "Anyways, I've been meaning to get Lana into the Tower, see if she can open another front for us to pressure Cid through. There's no government oversight over what Cid's doing. If Lana can get in and report anything dubious, I can probably at least get better treatment for the kids inside. Not, you know, vital stuff, but -"

Elias's eyes flick upwards and away, in the direction where the Coulee's main floor would be if they were in its basement. The place where the kids, presumably, still are.

"Well, anything that gives Cid less control and less resources is worth at least a glance, these days," he says eventually.

He glances over the data Marie is showing him, and can't help the faint tremor that goes through his hands. Elias has no idea what Catalysis is like for anyone else - Rowan and Vivienne won't describe it. It has, universally, looked like a bad way to go.

"Yeah," Elias says, quiet. "The others will quibble, but any way you can bring down one of these fucks, Marie - do it. You and I know the stakes. Bring them down before they wipe us out. I don't want the kids on the frontlines any more than they have to be. God knows Jenna fighting Rush solo is already a nightmare scenario, with the mismatch in experience."

”The others will quibble, but any way you can bring down one of these fucks, Marie - do it.”

Her eyes flickered to her ravaged legs in a brief, barest crack in discipline-and then instantly away again, immediately catching herself and angry with the slip. Stupid. Tension returns to her neck and shoulders as she swiped at the tablet’s screen, the graphs disappearing from the monitors. The many screens return to scrolling data and camera feeds, one monitor in particular catching her gaze. There were lines and lines of IP addresses and VAC’s, all returning a “No match” with each rapid fire line.

Her eyes narrow on it. It’s her mind that had always been her true weapon. Determination, hatred, rage-these are the things she has to offer. These are the things she knows, the way her ugly has sharpened to a razor fine edge now that she was incapable of using the bludgeon.

She makes for a shit friend, but at least monsters had their uses.

Marie finally gives him a nod. She knows what to do, and didn’t need-or want-to speak more on things she’d rather...he not know.

“In the meantime we’ll keep Jenna to shorter engagements, if those, while I start looking into potential solutions.” Among all the other things she’s doing. It’s a fine balance, but things are moving forward. They would get there.

Elias nods once, and then glances at himself in bemusement. Marie didn't look too terrible, but the acid belch had boiled away most of the shirt and jacket he'd been wearing with what few trails had landed on his face and chest. It's hard for him to notice, sometimes, because ambient heat and cold are things that stopped bothering him a long time ago. They've been reduced to rags on him, still blackened around the edges.

"You know," he says, "I have to notice shit like this sooner. I'm going to head back to the Coulee and get rid of these clothes. You come on by whenever you can, Marie: remember you got a place with me, too."

He stands up and ambles over to the teleporter, then glances back at Marie with a crooked smile. "See you soon."

~*~

The Coulee feels quieter now that the kids have vanished. Lana is off organizing something again, staying busy and a little thoughtful - Elias hopes he got through to her. Jenna's on homestay after the disaster with Rush, making sure that she hadn't sufffered any ill effects in the aftermath. He'd quietly informed Vivienne of the circumstances and she had - changed. The sweeping dress and older woman she'd manifested as before has apparently become her default, and now Vivienne spends most of her time in the living room quietly working with pottery and sculpture.

The kids have a standing invitation to the Coulee, as before, but hopefully they'll take him up on it more often now that they know what the place is like, and that Sarah won't hold it against them. Cid will, but no one can do anything about his resentment.

Tweedledee still hasn't been seen. That's normal, but Elias is starting to worry.

"Dinner's ready!" he calls, to anyone present in the Coulee, as he starts to set out plates. It's always a crapshoot of who shows up these days. There's a tuna avacado mix for Lana, whenever she arrives, and a blueberry pie for Jenna - an inside joke about her uniform. Sarah's been busily working over something, but he hasn't had a chance to spot it precisely in between running the rest of the kitchen.

Marie watches the space he’d vanished from a beat longer than it made any sense to, still half seeing the crooked smile.

She turns back to the console-and finds herself face to face with Jasper, the sleek black cat stretched over the keyboard mid step, her tail curled into a question mark. Marie doesn’t even glare at her, just waits-and after a moment Jasper finished her dainty step over the keys, stepped down onto the arm of her wheelchair-and with a bump of her head to the side of her arm, leapt down to trot to the space Elias had just left, sniffing around.

She should tell him to take his cat with him, next time. She almost feels bad for the thing, having to be down in this pit all the time, not even a sunny window. Cats like sunny windows, she's pretty sure.

Hn. She has work to do.

~*~

THE COULEE, NEXT DAY

A lilac purple streak blurred from a couch to the center counter, a colorful afghan still falling into place over the back of the plush piece of furniture. The filipina was already attempting to peer into the kitchen area and see what might be on order back there. “Awesome, cause I’m starving.”

Her pajamas were new-instead of the usual llama printed ones, these were a light purple and had a s’more printed in the center of the chest, A bunch of smaller marshmallow, graham cracker, and chocolate decals were printed all over the matching shorts. ‘S’more fun!’ was written in a silly looking script across her chest. Even the little purple slippers had an embroidered s’more symbol on the toes.

At the stove proper, Sarah was wearing her pink apron with the ridiculous splattering of cats embroidered all over it, checking the cheesy rice dish she’d made to go with dinner. There was enough food for twelve people easy.

“I don’t know how anyone so small…” She murmured, an amused smile on her lips as she peered in, getting just that liiiiittle bit extra browning on the seasoned chicken breasts before she reached in with mitted hands and took it out.

The grandma apron clashed horribly with the classy red cable knit sweater and dark denim jeans, but Sarah could make just about anything look good regardless. “Yesterday she ate a popcorn sized bowl of steamed vegetables, three cupcakes, and four porkchops.”

“You said not to leave leftovers-”

“Which was after the six bagels and two mocha lattes Lana said you two stopped for on the way.”

Jenna threw her hands up, a bit of a flush beneath her russet bronze skin as she grinned. “Runners need carbs! You don’t want to see what happens if I don’t eat like a hippopotamus. Tell her Elias. Halloween Jenna is freaking scary and maybe even a little gross, I dunno.”

Jenna glanced to her smart watch, data scrolling by impossibly fast but taken in at a glance as she checked, for the fifth time, that nothing exciting was happening in South Bend. Jenna hadn’t liked having to stay home and skip her usual patrol-but she had perked right up again on news of Sarah coming over. And pie.

Sarah found a serving spoon she liked and stuck it into the side dish, pulling the scrunchie out of her blonde hair and pulling the apron over her head again. She glanced at her watch, one she’d kept tucked into that squirreled away hatbox in her closet. It was battered and banged up, but a smiling Minnie Mouse still pointed at the hour and minute, just as he had when Grace had first given it to her years and years and years ago, on their thirteenth birthday.

Elias shrugs. "I ate a lot too at first," he reminds Sarah. "At least her powers come with an obvious starter. You remember how many times people asked you about sunbathing, like that has any relation to what you do?"

He smiles over at Jenna and stuffs a slice of pie on an appetizer plate into her hands. "Don't sweat it, hon. Set the table, we'll get there with the food."

The painting set opposite the oven shudders a little as Vivienne slides into view, leaning out over the frame to look at all the food. "You don't know what I would have given to be able to disappear calories like you do, Jenna," she says wistfully. "I did modeling work for a long time. They were very particular about body fat. If they could pinch you, it was too much."

Elias squints. "Does anyone find that waif look attractive? Honestly."

He putters past Sarah - bumps her with his hip on the way, light and playful - and deposits the tuna and pie on the table in the kitchen. "Save some of the tuna for Lana, she has trouble digesting our surface-worlder food," he says with some humor. "Even this is a bit of an experiment, honestly. She's fine with any kind of meat, but fruit is going to be a voyage for her. Not a typical dish for her people, but I did a breakdown of the active ingredients, proteins, and sugars, and it should actually be a really good supplement. If she can stand eating it, anyways, the texture might piss her off."

He's rambling, but his face is soft and happy and his gestures wide.

“Laura never did quite level out, either.” Sarah says, fond. “Luckily, half of South Bend wanted to feed her, and the other half wanted her to take things back to us.”

“Elias got a cake made just for him.” Jenna pipes up, that unabashed grin as she receives the most delicious looking piece of pie she’s ever seen. “Roger roger-”

And she swipes up the silverware in her other hand and makes two, then three trips in no time at all-and somehow the pie disappears in the meantime-still munching on crust when she comes to a sudden stop to watch Vivienne slide into view of the picture, amazed as always with the surreal appearance of a living portrait peering out.

“I wish it was just Speed Force related metabolism, but I’ve never been able to put on weight, no matter how hard I tried.” There’s a glance down at herself, a sigh. Jenna was just small, with an athletic, a boyish body type that just didn’t stack up-literally-with a lot of her peers, in and out of the hero business. She felt like a kid. That was part of why she’d gotten kinda half interested in fashion, that her clothes had all been cute or classy ensembles-it was the only sure way to look like a grown ass woman, dammit. With her build, a t shirt and jeans just made her look like a kid.

“My mom and I are just...not big people. On the plus side, I can sleep just about anywhere.” She glances back up, considering. “You probably made for a very pretty model, Vivienne. Hope they weren’t pinching you too much.” She winks, then flits away to try her hand at napkin origami.

It doesn’t look nearly as good as Ellie had shown her, and Jenna hoped she got a hell of a lot better at it, dang it. She hoped Ellie made it for dinner. Least for dessert.

Sarah nods along to what Elias says about the tuna salad, as content and happy as he was. It felt good to be back, to be in the kitchen with him again, to listen to the rambling and the timbre of his voice. The place felt alive, and if she has it her way-would get even livelier. She’s already thinking about who would benefit most.

“Does Lana even have molars? I feel like I’ve only seen her swallow things. What did Anhinga say...bear trap teeth?” Lord, that one. “Once we showed Lana what a bear trap looked like, I swear she was almost proud.”

Someone knocked. Sarah glanced to the door, then to Elias, and then she dusted her hands off on a hand towel and went to answer it.

"You don't have to knock honey, you're welcome any time..." Sarah was saying as she returned, one of her arms around the shoulders of the red haired teleporter. She was wearing the baggy black hoodie as usual, and looked a little less anxious, today-Sarah having a clear mollifying effect on her. It was easy to imagine the girl hiding behind her proverbial skirts.

She ventured a smile, even-and a wave to Vivienne in particular-finding her just as magical, if not more so than Jenna did.

"You're just in time! I haven't even eaten the whole pie." Jenna greets cheerfully.

Vivienne shrugs lightly, still watching Jenna, a faint curl at the corner of her lips. "Quick metabolism," she explains. "Even at rest your heart beats faster, your body temperature is higher. Your blood pressure is higher too. It's all little things, but your body just operates at - a higher frequency, shall we say. Don't worry about it. You're attractive."

The saucy edge to her smile cools a little. "I was in a number of pageants when I was young. It's not much fun on the other end, either."

"Not as we'd understand them," Elias says, getting a little louder to cover for Vivienne falling silent. "She has viliform teeth on her jawline where we do - those are the long, needlelike teeth for piercing and holding fish through scales - but I asked and they can eat certain varieties of kelp too. That's all fiber, so she has to have molars or a rasping plate somewhere in her throat. It'd just be really awkward for me to find out."

As Ellie walks in, he throws her a nod, then starts miming himself crawling down some tight space. "Hey, Lana, just open wide and hang on while I creep down your throat and look for teeth or a gag reflex, that okay with you? Cringe as fuck."

He turns and glances at himself in a little mirror set beside the stove and gives it a nod, then moves to the table. "Go ahead and pull up a chair, Ellie, we're almost done setting up. Mind setting out two extra places, Jenna?"

Jenna casts around for a proper comeback rather than just awkward laughter-when Vivienne continues, and suddenly it doesn’t feel appropriate. She’s seen Toddlers and Tiaras, that stuff is...well, she thinks it’s messed up. Women got enough crap in society, why start them off stressing physical appearances over, you know, stuff that mattered? She remembers what Vivienne had said about her family...that they ‘hardly counted’.

She gives Vivienne a close lipped, softer smile instead-and then flits for more napkins to replace the crumpled monstrosities.

Ellie is watching Elias with more seriousness than his statement warranted, as if uncertain if he was making a joke or chastising someone-maybe himself?-before her eyes flickered back to Miss Sarah as the tall blonde loosened her arm around her shoulders, laughed that pretty, tinkling windchime laugh of hers.

“I think you’d be like to get bit.”

There was a lot of bustling and talking and...well. Sarah seemed so...relaxed. Ellie had never seen her look so relaxed. Sarah was bringing salt and pepper to the table, Jenna had given a cheerful ‘Right-o!’, and everything was just bustling and busy. She moved to an extra chair, grateful attention wasn’t on her while at the same time feeling...included. And not because anyone was focused on including her specifically, it was just like-well, like she maybe belonged with them, too.

A pop outside before the door opened again, in stepping a very smartly dressed Lana. She’d been busy somewhere, per usual. Dressed in a pinstriped blazer and dress pants, the white blouse beneath made for blazing contrast with her deep blue scales. She pauses just inside the door, luminescent yellow eyes settling on the small gathering in the kitchen. Her eyes move along from person to person and then she smiles, letting the door swing closed behind her.

It’s a nostalgic, heartwarming thing, to see people filling the space over there, a myriad of sizes and appearances, a general feeling of contentment, of happiness.

The tall Atlantean slipped out of the blazer and hung it absently by the door, wandering over to pause at the edge of the group, the six foot tall fishwoman towering over them all save for Elias. Jenna flashes her a grin-the black eye her goggles (and Rush) had given her had faded fast-it was a yellowish bruise now, darkest on the cheekbone, blending in a bit with her russet brown skin. The cut on her lip was gone, as was the abrasion on her jawline, best Lana could tell, another yellowish bruise.

Her smile stymies when she remembers the scene she’d arrived on, Rush grinding her knee into the girl’s spine while the hand NOT twisting her shoulder went for the zipper of her costume.

Not now. She was was safe and she was here, wearing a new pair of silly pajamas-and Rush would never be a threat to her again. Thank Neptune for that.

“It is looking rather lively in here.” She says approvingly. “Room for one more?”

"No, I wouldn't," Elias says definitively. "I'd spend the next five minutes unhooking myself. I mean, like, shit Lana, when was the last time you had to use a toothpick?"

He gives the Atlantean a dour look, but whisks along back to the table and gestures to a seat opposite Sarah. He's on one end of the table, but the chair opposite him is left empty and unoccupied. Meanwhile, the sides are full of the chattering heroines, a veritable gaggle of women. It feels homey to him - Elias has never really gotten other men, connected with them on the level that he seems to here.

The mirror rattles a little, and Elias turns to adjust it to face the table. If anyone looked at it carefully, there's a fuzzy image in the reflection now that clearly wasn't there before, and isn't in the kitchen proper. It's slumped against the fridge, almost hiding between it and the table so that only the outline is visible past Jenna's elbows. There's an indistinct hoodie, and a vaguely masculine shape, short and stout. The hood is down, and with how it's sitting, it's hard to make out any other details even without the indistinct blurring.

"I call this dinner to order," Elias says, pompous and teasing all at once. "I'd also like to say grace. If you ain't cool with that, speak up or forever hold your peace."

Vivienne rolls her eyes from her portrait, up behind the last unoccupied chair. "I'm from Georgia. Just do it already, I can see Jenna drooling on the pie from here."

"That's one for the ayes," Elias says, squinting and letting his tongue curl at the corner of his mouth as he draws an invisible tally mark.

Jenna had to stifle a laugh because she -had- been eyeing that pie. The cheerful amusement was easily heard in her voice when she adds on to Elias' tolerant consideration. "Awesome, yeah-prayers if you got 'em, good vibes if you don't."

And she was already clasping her hands together to bow her head, as did Sarah-Ellie somewhat following suit, except she was peeking. She doesn't mind talk about God, she just... hadn't spent much time thinking on him, was all. Hadn't been raised in it.

No, she's much more interested in seeing who did bow their head and what they looked like. Sarah serene and peaceful looking, patiently listening to Elias speak. Lana politely waiting as grace was said, offering her close lipped smile when her eyes came to her. Jenna with her eyes tightly closed, bobbing a little as she swung one of her legs back and forth under her chair, apparently mentally talking to God right over top of Elias' prayer.

And then...someone was in the mirror just past her.

Ellie curiously glanced at the space by the fridge beyond Jenna and saw nothing, while the mirror clearly had some sort of somebody sitting over there, listening to grace being said, also.

She had seen Adamant adjust the mirror on purpose-did someone live in it? Miss Vivienne moved through paintings, why not someone moving through mirrors? Or... hm. How did that work, exactly?

Elias nods easily, folds his hands and closes his eyes. "Benedíc nos Dómine et haec Túa dóna quae de Túa largitáte súmus sumptúri. Per Chrístum Dóminum nóstrum.
Ámen."

He speaks the Latin like he was born to it, and then gestures around the table. "Go ahead and dig in, folks."

"Are you Catholic?" Vivienne asks, curious. She'd folded her hands and closed her eyes during the prayer, not looking particularly solemn, but respectful of the custom nonetheless.

"I admire the way they do things," Elias replies, and nudges the tuna salad over to Lana, with another spread of fruit slices on an appetizer plate off to the side. "Try this, see if you can deal with it. You should be good with high-fiber products, but this is sort of a test run before I try dishes with higher fruit content. Avocados are pretty innocuous as far as fruit go. No citrus or stuff like that."

The figure in the mirror straightens up enough to steal a fruit slice for itself in the reflected world. The real one fuzzes and fades, silent as mist dissipating.

Vivienne leans down to peer over Jenna's shoulder - there's still a good amount of distance between them, but she's trying to follow the blur of her hands as she eats and mostly failing. A playful smile darts about her mouth. "We could barely keep up with all the cooking before, but now that Elias has backup in the kitchen I suspect we'll all be eating leftovers for two days off of this. Tuck in, Jenna. I don't fancy reheating."

“My Lola was Catholic.” Jenna adds before becoming a finely vibrating instrument, the last word leaving her lips in a near single syllable.

“Hm...I tried orange juice once-did not enjoy it.” Lana says suspiciously but with good humor, serving herself up some of the indicated food stuffs. There’s tuna in there, but also some strong scented sauce or...something. Out of water her sense of smell wasn’t as strong-no water meant nothing moving over the sensory pads in the chamber past the fishlike nares that took the place of a mammal’s nostrils and nasal passage to the throat.

Air didn’t carry it as effectively.

She’s curious enough to try and Elias had clearly put thought into it. He was always looking how best to feed everyone, which was very thoughtful, as usual. She forks a healthy sized bite into her mouth and her tongue flips it back against and down her throat. She looks thoughtful, then sets to eating more of the stuff. “We’ll see how it goes. Thank you.”

Sarah fills a plate with a healthy portion of cheesy rice and half a chicken breast, then swaps it out for Ellie’s empty one before serving herself. “We were debating if you had molars to chew with.” Maybe Elias wasn’t going to ask, but she wants to satiate both their curiosity now.

Lana seems amused. “I swallow everything pretty much how it’s served. Atlanteans develop hard calcium stones in their stomachs. So the ‘chewing’ happens there, rather than in our mouths.” She flashed a sharp toothed smile, chomping her teeth together. “Just these beauties.” And she laughs.

Ellie is holding her own fork and knife but hasn’t touched any of it, taking in these going ons and watching Vivienne a bit longer than anyone-still fascinated by the living artwork-and then widening her eyes as a piece of the fruit disappears.

The man in the mirror had taken and eaten it! He did it in his reflection and it had vanished here! Ellie’s heart skitters faster. That was nothing short of amazing, but if he was able to move things from here to his mirror somehow-or was it just an inverse reflection? No, how do you eat reflections? He had picked it up on his side, and it had disappeared from theirs.

She thinks it’s a whole other dimension that she’s seeing, that he’s in. A dimension in mirrors? Or was he carrying the dimension around with him wherever he went? She drops her gaze back to her plate, too used to furtively looking at people and things, shy enough that to get caught staring would be the absolute end of the world-and not wanting to make the mirror man uncomfortable, either. He hadn't said anything. Maybe he's shy too.

She’ll have to ask Jenna who that is, or maybe Miss Sarah. She’ll have to...to maybe look for it, somewhere. An entirely different dimension in addition to this one and The Other? Her eyes widen on her untouched plate at the idea.

"Gastroliths, or intestinal stones. I imagine most acidic substances are unpleasant for you, actually, since your physiology is used to seawater diluting all kinds of acids or bases," Elias observes, now fully nerding out. "I don't advise you try soft drinks then. They'd be awful for you, not to mention the sugar is vastly more packed than anything you're used to."

"Are you taking notes?" Vivienne teases, smiling.

"Yes," Elias says, totally unconcerned. "I have an associate's degree in gastronomy, actually, so this is literally my chosen profession. Though it dips a bit into nutrition and metahuman physiology in general. I'm probably the only person studying why and how we do what we do, these days. God knows why that is."

Vivienne shrugs. "Powers get rarer the further you go from the States. It's not a common issue on other continents that I've seen. I've done art shows globally. People come to gawk at me as much as the paintings."

A faint murmur comes from the man in the mirror, and Elias leans back to listen for a moment before he straightens back out, grimacing. "Apparently, most metahumans don't survive that long even when they are born, elsewhere. Congenital problems, power malfunctions, the like."

Now that Ellie's paying attention to him, his features begin to resolve; his chin is sharp and his limbs long and delicate, thin and pale, a bony kind of person. He's almost swamped in the heavy hoodie that he wears. Every once in awhile he scoots a little closer to the mirror, almost basking in it, and the closer he gets the less fuzzy he seems.

“The smell of those is just awful. I had no intention to try one anytime soon.” Lana says with a shake of her head.

Jenna’s features re-materialize from her vibrating blur as the speedster slows back to normal speed. It was half to slow her mind back down so she could pay better attention, here-and half because she’s not going to eat all the dishes before people get seconds, that’d just be rude.

“I read some of Miss Laura’s research.” Jenna says before picking up and drinking nearly half of her water glass. “Especially once I was living in her base, had dropped uni. It was really interesting stuff.”

"Apparently, most metahumans don't survive that long even when they are born, elsewhere. Congenital problems, power malfunctions, the like."

Jenna sets her water glass back down, frowning a little. That was sad. Some of Laura’s files had talked about mutations, and it makes sense that while some might give these impossible abilities, others might not sustain life in the least.

It’s a sobering thought.

“A lot of abilities don’t seem to take hold until people are in their teens, also? Why is that?” Her metahuman ability seemed to be just...utilizing the Speed Force, and as best as she could figure it, the stress and instinctive, ice cold fear had triggered the ability to tap into it.

That had been the first time she had ever really been afraid though, now that she thought of it. Mortal fear. Hm…

“That was the case for Laura, but not for Sam.” Lana points out. “She had latent psychic abilities since childhood, didn’t even realize it wasn’t normal until she was eight. Magic ran in her family, though, so not sure how much was one or the other. I too have always had access to my power. I am obviously a different breed of sentient species, but as you say metahuman, I am meta-Atlantean. My people are just as strong and just as durable as I am-there are no strength differences between genders. But the royal family has always had capabilities beyond the scope of our subjects. It is a mutation passed down in our blood. Laurent and I are the only two alive with command over water. My father could even direct magma flow-but he was a greater rarity than even the royal family had seen in generations.”

“My sister and I were teenagers. After mom and dad died and we hit puberty-well, things got weird. More than in the usual sense.” There’s still an ache when Sarah thinks about Grace and there probably always would be-but thinking about her at all without flying apart, thinking about happy memories-it was a marked improvement. It...soothed her, somehow.

Though part of what Tweedledee says makes her wonder if powered infants might sometimes be triggering Catalysis. If they had abilities at birth and no awareness, no way to scale them back even if just on instinct…it’s a grim thought.

She doesn’t like to think about it.

“Twenty.” Jenna provides, another bite of pie off the end of her fork and past her bow of a mouth, cheerful again.

Ellie doesn’t add anything to that thread. She had been thirteen and scared herself half to death discovering her own abilities-she doesn’t like to talk about it. Not in full, not even to Miss Sarah or El Cid during that initial interview. She does watch Vivienne a beat, because the idea of being gawked at is her worst nightmare, and gawked sounded like…

Vivienne just...looked so magical sometimes, it was easy to want to watch her move around. But not gawk. You don’t gawk at people, that was rude, that was mean. She’s not a freak or...or whatever.

She peeks back at the man in the mirror, and now that he’s closer to the seeming edge he looked more clear. She picks up her untouched glass of milk and carefully sets it at the empty table setting nearest him. No one really notices-she’s good at not being noticed, just not as good as Peter was.

Elias shrugs, but his brow is furrowed, nose wrinkled. "I think it has something to do with having an established neurological system established. There's a wide variety of hormones and neurotransmitters your body simply doesn't have until the onset of puberty and adolescence; I'd hypothesize that in a well-developed power, the physical framework to use or channel the power, or the nerves that command it, simply aren't grown until that point, and its included in the growth spurts at that point."

He grimaces. "I think that the more, ah, physical infrastructure the power needs to actually function, the later it develops. Maestro, for example, has some form of telekinesis basically, and he was juggling things with his head at nine. If you manipulate some form of energy, it's universally teens to late teens."

"I was thirteen," Vivienne contributes, soft and simple.

Elias nods in recognition of that. "I don't know much about heredity of powers - remarkably few of us have children. At some point, Lana, if I could visit and take a look at your records, that'd be amazing. Your family has probably the only unbroken lineage of powers that I've ever heard of."

Tweedledee looks up at Ellie, in the mirror. There's a moment of eye contact before he glances away sharply again - his eyes are twinkling and glittering glass, like a broken snowglobe. He reaches up for the glass of milk, though, and takes a sip. The real one goes briefly fuzzy, but he sets it back down quick enough that it stabilizes. The milk, however, comes back noticeably lower.

Jenna offered Vivienne another softer smile. There’s a story there, it sounded like. And maybe not a happy one.

"That's more doable than you'd think, if you can get there. Laurent is more tolerant than Father ever was. He even offered safe harbor for you, when I told him I wanted to help." Lana says thoughtfully, considering. The teleporters could take them from one side of the world to the other in an instant-why not the ocean floor? There were already pressurized chambers, livable spaces. She had been set to take Marie, after all. The tomes Elias might find interest in were in one such chamber. Laurent would be a better guide to the archives than she would, and she's sure he'd be up for it, King or not.

"Yes, I think Laurent would be thrilled to host us. He's very curious about everything surface related, and he thinks well enough of you to send in an official capacity." Lana smiles. "There were very nearly -two- Atlantean teens on the surface. We were sure Father would start a war if -both- his heirs were gallivanting around on land, though."

Sarah dabs at her mouth with her napkin. So Lana's brother was King, now. As for children of heroes...Elias was right. There were very few metahuman parents. The lifestyle, perhaps. And....Rahab. She briefly wonders if any of the old retired guard might have started families since settling down. If they had, maybe they would start seeing those kids at the Tower in a few years.

The League had really been the Golden age of heroes... There hadn't been anything with so large a network or as many heroes party to it then or since.

"Gemini, Bungee and Tectonic." Jenna pipes up. "Heroes born of heroes."

"Tyler is one of the few." Sarah says with an incline of her head. "Before the League, both his mother -and- his grandfather were active heroes in Canada."

"Bedrock and Cornerstone." Jenna says as she snags a third slice of pie.

"Mmhm. And if Cornerstone hadn't taken ill, I think she would have joined North Guard." Sarah says, reflecting on the woman and the Canadian League branch.

"I met Bedrock, once." Lana said softly. She doesn't say where. She had been very, very careful with Sarah, and bringing up the islands or Rahab was simply off the table. The other woman was...well, kid gloves were appropriate, right now. "Tectonic was on the Junior League, wasn't he?" Even that was straying too close to trouble-most of the kids in the Junior League had defied orders and gone to join the fight-and died there.

The feelings of waste and bitterness crawl up her spine.

"Yes." Sarah continued. "There are a few of the kids who stuck with the mask, joined up as Wards in the Tower. Tectonic, Backdraft. Now that I think about it...Ashley Reynolds' grandmother-"

"Inferno." Jenna says at once. "A villain!"

Sarah looked at her in askance, and Jenna briefly looks a little embarrassed. "I uh...I used to make little books and stuff, as a kid. Hero history was..." She covered up with a cough and went back to poking her fork through blueberries.

"Tectonic, Bedrock, Cornerstone-all have an affinity with earth and stone. Backdraft and Inferno, fire. The royal Atlantean family, water." Lana muses. "A telekinesis limited to those elements, in a way."

"Tyler described it to me as always having been -aware- of earth and stone in some extrasensory way-and later that that awareness developed into control." Sarah finished.

Ellie had paid slightly more attention as talk turned to Ashley, but mostly- she took the opportunity to slip her entire untouched plate over to the empty setting, whether the man in the mirror would eat it or not. She felt as if she had already made friends just because he had accepted the glass of milk-it had made her happy. Maybe when things were quieter later, she would try to talk to him.

Elias considers that. "I'd like to have a second place willing to take us just in case something happens here," he says eventually. "The Coulee's built to take a siege, but it doesn't have much room. If he's willing to take a provisional group - just some students, call it a cultural exchange if we have to - I'd feel a lot better about that than leaving them in some flat in the city."

Disgust contorts his face as he remembers Marie's flat, the fucking nihilistic nightmare of human flesh Paul had created idly and left behind like a broken toy. Then he shakes his head and takes a breath, refocusing. That's too dark a subject for the dinner table.

"Isn't Inferno, like, a second cousin of Nergal?" he asks, catching the name. "I don't know precisely how distant the relation is, but there's something in there. She wasn't nearly as dangerous, though."

Elias blinks and looks over at Jenna. "How long ago was that fight at the docks? Thing that started it all, wasn't it. Feels like ages."

It feels like his life for so long was on fast-forward, just skipping through the days and weeks and years, and all of a sudden the tape had settled out, the tracking locked, and startling clarity had returned to his eyes. He reaches out and rubs a hand over the younger girl's hair with a smile. "You got a lot of good stuff rolling, hon. I'm proud of you."

In the mirror, the figure there glances up at Ellie, and straightens long enough to pull a notepad from the countertop by the mirror. It scratches on it briefly then tears off a sheet and places it in Ellie's empty seat in the mirror - where its counterpart slowly fades in, faintly crumpled against her leg.

It reads:

elias made me dinner earlier. thank you though.

He's not looking at anyone else now. Just watching Ellie with those sharp, wary eyes, like a bird.

“It would be a monumental first to receive guests, but xenia is still a very powerful, very prevalent aspect of Atlantean society. With leagues and leagues of ocean as well as an entire army in the way, nothing would be able to reach surfaceworld emissaries.”

Sarah folds her graceful hands beneath the table, struggling to remind herself that kids did grow up and would want to leave the nest eventually. Something Jenna had made her very aware of.

Still, so far a distance leaves a copper taste in her mouth and a dreading anxiety in her chest. She can’t keep them safe if they were at the bottom of the ocean. She glances to Ellie-and sees she’s got a note of some kind, brightening up with a nod and pocketing whatever it had been.

An army and leagues of water. Not even Paul could reach them there.

Elias brings up Nergal, and that's about when she has to step away. There were still pots to wash, and that'd keep her busy-she still felt physically ill anytime she thought about Jenna being in that warzone, even though she had been there with Elias. They'd come through. It was alright, they'd made it just fine.

“Fourish, fiveish months? My Dad’s been talking to me again for maybe two.” She didn’t take that for granted, anymore. Not after the months and months he’d cut her out. Jenna didn’t hold it against him, didn’t even quite remember the hurt anymore-just the relief after. That being Velocity, that doing what she was compelled to do might not cost her the esteem of her parents after all.

Especially her dad. Her mom was a near wreck no matter what was going on, but for him to be rattled-well.

He ruffles her hair and Jenna huffs a laugh, that faint feeling of embarrassment again. “By accident, maybe. This is...I mean.” She looks around at the gathered heroes, from Vivienne to Lana to Sarah and Ellie, Tweedledee-and then finally Elias again. “I’m just happy to be here with any of you, let alone all of you together.” And she means it. The girl had no poker face, none at all. She was earnest in everything she said and did.

“Velocity started out as a part time kind of...volunteer gig, you know? And I think, last few months-I think it finally feels...real. Ups and downs and all, it feels real. Feels right.”

Both Lana and Sarah were watching her, the former giving a laugh while the latter smiled faintly. Jenna had told her the mask had ruined her life the night she left the Tower.

“I would hope so!” Lana was saying, drawing her into a sideways hug. “You’ve only been doing it for what-nearly two years now? I think Marie said eighteen months? And starting off solo, ‘volunteer gig’ or not-even Laura learned the ropes with backup in Sam and I. The job was meant for you to inherit, kid. She’d be proud.”

A reddish undertone was rising beneath her bronze skinned cheeks, and Jenna wiggled out of the hug that was pinning her arms to her sides. “W-well, good, because I’m trying hard at it.” A bit of awkward laughter. “But you know what I can do besides eat? Dishes. Super, duper, fast dishes.” And she pushed her chair back to gather up what empty plates there were, leaving those still working at their dinner alone.

She feels warm in her chest, and this unique family life was...well, it was nice. She’s gained much more than she’s lost, and here was the proof.

And as usual and no matter what was going on, Jenna was happy.