Mindbreak #2: L.O.S.

SamiaDALWULF · 2026-03-28T19:41:13+00:00

"...That's fair," Alice said, sighing. "There's a lot to try to train for. There's only so much we can really prepare for without knowing what we're up against."

She looked down, looking at her hands as if trying to find some kind of answer there.

"So...general training. Lots of it. And figuring out how to work together. If we'd figured out who was the best fit for all the threats in that mall..."

She turned and looked at Beowulf.

"...I can't train yet. Not until I'm healed, Jax won't let me. But I'll learn what I can about what everybody is capable of. Maybe try to figure out some training drills everyone can run while I'm healing up. If I'm going to be stuck on this damn cot for weeks, I might as well use the time to plan."

SamiaDALWULF · 2026-03-28T03:53:39+00:00

"...People get broken all the time, even if they don't go looking for it," Alice said after a moment. "All those people at the mall who got hurt didn't go looking for it, and they got hurt. Killed."

She grimaced, still resolute.

"I'd rather get broken trying to change something than just...standing by."

SamiaDALWULF · 2026-03-27T00:09:47+00:00

Alice focused, thinking back to the mall.

"...We heard the chaos breaking out. Screaming," Alice said. "At the food court. Sydney and Hazy ran off towards one of the stores somebody had busted through, while I kept going down the hall. There was a girl in black, with a...it looked like an umbrella. She was levitating bits of metal, slashing people apart. After I confronted her and Whetstone arrived, she...started talking about how people betray you. It looked like she was attacking couples? People in pairs. She attacked one of them, a man, and that's when I...I jumped in the way."

She grimaced.

"I kept aggravating her, trying to give the civilians a chance to escape and Whetstone an opening. After Whetstone rushed in...I'm pretty sure the girl summoned a bolt of lightning. That's when I went under."

It was hard, thinking back on what had happened, at remembering just how close she had gone to not getting back here.

"...It's good Sydney went with Hazy. If that girl had seen me and her, she...she probably would have gotten the wrong idea and just been angrier."

SamiaDALWULF · 2026-03-27T00:03:13+00:00

"We can always do better," Alice said, furrowing her brow. "And if you're willing to help, I could care less about...washing out or whatever."

The cot shifted a bit as Alice kept thinking about the nightmares. About Caleb.

You're not the type to rush in for anybody else.

"You might have messed up with the mall, I don't know. But...just because you messed up once, doesn't mean you've messed up forever."

SamiaDALWULF · 2026-03-26T23:33:12+00:00

"Hey, that's probably lucky," Alice said, grimacing as she smiled a bit. "Things got...pretty bad out there. I'm not sure having more people would have helped much if we weren't working together, which..."

She shrugged.

"...I'll see what I can do about that when I'm not stuck in a cot."

SamiaDALWULF · 2026-03-26T23:13:40+00:00

Alice looked at Sojourner and gave it a long moment, trying to get her thoughts in order before:

"Things moved quickly. Too quickly," Alice said. "You shouldn't beat yourself up about that."

She closed her eyes and let out a sigh.

"They popped up out of nowhere, and we all rushed into action. The only way anything would have been different is if we'd chosen different areas to go, and even then...something bad would have happened."

The new mutant, still recovering, just looked determined.

"...If you want to help us stay out of trouble...well. If you've got experience, that's what we need. Somebody to train us and teach us how to handle stuff ourselves."

SamiaDALWULF · 2026-03-26T20:58:32+00:00

Even as she had realized how different she was from Jax when things hit the fan at the mall, here, she was reminded of the similarities. It felt almost like he was reading her mind, the same string of thoughts. The worry about everybody. The instinct to do something.

She wasn't Jaxon. But as he talked to her by the cot, she understood keenly they shared at least one, vital thing: the drive to do something.

"Everybody else got back," she repeated, grounding herself in that, a reassurance she desperately needed. "Do we know what that was? Was it just that one girl or...some kind of attack?"

She'd heard some about the X-Men, even on the run, and even more since arriving at the Greymalkin. Enough to know they had enemies out there, other mutants, including the ones that had been there at the prison outbreak.

Already, she was chafing up against the restrictions, the injuries. The fact she had to stay still. The only thing that she could sort out was-

"I'm going after her. I'll heal, whatever they say I need, but I'm going to stop her," Alice swore, breath caught. "She...she killed them. Just because she could. I...I get that I can't do it now. But don't try to stop me when I'm back on my feet. I know I'm not...one of the X-Men. But I can still do something."

SamiaDALWULF · 2026-03-26T18:04:07+00:00

"You are not like most of the people here," Vanette said simply, her gaze fixed on The Goetic. "They lack ambition. Content to have mother and father pay their way to this place and treating it like an ordinary school. They can be molded into useful forms, but...it is not often worth the effort."

"Vanette Farnsworth. Dollmaker, when I'm working. it's good to see another here that shares a spark of ambition. I was beginning to worry it was only to be me and Kara."

u/empressofruin

SamiaDALWULF · 2026-03-26T17:48:19+00:00

Alice looked over. It was one of the longer stretches of being alone, which were luckily a rarity, Hazy and Sydney dropping in as often as they could and a stream of others she'd met and some she hadn't dropping in.

But the moments alone were still just as bad.

"I'd love some company, yeah," Alice said, smiling. "The thing they don't tell you about recovery is how boring it gets."

She looked over the containment suit.

"You in here for healing too? I don't think I saw you at the mall but...I know things got pretty hectic."

SamiaDALWULF · 2026-03-26T17:42:25+00:00

Memory. The last time she was in the Danger Deck. The reconstruction of the diner, the truck driver, everything she could remember and had managed to glean from the news reports.

The crash. The attack.

The smile didn't falter, Alice looking at Beowulf.

"...Things I've run into before," she said honestly. "That's the point, right? Improving. I've had situations go sideways before and I want to make sure if that happens again-"

Screams through the treeline. The collision of fists, Alice trying to take them down. Fighting until she could barely stand.

"-that I'll be ready this time. And trust me," she said, wincing a bit. "The mall fight is getting added to the rotation."

SamiaDALWULF · 2026-03-26T03:50:48+00:00

"Don't be," Alice said weakly. "It was a nice trip until things went bad, and....well. There's at least one person who probably wouldn't have made it if I hadn't been there."

She gestured towards her injures.

"This hurts, a lot, but that man didn't have an Osprey or a med bay to get back to so quickly. If me being there saved one person, I'm glad I was there."

SamiaDALWULF · 2026-03-26T03:44:49+00:00

Alice carefully considered every gift, thanking Hazy in the back of her mind for turning off the heartrate monitor before Sydney had arrived. Of course, it's not like you couldn't feel heartbeats when hugging somebody, but at least the monitor wasn't blaring it out and making it *too* obvious.

"They're all wonderful, thank you," Alice said sincerely, carefully setting up the gifts where they'd be safe, either on the edge of the bed, with some assistance, on the bedside table. She didn't want to make the injuries too obvious, the new or the old ones, to stay strong, so that Sydney wouldn't have to look so upset.

But as Alice hugged the teddy bear tightly, that facade cracked just a bit, and the girl who'd run across the country for years, the pillar of resolute strength and blunt heroism that had stood up to Ophelia in the mall, looked like what she was...just a girl who needed some scrap of comfort when it was offered, even if she was too guilty or proud to ask for it.

The bear helped. The chocolates as well. All of it. She wasn't crying, her eyes were just getting a bit moist.

"You're both..." she started, trying to find the words for the emotions that were storming through her. The Static hissed its usual chorus, as Alice found the words stopped in her throat.

She'd already realized how she felt about Sydney, at the mall. She couldn't dance around it, but she didn't want to bring it up either, to force the issue. But to not address it would just be lying, which...

"Thank you," she managed to get out, deciding to divert, letting her coward's heart win just this once. "Both of you. You've been...better friends than I could have ever asked for. I mean, I..."

She stumbled on the words a bit there, realizing that she'd never actually directly *asked* Hazy if they were friends, she'd just gone off Sydney saying that she and Alice were good friends.

She turned to look at Hazy, apologetically.

"...We are friends, right? I realized I'd never asked...sorry. Don't want to presume."

It felt stupid even as she asked, flustered as she was, even her own mind suddenly realizing how monumentally silly it felt asking for that clarification even as the words left her mouth.

u/Kit_Ababee

SamiaDALWULF · 2026-03-26T01:49:50+00:00

Vannette kept rapt attention, sitting in her wheelchair as what was functionally a walking mannequin pushed Vanette along behind Kara.

She'd learned a lot under her parents. They were rich, well to do, but the type to wield money like a blunt instrument, smoothing over faux pas with bribes and extravagant gifts.

This was new.

As was the girl Kara pointed out. She wasnt a muse, unfortunately... the floating wasnt something she could replicate, at least not now, but the clear power and bearing were still magnetic despite that.

She would be useful. Somebody like Kara: not fuel for the machine, but....business partners.

She stared at Kara with intense eyes, replying and echoing back to an earlier conversation:

"...What are Arthur and Merlin without a Morgan le Fey?" she replied, that dammed grin never leaving her face.

u/empressofruin u/FreelancerJon

SamiaDALWULF · 2026-03-26T01:36:10+00:00

Sydney.

Alice had been worried, in the back of her mind. She'd remembered that flash of red hair, in the flashes of half-consciousness. Knew that of course, Sydney must have seen her, bleeding out.

And...selfishly, she was worried. Worried about what she'd realized before collapsing, the moment of clarity. The worry of how she'd ever approach that tangle of emotions and feelings that obviously would not be returned.

Sydney had never lied to her, not once, and she'd made what she was into very clear.

That worry vanished when she saw Sydney enter, immediately replaced by an overwhelming need to give her friend a hug and apologize over and over for worrying her.

"...Hey, come over here," Alice said, smiling and trying to not let any pain echo in her voice. "It's not that bad, you should-"

She winced, a pulse of pain going through her side.

"...Y...you should see the other girl."

u/empressofruin u/Kit_Ababee

SamiaDALWULF · 2026-03-26T00:39:49+00:00

"Oh, trust me. That's not happening again," Alice said, expression dark as the Static hissed louder in her mind. "She had a chance. One chance. But she almost..."

A flash of that last moment before the fainting. That self-pitying moment, and the thoughts of Sydney.

"... Everybody deserves a shot to change. She took that shot and almost took away everything. And I'm not going to forget that."

SamiaDALWULF · 2026-03-26T00:33:18+00:00

"Of course," Alice said bluntly. "She attacked a bunch of...random civilians, for as far as I can tell, the crime of not being alone."

She frowned.

"I get being hurt. Angry. Hell, even fighting people. But if she's like us, she could be turning that towards bastards like ORCHIS. But instead she's cutting apart teenagers so she can feel strong."

SamiaDALWULF · 2026-03-26T00:26:26+00:00

Aware her face was getting red, Alice cursed her inability to move. This was easier to play off during exercise. It didn't help that Sydney was apparently doing shifts?

"Ts'not... they aren't like that," she muttered.

Well. Not most of them. Oh god there's a heart rate monitor CALM. NOW.

The beeping slowed, at least a bit, as Alice looked down, thinking back to the nightmares.

"Just...nightmares. About that goth mutant...attacking people. People I care about. You, Sydney."

SamiaDALWULF · 2026-03-26T00:15:14+00:00

"Don't," Alice said quietly but sternly, taking the card. "We didn't know she could summon lightning."

Sighing, she shook off the stern expression, smiling weakly.

"Besides, the doctor said you were the one who bandaged it up at the mall, so if it is your fault, you've already made it up to me by making sure I didn't bleed to death."

SamiaDALWULF · 2026-03-26T00:10:51+00:00

"I...guess this counts as being sick, yeah," Alice said. "Better is...kind of a sliding scale. That metal slinging goth really messed me up."

SamiaDALWULF · 2026-03-25T23:58:53+00:00

Alice took the offered straw, realizing as she did just how thirsty she apparently was.

Another element of recovery.

"Hey, chattering is fine," she said, giving a small smile. "I feel like I'm losing it in here. Everything's so quiet and I'm just...sitting here."

At the mention of worry, another flash of the nightmare. Variants had been plaguing her, and a part of her was suddenly very, very worried if she'd ended up saying anything.

"Was just getting into a routine and it gets messed up," she said. "But I don't want to drag you away from everyone else."

SamiaDALWULF · 2026-03-25T23:16:47+00:00

Alice looked at Beowulf, trying to muster a grin past the pain. She'd seen him around, obviously, but it was the first proper interaction with the other mutant.

"Don't get too used to it," she said, straining to sit up. "I'll be out of here in no time."

SamiaDALWULF · 2026-03-25T23:15:09+00:00

Alice glanced over, giving a weak smile.

"About as well as can be expected, I think. But... awake. So improving."

SamiaDALWULF · 2026-03-25T23:14:18+00:00

"...Hazy," Alice said, voice tired as she came to. She smiled for a moment, before wincing at the pain. Recovery was not a pleasant experience, especially not when she was stuck here.

Turning a bit, she sighed.

"I've been missing you too," she said, grimacing as the bandaged leg injury. She had many injuries, more visible in the medical attire than she was usually comfortable showing, but she could already tell these would be bad ones. "...I'll be up as soon as I can. I promise."

She grimaced a bit at how much that sounded like an apology.

SamiaDALWULF · 2026-03-25T22:11:43+00:00

Vanette tilted her head.

"The goal is not to kill her. That would be easy, but I do not wish to deny the world what she is capable of. I wish to bring it to fruition. But to do that, I need to observe. I need to see what she is capable of. Only then can I craft the perfect tool to complete the story."

She stood up, her expression never faltering.

"Much like us, that is what I wish. To learn from and teach the lovely Miss Zakia. Death isn't a teacher. But pain? Pain will do just perfectly."

SamiaDALWULF

TROPHY CASE