In the Dark (OPEN)

[Lani Hunter]

Graduation was racing toward him and he had one day now to prove that he could earn that right. He had to control his power. They all knew he'd have to come back after graduation, but first he had to prove that he could leave and not be a danger to himself and others. He claimed a training room for himself by the pure claim of first come first serve. He didn't care to check to see if it was claimed. Besides it wasn't like many people would bother him once he started. It wasn't uncommon for these rooms to be overbooked and he had been here first. It could have been a clerical mistake. His last examination was tomorrow and he was worried. Worried because he still wasn't able to control his power when he let it all out. This was Lani's favorite and most hated room. It was full of things. Anything from wooden toys to rubber balls and twisted fabric, metal rods to complex arrays of twisted metal puzzles. Lani liked it because they weren't too heavy usually and easy to play around with, but the pure fact that there was so much to get distracted by.

Having had a strange occurrence the last time he let his power fully out Lani wanted to try something. His trainer told him that meditation was the key. But Lani wanted to be able to be in motion when he was working. He refused to be a stationary telekinetic. To avoid convincing himself that this was a bad idea Lani closed his eyes and let out his power. It rushed out like a breeze and settled calmly around the area. Through it he could see everything. He cold never dream of moving everything. If that happened then Lani had lost all control and Hammel had a big problem on their hands. The most Lani had ever gotten was around six individual things, and even then they had been very small and he had lost control eventually. He wanted to see how much he could do without having to worry about someone else. One, two, three. He would start with three things.

Without opening his eyes Lani sent the objects spinning altering their path to make his mind active. He had to keep reminding himself to center his mind to avoid being swallowed by his emotions. Lani forced himself to move, using his dormant power to navigate over obstacles and around them. More than once he tripped and had to open his eyes to get his barrings again. One last time Lani moved and fell backward over a ball that got underfoot and landed on his rump. His eyes flashed open and for a moment her perceived himself falling and didn't see the change in view as it should have been. With a cry of frustration Lani launched whatever his power could get a hold of and smashed it against the wall. Only then did he pull his power back and look around him at the disarray he had created. He was a thief for heaven's sake he should not be so unsteady on his feet.

On his feet again Lani knew exactly why this wasn't working. He was still losing himself in his power. Lani closed his eyes and opened then again letting his power out again. It lifted him from the ground and he righted himself onto his feet again. Then he and his power fought. It started flinging things at him and he ducked and dodged using one thing at a time and using his power to dance around object. When his foot almost landed on a ball again he let it and in a controlled fall swiped the ball up with his power as he rolled to his feet again and slammed it against the window. Which it went right through. With the sound of shattered glass Lani flinched and his power faltered and slammed back into him leaving him the only one to blame here. He stood in shock for a moment before slipping back toward the door. Maybe no one heard. He opened it warily intent on escaping.

[Yulia Sokolov]

Graduation had tended to be a time of minor chaos in the past and this was no exception to that rule. These were teenagers after all, and cramming was to be expected at this point. What was the word that they all used to describe it? Oh right, senioritis. Lia tried to think back to her own graduation from a very different institute. Had she crammed for that? No, she couldn’t remember doing so. But then again life had been very different there, expectations and focuses had been different. Plus, there had been no promise of the outside world for her, in fact the future had the exact opposite written all over it. At least for a while it had, that was all mercifully over now. Those memories seemed more like dreams, as they held a reality of herself that she no longer had to face in the same way.

Still, such an education had a handful of benefits. Mostly this was simply the control that she had been able to gather after all of those years. In the last decade of her life there had not been a slip up or a failure in what she could do, in what she could reach. Perhaps that was so easy to say simply because in the last two and a half years her ability had needed to rear its head but once but that once had been enough. It was something that should, god willing, never have to ever happen again. It was strange to think of it that way, but if she never found occasion to use it again she could die happy as that meant life had been plenty peaceful. It made her job here interesting to say the least, but she didn’t need to demonstrate in order to teach control. No, she was better than all that.

At the moment she was returning to one of the training rooms after a little time working through some more paperwork in the staff lounge. It wasn’t where she normally did her work, but she was caught up and working on getting ahead. Due to that she felt no need to isolate herself, given that she’d rather strike up a conversation if she could rather than run out of work to do. Her caseload at the moment consisted of more of the younger children, and so she didn’t feel the crunch of finals in the same way. They had all made progress, and she was pleased with that. Much of that was just teaching the startled young ones to accept who they were and what they could do. Once they got used to that fact everything else was much simpler. The fear had to go first.

Then from the hallway she heard a crash. She stopped in her tracks and turned, looking at the doors in the hallway. It was simple enough to figure out where the noise had come from, as it continued for a few moments. She had just about reached the door when the series of noises culminated in the sound of breaking glass. She twisted the handle and opened the door with a yank. “Are you alright?” she asked the young man who was nearly at the door. She looked past him into the room to see the mess beyond and the broken window. One of her hands still held the knob to the door and the other was now pressed against the door frame, leaving no route for escape. The room was a disaster, but he seemed to be alright.

“It’s alright, it’s ok. I’ll call maintenance to have them come and fix this.” She dropped the hand from the door frame and motioned towards the window. “But I figure that is not what needs some fixing most at the moment.” She stepped inside the room then, righting two chairs that had been overturned. “Come, sit down. Let’s talk about what happened here.”

[Lani Hunter]

It appeared Lani’s luck had run dry today. The moment he saw the doorknob turn he flashed his eyes back to the window contemplating how fast he would be able to get there with his momentum already carrying him forward. The door disappeared from under his hand and his calculating gray eyes worked through seeing how he could slip past but she had successfully filled the door way. Brilliant. Lani came to an abrupt stop at the sudden intrusion, glad that he was in far too much pain to find a weapon after being startled. Bold, he noted, after hearing a crash, there was no way of knowing that whoever was inside wasn’t still having an episode. Lani honestly hadn’t been as far gone as he had been in the past. Back pedaling a few steps to give himself space to move, just in case.

“Y-yeah,” Lani said uncertainly glancing around the room. He hadn’t ever seen her around, but perhaps that was because he always skipped training. Oh well, sometimes things came back to bite him. He ducked his head and scratched at the back of his head his feet shuffling a little as if feeling the ground for how it was shifting. He looked back up at her and steeled his face and attitude in preparation for a lecture. He knew that was what his trainer would do. Hopefully this wouldn’t affect his escape from Hammel plan of Graduation. In his defense that was the most controlled he’d ever been and no one had gotten hurt. And he’d never do something so dangerous with people around. He bit his tongue against that, if she was anything like his trainer she wouldn’t care. He needed to control it period.

Lani raised a brow standing still and letting his head follow her as she moved into the room, apparently unconcerned. Lani let out a little laugh and shrugged innocently. His surprise was being brushed aside and cockiness was taking its place. “Thanks, I mean, I didn’t mean… sorry.” He felt the need to get that out there just in case she decided he wasn’t remorseful enough. And he wasn’t. In all honesty it wasn’t the first time he’d broken one of Hammel’s windows and so long as he kept coming back to train chances were it wouldn’t be his last. Lani was wondering if he could slip out but she was still talking. Lani sighed inwardly and gave a guilty look. Fixing. Great. This was going to be a fun conversation. Lani resisted the urge to roll his eyes and took a glance at the door. It would be so easy to slip out. But then again they’d lecture him one way or another. And he had to be here tomorrow for his test anyways, he had no choice in that. Damn.

Lani hovered near the door and shrugged sticking his hands into his pockets. “What’s to talk about?” He asked and raised his eyes as he looked around at the destruction. It seemed pretty obvious to him what happened. Lani and his power didn’t get along very well and thus things generally ended in destruction. This wasn’t an anomalous occasion. Lani sighed and looked as relaxed as if he were coming in from a stroll, not a power surge. Lani took a moment to dig out his pills and he turned just a little away as he dumped a handful into his mouth. It wasn’t something he thought was a problem but he hadn’t missed the looks he got from his parents or from Odion when he took the medicine. What was he supposed to do? Walk around with a headache all day?

[Yulia Sokolov]

One thing that Lia was fairly certain she would never get used to were teenagers. That seemed like a bad thing, given what she did for a job, but she didn’t think so. Understanding groups meant generalizing them, and she knew better than to do that. Especially a group as odd, unreliable, and fragile as the Hammel students. It would be poor form on her part to assign general characteristic s to a group like that, especially when it was crucial that individual attention be paid to each of them. Lia had gotten the hang of that concept pretty quickly, but the practice was harder. Sometimes it made her question herself, but she’d gotten better at relating to the students, and understanding them on the level that they needed. It was all a part of a gigantic learning process… But something seemed different now.

The look on the boy’s face had changed quickly enough for her to pick up on it. Also noted was the fact that he seemed to not be alarmed in the least about what had happened to the room. Perhaps it was that aspect that alarmed Lia the most. The worst conclusion to draw from that was that he simply did not care about the room and what his abilities had done. That was quickly ruled out though, because he was in one of the training rooms after all. No one went in there for fun, they went in there because they needed to get control. That was the big word in this wing of Hammel, but it was far easier said, as most things were.

Lia took a seat in one of the chairs. “What is there to talk about?” She repeated his question in an almost musing way. “I suppose that the best place to start would be your name, and what you can do?” Then she observed the moment of pill popping and added to the statement. “And how we can save your liver.”

Lia reached down and picked up one of the balls that had ended up on the floor. She looked it over and then looked back at him. “It looks like you hit your limits there. Handy as the ability to cause chaos is it does get old pretty quickly, especially when it is out of your hands. What exactly were you trying to do?” There was power here, big power if he could do that to the window. Maybe it was that fact that sparked both her interest and her concern. He was the kind of meta that Odarennyĭ would have snatched up in a heartbeat and kept as long as they could. There was no doubt in her mind about that, and plus, who would know better than her. She’d had a nasty limp for the better part of a year to prove it. However, if that was what served to drive her now then she would take it without so much as a second thought on the matter.

[Lani Hunter]

Less than understanding and more of listening was the thing Lani found that was lacking around this place. He had had enough people tell him that they understood his position. They understood what it was like to be a teenager and to have a power thrust into their hands. Lani found that all very well and fine, but in the long run that was the shell of the bigger problem. None of them listened when something was proving to be too hard, no one listened. Many people went about powers the way of formulas. Admittedly Lani tried to do that, but he was learning more and more that this wasn’t some algorithm, not a code or mechanical machine that worked the same every time. Mostly because of Odion he was seeing it as himself and he wasn’t sure he liked what he saw from his power. Lani just wanted to get this lecture over with.

Not picking up on her alarm, Lani just did what he did best. He put up a mask of indifference. A bored and almost patient expression while internally he was panicking about the possibility of being pulled back yet another year. A super senior was one thing but a super super senior, that was just ridiculous. And Lani wouldn’t stay. He was leaving this year one way or another. But Lani was also curious, if it was one thing he had learned, everyone at Hammel had a story. He was interested in what her’s could be. A name and a face and he would be snooping in the files. It took Lani a few more moments to decide that she was probably a trainer. Not one he had ever had, but she had a confidence about her and a sureness that spelled someone who was used to dealing with out of control meta children. Lani swept back a smirk, too bad he wasn’t a child and had not been a child when he had come into his power.

He shifted his chin raising a little, in a cocky way to show his disregard for authority. Lani chewed his lip and sighed. “It’s Lani, and telekinesis…” He paused and snapped, “And my liver is fine.” He glared at her, if she really wanted to talk to him about his pills, he’d take a metal rod and rap it against her head and tell her not to use pain killers afterwards. He ignored the extra chair and propped himself up on the wall his arms crossing over his chest. “Who are you?” Lani demanded with equal level suspicion and curiosity. He wondered what her power was. If she was a trainer she might be able to help, but then again asking for help would mean admitting that there was a problem. Well, there was a problem, that wasn’t anything secretive, not if the room was to prove evidence.

Lani narrowed his eyes at her and didn’t say anything immediately in response. He snorted a little as if her statement had been meant as a joke. He smiled a little bit, it was so much easier to make jokes than to face the problem that was actually there. Lani shrugged again and looked around the room. One the one hand he could tell her honestly, he was trying to not get lost in his power, or he could lie and tell her he just lost control. Honesty was something he was still learning about. At the moment it didn’t seem like the safest bet. “I was trying to see how many things I could grab and I lost control.” He said, there not a lie, just not a full truth. Partial truths were still truths. “Look, I’m sorry about the window, but that’s all there is to it.” The point was that no one got hurt. But Lani would never let lose like he had out in the real world. For Lani control came from suppressing his power.

[Yulia Sokolov]

Lia wanted to ask him what had happened exactly, but that would only do her so much good. It was abundantly clear that he didn’t want to talk about what was going on, and that he did not want to talk to her. She knew how it went, that whole playing it cool bit. She had encountered it in a few of them before, so she knew that drill. It was a way not to show their cards for them, but it did little good. That was because there were a few things that teenagers, especially nowadays tended to struggle with. One of those things was keeping anything to themselves. So, in a situation like this it was clear that he was trying to sweep something away. It was Lia’s job in part to find out what that something was. She could do that, but it required her to put another bit of her knowledge into play.

Something else that she did gather about the teenagers here was that they had been just about talked to death. She understood why, what with motivational posters being such easy decorations the sayings tended to stick. It was like their own drill word, it was like control. But what could they do? It was important, but how to impress that on some of the students seemed like an entirely impossible task. They came back and tried every day anyways. She was half in one of those moments now. She knew that if he was here, if he had done what she was guessing, then he knew the importance of control. It was just a matter of finding the path now, and the determination to get through it all. She’d been there before and she could go there again.

“My name is Yulia Sokolov and I am one of the trainers here. I don’t believe that I have met you before though. Who is your trainer so that way I know whose territory I am encroaching on.” It was only fair that she had some idea whose techniques he had been training with. Then came the explanation that was more or less to be expected with a telekinetic. Telekinesis was difficult as that ability had the two fold issue of control. There was the matter of both precision and of quantity, but both of those things tended to be issues with mental-based abilities. She leaned back a little in her chair and contemplated what to tell him for a moment.

“So, I am assuming the pills are for headaches? Yes? I used to get headaches too as part of my blowback. About how long are yours lasting?” She remembered those days back before she figured out how to hold herself back in a way that didn’t hurt. It had been a terrifying and a painful ordeal. In all fairness though, sometimes there was no way out except for right through the fire. “So Lani, I am going to ask you to do something now that might be difficult. I am going to sit here, and I want you to try what you just tried to do again. Try to grab what you can.”

[Lani Hunter]

Lani had never paused to think ,much about how he would look back at his teenage years, nor of how he would eventually view teenagers. Right now he considered himself an adult, fully capable of making his own decisions. He’d been making them his whole life and his control had been taken away from him when his power decided to manifest. Lani wasn’t thinking about how he was making life hard for his trainer, he was too busy thinking about how his trainer was making his own life hard. It was the same lecture every time. Control, he needed control. Control, control, control. He lacked control. He knew that, he was working on that. But that didn’t seem to matter. He didn’t know why he couldn’t control it. It was something that just kept slipping through his fingers.

Lani nodded filing her name away for future reference. He had assumed right, a trainer. That confirmed a lot of his suspicions. Not everyone would hear a crash and go in and first off not scream at the culprit, especially if that person was security and knew Lani all too well. But someone who might want to help, because it was their job. But then wasn’t it’s Lani’s end goal to become a trainer? He chewed his lip, he was never going to be a trainer if he couldn’t control his own power. The only thing he was very sure of was that he wanted to help people in the only way he knew how. And it wasn’t like he could go around and teach people how to steal. But he had helped people with their power before, if only he could do the same with his power. It had taken his life from him and put it in a whole new direction. For a long time he hadn’t wanted to train it, then about a year ago it set in that he needed too. However, due to the lateness of his power he hadn’t the time to put it off as he had.

A smirk appeared on Lani’s face and he gave her a grin. He wondered if she would find this as humorous as he did. “I don’t think anyone’s going to care honestly.” But nonetheless he freed his hands and started counting off on his fingers. “First there was…” Lani listed five names, finishing lastly with his current trainer. “Now I have this older guy, about ‘yay’ tall,” he held his hand about at the level of his nose, “I don’t remember his name.” Lani shrugged, admittedly half of that was his fault. He never showed up for their training sessions and when he did he usually tuned the old man out as he droned on and on about things Lani already knew. Lani was proud to consider himself to not need anyone’s help, he’d figured out much of what he knew on his own, but he couldn’t help but feel as if there was something fundamental he was missing. He had discovered that if he focused and centered himself he could hold control better, but he’d done that on his own too.

After a minor pause Lani nodded his head. She got them too? He bit his lip, but cut off any false hope about someone understanding what it was like. “Constantly,” Lani answered a little bit of helplessness coming through his voice. “What did you call it? Blowback? For one of those, it’s lasted days before.” Granted that time Odion had decided it would be a good idea to swat him in the head with a pistol when he was using as much of his power as he could. It was interesting how she called it blowback and he had always referred to it was backlash. They were the same thing essentially. Yulia then said something else and Lani shut down completely. “No.” He replied firmly. Did everyone here have a death wish? Lani was so frustrated with the whole thing. Why did people insist on being around when he tried his power? “You don’t know what you’re asking.” He added bitingly. Did she want to follow that ball out the window?

[Yulia Sokolov]

Lia continued to sit there, and maintain her interest. Was his attitude irritating? Mildly, but it was nothing all too serious. She had seen worse, and her mind drifted back for a moment to the last telekinetic she had worked with. The girl had been a piece of work, but she was not surprised. Right now her concern was mainly that she did not want to tread into territory that she was not welcome in, and that depended on the trainer. When he listed off names she nodded. She had known a few of them, and their instruction did tend to be solid. The last ne though she was unable to identify without a name. There were a few men who she thought could fit that description. That might not be fair, but the lot of them did tend to seem very enthusiastic to Lia. Maybe it was just a cultural difference? She figured it had to be at the least.

She was not sure how much into her own side effects she wanted to delve. She understood that this could be a way to get some understanding, but at the same time it could lead to the question she dreaded. When it came to what she could do she kept her mouth shut. It was the question that she simply could not answer for her own sake or for anyone else’s. That simple truth came from the fact that her ability was useless save to cause pain and agony. She didn’t want anyone to associate with who she was as a person, because after all, didn’t she deserve a life without that ability wrapped around her like caution tape? Her greatest fear here had become her potential to cause fear. Or maybe that wasn’t quite the right way to put it…

Lia snapped back to focus and tried to think back to her days in school. “Yes, almost constantly. They can last for a while. It isn’t a terribly uncommon side effect. Abilities with a… psychic base take a toll on that base. What concerns me mostly, from what I just saw, is that you are taking a lot of medication to ease that pain. How well does that work? And do you still have an issue with headaches when your actions are more suppression based or only when active?” Those were the kinds of questions that would help her determine just where the issue was. It was unlikely that it was simply one thing though, people weren’t gears and one click rarely solved a problem. No, it would take more thought and effort to work out issues of control, but it could be done.

Lia was mildly surprised at how quickly he refused that request. She felt another pang though as he spoke. Her expression changed into something pointedly and honestly sympathetic. “I know how you feel,” she told him quietly. “I know what you are afraid of and I’ve felt it too. But, I do know what I am asking. I was in the military for years, I’ve been shot, I nearly had my leg blown off, and I’ve been in two comas. But, I hear you. You know what you can and cannot do around others. As trainers we are here to support you when you take those bigger risks, but we understand you cannot take those with someone you do not trust. That’s why I do find myself a little concerned over the number of trainers you have gone through.” Lia dropped the ball that she had been holding in her hand, and then turned her palm back up. “Can you put the ball back in my hand?”

[Lani Hunter]

Most trainers found him irritating. Granted, Lani never tried to be cordial to them. Up until he decided he should probably figure out this power he had been less than pleasant. He didn’t blame them. Lani just found it endlessly amusing that they had passed him around like an unwanted disease. He just hated authority, he had wanted to figure out this power his own way not theirs. However, now Lani was finding himself out of luck. Chances were if he failed with this guy that was it. And despite popular belief he was trying. Perhaps not as hard as he could be but he was doing a lot of training on his own. He was sure his trainer now was getting just as frustrated as he was. Patience between them was inversely proportional to the amount of time they spent together. Lani strongly doubted anyone would give her a talking to for helping.

Delving into pain was something Lani hated doing. It wasn’t as if he wanted to be taking all of these pills. But they weren’t the problem, it was the headaches. The never ending headaches. Lani ducked his head in understanding. If he had a penny for every time he heard that. He knew headaches were common, but that didn’t make then any easier to deal with. Lani opened his mouth to ask her what her power was and if the headaches ever got easier to deal with but snapped it shut when she delved into the medicine. A frown crossed his face and he flapped a hand dismissively. “It’s not a problem. The headaches are the problem.” Lani said steering the conversation again, “Do they ever go away?” A small tendril of hope threaded in with his voice. But he was ignoring the main question. Mostly because he wasn’t really sure.

Lani hummed lightly and his eyes averted from her to the sunlight streaming in the now broken window. “A little of both. I mean there’s always a little pain but it’s bearable. It mostly happens when it’s active, worse when it backlashes, or blowbacks.” Lani cocked his head at her. “What’s your power?” He asked now curious about how she knew it. Lani knew the things that caused pain the most. Mostly it happened when he was holding back the vastness of his power and trying to do something like a little. It was the same sort of strain one would get from lifting a weight with a finger versus lifting it with a hand. It was overextending the small part too often. He had all the power he needed, he just hated to use it. It was too unruly. Too much like him.

Before Lani could think and stop it from coming out he snorted in impolite disbelief. Lani soon snapped his jaw shut on the further impolite comment threatening to come as she continued. As much as he tried to remain cool Lani’s eyes widened as she listed things off. She certainly hadn’t had it easy and Lani was blow away with how calmly she spoke. But that didn’t mean he wanted to send her back into a coma. Hell he had almost killed his own boyfriend, who knew what would happen if he panicked and his power recognized her as the enemy and didn’t correct itself until it was too late. Lani had accidentally broken someone’s arm just a few weeks ago. No this was not a good situation. “I’m sorry to hear that,” Lani said genuinely. Lani resisted smiling, well now, if only she would tell Odion that they would be best friends. Again Lani ducked his head and scratched at the back of his head. “Eh, I had… disagreements with them.” Disagreements, that was what he was going to call them. With barely a quirk of his brow the ball hopped back into Yulia’s hand. His skull thrummed but the amount of medication made it barely a dull ache. He crossed his arms again. No problem.

[Yulia Sokolov]

The gears of Yulia’s brain were suddenly thrust into motion. At least before it had not been major, but now she was starting to work through now that she had seen a small display of what he could do. She wanted to puzzle out what exactly was triggering the headaches, whether it was a weakness in strength, precision, or something else. Training was not a pleasant thing, but then again, training for anything was rarely pleasant. It was hard work, and at the end of the day it would hurt, but at the same time you got stronger every day. It was easy to think about and hard to achieve, but Lia knew how to get there. Of course, on her own way she had been put through hell, but she was convinced now that the greater hell would be a lack of control. The fear of hurting those around her would have overwhelmed everything in her mind, and she wondered if he felt a twinge of that.

“They do go away, it isn’t easy, but they do.” Her headaches were gone except after times of great use, which meant that they’d been gone for a while now. She’d even gotten to the point where moderate use just made her head throb, but there was no pain anymore. “There will always be some backlash, but it shouldn’t hurt like that. Especially not by now, you’re a senior aren’t you?” She recognized his face, he had to be by now. This concerned her as well, but he said something that took her attention away from that completely. He’d asked her the question that she hated the most. She would not have been surprised if she visibly paled at the question, but immediately she shook her head.

“I do not like to speak about what I can do. I know that is perhaps the worst thing I can say as a meta and as a trainer, but I do have my reasoning.” After all, people didn’t tend to react well to psionic blast, or the layman’s term of ‘I melt brains’. It tended to be even more destructive to any sort of trust than a refusal to share the information in the first place. Neither was ideal, but it was her lot in life.

Lia took another moment to think, looking at the ball that had been put back into her hand. Her brow furrowed a little, and then relaxed. She turned her hand over and then dropped the ball again. “I’d like for you to try that again, but I want you to try something different. You are just using a little piece of what you can do, yes? Don’t. I want you to relax a little on pulling back, and instead direct your energy towards focusing your ability. I think the damning up is hurting you the most. You don’t need a dam if you have a channel.” She thought for a few more minutes and then offered something else. “You’re graduating, right? If you’d like, I will train you privately. You have something, and it’s time for that something to work for you.”

[Lani Hunter]

If Lani were a telepath he’d be unsettled by how spot on the woman’s thoughts were. Nothing had been the same since the first time he’d let completely loose, now he had a taste for the kind of power that rested behind his eyes. No one should have this kind of power. It was too much for one man. One man who had gotten it belatedly. She had Lani’s attention, the thought of a headache free existence was worth more than all of the gold in Fort Knox. He perked up a little bit his brows raising a bit in attentiveness. However she started going on and Lani ducked his head a little in shame. “Yeah, I’m graduating,” he said it with sureness as if making it clear that that was not going to change. He’d very much like to have the backlashes go away forever, but that was apparently too good to be true.

Lani cocked his head, she had inadvertently made Lani extremely curious. If she wouldn’t tell him he would find out on his own. He nodded his lies and masks well practiced and as he nodded he made it seem as if he understood and sympathized. Telekinesis wasn’t pleasant but what could be so terrible that she didn’t want to talk about it. Could she kill people by looking at them a certain way or something? Lani suppressed a shutter for a moment. But they wouldn’t let someone malicious work at Hammel, would they? Well, they let Lani stay, that had to speak a little bit for their common sense. Lani didn’t let the smile show through though the previous thought had him laughing internally.

Arms crossed over Lani’s chest and he bristled as she dropped the ball again. He sighed in an exaggerated manner before she finished her sentence. He almost just lifted it again but then she changed the rules. Slowly Lani nodded giving her a wary expression. She didn’t want to see what using all of his power could do. She might have a hole in her hand when he was done. Focus, right. Cause that usually worked so well. He gritted his teeth and stared at her like he was staring down his old first trainer. Lani nodded again and tilted his head a little considering her offer. He’d been training with Odion, but maybe this would give him a chance to not worry about hurting his love and give him something to show Odion. Lani had a feeling though that she wasn’t going to be an easy taskmaster.

Instead of giving her an answer right away he closed his eyes and dropped his shields. He felt his power flood the area and he again felt as though he could see without his eyes. He opened his eyes again careful to not get confused again. He found himself losing focus as his power rolled this ball and another ball seemingly just going after anything shaped like a ball. The more he focused the more out of focus the rest of the world became. He felt himself withdrawing from his body and the power that coiled like a dragon behind his eyes sought out its purpose in a single-minded thirst. Channel, he told himself, he could do this, this was easy. He pulled back most of his power and flicked at the ball with what was left and it hopped up again and hit the palm of her hand gently. Lani smiled and pulled his power back to himself. He found himself braced in one position and his head hammered to life. If she hadn’t already commented on his pills he’d be taking more. “Fine, I mean they told me I’d probably have to keep coming back anyways.” Lani shrugged as if he didn’t really care. “I have to tell you though…” Lani scratched the back of his head nervously, “Just uh… don’t talk to my early trainers, okay?” Lani was sure they had some choice words to say about him, starting with a slacker and ending with ‘dangerous do not allow out’. That particular report however had come into Lani’s hands via his snooping and ceased to exist. Besides he wasn’t a threat anymore, not like he used to be at least.

[Yulia Sokolov]

There was something nice about working with teenagers. They still had enough room left in their minds to truly think, which was something she had found to be lacking on occasion in adults. They were just starting to get stuck in their ways and habits, and that is why it was so crucially important to train now, rather than later. It was the old dog and new tricks thing, it really did stand to reason. That was why the right tricks needed to taught first and as immediately as possible.

Lia felt that she had a good sense of what was happening with this student, Lani. Her power was mentally based, and she found before that she shared many symptomatic problems with telekinetics. It made sense. In a way her psionic blast was a branch of telekinesis, a very limited and very deadly branch. She could only touch one thing, and she could only effect it in a handful of ways. It was purely offensive, though it could be argued that simply knocking someone out cold without doing damage was defensive, but rare were the times when she had been directed to do that.

His graduation was an issue in and of itself, but she knew better than to make any attempts to stop it. She would not do that anyways, it wouldn’t be right. Back in Russia she knew what it had felt like to be kept in a place she didn’t want to be, what it felt like to be unable to leave. Then again, her feelings at that point had mattered very little given that she had nowhere to go even if she went. All the same, she already felt as though she could see part of the problem at hand. She knew what it was, but she hadn’t known how defiantly he would stick to his conviction that the danger of his ability was too much. How did she understand that so clearly? It was something she had struggled with all of her life.

“I might talk to your old trainers, I might not. If I do it will be to understand more about how I can help you.” She hadn’t decided yet whether that would be necessary or not. It seemed as if they hadn’t made a terrible amount of progress per say. This seemed to be one of those slipping through the cracks incidents. The ball was returned again to her hand, but she wasn’t exactly thrilled by it. She could tell what she was trying to emphasize wasn’t getting through, or else something would have changed in his demeanor, or so she figured at the least. She pursed her lips together and thought for a moment, and then she stood. She collected a few of the balls before she sat back down.

“I think I may be approaching this from the wrong direction for you, or perhaps asking you to do too much. What was the backlash on that last attempt like?” She tapped her fingers against one of the balls, and considered how to say what she wanted to say next. “Lani, I understand that you feel what you can do is very dangerous. It can be, and it will continue to possibly be until you are able to work with those aspects. You are just making yourself afraid of something that is a part of you, and that is very unhealthy. I know that because I have lived it, and this is what I see here. Let me impress upon you that this is a safe space, a truly safe space. If your power were to become out of control I could stop you before you could hurt yourself or me. You would be fine, and I would be fine. I have the strength and precision to do that, easily.” It was the closest she was willing to get to telling him what she could do for now.

“I’d like to try something different for a moment. I’d like you not to hold back your power for a few moment. Close your eyes, and let that out. However, do not make any effort to move anything. I think it is most important that you get used to the feeling in an inactive way. So sit down, relax, close your eyes, lets give that a try.”

[Lani Hunter]

Lani was endlessly curious and stubborn, not often a good mix. The minute she told him he couldn’t know something he wanted nothing more than to know that one thing. It was a little bit of his nature and a little bit of his training. Usually when people had secrets they had things worth hiding. Lani’d sold information more than a few times, even on someone here at Hammel. The whole situation had made him sick to his stomach because it was a dear friend he had betrayed. He had promised himself he would never do that again and he hadn’t sold information since. But that didn’t make him any less prone to go looking. Old habits tended to die hard. Perhaps that was the problem, he’d been allowed, well rather not allowed but they hadn’t been able to get him to stay in one place long enough for a long enough period of time that he’d developed the wrong habits.

A smile forced it’s way on his face as he hid a wince. Oh that might not end well. One of two things could happen, 1) she might decide that he’s not worth it, or 2) she might confront him about something he’d done in the past. Sure it had taken Lani until now to admit that he needed help, but the boy that had come into Hammel, grumpy and unable to see reason was long gone. Well, mostly gone. He still came out now and again. “I don’t think it’ll be any help,” Lani said selling his side with a touch of desperation. He grinned at her and shrugged innocently as if he had no part in the fact that so many trainers had come and gone. He had a terrible habit of scaring them off or making them give up. Lani wasn’t sure if he was making a good impression but there was hope if she wasn’t already yelling at him. He doubted his current trainer would be upset if she took Lani off of his hands.

Lani cocked is head at her curious about her expression. He’d done what she had asked didn’t he? He’d let his power all out and he’d put the ball in her hand. Well, maybe not entirely. It was too dangerous to leave unsupervised around so many projectiles. Yulia should consider herself lucky that Lani’d finally outgrown the ‘grab and throw’ stage of his power. Meeting that other telekinetic at the mall had been a little bit of an eye opener. He could easily be her if he lost control. Propping himself up on the wall Lani watched her as she gathered materials. What was she thinking now? Did she want him to juggle? He’d tried that with Odion and almost killed him when it changed just a little bit. If that could happen to someone who he was closer with than anyone else how was he going to stop it when he lost it on her?

That was a blow to Lani’s pride and he found himself raising his chin at the sound of something of a challenge. She thought that was too much, hardly! Then again, Lani hadn’t done it to her liking so maybe it was. He shook his head quickly, what did she know anyways. “Uh…” Lani uttered his inner monologue interrupted momentarily by her question, “Not terrible,” he lied giving her a smile to cover any sign of pain that might be showing. He swallowed his arrogance when she spoke again hitting every nail on the head and seeming to echo Odion a bit. If he didn’t know better he’d say the two had been talking. Lani hung on to her every word when she spoke and it was his turn to pale. If she didn’t want to talk about her power and it had made her resemble a bed sheet then why would she threaten to use it on him? Somehow he didn’t believe that he would be fine. His power didn’t react like normal powers. He’d had his power suppressed once and when it had come out his power had come out like a raging dragon and everything had been destroyed.

Lani hesitated and slowly shook his head at her. “There is no safe place,” he told her his eyes dropping to his feet for a moment. “My power’s too dangerous around other people, it’s too unpredictable.” He explained in case she didn’t notice. Lani’s face fell a little bit and he huffed, he shouldn’t have agreed to train with her. He stalked over and turned the chair and sat backward crossing his arms over the back of the chair, the whole time muttering about how much he hated meditating. He gave an exaggerated sigh and rested his chin on his arms and let his eyes close. With a bit of hesitation he opened his mind and let it out again. It blanketed and area and Lani found himself sinking into his mind and the emotions that swirled around. He blocked them out and the familiar yet strange sensation of having no body, no recognition of the living took over and he was aware that he was in a room of stuff and that there was another person but he didn’t need his limbs anymore.

It was as if blocking his emotions blocked him off from the real world, but at the same time if they got in and mixed with his power then they might cause something terrible to happen. He still hadn’t been able to merge the two halves of the whole. Himself and his power, they united briefly while he was balancing on the precipice, then he went one way or another. He wondered with mild curiosity if he could get back to the precipice and stay there. He let his emotions back in one by one and the tenseness in his muscles made him aware that he had a body again and he tried to think of centering and grounding himself here but he couldn’t get a solid grip when every thought that came ringing through his head held an emotion.