Third floor common room, Saturday morning

[tigerundercover]

It had actually taken Raven a little while to realize that something had gone terribly wrong this morning. A few minutes in which she had hidden in a stall in the bathroom, staring into a compact mirror and cursing as she tried to make herself look like anything other than her natural blue scaley self.

She'd then spent another half and hour in said bathroom stall attempting the calming and meditation techniques Charles had taught her in order to try to regain control over her ability.

It wasn't working. She'd completely lost her ability to shift.

This had led to rushing back to her room in a flurry, grabbing the only pair of jeans she owned, her formal gloves, and -- at a loss for a top that provided the proper coverage -- one of Chuck's hooded sweatshirts and pulled them all on before anyone could see her in her blue glory.

Now? Now, hood pulled up to shadow her face as much as possible, she was raiding the common room kitchen for food before looking for somewhere to hide. Maybe she'd try to find Dracula. He had some limited shapeshifting abilities, maybe he could advise her? He'd at least make sure no one tried to kill her, right?

She muttered a flurry of very unladylike words as she grabbed an entire loaf of bread and attempted to cram it into her purse.

She was going to need a bigger bag.

[ooc: Chuck's sweatshirt modded with permission. Post is quite open, yes indeed.]

Comments

[mummyspromdate.livejournal.com]

Maddie had come into the common room looking for breakfast, and she wasn't too surprised to see anyone trying to horde free food, because, well, teenagers.

"Bread squishes, if you really want to make sure it gets in there," she advised, going towards a cupboard.

[tigerundercover]

Raven let out a little startled squawk. "What?" She looked down at the loaf of bread. "Oh. Yes. Sorry, I was --" She caught herself turning to look over at Maddie and froze, then ducked her head again. "I was just -- uh."

She probably should have tried to think of an explanation before someone caught her trying to steal food. She was out of practice.

[mummyspromdate.livejournal.com]

"Unless it's got someone's name on it, I don't think literally anyone is gonna care," Maddie told her, and if she was trying to see why the hood and head-ducking was a thing, well.

[tigerundercover]

Raven honestly wasn't doing a super great job of hiding it. If Maddie tried, she'd probably at least spot flashes of blue and gold eyes.

"Oh. Good point." She held the now rather squashed bread in her hands, turning it over. "I didn't think to check for names."

[mummyspromdate.livejournal.com]

"Why're you running off with all that anyway?" Maddie asked, though since she wasn't used to seeing that many blue people running around, she kinda figured the reasoning.

[tigerundercover]

Raven bit her lip, then couldn't hold it in. "Something's gone horribly wrong!" she said. "And now I'm stuck like this and people are going to be scared and I can't do all that again."

She realized what she said and pressed her hand to her mouth, her hood shifting back off her face a little bit more. Usually, this was the part where she'd shift into something terrifying and scare the other person off so she could run away, but she was stuck. She hugged the loaf of bread to her chest.

"So I'm going into hiding," she said finally. She'd admitted enough, might as well go whole-hog. "Until everything's okay again."

[mummyspromdate.livejournal.com]

"Hey, it's okay," Maddie told her. "I don't look scared, do I?"

Of course she did sort of recognize who this girl just might be, but with Maddie's history she didn't really care much.

[tigerundercover]

"Sure, well, some people are fine with it," Raven said. "Cecil had no problem at all and even the hunter guys eventually listened to reason, but I've had way too many people try to hunt me down." She picked up a can of soup, checking it over for any names, then put it rather forcefully into her purse. "I'm not doing that again. I won't." Another can of soup. "So . . . hiding."

She kind of didn't want to do that, either. But what other choice did she have?

[mummyspromdate.livejournal.com]

"I really don't think anyone's going to be trying to hunt you down here," Maddie told her. "I mean, it's a town full of people with powers or from other times or other planets or who don't look like everybody else. If they can handle a talking pink pony, I'm pretty sure you're fine."

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

So, Jessica had been planning on doing a bunch more training this weekend, only to find that she had like none of her powers. Well, she was still strong, but that was about the only thing she didn't really work on more.

Frustrated, Jessica went out in search of board games and their ilk. What? Sometimes Connect Four was cathartic, especially the way you crush your opponents and then make a bunch of noise dropping all of the checkers.

"Hey. Do you guys have Sorry or The Game of Life down here?" she checked. "Just asking. For a friend."

She hadn't noticed anything different in the common room. Maybe someone just really liked hoodies. It seemed legit.

[tigerundercover]

"Jessica!" Raven said, practically hugging a box of Cheerios. She checked to see that her hood was covering her as much as possible. "Uh. I haven't seen them, but I think I saw something called Risk, earlier?"

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"Oh, hey Raven," Jessica said after she recognized the voice. "Sorry, I didn't realize that was you with the hoodie. Feeling a little cold? And do you happen to know where you saw Risk? That sounds good right about now."

[tigerundercover]

"In the closet?" Raven said. "Next to the box of miscellaneous puzzle pieces." She set the cereal box aside and began idly fiddling with the things on the counter, spinning a fork around, picking up one of the steak knives and flipping in in her hand. "Um, I know sometimes there are weekends where girls turn into boys and things. Are there ever times when people . . . lose their abilities?"

She really hoped the answer was "yes", and that there was a limited time frame on it. Otherwise, she was pretty sure she was screwed.

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, it happened a while ago, my first semester here," Jessica said. "And it kind of sounds like it's happening again today, which I'm sure is fun for people who might be affected." Ahem. She wasn't naming names.

"Why? You come across somebody acting really frustrated that they can't fly or something?"

[tigerundercover]

Raven was starting to feel a little overly warm in the sweatshirt. How did people wear clothes all the time, all day?

"Something like that," she said. "How long did it last?" She hoped it wasn't a whole week, like the sex pollen had been.

A stink bug started crawling up the wall on the other side of the common room. Raven glared at it and threw the knife in her hand, pinning it neatly to the wall.

. . . Huh.

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

"Only for a weekend," Jessica said, staring at the knife after it stuck in the wall. "I should probably note that people who lost their powers were suddenly able to do other things they couldn't do before. Probably should've mentioned that up front."

[tigerundercover]

"Oh," Raven said, also staring at the knife. She edged away from the counter before she could pick up another one. "That kind of explains that, then."

Knife throwing was pretty cool. But it was no shapeshifting.

[nobloodymessiah.livejournal.com]

Eleanor felt exposed as she made her way to the common room this morning. Her powers were gone. Gone. How did that even --

The sea-slug was still firmly in place; she was still as much of a freak as ever. She could, presumably, still heal herself. But the abilities she had gained, when she had taken on the role of a Big Sister ... those were nowhere to be found.

Were the plasmids somehow only temporary? Had her healing factor cured her of the one thing that kept her safe, that promised that Mother could never enslave her again?

She was distracted, when she entered, by a girl wearing several layers of clothing at once.

"Are you all right?" she asked, not yet recognizing the shape of her big sibling.

(if it's not way way too late to crash in zomg)

[tigerundercover]

Raven spun, then relaxed when she saw it was someone who already knew. She slid back her hood and offered an admittedly wan smile. "My powers aren't working."

[nobloodymessiah.livejournal.com]

"Oh, that's terrible," Eleanor breathed. And then facepalmed. "I mean, it's terrible that -- that you can't hide, not that you look how you do. That sounds like I'm --"

Give Eleanor a moment; she hadn't discovered yet that she had chronic foot-in-mouth disease today. It was really going to brighten up her conversations with other people!

She took a steadying breath and decided to start over. "Are you all right?" she asked, instead.

[tigerundercover]

"It's okay," Raven assured her. "I knew what you meant." She took a deep breath. "I'm okay. I freaked out at first, but no one's gone running screaming yet, and I heard it'll probably only last till Monday."

[nobloodymessiah.livejournal.com]

"If someone does run and scream, I can punch them," Eleanor volunteered. She didn't like being made to feel a freak, and she wasn't going to allow someone to do that to her big sibling, either. "So ... is something happening, then? To everyone? I ... I don't have my abilities, today, either."

Which was making her decidedly twitchy.

[tigerundercover]

"You're not the first one to offer that, today," Raven said. "It's giving me hope. But, yes, it's happening to a lot of people. My big sis -- mentor -- she said it's happened before, and it was just the weekend. You might have picked up another skill, though. I can suddenly pin a bug to the wall with a knife from across the room."

[nobloodymessiah.livejournal.com]

"You can?" Eleanor asked. "How on earth did you discover that? Were you flinging knives around and one happened to stick? That ... really doesn't sound like I meant it, either."

Eleanor's 'skill' was more of an anti-skill, really. As Raven might be learning.

[tigerundercover]

"You're doing that a lot, today," Raven said. "I was just kind of fidgeting with things, though. I picked up a knife, saw the bug, and whoosh, I threw it without really thinking about it."