Not as safe as you think (Rhi~! Huzzahlies!)

[Anonymous]

Normal people might be daunted by the prospect of attacking the government of Aedolis. Of course, there were a select few out there who did it, the Gospels and such. However, their methods were so...benign at times. Word through the mind-vine however told a bit of a different story, that they were acting. This caused a lot of...interesting situations to crop up. His victim had been a military worker, he was in the ATC, and he got some very interesting news to tell. News that excited down to the very core. There had been an incident, a dragon was down, a Pilot was dead or missing, and it had everyone in a big huff.  They were going...insane over it, and the Dragons were in such a ruckus about it. Then the unbelievable happened.

The details were unclear, but the Pilots were recalled back to their citadel. That left them vulnerable.

They didn’t know it of course. They had no idea that with them all back at the citadel, their precious little trainees were left to the predators. He had grown tired of the stringy, meatless potential psychics he had been feeding off of. They were cropping up, and he had to find them before they were found by Aedolis. It was getting to be troublesome, especially since there were a lot of fat, slow, oblivious psychics all huddled in one building. Thinking they were safe and they couldn’t be taken down. Already there was a plan laid out, and one candidate had lost his life due to his ineptitude and his very trusting ways too.

He needed to do more though.

Needed to show them more.

This tall character, while he could have been mistaken for one of the Pilots he had seen, right now he had no trouble simply waltzing through the front door. They had scanners set up, but they were bypassed by getting a guard to give him access. Oh their minds were so fragile, so soft and tender, easily manipulated too. He could mould it into whatever he wanted, and right now he wanted to get in, he wanted to see the forbidden lands. Not so forbidden now. Not even dragons were around to see him. As he walked the grandeur halls, he carefully began to feel his way about. He already had many plans, many of these little candidates to see, but he only had so much time.

The lanky character, with such strange eyes peered around a corner. Left eye a flashy green with very little pupil definition stared as the other eye, a pure electric blue with a hint of a purple iris blinked several times. Nothing. Good. A hand went to readjust the hat that covered his unkempt, improperly cut vanilla coloured hair. He looked very odd, so thin and gaunt, so very tall as well. He wore white leather gloves, a tight dark navy shirt, a pair of cargo pants that seemed to have the pockets crammed full of things, and a very faded brown trench coat. He wore some simple boots, at least they were clean and not full of holes.

He had so much that he needed to do, this strange character. People ignored him, they had to, every time they looked at him, their eyes either seemed to stare straight through him, or they’d look away, almost like around him. It was perfect. His powers were absolute, and they were focusing on helping him do this job. He couldn’t remember the face, or the name of the person who sent him here, but he remembered the power. A delicious and torturing power.  His was like the person, and it was divine really.

His trench coat swayed with him as he began to stalk down the hallway. Where to find...this particular person. In an instant of insanity his mind reached out to search, and there it was. A mind that called back to him, desired him to find it. He would gladly obey and hunt it with every fibre. It was a scared mind, it was a timid mind, and it had some power, but it would be no match for him. He would overpower it, wrestle it, and take it for his own. The only reason he didn’t do that now is because he was worried someone else with even a hint of a good gift would feel that. He had to be careful. He left no traces in the minds he touched, no feeling he was there, he was invisible to these untrained minds.

There was a name running through his mind, his eyes looking all over the halls, almost independently of each other. Arrow. Arrow. Arrow. Arrow. ARROW. ARROW.  It burned through his mind, or what part of it was proper and could be considered a normal mind. He had to find this Arrow. He hadn’t a clue what it looked like, but he would know it when he saw the candidate. After a couple minutes of searching and following a trail, he soon caught up to the thing giving off the particular scent trail he had been following. A girl of all things. A hand went to his trench coat and he removed a strange piece of parchment. It had various veins and bumps in it, the skin was obviously human.  It had a bunch of writing on it, in what could have been blood or a red ink. He took a small scalpel out of his pocket and dabbeded it on his tongue a few times, cutting it, like he were using a writing utensil. Then he checked off the top most bit of writing with some of the blood from the tip of the scalpel. First thing out of the way.  Ooh, he had dry cleaning to pick up later too. Good thing he wrote this list down. Scalpel and skin parchment, or as he called it, skarchment was in his trench coat once more.

He began to track the girl. Maintenance. He needed to find a maintenance door. Or an empty classroom. Yes...that would be most preferable. He began to close in on his newest victim. Slowly he began to let those tendrils reach out to her mind, to circle and ensare. He had to capture her mind first, make her more willing. She’d notice slowly that people were getting out of her way more, and then altogether ignoring her at the same time.  Arrow. A test. For her to hear him. A voice, so low, so dragging, the rumble did not hinder, it made it clearer, like he was talking through a crystalline device. I’m behind you Arrow. Don’t you dare turn around. If you turn around, you will be hurt. Nod. Nod if you understand me Arrow. I know you can hear me. Can you understand me though. Already his looming figure was behind the young girl, his hands keeping to themselves for the time being. He wouldn’t really kill her though if she turned around. And he wasn’t really lying about her being hurt.

If she did turn around, she might run smack dab into him, and some of his sharp pointy things. That would hurt. He had no intention of hurting her just yet anyway. No, she was only supposed to be played with. He had to be...nice for the time being, until he was able to lure her away. Well. Force her away. She was now outside of the world around her, no one would notice her, no one would even see that she had just ‘disappeared’ from the hallway. This was going to be easy, and it was going to be fun. If he didn’t have some semblance of a plan, he would have just abducted her right here and now, whisked her out of the ATC, and let his imagination run wild. It got him excited just thinking about that. After this was all over, perhaps he could. When the Pilots lay dead, the candidates needed a place to go.

Lead them from temptation into salvation, and into the valley of the shadow of death.

[Rhi-Rhi]

Tired from a long day, Arrow had been on her way toward the dorms when, after a while, she started to notice something weird happening.

It took a while to notice it, for in her tired state she'd been mostly staring at the ground as she walked, but when she looked up to make sure she wasn't going to run into any walls, well--that was when she realized that people were moving away from her. Blinking rapidly, Arrow passed a hand through her messy black hair and wondered for a moment if she smelled. She had been put through quite a work out that day, and she still felt sweaty and gross from it (not to mention she didn't think there was a place on her that didn't ache), and for a moment she felt self-conscious until she realized that no one was even looking at her.

They were looking through her, as if she wasn't even there.

But before she could even really register that or try and make sense of it, a strange voice filled her mind, and she skipped a step and nearly fell over.

Of course, her first impulse when hearing someone speaking to her and telling her they were behind her was to turn around, and she had been on the verge of spinning on her heel when the voice corrected her--and she froze in place, a cold shiver of fear shooting through her and rooting her to the spot. Her blue eyes went wide at the threat, her face paling.

What...?

Was it a Pilot? Was this a test?

That was the first rational thought to pop into her head as she stood there, heart hammering in her chest and hands growing clammy, and it was the only thought that made an ounce of sense at the time. She balled her hands up into fists at her sides and nodded slowly as instructed, swallowing hard against the lump in her throat. She didn't recognize the voice at all, but who else could talk to her that way but another psychic? And in this place where everything could potentially be a test, she did not want to fail. Maybe it was Marshal. Maybe Pilots could distort their own mental voices and things like that.

But why would Marshal tell her she couldn't look turn around and look at him? That was a weird order, so it couldn't be him. Unless he was trying to scare her and this was a test she needed to pass. But obedience wasn't always the right answer; maybe she needed to defy him now. Her legs were shaking, both from fear and the pent up desire to run, and she could practically feel the figure behind her in the same way you could feel someone's eyes on the back of your head, staring at you.

It couldn't be Marshal, though. He felt different, she couldn't explain it. So it had to be someone else. Another Pilot, an older candidate maybe...oh man...

The thought of it being an older candidate sent a shiver of dread down her spine. She'd seen what some of the Threes and Fours liked to do, hazing gracies and stuff like that. It was like a sport among them. Pilots were intimidating, but at least there was a reason behind the things they did. Candidates just did their hazing for fun, and there was no right or wrong answer in that case. Just punishment.

"I'm...I'm gonna be late..." Arrow whispered, wringing the hem of her uniform jacket with her hands. "I have to get back to the dorms..." It was a lame excuse, but she didn't know what else to say. The other people in the halls weren't even paying attention to them, in the same manner that some gracies pointedly ignored a bigger bully when another gracie was getting picked on so they didn't incure the bully's wrath, themselves. That just solidified the thought: this had to be an older candidate, and he was trying to scare her.

It was working!

Steeling herself, she started to walk away, trying to walk at the same calm pace she'd been going at before. That was all you could really do when faced with a bigger bully. It rarely worked, but she didn't know what else she could do.

[Anonymous]

This was no trouble. He could feel a pilot coming if need be. There had been talk of a vulnerable day for the pilots, during  a time in which they had all been stuck in the citadel for the most part. However he wasn't quick enough for that, and now he had to be just that more careful. However his presence would be ignored, masked, kept hidden from them. They might find it odd that their candidate was also missing, or just...that they overlooked the candidate's presence but this...

This was sublime.

Srefi knew he would just need to be very careful with his fun today. So long as he managed to avoid the Pilots at all times. He kept a third eye out for them you could say, tracking any remarkable power, shield, or even his own techniques for hiding throughout the entire ATC. Well, not the entire. Middle caste and Lower Castle were out of his reach, if he were to use all that power, they would surely see him as a beacon from even the moon. So much power to be expended, he wouldn't be able to stay for the day.

When he lured this girl away, he could retract all power and keep them from the eye of the Pilots. For a moment, Srefi regretted not wearing something that blended in. Then he regretted that the great powers that had created him also had him so damn tall, and such strange colours. He'd have been able to fit in much better. However, they knew what they were doing he assumed, and this was their plan.

He was barely paying attention to the girl until of course he started focusing on her, on her mind. Hm. He, a candidate? In another world, a dimension outside their own, he could have been. Not now though.

"Poor little Arrow, such fun thoughts, such fun everything." He suddenly rushed forward toward her, his footsteps quick as suddenly something was in front of Arrow. Not the large man however but his arm outstretched, holding a scalpel in front of her. The clean, sharp, and very deadly looking weapon hung in the air, just waiting for her to move forward into it. True enough, at first he had no way of stopping her but this was a weapon in front of her, and his body behind her. That would stop most people for even a second.

"Listen very carefully little Arrow. You're going to come with me, and you're going to do it willingly, or else I will start by slowly peeling the flesh from your face to make a mask." It must have made the voice from Srefi's mouth all the more disgusting and scary, putting a purring emphasis on words that really didn't need them. How wrong of her! To construe him as an older candidate! He would admit that they trained these candidates to be good, to be strong, but this one, her mind was shy and scared, her body for the time being seemed weak.

They would train her though, make her strong her.

He needed now, a nice big classroom to work in. No, classrooms could be discovered. The maintenance was probably for the best, take her into the walls. No doubt that was the most effective way of moving about the school. Through maintenance and access points. He would have to start using that then. First thing was first though. Finding a door that would take him there. He didn't want to leave anymore trace in the minds around him. There was a difference between making them not see him, and reading their minds. That would leave a whole big mess for Pilots to follow and for the Pilots to get acquainted with. He couldn't have that.

Know the scent, catch the scent, find the scent.

Srefi stood there looking around, craning his neck about as far it would go, until he realized that a door behind him had the big words "Maintenance" on it. "I am going to move now Arrow. I will start edging my way to your...mmm...your left. You will start by turning to your right. Don't you look at me Arrow, or else I will make it so your eyes never look again." To emphasize all his highly inappropriate purring, he shook the scalpel in front of her face before lowering it back to his side. Good. This was good. He began to inch to her side, hoping she would do the same. He didn't even want her peripheral vision to see him. That would be bad. Very bad.

"After we turn ourselves around you're going to walk to that door with the writing on it, and you will open it and go inside. We both will. Then we will walk through the access tunnels. Don't bother trying to call for help, your powers were not a problem to envelope and cut off." In truth, he hadn't even thought about doing that till now. Yes he monitored her, but he didn't actually cut them off. If she did scream out with her mind, he could make sure to contain it and ensure no one heard it.

So much wasted power.

This would all be easier if they just did what they were told in the first place.