Future Earth: year 3500

Dante stood back and watched the others as they took their folders. He was patient by nature, in most things, and so he waited so that he would be the last, then walked up and took his folder. Stepping back until he felt the wall at his back he leaned against it and flipped open the file. Everything looked to be in order, as crazy as that seemed. There was a photo taken shortly after his birth, of him in his mothers arms, his father sitting on the edge of the hospital bed with an arm around her. There was another from when he took his first steps, when he went to kindergarten, middle school, high school. In between were photos of himself and his father, usually wearing boxing gloves in or around the gym. There was only the one picture of his mother, who had never liked having her picture taken.

When he got to the last few pictures, however, his heart sank in his chest. Anyone looking at him would see a darkness in his eyes that wasn't there before, and might notice his arms shaking ever so slightly. The first picture was of his father lying on a stretcher in the middle of the street. He was bloody, and there were alot of people in the background, but one face stood out, or rather, stood out because it didn't. There was a single figure who, despite the bright day light, was hidden in shadow. The next picture was of his family together in the hospital again for the last time. A single tear rolled down from his left eye, but he made no move to wipe it away. The last picture made him clench his right fist, crumpling the corner of the folder a bit. It was a picture of his mother's mutilated body...before the time it had reportedly been found. He could tell this because, somehow, the light hadn't left her eyes yet and she looked like she was trying to scream.

Dear Dante,

You know more about yourself and your abilities than you think you do. And I know even more. I can assure you that if you work with this group when you will find the answers you seek, and the one who killed both your parents. Just keep an eye out and do your best to protect these people, I know you have it in you.

P.S.- Take a closer look at that necklace your father gave you.

With Love, KEB

"Who the hell is K-Bob and how did the get these pictures?" Dante says in a serious tone, crumbling the letting and slipping it into his pocket before tossing the open folder onto the desk, scattering the photos across its surface. Whoever this guy is, he made a mistake though. My mother gave me this necklace...didn't she?

Michael took his folder and began flipping through it's pages taking note of the detailed diagrams of his wings and the accurate accounts of his life. He looked up just to observe the reactions of the others upon receiving their folders, several of them seemed quite disturbed. They must have some pretty heavy pasts... He thought to himself. By comparison there wasn't much of interest to be said about his own notes he grew up an average kid, granted they occasionally got unwanted attention from the neighbors and people at the schools but apart from that he lead a nearly normal life. He'd even joined the track team in his school years. He almost always blew the competition away with his seemingly endless stamina.

Michael flipped the last few pages of his file and read the note that had been leaft for him.

Dear Michael,

I have studied your physical abilities closely, as you can see. They are quite extensive and effect more areas of your body than I believed possible at first glance. Speed, stamina, light weight, and the ability of flight to name the most prominent. If you learn to truly hone into your strengths I believe you could become quite an asset to our efforts. Listen closely to the instructions that will be given to you as a group. Everyone is essential.

With Love,
KEB

Michael looked up from his letter just as Dante spoke up. It was a good question. Who found all this information on their abilities and private life?

Katelyn was absorbed in the small diagrams that lined the pages of the file. From the labels of many of them she could see they were depicting complicated rituals involving blood magic. Several notes warned against using non-human blood for the rituals, and other predicted that there must be a blood more potent than human blood. She recognized Old English words for sacrifice and rebirth that were centered around one of the larger drawings: an eight pointed star with lines connecting each corner with the center. The red ink was enough to tell her it had to be drawn in blood, and everyone but the user had to be standing on a line in the center. The spell could be adjusted to the number of people involved so that each could stand in a section of their own. She was intrigued by the detail put into it, the precise lines would need to be drawn in a large area. The drawing recommended a concrete floor, and candles. Scented in Vanilla, Lavender, and for whatever reason, pumpkin. Another selection of handwriting caught her eye.

"Guys, listen to this"

Dear Miss Katie,

As you have noticed, I have made you the leader in our little expedition. To your left, you will see a panel of the wall that isn't quite parallel to the one across from it. If you press it, the first part of your investigation can begin. Once inside, you'll find that I have provided the accommodations for nine people, though Miss Asha has not joined us yet. Please, make yourselves comfortable. There is also a supply area, kitchenette, dinning area, and of course a library for you do work. I will provide information on our mystery killer as it arises. Please, enjoy yourselves and have a wicked time.

With love,
KEB

Grant

He got up from his seat and walked over to the wall looking at the panel spoken of in the letter, he then turned and opened his mouth to speak. "So were all part of some little team or "expedition" and were going to be living here together while this investigation is going on." He thought on this for a moment and noded as he made sense of it in his head. He rather enjoyed the thought of this for some reason he couldn't quite explain...

Grant turned back to the wall and pressed the panel as he watched expectantly.

Plucked from her thoughts by the mention of her name, then a doctor-like look file tossed down to the table in the center, Aurora indentified the one which had her name and picture clipped to it and was about to begin reading through it when a crisp white piece of paper slipped out from the cover and floated into her lap. Aurora furrowed her brow curiously, then placed the file down and picked up the piece of paper, then after hearing Katelyn's instructions, Aurora nodded and began to read what now appeared as the letter that she was holding.

Dear Miss Aurora,

I know of your explosive magic, and I would like now to warn you. I think by now you know how powerful you can be. Learn to control it, and you could be a large help to the group. Let Katelyn and the others be-friend and guide you, follow them as examples and soon you'll be able to contain your emotions.

With love,
KEB

Aurora's eyes widened at the letter, who was this person? KEB? her mind raced with questions once more as she scanned the letter over and over until it stuck in her head. Then she placed the letter down and began reading her file through. Height, weight, birthdate, eye colour, hair colour, just what did this KEB know about her? About everyone? Aurora remained with a confused expression, until her attention fell upon a particular section of the countless papers - cause of parent's death: Burnt alive. Aurora's breath hitched, her eyes began to sting as tears formed at the brims, for a moment it felt like Aurora was choking, her throat seized up. And then she panicked. "It wasn't me.." Aurora mumbled to herself as tears began to stream, then as her mind shrouded more and more over by the dark thoughts which possesed her, Aurora's voice grew in volume, "It wasn't me.. IT WASN'T ME, I DIDN'T DO IT" she then shouted, sobbing and choking her words as she then curled up on her chair and clung to herself with all her might as her mind slipped further and further, trigger a mass of emotions and unwanted memories in it's wake.

To put things mildly, Dante was not happy about the situation at hand. There was someone out there who had been watching him for what seemed a goodly amount of time, and he had never even gotten the slightest hint that he was being watched even once. Not from the big brother type that KEB seemed to be. He'd always been able to tell when some punk on the street had his eye on him, thinking he could corner Dante in a dark alley way and jump him. This guy was good. Crossing his arms loosely over his chest again he looks around the room, not really looking at anything in particular but taking everything in slowly.

Overall the group assembled looked like a puzzle with a few missing pieces. Their new leader seemed to be a bit of a magical snob, the girl who had teleported into the building was having a breakdown of some sort, the twins looked like opposite sides of a coin, Michael seemed to be ready to literally fly the coop, and the other fellow was already pressing buttons without asking what they did first. Dante had to admit, he felt he fit in pretty good. After all, every band of misfits needed a punch drunk idiot in case things went south.

Never having been able to deal with emotions in a, shall we say, normal manner, but always feeling he should help others when he was able, Dante walks over and takes a seat beside Aurora. Reaching over he puts an hand on her shoulder and looks at her for a moment before sighing, then looking back to their new leader. "So, boss, what now? Do we really have a choice in all of this or what? I don't like the thought, but this guy seems to know more than he should, so I gotta say it...is there a chance this guy set all of this up to get us all here in one place?"

Michael looked at Aurora and his eyes darted around the room breifly before he spoke up. "Honestly I'm not entirely sure what to think of all this from what I can see none of us are exactly well versed in deduction. I certainly am not. How on earth did Keb think that we where the best to work on this? We're dealing with a murderer with possibility of holding powers similar or greater than our own. This is crazy."

He turned to Dante, "Set us up? As a cop or the killer? If he set us up here as a cop what good would that do him? One of us could leave at any moment and he'd loose his suspect. It's not like we're being forced here. Even if we where lead here on pretence of catching the killer it'd have to be based on some sort of profiling. There'd have to be some sort of tie between us aside from the fact that we're inmente. If Keb is in fact the killer.....well I just don't see it. The murderer's never gone to these lengths and having files on our every waking moment down to our birth wouldn't do him any good. I don't buy it...but if you lot think we're suspected I'd look for a link." Michael nodded towards his own file. "I mean....we have all the evidance here, but seeing as we're meant to investigate I bet it'd be a waste of our time.

"Ignore the girl panicking then" Katelyn rolled her eyes, reaching into a bag and removing a small, rounded crystal. With it she pulled out a leather cord, wrapping it tightly around the object as she muttered to herself, casting the spell over it. To finish it she pricked her finger with a sharpened nail, dropping the blood into the center of her crystal. "Wear this darling. It should keep you somewhat stable" She slipped the tied cord over Aurora's head, letting it fall around her neck and standing up.

Turning to face the others, she glanced over them. Micheal had a point, this all did seem a bit suspicious. But they had nothing else to go on. There was no reason for them to double this Keb yet, though he was suspiciously aware of all of them. There was also the issue of the letters, how he somehow knew that everyone would be there. Except they weren't.

"I don't think this Keb is the killer. I mean think about it, there was no way he could know we'd all show up" She pointed toward the table, where a single folder remained. "Asha. Her name is mentioned on the folder, but she isn't here. She skipped out on the meeting, so what told him that we wouldn't"

She spun, walking to a panel slightly different in color from the others. The panels behind her would all be evenlyf spaced, but here there was a gap. If she pressed it, chances were a compartment or doorway of some sort would open up. "If we press that, there's no going back. But I don't think we have a choice. That's why there were no markings on the building, no way to tell if the elevator went up or down. No stairway, no fire exit, not even any other doors. The floors were probably fake. Whoever Keb is, they have us trapped here. And whether it's a secret task force.....or a specific plot, we have to move forward."

Aurora seemed to ignore those around her as her mind struggled to resurface into sanity. When the boy came over and touched her, she would flinch and they boy would feel a shock of static run through his hand yet it would not prove enough to hurt him in anyway. Aurora's panic continued though her verbal outrage had subsided, instead she resided to shivering and sobbing, the shaking of her body generating the electrical powers within her, which made her glow and crackle with static.

Aurora did not re-act at all to any of the words the others seemed to be speaking, she was lost within her own mind and had no way of getting out until the leader-type girl from before, Katelyn came over and slipped a charm over Aurora's neck. Strangly, something suddenly cleared the smog of Aurora's mind enough for her to regan a conciousness of reality and so she looked up from the hiding place she had burrowed her head into amongst her cloak and peered around the room, blinking away the tears. She saw a few people staring in her direction and blanched slightly. Quickly, she muttered "Thank you" to Kat, then dropped to the floor to gather up the papers from the file she had dropped, trying to make herself seem atleast the tiniest bit normal.

"There's no going back" the words caught Aurora's attention and she gulped, peering up to the others from her knelt and slightly bent over position on the floor as she hurried the papers into her file, then she glanceed over to the boy who pressed the button. Her eyes widened, No going back?! she repeated in her head, We're trapped?! Not good not good, I need to get home, I can't stay out here after..after that! then Aurora finally realised the charm around her neck which had been placed there earlier and lifted one of her hands to gently bring it up into her vision, But then.. this thing calmed me down..maybe I'll be ok here.. Aurora narrowed her eyes at the charm, what did it do to me? she was confused as to how anything such as a somewhat small looking crystal could calm her from such a pit of doom she never knew how to cure, and in the past had just let wash over her in the safety of her own home. But now she couldn't get home, and she was trapped in this room with the others, so maybe this crystal would help.

Suddenly alarmed by remembering her outburst, Aurora grabbed her file and stood quickly, looking around to the group, glancing at whom-ever was looking her way, with a meek voice she would speak, "S-sorry.. the files.. they freaked me out.." she said in hopes these words would explain herself well enough.

After feeling the slight shock run up his arm, Dante slowly removed his hand from Aurora's shoulder. It didn't hurt, he'd been shocked worse when he accidentally got his finger caught between a plug and outlet, but it was enough of a warning. Even if that wasn't what it had been. Dante was no good with comforting people in a situation like that, and his magic was useless, so he only watched as Katelyn came over and crafted a charm, slipping it over the other girls head. Whatever she'd done to the crystal seemed to do the trick. Closing his eyes he sighs a little, looking over to Michael, who was commenting on his idea about K-Bob being the one who set them up. He thought it a little odd that the man took it so far as to assume Dante thought he was either a cop or the killer, but maybe that just meant he saw things in shades a little more black and white than he himself did.

As he stands he catches a whisper from the twins behind him somewhere, and then the male, Jasper he thought was his name, was up and moving towards the wall. There was a chance Dante could have prevented him from pressing the button, but what did it matter? Michael had been right about one thing, whoever K-Bob was, he knew a hell of a lot about them. If he could get them all, most of them anyway, in this place...well Dante was pretty sure the touch of a button didn't really matter much one way or the other.

"That's It then, I suppose." Dante says, looking around the group, expecting any moment for the scenery outside the window to change, or even disappear all together. His mother had once told him about a powerful inmente she had known who was able to shift things between dimensions. One moment the two of them would be in the city, a moment later they would be on a mountain top. "So where do we go from here? Not far I would assume, unless that panel over there leads to another world or something." He adds, nodding to where Grant stood by one of the walls.

Michael raised his eyebrows. "Another world...."
He smirked, doubtful such an extreme thing would happen, but he nodded. "I say we move on. Start this investigation and see where it brings us. I'd like to see about these living quarters honestly and I'd also like to know if we'll be separate our families for a long time or what. This is all strange."
He crossed his arms and stat back looking over at Katelyn. "What do you know about all this? You seem to act as if you know more than the rest of us put together. Why where you put in charge? Are you this Keb character?"

Katelyn rolled her eyes. "Perhaps it's because the rest of you seem so...biased toward every theory someone brings up?" The sarcasm dripped through her tone. "How should I know? It wasn't exactly explained to me" She turned her body toward Micheal, crossing her arms over her chest. "And if I were this 'KEB', why would I lock myself in a room with so many Inmente, hmm? Why would I give you my real name, or what my ability is, with the off chance that one of you manages to blast the door down and escape? I am not KEB, and if you had any common sense you would see that."

"And you" She looked at Jasper coldly, "You will not make friends in here by carrying a haughty attitude and impulsively acting before you think. I suggest you rearrange your sour personality before someone else decides to do it for you" Katelyn turned again, facing the small door that had opened in the wall. Jasper still stood next to it, a smug look on his face. She shoved past him, looking over the doorway as she did so. "This seems to be the only way out. So, the rest of you can follow if you will. But I'm going inside. And I'm going to find whoever is playing this little game with us"


[notice to all roleplayers: to prevent other characters from knowing the letters KEB sends you, I will now be sending them through Private Messages or I.M. If you want the others to see these messages, please fill free to send me a message saying so.]

Aurora cowared by her chair as people began to chatter and argue amongst one another, she was scared of what people might think of her now after her outburst, and even more frightened of what they might think if they say her at full power. The very thought made Aurora shudder with fear and sob softly, no she didn't want to be hated again, she wouldn't be able to bare it even amongst these strangers, Aurora just needed someone,anyone to be her friend and to show her she wasn't a dismissed little girl with a tendancy to lose all hope in a split second if things go wrong.

After the arguement had finished and the chatter died down, Aurora watched Katelyn leave the room through the door, and yelped softly as she scurried to run after her, knocking her way past Jasper as she did so. "Sorry" Aurora said through small tears as she bumped him, pausing for a moment to look at the boy who seemed to be staring at her with a quizical look - he probably thought she was crazy. Quickly pulling her attention from Jasper by walking to follow Katelyn, Aurora took a small skip to keep up with her stride and then walked carefully along side her, looking do to her feet as they walked and not paying any attention to whatever the new room contained.

Grant Aldrich
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Grant remained leaning against the wall and thought about all this going on around him. All this was a lot to take in such a short time even for him. His hand sat under his chin thoughtfully, and after a moment he started to organize and make something of the situation as a whole. His eyes shifted to Michael then to Jasper and only thought 'While I do not know who this KEB character may be, even a fool could tell it would likely not be anyone in the room' he overheard Katelyn and nodded. "I think she's right, I really doubt anyone here is KEB. It would make very little sense..." There was a brief moment of silence.

"Well guess we ought to follow the boss" He said this with a slightly sarcastic yet amused tone. He turned and looked around gaze shifting to everyone around the room with an eyebrow raised, first to Michael then to Jasper, and lastly to Isadora. He wasn't sure what to think of these people so far. But he had made some minor opinions thought up. He had a feeling that he and Jasper would clash and but heads alot if things came to it... then Michael seemed likeable enough slightly naive but ok in so far. He really didn't know about Isadora as he hadn't heard her or noticed her speak or say a word, he can only assume she was a woman of few words or just wasn't very interested in this whole situation. He fixed his collar and straightened out his vest before sticking his hands in his pocket and walking casually into the room or area and observed his surroundings.

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