Lacey Bounds's Story

Skylar grabbed a bowl of popcorn and sat at her office desk. She leaned back in her soft chair, closing her eyes. She smiled as a vision came to her mind. A deep daydream swallowed her as she pictured a blonde woman in New York, wearing a trench coat and argyle scarf. She watched the woman look at her map, confused. Skylar pictured another person, a man with small shoulders, dark brown hair, a grey jacket and a white collar shirt. She smiled as she could see a grid in her mind. Skylar moved her hand around as she connected their fates.

Skylar smiled as she took a handful of popcorn, munching it down. She watched the events unfold as the two, distanced, bumped into each other. The man spilled his coffee. He apologized, and offered to clean it up for her. THey entered a shop quickly to clean her off. She used some napkins and the man offered to buy her something. She agreed, and soon they were having a polite conversation. When the man got up, he handed her a napkin with his number. Skylar beamed, and opened her eyes.

Skylar just sat there and smiled for a moment. "My work here is done," She spun her chair around, picking up the intercom. She pressed down. A loud beep sounded, making her wince. "Staff members, please come to my office please," She smiled as she released her finger from the grey button.

Skylar smiled as Layla came in. "Hey Skylar," Skylar spun around in circles, smiling. She wasn't a very formal boss. "Hey!" She greeted as Shinta came in, commenting about Layla blowing stuff up. Skylar rolled her eyes as he reported his finished assignment. Skylar held up a finger and closed her eyes, seeing the couple. "You did a damn good job," She commented as she watched the fight unravel. "But I can do better!" She announced, trying to connect the right strings of blue. It took up a lot of her energy, but it was worth it.

The woman started to cry. Skylar decided that the divorce should go into effect. She made the woman run out, a stern look on her face. She didn't want the affair to go forward either, that was just wrong. Skylar made the man stay put, and he called his friend, complaining about his wife. Skylar decided to let the woman go alone, the man had done nothing wrong.

Skylar looked through his love history. She found that an old girlfriend was in town. The only reason they had broken up was that the man had moved away. Skylar smiled, forcing the woman to check in to the apartment room beside him. After putting her things away, Skylar had her go next door and ring the doorbell. She opened her eyes suddenly, feeling weak. She stood up, then stumbled and almost fell, her legs weak.

[left]

Skylar groaned and stood up. "Ech. I don't know how my ass of a father dealed with this. I've been doing this since I was 15, yet it still tired me out. How did that bastard do it?" Skylar was the only one who talked about the former legend that way.

Matthew's day began as they always do, loudly. The only way to get himself out of bed these days, was to set his alarm clock to go off like a klaxon alert at it's maximum volume. While it was surprising, it was the only way to get him up. He jolted awake as he always did before slapping the snooze and slowly sliding out of bed. He slumped onto the floor, back against the bed frame, and yawned loudly. He sniffed once, then twice, and rubbed his eyes before getting off of the floor and walking towards his closet. He scratched his side as he opened the door, wincing at the mess inside. "I need to clean. Mmf... I'll hire a maid..." Matthew pulled some clothes from the wreckage that weren't too wrinkly or too smelly before pulling them on and making sure the colors matched. He wore a simple white shirt with a blue bolide over top and some fade jeans. He slipped on socks and converse sneakers as he stumbled his way down the small hall that lead to his kitchen. "Cereal, my favorite." Matthew smiled, as he poured himself a healthy bowl of fruit loops. He sat at the small table in the combination kitchen dining room. While his apartment flat was small, Matthew didn't mind. It was cozy.

After breakfast, Matthew threw on a jacket and steeled himself against the morning chill. It was brisk, not too chilly, but Matthew could never bear the cold. He preferred to be warm, too hot was always better than too cold. Matthew headed down to his, "Office building", where he and his co-workers did their own big ol' jobs in their own different ways. Being as good with numbers as he was, Matthew ran their books. Matthew ran most of the books, as far as the city was concerned. While it was a boring, and mostly automated process, every so often a few numbers needed just the right nudge. Matthew never stole, cheated, or made things up, but he wasn't above shifting stuff around here and there. It kept everyone happy and nobody really missed those two cents from their salaries. Of course, there were lots of salaries that Matthew took his, "Happiness Tax" from, but the result was so widespread that it would never be considered the work of a single man. Hell, a whole building of peppy interns and Harvard grads couldn't do his job better, not with all the coffee in the world, baby. Matthew smiled, he'd made a joke.

As he took the regular route to his office, Matthew noticed the others. They were all busy doing their own thing, but it was cool. They were nice enough. Layla was practicing, Skkylar was matchmaking, Shinta was doing his thing, and Matthew would start running some numbers. He sat at his desk and cracked his knuckles. "Open user interface." Matthew commanded, and it did. A phone sized holographic screen materialized before him, little graphs and charts running in real time, the "Settings" screen. Matthew squinted at it, wrinkling his nose, before he grabbed the little square of light by it's corners and pulled it wider. Much better. Matthew checked over the cities numbers with a quick glance. Nothing big was moving through, just a regular day. Little expenses, tiny little numbers jiggering up and down on a line. It wasn't too pressing, so Matthew put the system on autopilot and set it to alert him if anything came up. He navigated from the settings back to the main menu and opened up his stat screen. His brain wouldn't be needed too much today, so he shifted some points from Intelligence to Dexterity and Balance. After that, Matthew pulled a few from Consitution and placed them in Agility, Speed, and Flexibilty. He always slept better with a few extra points in Consitution, but he had never quite figured out why. Next, Matthew navigated over to the skill slots and decided he'd be going Rogue today and dumped all his points into the rogue tree, filling up everything right up until the Ultimate skill. He sighed with relief as he felt his senses sharpen, his reflexes quicken, and his whole body fall into a loose relaxed posture. While it looked open and vulnerable, Matthew was a tightly wound spring. He was ready to jump at a moment's notice, vanish into thin air, or drop someone off a building, should the need present itself. Just in time too, Skylar buzzed them in over the intercom. Matthew smiled as he shrunk the holographic menu down into the shape of a pair of horn rimmed glasses and wore them over his eyes. Information flooded into him, but the sensation wasn't uncomfortable. While Matthew's glasses looked a little odd, no one except but hazes would be able to guess their true function. Since his system wasn't on high alert, there numbers slid under Matthew's vision in a neat little line, like the DOW did on the Times Square Jumbotron.

Matthew walked in last, eyes widening as Skylar stumbled, but smiling once she righted herself. She needed to stop working so hard. She'd run herself into the ground before complaining, but even somebody as tactless as Matthew could tell. She was just that type of person. "Whatcha got on the docket today boss-lady?" Matthew asked politely. He was eager to get out of this dumb office.

Click. Click. Click...
The lights flickered on and off in Lacey's office. She groaned, and kicked her feet against her desk, sending her and her chair flying backwards, also bringing a loud crash.
She moaned,
"That hurt SO much more than I thought it would,"
As she placed her black boots on the ground, standing up as she did. Lacey was wearing some baggy, blue pants, and a white lace shirt with a tang top on under it. Lacey rubbed her back, and started to pick her chair back up, right before a voice came up on the intercom.
"Staff members, please come to my office please,"
The voice made Lacey stumble, and she dropped the chair again, also announcing a crash, but this time less loud. It took her a minute to figure out it was Skylar over the intercom, not in person, so thank god, she hadn't seen Lacey slacking off. She knew Skylar wasn't a mean boss, but it was always best to be careful.
Lacey, once again, stood up, and headed towards Skylar's office. Once she left the room, the lights had stopped flickering.
"Erm, hello."
Lacey poked her head into the office, finding she was, of course, the last one to get there.

Skylar smiled brightly, ignoring Shinta's comment. She had already heard enough crap from her father. She rummaged through the filling cabinet. She picked up some files and handed them to the employees.

"Layla, you get to go here, Shinta here you go, Lacey, here, Matthew, here you go!" Suddenly, a buzz rang from the front of the building. She looked at the cameras. "OO! He's here!" She ran through the door, smiling. "C'mon!" She demanded, running towards the front.

Trent tapped his foot nervously as he waited for Skylar. The door opened. He smiled as he saw Skylar run towards him. She jumped into his arms. He hugged her, laughing. Suddenly, he was overwhelmed by a vision.

Trent was a little boy again, with a toddler, Skylar at his side. They were at a candy store, eating masses of candy, laughing. Their mothers were close by, laughing. Skylar laughed as she threw jelly beans at him. Trent laughed, and threw a small bar of candy at her, lightly and playfully.

He released her from the hug. Skylar grinned whimsically. "Sky! You've grown so much! Look at you!" He smiled in a big brotherly way. He was the only one allowed to call her Sky. Once he saw the other people, he clammed up a little, not liking crowds.

"Layla, you get to go here, Shinta here you go, Lacey, here, Matthew, here you go!"
Skylar handed her a folder. Lacey immediately cut to conclusions,
"More work?! This isn't fair! I've been working my heart out! I need a break!!"
Okay, maybe she wasn't really working, but it was worth a try to weasel out. Even if she wasn't working at all, she still deserved a break! Right?
Lacey arched an eyebrow, as she heard a buzzer ring from the front of the building.
"OO! He's here!"
Skylar had smiled, running through the door. Lacey then yelled to her,
"So do I get a break or not?!"
Lacey sighed, and started to impatiently wait for her answer. Soon she had came back, with another person? Lacey cocked her head sideways,
"And you are...?"

Trent looked up a bit. "Elements," He replied, looking back at the ground. Once Shinta called Skylar Sky, her face clenched up. "Don't call me Sky," She crossed her arms before she went back to her regular perky attitude. "You two, stay here," She pointed to Shinta and Layla. "You may go run around and work," She tossed a folder to Trent, making sure to not touch him. Otherwise, a bad memory would appear. THe only reason he had a god one when he hugged her was because they were in a good mood. THis was a more serious mood, where bad memories were more likely. Trent missed the folder, and it tumbled to the ground.

Layla raised an interested eyebrow at Trent's admittance.

Some adventurous part of her wanted to ask him to give them a glimpse, but she bit her lip and shut that idea down. Layla chuckled at the thought of Shinta smiling, which was a rarity all its own. Lacey had better just go do her job 'cause there was no way in hell Shinta was going to smile for them. Speaking of, Layla caught him glancing at her and ignored him. Let him interpret it any way he wants, she told herself mentally and returned her gaze to the siblings just as Trent accidentally dropped the folder Skylar was going to hand to him.

"Oh, here you go," she said gently and picked up the folder, making sure that none of the contents fell out. She extended it towards the male, smiling politely. She might as well act a little friendlier.

"Thanks," Trent mumbled as he grabbed the folder, accidentally brushing against her elbow as he turned around to go out the door. He froze, his green eyes turned white with the single black pupil in the middle. He froze completely, seeing a vision. Skylar sighed, walking over to him. "This'll take a second. Word of advice, let him help himself, if he's touched, he's going to see into your memories," Skylar stood in front of him, waiting for him to snap back into reality. His eyes turned back to a green. "Sorry about you father," He turned to Layla, mumbled, then walked out.

"Sorry about your father."

In the distance, Layla did not hear Skylar's "advice" as she so called it. She did not hear his thanks or even a pen drop. All she heard were the words he uttered as he walked away.

"Sorry about your father."

No one had said that to her in over a year. They stopped. It was the normal thing to do anyway. It only brought dark memories, memories that revolved around the woman who was probably blowing up Layla's voicemail at this very moment. For one quick second, Layla forgot to school her features. Her skin paled momentarily and the honey-brown hue of her eyes darkened to a near chocolate-brown, pain written all over her face. A moment later, however, she turned it all off, hardening herself. She stood upright and tucked a few stray strands of hair behind her ear, clutching her folder tightly.

"Thanks," she called over his shoulder, ignoring how foreign and tinged with emotion her voice sounded. Hopefully, everyone else did the same.

Skylar felt crushed. Nothing seemed to be going right. She could feel pressure bubble up inside of her. She brushed it off and sighed, sitting on her desk. She took another handful of popcorn and chewed before she swallowed and spoke. "Sadly, this won't even be the worst part of my day. If Shinta was here, I'd give a whole useless briefing to piss him off, but now that's all lost," Skylar smiled teasingly.

"So basically, uh, be nice to Trent and keep him away from Devon at all costs. He's coming to vista, frankly I don't want him here, but he has the power to overthrow me and become leader again," Skylar said, referring to her father. "Either way, go do your job and yell at Shinta as much as possible for me, k?" Skylar offered a smile, trying to make Layla feel better. She didn't want to bring up soul crushing issues at this time.

Trent shuffled out, brushing past multiple people as he made his way to his work space. "I shouldn't have come here," He muttered, sitting down in his cubicle sized space. Why did he let his sister wear him down? Now that Devon the "Legend" was coming, he would be as mad as hell. THe things he did, and he still thought that Sky and him were going to forgive him? No damn way. Trent could feel his hands going hot with fire, so he cooled himself down by taking deep breaths.

Skylar sighed as she sat down in her chair. A loud, impatient sounding buzz came from the front door. Skylar dragged herself out of her chair, as if it was a chore and opened the door. Devon came through. He was dressed formally, and once he saw Skylar, his face displayed a scowl, as if he had just sniffed rotten tuna.

"Ah, one of my two biggest disappointments," He snarled, an evil smirk at his lips. Skylar held her head high as she could just feel her chest tighten. She stood up straight, trying to display the same disproving look. Devon walked forward with out warning, muttering criticism at every turn. "Weak," He muttered, pointing at a Haze. "Slacker," He muttered, pointing to another. It went on and on until they reached her office.

"Don't you ever clean up her? You're doing a terrible job of basically everything," He snarled, pointing to her desk. Skylar's face clenched up, her nose wrinkled. She hoped that Devon would stop there, but he didn't. "I can't believe that after I built this empire up, you little worthless rat screwed it up!" He spit on the floor. Skylar never wanted to curl up in a corner any more in her life. "You're just a stain on the face of the earth, and you should know that. Same for that garbage you call Trent too," He hissed. Skylar's lip quivered.

"You are just a waste!" He slapped her across the face, hard. Skylar suddenly burst, screaming every insult she could at him. Everything that had built up over the years, she let it all out. Devon snarled. "What are you, two?" He hissed, slugging her in the eye. Skylar started to cry as her face throbbed. She stormed out of her office. A crowd of Hazes were gathered around in shock. She covered her face.

"You son of a bitch!" Trent yelled, running towards him. His father snarled at him. Trent burst into flames, angry as hell. His father laughed. "Pitiful, what an embarrassment you are, you piece of garbage!" Lighting gathered around his hands.

Before anything else could occur on the Shinta front, Layla tensed as she heard the crackle of what sounded like lightnining tearing through a sky during a thunderstorm. Her head shot up and her eyebrows furrowed in suspicion. It didn't appear as though it was going to rain from where she was standing. She was standing outside with Shinta, so that could only mean -

"Oh God, no," she whispered. She glanced at Shinta. "Come on, we gotta go!" She didn't know if he was following behind her, but she was gone, feet pounding into the pavement as she rushed to get inside. She could only pray that that Devon man would not be here. She had not been here that long, but from what she was told, he wasn't exactly a great Dad. In truth, he didn't sound too good of a person, but she had no room to judge.

Before she could get too far, Layla's eyes fell on the crowd of people, the boy enguled in flames - oh, damn - and the older man Layla could only assume was Devon. He could be the only reason that Trent would be so angry. She gasped as the lightning formd in Devon's hands.

"Trent, please don't! You both could destroy the facility!" Layla screamed, but her cries fell on deaf ears. It didn't even occur to Layla to try reasoning with Devon. She stretched her hand out and formed two small bombs, two that were powerful enough to blow the two apart but small enough to only make them at least crash into opposite walls. When it appeared as though one was about to strike, the bombs flew in their direction, exploding between the two men. Layla only shielded herself and whoever was closest to her from the blast.

Skylar ducked behind a person. When the dust settled, she could see Trent propped up against a wall, his head slumped. "Trent!" Skylar yelped, her face still bleeding from Devon. Skylar knelt beside him, not touching him. Instead she yelled in his ear before looking across the room, snarling at Devon. He was standing up, a smirk upon his face.


"What wrong freak?" He asked, laughing at himself. Skylar swallowed hard, her fists clenched lightly. She couldn't beat him, and she knew that. He slowly walked towards her, while she backed up. When she hit the wall, he was only a few inches from her face.


He spat in her face. Skylar winced, wiping the spit from her face. "You've destroyed this place yourself, be glad this is all I did," He hissed, punching her in the stomach. Skylar doubled over, already weak. Devon laughed and spun around, walking near the wreck.

Skylar weakly got up. She ran towards him fast, jumping on his back, hitting him on the head. "Get the hell off of me!" He bucked her off. Skylar hit the ground hard. Trent stood up, slowly before Devon hit him with a blast of lighting. He fell back to the ground.

Lacey walked back to her office, responding to Shinta's comment with a,
"You would be better than that then me, why don't you?"
She left groaning a bit, and came back to her office with a huff of boredom. Nothing fun happened! The lights started to flicker again, as she picked up her chair, and plopped onto it.
Suddenly, there was a yell.
"You son of a bitch!"
Lacey tensed, that didn't sound good. She got out of her chair, and hurried out of her office. There was a large crowd. Lacey pushed through all the hazes, and made her way to the front of the crowd.
Oh god,
She thought.
It's that son of a bitch Father of Skylar's.
Lacey watched the whole event unfold. She couldn't believe it. She knew well Skylar's Father, Devon, was a pain in the ass. But this? Okay, maybe she was expecting this, but that wasn't the point. In Lacey's opinion, this was low. Too low. Beyond low. Even for Lacey's standards. She buzzed with electricity. She really couldn't bear seeing someone bully Skylar around like this. Sure, Lacey was a bit lazy, didn't really work that hard, but she still knew her place when something like this was happening. And of course, poor Trent! Lacey didn't find it amusing his own Father was hitting him with lightening.
Lets see how he likes it,
Lacey thought, stepping into what seemed like the 'arena'. Lightening crackled from her hands,
"If you want to mess with my friends, then you're going to have to see me first!"

Shinta had already started on his third cigarette in a row when he heard a familliar meek voice. Smirking he'd look over and downish at her, before taking his folders and sighing. He shrugged them off, as usual, and was getting ready to make a smartass comment when she ran inside. Apparently Devon, Skylar's father was in town.

Grumbling, Shinta made a smart remark, "Let the games begin." Running down the halls, after extinguishing his cigarette, he reached for his pocket knife he always had on his side. Aiming it at Devon's head, he threw it, of course to distract the man and nothing more, "Hey, asswad! Try me!" He growled knowing he was good in a fight with fists and shit, but as they say, never bring a knife to a gun fight.

It pissed him off that Skylar's FATHER could treat her and Trent this way, it was wrong in so many ways. "Come, let's see how you do around a little hate eh?" He'd smartly say, then again that's all Shinta could do was provide a distraction so that the others would be better at harming him, or at least fleeing him off.

"Sure takes a pussy to hurt his own daughter now don't it. Where are your balls eh?" Shinta continued verbally assaulting the man, while balling his hands into fists at his side, tensing up in case Devon had decided to attack Shin. But then again, Shin was used to these things. There was a glimmer of amusement, and excitement in his eyes, as a wild smirk appeared on his face.

Shin was in trouble, but he didn't seem to care any way or not. These were his friends and family he was taking care of. NOTHING was going to harm them, as far as he was concerned.

Devon laughed at the two of them, glaring at Lacey and ignoring Shinta. His hands cackled with lighting, which slowly built up in his hands. He didn't notice Trent, who slowly collected himself and stood up, his knees wobbling a bit. Determined, Trent built up air before blasting it at his father. Sadly, the lighting was already in the air by the time Devon crashed into the wall, sliding into one of the offices. Skylar, just getting up, was in the path. She looked up right as it hit her in the stomach, knocking her down.

"Sky!" Trent yelped, abandoning his aspiration of killing his father, ran over to her. Her eyelids drooped, then shut completely. Trent wanted to know that she was alright, but he couldn't even touch her. A medical Haze ran over and checked her pulse. "She's still alive, barely though," Trent watched in horror as he watched white blood, the blood of the Hazes, spilled out of her stomach. Trent felt extreme fear. He started to run.

He didn't know where he was going, but he just ran out of the building. He ran for about five minutes before he came to a city edge. "I have no damn idea where I am," He muttered. He felt useless. Devon was probably in the same condition Skylar was in, but besides that small victory, he felt useless. Totally useless. "Face it, you're useless," He talked to himself, and sat against a brick building.

"Skylar!" Layla nearly screamed and raced towards her fallen leader at the same time that Trent did. She knelt beside Skylar's unconcious body, watching as her eyelids dropped before closing. Her eyes widened in fear as blood began to spill. She glanced up to see Trent's face, but before she could utter a word, Trent was up and running away. "Trent!" It was useless and for a split second, Layla was clueless. She was given orders to keep Trent out of trouble...but then Skylar was injured...

Layla stood, nodding to the medical Haze as they got to work. She glanced at Lacey and Mattew, nodding towards the now unconcious - and lucky for him, not dead - Devon once.

"You two, take that idiot to the medical bay. We're in no rush to take care of him," she said. She glanced around her at the people that weren't injured and frowned. "Try to get this place cleaned up to the best of your abilities. Call all medical units to the area if there are any more injuries." Finally, she turned her gaze to Shinta. "Hey, I'm going to go make sure Trent will be fine and see if he needs any medical attention. Skylar would want to see him when she wakes up. " With all of that being said, Layla ran in search of Trent.

Skylar not waking up was not an option.