maskormenacelogs | i found myself in crowded rooms, feeling so alone

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i found myself in crowded rooms, feeling so alone

WHO: Teen!Rumor + You
WHERE: Nonah (or wherever, we can handwave how)
WHEN: May 4th
WHAT: Allison is hit with Wild Fey Magic, and reverts back to being 13
WARNINGS: One super temper and a mass case of flippant, ruthless uses of powers

Number Three had no clue where she was when she woke up.

The bedroom was bare and unfamiliar, and someone had put her in some weird set of pajamas. While their father might be the end all be all a totalitarian dictator, he had prepared them, if not for every situation, then with skills that could be used wherever they might find themselves. If panic touched the edges of her thoughts, she brushed it away with all the dismissal of ants. She skivvied out of the strange bed, stole a tunic shirt, and belted it at the waist, making sure her every step was silent.

She'd been kidnapped and tortured before. That wasn't anything new. But she wasn't about to stick around and wait to see what the latest flavor whatever villain who got the drop on her had in mind. Weirdly. She couldn't remember how she'd been kidnapped at all, where her uniform was. But that could wait. They could have drugged her. She could focus on that once she was home.

Number Three crept out of the bedroom into ... a house? A house full of boxes? And one where the front door only had a knob lock and deadbolt? This was too weird. But she wasn't looking a gift-horse in the mouth. She slipped out from the house, closing the door carefully, slowly, and waiting for about fifteen more feet of silent steps from the door before she started sprinting down the street, still holding her breath.

It only gets weirder and weirder. She doesn't recognize any of the street signs, and she asks someone on a sidewalk where she is, and how far from home it is. But she doesn't know the name of this place. Or anywhere else they mentioned. Weirder still when she finally found someone with a phone (or whatever this was, that was the size of her hand???), and The Academy phone number didn't work.

It's a mistake the first time she mentions The Umbrella Academy because a crowd forms out of nowhere, screaming questions (about whether she's some love child from the future? And asking any number of things that seem crazily worse. She's pretty sure someone just asked if they went in for underwear or no underwear with costumes wherever she came from).

Eventually, with or without some help, Number Three does manage to wrench herself free of the teeming crowds, that are like the crowds from home and nothing like that at all. After getting a few blocks away, she dropped on a bench. She was racking her head. This wasn't her job. This was what Luther did. Or Five, if he was allowed to.

One barefoot, forlorn, if headstrong and temperamental,
child-hero for sale to any buyers who would like to find her.

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She's not the only one having difficulties with their current situation. There's a boy attempting to hide behind some bushes nearby. He doesn't know what this place is or how he got here, but he knows that everyone who spotted him so far has mobbed him and asked a bunch of strange questions. Not knowing what that was all about, he ran, trying to find a place to stay out of sight. He hasn't seen a single other Tiefling, or any non-humans at all, which makes trying to blend in an impossibility with his pink skin, and little horns that looked like they were just growing in. His long, pointy tail swished behind him before he suddenly stilled it, realizing the sound it made as it rustled through the leaves of the bushes could draw attention.

And that's when he spotted the girl. She looks like she's about her age, and seems as frustrated and panicked as he feels. He knows this is a risk, but he doesn't want to be in this alone, and he's here without his siblings or anyone he knows. Slowly, carefully, he emerges from his hiding place.

"Did you just wake up here, too?" He knows it's a long shot, but he can't imagine that just he and he alone would have been pulled into this strange place, right?

"I did not wake up here," is already snapping out of the young girl's mouth, even before she can find the (very red? young? ... unarmed?) boy addressing her. "This is a sidewalk."

Her words are sharp, and her expression as unapologetic as it is dangerously suspicious about being addressed. She did wake up somewhere strange. But that's not his business. Academy members got kidnapped from time to time. (When they weren't being locked up in places, from time to time, by their father.)

Still. She doesn't know, and not knowing always makes Allison edgy. It's not her job to take charge. That was never part of her training, or what she felt comfortable with. She needs Luther or her Father. None of this is right. Which means all of it is wrong. None of it is be trusted. None of these people. These places. Anything she can see.

But she can't find an option for what to do about it yet.

He takes a step back when she snaps at him, but he still prefers it to the sheer unnerving enthusiasm of the other humans in this place.

"I didn't mean here here, I meant..." He waves his hands around to gesture at everything around them. "In this weird place. I woke up in a room, but I keep running into people that ask me weird questions, but I figured you didn't look like you'd be a part of whatever this thing is."

Mostly because she's another kid, but also because she seems as freaked out as he does. He's assuming, of course, the adults asking him invasive questions are a part of whatever's going on.

There is a small stab of vicious pride when the boy takes a quick step back from nearing her -- even sitting well below his height still on the bench -- but he doesn't run away. And the more words that come out of his mouth, the more it sounds exactly like what she's been facing since she woke up, and the harder it's becoming to discredit him.

(Or the easier it is?

Is it way too suspicious that some other kid just happens to have suddenly gone through what she did, and is looking at her like he wants her to agree with him? Side with him? Is it possible he's part of all this?)

Still on edge, though her voice is more a tense line that a sword this time. "Why is that?"

"Because you're not old enough to be part of a big kidnapping conspiracy." Obviously. Or was it? Did inter-planar cabals employ children? "I think."

He is, of course, assuming this is all a fake city, and that everyone he sees must have something to do with whatever reason they were kidnapped. Although he's not sure where that city could be, because there's nowhere on Golarion with carriages that race by on their own without horses to pull them. Maybe it's a fay realm? Or Hell?

"You don't know that."

She's old enough to do a lot of things. She's old enough she doesn't know how many people she's killed or taken part in killing. She's old enough that her first thought isn't either of those -- it's that he doesn't know enough to think about the best part of it all. The part where she could, even now, do anything she wanted to him.

With a few of the right words,
she could make him pull off his own foot and eat it.

"I've done a lot of things, back home, kids my age don't do."

"So I was right, you aren't from around here." And then the implication of what she said registers. "What kind of stuff?"

His imagination runs wild, but even so, what he's picturing is far tamer than the reality, and mostly involves stealing and possibly some black magic, complete with chicken sacrifices. Then he decides to play his own history up, so she doesn't think he's a young naive kid compared to her.

"I mean, I've done stuff, too. I'm literal devil spawn, and I've...shoplifted."

He tries to lean against a nearby tree in a way that he thinks will make him look cool, while his tail swishes casually from side to side.

Allison's not sure if it was more baffling to consider the questions the crowd had thrown at her, or this boy's sudden reference of not knowing who she was. Everyone knew who she was. Even if people mixed up sometimes who the boys were, she was the only girl, and no one forgot her.

There's definitely no level of impressiveness early from the girl on her seat when her expression wrinkles. When Allison is suddenly trying to gauge if this boy just admitted to being like Klaus. That would be disastrously against the grain of this person being helpful to her means.

Still, the other part of that statement had started off far stranger.

"You're what?"

"I'm a Tiefling, which means there was a devil or demon somewhere in my line. I thought that was kind of obvious. You know, with the...everything." He gestures. The horns. The silver eyes. The skin. The tail.

That's another word Number Three doesn't know. She wonders if Number One, with all his books, would recognize it quickly. She wishes she did, but not enough to actually start picking through his books, of the undoubtedly ample recommendation list that she'd get if she did.

But it's never been her thing.

Not for more than passing through required studies.

Her eyes narrowed, more speculative of his sanity than of the words. Her head tilts in a way that's not entirely normal gesture as she considers his body. "Some kind of full-body tattoo, and maybe surgical-grafting could do it? It's a big favorite with the villains in Asia like you wouldn't believe."

Beat.

"Though none of them are usually your age."

They were addle-brained adults who fell off the edge.

"I don't know what grafting is, but can it attach a fully functioning tail?" He waves his tail in demonstration.

He could see someone painting their body, gluing on horns or whatever, though he's not sure how someone could get their eyes to turn silver. Illusion magic, he supposes, could handle both that and the tail. But is it truly so strange for someone to be a Tiefling? It seems stranger to him to think that someone might want to pretend to be one. Still, there's one other thing he wants to clarify.

"I'm not a villain, though."

Sure, he was just trying to seem tough and cool and like he did 'stuff', but going by the villain label just seems like it's going too far.

"Are Tieflings really that rare where you're from?"

He stares at the girl while trying not to seem like he's staring. It's how he's treating everything and everyone here, a place where nothing and no one is recognizable. But he can't give that away. If you admit your ignorance, others will take advantage of it.

He likely sticks out, he knows - he hadn't found any clothes he could wear in the set of rooms he woke up in, so he's still in his tattered tunic and breeches on their third or fourth hand-down. Not a style the other people here are wearing anything close to. At least he managed to comb his hair out and wash his face and hands (though the whole thing with water pouring out of a pipe had been a surprise).

The problem with not admitting your ignorance, though, is how much longer it takes to find anything out. There's plenty of writing around that would probably help, but, well, that requires knowing how to read. He's going to have to take a risk sometime. Better, probably, to try with someone who only looks to be a few years older than him, even if she's unlike anyone he's ever seen. Maybe that will even be useful.

So after a few moments, he comes away from where he'd been hugging the wall of a building in an attempt to escape notice and sits down next to her on the bench. He smiles. "Hi."

"I don't know what that is. Never heard of it."

Where anyone else might sound curious or apologetic, Number Three says this with all the detached aplomb of someone stating, unremorsefully, if they don't know it, it doesn't exist and isn't that important. It is not required knowledge for saving the world. Which is the most critical job, and only six of them in the world have it.

"And. No. You don't seem like the villain type at all."

Look like it, maybe. Seem like it, no.

Number Three didn't blink, so much as shift half her body weight and stare at the sudden existence of the kid in the tattered clothes who had suddenly taken up reside no the bench next to her. Eyebrows might not crawl down soon.

"Can I help you?" There's so much more of a sound of why are you in my space than anything truly that sounds compassionate in her voice. Every part of her -- especially her voice and her words -- was a blade made for striking. Not for being sheathed.

The apparent hostility doesn't bother him - in fact, he doesn't react to it at all.

Most people treat him with contempt. Why would that change, just because he's someplace else? After all, wherever this is, it isn't the paradise from his mother's stories.

But he knows how to get people to, at least, tolerate him. He doesn't drop the smile. "I was just wondering if you're from around here. You look like you know what you're doing."

Flattery typically helps.

"Well, it's what I am," In a matter of fact way that implied she should just accept it. "And I'm glad you think that. A lot of people where I'm from don't trust me because of what I am. Here...it's different, but I think that has to do with whatever reason they kidnapped us."

What that reason is, he can't imagine.

"What do you think this place is? I think it's some kind of fairy realm or some pocket of Hell that we got sucked into."

When Batgirl sees a teenage girl mobbed by a bunch of nosy civilians, she doesn't know why protective rage swells in her chest; that memory is gone, right now, it belongs to the future.

It doesn't help that she's in pain (there's a bruise on her cheek just below her cowl, scrapes and scratches on her suit that have probably caused their own bruises); it doesn't help that she's a stranger in a world that doesn't make any sense.

Maybe it's not the best approach, tossing an exploding batarang high in the sky and letting it go off, but it doesn't hurt anyone and it sure gets their attention as she strides forward.

"Back. Off."

If Number Three feels irritated or out of place, then no doubt these sentiments are shared by her brother. Freshly arrived to this particular time and place (no, don't bother explaining to him the concepts he is already acutely familiar with—in fact, why don't you read the folder because then you'd stop wasting his time), Five isn't one to meander about unnecessarily. It's against his training and against his character, frankly, so he quickly sets his mind at task.

After buying coffee from a street vendor, he scrolls through his communicator; the crowds on the way to the "porter" for Nonah mean nothing. Even in this whip-thin boyish body, he blinks from one space to the next, here and gone in a second. No push, no shove, no hindrance from these people who gape at the newest imPort. It's when he's stepped foot in what is supposed to be his new hometown that he finds what he's looking for in the name registry.

Hargreeves, Allison.

There, now isn't that easy?

This man out of time has spent plenty of his in other spaces, enough to understand these little devices and how to find a mark. Or, in this case, find a sibling. He doesn't act rash, of course. There's plenty of time to decide the best course of action; working for the Temps Commission, indebted to their cause, has given him a unique perspective. So he drinks his cooling coffee (they should clean the pots more, he can taste the lingering burnt bitterness), and he wonders what he'll come across. Or when, or who. It might be advantageous to observe things quietly—

Ah, but the people of Nonah are so loud. Giving a disapproving look to a group of girls who pass by, he just so happens to overhear them gossip. Umbrella Academy, one says; I heard a rumor, la-dee-da, and so on. Most of it is rubbish, so there's no point in sticking around when he has what he needs.

A blink, and space bends to his will. A blink, and he's there, just across the street from her. Five tosses the empty cup in a trash can, slides his hands in his pockets. Teenage Allison, well, that's certainly something. He sighs and waits to catch her eye.

There's something beyond pavlovian around (just the way their Father planned so much of it from the very first seeds scattered and dollars paid). Time and space are still closing around her brother when Number Three looks up. A thing that takes barely seconds, means he's been there less than seconds.

But she's already moving. "Five!"
Reaction already in action, as always. "Finally!"

Fingers and palm of one hand pushing up from the bench, with a single point alone, using all the alacrity of balance and ballast lifelong martial artistry loves. Already dashing across that street the moment her feet are down, with not a single thought to the cars or her bare feet. Sure, there are cars honking like mad, swerving, and the asphalt is blistering, but she'd love to see anyone get out and try anything.

Beside Diego, she's probably the one who loves best being given a reason to do her ~~worst~~ best. "Where are the others? Where's Space?"

Edited 2020-05-09 14:19 (UTC)

Number Three is used to being mobbed, though usually there are cordons between those mobs and her siblings. Righteously kept lines eliminated by her father. But even when they were in full pandemonium, it wasn't like this. Not like the guy suddenly shouting something about worshipping imPorts, whatever that even is.

Number Three drops into a fight-ready posture at the sudden appearance of the girl -- costumed out like some kind of bat? Were villains really lacking for inspiration in this place, too? -- except that she throws something up, and it explodes high in the sky, as she shouts at the crowd.

To back off? To leave her alone. Huh.

Her gaze still on the sky, she says, "I have got to get me one of those."

Her eyes are still blazing with righteous anger, but people actually backing up and giving the girl space soothes it a little bit, and she's able to grin at her.

"They do come in handy." Her voice is clearly put on, low and rough, but there's a gentleness to it. It took her a while to master that balance.

Then her head whips back towards the crowded, stunned silent but still lingering, and that's gone; she's pure intimidation. "And I will pull out more tricks if I have to. So go away and don't bother anyone else."

The Bat doesn't mean anything here, as far as she knows, but the symbol gleaming on her chest - scratched and singed as it is - still lends strength to her voice.

The people are scattered like the wind, looking adequately terrified.

Allison doesn't. Allison doesn't look anymore terrified or impressed than she would watching Space throw someone through a rough, or Kraken pinning someone to the wall by however many knives he had on him that day, or the Horror's many Eldric tentacles making pulling piece apart from every angle.

Neither the threat of violence nor the violence itself would make her that.
Even for the confusion of the place, she's still standing there calmly.

She is the one who stands there, while her siblings are doing such, or before they start doing it, properly and primly, in her black saddle shoes. Who skips her feet. Rocks on her toes. And then tells people to pull out their tongues. To shoot their partners. To jump out windows. All without losing that edge of her own smile.

"I could have done that." It's not a thank you.
But it's not not-a-thank-you either.
There's no edge to the words.

Not that the girl would know, but it's closer to the jostling all of them do in the Academy. Weakness is not allowed. Needing to be saved is not allowed. Competition and comparison have been their blood since they were bought.

(Plus. She could have. She could have stopped them all with a few words.
It's just a fact. Not even an arrogant piece of information.)

"Who are you? And what is this place?"

She was still considering the small, clean, but oddly dressed, little boy. She didn't have much interaction with other children who weren't her siblings. And by 'much', she meant almost none at all. The Umbrella Academy stood alone. There was only them in the (and, their) world. Even fans of their age were kept at a distance.

Number Three thinks of several first possible answers, and she even queries just barely thought of 'What would Space do?' in these circumstances, but they aren't trained to give ammunition against themselves in hostile situations.

"Because?" This more a pointed volley at his lead up,
that was a compliment but not to what implied more might be coming.

She takes note of certain things in that, without any regard for his tone or the implications therein. She might hate her Father most of the time, but he did training them in deciphering what was important to a fine, honed point.

Everything else was chaff.

(Everything.)

"Wouldn't hell or some kid's storybook world have something more exciting than boring old traffic and people walking in and out of coffee shops?"

"But it does. It has carriages moving quickly with nothing to pull them, lights that are constantly steady without flickering, strange people who ask stranger questions, signs that glow. It'll probably get even crazier from here!"

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i found myself in crowded rooms, feeling so alone

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Crowd! THIS SURE IS ONE WAY FOR THEM TO MEET

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IT SURE IS

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