Devil's Advocate (Closed)

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[attr="class","vgroup"] [attr="class","voguet"] [attr="class","mainv"]RIME [attr="class","vlyrics"] My tears are always frozen I can see the air I breathe And my fingers painting pictures On the glass in front of me [attr="class","vcred"]Ryan Amador

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[attr="class","vpostbg"]The studio was a distant friend's. And he shouldn't have been there. Even if he'd insisted - to answering, confused looks - on using the particular second floor room currently under heavy reconstruction. Wren played up the need for privacy to get into a creative space, and bit down hard on welling guilt. Maybe, a childish, naive, selfish part of him said, his surroundings would create the need for control, and thereby give it? Maybe things wouldn't turn out like they had for weeks now?

He shouldn't be there.

Wren knew that beyond a shadow of doubt. Yet, here he was. Dancing was like his own heartbeat, and every hour he spent - every day - resisting it? It felt like a slow, dirge-shored death. So, there he was. Standing nervously on a wide panel of wood flooring edged in metal, plastic-draped scaffolding. Dust-limned mirrors faced him from one side, painting a distorted, desaturated phantom of himself dimly in their borders. Wren faced a wall of mullioned windows that looked out onto the street, and allowed the city's nighttime florescent glow to suffuse the cavernous room, the only and sufficient source of light.

He shouldn't be here. Or doing this. Certainly, to scratch this itch, there were other places? Did he really believe the penalty for it happening again here would stop his unruly condition?

Wren bit his lip, took a deep breath, and squared his shoulders. He sketched a sinuous step on the floor with one pointed foot. Then another. Each motion thinned his fear, blending more and more seamlessly into the next. Wren bounded twice, gaining momentum, and threw himself into a broad leap. Motes of pale blue light danced in his peripheral. But the ecstasy of using his limbs in this way again was too much. He was imagining things, he insisted to himself. Wren closed his eyes against the growing stardust that trailed his wrists and ankles, and hurtled more stubbornly and fiercely into his improvised routine.

The catharsis set in, spurring him onward. Every move was an outlet for a little bit of his frustration. Weeks - pirouette - he'd spent weeks in this city - aerial - secretly, ravenously looking for a cure - barrel jump. A faint azure glow flickered on the other side of his eyelids, and Wren opened them angrily. He didn't look, though. He could feel that strange energy curling from him without noting the way that the streetlamps outside were now competing to illuminate the studio over the sparks of his own. Instead, he threw himself into an angry series of chain jumps.

Fzzzth, FZZzzth, FZZZZTH!

Wren's foot hit a patch of frost, throwing him onto the floor as it was swept out from under him. He hit with more grace than most after a lifetime spent combatting failure and turning it into success. He breathed heavily, ignoring the pain that bloomed in his legs from the impact, and through his panting looked around him with slow, agonizing dread. Swatches and streaks of ice and snow sprawled away from Wren, lashing the studio in swirling streams of crystals and drifts - no pattern, but somehow beautiful.

To anyone but Wren.

He coiled his fingers into fists and threw them at the floor. CRKSHZT! Wren clenched his eyes shut and pressed his forehead to the back of one of his hands. He didn't need to look again to know his burst of fury had turned the place into a micro-tundra.

[attr="class","cred"]VEL OF PIXEL PERFECT

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[Ryan Amador]

for those days

we felt like a mistake

somehow we keep marching on

❧

He was starting to feel like his official job description was becoming less field leader and more recruiter. Not that he had an issue finding more people that could be helped by the Cabal's good work. Besides Perses had asked him specifically to do this. He knew Caleb was just as capable of approaching possible recruits, people who needed their help. But Perses had asked him and he did anything that man asked him to do.

It was easy enough to break in, to sneak in unseen. He was quite good at remaining unseen when he needed to be. He'd trained against Caleb, after all, whose enhanced vision made it hard to hide from. That training clearly paid off.

He hadn't done the part of actually finding this young man - this Wren Bouchard. No, that had been Amrit. Wren had apparently drawn the technopath's attention by searching for a cure for his powers. Amrit had then taken that knowledge to Perses who had handed the mission down to Ryan.

He didn't know why Wren wanted his powers removed or what even his powers were but he didn't have to know to understand. Even if his own ability was useful and something he took pride in, Ryan was very close to someone who wasn't so lucky. All he had to do was think about his youngest brother, think about what Joan went through with his powers and how much he feared his powers, and he could understand at least a little of how Wren must have felt.

He attempted to open the door to the studio but that... proved more difficult than he knew it should've been. There was something blocking it. He frowned faintly before putting more effort into it and this time the door successfully gave. Once it was opened, he discovered that what had been causing it to stick was apparently snow and ice. Was Wren an ice manipulator? A snow manipulator? That ability wasn't unheard of but he'd yet to meet someone with it - aside from his sister's weather manipulation.

He stepped partially through the doorway, eyes glancing around the room at the small tundra that must have happened to cause this. He didn't think he'd look intimidating - ignoring the fact that he was a complete stranger - stepping into the room. He wasn't in his costume but rather dark jeans and a light red button up with the sleeves rolled up to right past his elbows. He hadn't been told to show up as Null so he'd decided to come as Ryan Amador.

Then his eyes found Wren and he stepped the rest of the way into the room.

"You okay, mate?" he asked, his accent lacing the words. He held his hands up slightly to about his chest. Technically he was always prepared for a fight, even if he lacked his costume and weapons, but a fight was a last resort for him in missions like this. He didn't want to make an enemy. He wanted to make a friend.

508 ● @wren ● Sorry about the wait!

[attr="class","cred"]MADE BY VEL OF WW + GS

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[Deleted]

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[attr="class","vgroup"] [attr="class","voguet"] [attr="class","mainv"]RIME [attr="class","vlyrics"] My tears are always frozen I can see the air I breathe And my fingers painting pictures On the glass in front of me [attr="class","vcred"]Ryan Amador

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[attr="class","vpostbg"]His chest heaved and his heart throbbed sorely against his ribs in intermingled anger and exertion. Wren contemplated loosing his emotions more, maybe even sobbing, but couldn't chance it. He was trying his hardest to know as little about his abilities as possible, but it was clear they responded to his dancing and his emotions. If a fit of anger had remade the studio into a slice of the arctic, he didn't know what deeper grieving would do.

The first shifting and skittering of frost couldn't compete with his own pulse and heavy breathing. The small hiss, pop and splinter that came next won, though. Wren's eyes flung wide open, he tensed and threw himself instinctively into a lithe crouch. The soles of his bare feet coiled, ready to spring him up and away from the door that the sounds came from. Wren had no idea where he was going to go, the flight instinct in him was so raw and strong, he almost speared toward the windows, never mind the twenty-foot fall.

Reason warred with the desire - need - to get away. Neither won out before the coating of white-blue ice snapped apart at the seams of the doorframe and a pair of eyes fell on him from the widening threshold. Wren stopped - moving, even breathing, his eyes round and desperate. Not quite a deer in the headlights, more a cornered, albeit not dangerous, animal.

The stranger stepped in, wording a question. Wren stayed put, staring at him while his thoughts sputtered and whizzed. It wasn't his friend, the owner of the studio. Not one of the sparse staff, either - he'd memorized the faces and names. One of the students? Did they recognize him? Wren knew he was semi-famous, but only in select circles. No recognition had hit the stranger yet... If the guy didn't know who he was there was a chance...

In his anxious, frightened thinking, the ice in the room reacted without him noticing. Hoarfrost spread like roots from clotted ice, and that ice grew fractal talons that extended outward, slow and smooth as a feline popping claws. Wren made up his mind, and in that moment, the phenomenon halted. He slowly straightened into a standing position and swallowed past a lump in his throat.

"Yes, I'm fine," he answered, forcing his voice to sound conversational - the tone that he'd use in interviews after a performance, schooled to seem nonchalant no matter the emotions going off like fireworks in his heart. "Sorry, had a little bit of an-" Wren trailed off, looking around him and cringing inwardly, "-accident."

[attr="class","cred"]VEL OF PIXEL PERFECT

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[Ryan Amador]

for those days

we felt like a mistake

somehow we keep marching on

❧

The second Wren looked like he might have felt threatened by his presence, Ryan held his hands up in what he believed was a universal I come in peace. It was clear to him that Wren was upset and... There was something familiar about it. Something that reminded him of the fear some of his siblings - specifically the ones with more physical abilities such as Sara, Joan, and Xander - had felt when they'd first manifested their abilities and fought to keep control over them.

Even now after all the years they'd spent training, control was still a hard thing to maintain.

If Wren's body language and expression weren't enough to tell him he wasn't happy by his sudden appearance - they were - then the way his ability reacted definitely was. He was used to powers being linked to emotions; his own was, after all. The calmer he was, the easier it was to create a nullification field and keep that field up.

He eyed the ice carefully as it reacted, watching to make sure it didn't suddenly pose a threat to him. He was trained to pay close attention to how someone used their ability, especially when their control was lacking or their ability was linked to his emotion. He needed to pay close attention in order to know when the right time to nullify someone's ability or abilities was.

But then the ice stopped and Wren stood up. Ryan's eyes moved from the ice to the other man and a gentle smile spread across his face. He waved his hand nonchalantly at Wren's apology.

"That's alright," he replied, "Once my sister accidentally created a tornado in our living room because she got into an argument with our brother."

He thought about how to approach this. Judging by the information he'd been given, he wasn't sure if Wren would recoil at being told right away that he worked for people who could remove, or at least nullify, his ability. He wasn't sure how delicate of a topic that was.

"Four powered siblings plus myself," he added with a grin, "I'm pretty sure I've seen it all when it comes to powers."

364 ● @wren ● n/a

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[Deleted]

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[attr="class","vgroup"] [attr="class","voguet"] [attr="class","mainv"]RIME [attr="class","vlyrics"] My tears are always frozen I can see the air I breathe And my fingers painting pictures On the glass in front of me [attr="class","vcred"]Ryan Amador

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[attr="class","vpostbg"]Wren tried applying the same method he did to his art to that specific moment. When learning a routine choreographed by someone else, he would surgically piece the movements and timing together. Once he'd done that, he could give himself over to the feeling of the piece and let emotion flood through every gesture and leap. To distract himself, just then, from the emotions knotted in his chest, he broke the dizzying scenario he found himself in into bite-sized pieces to easier and more thoroughly digest.

The urge to leap out of the nearest window wasn't entirely gone, either.

There was no fear in the other man's eyes. No emotional at all whatsoever that Wren would've guessed would be there, actually. Only a soothing, careful kind of openness and caution could be found. The opposite of the scene of horror that'd surrounded him the first time his condition manifested. Why did it make Wren feel anything but soothed, though? Even in the super-powered world that they lived in, it felt wrong in Wren's mind for the stranger to walk in on the scene that he had and not be anxious or a little healthily fearful.

Wren backed up a half-step as the stranger neared. He kept that trained neutrality from interviews in his face and voice, but let wariness bleed through. His skepticism turned to intrigue and his cynicism loosened with logic a bit when the other man spoke again. Talked about a sister who made tornadoes. So he was more intimately familiar with powers than most people. That made his nonchalance at Wren's little winter wonderland a bit easier to believe.

Questions fought each other toward Wren's lips when the stranger said he and all his siblings had abilities. Hope flickered in his throat, squeezing and drying it all at once. He caught it before it got any stronger - the last few weeks had tempered his optimism. Some very important, and basic, questions needed answering before others. Wren opened his mouth, closed it, then swallowed and tried again. "And who are you?" He hoped it sounded curious and not as cornered as he felt.

[attr="class","cred"]VEL OF PIXEL PERFECT

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[Ryan Amador]

for those days

we felt like a mistake

somehow we keep marching on

❧

Ryan cocked an eyebrow when asked who he was. He wasn't surprised - In fact he'd been expecting the question. He hadn't been sure when it would come but had known it would. It was only natural. He was a stranger. If their roles were reversed, he knew he would've asked Wren the exact same thing.

"My name is Ryan Amador," he replied, having no reason to keep his own identity to himself. Now was the time to go into the spiel. He had to sell the Cabal. Hell, he had to sell himself in a way. He doubt Wren would go along if he didn't trust Ryan and thus didn't trust what he was saying.

"I work for a group that wants to help the world," he explained, "They want to help people like us." He gestured to himself and then to Wren before clasping his hands behind his back.

"We do research into powers and abilities," he continued, "Including how to relieve people of their unwanted powers." He gave Wren a knowing look. He wasn't sure how Wren would react to someone knowing he wanted to get rid of his powers.

Ryan's eyes flashed turquoise as he summoned a nullification field. It was nearly invisible, appearing like heat waves in the air when someone focused their eyes on a single spot for long enough. He pushed the field out far enough to reach Wren and give him a taste of life without his powers again.

"My ability, Mr. Bouchard," he added, revealing that he also knew who Wren was - Amrit was good at information gathering after all. "Is to nullify or cancel out the abilities of others. It's temporary and based solely on my energy and how long I can personally make it last. But we are researching into ways to make it permanent for those who wish it to be."

He leveled his gaze on Wren, hoping he had his fully attention now if he hadn't already. "We would happily extend this research to you if you wish it."

343 ● @wren ● n/a

[attr="class","cred"]MADE BY VEL OF WW + GS

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