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Over The Hills and Far Away; Elizabeth
Topic Started: Dec 19 2009, 11:16 PM (505 Views)
Jack
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Well.. after what.. four years? He's a fresh face to mostly everybody, but probably a familiar one to some of the older students and the faculty. Maybe he could reconnect with some old friends or make some new ones? I'm pretty much open to anything. Hit me with your best shot.
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Brian Braddock(old)
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Superhuman Strength/ Stamina/ Reflexes, Flight
Date: December 2004
Place: Motel. On the run.



“Push it, Braddock!” The voice of Agent Sterling echoed over the sound system. The irritation in his voice was obvious. It was a tone that many among the ranks of S.T.R.I.K.E. had been exposed to before, both agents and subjects. This time however, it was aimed at the boy in the booth below him. Watching from the safety of the control, Sterling watched as he struggled to lift the 90 ton weight. “You can do better than that, boy. Push it! You’re not leaving until you get it right.”

Brian’s eyes flickered upwards for a few seconds. Sweat was beginning to pour into his eyes and he could feel his legs start to give. His arms trembled slightly and he could feel the muscles in his body straining to lift the enourmous weight over his head. His jaw clenched in frustration. He was getting tired. They had been pushing him since early that morning. One test after another. Testing his flight capabilities, his reflexes, his stamina and now his strength. One grueling test after another. Sterling made sure that he was pushed to his limits every time. This was the last test of the day, they told him. Brian didn’t believe them but he had no choice, either way.

“I…I can’t..it’s too much…too heavy.” Brian gasped as he felt the pressure of the weight coming down on him. His entire body was screaming for rest, but his mind knew better than to just give up. With the mood that Sterling was in…who knows what sort of punishment would be waiting for him if he gave up. “Can’t…hold…it.”

“Don’t you dare, Braddock!” By the time Agent Sterling got the words out of hs mouth, Brian had already fallen to his knees. The 90 ton weight soon too was on the floor. Gasping for breath, Brian felt like he was going to puke his guts out. His body was worn out and he felt weak. Weak. That was a new feeling for him and he didn’t like it. As he tried to pick himself off the floor, he saw the familiar black shoes of Agent Sterling. Confusion set in as one of the shoes got closer and closer until he felt the foot connect with his side. Normally the kick wouldn’t have bothered him, but in his fatigue Brian felt the pain that ripped through his ribs. Brian tried to swat at the second kick but missed and cringed as Sterling kicked him again.

“Don’t you ever give up on me, boy! We’ve put too much time and money into training you and your freak sister. You do as you’re told and nothing else. Got it?” Sterling timed his last two words with another kick. Brian’s blue eyes flashed with rage as he tried to get up again. Just as he got up to his knees he felt the familiar rip and sting of electricity pierce through him. Several agents with electric prods took turns shocking the collapsed mutant. Tears began to swell in his eyes.


“Please….stop…”

The sound of his own voice, talking in his sleep, woke him up. Jumping slightly, Brian’s eyes scanned the room. For a few seconds, he didn’t know where he was. For a few seconds, he was afraid that he was back where he didn’t want to be. Caged and controlled. Beaten and brainwashed. His breathing quick, he noticed that his entire torse was damp with sweat. After rubbing his eyes, he looked around the room again. It was the same cheap motel room that they’d rented two days ago. To call it a room was to use the word lightly, but it served its purpose. There was a bed and hot water in the bathroom. The television didn’t work and Brian was certain that he had heard the scurrying of rats within the walls. A S.T.R.I.K.E. facility this place was not. He was thankful for that, at least.

Standing up from the chair he slept in, he stretched himself to his full height. His eyes quickly shifted to the door in front of him. He had positioned the chair so that he could see everything in the room. The only thing at his back was the empty closet, which he checked every so often. Satisfied that there was no one lurking outside the room, he looked over towards the bed. Elizabeth was still there, sleeping as far as he could tell. That was the most important thing. He let her have the bed because she needed it more than he did. Sleeping in the chair made him feel better on guard. When he did sleep. Since the escape, he had trouble sleeping. Nightmares…memories…that haunted him every night.

Falling back into the chair, he sighed. They would have to move on soon. They couldn’t afford to stay in one place for too long. The agents were still looking for them. He promised his sister a normal, safe life. One day. They wouldn’t be on the run forever. Until then, they had to keep moving. Reaching into his pocket, he fished out a few pounds. They were running out of money. He would have to get some more soon. Closing his eyes, he leaned his head back. Fragments of his most recent dream flashed across his eyelids. The memory of it…the dream and the very real life event made him cringe both with anger and a twinge of fear. Leaning forward, he held his head in his hands and squeezed his eyes tight, hoping to make the nightmare vanish from his mind.
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Wolfsbane
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Wolf Form
He can join up with the ferals. It seems we may have lost Wolf Cub, but there are others in the thread, and Jack's experiences could prove useful in helping the younger ones.
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[size0]Say the dog and butterfly,
in the air they like to fly.
Dog and butterfly.
She knew she had to try,
and she float back down to the warm soft ground,
laughing - she don't know why,
but she had to try, she had to try.
Dog and Buttefly.


Avatar by Natalie, signature by Olga. My graphics set is complete again! Thank you so much!
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Jack
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Awesome. I can totally do that.

EDIT: It's technically before the time arrives, but.. I don't think that'll matter too much, right?

EDIT: Before.. he.. arrives.. 3 points for my grammar. Really..
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Wolfsbane
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Wolf Form
We can do another meeting of the group, perhaps with a different agenda to it. It's not a one-time only thing, so there's always the possibility of another thread.
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[size0]Say the dog and butterfly,
in the air they like to fly.
Dog and butterfly.
She knew she had to try,
and she float back down to the warm soft ground,
laughing - she don't know why,
but she had to try, she had to try.
Dog and Buttefly.


Avatar by Natalie, signature by Olga. My graphics set is complete again! Thank you so much!
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Jack
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I'm all in. Just let me know when another one will arrive. (:
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Betsy Braddock
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Telepathy (I'm not a bloody ninja)
Grass spread out under her bare feet, all nice and soft and warm from a bright summer sun, hanging high up in the blue sky that stretched out above her, barely a cloud in it to ruin the perfect blue that to her mind, matched her eyes so very perfectly. It was summer, she was playing out in the field, wearing a nice yellow gingham dress with matching ribbons in her hair. Reaching up to tug at them gently, Elizabeth stopped herself before she pulled them right out. Then someone, someone familiar, called her name and she turned around quickly to answer the call, only to see no one there…In the distance however, there was a big, old house that she felt like she’d seen before, somewhere, a long long time ago, maybe in another dream. She knew that someone would be waiting for her in the house, but it was hard to get there, so she started running fast, so that she’d be there sooner, inside having cakes and tea with everyone else…Then she woke up…

For a moment, Elizabeth was confused. The room she was in was dark and unfriendly. There was no chink of light under the door and there was none coming from the slit of a window above her bed, where the moon would come in. The sheets felt old and worn, not like the stiff ones that should be on her bed…Because she wasn’t in her bed. Making a small noise out of distress, she kicked away the blankets, drawing herself up against the headboard, looking fretfully around the room. Slowly, she remembered; she didn’t live in the S.T.R.I.K.E. facility any more and she was no longer a superhero. Tears slipped down her cheeks as the facts sank in and her attention focused on Brian, sat on a very uncomfortable chair. He said that they shouldn’t be in the facility, that it wasn’t right and that he could make sure they’d have a much nicer life, but that hadn’t happened. She wanted to go home…

“Brian…” Elizabeth said quietly, scooting to the edge of the bed. He was sat on his chair, head in his hands, like he was in pain or upset. Biting her lip nervously, the blonde shuffled off the bed and padded over the threadbare carpet towards him and leant down, wrapping her arms around him in a tight hug. “Don’t be upset…I think I still have a chocolate bar, if you’d like it….” Dropping her head so it lay on his, she gave him a tighter squeeze for a minute. The hotel room was silent, aside from a dripping tap coming from the little bathroom tacked on. It smelt funny in that little room, and something green was clinging to the tap.

“I was having this lovely dream, about a big field and there was a house…It was big and old and someone called my name, so I think I was supposed to go there, but I couldn’t get there. Then I woke up…I got confused…” biting her lip, the girl sat down on the floor beside the chair with a bump, looking up at her twin brother. She hated asking the question, but it had been days now since she had last asked, and she was tired and hungry. “When can we go home? I want to go home. Why can’t I be a superhero anymore?” tears pricked the corners or her eyes as she waited for the response, tensing already, although she hoped he wouldn’t shout, Elizabeth didn’t like it when he shouted.
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Brian Braddock(old)
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Brian heard his sister’s distressed sounds and knew that she was awake. He didn’t look up because it was a sound that he had become familiar with. Especially on those occasions when she woke up confused. That happened a lot. Almost everyday since they’d escaped from that prison that she often refered to as “home.” Brian knew better. It was not their true home. Their real home was a far away place that neither one of them remembered very clearly anymore. Although he could only vaguely remember the house that they lived in with their parents and brother, he knew that S.T.R.I.K.E. was not their home. It was a trap for their minds and their bodies. And he’d die before he went back there, or let her go back.

A sad smile appeared on his face. Elizabeth was a sweet girl. Smart too. But Brian often wondered what exactly happened to her at the facility. He knew all about the horrors that he had to endure, but he knew that her “conditioning” had to be different. From the way she talked about being a “super hero” it was obvious that they had broken her in a way. She believed their lies and had grown accustomed to the sterile conditions in which they were forced to live. She didn’t know that she had been a slave to the humans….and in some ways still was. It made him angry sometimes. Sometimes he yelled at her. He didn’t mean to take his anger out on her. He really wasn’t angry at her when he yelled. He was angry at what they did to her.

She had been dreaming of their old life. At least, that’s what he thought. What else could it be? A field..a big, old house? It was one of her good dreams. Far better than his nightmares. At least one of them was having decent dreams. And then she asked. It had been a while since she last asked, but he knew that the question would come up again. As always, it made him angry. Looking down at her, he knew that being angry would not help things along. She was sad, almost crying even. Her tears moved him. How could he be sad and angry at the same time? He sighed and tried to keep the conflicting emotions out of his eyes. There was no reason for her to see it.

Reaching down, he took her hands in his and spoke calmly. “Elizabeth…the facility isn’t our home. I know we lived there for a long time, but we don’t belong there. Don’t you remember? They took us away from our real home. Home is supposed to be a good place with good people. That place is not a good place and the agents and scientists are not good people. They hurt us. They lied to us. Remember?” They told her that she was a superhero. Doing good deeds and making people safe. They probably told her that people would love her for it. They lied. They always lied. “We were prisoners there, not superheroes. We’re never going back.” He squeezed her hands a bit to emphsize his point, before letting them go.

Brian was going to make sure that Elizabeth would never be tainted or hurt by their lies again. He promised her a better life and he was going to make sure that she got it. He just wasn’t sure how he was going to do it. For him, anything outside of S.T.R.I.K.E. was a better life, but she needed more than that. They couldn’t run forever. He didn’t think that she could handle it. She was probably tired and hungry. They had been on the move for a bit and with the money running low, food had been scarce. Of course anything that they managed to get, he gave her most of it. She needed her strength. He would have to get some food soon. Even he had begun to feel the familiar pangs of hunger.

He wiped the corners of her eyes gently. “Don’t cry, Betsy.” He hoped that using his childhood name for her would put her at ease just a bit.
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Betsy Braddock
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Telepathy (I'm not a bloody ninja)
Brian didn’t shout, that was the good thing, but he told her again that the S.T.R.I.K.E base hadn’t been home, and it never had been. He had explained this before, but it never really made sense to her. She had had a proper bedroom there, a bed and clothes and she had food…Of course, she had her duties to her country to perform, as she owed everyone a lot, for her training and for her place to stay but she liked it. She liked being a hero and a good person, and now she couldn’t do those things and she just couldn’t understand why.

“I don’t remember though…” Elizabeth said quietly, hoping he wouldn’t get mad now. “I want to and I try to, but I don’t remember…I was a nuisance and I needed to make up for…for…” shaking her blonde head, she looked up at her brother. “If we don’t go back, where are we going to go?” the floor was uncomfortable, and the room had a funny, fusty smell to it, like the windows never got opened. It was cold outside, so she was very glad of the room, even though it wasn’t very nice, but she wanted a proper bedroom, she wanted…

Things seemed to go blank for a moment and she realised she’d been staring at a spot on the wall, behind Brian and not at him. Her brows furrowed together as she tried to recall what she had been thinking about, but it was gone. The silence from outside was replaced by the sound of rain pattering on the glass and she gave an instinctual shiver, drawing a little closer to her brother. He wiped her eyes, telling her not to cry and she gave him something of a weak smile and propped her head on the arm of his chair, shifting around a little to get comfortable.

“My name isn’t Betsy, silly. It’s a nice name, though…”

Betsy…He called her it every now and then, but it felt strange to her, not like her name at all, but he seemed to want it to be. In some distant dream now and then, she would hear it as well, and it would feel nice and safe and familiar and for a moment it would sound right to her, but then she would wake up and the safe feeling would float away from her and she would feel afraid, or lonely or unsure. No, no she couldn’t think like that right now, or she would never get back to sleep again that night. She closed her eyes, trying to relax a little, but quite wishing that she had brought the blanket over from the bed to make it more comfortable on the floor there. Now she was awake she didn’t feel like going back to sleep, even though she was thirsty and a little hungry as well. It was a disappointment that the telly in the room didn’t work, as if it had, they’d have been able to watch something and it would have been nice, but now it was just them and the rain and the drippy tap in the bathroom.

“It’s nearly Christmas, isn’t it?” she asked, looking up at him again. “Will…Will we be in a proper place for Christmas? So we don’t have to keep running away again and again…” the telepath fell silent as she realised she might be pushing it too much and at this rate, her twin would only grow angry and just shout at her for asking again, or even worse, walk out and leave her all alone. Being left alone was something she was truly scared of, in a strange place, with no way of finding her way again. But…She didn’t understand things, not like her brother did. They never made sense to her jumbled, cloudy mind.

“I’ve still got that chocolate if you wanted…I said you could have it…”
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Brian Braddock(old)
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He was on edge. Between the nightmares and his sister’s questions, Brian felt himself getting twitchy. The feeling usually preceded a fit of anger or rage that sometimes included shouting and breaking things. And in a few extreme instances, he had hurt some people, never stocking around long enough to know if he’d killed them or not. Looking down at Elizabeth, he knew that he’d never hurt her. No matter how angry she made him. Or how angry thinking or talking about S.T.R.I.K.E. made him. She was the whole reason he was here. If it wasn’t for her, he’d probably be dead by now; killed by the same organization that trained them. He just wished that she’d stop asking so many questions. He wished that she would remember things the way he did. If she could remember their parents, and brother or even the place they used to call home…maybe things wouldn’t be so bad. But she didn’t remember, she said so herself. Why didn’t she remember? Why couldn’t she remember? The answer was simple. S.T.R.I.K.E. They were the source of their problems. The reason they had to run. Brian gripped the arm of the chair and squeezed, feeling the cheap wood crack and splinter in his hand.

“Where ever we go, it will be better than there. Any where is better than there. We have to keep running. If they left us alone we wouldn’t have to run.”

His jaw clenched, Brian stop up abruptly from the chair. He was agitated. Talking about them always put him in state of agitation. He started pacing, his long stride making short work of the tiny room. He suddenly felt like an animal in a small cage. It was the same feeling he used to get when he was in his room at the base. He’d pace the floor, back and forth, back and forth. Constantly moving with nowhere to go; dreaming of freedom. Now that he had it, he still felt trapped. They hunted them. Chased them everywhere they went. Soon they’d have to leave this place. Hopefully the rain stopped soon. His hands clenched into fists, he wanted to go. He wanted to fly. He wanted to feel the breeze in his hair and leave everything behind. But he knew better. Flying was too obvious to be done during the day. And with his sister to worry about, he couldn’t take the chance, even at night.

“Christmas? You must be joking, Elizabeth. What the bloody hell would we celebrate?!”

He didn’t mean to yell, but he couldn’t help it. Christmas was one of those luxuries that they couldn’t afford. That was something that normal families did. It was a happy time that people loved to plaster all over television every year to remind those without families how empty their lives were. Feeling his temper rising, Brian launched his fist into the closet door. Or rather, through the closet door. He lowered his arm and with nostrils flaring, he stalked into the tiny washroom and slammed the door behind him. Anyone on the other side of the door could only guess as to what sort of raging “bull in a china shop” activities were going on in there. After several minutes of nonstop noise and cursing, it fell silent.
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Betsy Braddock
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Telepathy (I'm not a bloody ninja)
Oh, dear…Brian wasn’t happy. He was clenching the arms of the chair too tight and making it crack and splinter up; he forgot his own strength sometimes, and when he got mad it got worse. Elizabeth was already regretting asking the things she had, as he would only get more and more upset and she sank to the floor a little, looking up at him nervously. “I’m sorry…I’m sorry…I’m tired, I am. Running away is hard…” she breathed, her voice catching on tears. Why couldn’t it have been a good day? Why couldn’t it have been a day when Brian smiled faintly and gave her hugs and just assured her that everything would be okay; Elizabeth needed to know that, to be reassured, as it kept things nice and straight in her head.

She jerked as he raised his voice over Christmas and the girl shuffled backwards on the floor until she was sat with her back against the side of the bed, pulling her knees up a little. When Brian shouted, it was the worst thing ever, as she was always scared that one day she’d wake up and he’d have gone away and left her, tired of her questions and having to carry her around and take care of her. Elizabeth wanted to be able to take care of herself, but as much as she tried, she always messed things up, like now. “I just didn’t want to be running for it…We had nice Christmases once…Didn’t we? I just wanted to not be scared…”

As her brother’s fist slammed through the door, the telepath’s young face crumpled up and she hid it in her hands, bursting into tears of guilt for making him angry. Sometimes she wanted to slip out of the door at night, and try and go away, back to S.T.R.I.K.E. so that Brian wouldn’t need to worry about her any more, so he wouldn’t need to hurt and get upset that she was silly and didn’t know very much. He was strong, clever and brave and she was none of those things, she was just going to get him into lots of trouble, all the time. The sounds of things breaking and smashing up in the bathroom pulled her out of her thoughts and nervously, she pulled herself up to her feet, slowly edging towards the door.

Hesitantly, she knocked on it, wiping her eyes with the back of her other hand. “Brian…I’m sorry…I didn’t mean to make you cross. I didn’t,” leaning against the wall, she slowly slid to the ground, pressing herself against the wall. “Sometimes I think I should go away…” she was so very tired, and she didn’t like running and running and never being anywhere they should be. All she wanted was to go home.
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Brian Braddock(old)
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When Brian’s anger finally subsided, he sank down to the bathroom floor. His rapid breathing slowed and his vision cleared. Whenever he got that angry it was difficult, if not impossible, for him to control it. It was yet another consequence of his training at S.T.R.I.K.E. They liked to fuel his anger, they encouraged it, provoked it. Like an animal in a cage. And now without their negative reinforcement, Brian found it harder and harder to control how he reacted to his temper. It scared him sometimes. With his strength, he could easily kill someone. He had killed people; both before and after the escape. That wasn’t what scared him, though. It was the possibility that he could hurt…or worse, end up killing his sister. The thought of it terrified him. She was all that he had in the world and his sole mission in life was to make sure that she was safe. He was supposed to protect her. He knew that’s what his parents and brother would want him to do. She needed him and in turn, he needed her. “I would never…”

The soft knock on the bathroom door startled him out of his thoughts. Elizabeth He had almost forgotten that she was in the other room. As the thought came to him, he also realized that he probably scared her. She didn’t like it when he shouted and got angry. He wondered if she ever thought that he might hurt her. He hoped that she didn’t think that about him. It was bad enough that he thought it himself every now and again. Sometimes he wondered if she would be better off without him. But where would she go? He couldn’t let her go back to S.T.R.I.K.E. for two very important reasons. One, he refused to let her go back there and be slave to those agents and scientists to be poked and prodded and controlled. And secondly, he knew that they’d send her after him if he left her go back. And while he possessed strength of body, his sister was stronger of the two when it came to strength of the mind. From their joint missions with S.T.R.I.K.E., and training, Brian knew that Elizabeth possessed great power.

Slipping through the door and closing it behind him quickly, he didn’t want her to see the mess that he had made. Her words cut into him and he regretted yelling at her and rampaging like a mindless animal. He knelt to the floor beside her. “Elizabeth, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to shout at you. I wasn’t trying to scare you. It’s just…I get so bloody angry sometimes…it’s not your fault.” Sighing, he looked around the pitiful excuse for a room and the mess that he had made of it. For the first time he felt a slight chill whisk through the room. It dawned on him that perhaps it was colder in here than he realized. “Let’s get you back into bed.” Lifting his sister effortlessly, he carried her to the bed and set her down gently. He pulled the blanket around her shoulders and tried to offer her a smile. “You can’t go away. What would I do without you? You know I’m no good on my own. Besides, we have to stick together, remember? Where I go, you go and where you go, I go.”

Glancing out of the window, Brian allowed himself to momentarily entertain the idea of what it would be like if he was alone. Could he move more quickly? Yes. Could he travel farther and faster? Of course. But his freedom meant nothing if she did not share it with him. And even though they were no longer in the clutches of S.T.R.I.K.E. she was not yet free. Not in her mind, at least. And Brian was determined to free her mind so that she could fully enjoy her physical freedom. But he wouldn’t be able to do that if he was going off on rage-induced tantrums. He looked back at her and sat down on the floor next to the bed. “Elizabeth, I’m really sorry about losing my temper. I shouldn’t have. You’re not mad at me, are you?”

His mind always at work, Brian knew that they would have to leave this place sooner than later because of his little tirade. He was sure that the noise had called some sort of attention. Worst case scenario, someone would call the authorities and after a survey of the scene, no doubt S.T.R.I.K.E. would not be far behind. Brian was sure that they were out there, waiting for him to make a mistake. They were waiting for the thing that would bring them one step closer to catching their runaway “heroes.”
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Betsy Braddock
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Telepathy (I'm not a bloody ninja)
Things went quiet once more, and before long, Brian came back into the room, looking very sorry and bad about it all. He was no longer mad, she could see that and she could feel that coming from him, it made her smile, the corners of her mouth turning upwards. Elizabeth had the potential to be pretty, but denied normal teenaged years of experimenting with her own style and makeup and meeting boys, she had no real idea of how to better herself, or what she even should. Her hair hung down her back, not quite straight and cut in no style and her cheeks still had a slightly childish roundness to them. Unable to hide the redness of her eyes, she looked up at her brother, biting her lip nervously.

This would happen a lot…He’d get mad, even though he didn’t mean to, and shout, although he didn’t mean to, like she didn’t mean to say stupid things or not know much and things would end up like they were now. “It’s alright…I wish I could make it so you didn’t get mad, that I could make things better…” she let him pick her up and put her back on the thread; she could have walked over to the bed by herself and settled down, but it made him feel better, looking after her, because they didn’t have anyone else in the world. Pulling the blanket close around her, Elizabeth felt a little more secure now, shuffling to the edge of the bed so she could look down at her twin.

“I’m not mad. I can’t be mad, because we have to stick together…” she chanced a smile as she reiterated what he had said. Swallowing, her mind started to wander, as it was prone to and she could feel the annoyance and curiosity coming from other rooms, near to theirs, because of all the noise. “Um, we should leave soon. I don’t think people are very happy and they’d want us to fix the…chair, and the door…” Elizabeth looked down at Brian with a worried look on her face, hoping that he wouldn’t think she was saying that it was all his fault. They would have to go soon, anyway, to a new place, a new room somewhere else…

There were so many things that she wanted to ask him, but didn’t out of fear of upsetting him again. She wanted to know if they’d ever have a proper home, if they could do things like go to see films at the pictures and go to museums, eat ice cream in the park and have friends…Sniffing, she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. It was so hard to know what she should do, when no one had taught her how…Her life at S.T.R.I.K.E. had been all she had known, and she was happy when they didn’t punish her. Her head hurt, thinking like this always made her head hurt…

“I’m sorry I get confused. I try not to,” Elizabeth said, in a small, serious voice. “I won’t always be confused, will I?” sitting up a little, she looked towards the general direction of the wall between them and the next room. “I do think we should go soon…” a pink light sparkled around her eyes as she could feel the thoughts of the other room’s occupants.
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Brian Braddock(old)
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Superhuman Strength/ Stamina/ Reflexes, Flight
From his seat on the floor, Brian offered Elizabeth another smile and nodded in agreement. He smiled because he didn’t want her to worry. But she was right. Even without her powers, he knew that it would be better if they moved on from this place. He hadn’t meant to make so much noise and break things, but he couldn’t help it. The same way that Elizabeth couldn’t help getting confused sometimes, he assumed. It was a part of who, or rather what, they had become at the hands of S.T.R.I.K.E.

It was Brian’s hope that they would get better once they escaped and settled down somewhere. For a moment he let himself slip away and daydream what it would be like. Closing his eyes, he pictured them living peacefully in a nice, safe place. There were stables with horses in them, and lots of open space to fly around and take walks in the orchards. They’d live in a large house that had so many rooms that most people would get lost without a map. But they would never get lost because it was their house. The more he imagined, the more it felt like a fuzzy memory of something almost forgotten. The more he tried to focus on the details, the fuzzier it became. Giving up, he opened his eyes and sighed.

“Don’t worry, Elizabeth. Things will get better. I promise.” He wanted to tell her that she wouldn’t always be confused just he wanted someone to tell him that he wouldn’t always be angry. But the truth was, he really didn’t know. All he could was hope.

Brian knew how much his sister wanted to do normal things. He knew because he wanted to do them too. He wanted to go see films, have friends, play rugby. He wanted to date girls. He wouldn’t exactly know how to go about doing that, but he wanted to learn. S.T.R.I.K.E. never bothered with teaching him dating rituals. He knew the biological aspects of male and female interactions, but he was clueless to the social portions. His only indication of his own attractiveness was a comment he overheard from Agent Martinez, once. She said that he was cute. But she was one of them and couldn’t really be trusted. Could she?

The sound of approaching vehicles and headlights brought him out of his daze. His mind shifted from wishful young man to battle hardened soldier in an instant. His eyes narrowed and his face fell into the emotionless mask that he developed during his time at .S.T.R.I.K.E. Standing up, he moved quietly to the window. Peering out, he saw that three unmarked cars had parked outside. The little hairs on the back of his neck stood up in alarm. He watched as several people in dark suits got out of the cars. He couldn’t tell for sure if they were S.T.R.I.K.E. Agents or not but they made him nervous. And Brian was never one to throw caution to the wind. Moving away from the window, he turned to his sister.

“It’s time to go, Elizabeth. Now. Remember the plan? We slip out the back entrance and keep going until this place is far behind us.”

It wasn’t the most elaborate of plans, but Brian preferred to keep it simple. It was easier for Elizabeth to remember and it could apply to just about everywhere they stayed. And it worked. Every place had a back entrance and it usually always led in the opposite direction of what they were running from. If they were Agents from S.T.R.I.K.E., he had no idea how they caught up to them so quickly. It didn’t matter. By the time the men in suits made their move, he and Elizabeth would be far out of their reach. Brian hated dragging her around like this, from one dingy place to another, but it was for her own good. Eventually, they’d be able to stop running. One day. All he could do was hope.

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