Participants:
| Scene Title | The Right Kind of Monsters |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | We all have the capacity for darkness and none of us are innocent. |
| Date | October 28, 2018 |
Atop Cat's Crash Pad
Isabelle looks up from her perch outside on the roof of Cat's into the night sky , the wind blowing in her hair and into her hazel colored eyes. There's something there that adds to the anger that was usually there, there in abundance until she received the training necessary to hone her gift, to settle her anger but that huge tide of emotion had been threatening to overwhelm her, even with the bright news that she and Shaw were engaged.
The crash of waves against the building still isn't something she's use too, an ocean. A flood, this was insane. It still wasn't enough to keep the dark haired woman's thoughts completely occupied.
There had been truths learned and she was forever changed for it. Liz and Kaylee both asked her if she wanted to know what was back there in her past, Isa had been thinking since she has learned of her origins that she wished she had said she didn't want to know. The pain of it all was much, the bottle of moonshine in her hands is proof that she was funneling her emotions into something. Something other than burning and ruining lives. One finger slides over and plays with the golden scoffed ring that Shahid had placed on her finger.
She's come to know Isabelle far better than she ever imagined. Certainly well enough to see through the brash to the shaken, seemingly enraged woman beneath the demeanor. When Izzy slipped out of the apartment, Elisabeth knew where she'd find the pyrokinetic. And she moves from the doorway after observing for just a moment. "Got enough of that rotgut to share? I can't have you killing all your brain cells by yourself… I might still need them," she teases gently as she settles onto the ledge where the view is… both exquisite and horrifying all at once.
It's the first place she's had a bird's-eye view of What Could Have Been, really. Isabelle's world was mostly underground, Wasteland was just… exactly that. And Bright hadn't really looked all that different. This, though? This is the most foreign of them all for Liz. "If you take nothing else away from this fucking nightmare of world travelling," she says softly, "I hope you take from it that … what we do matters."
"You know I do," they were family at this point if they weren't before, all of them. Stuck together and living through this hell. Handing the bottle over with a light burp, she pats her chest. A small smile as she looks down, "Like I have many of them left to kill." A light joke, her heart isn't totally in it.
A look out to the sea around them and she nods somberly, "Ain't that the truth," a scoff of her boot on the rooftop before she's turning her head to regard Liz closely, "We missed a lot of each other's adventures back there." In the Wasteland, the thought breaks the dam she's holding and the next thing Liz knows the pyrokinetic is hunched over and holding her knees, tears leak from her eyes and steam rises from her face as it sizzles to dry air.
"Shahid and I are getting married." And then Izzy breaks out into more sobs.
"Iz?" Elisabeth sets the bottle she just took from the other woman down on the ground and, heedless of the possibility that she may get burned, she wraps both of her arms around Isabelle. "Oh … oh God, Izzy. What happened?" She is alarmed by the ferocity of the tears but just as much by the fact that whatever it is has got to be so far beyond bad to get Isabelle into this state.
"He's going to marry a monster. A fucking Monster." Capital M. "He even knows.. and he still.. fuck!" The pyro pauses and holds onto Liz firmly as she hiccups, it's too much. "We went to Kaylee, while you and Magnes were in the Dome." She had to know, it had been eating away at her. She had to know her past, it was the one thing she had wanted for as long as she could remember. To know her parents faces, their names..
"It worked." A burst of hysterical laughter, "I got what I wanted. Do you know what kind of monster you're holding onto? Do you know what Shahid is stupidly marrying?" She untangles herself from the blonde and stands unsteadily, trying to distance herself, Isa backs away and holds a hand out shaking her head from side to side. Thinking about it made her hot and the air around them on the roof shoots up to a stifling heat. "One that murders her parents."
"I met them alright, I saw it all." Steam sizzles upwards and Isa looks down at her hands, shaking, "I was young.. They were trying to help me, I charred them to ash and bone." A ragged sob runs through her body and her hands burst alight into flames. Bright blue flames. "I burnt them to ash.." She whispers to herself, eyes wide as she rocks forward and back.
It worked. Those two words tell Liz quite a lot. She releases Isabelle to move, to give her the space she needs, and instead of jumping to denial, she listens to what's being said. The emotions behind it… those she cannot fix. Only time will help that. But what she can offer might be … perspective. "I'm so sorry." Elisabeth's voice holds regret for what happened. And pain. It's a fight for her to contain the flinch, but she manages — the memory of their fight leaving the Virus world still gives her nightmares. She hurts for what Isabelle's learned and in all honesty, it makes her terrified of what's behind the block in her own mind. She knows what happened to Bright's Liz, but there's no guarantee that her own situation was anything similar. There's no disgust, no anger in her voice. "Tell me what happened."
Izzy tells her tale albeit slowly, the murder of her parents at her own flames, being kept by the Company. When Charles and Shaw's uncle wiped her memory and placed her in the system where she eventually met Richard. It's a lot. And she pauses frequently to take gulps of the moonshine, clinging to the bottle for dear life.
"They made me like this.. my fire.. it's blue. Was blue, is now, always was? Hidden underneath I don't fucking know." Snorting with a clear face looking over at Liz. "My Mother was on the phone with some doctor, talking about treatments. I think she was aware they were doing something to me but I'm not sure what. Synthetic." she spits the word out, she wasn't meant to be Evolved or a Special.
"And Shahid still wants to marry all of this, all of this fucking baggage. I think he's lost his mind."
She listens and there's no judgment attached to her expression, just regret. "Oh, Isabelle… I'm…" The words 'I'm sorry' are so hollow. Her brows do pull down into a bit of a frown, though. She sighs heavily. "It doesn't matter how you got the power. And none of us — no matter where the powers came from — control it when it first manifests. I nearly crushed a man to death when mine activated," she tells her sister in all but blood quietly. "I was chasing him down a blind alley and I shouted for him to stop. And blew him face first into a brick wall at high speed. Hard enough that he actually had no memory of what happened, just that he was running and then woke up in the hospital." She grimaces.
"It wasn't your fault." She never uses her ability on her friends… but this time, she needs Isabelle to hear her, and she laces her power through it to try to calm the other woman down enough to really hear. "~Listen to me. It is horrible. And no, you're not going to just get over it. You were a baby. If Aurora or Addie manifested a power today and killed me or Magnes doing it, would you blame her? Would you hate her for it?~" Her tone is gentle. "You have to allow yourself the same consideration. And I know it's hard… we are always hardest on ourselves. Grieve because you couldn't stop it… but don't hate yourself for it."
The darker haired woman listens to Liz with red rimmed eyes, her ability taking hold so that Izzy's ears fully grasp what Liz has to say, "I wouldn't." Hate the girls but the girls might hate themselves, just like her. "I didn't even… get their last name." There were still holes in her history but she doesn't believe that's all to the story but the only telepath they knew is back in Wasteland.
"They say time heals all." She laughs and drinks more of the bottle. "I'm gonna be a great wife, I'll barbecue anyone that comes for him. For my family."
A slow look to Liz, "That means you too, family. I'll murder for you girl! I know no bounds!" A hysterical laugh and hiccup and Isa sways. "I'll never have kids though, I could never pass this curse along." She's tainted.
"Stop," Elisabeth orders, coming to her feet and moving to stand in front of her. She reaches out and takes the bottle, putting it on the floor next to her feet and then rising to take Isabelle by the shoulders, looking hard at her. "Hear me. Choose to have kids or not, that's a choice only you get to make. But you are not tainted." She very gently shakes those shoulders. "You erupted with a power at an incredibly young age. Yes, your power is deadly. So. Is. Mine. Do you understand? Isabelle, I could literally vibrate a human body into bloody mist. I've done it." Granted that it was augmented at the time, but that's not the point. "And I will kill for you, too."
She pulls Izzy into a tight hug, ignoring the heat all around them and the fact that she is sweating inside the field. She holds her sister hard. "You are not a monster, babe. This guilt… I understand it." She has her own guilt that she carries too. "But it will eat you alive if you let it. It will ruin what you have with Shahid. It will destroy everything good in your life." She pulls away just far enough to look into Isabelle's eyes again. "Don't let one mistake as a child determine who you are. It was an accident. You were a baby. Forgive that child for what she couldn't control, Isabelle." Her blue eyes are intent and she says softly, "Your mother forgave you even before it was over. She loved you, Izzy. She fought for you. And she never, ever blamed you."
The women embrace and Izzy takes that's support, that sisterhood and nods emphatically. She hears her, she understands. She breaks down as she speaks of forgiveness of her mother loving her. She wants to feel it and for that she weeps, one day she will feel all of this that Liz says but for now clinging to a friend is all she can do.
"He's the best thing that ever happened to me. I don't.. I can't fuck him up. Fuck this up." She whispers.
Refusing to let go, Elisabeth holds Isabelle as tight as she needs for as long as it takes. "You won't," she whispers into the dark hair, one hand cradling the back of Izzy's neck. "He loves you. Believe in that love. Let it remind you that you choose whether to be that monster." God alone knows, she fought that fight with a version of Richard too. "You choose, Isabelle. You are no more a monster than I am. And you know what? I think I'm one sometimes too. And Richard… Christ, how many times did he tell me he wasn't a good man? Maybe a hundred?" She shrugs within the embrace. "Fuck it… if we are monsters, we'll just be the right kind of monsters. 'Kay?"
She's rambling a little now. She just needs this sister of her heart to know that she's not letting her go down this road of self-hatred without a fight.
A hint of a smile as Liz rambles and Izzy holds onto her friend. "The Right Kind of Monsters." It has a ring to it. There's something broken inside of the pyrokinetic but she will make an effort at least, she owes her Shahid and the others that much, she owes herself. She owes the memory of her parents. That burden lessens little but an inch feels like a mile with grief this heavy and Izzy sucks in a large breath as she leans back to stare Liz in the eyes directly, there's a fire burning deep within. Not are bright as before but a light puff of air from Liz's lips strokes the embers and she tries to smile finding it a little easier in that moment.
Right kind of monsters? "You're on."