Welcome to Gaia! ::

"Wally, have a seat."

::After Chemistry class, Mister Allen had asked Wally to stay behind. Wally sat, but fidgeted.::

"Is this going to take long, Uncle Barry? I have Football Practice and then the Booster Club and then taking Mysia out for a walk and then-"

"Wally. I'm concerned that you're spreading yourself too thin right now. Your grade in Chemistry has been falling steadily for the last two weeks."

"I-I'm sorry! I'll do better on the next test! I'm just having trouble with the whole covalent bonds thing, that's all."

"All the same, Wally, you are in three times as many extracurricular activities as the average student. There is no one else on the campus who is on the Football, Hockey AND baseball teams."

"I like sports!"

"Wally, one of the things your parents wanted you to learn coming to Hero High was how to slow down and be a normal, contributing member of society. I know it's hard. You've had these powers since you were ten years old, and for you it's normal for the world to move at a lightning pace. But it doesn't, and if you don't learn to slow down at some point and relax, you're going to wear yourself out."

"But-"

"No buts, Wally. As your advisor, I can make these decisions. You must cut your activities in half by the end of the week. Understood?"

"..."

"Wally, do you understand?"

"Yes, sir."

::Wally slinks out of the classroom.::

"C'mon in, sweetie, have a seat." Hartley stood outside Doctor Quinzel's office after classes. Hesitantly, he took one of the cushy leather chairs opposite her desk.

"We won't have a long ol' session today, just a nice lil' how-do-you-do and see if we can discuss some ways to turn that frown upside down!" The school counselor smiled at Hartley, who shrunk from the wide-eyed stare.

He had been scheduled for Counselor Sampson, but found out at the last minute that Ms. Darkholme had arranged Doctor Quinzel to substitute instead. He wondered why.

Quinzel stood up, plopped her butt down on her desk and leaned over to pat Hartley on the head.

"Now! Relax! I read your file so ya don't even need to tell me all your boring backstory!"

She suddenly grabbed his head by the hair on top of it, and turned it so that his right ear faced her.

"Ooooh, yeah, I can see it if I REALLY look for it!"

"Hey!" Hartley pulled his head away. "Don't do that! What are you doing that for?!"

Doctor Quinzel started scribbling furiously on a notepad.

"Issues with being touched by feminine hands, personal space issues, paranoia, schizophrenia, claustrophobia, anorexia-"

"I don't have all those things!"

"Oops, sorry, got a little carried away there." She scribbled out the last couple sentences furiously. "So! Let's talk about your father!"

Hartley groaned.

"Let's not."

"That's okay, he seemed pretty boring anyways, from the file. YAAAAAAAAWN. Publishing magnate, richer'n God, squeaky clean business practices, strict with his employees and his family-"

"You can say that again." Hartley grumbled.

"Oh, I can? 'That's okay, he seemed pretty boring anyways, from the fi-"

"Look, stop, okay? I don't see what this is supposed to accomplish. Do you want me to tell that I hate my dad? Fine. I hate my dad, okay? I hate the way he treats me like this piece of artwork that should be hung on the wall for everyone to admire in all of it's glorious perfection. I'm a human being! I'm not perfect! Do you know how many surgeries I've had on my inner ears? How many times I was informed that being deaf was 'not acceptable for a Rathaway?' If I could change my name and vanish from my parents' radar, I'd do it in a minute!"

Doctor Quinzel smiled.

"Wow, we're already makin' more progress than I'd hoped! I'm such a great therapist!"

The clock on the Doctor's desk suddenly started giggling maniacally.

"Oops, time's up for today! Told'ja it'd be a brief session. Well, my advice for now is to relax. Stop stressin' out over daddy. Do something fun. Be a little wild. Boys will be boys, after all!"

She patted Hartley on the head again and pushed him out the door.

"See ya next week, same Harley-time, same Harley-channel!"

Hartley blinked a couple times as the door slammed in his face. Counseling was strange.

But, she did prescribe that he go out and do something fun...Hartley left the office building and started walking across campus back to the dorm rooms.

"I don't trust them."

Principal Frost said as she sat at the table in the teacher's lounge amidst her peers, a number of Hero High's most respected teaching staff. She and Mister Wayne had called a teacher's meeting for the morning to discuss recent happenings.

Barbara Gordon said, "Few of the staff do. Those boys have had a number of incidents at the expense of the other students. They spend more time in detention than they do in class."

"Being in detention means they have been paying for whatever trouble boys get into." Raven Darkholme added.

"Yes Miss Darkholme, we are well aware of your championing of those boys." Mister Wayne said darkly.

"Meaning?" She asked.

Mister Wayne said, "Meaning you are seen in their company quite often. You petition to handle their detentions and punishments, and yet very little progress seems to be made."

Raven smiled, "Progress? In would say they have behaving very well as of late."

"That we've seen." Daimon Hellstorm countered. "The recent framing of Miss Sandsmark and Achilles brings that into question."

"There is no evidence they had anything to do with that." Raven said.

"Miss Darkholme," Frost said with a icy tone. "Do you think we any dumber than they do? Children these days think adults to be idiots, incapable of understanding them. Do they seriously believe we are unaware of their talents and abilities? We know more about what they are capable of than they would like to know. True there is no evidence directly against them, but circumstances are terribly suspicious."

Raven folded her arms, "And what circumstances would those be?"

Mister Wayne held up his hand and counted on his fingers for emphasis, "Shall we begin with the fact that they were the only ones to manage to exit Hades without a single scrape or confrontation with one of the Hell beasts?"

Raven countered, "Save for having their memories wiped."

"Rather convinient." Agatha Harkness contested.

"Indeed." Wayne continued. "Then there was the fact they obviously seperated from the other students as they were the oly ones to make it safely back on school grounds through the portal. The rest arrived via Themyscira. Then there was the fact all of the chaperones for the dance were put to sleep after a concert by one Mister Rathaway, and witnesses said it was the dates of those boys who appeared to case whatever it was to have happened, to happen."

"Wayne this is all very fascinating," Raven said with a smile and aved her hand nonchalantly. "But it is very circumstancial. They are each innocent until proven guilty."

"Yes, they are, but you Raven?" Wayne said.

"What about me?"

Henry McCoy said, "The charges against you for putting those headbands on Miss Cargill and Mister Keller..."

"Is a lie!" Raven shouted down.

"Perhaps." Frost said. "But to date none of the other students have stepped up to your defense. If you didn't do it, who then? If i find out any teacher here caused such harm to a student then they will answer to me."

"To all of us." Wayne added with deep venom laced to his tone.

Frost said, "Today those boys begin their sessions so we can attempt to piece together what exactly happened. Scanning the surface of their minds availed nothing. Miss Grey, myself, even the Cuckoos got nothing."

"And Miss Harkness?" Steve Rogers asked.

"My spells were unable to unlock whatever was used to suppress the boys' memories." The witch said. "It is possible that their minds were wiped completely and will not be able to recover what they lost."

"And if that is not the case..." Frost said. "...if their therapy reveals nothing, I will be bringing in a specialist."

"Who?" Raven frowned.

"Her name is Gloria Dayne." Wayne said. "Known by some colleagues as Fontanelle. A former associate of Mister LeBeau's. She too is a telepath but she walks dreams, which means she can go into the parts of the mind that other telepaths are unable. If anyone can find a few locked secrets, she can."

The discussion continued as Raven drummed her fingers on the desktop.

Dani, in her room, was staring at the Witchblade, manipulating it's form in the mirror, tuning it off and on, letting it wrap around her body, then retracting it.

"What the hell happened to me in Hades..."
She asked the Witchblade demanding an answer.
To her surprise it spoke, but only in her mind.

"We are the balance between light and darkness. In Hades there is no light. So to survive the Dark Half took over manipulating you."

"So you made e a psycho-b$%h to save yourself." She huffed, more pissed off about the answer then if she hadn't received one.

"We are a sentient symbiot, Danielle Baptiste, we can not manipulate what is not already there."

Angry she threw her clothes on and bolted out of the room, slamming the door behind her. Hard.

Blood boiled in her earsshe was barely able to hear Cassie calling out to her.

"Huh?" She turned. "Oh heh, hey Cass."

"Don't worry about me... Just dealing with our wonderful trip to hell..." she grumbles.

"Yeah you know you got my vote."


Then starts to laugh at Roger's situation.
"Aliens giving free boob jobs?"
looks down at her mostly flat chest.
"I'll definitely be looking forward to a close encounter!"

"Who knows maybe a bigger rack could help you win the election." She jokes. then sakes her head "But I don't know anything about Aliens."

Dani looks out a bit darkly, then returns her eyes to Cassie.
"Yeah, I do actually..." She whispered to herself.
She gulped, "I know the feeling of a darkness keeping in that person can't control."

"I'm not sure where he could be. But I think I'll be going out tonight. I really feel like letting loose y'know?"

She made a face.
"Oh comon Cass! You're not class prez yet!" She pulled on her arm playfully.
"Don't make me go alone!"

She snears snidely
"Oh wait." Duh. "With the Witchblade 'm never alone!" Laughs at her silly joke.

"Beside, Curfew is not until 10PM, I'll be back in my dorm well before that time!"

"You can be a party pooper if you want!" She said walking away form her backwards, "But i didn't get to dance and I wanna dance tonight! So that's what I'm going to do."