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Shivering....scared....cold....frozen. Her head was pounding, it felt like her brain was pushing up against her eyes. Like they would pop right out of her skull. She began to fuss, turning into a scream that rose in volume. A young man came up next to her in the dark street. She didn't seem to notice him. Her hands covered her eyes as she shook her head. The scream turned to a pitiful sound that seemed like she was drowning in something. "Hey! Are you okay?!" The man lean closer. Suddenly she looked at him and spit something at him.

Blood splattered his face and he hissed in pain falling backwards. Large odd colored eyes shimmered and brimmed with thick red blood. It sizzled on the man's skin as he tried to wipe it off only spreading it onto his hands. The girl stood up, she was small, thin, and lithe. Looking no older then late teens. Blood fell like tears down her eyes and drizzled down her chin. She was still shaking but now it was with laughter. Her eyes flickered from side to side and up to down. She ran her hand down her cheek streaking the blood on her fingers. "I found you....you're the one...I know it. Killing people...do you think you're god?" She laughed a harsh sound and then stopped abruptly.

"God....angels..." She whispered and the young man was suddenly on his feet trying to scramble away. Shaking her head she shouted. "You can't leave!" She took a deep breath and spit out another splotch of blood. It hit the man's arm and he stumbled before turning into a dark corner. She'd lured him all the way to the warehouse district and now he was getting away. Flonne squirmed and groaned before dragging her feet forward. She wasn't very fast but she hadn't expected him to be that fast either.

She'd seen him do it. He'd casted magic. He was one of those demons. Demons. Flonne had been told that demons would one day come to earth and if the humans didn't stand up to them and face their own sins then the world would be forced to suffer and god would never send his angels to save them. Flonne had to fight past her punishment for her sins. She had to prove to the angels that humans weren't beyond saving.

If I could fall into the sky, do you think time would pass me by?

'Cause you know I'd walk a thousand miles if I could just see you...

Five years ago, the last thing Jeremiah saw with his own eyes was the glare of the semi truck’s lights. All the doctors agreed that he was lucky to have even survived the crash. Sure, he had lost his sight, but he was still alive and that had to count for something, right? Jeremiah was not as sure, because it was after the crash that the noise had started. Then again, “noise” was not the right word for it. In his world of permanent darkness he saw brief flashes of where objects and people where. It was instinctive and beyond his control. He just KNEW.

On good days, between his new knowledge and the rest of his senses he could function like any other sighted person. His new sight gave him the placement, while sound, touch and scent filled in most of the blanks. Reading was unfortunately out of the question unless he was watching someone write so he could track the movements, or it was braille. But more often than not, Jeremiah did not have good days. If he wasn't paying attention to a specific area he had a bad tendency to pick up on everything in a rather large radius. Up to and including individual blades of grass.

It had driven him almost completely mad. He had been locked in a small room and fed medication that blurred his concentration. There were moments when he wasn't sure if he was a leaf in a tree or even if he was real at all. The only time he came back to sanity was when the traveling preacher had come to the hospital and held a Sunday service. The barely in tune tones of the beat up piano gave his world focus for a short while. After he found how well the music worked he began to hum constantly. But the doctors saw this as a set back and increased his medication.

Luckily, not long after that a man came into Jeremiah's world. The man flashed some fancy badge and said he needed Jeremiah's help. The doctors warned him about Jeremiah's state of mind, but the man assured them he could handle himself. The man introduced himself and gave Jeremiah a shoe to hold. "I've read your file, Mr. Rhodes. I think you have the ability to help me find the woman who owns this shoe. My agency needs to talk to her, but she's gone missing. Can you tell me where she is?" the man asked. Jeremiah was overjoyed to be able to do something about the noise so he focused his abilities and tried to answer the question. His saw a woman running down an alley before she took a gigantic leap and landed on the roof of a building. He gave the man a running commentary of her actions and the man talked into a radio. Jeremiah watched as other figures closed in on the woman and caught her. The man patted him on the shoulder and told him he had done a good job. "From now on, you work for us."

The agency took him off the medications and told him about the Empowered. And that Jeremiah himself was one of them. His job was to help them find other rogue Empowered. Jeremiah didn't care as long as they kept the noise at bay. These people let him hum whenever he wanted and gave him things to focus on. In return, he did what they asked, even if they had someone constantly keeping an eye on him.

Back in the present, Jeremiah was sitting in his cozy room humming one of his favorite hymns and waiting for his keeper. If he concentrated he could hear the bell she wore that matched the one around his wrist. The bells helped them both keep track of each other while keeping Jeremiah grounded. With a small smile he shook the bell and changed the key of his song to match. The soft baritone rang into the night.

"When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of grief shall not thee overflow.
For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress."

Jason Mathews was out of breath, his heart pounding in his chest viciously. It threatened to stop suddenly, his chest hurt, his legs were throbbing, his feet blistered and bruised, and worse yet...he needed to keep running. How had this happened? He couldn't answer it himself. All he knew was that this would be the end of him if he didn't get away from HER. He'd never thought a game of tag would go so horribly wrong. He was terrified of a child's game. A child's game gone murderous.

Jason was a twin, a fraternal twin with a sister. Oddly enough both of them had become empowered around the same time. Their parents noticed his sister's first, his was much more subtle. They went crazy on her. Freaking out and threatening to kill her. Hell they were going to just throw her out of the house. They even talked about giving her to one of the coteries of banishers. Jason was so terrified he couldn't speak up...but his sister knew. She pleaded with him to tell them that he had powers to. "Tell them it's not a bad thing! Please Jason!" He couldn't do it though, he had always been their perfect child. He couldn't disappoint them now. Plus he didn't want to get thrown away or killed.

Four years had passed now. Forty minutes ago he'd showed up to the address in the text he'd gotten from his girlfriend. He thought it was strange to meet his girl out here in this dark alley. He'd figured it out quickly though. Especially when he laid eyes on the maimed body he could barely recognize as Allison. There was something growing out of her mouth, it had pushed her eyes out, torn through her skin in random spots, and wrapped her up. It looked like vines and roots. It was the lily growing out of her head that told him who it was. "Lilies were always your favorite flower...."

Jason's foot caught on the broken sidewalk. He stumbled and fell twisting so he was now lying on his back. His knee felt like fire and he gritted his teeth looking up in time to see the sparkling and sweet smelling flowers to start blossoming around the corner. "I'll fill you with your favorite flowers brother..." Her voice was so cold, but it still held that childish tone that he remembered from four years ago. They had just been twelve years old, now here they were, sixteen. Last time Jason had seen Amber she was being dragged off by a strange group of people, now here she was murdering people....was it the banishers?

Amber smile to him and a single tear tread down her cheek. She raised her hands and spun in a circle before she started to sing. Her voice echoed out and spores flew from her dress, finger tips, hair, and every thing on her. Jason began coughing and then realized he was inhaling the spores. His sisters soprano operatic voice ringing out smoothly. He felt things stirring inside him, like indigestion, then suddenly pressure and pain. A swelling pain like dull rope coiling inside him and unfolding against the walls of his organs. Pushing out from all sides.

All that was left was an open corpse and a large rose bush with winding lilies in it. Amber looked down at it and picked one of the white lilies. A single drop of blood falling on her hand. Her eyes flickered and she leaned her head back letting out a scream. A sound so raw of pure emotion, anger, sadness, and confusion. It was cut short by the screaming of sirens. Amber's eyes flickered over in the direction of the main street before she began running to the end of the alley. There was a car waiting for her and a man in a pressed black suit opened the door with a smile letting her into the car. Amber was part of one of the more famous coteries, Evolution Extinction.

Justina found it amusing that although he said he couldn't complain. He was basically complaining about it beig boring there. He was such a strange person. But, no matter how much she looked at him...thought fondly of him, she was always reminding herself. He was one of them. A monster underneath. No matter how much he looked like the person she'd loved, even sounded like him slightly, it wasn't him. Jeremiah was a monster and she would never forget that.

Justina managed a small half smile, probably the best you'd get from her really. "Yeah, we've got a job. Ya know, if you get bored you could always come train with me in the gym. Get some muscle on those bones." She offered in her normal fashion. Yes, he was a monster, but he was also the closest thing she had to a partner and friend. Plus she believed everyone should do some training now and then. It was good for you.

However, right now they had business to attend to. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a plastic bag that resembled a ziplock. Her face lost all emotion and went to her normal stone expression. "This one....she's terrorizing Banishers like us. Been 'causing them to turn on eachother and kill eachother. You'll be coming with me, she can apparently move a lot faster then most. So she might change position." She handed him the bag. Inside was a hairclip shaped like a butterfly.

Justina would leave the rest to him. It was his job to find the girl. It was Justina's job to get rid of her. She was the muscle, he was the brain. That was just the way it worked. Until the day that all of them...were gone. This disease would be purged from the world. Justina would make sure of it. That cold fire of determination was deep in her eyes as she went ahead and took a seat on the arm of an empty chair. Crossing her ankles she watched him and kept one hand close to the handle of the bell she used to get him back to this world of now and here.

Smoke swirled into the sky slowly dispersing in the still air. A man sat on the hood of a silver camero. His legs crossed as he flipped through the pages of a book. He was clearly waiting for someone. It wasn't like people came to the warehouse district just to read a book. He didn't look very suspicious, but at the same time he didn't exactly look like the most friendly of people.

Felix was waiting for Flonne to finish her "work". He'd heard her scream a block or two off, but hadn't moved a muscle. He knew how she worked and the only reason he was here was to drive her where ever she wanted to go. Well there was another reason as well....

Rushed footsteps came flooding from one of the small paths. A man with burns and blood all over him came running out and spotted Felix. "Please!!! Help me! She's gonna kill me!" The man pleaded and ran towards Felix. He tripped and groaned in pain. As he began struggling he saw the smoke wrapped around his legs like chains. Felix flipped the page in his book and then took another drag from his cigarette as he looked at the man out of the corner of his eyes.

He fiddled with the cross around his neck and said a silent prayer before drawing a cross over the man on the ground. "May your soul find god." Just in time for Flonne to come.