.can't take the fight from the kid. [jinxed]

Today wasn't any particularly special day, except that it was one of those random days when Alastor had more control than he should've. Kyland had noticed that this seemed to be happening more frequently these days. Not to the point where he couldn't exist as a somewhat normal human most of the time, but enough that it was concerning. In the past, Alastor had rarely ever been able to take control except on unholy days. Now, he lived with a small but constant nagging fear in the back of his head.

As soon as he had felt Alastor's presence growing like some satanic tumor, Kyland had rushed out of the dorms and practically sprinted to the battle arena. Sometimes he tried to keep himself in his dorm, especially when his roommate had been some crazy dude instead of a reasonably guy, but that had never turned out well. Usually, it ended with furniture upended, and belongings scattered, and half the time he wasn't even in his room by the end of it. He figured that the battle arena would give the damn demon plenty of space to burn off some energy and destructive rage. The whole way there, he was muttering to himself, "One more minute. Just hold on for one more minute."

Perfect. There were already training dummies set up in the center of the area, and there was no one around. He had arrived just in time--the mental strain of trying to contain a thousand-year-old being was overwhelming him. Finally, he gave up, giving into what felt like Alastor squeezing his brain into a thousand pieces. If he had looked in a mirror, he would've seen blood red irises staring back at him, and an inhumanly wicked grin on his face. 

"Finally. Finally!"  Alastor roared, twisting Kyland's voice into a growl so deep and dark it could only have come from the depths of hell, and wildly dismembering and beheading the dummies in front of him.

Jessica licked her lips in anticipation as she lie in wait, watching the seemingly incoherent or berserk student from the realm of nonexistence. A supple vein seemed to bulge out near his neck. What would happen if that were pricked? Would it pop like a fun water balloon, or dribble out like a half turned on hose? Would the smell of his blood permeate the surroundings? Many questions in a similar vein of thought raced through her mind as she watched the male student preform an impressive attack on a training dummy, leaving it utterly bent and broken.

"Half a pound of tuppenny rice
, Half a pound of treacle" she sings to herself in a bright tone as she brings out one of her knives.

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Jessica woke up in a utter sweat. Today was NOT a good day for this to happen. She could feel her hold on herself start to slip and forced herself up out of bed. She had been given ways to help counteract this by the guidence councilors, ways to act in order to calm herself down. And she went down her mental list, visiting each suggestion hoping that one would help, but to no avail. She was desperate and went to get some water to calm herself, but when she went to grab a glass, her hand slipped through as if the glass was not even there. She panicked and grabbed a jacket with her other hand and rushed out of her dorm room. 


She made her way over to the training ground quickly and looked around, breathing a sigh of relief as she didn't seem to see anyone there yet. She managed to set up some training dummies for her personal use when she heard the sound of someone rushing into the Battle arena, and in fear that she would be seen she disappeared from existence.

--------------------------------

Jessica's mouth materialized first as she appeared behind the raging student

"That's the way the money goes
, Pop goes the weasel"

On the downbeat of the last word in the nursery song was when she tried to stab the person in front of her with a slight smile on her face.

Kyland finally relaxed for a moment. Now that Alastor had something to take his rage out on besides innocent bystanders or furniture, he had nothing to worry about. But oh, how wrong he was. Just was Ky was mentally preparing to take a nap, or at the very least close his eyes for a moment, he heard singing that definitely was not coming from his own mouth. A sudden influx of energy was enough to alert him that someone else was around. The demon was too focused on destroying the training dummies to notice, and so, with a weary sigh, Ky realized he needed to take the spot of backseat driver for a change. Alastor, you dumb bitch, turn around! he snarled, for all the world sounding like a demon himself. It was strange--usually it was Alastor pointing out things he didn't notice himself, or giving him (generally terrible or annoying) suggestions on what to do.

Luckily, Alastor was shocked enough by his sudden change in energy, and whirled around, still holding the head of the dummy. It was a good thing he hadn't let go, too, because all of a sudden there was a knife coming at his face. Luckily, the demon had fairly good reflexes. As demons didn't really age, his thousands of years had made him rather agile instead of slowing him down. The knife rammed into the stuffed head, coming to a halt when it met the bag of sand in the center that served to give the dummy some weight. Ky realized that the energy influx had come from Alastor feeding off this girl's murderous rampage. Happy to let the demon take care of this now that he was aware of the girl, Ky went back to settling down, like he was preparing to watch a movie rather than possibly fight for his life.

With the knife still solidly stuck in the dummy's head, Alastor frowned and said, "Now why would you do that? That's my toy," as he reached behind him. As soon as he finished speaking, he pulled the metal pole that held up the dummy from its base, and swung it at the girl as if it were a baseball bat and she was a ball. 

Jessica let loose a giggle, keeping her smile the same as she felt her knife dig into the test dummy with a solid THUNK. This was already so fun! This veritable pinata of meat and bone was able to dodge! It was always the most spry pinatas that gave the most candy and blood.... well mostly blood, actually almost exclusively blood. In fact she'd be pleasantly surprised if there was any candy at all. But it was the blood that matters!

Those thoughts flooded her mind as she quickly let go of her knife. She then watched the student pull the training dummy out of the ground and go all Babe Ruth with it aimed at her head. 

She squeaked out

"You know that is....

She was cut off as she blinked out of existence for a quick second as the training dummy bat passed though her.

.. extremely rude of you to not pop you know! I was looking forward to what your blood would look like!" She said as she went for a punch to the throat, hoping to damage the male student's neck enough to recover her dagger. Maybe if she punched hard enough, she'd pop him anyway!

"Do me a favor and explode!"

Man, this girl is absolutely nuts, Kyland thought. He wasn't really one to judge on destructive tendencies, considering he housed a hellbent demon 24/7, but at least he didn't try to murder people even when Alastor was in control. Alastor was usually pretty content just to be causing general chaos. This girl, though, was coming for him with a knife and giggling. He felt like Foresta had made some kind of mistake letting her come here...surely this couldn't be safe for everyone else, right? Then again--did Foresta even have an admission process, or did people just show up here and start going to class?

He was again unpleasantly startled out of his semi-relaxed state when the decidedly solid metal pole passed through the girl. For a moment, he was in disbelief, both at her lack of solidness, and at the fact that she had the gall to say it was rude of him not to bleed out for her enjoyment. Of course, he had to remember he was dealing with an absolute psycho. He supposed holding her to normal standards of human-ness was too high an expectation. 

Alastor was more frustrated by her phasing out of existence than anything, and Ky could feel himself getting stronger as the girl's own frustration and viciousness increased. Ky's mouth twisted into a strangely polite smile. "My sincerest apologies," he said in a voice that was anything but sincere. "How about we pop you and inspect your blood instead? I think I would enjoy that greatly." He tossed the dummy head behind him with the knife still stuck in it, far out of reach of either of them. It landed with a thunk in the bleachers, and Alastor reached his hand forward to intercept the girl's wrist. Instead, his hand went right through her arm. Apparently, he had absorbed too much of the girl's negative energy, and as the demon became more powerful, the less he could exist in this mortal plane. He didn't manage to sidestep in time, but apparently his whole body had become less than solid, because her punch went right through him. 

"So. Disappearing tricks, eh?" he said, regarding the girl with a glint in his eyes.

Jessica expected to feel the rough sensation that signified flesh on flesh. Maybe instead of the slight twinge of pain that was to be expected when punching someone, she would hear a THWAK signifying a decent wallop to whatever she was trying to hit. Instead she felt her fist hit nothing.



Why?





Whywhywhywhywhywhywhy





She didn't do it, but then who else did? The male in front of her? He had the ability to not be hit?



She pouted to herself as she immediately stopped her attack. While she wanted blood, she realized that this person, this...thing in front of her was not going to give her blood and she immediately lost interest. This was boring......maybe this would be more fun if boring Jessica took over. Yeah! Boring jessica could lower their guard and then maybe she'd be able to come back later and make this slippery toy spill its innards!

"Okay!" She said brightly "Im bored! You arent going to give me blood if you dont get hurt, so Im done I'll make a pinata explode later okay!  Im going to leave, kill me if you think you can though.....she is better than I am when it comes to this! That and I know we wont be able to hit each other anyway"

She sits down and the smile she had melts into a frown, her eyes widening as she looks up at Kyland. It was almost as if her eyes looked at the boy with fear and regret. Her arms drop to her sides, nearly limp.

"I....am so so sorry"

Though Alastor maintained a smooth facade, Ky gagged inwardly at the imagery she was providing him with. Pinata? Jesus Christ. Once more, Ky thought to himself, This girl is insane. But the way the girl said "she is better than I am" piqued his interested. What did that mean? Was she like him? No, he didn't think so--he felt instinctively that Alastor would have been able to identify a fellow demon immediately, although he had no anecdotal evidence to back this hypothesis up. 

"How curious," Alastor murmured, before slipping back into the deep recesses of Kyland's mind. Like wax being poured into a mold,  his soul was released back into his skeleton, and the boy was allowed to wield control over his physical body once more. The natural order of things was set right again, with Alastor no more than an annoying voice. You can take this one. Like that girl said...it just got reaaal boring. Good luck, buddy. Alastor yawned, indicating that it was his turn to nap.

Ky rolled his eyes at this, not bothered by the fact that now his eye roll was physical rather than mental, but he was disrupted by the girl's sudden apology. He took a good look at her. The best way he could describe her current appearance was disturbing. All of a sudden, she looked like a fragile little ragdoll, as if someone had sucked the life out of her. It was quite different from his own 'transformation'; he was always quite sullen and churlish, and Alastor never really left him. That was almost a disappointing thought, that he wasn't so different from his demonic parasite. But who could blame him, when he had lived his whole life with Alastor in his mind?

With her, it was like seeing an entirely different person take over. And that was why Kyland did not let his guard down. His muscles were still tense, prepared to dodge another attack, but he didn't move otherwise. Eyes narrowed, he asked suspiciously, "Do you want to tell me what that was all about?" He didn't mean to be insensitive, but--wait. Never mind. He didn't care whether he was insensitive or not. Ky was more concerned about his own safety than her feelings at the moment. 

"Before I answer, are you okay? I.... I hate it when this happens.... I had it under control, or should have....Sorry, I just heard someone coming and I didnt want them..you to see.."

She took a deep breath, shaken not by the stern looking person in front of her, but terrified by the possibility that she may have hurt him unintentionally. Even if she did not hurt him, what would happen if someone else was to have been in his place. Someone who couldn't possibly have matter slip though them. She shivered as she tried to move her limp body. Her arms felt like they were filled with led and her legs felt pinpricks running down them.

She frowned, having issues trying to explain what happened or at least some semblance of how to start explaining what happened to her that caused this unfortunate encounter. Saying a simple "Hey, I had a huge urge to kill you because of the fact I used an ability that I got in a lab has a side effect of me trying to kill people" wasn't something that could be said easily.


Instead she said "I... I have issues...."

She waited for a second before saying "Its a side effect of a power I recently acquired.... I cant really control it... Im from a lab you see, an experiment of sorts. I dont know why I get so bloodthirsty when I use my ability but I just cant seem to control myself.... You got caught in the aftermath. I am so so sorry. And if it makes you feel better I legitimately cant feel my arms right now, probably also a side effect though much less common." 

Kyland raised an eyebrow at her. "Yeah, I'm fine. I mean, once your knife was out of the way. I've got quite a few inches on you," he commented. In a normal fight between two normal humans, he would've been the clear victor, just based on his stature alone. He decided not to mention the fact that he also got stronger the more bloodthirsty she was. The fact that they both seemed to inconveniently phase out of the physical plane at random times complicated things, sure, but it kind of hurt his head to think about so he decided to wait for her explanation before considering it further. He didn't bother to ask her whether she was alright physically, since he knew he had never actually landed a hit, and she had no visible injuries. Emotional well-being was another issue--one that he didn't particularly think to ask about. "Who was coming?" he asked, confused by her apology. His gaze flicked around the arena suspiciously, but he saw no signs of life aside from them. 

I have issues. He almost laughed out loud at this, and barely managed to restrain himself. Instead, he probably sounded like he choked slightly, but he cleared his throat and tried to regain his composure. Sure, sure. Issues. 

The boy shot her an odd look. "Uhh, I don't particularly feel better knowing that you can't feel your arms. Unless you're trying to reassure me that you're not going to attack again, but you could just be lying." Kyland shrugged. "Anyways. What exactly is your ability? Why were you in a lab in the first place? Where were your parents?" This was probably the most he'd ever inquired about someone in a long time, although to be fair her explanation engendered many more questions than what he was asking. He wondered if he should explain his own situation, but decided that he wanted to know more about her--and whether she was going to go insane on him again--before he said anything.

Jessica's shoulders slumped as she thought about how to answer the questions that the boy in front of her had posed. Where would she start? Would it sound like a sob story? Should she lie to get away with having her privacy intact? Could she lie right now? Probably not. 

As far as it being a sob story, she knew internally that it wouldn't matter to the person in front of her. In this situation she was the aggressor that just tried to get him to 'pop'. She was in the wrong, the student, from the looks of it, deserved some explanation. 

She didn't feel particularly bad about almost killing him, it was more that she hated the idea of her becoming a thoughtless killing machine that couldn't discriminate between right and wrong. Hurting him would have been something that would have haunted her for a long while.

She tried to look at the boy in front of her, but his demeanor made her feel uncomfortable talking to him. She then closed her eyes and turned to the side as to not look at his face. Her guilt seeming to bubble once again to the surface.

"To answer your questions one by one, I have the ability to phase out of existence. For the period of time that I phase I literally cease to exist...according to the whitecoats anyway. The problem is I cant really control whether or not I exist and sometimes it forces me to not exist.... those days suck"

She shivers, a look of fear seeming to take her for a second before she very visibly steels herself.

"Honestly I would show you, but I am sure you got enough of it earlier.... the issue is that whenever I use my ability I tend to become more violent. I can control those urges most of the time, but today it was too much. She.... the person you fight with.... tried to come out this time..... she wanted to surface this time and I have no clue why. I came here and set up the practice dummies to see if I could somehow redirect the urge but then you kinda got here and I accidentally exacerbated my issue by trying to hide."

She once again tries to move her arm, this time her fingers twitch a little bit getting the blood circulating. Hopefully she could regain control soon.

"As for your last two questions, the answer for the first and the second are a bit complicated.... my parents were killed and I submitted myself for experimentation in order to gain some sort of strength to... enact revenge? Get back at those who killed my parents? Get some closure.... I dont know anymore...."

She cut herself off, frowning.

"You know, I would never think I would be showing so much of myself to someone who doesnt even know my name.... If it helps, my name is Jessica Mercier. Should make it easier to report me after this.... I shouldn't have attacked you so its only fair."

She gave a weak smile.

She seemed afraid of him. Part of him was slightly amused. She'd been far more of a danger to him that vice versa. But then again, like he had just pointed out, in a physical fight he had the advantage of height, and now that her knife was gone, most people would have bet on him winning. Part of him, surprisingly, felt almost...bad. He tested that thought out in his mind. I feel bad because she's afraid of me, and I don't intend to hurt her. Hm. That didn't quite sit right with him, and yet, he was tempted to offer some consolation. But he couldn't, in all fairness, offer safety when he couldn't guarantee it. His control over Alastor was less than reliable, and he didn't want to give her a false sense of security. All things considered, it would be better if she stayed on her toes, ready to run or fight back if Alastor came roaring back to life. Then again, her eyes were closed, which would do her no good if it came to that.

Kyland was surprised by how closely her "powers" matched his. He knew from their fight, of course, that she was able to pop out of reality, but the confirmation that she had little control over it, and the fact that she had an alter ego of sorts, was what stood out to him. By her account, she had it worse than him. At least for him, even when Alastor took over, he wasn't reduced to not existing; he was just more like a passenger in his own body. He wondered what exactly it was like to not exist. If someone didn't exist, could they have thoughts and feelings? In a (startling) display of consideration, he decided not to press that particular issue. It wasn't really important to his safety, he figured, and she clearly didn't like thinking about it. His mental question about how this power had come about, since he was pretty sure it wasn't demon-related, was answered next: experimentation. And of her own free will, too. He felt a strange sort of kinship with her that he'd never felt with anyone else. It wasn't exactly a warm, glowy feeling, but a jarring revelation that he wasn't alone in his experiences. Ironically, unbeknownst to him, he had also been an experiment--albeit an alchemical one and not a scientific one. 

He couldn't quite bring himself to smile in return--he couldn't remember when the last time he had smiled genuinely at another person aside from Alastor's smiles that were so creepy and malicious they barely counted--and so he just grimaced in return. "Sorry about your training dummies. I'm Kyland. Ross." Ky didn't plan on reporting her at the moment; how could he, when they seemed so similar? And yet, he did not offer this consolation, thinking that it was perhaps better to keep that to himself in case he changed his mind.

There was a loaded silence as Kyland debated how much he should say about himself. "Well, you and I are not so different," he began. He didn't really feel inclined to talk about Alastor, though, and he didn't even know how he had come to share a body with a demon in the first place, so he felt his account would be incomplete. So instead, he offered, "I could...let you talk to your parents? As long as they're not going to try and murder me too?" He tried to pass this last part off as a joke, but wasn't sure how successful it was. He had been attacked by spirits he'd called upon in the past, and although it wasn't necessarily physically painful, it was like an attack at his soul. If he even had one.