Paradigm shift

~VENIN~
*101, 102, 103...she is almost maniacal now in her workouts, something to focus on, ...107..108... keep her attention off of the walls, the nightmares....everything...110, 112...she is in the best physical shape she has been in years, better than even when she was with GUARD...115,116...she counts softly while she continues the push ups, her attention focused tightly on each muscle, each repitition, her mind attempting to block out everything else...117,118...however even with her mind sharply focused images run in the back...119,120...images she can never truly destroy now that the doorway has been opened...121,123...images from the past and the present...124,125...the faces of friends, old and new...126...those of a family she once new...127...yet the worst image, that which haunted her constantly was that which followed her continuously..128...the image of her mothers final moment now haunted her forever...129...peace was denied her, even in the oblivion of sleep, for then her guard was dropped and the images roamed freely....*

~PSIWARP~
*The heavy, solid steps of cyhunters resound through the empty hallways. Security check. They pause, then continue, descending levels, displaying their orders signed by Scratch himself, moving with a purpose. In due time and seven checks later, ecah far more intense than the last, the cyhunters enter the maximum Unnatural security block of the French Headquarters. Here, unnatural talents are supressed, choked off... but cyhunters, while a few are unnatural, don't lean upon their powers but their artificial enhancements. Stockpile and Craze stroll single-mindedly to a very specific cell, stopping before it. With a wave to the camera, the signal is given to open the door and let the one inside out. But not before precautions are taken; Stockpile, incredibly immense and towering, fills the entirety of the exit-way, allowing no escape even if it were possible. Craze, a female with golden, striped fur and unusual face-mask which consisted of only white eyes and a hole where the mouth should be surrounded by dagger-like teeth (or was it a mask?), stepped in, pausing only long enough to allow Venin to realize they were there, just in case her form of escapism caused her to get lost in her own thoughts. Then Craze moved forward, something like a set of shackles and a collar in her hand. Venin was powerless against the cyhunter, and Craze knew it. Venin, too, should remember the Cyhunter, whose cybernetic strength far exceeded the norm. If she has to, Craze will wrestle the R.UN.ner to the ground, otherwise, she'll do what she starts out to do and clap the shackles and collar onto Venin as ordered. The shackles and collar are metal with one tiny window in their shapes, a window that is presently dark. Like an inmate on death row, the shackles will chain wrists and ankles together, and the wrists will attach to the collar. All these will serve to act as the cell acts, snuffing out unnatural abilities to the fullest. PsiWarp can't operate under the weight of the powerblocks, and neither does he want Venin to end his life short. Craze, without a word, goes about her business. At the first sign of resistance, she'll become much less pleasant....*

*150,151...she heard the footsteps of the cyhunters two checkpoints ago....yet she ignored them, instead remaining focused upon the repetitions....152.153..being down here, alone for so long had heightened her senses, almost to a point where they matched those of her father...almost, but not quite...she couldn't hear the blood in their veins, but she could hear with a clarity that almost startled her the click and whirr of the robotics within their bodies as they stopped in front of her cell..she continues her workout, seemingly oblivious to the their prescence...she pauses halfway down as she hears the door open...she holds the position while she looks up....these were not the standard gawkers shich she had gotten use to...too often vetrans and recruits alike had managed to worm their way down here to see the traitor....she recognizes the cyhunters yet merely watches them for a brief moment taking in everythig about them, then her gaze lands on the shackles...she almost winces at he sight of them..she had expected this before now, had dreaded it...she slowly regains her feet, wiping her palms across her pants..now it seemed like it was time to face the piper..once more her gaze sweeps over the two cyhunters..resistance is a futile effort so with a deep, almost dread filled sigh she holds out her wrists* Might as well get this over with

*Without word, as if she could make one of her volition, Craze dutifully puts the shackles in place... one for each wrist, one for each ankle, one for the neck. The click together all at once, the pull of magnetics though that isn't what keeps them together, and the lights on the single windows of the restraints beep in union. Activated. The choking nature of the cell Venin resided in was now redundant. Craze positions herself behind the captured, herding her forward to the door, where Stockpile steps back once, to allow Venin to squeeze between them; Stockpile in front, Craze behind, sandwiching the RUNner in a a cage of flesh and metal and hideous cyberstrengths. In this manner they guide her up the stairs, where at each check-point her shackles are thoroughly inspected, until they reach the last checkpoint and pass it. At that last and first checkpoint a hood is placed over Venin's head, most likely a scare-tactic than anything... most likely. Gruff hands guide her the rest of the way down many twists and turns, thru an astounding number of doorways, and with eery silence. They don't want her being able to find her way around by landmarking sounds. There is no sound, just that whir and click of cybernetic joints, usually so muted as to be imperceivable, but in the dead calm of the hallways, the noises seem to echo like forlorn cries. Finally, the couple pauses, just for a moment, before a door which is noislessly pushes open by the cyhunter in charge. Again, Venin is led a few steps, then roughly stopped. The hood is removed none too gently. She stands in the center of a white, white sterile room. No windows, no paintings, nothing but white, half the room shrouded in shadows. At the edge of those shadows, just behind the 3/4th mark of the room, a stool, is perched a sharp-featured, young man with white-blonde hair and large blue eyes. A pretty man, cloaked in pale shadow. He nods once to Venin, smiles blandly, and speaks in such soft tones a natural would have to strain to hear him, whisps of sound, so very gentle and disarming...* Welcome, Yvette. I'm called PsiWarp. It's an honor to finally meet you.

*The cold metal feels harsh against her skin, but it is a new sensation...and at this point she almost welcomes anything new, anything that will take her away from the insanity she feels slowly creeping up within that cell...by now she knows every square millimetre, every crack, every seam...there is nothing about that cell that she does not know...she even knows which pixels on the holographic window are out of phase...she looks up at Craze then over towards Stockpile, they really weren't taking chances on her were they? did they really think that she was that dangerous? that she would attempt escape?... unfortunatley escape was only a dream, one which she highly doubts will be realized...there is too much security here... even if she did attempt escape. it would earn her nothing...not even the death which she currently longs for..an escape attempt is useless..She is silent as the sound of the shackles activation seems to echo through the room..at this point she know waht is expected of her and she silently squeezes through the door and follows her equally silent companions....At each checkpoint she silently submits as her shackles are once more examined, her mind roaming fearfully to what lies ahead...she had been anticipating this moment with dread, her only question was who would she face at the end of the walk?..There is no reaction from her as the hood is placed over her head...she merely continues on, silently lettign her footsteps fall where her captors lead...her mind racing ahead to her upcoming confrontation...would it be just a Psi, or perhaps pole, or..maybe..'him'..her heart growing colder as each new possibility enters her mind...She almost sighs in relief as the hood is removed and none of her fears are revealed before her...his voice, his attitude, his posture, everything about him seems too calm, too gentle and this instantly puts her on guard...her green eyes trakc around the room, picking out the survelaince gear, before they once more settle on him, weighing and assesing...this is one she is unfamiliar with* Get it over with *the words almost barked out as if an order, this is something she doesn't want to endure but if she must....her only hope is that she doesn't betray anymore who trust her*

*The young man smiles again, this time almost earnestly at her barked command, tho the action he makes is so subtle it could be missed, that smile. He nods once to the cyhunters and they turn, exiting the room. Almost as soon as the door closes, the lights in the chamber fully go on, illuminating every nook and cranny. The youth doesn't move, unnaturally still, even when he speaks... he uses no physical animation and his lips alter only as absolutely necessary, an almost eerie composure over his frame. He is black against white, the only color before Venin is the blue of his eyes, the pale wheat of his hair, the rest is black, his snug fitting uniform, and white... white room, white stool, white floor, white lights. White, a spot of black, two blue orbs set in a lovely pale face. Monotone. Just the woman and the young man. For a long time, a very very long time, there is only silence as he watches her, and if he blinks in all that time, its such a subtle motion as to be unseen. Eventually, /finally/, something starts to change in the silence and the white, and it starts in the two azure points fixed on her face* Over with. And it's endings we wish to...discuss, isn't it? *the blue alters....shifts, changes, pulses from dark to light, darker to lighter, a steady beat, almost mesmorizing in its constant throb... blue and darker blue and pale blue, like the sky, blue and no black, blue within blue, dark inside of light, light inside of dark, steady, like a heartbeat, over and over and over again, pulse... pulse... changing in blues and degress of blues, all white vanishing in his eyes, all black is blue, and it just goes on. Time loses meaning, the youth unconcerned with any physical aggression she might display, because those throbs of blue have never lost a watcher, not under these conditions. But nothing touches her, nothing invades nor brushes against her mind... that is not his power. Instead, the white of the room, tainted blue in the periphials, everything tainted blue and swirling and throbbing in blue, even the lad's clothing, his hair, his skin, a wash of blues, starts to warp, a scene developing, laying out, solidifying, wavering like a heat mirage until it coagulates.... and the scene is a familiar one; Yvette, very young, and her mother. The death scene of her mother, in every detail as she would remember it, perfect to the last hair... shimmering in the blue*

*She stands motionless...waiting, but for what she is unsure...almost unconciously she tests her shields, readying her rebound field...she hears the door behind her close, but doesn't look back..instead she stands motionless, the only movement about her is the flicking of her eyes as they survey the room, pausing only briefly upon the figure on the stool, she knows he is the threat...she just doesn't know how, not yet, but she knows that soon, all will be revealed....perhaps too soon...NO matter how much her gaze wanders somehow, involuntarily, it keeps flickering back to the center of the contrast..the mote of black amongst the white, the figure upon the stool... The boy speaks and her gaze turns towards him, she tries to pull away, but somehow finds herself unable to..her tone drips with scorn as she replies* Endings? yeah, like the end of this shit *the changes in his eyes seem to enrapture her briefly, then she shakes her head, clearing her sight* your not a psi, are you? *The words coming quietly while she fights the influence, the blue within blue, the swirling patterns trying to embed within her brain..she closes her eyes, hoping to block it from sight...but that is a mistake for then the colours and patterns playover her eyelids, reflecting and somehow amplifying themselves...too late she realizes ehr mistake and once more opens her eyes, her gaze instantly focusing on a corner, trying to evade the subtle pressure trying to mesmerize her...yet somehow the colours, the throbbig motion pull her gaze away towards the center of the room....repeatedly she returns her gaze to the corner yet still it wanders towards the boy....a low almost feral growl of frustration issues from her throat as seh surrenders, purposesly throwing her angry glare at the boy as she approaches him, intent on destroying him, before he manages to rip into her mind causing her to betray those she cares the most about.....she is almost upon him when the image appears...that which she didn't want to see, that which haunts her dreams too frequently...only this image is slightly different, this is seen as if through the eyes of another...yet every detail is as she recalls...her breath comes rapidly as she watches the scene play out before her eyes, her heart rate increaseing as it did back then....and once more she finds herself unable to move, unable to do anythign to alter teh scene before her eyes*

*its all about her, the memory, it clings to her in an almost visible manner, which is how, truly, Psiwarp finds it. He can read, at times of concentration, events, those things that imprint themselves on a person so strongly the happenings are worn like a cloak, or a shroud... a death shroud, in this case. Psiwarp is a psi, but his powers are terribly specialized, unusual, and while he /can/ enter a mind to find what he wants, he doesn't have to, especially not in this case, nor can he with this woman. He rips into her privacy with his spectral findings, and as happens under such circumstances, once she sees the ghostly images, the mind gives way, opens on its own, offers all, shields or no. As she surrenders to the scene before her it becomes even more realistic, hard and palpable. Real? perhaps. To the one viewing it, seeing it, to the one re-experiencing the past, its most definitely real, touchable, true. Scents resurface, textures, sights sounds... for all is stored in the brain. It never truly forgets, but only buries, and Yvette, being what she is, has a better grasp than most on such details... all of it bounces back into the real world with a vengeance. The boy doesn't answer her question about being a psi, he doesn't respond to her remark about endings... the word itself was, perhaps, a kind of trigger. As some believe ghosts are, the past violently imprinted on the present, looping for ages on end, so his power detects violently marking past events and pulls them from the sanctity of the mind into the present, before the eyes, brings the dead back to life. And from here, he can manipulate events, alter and change, and make it just as real as the truth itself... make it the truth. A small facet of his gifts. Her growl of frustration, her movement forward... he ignores it all, fixated on the woman before him, unworried, placid. The death scene of her mother. The older woman, dead on the floor in a pool of her own blood, shot down. Yvette remembers seeing Old Scratch at his wife's side, believes Scratch killed her. While this is not the truth, Yvette has convinced herself that it is. This needs to be changed. She needs to remember a new ending. A new ending that will become as true as the false memory, or wrongful interpretation, of her mother's death. The scene plays over and over and over again as Yvette knows it, as she's dreamed it, as its haunted her for two decades; The GUARD, sent to capture her mother. She, a child, seeing her father kneeling by her mother's side, her mother dead, bleeding, the GUARDians pleased with this. Scratch expressionless. Scratch looking up to his daughter's eyes. His eyes dead, blank, void. This is perhaps where she got the wrong idea, the lack of grief in his face. But he couldn't show it at the time, so absolutely devasted as he was... part of him died in his own arms. The truth is subjective and maybe noone knows the truth except Scratch himself and his dead, silent wife. Ian was the one who kept the GUARD from his family for as long as they had managed to run, Scratch was the one who told his wife to run, "accidently" turning up in the wrong places far after his family had escaped, kept communications poor so they /could/ run... hid his own son. But Psiwarp doesn't know that and for now it doesn't matter. Only this matters, this scene, playing again and again. The trigger-happy GUARD who didn't obey orders, who didn't hold fire, who shot the wife of Scratch down, ended up a casuality of friendly fire a week later.... coincidence, certainly. But now.... now this.... for a long time it plays as Yvette remembers it, pain brought to the surface, colors moving, not a movie, not flat, but three dimensional. she's /there/, watching, the eyes of an adult, not the eyes of a child. This too begins to change. Flash after flash, disorienting, as Psiwarp moves her into the replay. Watching... then she's there. Watching... then she's there. Adult,child,adult,child.... flash flash....fit. Exactly as it was, as she knew it, through her own eyes again, the right percpective. It happens to her again... to the point of her father's eyes looking up at her, dead... and again. And again. A child once more, reliving, pain and grief and death and blood and anger... hatred. The GUARDian who shot her mother down gloating, being praised by the others who didn't understand. Dead eyes. dead mother. Praise and accolades. Dead eyes. Grief. She is a child. Exactly as she lived it. Living it once more. Perfectly. All the while, Psiwarp fades into the background, seems to disappear until this is all she knows, all she sees, all she experiences. Impossible to know anymore that it's a past revisited, because it's not. It's the truth... it /is/ happening*

NO! *one angry word pulled from the depths of her very being as she fights against the memory being played before her...too often in recent weeks she had been through this, beheld the scene as her mind betrayed her bringing it to the surface in her unguarded moments....but she had also learnt to fight it, to shut it from her mind..if only for a few brief seconds at a time..she had learnt to disrupt that pattern of her memory...Once more she tires to force the image away, using as her shield the memories of her 'family'..images flash in her mind..Zak, Jesse, Alan, Gild, the horses..all these she tries to use as a shield, a buffer...her only defense....for now it is a battle waged within herself, her mind fighting itself, her memories battling to outdo eachother...The boy is forgotten, her fear of betraying her friends is forgotten all that exists is this internal battle as she figths to regain control of her memories...but it is to no avail, tears stream unchecked down the face of this broken figure as she falls heavily to her knees...the dreaded scene now running freely before her...herself a particapant...her gaze focuses on the bloody corpse of her mother, grief written plainly across her features...then a change overcomes her as her gaze travel to the one holding her mother, a hardening...pure hatred flashing in the eyes of the grief stricken child as she silently promises revenge..yet somehow this was forgotten for years...the Psis had done their job well, on a child not yet grown into her powers..but with time, they had failed and she once more remembered...but now, they had a new type of Psi, one that woudl perhaps correct what the others had done wrong*

*Venin's defiance actually surprises the young psi... it is so strong, passionate. And she tries to fight it, as most do, if only for a moment, but Venin has taught herself a few new ways to combat the memory. Unfortunately, it doesn't help. Psiwarp is set in his mission, and the fact that his brows raise at her outcry is swallowed by the scenes, goes unnoticed, as the memory plays out. Even the boy won't remember this scene later, he'll be mindwiped of it too, leaving no trace at all to follow. His power is brutal, the revelation of such a memory a violation, a raping in a sense, of Venin's mind, of her private most places, hidden, shielded.... exposed and alive. Psiwarp keeps his attention fixed on the woman who is now on her knees even as he alters her viewpoints, makes her there, makes it all occur again, and again, over and over. He is very aware of the living memory about him tho, the scene that subsumes his appearance, ignores him, shuts him away. The room is now gone, replaced by the interactive rememberance, moving as it did almost 20 years before. The changes are introduced in flashes.... the scene as recalled. The scene as recalled /but/ its not the GUARD standing about the fallen woman... its RUNners. The scene as recalled, but the GUARD come in and save the Yvette-child. The scene as recalled, but the RUNners stand gloating over the fallen form of Yvette's mother, they've killed the wife of the dreaded Scratch, they turn to kill his daughter, and The GUARD rush in, save the Yvette-child. The scene as recalled, but the RUNners stand gloating over the fallen form of Yvette's mother, they've killed the wife of the dreaded Scratch, they turn to kill his daughter and the GUARD rush in, save Yvette, and Scratch races to his wife's side... too late... and he holds her close to him and weeps. The GUARD fall silent in mourning, the RUNners subdued. Over and over again this last one plays.... over and over and over.... the scene slowly altered so the mind didn't reject it in its suddenty, then the final product played in circles, always in circles, a constant barrage of it. Scratch looks up at his daughter, his eyes the eyes of a torn man, wet and his cheeks streaked with tears. His heart is broken. The GUARD all are silent, heads hung low, a respectful gesture to the life taken. As Yvette was grasped by the GUARDians originally, now it takes another form too; the grasp, which most likely was never overly rough anyway, is even more gentled, tender, comforting as the GUARD lead her away, let her father grieve in solitude, still cradling his wife to his chest. Repeated... repeated... until it all fits. Fits perfectly. If Psiwarp is tiring yet, it doesn't show. Most likely he'll rest for several days after a treatment like this, but its not one that can be interrupted and restarted. Over and over and over and over and over again.... the ultimate in brainwashing, self-rewriting. Told a lie enough times, especially under these hideous conditions, the lie becomes the truth, all else is swept away... if it works as it should, even Psiwarp, scanning her after this, would see /this/ traumatic event, and not the original, for this would /be/ the original... there was nothing else*

*The scene changes before her, no longer is she an observer..no longer does she see it through the eyes of an adult, now she has become a part of it, once more witnessing it first hand through the eyes of a young child... The image plays through before her, unhindered her defenses now fully broken down, she no longer fights the scene as the original plays before her....but as the first alteration occurs..her unconcious fights it...something is different, somethign wrong...yet, the scene continues to replay before her..her mind not having time to take in each minor change, its too much, replaying too often for her to follow....after a few brief seconds her mind gives in, accepting each change, each alteration...until it no longer knows what was once truth....tears continue to stream down her grief stricken as she stands helpless, frozen by fear and terror...her gaze locked upon the bloody form of her mother...slowly her gaze travels further, to the one holding the body....her gaze still changes but no longer does it hold hatred and anger, now it is merely a void...emotionless..her eyes have become as a blank mirror, reflecting back only what they see, nothing more...*

*It's not enough... the blank eyes staring at the figure of Scratch as he cradles his dead wife... it is not enough. Psiwarp is going for something more, something deeper, he /has/ to know the changes caught, that the memory is accompanied by the emotions; emotions her own mind would create to fit the new scene. Its not a difficult task, one could even just imagine it, and after enough imaginings, it would be hard to know truth from lie... did they really feel that way or was it their own creation? Much like a dream... was it a memory of a true event or one created by the subconscience, some dreams are so vivid. This is where Venin's own mind will become her downfall, for it should work to those ends, making the emotions to fir the alterations, making the false the truth... she has the images, now she needs the rest... and it can also take the longest in the process. So the scene continues, and will continue, until Psiwarp sees that what he needs to see. Other discrempencies will smooth themselves out, as many times the finer details are lost in a memory so old... RUNners weren't even out in force at that time, most younger than Yvette, but that doesn't matter, it will blur, smear, she'll lose the importance of that detail as many time people have a difficult task remembering the why of an action or event, just that it happened, and that much they remember. After all, it could have been the forefathers of the modern RUNner... escapees, before the files were lost (which would have to be the reason as the files were lost about 7 years after the Yvette-child was reclaimed), the escapees such lies as aliens and other phenonemon were invented to cover, so it fits... makes sense.... explains itself away with ther own knowledge. The RUNners who killed her mother were none she knew, so that paradox does not exist. The forefathers then, the escapees... they killed her. They gloated. The GUARD, none of them cyhunters who were not invented back then, had saved Yvette from a similar fate, her father had grieved. The GUARD helped her put her life back together. That later she felt a sense of stifling, a asense of desiring freedom, well, that is left, just fit into the puzzle a slightly different way. Perhaps her anger at her father was more that he pushed her too hard after that, maybe to compensate. Either way, the end resulting Venin remains, but psiwarp isn't done yet. Once he sees that emotion, however long that might take, he'll add the last piece, the most important one.... the one that might change the daughter of Scratch forever. It will be his most difficult task concerning her, but he has yet to fail, and if it /does/ catch, it will remain.... solid. Not even Jesse could undo it without altering Yvette even more than Psiwarp is aiming too. There is still much more to go... and it all keeps playing... and playing.... and playing....*