Later that night, she was skulking along the corridors, brooding even harder than usual with her thoughts running amok because of a certain blonde when she happened to look out the window that overlooked the parapet as she walked past and caught a glimpse of unmistakably long, flowing blonde hair, gleaming as it caught moonlight.
Curious, Serpentine watched closely, wondering if Catalyst was running away but instead, Catalyst held out her hand and lit a fireball, making it slowly grow in her palm.
When it was the size of a melon, it suddenly sparked out and died. Catalyst threw her hand in obvious frustration then once more held out her palm and conjured another fireball, but the same thing happened: it sputtered and fizzled out once it grew a certain size. It was a far cry from the powerful fireballs big as buses that she used to fling at Serpentine with the ease of throwing a lemon.
"Having trouble?"
Catalyst whipped around in alarm, relaxing when her gaze settled on Serpentine standing a few paces away. "Hi. I was um...practising a bit so that uh, I can take off soon." She gestured around them. "Hope you don't mind? My power's been feeling a bit off, I didn't want to risk any accidents inside."
Serpentine suppressed a smile. Thoughtful as always.
"It's fine. Good thinking actually. We do have a special gym room that Jennie and Jisoo converted so you can use that if you want as well. It's military grade reinforced, can withstand nuclear blasts, so you'll be fine. Just ask Jennie."
"Really?" Catalyst said brightly. "Jennie didn't show it to me during the tour earlier."
"Yeah well, we don't go about parading our secrets to just anyone but you have my permission now. I'll let Jennie know."
"Thank you," Catalyst said softly.
Serpentine grimaced, moving swiftly to change the topic. "What seems to be the problem?"
"I don't know. I can't sustain my fireball like usual," Catalyst said dolefully. Serpentine had never seen her this frustrated before, and she didn't like it. Pity tugged at her heartstrings but she quickly banished away all such poisonous thoughts.
"You've been through a lot. You were poisoned and starved and tortured. Your healing factor is still rebooting too. Give it a few days. It will get better. Trust me, I know."
She immediately regretted the words that slipped out of her mouth like water as Catalyst's eyes widened, brimming with gratitude but also curiosity.
"Don't," Serpentine warned when Catayst opened her mouth. "Just...don't."
"I was only going to say thank you."
"I'm already tired of hearing thank you's. One thank you is enough," Serpentine grumbled. She started when she heard a little chuckle. "What's so funny?"
"Nothing," Catalyst said, making an effort to pinch her lips together but little gusts of amusement still escaped her.
Serpentine's eyes narrowed, before she got an idea and smirked. "I'll wrench out the answer from you one way or another."
"With your shadows? Were you going for my greatest weakness AKA tickling?" Catalyst said, casually lighting up a fireball and swatting away a shadow tendril that had been innocuously creeping towards her. The shadow quickly snapped back to join the foggy mass that always swirled around Serpentine's feet. "How very unsporty of you. You could always...say please?"
"Hell no, I am not going to say 'please' to you," Serpentine growled. She spun on her heel and was about to shadow-form and launch herself back up to the window in fury when Catalyst spoke again.
"I was only laughing because of how...curmudgeon you talk, nowadays," she said quietly. "You reminded me of Old Sam, remember him? The grumpy old miser that lived by the baker's? And when you kicked our ball into his yard, he was mean about it and just popped it with a pin and threw it back out to us. Remember that?"
There was a beat of silence, punctuated by night sounds of insects and birds from the forest nearby.
"I don't know whether to be offended or amused," Serpentine said finally.
"Let's go with amused. Come on, don't deny, he was such a mean grinch."
"He really was," Serpentine admitted and felt a thrill rush through her when Catalyst laughed behind her.
"You see? Who'd have thought?"
Another beat of silence followed. Serpentine's mouth was desert dry as she listened carefully to the rise and fall of Catalyst's breathing.
"Well, I'll let you practice in peace then," she said at last.
"Wait!"
Catalyst grabbed her arm before she could move and Serpentine froze in the vice-like grip, her shadows collapsing in on themselves as easily as reeds in the wind. Catalyst's powers might not have returned entirely, but her strength was no joke. Serpentine dared to look back at the blonde and her gaze collided with desperate glossy eyes.
"Please don't leave again," Catalyst pleaded, "I'll be gone soon but for now just...just stay? You don't have to talk or anything. Just stay with me. Please? I want to at least have this."
She abruptly let go and wrapped her arms around herself instead. Serpentine's mouth ran dry when she heard what sounded suspiciously like a choked sob. Her shadows unfurled now that Catalyst's grip was gone, confused and uncertain what to do.
"Okay," she heard herself say at last.
Catalyst looked up, eyes wide and grateful, lashes wet, and nodded.
They settled down on the cold ground, not speaking, with a good shoulder's width between them. Serpentine wondered if Catalyst was feeling the cold.
"I'm okay, I can regulate my body temperature," Catalyst said softly, making Serpentine start.
"Huh?"
Catalyst pointed. "Your shadows seem concerned."
Serpentine's mouth almost dropped open when she spotted her smoky shadows had crawled across the space between them and were rubbing against Catalyst's feet like cautious cats. Catalyst didn't seem to mind their presence at all, was even reaching out to pet them. Serpentine quickly reined them in, admonishing herself for being distracted.
"They uh, tend to have a mind of their own," Serpentine muttered.
"They're incredible," Catalyst said, her smile edged with soft moonlight. Serpentine felt the shadows flutter with pleasure, reflected back upon herself. Nobody had ever complimented her shadows before, but she wasn't about to start accepting praise.
"I guess you're the only person who thinks that then. Usually, people run away screaming."
"That must suck."
Serpentine didn't reply to that. She was here just for company, not a therapy session, and she hoped Catayst would quickly get bored if she didn't speak or reply. She focused her gaze on the twinkling lights of the city skyline in the distance, and on the stars wheeling in the heavens above them.
"I'm sorry if I'm keeping you from sleeping," Catalyst said softly, "but I just...want to be selfish for once. Being so close to you again...I still have to pinch myself sometimes. I thought I lost you, for good. I want to cherish this, just in case..." She gave a shaky laugh. "When I found you, I didn't even recognise you right away. How immature of me to expect you to be the same person as before, as though nothing happened. So I waited, before I spoke with you. I wanted to get to know the new you before I approached you."
"Isn't that manipulative? Withholding information like that?" Serpentine couldn't help but ask. She had been listening, unwillingly spellbound.
Catalyst smiled sadly. "Would you have accepted to talk if I contacted you when I realised who you were?"
Serpentine shrugged.
Catalyst picked up again, reminiscing. "It came to me a month after we met. Remember Chipka's Ice Cream Parlour? We were battling close by and curiously, I saw you evading that whole corner where the parlour is. Any blast, any debris, I saw you surreptitiously block from destroying that place."
Serpentine's mouth dropped. "That's what gave me away?" she said incredulously.
"It was the first indicator of familiarity," Catalyst nodded. "I wondered why out of all places, you cared about such an innocuous little ice cream shop. After a little digging, I found out they're one of the last artisan gelato makers in the city." She fixed Serpentine with her gaze. "Just like Manzoni's Gelato in our hometown. It made me start to wonder...and hope."
She smiled wistfully. "Remember our ice cream dates at Manzoni?"
"Is this some interrogation you roped me in?" Serpentine said as she gnashed her teeth, her agitation making the shadows seethe.
She did remember their dates and she wished Catalyst hadn't mentioned them because her heart flip-flopped uncontrollably at the mere memory of her girlfriend sidled up close to her in their favourite booth because the ice cream shop was always a little chilly but it gave them an excuse to cuddle, taking turns to feed each other ice cream, giggling and stealing kisses, happy and warm and in love.
"Why don't you like remembering?" Catalyst pleaded.
"Seriously? Look at me!" Serpentine bellowed. "Have you seen my face? My white eye and my disgusting skin? My stained hands and black claws? My damned shadows? Do you know how much it pains me to think of the past, Chaeyoung?"
"I would if you'd just talk to me, Lisa!"
"How can you so be thick-headed?" Lisa said in exasperation. "God, you always were so...so positive and loving and kind. Damn you, how can you still be all sweet when I'm like this?"
"I don't get it. What am I supposed to do, hate you or something?"
"Yes! That's exactly what you're supposed to do! I'm a monster! People hate monsters! Stop pitying me and leave me alone!"
"Why should I? I don't pity you, I lo — "
"Don't you dare finish that sentence. Don't you dare." Lisa pointed at her. "I'm not falling for your crocodile tears a second time. You're welcome to — "
She gave a strangled cry and went rigid when Chaeyoung surged forward and hugged her tightly.
"I'm sorry," Chaeyoung said, sounding pained. "But I don't know how else to make you listen right now. I don't know when we'll have another chance like this. I need to feel you again."
Lisa almost swallowed her tongue, her knees buckling at the sensation of Chaeyoung pressing her face into the space between her shoulder and neck, her breath raising goosebumps all over her arms.
"You're so you, it hurts," Chaeyoung whispered. "It hurts that you can't see yourself the way I see you. It hurts that they hurt you so much and I wasn't there to protect you. Skies, Lisa, I wasn't there. I believed them when they said you were at a private reformation school. You're right, I always want to believe the best in everyone to a fault, but you're not like them. I swear on my life, you're not."
"How can you tell?" Lisa croaked. "I'm a villain." Her shadows hugged the two of them, swirling gently like a mist.
"I've seen true villains," Chaeyoung said softly. "Black-hearted monsters who thrive on pain and suffering of others. You're not one of them."
She wanted to tell her she was wrong wrong wrong but Chaeyoung's arms wrapped around her felt so familiar and comfortable, so warm and comforting that Lisa's head spun, her shadows singing in ecstasy.
Nobody had touched her with love in many long years and the effect, much like their first hug in Jaehyun's cave, was cathartic. She almost lifted her arms to return the embrace but seeing the unsightly black claws at the end of her inky fingertips behind Chaeyoung's back had her fall back to reality.
Lisa carefully undid Chaeyoung's arms from around her waist. Chaeyoung didn't put up a fight, sensing there was more to her silence than brooding anger.
"I didn't run, you know, when you...died," Lisa mumbled. "I held you."
"You did?" Chaeyoung whispered. Her hands curled. "Lili..."
"The blast levelled the house. I wasn't thinking straight, the light was blinding after being in the dark for so long. It was too much to take in." She couldn't stop talking as the memories all came rushing back. "It was disorienting and I was also drained from that blast, it took everything in me. But then amongst the wreckage, I see something colourful, this little pride string bracelet that I recognised."
"Our pride bracelets from our first pride," Chaeyoung said faintly. They had only gone to their first and only pride march the year before Lisa's parents discovered their daughter in a compromising position with her best friend-turned-girlfriend in the tree house and all hell broke loose.
"And I knew then that you were there, because no way my parents would still have had mine. I looked around frantically, digging amongst the wreckage and I finally found you. You weren't breathing and all I could do was hold you and cry until I heard the sirens." Lisa bowed her head. "And then I ran. I didn't want to get locked up again. I thought I killed you."
"You were right to run," Chaeyoung said tenderly. "The cops would have likely locked you up again and your parents would twist the story, or even call Vanguard on you. I'm glad you ran."
Lisa swallowed past the rock lodged in her throat, aware of Chaeyoung's gaze bombarding her with questions. She willed her not to ask, yet at the same time she wanted to collapse in Chaeyoung's arms and cry.
"What happened to your eye?" Chaeyoung asked, like a mother tending to her hurt child. She knew better than to touch her face.
"My Power was corrupted — "
"I know that," Chaeyoung cut in, sounding pained, "I've heard of cases when the trauma is too much. Something like that happens when you've been through hell. But it doesn't explain why your eye didn't heal."
"How do you know so much?"
"You're not the only one who's had to deal with monsters," Chaeyoung said quietly, "there's some truly cruel people out there."
Lisa swallowed. "Mother...burned my face with the iron she ironed our clothes with." She raised her hand when Chaeyoung gasped in horror. "Don't. Spare me the pity. It's...It is what is."
"Why?" Chaeyoung asked in a deathly voice, breathtakingly dangerous.
Lisa threw her head back in a mirthless laugh. "I'd like to know too. Who knows what was going on in their heads? They trussed me up like a chicken one day and all I could do was sit and watch her come up to me with a freaking burning iron. It hurt."
Hurt was an understatement — she thought she was dying. Pain had exploded in her brain, her face had burst into flames, drying her tears, and she swore she could hear her nerve endings shrieking and going insane.
She passed out and when she woke up, her face numb, she knew she had crossed the point of no return as the first whisper of darkness slithered into her mind.
"It's past now," Lisa said. "They're far away and they think I'm dead, which is exactly what I think of them."
"They're evil," Chaeyoung seethed. Her hands fell lifeless to her sides. "I keep replaying that day in the tree-house, thinking of how things could have been, if only I didn't keep you there longer...but I can't do anything."
"I stayed of my own free-will. We would have been caught sooner or later. We had grown careless," Lisa said quietly. "Accept that. I had to but it's...freeing, in a way."
"I'm so sorry."
Lisa shook her head, picking up her story again. "It was a blur after I ran away but I went north to lie low in the forests there. I learned to hone my power and control it. Then I went out and tried to survive, you know? Its all I could do."
"It must have been so lonely, all by yourself."
"People ran away from me. Heroes started turning up to hunt me. So I fought back." Lisa closed her eyes. "You should know, my hands are tainted with blood. I'm not the same Lisa who fainted at the sight of a needle."
"I understand that, now. That's why I took my time to approach, so that I could see you, the whole you. It wouldn't be fair to expect things to be the same as before," Chaeyoung said quietly. "How did you meet Jennie and Jisoo?"
"I was in a city some 20 miles south of here and Jisoo came to me, all frantic and begging me to help rescue her friend from this Power mob. No hero would listen to her, and indeed some even tried to capture her since she and Jennie happened to be small-time eco-terrorists and regularly blew up energy power stations. I sent her packing. I'm not some charity organisation, thank you."
"Very charming of you," said Chaeyoung with a hint of a smile.
"Yes, Jisoo was also very charmed. She showed me by unleashing her formidable vegetation powers on me. We had a long fight. I won of course, but I confess to actually being impressed by her tenacity so I decided to go along for the sake of curiosity. Turns out, Jennie was snapped up by one of those Blood Power mobs because they wanted Jisoo to join their little gang, so they were using Jennie as blackmail, threatening to torture her if Jisoo didn't comply. Jisoo and I managed to save her in the nick of time. And as payment for their debt to me, I offered them to work for me."
"You recruited them."
"It seemed like a good idea at the time," Lisa muttered, avoiding Chaeyoung's bright smile. "I thought I could do with the little extra help on my side."
"I'm glad you made friends. They seem like nice people."
"I suppose. They're alright."
"Are they dating? They seem close..."
"I never was involved with them, or anyone, if that's what you're asking," Lisa said quietly, "let's leave it at that. I don't know what they do and as long as I'm not involved, I don't care."
"You should care, actually. They're your friends as much as your henchwomen, no matter how much you deny," Chaeyoung said softly. "You're lucky to have people close to you so I'd cherish them, if I were you."
"Don't you have people like that too?" Lisa wondered, struck by her wistful tone. "You're like a celebrity now, I see you everywhere. On TV, on billboards, ads plastered on buses."
"That's just it. Everybody sees me... but nobody knows the real me." Except you, her eyes added silently.
Lisa averted her gaze, knowing just exactly what those hopeful eyes were implying.
"It's no use, Chaeyoung. I don't want you holding out and waiting for someone like me. It's not worth the pain. Think of the future. Think of what people would say, or think. A hero like you, running around with the likes of scum like me?"
"You're not scum," Chaeyoung said sternly. "And I don't care what people think. Let me be the judge of what's good for me."
Lisa shook her head. "Not when your judgement is clouded."
"Have you considered that maybe your judgement is clouded as well?"
Lisa bit her lip. "I'm being realistic. I'm a monster, you're something far beyond me. We've grown up and you've become so good at being a hero. I've seen it. You were meant for this."
"I can't be a hero for the person that means the most to me. The one I wish to save the most," Chaeyoung said sadly.
"See? Even you see me as something dangerous and needs fixing, something bad."
"No, you're wrong. I just want you to see that you're still you, and you still deserve love and kindness. That's what I want to save you from, your own self loathing and guilt." She took a tentative step forward. "I wish you could see yourself the way I see you."
But Lisa shook her head and immediately stepped back even as her shadows protested. She ignored how Chaeyoung's face fell. She turned away, gritting her teeth.
"We're too different now. I can't go back to being your Lisa, even if I wanted to, which I don't. I know that you hope that I might come around or cave in but it's wishful thinking. There's no turning back time." She clenched her inky hands, forever stained black. "I told you, I'm not your Lisa anymore."
"If you're not my Lisa, why do you remind me of her so much?" Chaeyoung said in anguish.
"Because that's all I am. A reminder. A ghost. A shell...and you don't deserve a shell." She swallowed and dredged up the words sitting like a bitter ball of tar in her stomach. "I'm truly sorry...for everything."
Her heart hurt worse when Chaeyoung spoke.
"Alright Lisa, I won't push you anymore," Chaeyoung said sadly. "It was unfair of me to do that when things between us have altered and I see that now that maybe I was naive, selfish even, to think that we could have us back if I pushed hard enough. Maybe you're right, maybe it's time I moved on." Her breath caught in her throat but she soldiered on. "I'll respect your decision and try to understand, even if I don't agree. And although I'm letting go, it doesn't mean that my feelings for you are no less strong or meaningful than before. I hope you at least accept that."
Lisa swallowed. "It'll pass," she croaked, fooling nobody.
She knew the wan smile that would be fixed on Chaeyoung's face but she didn't turn to see, not even when she heard the tell-tale sniff. For all her strength, her Chaeyoung hadn't changed a bit and was every bit as sensitive and emotional as when they were teens.
Not mine. Not anymore.
Serpentine pulled up the walls around her heart in order to summon the strength needed to flee without looking back at the heartbroken blonde hero.
Because if she did glance back, she might abandon all reason and scoop Chaeyoung up in a tight hug and never ever let her go.
And that in itself was far more terrifying to contemplate than an eternity alone.