"Oh shit... This is.." Marie said, as they were now looking at a massive portrait, stretching the wall of the known underground organization.
"The woods.." Everyone, except for Athena said on sync, almost as if it was planned.
"And the thing I don't get is that was my memory, not Cate's. It's like her shit and our shit are bleeding together." Jordan said, not expecting a negative response, but of course Andre was there, and Ari liked to say that negativity was his specialty.
"Let's talk about your shit, actually." Andre got close to them, still mad about what he had found out.
'Yeah." Marie added, whilst Athena kept quiet. She didn't feel like she deserved to speak to anyone, this was a whole new friend group that she had been dragged into because of her roommate and her liking Marie.
Ari also stayed silent, not wanting to add any fuel to the flame, that was growing against them. She didn't want to hate them, though she didn't think she possibly could anymore.
"I'm sorry okay. I bought into all of Brink's bullshit. He was just like Shetty, and I didn't want to see it..." No one said a word when Jordan walked off. "Fuck this place. I'm gonna make It right, for Luke."
They audibly gasped once they walked past a certain door, their eyes fixating on what was behind it. They looked back at the others waiting for them to follow them. Ari was the first over there, close behind them like she always was.
They all watched as a monitor beeped steadily in the middle of the room, connecting wires to two very familiar subjects.
"What the fuck are they doing?" Andre closed in on them to get a better look.
The monitor started beeping, sending Dr. Cardoza after it. "Wait."
Luke shot up from the bed, so fast that it startled everyone, even Athena who had seen the image in her head moments before. "What the fuck are you guys doing to me?" He yelled at the three adults, he was supposed to be able to trust. "Sam!"
"Hurry. Now." Shetty motioned for another person, that no one realized had been in the same room with them, not until Luke mumbled her name. "Cate?"
There was another girl in the room with them, sitting in the corner , a girl that looked so familiar, yet Ari couldn't tell who it was because there was a slight blur disguising her.
Cate walked closer to Luke, with an upset look on her face. She knew what she had to do.
"Cate. Cate, help me. Help me out of here." He pleaded, only for it to not work.
Cate placed her hands on the sides of his face, wiping his memories. "I'm so sorry. You're going to forget this is happening."
"Cate please."
"You're gonna forget about the woods. Your brother is dead. Go to sleep." She continued while Luke panted heavily, going to sleep just as she had instructed. The others soon saw a montage, put together in Cate's memories of the many times she had to make Luke forget.
"Holy shit. She knew everything from the fucking jump. How many times do you think she did that to him?"
"Too many to count." Ari shivered, as she felt a million. emotions at once.
"A lot.. You think that's what broke him?"Jordan asked, though they assumed that was the actual answer.
"Seems like it broke both of them." Marie replied, as she held Athenas hand.
"It's not working. I think it's messing with his head. He keeps remembering like... like a dam breaking." Cate said to Brink and Sherry, now in Shetty's office.
"Oh he seems fine to me. He's burning hotter than ever." Brink said, not caring about Luke, or any of his students. He never really did, he just wanted them to be the best.
"You see? You're helping him Cate. You're doing a wonderful job. Except... make them forget." The windows started shattering when Shetty turned toward the group.
They made a run for it, running through the campus like their lives depended on it, because they did.
"We're fucked." Marie shouted as they ran.
"Over there!" Jordan pointed towards a door, a very familiar door.
"No. We need to keep running." Athena tried to get them to look past it, to go anywhere, but through that door. She knew what was waiting for her on the other side. She knew what was going to be unveiled.
It was a door to one of the rooms in the woods. "Do you know what's behind that door?" Andre asked, stunned.
She tried to shake her head, to deny it, but she couldn't.
"She does." Ari had a hunch, she just knew from the look on her face. Ari could read peoples emotions so easily, it just came natural to her.
Marie opened the door quickly, despite Athena's attempt to get them to forget, revealing a teenage girl in the corner. She could have tried harder, or should have.
"This is one of my memories..." Athena admitted, ashamed about what was to come.
The girl sat in a pile of blood with her back facing towards them, beside a now dead body.
"Who is that? How is this your memory?" Marie asked, right beside Athena for comfort, and support.
Athena waited until the girl turned around to say anything. "That's me from two years ago."
Just then a person entered the room, it was Brink. Everyone was worried that he would try to hurt them but he just ignored them. He was apart of this memory.
"I didn't mean to. I really didn't mean to." The younger version of herself cried, with her bloody hands in her face.
"You didn't mean to punch a grown mans face in?" Brink asked, knowing that it wasn't actually an accident.
Ari took a closer look at the dead body, noticing the bloody mess of the man who looked to be a guards face.
"I knew how he felt about me. I tried changing his emotions, but he still felt that way." She looked disgusted with herself for killing someone, but she was safe now. The dead body was just a once creepy, and terrible guard that liked younger girls.
"Changing his emotions? I thought you could only tell the future..." Ari added, after hearing so much about her roommate she started to question what was true and fake. Athena only shook her head, letting her know that it wasn't the truth.
"So instead of telling us, you decided to kill him?" Brink asked.
"He felt that way about the other girls too, I couldn't just let him run free." Athena admitted, proud that she eliminated a nasty threat before it got to be too much.
"It's okay. I already knew, it was a test. It's a good thing that he's dead. I just wanted to know that you wouldn't escape when I gave you your powers back."
"I wouldn't have anywhere to go."
"You're right."
"And whose fault is that?" She looked hurt, but it surprised Ari how she could just talk to him so informally.
"You're powerful Athena. You have the potential to be far more powerful than we really know, yet you chose to punch him to death, even though you knew the power dampening wasn't working."
"I'm still working on the other powers, and It doesn't help when you keep trying to get me to use more of them."
"Other powers... How many do you have?" Marie asked her, she thought she knew her, but it turns out she didn't, not at all. She didn't respond, letting Brink continue.
"You're being released soon. That's what I've been preparing you for." Brink said, the first thing that had brought younger Athena joy in years.
"How is that even possible?" She asked enthusiastically, she had been waiting for this moment. For a moment of fresh air.
"I'm responsible for you. I get a say in how long you stay here. " He had the upper hand, he had all the power.
"Please let me see my mom." She begged, not having seen her face since she was a lot younger.
"She thinks you died from your sickness. You have me."
"What do you want me to do, actually start calling you dad?" Athena asked sarcastically, she wasn't going to do that, not when her father had kept her trapped for years.
They all turned to her, the current version of her, with a look of confusion.
"What the fuck! Brinks your dad?" Jordan just looked angry.
"So your his daughter who supposedly died of some sickness...? He just lied" Marie wanted to make sure she got all the points right.
"I was sick.. And it isn't over yet." Athena said, pointing their eyes back to young Athena and Brink.
"I didn't say that, but I am. You're only here because I see the potential you have. You could be bigger than homelander, but when you get out you need to keep all of your powers but one a secret. At least for now, it's not safe otherwise." Brink told the younger Athena.
"Where am I supposed to go? I mean if I can't even see my mom..."
"You'll stay with me for the time being, that is until you are enrolled here."
"Enrolled here? But why?"
"There's someone I want you to meet... A girl, named Cate."
The others looked at each other, wondering where Athena played as a piece in the schools game, when it suddenly clicked in Ari's brain. "You were the girl in the room where Cate made Luke forget."
"Yes." was all she said, before the memory warped them into an almost empty room. Cate and Athena sat across from each other.
"I'm Cate Dunlap." The blonde said, being forced to introduce herself.
"Athena, Athena Brinkerhoff, or I guess Athena Feng is what they're using." She didn't know whether or not she should shake her hand at the time, so she just kept her hands in her lap.
"Your dad said you could copy powers. That's why they wanted you to meet me."
"For backup measures... It'll take me some time, and I don't know if I'll ever be able to use your powers as well as you can, but it's just a precaution. It takes me a while to learn new powers.
"How do you transfer them, does it hurt?"Cate asked, even though she was worried Athena would us her powers for the wrong thing.
"It's simple really, or at least it is for me. I don't even know how to explain it... I was twelve when my parents first discovered I could do it. It was after I met A-train with my dad, the first supe to shake my hand. I started running super fast, too fast. Months later I got really sick. But I'm better now and so are my powers, it took me a while to get where I could run without using A-trains powers, but now I can channel it and practically control it."
"Shit. I didn't know anybody could do that."
"They shouldn't be able to. And it'll probably destroy my body from the inside out. My dad did it. He gave me extra compound V, its what got me so sick... And somehow, I mean against all odds, I survived."
"Holy fuck Athena." Andre stared out at the memory, wanting to know how she survived it.
"I couldn't tell you guys. I'm so sorry..." she started crying.
"You lied to me. That night when I was drunk, you lied. You told me that you only had two powers.. that you knew the future, and you knew random facts. But are they your powers to even begin with?" Ari said. She didn't know what was real or what was fake anymore.
"They weren't mine." Was the only response she got.
Ari left the room, upset, through the only door she could see, with the others, and especially Jordan close behind her.
It was a door leading outside, but it wasn't the school that was outside. It was a car. The same car from Ari's accident.