Luella wondered about the time she first met Clarence, too. It was when she was much younger - about the same age as the others here.
Luella was in France, escaping her previous perils. She had spent the night in an empty hotel room. It was morning, and she began to walk down the stairs as she saw a man.
"E-Excusez-moi?" He managed to blurt out his French stiff.
Luella gasped and turned to face him. She tried desperately to hide her metal features underneath her robe. Yet the man still saw it.
Before he had a chance to react, she charged at him - the last thing he saw was a fist coming to his face. Luella picked him up - surprised at how light he was.
When he came to, he found himself miraculously in his room again. Luella had found his room key in his pocket. Her robe was off, her hospital gown showing. For some reason, the man blushed and looked away.
"Qui es-tu?" Luella asked him. This was France, after all. People mostly spoke French.
"U-Um... je... je ne..." He tried to form a French sentence, but he clearly wasn't very good at it
Luella tilted her head before speaking again. "You... English?" She asked him.
"Ou- Yes-!!" The man nodded, sitting up. "English! That's me...!"
"I ask again," She began, almost in perfect English. "Who are you?"
"My name is... Clarence Bordeaux." He told her. "I'm a university student... I-I'm not a threat, I promise-! I won't tell anyone that you were trying to rob the place!"
"I wasn't... I was searching for shelter..." Luella, looking around. "... That bed is big enough for two... I could borrow it..."
Clarence's face flushed as he stood up. "U-Um, mind if you tell me your name? I didn't think I caught it."
She nodded. "My name is Luella. Luella Yvette." Luella shot him a glare. "If you don't do what I tell you, I'll... I'll do something bad, okay-? I... I need to rest and... I'm not letting a student stop me...!"
"You do look awfully tired." Clarence commented. "But... what's with that hospital gown? And... your arm and leg..."
"I-I'm the one asking the questions here-!" Luella said in a panicked tone. "F-First... I need a change of clothes... please...!"
Clarence nodded and rushed towards the wardrobe. He gave Luella some of his old clothes - nice, but old.
Luella took the pieces of clothing and glanced towards the bathroom. "You can't leave, so, um.... I'll just get changed in there..."
"O-Oh, I don't know if you can-!" Clarence replied. He hesitated, realising what that just sounded like. "Um... I mean, I couldn't get the door to open..."
She shrugged and opened the door with ease. "This door? It's easy. Were you... making it up...?"
"No-!" He insisted as Luella closed the door. "I just... ah..."
Once she finished getting changed, Luella stepped out, clutching her robe tightly against her chest.
"It fits... I'm thankful to get out of that gown..." She sighed as she joined Clarence on the bed. "... um, thank you... I-I know I'm forcing you into all of this, but, I... I can be a real threat-!"
"A... threat?" Clarence glanced at her metal arm. "Do you mean you'll just... punch me again?"
"No-! I'll... um... look, it's easier if I show you..." Luella said as she stood up. She glanced around, eventually settling on a plant.
Clarence watched as Luella positioned her hands in an odd gesture. To his surprise, the plant started to float upwards near the ceiling.
"Y-You're a... superhuman, aren't you...?!" He jumped up in excitement and grabbed Luella's hand.
"D-Don't you dare tell anyone-!" Luella managed to spit out as her face flushed a furious red. "Oh, I shouldn't get worked up... I don't have full control of my limbs yet..."
Clarence smirked to himself. He focused as he projected his thoughts into hers. "Don't worry, I'm a Superhuman like you, as well."
Luella fell backwards in shock. "How... how did you... you were in my head...!"
"C-Calm down-! It's not like I look around in there or anything...!" He soothed her and carefully sat her back down.
"That's a scary power... o-oh, I really am getting worked up-!" She looked at Clarence with tearful eyes. "I-I'm sorry-! I might hurt you again...!"
"I might be able to help you, Luella." Clarence said sternly as he held her hands tight. "But you'll have to agree to it... I don't want to do it without your permission."
"O-Okay... okay..." Luella whimpered to herself. "... What are you going to do...?"
Clarence gave her a warm smile and placed his hands on the side of her head. He closed his eyes, and flooded Luella's minds with the most happiest memories he could remember.
She gasped, but soon got used to it. Her robotic arm relaxed as she fell into Clarence's arms. He blushed as soon as she did so, but pulled her into a hug.
"Clarence, I... thank you..." Luella whispered to him. Unknown to him, her face was as red as his. "... I want to stay like this... for a little longer..."
"I'll stay like this for as long as you want, Luella." Clarence told her. "I'll be here for you from now on, always. I promise."
Luella let out a giggle. Her heart had never pounded this much around a person before. And neither had Clarence's.
———
Felice couldn't remember much of when she first met the Professor. Most of what she knew came from her stepfather. She began to recite what her stepfather told her about that day.
She used to live in a mountainous region with her stepfather, mother and twin sister. Her stepfather was the groundskeeper there to some fancy house - a job that paid well enough to warrant them staying there.
A few months before she encountered the Professor, her mother fell into an abandoned mine. She didn't remember much about it. Her stepfather insisted that it was an accident, but she knew that he wasn't telling the truth.
The police didn't find a body - from what areas they could search. The search was called off quickly, her mother presumed dead.
On the day she met the Professor, her stepfather had told her and her twin sister, Jess, the truth behind the incident. It upset Jess more than it upset her.
According to her stepfather, the reason he was hired to guard this place was due to an angry spirit haunting the area. This spirit was a precious superhuman, with powers strong enough to come back and haunt the owners of the area.
Nobody had told him why they were angry, of course. Just that they liked to cause chaos by possessing the wildlife. He surmised that the spirit had pushed their mother into the mines as revenge for him keeping them at bay all these years.
Jess had ran off, in tears over the news. Despite her stepfather's warnings, Felice ran after her sister, deep into the mountains.
She eventually found her sister on the edge of a cliff. Dangerously, she was sitting down, looking at the abandoned mines in the area.
As Felice began to approach her, she was shoved from behind. She fell on Jess, causing the two of them to fall into the mines below. Jess was killed instantly by hitting a sharp rock. Felice miraculously survived, albeit with heavy injuries.
Their stepfather witnessed this, instantly shooting the elk that had caused the accident. He looked to where Felice and Jess had fallen and saw no sign of them.
In a panic, he stumbled around, eventually finding a young Clarence. He was a student that had claimed to be studying the area for his thesis. He clearly wasn't, but that didn't matter right now.
He had grabbed Clarence's arm before beginning to explain the situation. Clarence took the thing seriously as they wondered into the mines in search for the twins.
"Felice is here," Clarence had told him, despite having no physical evidence to prove it. "I... I'm not too sure about Jess..."
Her stepfather's face darkened. "You don't know that for certain. They could still be alive. Both of them."
He had no idea on where to look, but somehow, Clarence had a specific route in mind. It would later make sense to Felice at how he knew all of these things, despite never visiting the mines before.
"I had thought that the spirit would have acted today," Clarence continued to speak, in hopes that it would calm her stepfather down. "Ah... I suppose it's obvious that I wasn't studying the landscape. I'm here to investigate the spirit of the superhuman that haunts these mountains."
"Many have tried and failed to gain anything new," Her stepfather scoffed, "What makes you think you're any different?"
Clarence winked at him. "Oh, I think I'm pretty different than the rest. Now, come on. Felice is starting to panic."
He was right; Felice couldn't stop staring at the dead body of her sister. Her powers, having been dormant, were beginning to awaken.
She saw apparitions all around her. Her mother, along with people she had never met. Was she going crazy? Probably. She was a little bit hungry. There was no food down here. The dancing food was only making her hungrier.
"Hi. Um. You're not going crazy. Promise you won't panic, okay?"
Felice's eyes widened as she heard a voice in her head. She really was going crazy.
"Your stepfather and I are searching for you. I believe you're a superhuman... ah. By the way, my name is Clarence. I was that student you saw earlier."
She pictured the man with purple hair in her head. He seemed a bit too skinny to be able to survive up here.
"I-I heard that-! Listen... I'm a superhuman too. That's how I'm able to do this, and how we're trying to find you."
Sure enough, she was beginning to hear the faint sound of footsteps. Looking around now, she noticed that her glasses had broken during the fall. How was she able to tell the apparitions were her mother, along with others, if she was unable to focus on them in this dark place?
"See? That's your powers. They weren't really there. They would be all blurry, otherwise. Oh, I think we're coming up to you now-"
Felice ran towards the footsteps and bumped into her stepfather. They hugged intently, his eyes noticing Jess on the ground.
His eyes widened. "Y-Your sister... is she...?"
Clarence walked up to Jess and checked her pulse. "I... it's as I thought. I'm sorry to say, but... I'm afraid she's..."
"Th-The fall... it... it...!" Felice whimpered, bursting into tears.
"It's okay. I'm here now..." Her stepfather whispered, looking over at Clarence.
"I'll get Jess out of here," Clarence told him, "You don't need to see that. It's the last thing you want."
"How can I ever repay you?" Her stepfather asked him, not letting go of Felice.
Clarence's eyes farted over to Felice. "I... there's something I wish to talk about later. A proposal, if you will. I'll ask of you to consider it."
They both nodded slowly and began to walk out of the mines. Clarence turned to Jess and felt his stomach quiver. He was never good at viewing dead bodies.
———
Back in the present, Felice realised she had never asked him what he was really doing on that mountain. Minus what he had already told him.
"Luella, did Clarence ever tell you what he was doing there when he found me?" She asked, turning to Luella.
Luella nodded. "I think... he was trying to calm the spirit that inhabited the area. He was too preoccupied with you to investigate it fully, though, so he had to send some of our friends in his stead! Remember Casimira? She was one of the people he sent over!"
"I'll have to read up on that later..." Felice muttered, making a mental note to herself. Her stepfather did mention that the spirit calmed down after those 'group of students' left.
——————
these ended up being longer than I planned yikes, ackley is gon be next
- hatty