Camp Darkness

Paying Charron

To say that Virgil arriving in the center of the Mess and Meet, filled with the intakes and Councillors, with a pissed off Fury and a bag full of loot caused and uproar wouldn't be entirely accurate. The room was filled with silence, the awful, expectation laden kind where you know that no matter what happens next, it probably isn't going to be fun, easy or clean. If heartbeats could have stilled, they would have, as breaths were held and the trembling potential for violence climbed higher. Gideon could feel Virgil's muscles lock under the intensity of the stares levelled at him, and when her zap started to ratchet higher, she finally felt her internal lightbulb flicker on as to what he was. But right now she had more important things to focus on. Her witch.

Eyes that were still filled with the dead blankness of oblivion, Gideon scanned the alarmed and terrified faces of the kids in the intakes, most of whom cowered under her gaze. They may not know what she was but in this moment there was no mistaking her deadliness. The first sounds of shock and response were breathing threw the kids as Gideon looked at them and past them, the startled whispers identifying the bag of loot in Gideon's grip.

The internal doors to the Mess and Meet opened, the quickly moving form the the dragon Doctor Cyr making his way over. The slight frown on his temporarily human face indicating that he felt whatever disturbance Gideon had caused and was coming to do damage control. Only the Fury still hadn't moved. Her eyes had locked onto the witch Trinity and the weight of her gaze froze the girl in place. Not a single word was spoken as the other intake kids around Trinity peeled away, no one wanting to be in the fallout zone for whatever justice the Fury felt like upholding.

And still Gideon kept silent, the horrible darkness in her veins throbbing a darker colour, bleeding into her skin slightly and giving the normally pale Fury a strangely tinted look. The witch Trinity had gone pale and trembled, eyes wide and showing the whites in her growing alarm. Her gaze flickered down to the bag in Gideon's grip and the Fury snarled silently at the recognition and fear in the girl's gaze as she realized that the game was up. And the consequences were gonig to be far less appealing than simply having her magic under probation. From the look on the Fury's face, punishment was going to be more along the lines of a literal pound of flesh and blood in atonement than community service. So the witch did hte first thing that came to her young, naive, spoilt and self centered mind: she tried to deny it.

"I swear on my magic it wasn't me." Trinity gasped, voice high pitched and breathy. She was probably used to denying actions and getting out of trouble. She'd probably used that oath plenty of times before, as a tool to get others to believe her sincerity. Trinity should have remembered Gideons rules. Especially rule number five: keep your word. Although any other place and time, that oath would have meant nothing, here it had Power. The Punt was slightly sentient, and it was a very particular judge of intention and personality. So when Trinity swore on her magic that she was innocent, and she wasn't, it took her at her word. Which she had broken.

The Mess and Meet filled with the swirling, roaring rush of wind, buffeting everyone away from the witch. Gideon's eyes watered slgihtly from the tearing sensations of the air as even she was forced back several steps. Virgil's arms wrapped around her shoulders, his weight added to hers to stabilize them both in place and they were mute witness. In the center of the whirlwind was Trinity, the beautiful features of the girl's face twisted with fear and rage. Gideon felt her Fury side chitter as the girl looked identical to the dark side chess piece she had seen in her dreams a while ago, and a betraying tear snaked it's way down the Fury's cheek as she realized that the girl was lost to them.

Trinity was in the center of a violently churning vortex, the air circling to keep everyone else away. Tears streamed down the girl's face as her face twisted with an inner agony. Although not experiencing it for herself, Gideon knew what was happening to the witch. She had forsworn herself, broke her own oath at the cost of her magic. What had been locked away before and let out on probation was being hunted down and eliminated now. The room filled with a high pitched shriek, a wail of ultimate loss as Trinity rose up into the air on her vortex and her magic was ripped from her body. When the sound and the wind stopped as suddenly as it started,  Trinity dropped to the floor, unconscious and with a bloody nose.

Gideon tried to take a step forward but Virgil still held his grip around her shoulders so Doctor Cyr was the first to rush to the girl's side. The rest of the Snowflakes pressed closer to their Councillor, seeknig the silent comfort of the Fury's unshakable attitude as they watched their supposed friend get picked up and carried out like a discarded rag doll. The faces of the intakes were all pale, shocked and shaken and Gideon let go of her own reaction to events to focus on their need.

"Councillors, I suggest we retire all to their Houses. No duties, light activites. And Xavier, make the rounds with the Jug." Gideon called out, her firm and strong direction and tone propelling everyone else back into action.

Walking with her own group clustered closely around her, Gideon walked swiftly back to the House. An emotionally detached part of her mind was doing an internal catalogue when she realized that there was no more seperation between her mind as it was and her Fury side. The growth spurt was complete, and she was now what she was supposed to be: an adult Fury. What that meant in specific, Gideon didnt have a damn clue on and she shrugged it aside to focus on after the latest crisis of the Camp was dealt with.

Inside their House, the Snowflakes broke apart and settled onto their usual perches in the common room. The seat where Trinity normally sat was conspicuously empty and Gideon purposefully sat down in it instead of her usual spot on the mantel. "I'm sorry you all had to go through that." Gideon spoke up finally. "I'm sorry that you all had your trust and friendship broken like that." she added on.

Luna was curled up against Peter as if she thought she could press herself into his flesh and disappear. The catgirl had recovered in great leaps and bounds after her attack, but somehow the knowledge that it had been her own intake mate that had planned hte attack clearly unsettled her. Peter looked grim but determined, his desire to protect Luna giving him a purpose and a balance to his wendigo side that he had lacked previously. Ankou looked like a rabbit about to bolt, his own betrayals still secret between the Fury and the necromancer. Luc looked lost as to what to do now but it was Ebony's face that was the most telling. She looked relieved. The pain and discomfort of the compulsion were gone and she could, at last, be free of the witch's control.

"What happens now?" Virgil asked, his tone somehow telling that he already knew, but was asking to help direct his intake into recovering from the shock.

"Now Doctor Cyr is going to take over her treatment. Her family will be called and informed of the change in events. Trinity is now classified as Homo Sapien Sapien, her Portentum classification is gone. Although she will still be able to give birth to witches, she is no longer one herself." Gideon explained, voice calm and soothing. "The items that she stole are all going to be returned and hopefully we can all move on past this. On the bright side, at least we know that there aren't gonig to be more thefts."

Weak laughs from the group in response to Gideon's attempt at humour showed the intake's resilience. These kids had come to the Camp as malcontents and yet htey had each grown so much in the last four and a half weeks. It astonished Gideon every single time how quickly these bright young minds learned and adapted once they had been put in a position to do so, and she was humbled that they all looked up to her now. It was easy to see in their eyes and faces, that they followed her with respect, not resentment, and they listened to her with the hopes of learned, not just getting it over with. They were all just about ready to go home and onto their lives. The Fury had her faith shaken by the actions of the witch, but seeing her kids come together and start patching up the cracks in each other's armour was helping her recover from it as well. These were good kids. Even the convict.

"Does this mean that the next week and two days are going to be quick, clean and easy?" Virgil asked, his tone a little bit playful.

"I highly doubt it. But hopefully this was the last of the overwhelming drama." Gideon replied with her usual quirky smile in place. As she eyed her group, they all seemed as bright and eager for that as she was. But there was still the faintest niggling worry in the back of the Fury's mind as she realized what a jinks she'd just put on it with her words. She had to go and say it, now she KNEW that something else would go wrong, just to spite her.