Claire's Apartment (Join with Permission, Mature)

Jazz offered a sympathetic smile, but stepped out of the room to grant her privacy, proceeding to the dining table to begin setting it for everyone.

Sarah dished the pasta and the sauce into serving bowls, carrying them out to the table. She pulled the bread from the oven, setting it down the cool before cutting it.

Claire had yet to return from her room, the door closed and preventing any of them from seeing what she was doing.

Once everything was out, including the milkshakes --- honestly, Tony probably should have waited on those --- Jasmine went to check on her. She knocked on the door a few times, unsure of whether or not to enter.

"Come in..." Came the quiet reply. Claire sat on her bed, sorting the $50,000 from Akira into different piles, muttering under her breath.

Jasmine eased the door open slowly, freezing the second she saw the money. A stuttered whisper escaped her, sending Tony running. "Where the hell did ya get that, kid?"

"It was in the envelope... Akira delivered it through some courier boy..." She counted out the stacks she had, paper clipping them together. "He said that the...baby might be his. I guess Section 12 took sperm samples from some of the boy weapons..."

Sarah hurried after Tony, stopping behind Jazz, her eyes widening at the sight of the money. "Wha-?"

Tony visibly stiffened, backing away just slightly as she spoke. Jasmine, meanwhile, was balling her fists, sparks dancing along the knuckles.

Claire put the envelope under her covers, looking at everyone in her doorway, looking tired and broken.

Sarah looked at Tony, her eyes narrowing. "Something you want to tell us, Tony?"

Jasmine turned on her heel to head towards the gym, and a series of screams and zaps soon ensued.

He shook his head, though he'd paled significantly.

Claire looked to Tony, eyes going a bit wide at Sarah's suspicions. She stood quickly, dashing after Jazz into the gym.

Sarah rounded on Tony, suddenly pressing him against the wall. She wasn't gentle, but it wasn't nearly as rough as she could've been. "Tony, tell me right now if they took some... 'samples' from you."

He dry swallowed, merely shifting partial, falling to the floor, and moving away before transforming again. The weapon couldn't speak, and merely continued to back away.

Claire would find her slamming her fist into various punching bags, leaving scorch marks in her wake, her hair frizzled.

Claire watched her rampage, eyes wide with panic. She stopped thinking, acting solely on instinct and dashing forward, tackling Jazz from behind even as her own hair started to frizz.

Sarah followed after him, looking more annoyed than angry. "Tony, I'm not going to hurt you. Just tell me."

The revolver very nearly screamed, struggling beneath her, sparks flying up and off her arms as she pulled away, eyes like lightning.

"They..." He shook his head, clutching it as he backed himself into the nearest wall. "They took samples... various samples from a lot of us."

Claire held tight to her, grinding her teeth together at the near constant shocks that hit her body. She locked her hands in front of the revolver, rolling them so that Jasmine was on top of her and looking up at the ceiling.

Sarah braced one hand against the wall, rubbing her eyes with the other. "That's what Ace said..."

Jasmine readjusted herself, planting her feet on the ground before forcing herself to her feet, pulling out of Claire's arms and looking back at her with the explosive energy trailing across her body.

He nodded, "Ace, me, Akira...." he shook his head. "Maybe others, I don't know."

Claire lifted herself slowly to her feet, dropping herself low to the ground. She searched Jazz's eyes, trying to find something to tug on to bring the revolver back. "Jazzy... It's me. I'm here. Calm down."

Sarah sighed through her nose, punching the wall. "This is a fine, grade A clusterfuck..."

She did nothing but glare at her, holding her hand out and firing the excess energy at one of the metal poles of the punching equipment. "I have no reason to calm down."

"You're telling me." He said, shaking his head and leaning back, pointing his eyes towards the ceiling.

Claire bit into her bottom lip, her brows furrowing. She stood up fully, keeping her eyes locked on Jasmine as she started to step forward. Once she was right in front of Jazz, she wrapped her arms around the revolver, holding her close and tight. "Jasmine, I know you're pissed. I hate seeing you like this, self destructing." She dropped her voice to a whisper, tears starting to well up in her eyes as she squeezed them shut. "I love you, and I know you love me. You kept the necklace... But we can't do this right now. I can't do this right now. Babe, you're pissed and hurt and trying to just make it all make sense... But right now, I need you with me. I need you here, not on a rampage..." She moved her head from Jazz's shoulder, grabbing the revolver's and tilting her head so their foreheads were touching, locking her eyes on the revolver's. "Don't go away again. Please..."

Sarah, let out an angered sigh through her nose. "I'm glad I killed that asshole..."

"I can't be around anyone, right now!" She shouted the words, and the sparks on her hands flared, shooting off across the mats and dying down soon after, though the areas now looked scorched.

He snorted, "You know he's not the end of that line." Tony shook his head before raking a hand through his metallic hair. "I don't know what they have planned, but I don't trust this one bit..."

Claire kept her eyes locked on Jazz, reaching down to grab her wrists, ignoring any pain from the electricity. "You think you're angry? You have no idea how hard it is for me to not just break everything. Want to stop sugar coating this? I was raped. My body was used so that those fuckers could make a kid." The venom came to her voice for a moment, before settling down. She pulled away from Jazz, crossing her arms, her shoulders dropping and starting to shake. "I was just a spare womb to them... A way to grow their baby. A-And now... Now I'm stumbling through the dark, and I'm trying to make this make sense, and I can't. And everybody who wants to help leaves. They have their own lives to deal with, they can't help me all day every day. Even Sarah deserves to have a life... I am alone, Jasmine. Alone..."

Sarah let out another angry sigh, punching the wall again. "Anyone tries to hurt her, I'll make sure they have to go through me first."

"Raped?" She very nearly spat the word, voice like nails on a chalkboard, "You're going to make that comparison? To me?" Unashamed, she stripped down to nothing, pointing out the old scars a cross her body, especially her hip region. "You don't know rape, Claire! You don't know what that's like. Being used. Being abused and neglected, being locked in a closet, seeing no one, nothing, not eating unless force-fed, not being taken out except to be passed around. Don't you dare talk to me of rape!" Her voice was elevating with each syllable, each word, and it drew Tony in running, staring between the two with wide eyes, cutting him off before he could respond to Sarah.

Claire turned to her, eyes wide. Her arms seemed to be almost glowing as her jaw settled, her fists clenching. "I have wanted to help you for so long. I have wanted to be there for you at any and every step." She took a step forward, the glow brightening in intensity. "And every goddamned time I try you push me away. Have you ever considered that there are people who want to help you move on?" She moved closer until she was just an inch away staring indignantly up into her eyes. "And when anyone around you breaks, well you just toss them aside too, don't you? That's all you know how to do when you're hurt. You throw people away. I loved you. I still love you now, and I waited for you, every day after you left, praying that you would come back so I could apologize." Tears were welling up and starting to spill down her cheeks, and yet her voice rose until she was screaming. "But that's not what you do, is it!? YOU WOULDN'T BE HERE IF IT WEREN'T FOR YOUR MEDS AND BECAUSE OF TONY!!"

Sarah's eyes shot wide when she made it to the other end of the hallway, watching her sister explode. The light got to the point where she had to shield her eyes, the intensity making Claire appear to be wreathed in light. Sarah's blood ran cold when she reached out for her sister's wavelength, feeling the same anger and pain as when they'd first encountered the Kishin Egg Superbia.

The lightning exploded around her, frizzing her hair up, shocking everyone in the area repeatedly, ocassionally painfully. "You think I'm torn away from people on purpose?" She began to fall into a laughing fit, and Tony's fists balled so tightly that his olive-toned kuckles turned immediately white. His element didn't spark, however; he had far more continous control than that. "You think I chose to have my best friend, my first girlfriend die of cancer?" She pointedly to the tattoo directly over her heart, just below her most obvious tat; it was handwritten words, "wishyouwerehere" joined together with a dying heartbeat beneath it. "Do you think that I chose to be bounced around from fosterhome to fosterhome just to end up as DWMA property the first time I was able to defend myself?" She pointed her hand out the door, somehow pointing directly at Tony without looking at all. "I haven't pushed him away, now, have I? I've known him practically since I could talk!"

Claire immediately grabbed the hem of her own shirt with one hand, shifting the other and cutting the garment off, pointing to the long thin scar across her stomach. "And you think that I choose this?! You think I wanted to get picked off the street, just to get some test tube baby put inside me?!" She kept her hand shifted, the light fading from her other arm to form a continuous double helix of light around the scythe blade, almost looking like a rainbow. "And of course you didn't push him away. Even you needed someone to fall back on when you pushed everyone else away!"

Sarah looked to Tony, tugging on his shoulder. "We need to stop them, now."

Slowly, the hand she was using to point with began to shift and his eyes widened, pupils shrinking. "Me fall back on people?" She laughed again, and Tony went rigid. "What the hell do you call what you do to your sister? Oh!" Her lips tugged up into a smirk, deviance in her eyes. "That's right, you don't even stand on your own. How silly of me. She's your fucking wheelchair!"