Three couches littered with colourful pillows and shaped around a small centre table hosting magazines, comics, tissues and a flower vase. The walls are spaced far apart from each other and decorated with immortalized scrabble games, lined with shelves of books, small indoor plants and fixed with pink, low res-red and amber lighting. A desk and table sit in separate corners next to a plugin, a slim tab sat on the desk, playing its screensaver of twirling and mixing threads. The table is fit to seat four and was likely where all the decorative scrabble games were born, other games are shelved on a short end table beside it.

Dolores and Bethany squeeze Erich in the centre couch as Cleo mills about boiling tea and coffee. The walls around them are brightly coloured, several beanies and alternative chairs scatter across and in front of the large, mahogany of organized papers, books and binders that Cleo goes to sit behind after serving her guests.

Erich finds Cleo a contrast to every bit of her office as she giggles and reminisces with Bethany who’s gone back to clinging onto him. The placard on the door read ‘School Counsellor’ but from their conversation and his very being here it’s obvious the dark woman represents something more.

She dresses casually in black leggings stuffed into heeled boot and underneath her soft, oversized tricot cardigan is a fishnet shirt that left some part of her chest bare for the silver jewels and rings to decorate. Her skin is deathly pale, a whiteness her obsidian lipstick, eyeshadows and nails enunciated with every subtle move. She stood out of place in her own cherry, friendly office and listening to her speak put her voice and demeanour out of place with her dark visage. She has a soft voice that belayed little of her true age, though Erich suspects she had to be at least a decade older than Bethany from the details of their conversation.

“Take it you’ve had a sip from the Fountain already?” She sniggers into the cup of tea clenched in her palm.

“Ah ha! No, I haven’t!” Bethany says proudly, puffing her chest out as though to display the biscuit crumbs she’s littered over it. She notices them tumble upon themselves, blushes and wipes them off, “I will be having a taste before I leave though, too good to miss and yet, Yelnats is so far away.”

Her whining has Cleo chuckling fondly, “You won’t have to go too far then.” She nods at something in the corner Dolores’ eager head denies him from seeing and winks, “But before that comes out to play, I see you’ve got a child for me?”

Cleo’s eyes meet Erich’s and with Bethany and Dolores looking away the darkness that swells her visage makes it into the ember blue of her eyes. For the second that passes as she holds his gaze Cleo unwraps Erich with her eyes, peeling his through layer after layer as an unseen pressure clamps down on his senses. His sight fades to nothing as daylight from the windows turns dark and the mutters of Bethany’s reply and Dolores laughter sink into a distance drawl. She pulls him to her through the new dark, all furniture that would pose an obstacle vanished with the light, leaving Erich with only her curious smile and the glint of sharpening insights within her eyes.

“Yes, yes, Erich is the next wonder-child I’ve come to gift this wonderful institute, Chancellor.” Bethany laying the flattery thick as well as slapping his shoulder snaps Erich out of the sudden midnight of Cleo’s gaze. Blinking rapidly at Bethany, he now realizes she’s been calling Cleo ‘Chancellor’ all this time. Dolores pinches his side and offers a look that tells she’s caught onto more than he thought and moreover, whatever that midnight stare was, it wasn’t an illusion. They expected it, knew it.

“Is he the one?” Cleo asks without ever looking away from Erich, he felt her gaze burrow at his temple while he busied himself with Dolores’ sympathy. The sensation of a force pulling him towards her doesn’t let up completely, even as he has Dolores’ hand in his, the pull persisted, beckoning him to turn his gaze and look upon the darkness swelling just beyond his blind spot.

“He is. One and only, you’ll have to treat him well.” Mind reader or not, Bethany must know what her ‘Chancellor’ or ‘counsellor’ was subjecting him to. She stopped clinging onto him once Cleo’s gaze found him and simply continued on with her conversation, neither of them making a deal out of the oppression he was currently suffering.

What kind of power even does that? Her gaze, should he dare glimpse it, felt like it was undoing him from within— rippling and rifling through his entirety. Right now, Erich feared looking at her would draw him into a stasis of reflection he will not come out from— how he knew this is what would happen, he did not know, he only felt it as much as he felt her eyes on his skull.

“Erich…” Cleo calls, the soft, playfulness of her voice disguised the truth he glimpsed of her. “How are you feeling?”

A loaded question to say the least. A plethora of emotions, thoughts and meaning-to-dos fill Erich to the brim. He’d barely finished processing his unofficial kidnapping turned agent recruitment as of this morning, talk less of the weight of all that’s waiting for him to accomplish and to face again. Vertigo, Austin, Tareh and most of all Xerai to mention but a fraction of the people he’s meant to face again and yet, here he is, enrolling into a superhero boot camp after being drugged, forced to kill and kept in the dark about nearly everything. Erich has all but mastered patience and so with all the knocking and building agendas, he’s feeling slightly optimistic.

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But Cleo would know that as much as he’s sure Bethany will as both possess the same invasive qualities to their eyes and so it begs the question— why keep up with the charade? Dreading to look away from Dolores’ kind hands, Erich turns and fixes his sight on Cleo’s midnight black lips as he says, “You know me better than I, don’t you?”

She smirks, “What do you mean?”

“Yeah, what do you mean, Erich?” Bethany says as she shuffles closer.

With a grunt Erich stands up, a wave of dizziness almost forces him back down but he leans forward and finds another seat at the couch furthest from Bethany.

Cleo snickers joyfully, “Oh well, you were always easy to figure out, Beth.”

Bethany scoffs but Erich doesn’t let her respond, “And you? How do you invade my mind? Does everyone I meet from now on have something to mess with my head? What’s so need to know you can’t ask?” He restrains himself but can’t help the low growl that escapes as he seethes and glares between the three women.

“Well, if you want to learn the answer to that question, Erich Underwood, you’ll have to take a course in Ethics, Law and Policy!” Cleo cheers, clapping her fingers together in her excitement and disregard for Erich’s emotional display, “You’re a smart one for a middle school dropout though, already asking the good questions, though from what Bethany says…I’m not sure you’ll have enough time to prove yourself to Yelnat graduate standards.”

Here Bethany groans and whines some more, “Awwwn! Not even with your help, Big Chancellor Cleo? Please please! I need this and he’s already signed a contract so pweaseeeee!!”

Dolores, Cleo and Erich stare wordlessly at Bethany after her display for a moment, piecing together what they’ve just collectively witnessed in the silence. Bethany, shameless, kicks her legs up and relaxes even more with a big grin plastered on her face as she sips the remnants of her coffee like a child.

Dolores clears her throat, “Ahem, I think what Bethany means is that the M.C.U will greatly appreciate your cooperation with Erich’s case, Chancellor. Yelnats is the best place for a metahuman like himself to grow, leave him to the M.C.U to train and well, even you might regret it.”

The M.C.U can train me themselves? It hadn’t occurred that’d been an option at all. In hindsight it makes perfect sense, Yelnats Academy wasn’t an official camp for M.C.U operatives, it’s true history according to the pamphlets, site, and word of mouth was what Cleo’s office represented— a safe space for ostracized, confused, hapless metas to control their abilities and create a welcoming community for those who have yet to experience one, like Erich. The new, ugly truth of Yelnat’s incredible M.C.U operative turnover was simply a result of the government’s interests in bolstering control over what it has boldly begun to consider as ‘assets’. And Cleo’s dark complicity in nurturing this new side of Yelnat contrasted as much as everything else about her and her student— Two faced pairs.

Erich doesn’t miss the part Dolores more or less promises the M.C.U’s training would turn him into something regretful, but he doesn’t comment on it either as he listens to the two converse.

Cleo sighs, placing her chin in cupped hands as she leans across her desk, “You say that but there’s little even I can do with so little time, a year? I can’t teach him everything he’ll need to be an Officer; don’t you know your own requirements?”

“Don’t you see? We do, and that’s why a year is just enough for him. Do your best Chancellor.” Bethany says, still grinning.

The Chancellor doesn’t look very convinced and neither is Erich. Schooling has always been an afterthought and even though Yelnats promises to unlock the secrets of his abilities or whatever, he simply couldn’t be more disinterested in sitting in one place, staring at a book and cramming for some torturous exam set months in the future. And so, he’d put it out of mind and decided that within a year under the M.C.U’s thumb working the occasional operation and between some findings of his own, searching for his mother wouldn’t be as much of an issue as it seems right now. All he needs is one year to prepare. One year and whether the M.C.U keeps up their deal or not he’ll go on with his mission.

Inhaling, Cleo seems to give in at last. She drums her fingers on the desk, tilting her head to question Erich, “Fine, but if this is going to work you can’t waste your time sorting out topics you’re interested in or not like other freshmen. You can pick a Major and Minor course to study for the sake of the M.C.U and I suppose yourself.” She tacks on the last part with a scoff, “There are a range of courses and a few of them are compulsory early on. I’ll grant you two weeks from resumption to attend classes for every one of them and decide what you want to spend your time studying and don’t say Combat and Self Defence, that’s already mandatory.”

She turns to Bethany and adds, “Oh and even boiling everything down like this is still bulky, well, maybe not bulky but difficult to keep up with, the classes are advanced. He’ll need an active tutor.” She smiles up and down at Dolores, “Would you be willing to spare her?”

Bethany laughs at some untold joke, “Oh I already have. Dolores 2.0, courtesy of my promotion!” she casually knocks on Dolores’ head.

“More like I volunteered.” Dolores somehow manages to say without opening her mouth. She smiles, noticing Erich gaping, “Sorry you had to find out this way, Erich, the real me is piloting this droid from HQ. It’s programmed with most of the knowledge you’ll ever need and Bethany just wanted another me I think, haha.”

Unable to think of a proper reaction, Erich settles for his first instinct, “You’re really fucked up.”

Cleo chortles, “That’s what I keep telling her!”

Bethany loses her smile for the first time today. Her eyes glazed over, mouth slowly dangling open as her face contorts through emotions of stress and worry. She presses a finger to her ear, more for their sake than hers as she stands, nod to the unheard words of someone on the other line. Dolores next to her is silent as well and eerily hasn’t blinked since being outed as a droid, making the truth seem a whole lot obvious than it really is.

After a full minute of an awkward, tense silence Bethany announces, “Welp, this was fun, really, but the world needs saving and I’m the hero on speed dial.” She winks at Cleo who only shakes her head, “Keep him, oh and her too, I’ll be back…or not. Some fuck without powers managed to escape custody.”

Bethany dashes out without another word of explanation, leaving Erich, Cleo and Dolores 2.0 who remained inactive together.

“So…have you had the tour yet?”