Upon entering Albertina, Scarlet instantly felt a familiar feeling settle between her shoulders, almost like an itch that she couldn’t scratch or shake. That itch that prodded her to keep her eyes open, her back covered and an escape-route prepared, the feeling she got when she was around other humans.

For a moment, she closed her eyes, making sure that her mental shields were in place and strong before continuing onwards, into town. There were a few things she had on her agenda, she wanted to talk to the Doctor, she wanted to talk to Keera, or rather, have Keera come to talk to her and she planned to sleep at least one night in her bunk-room, even if it was with one eye open.

And that was her first destination, she planned to place her backpack in her locker, not feeling a need to carry it around all the time. But at the same time, she was not certain that nobody would disturb her stuff, luckily, there was an easy fix for that. Cyca’s crystal looked similar enough to the other crystals in her pack, so that, if she placed it with those and they were stolen, Cyca’s crystal should be taken as well. Only that it had still an ego inside, connected to her mind, so that she could either go after it, or, even easier, unleash her monster to wreak havoc on the thieves. Unless her things were stolen by another psion, justice would be swift at the claws of her dear cat.

She was a little surprised when the bunk-room was not deserted as she had expected, but that there were two women sitting on two bunks. Neither was fully dressed, one only in underwear and the other just dressed in a long shirt. When Scarlet entered, one of them looked up, seemingly exhausted and listless and it took her a moment to squeak, which caused the other to look up and, in an display of exhausted prowess, jump to her feet.

“Who are you?!” the jumpy one asked, her voice trying to project malice, but the intimidation was instantly dashed when she failed to suppress a yawn.

Scarlet, not feeling terribly anxious about some powerless con trying to defend her territory, simply glared for a moment, adding just a small, almost subliminal projection of psionic fear before answering.

“Cut that out. The name is Scarlet and last week, I was told that I would bunk here. If you have a problem with that, it is your problem and if you try to make it my problem, you will have a real problem.” she answered, keeping her voice pleasant and friendly but ramping the projected fear up, just a little bit. Still, not enough to consciously register, just a suggestion to the woman’s subconsciousness.

She noticed how the other woman’s eyes flickered to her pouch for just a moment, before returning to her face.

“Butch told us about you. Please, I’m sorry for Deidre’s behaviour,” her eyes flickered to the other, standing, woman, before she continued,” it’s just that there was some trouble.”

Scarlet simply nodded once, while walking to the bed Aida had pointed out to her.

“I was told that this bed is free, correct?” she asked, feeling no need to get tangled up in some inane prank, if Aida had played one. She doubted it, but felt that an olive branch of politeness might be a good idea.

“Yes, it is.” the woman still sitting on her bed answered. “Oh, my name is Jasmine, I’m sorry for not introducing myself.”

Scarlet answered with a simple “Nice to meet you.” without even looking over to her, busy checking the locking-mechanism on her locker. It was a relatively simple mechanical combination-lock, that could be changed on the inside. Not foolproof, but then, anything could be opened, either by subtlety or by force. Given the fact that justice would be exceedingly painful and terminal, she decided that it would likely be no problem. She set the lock to a new number, using part of a location in the slums where she had spent a few months, and carefully placed her backpack inside, taking off her belt-pouch and adding Cyca’s crystal to the backpack.

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Just as she was rummaging in her backpack, the door behind her was opened with enough force to slam it into the opposite wall and a female voice spoke up.

“There you are, bitches, and there’s even one mo…” That was as far as the voice got. The banging door had caused Scarlet to instantly turn, her fight or flight-reflex hanging in the balance for a moment. Flight was no option, but, if they turned out to be hostile to her, fight certainly was. Three females had moved into the room, all of them with mean smirks on their faces and when the talking leader fixed her eyes on Scarlet during her speech, Scarlet decided that it was hostile enough to defend herself.

Almost by reflex, she let Crysna snap out of the pouch in her hand, making him wrap around her arm so that his head came up behind her shoulder, but the main attack had nothing to do with Crystal Monsters and their peculiar powers. The main attack was what she had used against Deidre, only a minute before, projected, psionic terror.

But the difference was, with Deidre, she had held back, making it subliminal and just a subconscious influence. With the three attackers, she was not so kind. Her only kindness, if one could call it that, was to make sure that their minds wouldn’t break from the terror she projected into them, raw and utter fear, pushing their bodies past their fight and flight-responses and right into the territory where the only possible reaction was to curl up and wait for death to arrive.

All three of them sank to their knees, their faces turning as white as their complexions would allow, shaking in terror. To add insult to injury, their leader had apparently not used the outhouse in some time, causing a stain to spread across her pants.

“Now, what do we have here?” she asked, her voice accompanied by Crysna’s hissing. He was feeling her anger through their bond and wanted to add his own blend of violence to the mix. As she asked, she pulled back most of the terror but it had given her enough time to work her mental claws into all three of them, paralyzing their bodies from the shoulders downwards.

“That’s the trouble I was talking about.” Jasmine answered her question, causing Crysna to glance over to her, his perception filtering into Scarlet’s mind, whose eyes didn’t wander from the three intruders.

“Explain.” Scarlet answered, her voice again accompanied by a hiss from Crysna.

Words started to tumble from Jasmine’s mouth, the snake’s stare having an obvious effect on her.

“The Doctor and his guards don’t care about what happens in the bunkhouse, they only care if the work gets done. A few of the others have started to push their work onto us, making us do their work.”

“And that works, why?” Scarlet asked, not quite understanding. Each room should have roughly the same number of people, so why would there be a power-dynamic.

“That works because if we don’t do as they say, they attack us during the night. And we can’t retaliate because another psion sleeps in their room so if we try to get them back, we disturb her as well.” Deidre answered, making Scarlet frown.

That sounded like an absolute pain in the behind.

After a second, she decided that she had no desire to have her sleep interrupted, so she gave directions to Crysna, without taking her eyes off the three on the floor. When Crysna slithered over to them, their eyes were instantly riveted to the large snake, coming towards them. He reared up a little, his tongue going over each of their necks, one after the other, learning their scent, before slithering back to Scarlet and up her body.

As Scarlet watched, she noticed that by now, some liquid had dripped from the leader’s pants onto the floor.

“You made a mess. Clean it, before you leave. If anyone disturbs my night-rest, my lovely snake now knows your scent, and I’m not above asking him to pay you a visit.” Scarlet explained, her voice calm and friendly again, but with the added subliminal terror. It wouldn’t be as useful on the three of them, not after the mind-numbing fear she had attacked them with before, but it would help her get her point across. She was quite sure that the three of them would do anything in their power to prevent anyone from going into the room during the night.

Once she released her hold on their bodies, the three of them instantly used their clothes as rags to clean the liquid off the floor, before running out as fast as they could, the leader pressing her jacket into her crotch to avoid further drippage.

Scarlet, on the other hand, simply ignored the looks she got from the other two, looks that conveyed an equal part of fear and respect and went back to her locker. She had seen a thin bedspread in it and needed to make her bed before lying down. Soon after, she shed most of her clothing, completely ignoring the other two, and clambered up, into her freshly made bed. There was no way she would wear the clothes she hadn’t washed for days to bed. She didn’t plan to sleep, merely to relax for a bit, so she let Crysna curl up next to her, allowing her to keep an eye on things while seemingly having her eyes closed.