Angels and Demons (Anja)

[Dragon]

John waited a few more moments and slowly opened the door. As soon as he saw Anja clothed and lying in a fetal position, he stepped inside and beckoned Duncan to follow.

"Anja, I've brought Professor MacLaverty to look you over. Is that all right with you?"

He gave Duncan a worried glance - he was mortified that the exercise had left Anja in such a pitiable state.

[Pan]

He saw the expression on John's face before he entered the practice room to find Anja lying broken on the floor. He shared his concern but also felt a twinge of anger that a training session with a student had gone so far. The thought was quickly pushed aside as he kneeled down next to the girl, he tried to catch her eye but she looked too exhausted to focus. His voice was soft.

"Hello Anja. This is Duncan. I'm here to treat your injuries."

He held out an open hand.

[Anja Drake]

She nodded tiredly and sat up slowly. The soreness in her body was taking a toll and all she felt like doing was taking a very long nap. It barely registered to her that she was sitting; her whole world seemed to be in one giant haze.
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Her thoughts wandered; from her mother, to her home in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Italy</st1:country-region>, to<st1:state w:st="on"><st1> New York</st1> City </st1:state>where Artisn had taken her, then back to the training room…Her senses danced in a disorientated state, hazel eyes kept closed as she breathed shallowly.
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The last thing she thought before <st1><st1:city w:st="on">Professor MacLaverty</st1:city></st1> went to work on her wounds was about Mr. Rhee. The poor man probably thought this was his fault. She sensed him by the door and her senses followed

"It's not...your fault." Anja spoke in a broken sentence; her voice must have sounded lost and confused; but she address Mr. Rhee just the same. "...you were...helping..me."

[Dragon]

John hung back to give Anja some sympathetic distance, and to give Duncan plenty of room to work. He couldn't find anything to say to respond to her, but he was grateful nonetheless.

They would have to take a careful look at how to approach this next time - but now wasn't the time to think about next time.

He was relieved that Duncan had been available. John knew how to dress and treat injuries, but Duncan had the soul and the spirit of a healer. Anja was better off in his hands.

[Pan]

"Try to relax," he whispered.

He took her hand in his and held it gently. There was a comforting warmth between their fingers. His eyes focused on her face first of all, she looked strong enough to sit for the duration and by the end of it, would feel strong enough to become mobile once more. His gaze fell to her bruises and wounds and with perfect timing, they started to shrink until they were but a speck on her skin and then nothing at all. He smiled.

"Feeling better?"

[Anja Drake]

A look of disbelief stretched across her features, the soreness and pain went away with in a few mintues and what was once a massive bruise was nothing but her natural skin. Anja blinked unbelievingly, it was nothing short of a miracle in a sense.

The warmth coming from Duncan's hand was comforting and the stiffness in her limbs was gone; a smile began to grow of her lips as she began to move her legs until they were stretched out.

"Feeling better?"

Anja's senses were focused quite a bit better than before and her attention was on Mr. MacLaverty. There was a gracious smile beaming at him.

"Yes, much better." The grin never faltered. "Thank you."

[Dragon]

Duncan's gift was nothing less than extraordinary, and John had never been more grateful for his colleague's expert touch. He was sure Anja was still exhausted, but otherwise it looked as if the Angel had never visited her.

"I'm very glad to hear that," John said, kneeling beside Duncan. "Anja, you've been very brave. I'm sorry this was so taxing for you. There's a lot I want to talk to you about, but I think that can wait for tomorrow."

[Anja Drake]

The soreness was still slightly there, but that was to be expected. Anja released Duncan's hand when he was finished.

"Thank you again, Professor McLaverty. I appreciate you coming here, I know you were probably busy." Her grin from before began to fade but she stayed seated on the padded flooring. There was something more that she needed to do before she was done for today; she didn't think she would share it with John or Duncan, they would probably disagree with her decision to keep going.

She peered at Mr. Rhee by the door and leaned back on her hands for support. "Um, if you wouldn't mind. I'd like to stay here for a while longer."

[Pan]

"Well..."

Duncan's expression faltered, he was releaved to see the injuries gone from the girl but at her sudden request to be left alone he shot John a fleeting glance. His wavering smile returned.

"...if that's what you'd like, Anja. Professor Rhee and myself will be nearby if you need us."

He retreated a step or two, bade her farewell, and left the room. Outside, he waited for John, who still had his own wounds which needed his attention.

[Dragon]

"You can stay as long as you need to," John added. "I'll be waiting outside."

With that, he turned back toward the door and joined Duncan in the hallway. He closed the door as quietly as possible.

"Thank you, Duncan." He leaned against the wall and vented a deep sigh. "I think this may be the most difficult challenge I've ever faced with a student."

[Pan]

"Clearly."

He offered John his open hand, and understanding, he clasped it in his own. There was warmth and his wounds started to heal. He was solemn and when he spoke, his tone switched between disappointed to apologetic.

"John, don't you think this is going to far?"

Their eyes met. It was a question he didn't like to ask.

[Anja Drake]

When the two male mutants left, Anja fell back onto her side again. Her tension was at a peak and she just didn’t know what to do. Her mind was still a jumble of collapsed puzzle pieces, her eyes began to well with familiar hot tears. She blindly reached out and grabbed a sweatshirt from her bag.
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Transformations were dangerous and mortifying for her; it was an understatement to say that Anja feared herself and was often embarrassed.
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Still, she laid there and did the only thing she could do. The Italian mutant turned her head into the sweatshirt and screamed with everything she had; tears wetting the soft fabric of warm lump of clothing.

[Dragon]

John gingerly touched his face where the Angel had torn it open - aside from some rapidly-fading tenderness, there wasn't a sign he'd ever been injured.

Not at the surface, anyway.

"Perhaps," he said wearily. "If I could think of any other way to approach it, I would take it. But if it's a choice between confronting her darker side in a controlled environment, and leaving her subject to random transformations, endangering other students... I don't think that's a choice at all."

[Pan]

"You're right. I just wish this training didn't come at such a price. There you go."

He released John's hand once his injuries were gone.

"John, I want to be informed whenever you and Anja do this in the future. You both might've been lucky this time and I'd rather we didn't take any chances."

[Anja Drake]

Why couldn’t she get a hold of herself? Why did this have to happen to her? What could she do? Why…why…just, why?
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Anja stopped screaming and sat with her face buried deep in the sweatshirt bundle in her lap. The tears were still streaming as she gasped in shudders of air. Her lips quivered under the pressure behind her sobs.
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She sat there for a few minutes. After she was done, Anja lifted her tear stained face from the clothing and wiped her eyes frantically. She composed herself quickly and threw the sweatshirt back into her bag before standing up.
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She wavered a moment but caught herself nonetheless. Grabbing her bag by its strap, she approached the door in a daze; she knocked on the hard surface to signal she was done. With one last small sob, Anja opened the door and stepped through.

[Dragon]

John nodded grimly. "All right. It'll be reassuring to know you're on-call. I only hope it gets easier on Anja. I don't know how many sessions like this she can take."

He heard a knock at the door, and a moment later Anja came through it. Her eyes were red and tear-stained, but she seemed to have regained her stability.

"You did well today, Anja," he told her again. "We can meet in my office tomorrow, just to talk. I'm sure you could use some rest - I know I could."

[Pan]

Upon seeing Anja appear in her current state, Duncan fought the urge to be overbearing. It pained him to see someone so young and fragile suffer such an ordeal but the transformations had become a part of Anja's life and the last thing he wanted to do was patronise her with unproductive sympathy. He stood next to John and spoke with resolve.

"Anja, I want you to promise me that in the future, after a transformation, you contact me and I will help you with any physical trauma you might've endured. Anytime. I can always catch up on my sleep during lessons."

He gave her a wink.

[Anja Drake]

A shallow smile began to form at the corner of her lips. It was all and more than she could have ever asked for. All she wanted was to be helped and eventually given a chance to live among the rest of the world with no threat of spontaneous transformation.

"Thank you Professor MacLaverty. That's more then I could ever wish."

She snuggled her bag closer to her body as she faced Mr. Rhee. Even through her senses she could tell that his abilities were strained...his aura was slightly weakened and she felt a sudden PANG of guilt. Still, she nodded to him.

"I will meet with you tomorrow then." Her voice was oddly flat, she felt an overwhelming wave of fatigue hit her legs. "I think I'll go take a nap. Please, excuse me."

She left in a hurry; it was embarassing to face someone after a transformation. It took her a few minutes to weave through the maze of halls before she reached the stairs, she was trying to reach her room before the final concequences of her mutations kicked in...however, it was too late.

With a faltered step, Anja caught herself on the rail of the main grand staircase; her body convulsed as the female mutant began to cough. The fit lasted barely a minute but the racking had caused her cover her mouth with her free hand, as she pulled it away the familiar warmth of blood leaked freely over her hand...

Grabbing her sweatshirt from her bag she wiped the dark red substance of off her hand and clean a small trickle that fell from her mouth with a sleeve while she was at it. Darting her senses around she spotted a garbage can and frantically threw away the sweatshirt before running awkwardly up the stairs; it wouldn't be the last of her coughing fits, she just needed to get to her room before the next one hit....

In her hurry she didn't even notice that her bloodied sweatshirt had only made it half way in the garabe bin; either way, Anja wouldn't have cared, she just needed to get away from everyone for a while.

[Dragon]

John slept soundly that night and woke up aching. Even Pan's ministrations couldn't make his muscles forget how badly they'd been abused the previous day. He took a stinging cold shower and halfway through turned it to steaming hot. Then he dressed and marched out to face the day's classes.

He didn't see Anja in Mutation Training in the gym that morning. He honestly didn't blame her for skipping.

That afternoon he piled into his office with an armload of student exercise reports and dumped them on his desk just in time to begin his scheduled office hours.

After a moment's thought, he put his electric kettle on and pulled out a few packages of loose-leaf tea. As soon the water was just shy of boiling, he poured himself a cup and measured out a sachet of Korean green. Almost unconsciously, his eyes kept darting to the office door.

[Anja Drake]

It had been a while since the last time she had mutated fully into the Angel; the fact was, her ‘human’ body was over exhausted and there was no telling how much she had actually slept. In the past, her ‘resting’ period had lasted anywhere from eight hours to close to two weeks; she never did quite figure out why her sleeping periods ranged in time.
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Anja awoke slowly. Her head hurt and her stomach was tender, where Mr. Rhee had struck the Angel at yesterday’s training session. Ugh…the training session. Anja laid back, snuggling deeper into her covers; judging by the silence in the hall outside it was later in the afternoon. Her eyes widened as she realized that she had probably missed all of her classes, but a moment later she blew off the sudden scare, what difference did it make?
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Her mind felt like it was underwater, drowning itself in a liquid state; it hurt her to concentrate and truthfully, she didn’t want to get out of bed.
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Though, after about a half an hour of just laying awake, in a pained state, she decided it would be much more worthwhile to move around. Very slowly, she managed to swing her legs over the side of her bed and just as slow she rummaged through her dresser; finding black cargo pants and a red and baby blue tie-dyed t-shirt.
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Anja calculated her steps to the doorway and took a deep breath before stepping out into the hall. She didn’t quite know where she wanted to go; so her wandering began.
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It was nearly twenty minutes later when she stopped outside a familiar door. Anja had been in too thick of a daze that she hadn’t even realized her own legs carrying her to one of the last places she wanted to be…right outside Mr. Rhee’s office. Great.
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The truth behind it was, her actions yesterday and lack of control made her almost too ashamed or even more so embarrassed to face him again. To make it all worse, she had injured him.
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She let the wind rush out of her lungs as she debated whether to knock or not. Wearily, Anja raised her hand and gently rapped her knuckles on the door. There was no harm in letting him know that she was alright.