Face Reality (Research - Blake, Leon/GM)

[Bailey Oleander]

Aurora was growing. Everywhere she looked, there were signs of it. The hundreds of people that now filled what was once a devastated village – something that felt like it had only been days ago. The merchants selling wares, the homes and academy, even the qi crystal wall that now glowed and shimmered with the light of the early morning sun. Not to mention the fact that her partner (ex partner? Companion? Leader? What was he now?) was now more than an Elder: he was officially a King.

It made her chest feel tight, like there were iron bands wrapped around it, or maybe that was just her stomach retaliating again. Ever since she’d woken up, the idea of food just made her want to throw up, and nothing settled the restless that grew inside of her. Ironic how they had recently finished construction for those who wanted to come into the city, and all she wanted right then was to get out. She slid into her shoes and left hut in near silence, inhaling deeply once she was outside and regretting it as food wafted through the air. Particularly spiced food.

After barely making it to the bathroom in time and cleaning up, Bailey made her way out of the village, greeting new faces with a polite smile and a nod or wave. There were plenty out now already, the faces she recognized now few and far between. The more people she ran into, the less enthusiastic her greeting felt, until she was biting back on the frustration that she couldn’t even take a simple walk in peace.

At least the world outside the walls was quiet and still, though she didn’t stray too far from it. It was safer with the patrols, but what she wanted was the sense of peace she used to be able to find in things. Like the field where she had Mathew had sparred, though she had gone far away from that particular area. Just...somewhere.

Maybe that was the problem. If she looked behind her, she could see progress, but what was she doing? Bailey had decided to free Loki and see what could be done to question or otherwise contain the chaos that she had inherited, and here she was, doing what felt like nothing. Even now, it felt like it would be so easy to go back to Cabal, find whatever version of Leon was trailing her, and ask for the collar so they could move forward. So she could be rid of it. But something still held her back.

"Leon. If Bailey is going to become one of my people then her well-being is my responsibility. Not yours."

The thought came in a moment of silence that pulled Bailey away from her thoughts enough to blink, no longer gazing out at the horizon. The fight had been...unpleasant, enough to make her chest hurt when she thought about it. Not to mention the little flutter that made her feel like a fool that went with it. How was she not failing him again, or anyone else in this city by just stalling? And if that was the case, why wasn’t she using the resources they already had?

“Idiot,” she mumbled. Sighing, Bailey rubbed at the uncovered part of her face with a hand, then activated her PT to look over the last scan she had done. There had been qi anomalies, and there were signs of energy coming from the exoskeleton that had grown over when something went wrong. She could hazard a guess or two at what caused it, but the point remained that that wasn’t what she expected with the regeneration - even if she did appreciate having her actual face back.

After looking over the results she’d gotten from her last scan, Bailey would scan herself again to see if there were any differences, focusing on the anomalies and the exoskeleton first.

[Zack Asiv]

Nothing had changed, it was constant, never changing. The high output, the anomalies in flow spiking in output every so often rhythmically.

[Bailey Oleander]

“It’s consistent, anyway,” she murmured. It was hard to miss the steady beat that read like a heartbeat. Still running the scan, she would lift her hand to touch the exoskeleton with her fingertips and see if there was a reaction.

She’d done it before without ever thinking about it, wondering about the side effects that showed on her face, what it meant. But not actually studying it until now.

[Zack Asiv]

Touching it would cause a sudden spike in anomalous energy!

[Bailey Oleander]

Interesting.

Heedless of how silly she may look, Bailey waes her hand in front of it, close. Trying to see if it reacts to potential contact or motion, or it's merely teh touch that set it off.

[Zack Asiv]

Seems her waving a hand does nothing.

[Bailey Oleander]

Reacting to physical touch, then, and not from sensing something. At least, not if it came from her. With a thoughtful hum, Bailey would head off to the lab, instead! If she was going to take an actual look into this, she may as well do it the right way.

Collecting a couple of scalpels and a few pitri dishes, Bailey would shut herself in one of the rooms of the lab, leaving the sign up that indicated it was in use. She wore the proper protective gear as she could, laying out four empty dishes and three with items in them already. One had a leaf from the local flora, the other a tiny piece of scrap leather, and the third some synthetic fabric.

But before that, there was one more test to be had, and the reason she was at the lab rather than the hospital where she might accidentally set something off to injure one of the patients there. Taking a deep breath, she headed over to the nearby sink with one of the empty dishes, setting it down so she could test the reaction to her using a scalpel on the exoskeleton.

Rather than trying to cut into it or break it apart, however, she was merely collecting a small sample, such as she would with dead skin from a living being. But it was also the first time she'd ever let anything else touch it besides, well, Blake.

[Zack Asiv]

It doesn't seem to have a reaction to her scraping some flake samples!

[Bailey Oleander]

Bailey sets a bit of each sample in the three dishes with other items in them, sleaing them shut to see if there's any sort of reaction over time around organic and non-organic matter.

The other four also get a sample and are seals, letting one being the control variable. Taking the three otherwise empty dishes, she gave a small hum as she labelled them.

"Let's see..." First one, seeing what happened to the sample around extreme heat!

[Zack Asiv]

Nothing extra appears to happen with the exposure to extreme heat, it appears to steam or smoke as it begins to shrivel. She would note however that separated from the mask, and shriveled it maintains an energy output. A readable energy output.

[Bailey Oleander]

...

Bailey just stares at the mask piece for a moment and checks the readings again. It should have stopped showing any signs of energy. She checks to see if it faltered at all while exposed, or if it was still steady. She'd watch it for a momen moments, setting it aside on a separate table, wondering what woudl happen once it shriveled.

If nothing else happened for the time being, she would take another of the samples, cutting off a part of the plant, leather, and cloth to go with it  and testing the effects the group showed against extreme cold!

[Zack Asiv]

It would take time, but once shriveled up it would slowly lose energy.

As for the extreme cold, the mask pieces would grip the extra materials if there were any and use the materials to adapt however it needed to to survive the cold, in the end completely transforming its own composition to match that in which it assimilated. Deforming the material to look like the face of the mask on her. Energy output would actually increase once material was assimilated.

[Bailey Oleander]

Bailey eyes widened as she noted the changes the one in the cold made. Once it was no longer alone, the material adapted to whatever it could find, organic or otherwise, and merged with it. Even more power came from it on her screen, according to the reading. It had absorbed the material and everything with it.

She hesitated for a moment before reaching a hand u to her face where it hovered over her physical form. Whatever it was before, she assumed it had done the same to her. Injuries so severe they woudl have killed it, so it- whatever [t was - latched on to her and grew stronger for it.

"Like a parasite," she murmured. Its resilience woudl have been more fascinating than it was if the material wasn't latching on to her to stay strong.

For a moment, her mind went to two very different directions. First, her pregnancy. Was the child even going to be okay? She figured it would be, or at least hoped. She wasn't dying of starvation or malnutrition, or anything else that might kill her to have the child. But it technically was a parasite at this point, relying on her to grow.

Then again, it had waited to the extreme end of the cold to react and not before, perhaps this would be the same in theory.

The other thought was that her father had left his old life behind for "safety" reasons, and was now out in the world again. What if something happened? Something like this, but it took over more than just her kin's own body?

Shuddering at the thought, Bailey set the dish aside, watching it for a moment, lost in thought as she added the three materials to another dish along with a sample of the mask. She also made sure that she had weight on top of the cold experiment's dish.

This time, she would see what would happen if exposed to electricity. And stand as far back as possible, ready to shut the experiment down if, in theory, it tried to absorb the energy that would be trying to cause it harm.

[Zack Asiv]

The energy in the electrified dish would fluctuate violently before the energy would expand and dark red and black energy fired back at the source of electricity in a skyrocketing energy boost before all energy faded and the mask piece shriveled into ash.

[Bailey Oleander]

Thank goodness she's keeping scans and records of this. Bailey winced at the destruction of the poor machine that provided the electricity. She knew that energy, and coudln't deny what it likely meant for where it came from. At least it fried, but didn't promise good things for the materials it might have absorbed.

The fourth dish was the remains of her sample materials, along with the bit of the exoskeleton. That one, she kept track of in terms of energy as well as just the effects of general proximity. She wasn't sure if it would change anything, but with the growing population of Aurora, the last thing she wanted was to harm them by exposing herself to them over time.

She sighed softly, glad Leon had allowed her a position that would remove her from teh heat of battle to handle things on her own.

"Good thing I didn't try to rip it off," Bailey muttered. It wasn't like a scab, it was...well, it seemed like it was alive. Another form of parasite. She'd grab the fried bit of sample from earlier and one of her remaining fresh ones, testing to see how it would react to part of itself now that the first sample was no longer producing energy, by exposing it to heat again.