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[attr="class","skullbody"]He looked back. Flecks of gold catching his eyes in the dim light of the alleyway. He watched as Farrin's body was thrown around like a rag doll in a hurricane. His heart ached as the Time turner called a name that wasn't his own, or at least it would if he'd allow himself to feel. The mentat stopped feeling lifetimes ago. He existed only to perform his duties.[break][break]

"I can't help you Farrin. It's what they want. Linking our minds under his influence is too risky." He turned to the source of the music. "I have to stop the Melodist. You have to stop yourself," he said, stretching his new body's limbs to get a feel for what it was capable of. "I'll say this. If you lose here, I'll pity Sada. The course of true love never did run smooth, did it, Oberon?" The words hang in the air. It was a coin toss, the first of many Mateo would make in this timeline. [break][break]

Fate balanced on a knife's edge with an infinity of variables to account for. He'd learned through countless failures that all he could do was stir the winds of change and hope for a favorable outcome. Each of the abes had to pull themselves out of the mire fate cast upon them, and it all started here, with an alleyway and a wish.[break][break]

He walked down the alley, following the sound of the music as it echoed. The mentat paid no heed to the sounds of thrashing behind him. He knew the melodist wouldn't let just let himself be captured, but he still had to try. "You know what'll happen if I catch you right? Just run away already. You always do," He shouted over the music in her voice. "But maybe you need some motivating." He stretched the new and unfamiliar legs before entering a sprint, muscles propelled by the pillaged memories of Thea. All she could do was watch from behind his eyes, caged in her own mind in a state of quasi consciousness. [break][break]

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[attr="class","skullbody"]Memory played in the back of Thea's mind like a record as she dissected the memory into its core parts. The benefactor, named Damien Greymourn or simply Grey to his friends, was a true connoisseur of the arts. His inherited fortune offered him access to the finest paintings and statures, and his business let him run some of the most prestigious displays of live music and performance one could get this far from Broadway. None of those satisfied him. At least not until he found himself online, faced with the darker sides of human whim and desire and enough Bitcoin to change a life in what ever way he chose. Grey clicked the link and paid the fee. He'd never seen a red room before then. He'd never give them up after. Tonight though, was unique. After years of watching, tonight was the night Grey would host his own show, the same kind he'd admired for so long.[break][break]

The mentat nodded after looking in the mirror Miroru produced from literal nothingness. Him.[break][break]

Thea looked around, trying to find a place where she could speak more freely. Already she'd used her quirk quite a bit, and if there were any other option, she'd take it, but there wasn't one, and with each step away that Grey took, time was short despite the seconds growing longer through the lens of the mentat's mind. She moved behind Miroru to her other side and casually took the redhead's hand.[break][break]

The mentat opened a mindscape between them. A realm of pure thought that moved at speeds beyond what words could ever hope to conveyed in a way that left no room for miscommunication. "See, he's doing this tonight." She showed the pertinent parts of the memory to Miroru. "I can't figure out where without grabbing him again, but his guards are eyeing me. Any ideas?" [break][break]

The situation was beyond her abilities, or more specifically, beyond the capabilities she was willing to use with Mimi around. The last thing Thea wanted her to see was Thea turning the crowd into thralls and overpowering Grey with sheer numbers before taking the information from him and making him turn himself in, assuming she'd leave enough of him intact after whatever she found in the rest of his mind.[break][break]

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[attr="class","skullbody"]"You challenge me?" Thea scoffed at the idea "I can think of a dozen places cooler than this to kill my time. A dozen more if you wanted to listen to music." Already her mind was cataloging forgotten places in the form of abandoned temples and supposedly haunted buildings. There were so many places one could run and hide if they well and truly wanted to be alone. However, their definitions of alone were wildly different. [break][break]

"I prefer brutalism. They always make buildings look so cool, like a villain's lair or something out of a comic book. If I ever run like a hero agency or whatever, the whole building is gonna be a monument to brutalist design and bad vibes." [break][break]

The mention of making memories together struck Thea in the chest like a cannon. Despite the idea of memories and the taking of them being an ever-present thought in the back of her mind, she never once considered that the moments they had together were also memories, fresh ones, that she didn't have to steal. "Yeah, novelty. I like that," she maintained her grip on Miroru's sleeve and 'accidentally' brushed the back of her finger against the fox's. "And that too is now a memory," she thought, replaying the moment in her mind a few times as if to be sure it was really there: a memory that was new, and happy, and hers.[break][break]

They approached the crowd, and while Thea wanted to go somewhere else, she knew that this museum meant something to Mimi and by proxy, now meant something to her. "Looks like some sort of special show. Ugh, vip passes are sold out." Using her teeth, the mentat pulled the glove off her free hand and stuffed it into her bag. "Lucky for you, I've always got VIP access," She looked Miroru over in a faux judgment, "I guess you're pretty enough to be my plus one."[break][break]

As soon as they entered the crowd, the mentat put on her act. She's mastered the myriad ways one could casually touch someone they didn't know, and with each touch, she took a part of them for herself and gave back a dose of happiness and an order to move. The crowd parted, and the pair were at the front in a matter of seconds. Or at least they would have been were it not for the well-to-do businessman whose face was plastered all over the entrance making an appearance.[break][break]

"Such a crowd and so early. I hope you all have a wonderful time," the man thundered as he approached the crowd and thanked everyone with a smile and a handshake. When the man got to Thea, their handshake lasted a smidge longer than usual, and when the contact broke, she flinched slightly before reaching back at the man only to have a bodyguard slap her hand out of the air. She turned to Mimi and briefly brushed her palm against the fox's fingers long enough to send the words. "He's killing people today."[break][break]

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[attr="class","skullbody"]"I don't have a reason. I'm just here cuz I'm bored. I assume i don't need a fuckin' reason for that too do I." Thea pressed her attitude further. Something about the way Freja was acting put her off. Maybe it was how it reminded her of a cornered animal lashing out at perceived threats. Or maybe it's was how the fear of quirks resembled the fear of Thea some other students had developed. "Yeah, you're a fucking joke. Is that what you want me to say?" The words carried the mentat's now visible frustration.[break][break]

Quickly the mentat reeled in her frustration, setting herself back to neutral before continuing the conversation. It was weird enough that she was making an effort but even weirder that she almost wanted to. For a moment, she pondered whether this resulted from Zenkai's influence or Miroru's. [break][break]

"They really want us to do everything, and somehow they can't even fuckin spring for a decent ethics teacher or a course on not developing a god complex. You see half the schmucks here. I sure as hell don't want any of them showing up to save me in a crisis." She said, dodging the comment about her power. Thea couldn't deny the upsides were awesome. Her mind drifted to the pair of leather gloves in her back pocket and why she had them. Sometimes she wasn't sure if the ups were worth the downs. [break][break]

"Thea," she said curtly before even giving herself the opportunity to think of any other name. "You can just call me Thea. Everyone else does." She reached out her hand to shake Freja's. "Nice to meet ya," Thea said with a sly grin as the hands met and the connection between minds began.[break][break]

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[attr="class","skullbody"]Numbers turned against the mentat quickly as the machines continued their attempt to capture the actors and drag them away. She lacked the raw power to fight them, but Marlene's observation was right; Thea was the smartest of the three, even if only by a technicality. [break][break]

The mentat sprinted around corners and through buildings. It was a race between her and the robots; only she knew where every actor was stationed, something that the robots' movements made clear was not part of their programming. But despite her greater speed, the machines had the advantage of numbers, and eventually, numbers triumphed over the mentat's ability to get ahead of them; instead, she was forced to fight them head-on to save the last group of hostages in this area.[break][break]

She launched capture tape at a pair of machines only to find a third machine waiting in the wings for her as it drifted around the corner and intercepted her tape. Mechanical hands clamped around the cloth as the machine spun around, pulling Thea through the air and sending her rocketing into the nearest wall. [break][break]

Thea slid down the wall only to see a pair machines approach her and back her into it. Their fists raised as a flurry of blows began to rain down on her. It was all she could to do dodge or turn devistating blows into glancing strikes. If these were human, she'd wear them out one punch at a time, but machines had no stamina for the outboxer to contend with. Instead, she had no choice but to take the hits as they rained down on her and wait for an opening to get behind them and turn them off for good. No such opening came, and the third machine continued its patrol for more victims. [break][break]

Pain shot through Thea's nervous system only to be met with a wall of sensation from her controlled delusion. The relentless beating was reaching levels she'd not expected this exam could reach but she had no choice but to endure until the perfect moment. Both machines raised their arms as their flurries synched up for a single strike. Battered and bruised, the mentat knew she couldn't survive the blow without excluding herself from the rest of the exam. Instead, she pressed forwards, attempting to pass under the machines in the singular moment when their arms and torsos were out of the way. Time warped under her perception and the fraction of a second that passed felt like an eternity in her minds as she watched the fists pass just over her head while she escaped the corner and prepared a flurry of her own.[break][break]

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[attr="class","skullbody"]Even the most well-laid plans are victim to circumstances beyond the wildest imagining of their creators. The melodist tested them. As was his task through countless repetitions of the same fel plot. Yet these actions served the purposes of a different master, one whose machinations laid dormant throughout the numerous timelines and iterations that this world lived through. To rebuild the world and the Abes was to rebuild him anew, stronger each time the recollection of a thousand lifetimes lived and a thousand more stolen in between. Thea could not see Farrin's doppelganger. Instead, she only saw a figure whose very image made her sick to her stomach. [break][break]

Before her, the mentat stood. His white gloves were delicately removed by tanned fingers. His lips moved, forming words that she could feel falling from her throat. "I don't think I've ever been a girl before," Mateo said.[break][break]

Every cell in her body screamed. Whoever this boy was, she needed to excise him like a tumor. She stepped up to grab at his throat and found shockingly little resistance as Mateo let it happen only to place a hand on her wrist. "I've never been this stupid before either." In an instant, both minds raced into each other, each doing their best to control, alter, and delete.[break][break]

Together they stood, one and the same in the mind space they shared, each viewing the other as if they were the uncanny valley made manifest. Around them, memories crashed and melded. They would come to understand each other in a way beyond what mere words were capable of. They could come to see there's no option for peace between them.[break][break]

"Who the fuck are you?"[break]
"I'm you, every previous version of you at least."[break]
"That's bullshit. Get out of my head!"[break]
"Our head, soon to mine."[break][break]

She tried to force the invader out, erasing every link to his mind she could find and yet only encountering more in their place. [break][break]

"See? You're wasting our time. Now I'll be taking my body back."[break]
"Your body? What the fuck does that mean?"[break]
"I told you, I am you, every you that ever was, fragments of countless pasts and minds stitched together at the seams across times and places that no longer exist. I don't think you understand just how persistent our memory is. Now if you're done, I'll be taking over now. You're going to resist, and that's okay. I know myself well enough not to expect anything less."[break]
"You talk too much."[break]
"You will too."[break][break]

Tendrils of thought exploded across Thea's mind. She fought against them as they grabbed at her memories, turning them one by one away from her and beyond her sight. Her sense of self began to slip as she felt the edges of her consciousness fading. Fear spiked as she tried desperately to grab at what few memories she could still see, Zenkai & Miroru, their faces fading away. She wanted to scream. She needed to cry. There wasn't enough left of her to do so.[break][break]

"I'm sorry. You can blame the alpha for this. It needed to be done, and we're always the ones to do it."[break][break]

From the outside, it would appear only to have been an instant. As Farrin crashed into the wall, Thea sank to her knees only to rise again a moment later. [break][break]

The mentat stood there examining his new body for a long second before taking in the situation at hand. [break][break]

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[attr="class","skullbody"]"If I was here to make fun of you, I'd be fucking doing it already now, wouldn't I," She spat back angrily. It wasn't often that Thea tried being even remotely sociable, and she was starting to remember why. "And yeah, really really." For a moment, she wondered if rumor of what she'd done to Jun had gone around, and maybe that's what Freja recalled. Thea cast the thought aside, by now, she probably had some reputation for being rude or high or whatever else people tacked onto her when she wasn't listening. [break][break]

"Fine, keep your secrets. I'll just have to conjure up some confetti and make you tell me," Thea gestured with her hand as if something would come out from it and attack Freja before laughing and resting the arm against the railing behind her. "Can you imagine that? If someone made it here with a confetti cannon quirk. That would be hilarious." [break][break]

The mere fact that Freja was here having this conversation spoke to her abilities. Thea wasn't one to doubt someone's abilities when the proof was there. For a moment, she considered taking some of the bat skills for herself if she got the chance to. "Yeah, I think so. Sure, If I catch you well," she ran her thumb against her neck, "but you could do the same to me with that, and there's no way I could be better than you with it." She weaved lies in with the truth. Revealing too much always felt uncomfortable, especially before a meal. [break][break]

Her palms burned. The more she spoke, the more the hunger grew. Part of her considered lunging. One touch would be enough to take some memories and then rewrite the last few seconds to fit a less aggressive narrative.[break][break]

"I'm not strong, that's for dame sure," She laughed, remembering the displays Farrin and Zenkai were capable of. "Smart, yeah, that's more like it. I'm the smartest person in any room I walk into." It was part gloat and part truth. Even when she wasn't the smartest, it only took a few seconds to remedy the issue. A simple handshake, a hand on the shoulder, or even a touch on the arm. Thea had learned all the ways in which she could take what she wanted from polite company. Though she vastly preferred it when she didn't need to have those considerations, it was half the reason she signed up for so many patrol routes. [break][break]

"Besides, if me skipping makes me smart and strong, wouldn't that make you some sorta roided genius?"[break][break]

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