The next morning
Jade POV
It's mid-day now, and we're all sat on the floor playing a games Go-fish to pass the time. Cat's not awake yet, and we're all starting to worry that she's in another coma from the pain.
"Your go Jade." Robbie said to me.
"I'm out." I said, throwing my cars to the ground.
"That's not how Go-fish works." Beck said.
"Don't care." I shrugged, "I'm bored of this." I walked over to Cat's bed and sat in one of the chairs beside it.
"When will she wake up?" Tori asked, following me over, still in her wheelchair.
"How would I know Vega?" I rolled my eyes.
"I was just asking." Tori snapped back. "Could someone roll me down to the ground floor? I need food." She said.
"Why don't you just walk? Your legs are fine!" I growled at her.
"You heard the doctor. If she's not in her bed, she has to be in the chair until he says other wise." Andre reminded. "I'll take you." He walked over to Tori and started wheeling her out of the room.
"What a bitch." I growled.
"Why're you so angry at Tori today?" Beck asked, wrapping a hand over my shoulders comfortingly.
"I don't know." I snapped back.
"Do you want me to get you a coffee?" Beck Robbie offered.
"Yes please." I mumbled.
"Black, 1 sugar?" He asked.
I nodded. "Thank you."
"No problem." Beck said, before leaving the room to head to the coffee machine downstairs. Leaving Robbie and I alone with a sleeping Cat.
"So." He said to try and break the tension.
"So." I replied.
"So." A third voice added.
"Wha-Cat!" I smiled down at the now awake red-head.
"Hi hi." She tried to wave at me, before she realised her hands were tied to her bed. "Wh...what happened?"
"Nothing really, just-" Robbie started.
"Robbie, your wrists!" Cat gasped referring to his bandaged wrists, with patches of red where the blood had soaked though. "Did... did I do that?"
"It's alright Cat it doesn't hurt I swear." Robbie stumbled.
"I told you I was dangerous." Cat suddenly burst in tears, trying to hid her face, but failing miserably because of the lack of use of her hands.
"Oh Cat." I tried to comfort. "It' wasn't you."
"It was me!" She screamed. "My body did this!"
"You can't even remember it Cat." I grumbled. "How the hell could you have been able to stop yourself."
"I think I'm starting to remember it." Cat near-whispered.
"What do you think happened?" Robbie asked her.
"It's hazy." She said, furrowing her brows in thought. "I remember Robbie sitting with me as I fell asleep, is that right?"
"Yeah, I was stroking your hair." Robbie said.
"Then it all went black, everything after that is slightly blurred." Cat said.
"That's when he started controlling you." Robbie cut in.
"There's more." Cat continued. "A tiger, or something, was pinning me down. Then Andre tied me down here. Then pain, a lot of pain."
"You were withering for like 10 minutes." I cringed at the memory.
"It was like coma again. I was on this deserted road, but his voice was there, he was causing my pain, telling me what to do."
"What was he saying?"
"That he will break out, even if it's been set back by me telling you all. He said I deserved the pain for snitching." She snivelled. "That he would get me to kill you all."
"We'll stop him before that happens." Robbie said.
"What if we don't what if-."
"It won't happen Cat. I promise." I told her. "Come on, let's untie these." I nodded to the rope around her wrists.
"I need them put back on tonight" She said.
"If that's what you want." Robbie nodded.
"It is."
The Next day was a Monday, which meant school. Tori and Cat were discharged late the night before, with Jade staying over at Cat's apartment to tie her down.
"Hi guys." Cat said, walking over to the group, much less excited than normal.
"You alright Lil'Red?" Andre asked.
"She didn't sleep." Jade explained, also joining the group. "She point blank refused."
"Cat, you need to sleep."
"Not if it meant I would hurt Jade." She yawned.
"But doesn't no sleep make you mentally weaker, and therefore easier for him to control you while you're awake?" Robbie pointed out.
"Stop confusing me!" Cat yelled, storming away from the group.
"She's really testy today." Jade sighed, leaving the group to chase Cat down.
"Poor Cat." Tori looked sadly at the ground.
"She'll feel better once she remembers we have track next." Beck pointed out.
"How will that make her feel better?" Robbie asked. "track sucks."
"Not when you have super speed." Beck reminded.
"Lucky chiz."
"Kill...me." Tori said breathlessly after the classes 1500m run.
"It wasn't that bad." Cat smiled, breathing normally. Obviously, she couldn't just speed around the track at 600mph, but she still finished the run first with no exertion.
"Well done Cat." Their teacher congratulated, "That time has to be a school record."
"Thanks." Cat smiled.
"You should really considered trying out for the athletics team." The teacher continued, before walking away to tend to a ground of exhausted girl.
"Oops." Cat gulped, "Was I really going that fast?"
"Kinda." Jade said. "But not enough for anyone to be concerned.
"But still- I'm meant to be hiding this." Cat said, lowering her voice.
"It's okay Cat, just a minor slip up, it's 'cause you're tired." Tori reminded.
"Because you didn't sleep." Jade pointed out.
"Would you rather I slept and let him control me to kill you?!" Cat's voice had dropped from her normal baby-like voice, to a darker and more sinister tone.
"We-I-Of course not Cat." Tori fumbled over her words.
"Cat, you're letting him in." Jade's eyes widened in alarm.
"I'm trying not to." Cat's voice had returned momentarily before dropping again. "But I'm too weak."
"Miss!" Tori called suddenly. "Jade's having an asthma attack!" She lied.
"Take her to the nurse." The teacher called back, preoccupied with another student.
"Come on." Tori lead Cat and Jade (who was faking an attack) away from the running track, and towards the school.
"Quick thinking Vega." Jade said.
"Thanks." Tori said, slightly shocked by the complement.
"Let's take Cat to Sikowitz."
Tori and Jade burst into Sikowitzs classroom.
"Knock next time girls." Sikowitz said. "I'm teaching here."
"They're only Freshmen, this is more important." Jade grabbed the mans oversized poncho-like shirt and pulled him out of the room and to the empty black-box theatre.
"I do not like to be dragged Jade." Sikowitz said sternly.
"I didn't ask." Jade shrugged.
"Any reason you brought me out here?" Sikowitz said.
"Cat's been- wait." Tori started, before cutting herself off when she noticed the lack of the red-headed girl.
"Where's Cat gone?" Jade gulped.
"Here." A deep voice said from behind them. They turned to see Cat welding a pair of scissors that she had pried from Jade's locker door.
"Cat." Sikowitz tried to calm the youngest girl, holding up his hands and stepping in front of the girls.
Cat simply sped past him and pinned Jade against the wall at lightning speed, holding the scissors to her throat. "How does it feel, to get threatened with your own scissors?" She threatened.
"Cat." Jade gasped.
"That's my name." Cat smirked.
"I'm sorry." Jade replied.
"Sorry? For what?" Cat asked.
"This." Jade said. "Tori now."
Tori quickly morphed into a powerful lion, and ripped Cat's small frame off of Jade.
"Ahh!" Cat screamed in shock before collapsing.
"That was her normal voice." Tori gulped, morphing back.
"She went back to normal just as you jumped at her." Sikwoitz said. "Her aura changed." (Oh yeah, did I not mention, that was Sikowitz's power. He could see auras. It's not a fighting power, but good for judging character, which is why he chose who the next supers would be.)
"What did it look like?" Tori asked.
"When she was possessed, it was murky and grey. Normally, her's is pink."
"Pink?" Jade laughed inwardly. "Really?"
"Explains a lot doesn't it." Sikowitz smiled, lifting Cat up and laying her on a prop-couch in the room. "Wake up Cat, come on." He said.
"Wait, if she's asleep, then how come's he's stopped controlling her?" Jade asked.
"She might be mentally drained, he can't control a mental state she doesn't have." Sikowitz shrugged nonchalant.
Sikwoitz dismissed the girls for the rest of the day, so once Cat woke up, they took her back to her apartment.
"Come on Kitten, lets get you to sleep." Jade suggested.
"No - I'll." Cat started trying to argue.
"We'll tie you down Cat, you won't be able to move." Tori said.
"Kay." Cat sighed, allowing the other two to lead her to her bed and tied her wrists to the headboard.
"That must be so uncomfortable." Tori commented as the red-head fell asleep.
"Having a knife in your skull would be worse." Jade sighed.
"What?" Tori replied.
"You've seen what he does to her. If we don't tie her down, it'll be our necks on the line." Jade sighed, walking out of the room with Tori.
"I hate this." Tori cringed.
"And you think I don't?" Jade spat back.
"No- it's just. Oh forget it."
"I wish it was me instead." Jade whispered to herself.
"I think we all wish that, remember Beck's breakdown?"
"How could I forget it? He was screaming for hours about how he should have protected her."
"It was horrid."
20 minutes later, the girls heard screaming coming from Cat's room.
"He's torturing her again." Tori gulped.
"No-." Jade said, jumping to her feet. "She's crying in fear not pain."
"You don't think someone's broken in?" Tori asked.
"One way to check." Jade grabbed a pair of scissors and ran to Cat's room with cheetah-Tori just behind.
"Cat?" Tori spoke-growled to the crying red-head.
"No one else in here." Jade confirmed.
"Then what's happening to her?" Tori asked, over the sound of Cat's screams for help.
"Nightmares?" Jade suggested.
"I don't know about you, but my nightmares don't do that to me."
"GET OFF OF ME! PLEASE STOP IT!" Cat screamed, thrashing about in her sleep.
"Someone's attacking her." Tori pointed out.
"Well done Captain Obvious." Jade said. "We know exactly who."
"He mentally tortures her. It sounds like someone's physically doing something." Tori gulped.
"PLEASE!" Cat yelled "SOMEONE HELP ME!"
"Thats it!" Jade yelled, jumping onto Cat's bed and slapping her across the face to wake her up.
"Jade- we aren't meant to wake her incase it traps her or-" TOri started scolding.
"AHHHHHHHH!" Cat let out a bloodcurdling scream, roughly kicking Jade off of her bed, before curling into a ball (apart from her still tied hands) and sobbing. "Please stop, you've done enough."
"Cat?" Tori asked the red-head.
"Tori?" Cat asked back, before looking up and studying the room. "When did I get back here?"
"Back? Cat, you've been here for a while."
"No, I was being..." She stuttered, crying again.
"Attacked?" Jade asked, slowly standing up.
"Yes." Cat sniffled. "You must have found me and brought me here." she decided.
"No, Kitten, we just woke you up from a nightmare." Jade said.
"But it was real!" Cat yelled, "I was pinned down in an alley, I felt everything. I was so scared."
"Cat, it was a nightmare." Tori said, untying the red-head's wrists.
"He did it." Cat said suddenly. "He's got a new approach, mentally scar me with events to drive me mad-."
"And therefore, leave you physically weaker and fully control you." Jade finished for her.
"That's what he said." Cat gulped, "It's all coming back to me now."
"Why do villains feel the need to monologue and tell us their plans?" Jade thought aloud. "I mean, it makes things easier but-."
"I'm remembering something else." Cat shivered.
"What is it Cat?" Tori asked.
"He said that attack was just the start... next it was going to be something worse. That was so scary and so real- what could be worse than being basically mugged and beaten in an alley?!"
"Rape." Jade breathed out.
"You don't think he would right?" Tori gasped.
Cat burst into tears. "This is stupid! Nothing happened, yet I'm so scared. It was all fake!"
"It wasn't Cat." Jade said. "He's implanting real images in your brain, and sending real shocks of pain. You have every right to be upset Cat. You were just mugged. Really mugged."
"We need to stop him now. Before he does something worse."