Theodore couldn't breathe. His sight had turned fuzzy and the world around him grew muffled. Fingers clenched tightly to the seat of his chair (and in the back of his mind he worried that his lumen would activate there & then, outing him to the entire population & the mogadorian woman up on stage) as he waited out the closing statements of the assembly and grit his teeth in the hopes that he could last long enough to make it to the bathroom before he inevitably broke down. All he had to do was wait for a few more minutes.

Though, even that was hard. Sweat beaded on his brow and pooled beneath his pits in buckets, making Theodore itch to rip his blazer and other layers off, if only to relieve some of the heat that surged through him. He didn't know if it was the sudden paranoid feeling of all eyes on him, as they were talking to him—calling him out—(they weren't) or if it was his Legacies—the ones that he was trying his hardest to keep buried deep, deep down— that were reacting to his emotions. Either way, his breathing had grown laboured like he'd suddenly run a hundred miles.

Theodore knew that he paled considerably and must've looked quite a sight, if only because Milton—who had given him the cold shoulder only an hour earlier—had nudged him asking if he was okay. Unbelievably, Theodore was able to mutter some sort of assurance in reply, although he couldn't be sure of what it was he said. Whatever it was seemed to be enough to assuage his previously sour friend because he leant back up in his seat; but that didn't stop the concerned glances sent his way every other moment or so. It was like Milton was worried he was going to collapse; who knows? Theodore might've. What he did know, was that if he didn't get out of there soon, he was definitely going to cause a scene; he was sure of it.

Mercifully, Principal Higgins soon called for the end of the assembly and (after shoving his chair into the collection of stacked chairs) Theodore made a quick exit. Flinging himself from the rest of his classmates and untangling himself from worried friends, Theodore dodged any attempted to get him to stop and dove for the back door. Milton started after him, managing to grab a hold of his elbow and called for his friend to stop; shouting apologies for brushing Theodore off earlier, but the Garde boy wouldn't listen. He was too caught up in his own mind to notice as he lost his friend in the crowd; the throngs of moving people (mercifully) pushing the two apart.

Brushing by startled peers and wandering teachers, Theodore elbowed his way through the throng of the retreating crowd, for once completely unconcerned about appearances as he made a beeline straight for the auditorium bathroom. He felt like he was going to throw up or worse. The teacher who had been tending to the flow of students out of the doors, barely even blinked when Theodore came thundering passed because there was always that one person. The one who couldn't handle the heat of so many bodies packed in together in the one room or a certain someone who had misjudged how long the assembly would take and were busting to take a leak. That wasn't the case for him, of course, but Theodore wasn't about to argue with that assumption.

Bouncing off of the walls in an effort to get to the little tiled room, Theodore eventually shoved open the door and tumbled into the adjoining disabled toilet at the back of the auditorium. He hoped, as he locked the door behind him, that the privacy of the small restroom would allow him a moment's respite away from prying eyes. Collapsing against the sink, his breath came in laboured gasps, like it was hard to suck in a full lung of air. His head felt stuffy and dizzy like that time he had the flu and it felt like a whole box of cotton balls had been shoved up into his brain. It was too much to take in; the events of the past week—A'Doro's untimely death & funeral, Vera's missing status, Doro's supposed reappearance, the fire, his arm, meeting all of his vera's (extended) family, the uptick of LANE attacks & propaganda and so on. That PSA was the final straw.

His heart beat thunderously—traitorously—out of his chest, pounding in time with the blood rushing through his ears as he gripped tightly to the edge of the sink. Ba-boom. Ba-boom. Ba-boom. Ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom—ba-boomba-boomba-boomba-boomba-boomba-boomba-boomba-boom—! Lumen seeped from between his fingertips, melting the stained porcelain beneath his fingers like it was nothing more than candle wax and loralite coloured his vision blue. It easily became too much for him and he felt himself become—quite literally—hot under the collar.

BA-BOOM! BA-BOOM! BA-BOOM! BA-BOOM!

Gasping for breath, Theodore turned on the tap to splash water in his face in the hopes of cooling down or that the shock of the cold liquid would help to ground himself. It did neither and when he glanced up at the mirror, he found a visage that frightened him further. As everything in the room began to shake violently around him, frightened eyes stared at the patches of skin where the alien blue had made itself known; bubbling there like lightning beneath pale skin and illuminating his veins within. His lone eye—once a chocolate brown—now bled a violent loralite blue in the dimly-lit bathroom and where his hands had met solid porcelain only moments ago, now hovered above sunken & molten china.

Impatient fingers pulled at his shirt collar so quick that he popped the first couple of buttons on his school shirt; leaving them to settle in the remains of the moist sink. There stood his birthmark; the circular birthmark with its four rings & dots which labelled him as a Orlin of the Loric race. This blasted Loric mark which identified him as one of the most wanted/hunted creatures in current existence, this mark which he loved dearly but had brought him so much trouble. This mark which now bled a brilliant blue, standing out proudly against pale freckled flesh. If Theodore didn't know any better—if his emotions weren't so heightened—he would have thought that the Entity, dwelling deep in the Earth's core, was calling out to him again.

DRIP—DROP! DRIP—DROP! DRIP—DROP! DRIP—!

"…Theo?" Milton pounded on the door. Bang, bang, bang! His voice sounded almost muffled in Theodore's ears, like he was hearing him through a thick layer of molasses. "Theo? Are you all right? I'm sorry about before! I'm not mad! Promise!"

"Go a-away!" Theodore cried, his voice though thick and hoarse with unshed tears, cracked as he stared at the freak he had become.

"Theo…? Are you okay?" Milton persisted, rattling at the doorknob in an attempt to get it. "Lemme in! I just wanna talk!"

"GO AWAY!" He sobbed, collapsing against the toilet and as far away from the warped vanity as he could reach in the small, enclosed space.

BA-BOOM! BA-BOOM! BA-BOOM! BA-BOOM!

His heart roared in his chest, overtaking all sounds except for his rasping breaths that begged for air, for relief. Great heaving sobs turned to short pants as his breath came in quick bursts, tears blurred his vision as snot mixed together to create a masterpiece of muck on his face and the power he had tried so hard to keep at bay bubbled beneath the surface, like a bubbling pot as panic took a tight hold on him.

RUMBLE! RUMBLE! RUMBLE!

Fingers threaded themselves through curly brown locks as Theodore squeezed his eyes shut against the panic, hoping that if he couldn't see the monster he had become, then he would be able to squash it back down; hoping that if he could squash it back down, he could pretend like nothing was wrong. But it was a childish hope. Even with eyes squeezed shut to the point of stars dancing in front of his gaze, everything around him continued to shake. But not just the bathroom, it was everything. The walls, the floor, the upturned tiles and the windows rattled. Out in the hall, he could hear Milton growing even more panicked, only this time it was because the world around him was rumbling and roiling. And when the intercom crackled overhead, Theodore hunkered down in the hopes that he could at least contain the damage he was causing.

"…This is NOT a drill! I repeat, this is NOT a drill! All students and faculty must take shelter as instructed! Once the shaking has stopped, all members must make their way to the emergency meeting point out on the field in an orderly fashion so that attendance may be called"

Everything around Theodore seemed to fade away as he succumbed to the panic gripping tight to him, and he barely even registered the persistent banging on the door anymore. Pulling his legs up to his chest and hugging them close, the boy tucked his head into this knees as he sobbed. Lost amongst the cacophony of panic, worry, sorrow and power, his heart battered against its bony prison with a vengeance. Something was wrong—something strong and oh so, achingly familiar—built up inside him. Like a lead balloon waiting to be released, it grew and grew; it squeezed at his insides with a strongman's grip and attempted to milk him for everything that he was worth.

CREAK! BOOM!

"AH!" Milton gasped as he suddenly found himself having to flatten himself against the roiling floor in order to avoid the bathroom door which was ripped off of its hinges flung backwards. The ground still roiled beneath him, making him nauseous and the walls rattled with a ferocity that he'd only ever seen in dystopian movies or that earthquake simulator at the museum. With immense effort, the lanky boy was able to push himself up onto his elbows just far enough to see what had caused the door to go flying and what he saw stopped him cold.

There, curled up tight upon the toilet, was his best friend Theodore Hargreeves. Scrunched up as he was, Theodore—who had barely flinched at the sound of the door being ripped off and impacting against the hallway—didn't see the confusion or the shock that warred across his best friend's face, he didn't see how the loralite in his veins illuminated the area, painting it in an alien blue that had leaked from every orifice and now floated about his hunched form in fireflies of blue loralite and white lumen.

"Th-Theo?" Milton stuttered, his voice sounding afraid even to his own ears. Despite the fairy-like visage of his friend, he could not shake the feeling of something so dangerous hidden in something so benign. For most of his life, Milton had been interested in LANEs; he had imagined how cool it would be to have an awesome superpower all his own. But now that he was confronted with it—when he was staring it in the face—Milton found himself far more afraid than he ever thought he'd be. There was no way he could be one of those LANEs, right? Theo would've said something! They told each other everything! That's what best friends were for! He couldn't be one of those LANEs from the news, he couldn't be…!

Slowly, tearful eyes full of equal amounts of fear emerged from the crook of his legs and turned to face him. Theodore's red-rimmed eyes and tear-tracked cheeks pulled at Milton's heartstrings to see his best friend so broken. And yet, he still found that he could not shake the feeling of utter terror that surged through his veins; especially when his gaze travelled down, down, down, to his exposed collarbone where one of those infamous birthmarks innocently sat, shrouded in blue. Milton's mouth ran dry, his tongue suddenly heavy with lead and feeling of cotton that he could not swallow around without choking on his own spit.

Theodore was a…was a…LANE…!

Meeting Milton's frightened gaze, the world around Theodore seemed to slow to a halt and the symphony in his ears grew to a crescendo. The rumbling of his Legacies bursting to get free, the roar of his jackhammering heart that did its best to escape out of his chest, the dripping tap that echoed against the half-melted sink, the distant sound of screams as people took cover & awaited the end of the supposed earthquake and the racing beat of his friend's heart as he stared at him in fear…There's the worry that swirled within him concerning his family; the location of his vera, the grief the pricked at him at the news of Eudora's death, the fear that clogged his veins with those mogadorian Augments had stalked across the stage, the paranoia about whatever Mr Bergman had seen during the fire to keep him so quiet…all of it. It was all too much to bare. It squeezed his insides, choking him tighter and tighter until—

RUMBLE-BA~BOOM-DRIP-DROP-AHHH-BA~BOOM-RUMBLE-DRIP-AHHH-DROP-BA~BOOM-RUMBLE-DRIP-DROP-BA~BOOM-RUMBLE-AHHH-DROP-BA~BOOM-DRIP-RUMBLE-AHHH-DROP-BA~BOOM-RUMBLE-AHHH-DRIP-NO-NO-NO—!

—It burst. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he could hear who he thought was his doro telling him to let go, to release everything he had in one powerful move and show the world what he was really made of. Just like had done during those many playdates-disguised-as-training-sessions. Theodore could've sworn he heard his vera's violin sweetly singing in his ear, telling him that all would be all right as the last tenacious grip on his Legacies slipped through his grasp like water flowing through his hands.

Something within him, broke.

CRACK!

And shattered.

CRASH!

It was all too much.

KA-BOOM!