"Since we have covered the basics of telepathy, it is time you all tried something more challenging," Ebony explains, with a kind smile. "We are going to learn how to read people's memories. Some of the servants have volunteered to assist us today." The other kids giggled and chattered with excitement. Heather's eyes are on the clock. The older children should be returning from their mission now. She had never been so anxious to leave class before, she wanted to see her older brothers. "Heather, if you cannot stay focused on the lesson now, I will have to ask you to stay longer," Ebony announces to the entire room. Heather felt a rush of embarrassment.

She turns to look at Ebony. "Sorry, teacher."

"It's alright, my dear." Photon shoots Heather a glare from across the room. She pretends not to notice. Ebony clasped his hands together. "Now children, reading one's memories is not all the different from reading thoughts, you merely have to push a little deeper. Once you've conquered that it won't be long before you're altering memories." Celest's hand shoots up and she waves it about frantically. "Yes?"

"Why would we wanna do that?"

Ebony tilts his head to the side. "It makes your enemies easier to control." Celest raises her hand again. "Yes, Celest?"

"Why don't you just control their minds instead?"

Ebony sighs lightly, "As I have explained previously, to control someone's mind you would need to project your consciousness into them. When you do that you are always running the risk forgetting who you are forever. It's extremely dangerous and a waste of energy." Two of the servants, Lytah and Noihr, move together and suddenly begin to waltz around the room in perfect unison. They twirl around and around and around. They were smiling but panic filled their every thought. "Instead, you can control multiple people with telekinesis."

"Stop," Heather whispers. The children giggle and clap. "Stop it. They don't want this!"

Heather swears she sees a hint of a smile on her teacher's face. Noihr and Lytah suddenly stop. They're breathing hard. "Or you can push them to make the decision themselves by altering their memory. This way you don't have to fight them for control of their body." Then Noihr and Lytah smile and resume dancing. Slowly this time, Noihr is graceful, while Lytah's movements are clumsy. Noihr dips Lytah and then they both smile and bow. All the children applaud, except for Heather.

Ebony explains how to search through memories and then pairs off each of the children with a servant for the remainder of the class. Lytah sat across from Heather on the floor. She shifted uncomfortably, she wasn't sure if she liked this at all. She feels a gentle hand on her shoulder. Ebony looks down at her curiously, "I know my methods appear cruel to you, my dear. However, there are those in this world who would not hesitate to do much worse to you. Have you forgotten your sister Kekallie? If you could have altered her memory at the time maybe you both could have lived."

Heather hangs her head, she knits her eyebrows together. She could have saved her? She could have saved her big sister? "Okay. If Lytah is really alright with this. I don't wanna hurt anyone else."

Lytah nodded, "It's fine, honey, really." Heather nods and tries to swallow her bad feelings. She closed her eyes and focused.

~~•˖✧•✯•✧˖•~~

Heather races down to the cafeteria. She jumps down the steps two at a time. She sees Peter, Nebula, and Voros, walking into the cafeteria. She tackles Peter in a hug. "Heather!" He giggles and swings her around, even though he's in pain. His back hurt terribly. "I missed you!"

He sets her down and Heather put on her best scowl. "What happened? Why are you hurt?"

Peter blinks. Despite his best efforts, the memory of getting dragged into the war room for a punishment springs to the front of his mind. He chuckles anyway, "Man, I really can't hide anything from you, can I?"

Nebula sighs irritably, "Peter got us in trouble with dad because he can't follow simple directions."

"I got it way worse than you, stop complaining," Peter matched her tone.

"But you get in trouble all the time! I'm the best fighter in our bracket! I'm not supposed to get in trouble," Nebula snapped at him.

He thought that he should apologize to her, he did feel guilty. He knew how important Thanos' admiration was to her, but he also resented that too. Instead, he says, "I didn't realize you were so special, you're majesty, the evil queen!" He bows to her mockingly.

"Daddy is disappointed in me because of you! You're so self-absorbed!"

"You didn't have to follow me!"

Nebula clenches her fists at her side. She only followed him, because she feared he would disappear like Leuria did. "Why can't you just do–" Voros slammed their heads together.

They both yelped and stopped arguing. Voros scolds them quietly, "Enough. You are both equally responsible. You were aware of the consequences for your actions and chose to ignore them." Nebula fumes. She spins on her heels and storms into the cafeteria.

Peter rubs his head, "Ugh, haven't I been scolded enough today?" Voros leads them into the cafeteria. Heather trails behind Peter, she's uncertain if she should tell him what Nebula was thinking. Nebula always hated it when Heather did that. Nebula would slap her for sure, but Heather knew Peter would understand if Nebula just told him. He might even apologize to her like he wanted to.

Heather is pulled away from her thoughts as Peter speaks. "What'd you want from the buffet?"

She had to stand on her tiptoes to even see over the buffet. "Uhm… I want the green noodles and fish, please." Peter quietly makes her a plate of food before serving himself. They carried their plates out into the cafeteria.

Nebula sits by herself, at an empty table. When they walk past her, Heather can hear the storm of depressing thoughts coming from Nebula. Heather can't take it. She tugs on Peter's sleeve to get his attention. "Neb only followed you because she was afraid you would disappear like Leuria." Peter thinks the name sounds familiar but he can't place it. "She was Nebula's–She was our older sister."

He narrows his eyes at her. He thinks, 'get out of my head Heather or I'll think of something really gross!'

"I'm sorry, I'm not doing it on purpose. Wait–oops." She realized that he hadn't said that out loud either, "I'm sorry."

"Dummy," he flicks her forehead as punishment. It stings a little. They sat down at a table with Voros, Ophid, Miertra, and Allace. "I don't remember Leuria. What do you mean she disappeared?" He asks Heather.

Ophid and Voros share mournful looks. Ophid speaks up first, "It happened the same year we adopted you." Peter nods, he didn't remember a lot from back then.

Voros chimes in, his tone is grave, "I was on that mission. We had eliminated a political adversary of the Kree empire planetside, and we were getting ready to head back. I found Leuria standing on the roof of the building. She told me to go on ahead without her, she wanted to stay and watch the sunset a little longer…. But I–I never saw her again."

Miertra's eyes looked glazed over, "Do you think that she..."

"They never found her body," Voros shrugs. "But there was so much death that day. A mistake could have been made."

Peter shifted uncomfortably, "Neb thought I was gonna disappear too?" Heather nodded. "Shit." He stands up from the table leaving his food untouched. He walks over to Nebula and sits down across from her. Heather sighs contently, she wished they wouldn't fight so much.

Heather asks about the mission, and Ophid cheerfully recounts everything that happened. Miertra chimed in whenever he felt Ophid was being too flippant about the murder. Then, Allace would tease him about his aversion for blood. Heather didn't blame Ophid for their flippant nature, after all they had never known anything outside Sanctuary II. "Ah, I wish I could go planetside! I miss the sun!" Heather complains wistfully.

Allace chuckles, "You can't see it through all the battleships, but the sunsets are still nice."

"How were things here? I hope you weren't too lonely," Ophid says through a mouthful of food.

Heather shrugs, "It's been okay. Photon still hates me, but she doesn't say mean things anymore. I had Celest and Guivre to talk to at least."

Allace nearly chokes. When she finally stops coughing she looks up at Heather with alarm. "Excuse me, Guivre talks to you?"

Heather shrugs and nods, "We talk telepathically. I thought she was kinda rude at first but I think she's just shy. She's sweet once you get to know her."

Miertra pipes up, "Wait, I'm lost, who's Guivre?"

"She's Morgen's assistant!" Heather says at the same moment Allace says, "That's the ship Morgen's working on."

"What?!"

"No, that can't be right!" Heather insisted.

"Have you ever seen them in person?" Allace countered.

"Well, no but–"

"Then there ya go."

"But she has memories and feelings and thoughts!" Heather furrowed her brow. "I wouldn't be able to talk to a machine telepathically! I'm not a technomancer."

"Yeah, that's the part I don't understand either," Allace conceded. "But I am certain that the Guivre is a warship."

Ophid waves their fork at Heather, "How do you know you're not a technomancer? Have you ever tried to talk to a machine before?"

"Er, well… not exactly…" Heather wasn't really sure how technomancy worked. The last thing she needed was to give Photon another reason to hate her. "I'll have to ask Ebony about this."

"Why bother him?!" Ophid grinned wickedly, "We should just break onto the Guivre and find out for ourselves."

Peter returns to the table, he chuckles, "Sounds like something exciting is happening over here."

Nebula sets her tray down and sits next to Peter. "You're going to break into the Guivre?" Allace quickly catches Peter and Nebula up on everything.

"We should go tomorrow night," Peter said.

Miertra shakes his head, "That's not a good idea. We'll get in trouble–"

"Don't tell me you're too scared," Peter interrupts.

"I'm not!" Miertra face turned red.

"If we go at night, the white coats won't be able to complain that I'm tampering with their work," Allace adds mischievously.

Miertra looks over at Voros, "Even you're okay with us doing this? This is against the rules!"

Their older brother shrugs, "All I hear is Ophid planning a sleepover. Father doesn't have any qualms with that."

"Yeah! It's a sleepover!" Ophid cheered.

"We should bring snacks and flashlights!" Peter added.

Miertra groans, "it's gonna be dark?"

Ophid and Peter turned to him with mischievous grins. "Oh? Don't tell me you're scared of the dark, Mier-Mier? Maybe it's a ghost that Heather has been talking to."

"Voros! I'm being bullied!"

"You do not have to go if you are frightened," Voros reminds him gently. However, Miertra's expression sours at the prospect of being left out.

Nebula glances at Heather, "We should invite another one of Ebony's disciples to confirm that Heather is speaking telepathically with this computer." Heather wouldn't mind inviting Celest or Nexus.

Allace smiles, "So it's decided then, tomorrow night we'll break into Guivre and find out what or who Heather has been talking to."