Rochelle's POV

I yawned as I sat down for breakfast the next day. For as exhausted as I was yesterday, I hardly slept a wink. Arkarian had briefed Ethan and me after everybody left. It seemed that Lathenia was trying to get rid of me by making sure that my parents never met by killing my father.

Obviously we had to stop it from happening, because if we didn't I wouldn't just be dead—I would have never existed. Yet, I was torn about going through with this. So many people would be saved from all the harm he had caused if Lathenia got away with it. It was definitely a win-lose situation. One that kept me up all night. Not to mention that I was not wanting to have to see his face again.

Sighing, I grabbed the non-cavity-inducing cereal. I poured the milk in and took a bite...only to spit it back into the bowl. Looking down, I realized my mistake, which was pouring orange juice instead of milk on my cereal. "I was wondering if you did that on purpose." I grimaced at Arkarian before dumping the mess into the garbage. This time I ate my cereal dry.

I could feel him staring as I played with my food. He was probing at my thoughts too, which didn't help the headache that I have had since I awoke. "You know you could ask questions like a normal person, instead of making my headache worse." The probing didn't stop. "Arkarian, I swear if you don't stop I'll-!" I left the threat hanging as I slammed my fist on the table because I couldn't find something vile enough to express what I would do to him.

"Something is bothering you."

"Yes! You!" I was tired and didn't want to deal with his probing, so I got up and dumped my cereal again.

"What are you doing?"

"Getting away from you!" The bowl broke as the ever so lovely electric currents in my hands decided to flare up along with my irritation. I swore as I bent to pick up the shards, but I was too worked up and just ended up breaking them even more. "Stupid electric currents!" Arkarian came over and picked the pieces up. "I hate you dad, by the way. In fact I hate all immortals. They just love meddling in everyone's life and making my life hell."

"Uh, Rochelle...?"

"Stupid, idiotic, meddling-"

"Rochelle!"

"What!"

"You're melting the floor." I looked down to see that I was indeed melting the vinyl flooring under my hands. When I tried to lift my hands, the vinyl stuck to them. Luckily it was the mountain's stone underneath the flooring so I didn't ruin any sub-flooring.

"Sorry."

Arkarian just shrugged as if it was no big deal that I just melted his floor. "Where are your gloves?"

"Ethan threw them off the cliff before I died. I've just been wearing fingerless gloves on the rare occasions that I went out in public." He nodded as he swept up the remaining parts of my mess. I would have offered my help, but I didn't want to chance breaking anything else.

"I'll see if I can get you another pair."

"Thanks." Without another word, I went to my room where I promptly laid down on my bed and stared at the anomalies that were my hands. I had thought that I the powers in them under control, but I guess that I was wrong.

Sighing, I tried to pick off the melt vinyl off. Most of it came off easy, but a few pieces insisted on taking huge chunks of my skin with them. Unfortunately, when I tried to put bandage on the cuts, the band-aids wouldn't stick because the adhesive kept getting fried. By the time I actually got one to stick, the bleeding had stopped. Figures.

I laid in a similar position that night trying to fall asleep so that I could just get this mission over with. Yet here I am still wide awake, when I should have been asleep and in the Citadel waiting for Ethan a long time ago. I tried everything short of knocking myself out with cold medicine. I was getting desperate. If I knew how it would effect me on the mission, I would try the cold medicine. However, I didn't know what the effects would once I was in the Citadel.

"This is ridiculous, you've done this hundreds of times. You shouldn't be nervous." Even the pep talk wasn't working. But seriously I should have any problems with this. I had done this more than a hundred times; first with the Order and then with the Guard. And the process wasn't different from one to the other. The only difference is the with the Order it was walking through a twisting labyrinth and with the Guard it was disappearing staircases...which I had always thought was a bit backwards. To me it always seemed that disappearing staircases more chaotic than a twisting labyrinth.

But that wasn't the point. The point was that I needed to get to sleep.

Ethan's POV

Where was Rochelle? I had been waiting for a while. I was starting to worry...and the room wasn't helping with my anxiety. The ceiling had a thunderstorm going on.

There was only one section of the Citadel left. The rest of it was part of the grave for the immortals. According to Arkarian there were there rooms left: one for controls, one for the costumes, and this one. Thunder cracked and made it apparent that the Citadel still prized itself on authenticity.

Just then Rochelle finally landed in front of me. She landed on her feet perfectly, but one look at her face betrayed her. Dark circles were under her eyes, and her expression was one of exhaustion. "You look horrible."

"I had a bad day. Let's just get this over with." She didn't give me a chance to answer. She just started walking out of the room to find the staircase that would lead us to the portal. I was hard pressed to catch up with her before the steps disappeared.

When I finally caught up with her, I noticed there were several patches of skin missing on her hand. "What happened?"

"To what?"

"Your hands."

"Oh." She brought a hand up to examine it. It seemed to me that the currents running through it were more violent than normal. Could they be bothering her? "We need to get going. We're already late."

I grabbed her hand before she could get away from me. "Rochelle."

"I told you. I just had a bad day. Can we please just get this over with?"

"Sure," I said, but I didn't let go of her hand. We walked through the room together. When we got to the other side we were both dressed in black from head to toe, including masks and gloves. "That's odd." What was even odder was that portal opened immediately.

Rochelle shrugged, not looking overly concerned. "Oh well. Let's go." We jumped together...and landed in an alley? From looking around, it seemed like we were behind a bar or casino. Something was wrong. Could it be that someone was tampering with the Citadel again? No, Arkarian was in control of that stuff tonight. He wouldn't have dropped us in the wrong spot.

"I thought we were going to when your parents met?"

"We are." Apparently she could tell my surprise even with my mask hiding my expression, but then of course she was a Truthseer and I wasn't the best at screening my thoughts. "Really, Ethan, you give my parents way too much credit. "

"Alright, then were are they?"

"This way." She took my hand and led me deeper into the alley until we stood a mere feet from a woman getting raped. I wanted nothing more to save her, but I couldn't risk changing history. "There he is." The disgust was palpable in her hushed voice.

"Your dad?" She nodded. "Is that your mom then?" Could it be that it wasn't a rape? But why pick a dark alley?

"No, she comes later. She found him after he attempted raping that girl. He was badly bruised because the girl fought to get away, and mom naively assumed that he had been mugged." The tone in her voice suggested that she was rolling her eyes.

We both turned back to watch the scene play out and wait for the Order to show up. "Why isn't she fighting back?"

Rochelle swore, "They drugged her."

"The Order?"

"Who else, Ethan? Of course the Order. Don't be stupid." She looked around. "Well if she isn't going to fight back, then I guess I'll have to." She probably shouldn't have sounded as happy about the prospect as she did. Before I could hold her back, she was on her father like a wild dog. Punching, kicking, and down right fighting as dirty as she could.

I picked up the unconscious woman, and hid her where she would be safe until either someone found her or she awoke. When I came back, Rochelle was still wailing on Mr. Thallimar even though he was already unconscious and thoroughly bruised. "Rochelle, I think you've done enough." She didn't even hesitate for a second. She just kept hitting him.

"Who's there!" a woman yelled from the mouth of the alley.

"Rochelle, we have to go!" She wasn't letting up though. I was forced to pull her off her father. "Arkarian!" We were plucked out of there just as the woman started towards them.

I was slammed back into my body and woke with a start.

AN: And so the first mission is complete. Tell me what you think. Hopefully it wasn't too horrible. Please review!