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Move, pose, say the words.

Throw, catch, say the words,

Move, pose, say the words.

Cheerleading practice was nothing if not routine, and one that the students of Happy Harbor High were diligent about. Normally M'gann found the constant repetition one of the minor downsides of joining the cheer squad, even compared to the rest of the school day. But that day she found herself enjoying the mundanity. She had almost been looking forward to it even. It was something nice and simple. Something that didn't require her to think too hard.

Still she couldn't be too complacent. She had missed the last practice because- well, she had some catching up to do. This ended up messing with her flow as the team switched to the next phase of their routine as she found herself out of position. She thought they were doing the human pyramid next, but as people moved she realized they were doing something new. She stepped off to the side to get out of the way and watch. As the crew marched around in formation, she didn't know what to do. Just like-

The massive black and grey throne took up most of the wall, a twisted thing that looked almost like a mix of metallic geometry and rough stone. Just looking at it made her want to pull away, but the mechanical limbs that stretched out from it locked her in place. Small spines dug into her flesh, but those were just a channel to let him in.

Psimon was seated in the throne, and with a thought the limbs dragged her closer. "Well, well, looks like it falls to me to handle your new education." He said, a deranged look in his eyes. The man had just as many connections between the machine and his body as she did, but he didn't seem to realize how much it was twisting him. Or maybe he just didn't care. "But I'm going to need a little more information on just who I'm working with first. Why don't you tell me more about yourself, little girl?"

There was no clouding of the mind, no battle of wills like M'gann was expecting. Just something reaching down to the very core of her being and pulling. A scream forced its way out of her throat as she felt herself crack-

"Megan!"

M'gann flinched a little, shaking her head to clear her thoughts. She almost missed the Cheer Captain calling her name and gesturing to a group of three. M'gann recognized the formation for a Basket Toss, and she hurried into position. She locked arms with two other cheerleaders before her friend Wendy stepped onto their limbs and was launched into the air.

M'gann braced herself with the others, arms outstretched to catch Wendy as she tumbled towards her-

Superboy tumbled towards them, his charge broken as he clutched his head in pain. Focused as Psimon was on Superboy, M'gann noticed Robin slip into the room before he did. This allowed the boy to throw a set of birdarangs at Psimon before the man could react. Psion caught them telekinetically in front of his face, but the weapons suddenly opened up and started screeching a high pitched whine.

Psimon's concentration was broken by the noise, and connected as she was to him, M'gann felt his pain. She didn't want to feel this, she wanted to be anywhere but here. But she was trapped, her sense of self broken apart with Psimon reaching into the worst parts of her. She could only watch helpless as her team charged-

Her stance slipped, and she threw the formation off base. There was a surprised yelp as Wendy crashed into the group rather than being caught, her and the lot of them falling to the ground. Luckily M'gann was a lot more durable than she looked and managed to break her human partners' fall with her body.

"Megan! Wendy!" Sophia, the head cheerleader, trotted over. "Are you alright? What happened?"

"It was my fault," M'gann quickly said. "I lost my concentration."

"I'm fine, everyone broke my fall." Wendy added, and the other two girls agreed.

Sophia took a moment to look them over, then another to see that the rest of the cheer team had stopped to see what was happening. "Alright, break for 5! Then we start back up from the top!" She called out. "Megan, could you hold up for a moment?"

As the others walked away, Sophia looked at M'gann with her brow knit in concern. "Megan, are you alright? You've been kind of out of it all practice."

"No, no, I'm fine." She insisted. "I just got distracted, that's all."

Sophia pressed her lips together. "Come on Megan, I can tell you're not just 'distracted'. You've been like this all week. Something's seriously bothering you. Do… you want to talk about it-"

"There's nothing to talk about!" M'gann said, just a little too quickly.

The other girl looked at her sadly before she shook her head. "Take the afternoon off, take a break. I'm putting my foot down." She said firmly before M'gann could protest. "I don't want to do this, but I don't want to risk the other girls' health either because your head wasn't in the game." She reached out and put a hand on M'gann's shoulder "Just… I'm a good listener if you need one, ok?"

M'gann tried to hide the bitterness she felt settling into her gut as she left.

When M'gann entered the mountain, she had planned to get started making dinner. However, when she passed through the common room she found most of her team there, flipping through channels on the TV. "Hey, you're here!" Wally called out. "Come on, it's your turn to pick what to watch."

M'gann blinked in confusion before she remembered. Right, it was media night, of course the team would be there. Kori and Jacob were missing, the two of them having business with the League and the Silver respectively. But… "I thought it was Artemis's turn to pick this week."

The girl in question waved her off. "Eh, I couldn't think of anything I wanted, so I'm passing it to you."

"Oh, that's nice of you…" M'gann started to say, looking out at the expectant faces of her teammates-

Her teammates were fighting to get closer to her and Psimon, but he wasn't making it easy. The throne was enhancing Psimon's telekinetic abilities, and the tendrils from the throne itself were knocking them away. M'gann wished she could do something, anything to help, but she had to put all of her focus on just holding herself together. She could still feel Psimon touch in her mind, and even fighting her team he hadn't released his grip.

In fact, as the fight progressed she could feel his frustration at those getting in his way, at his concentration constantly being broken by attacks. "Enough of this!" He yelled, and used the throne limbs to drag M;gann in front of him. "Surrender, or find out what happens when I take a Martian's mind apart, piece by piece." And to prove his point, he dug even deeper into M'gann's mind, looking for the worst thing he could find.

Pulled apart as her psyche was, something bubbled to the surface. A thought, a small seed that had come from outside her own mind that had been growing for months. Each dark thought she had suppressed had been sent there, growing and churning. It had been made worse by Psimon's psychic influence on the city. And now, on feeling Psimon's touch dig deeper, it surfaced.

M'gann screamed in terror, pain, and fury as she Burned.

"Wait, what is-" Psimon's shout turned into a scream, confusion suddenly turning to fear and pain as he Burned with her. The fire wanted to hurt, wanted to make others suffer the way she had. As much as it hurt and horrified her, it gave her a twisted sense of power. If she had to feel this pain, then she could make others feel it! She… she could…

She couldn't stop. The flames were spreading and she couldn't stop. One by one she saw her Burning reach her friends and they dropped in pain. Her friends were in danger, she couldn't stop, and she could still feel Psimon touch. She just wanted it to stop-

M'gann shuddered. "Actually, I think I'll just turn in. You guys can watch without me."

Kaldur spoke up. "It doesn't have to be a movie. I'm sure we could do something else if you wanted."

She could see what they were doing, and yet she still couldn't bring herself to stay. "Thanks, but… I'd rather not." Kaldur started to say something else, but she turned and hurried away.

She made it most of the way to her room before a voice called out behind her "M'gann, wait!" In spite of herself, M'gann turned back to see Conner walk up to her.

Before he could say anything else, she held out a hand to stop him. "Not yet, Connor. I just… I can't right now." This wasn't the first time since the mission that Connor had tried to talk to her about it. But every time he did, she just felt a hollow pit open inside of her remembering what happened.

"Well, when can you-" he started to say before he caught himself. "Sorry, I just- I want to make sure you're okay."

"I'm… fine." She settled on, her tone resigned. "I'm as fine as I can be, considering what I did."

"M'gann, it's not your fault." Connor insisted. "Jacob said it was a memetic… it was a thing that you accidentally pulled out of his head at some point. It's not actually you."

"I know that!" She forced out. "But that's not- that doesn't make me feel any better about what happened!"

Connor looked at her, pained. "Then let me help. Just… please, tell me what I can do to help."

M'gann looked down at the ground, trying to keep her emotions in check. "I need to be alone," She said. She didn't trust herself to say anything else.

She didn't look up, but eventually she heard him turn and walk away, leaving her alone in the hallway. She made her way to her room, and on getting there simply dropped herself on to her bed. She stared at the ceiling, and her mind wandered.

She didn't know how long it lasted, how long everything Burned out of her control. She thought she saw Superboy manage to lift his head in spite of the pain and fire his heat rays at the throne. There was a crash and suddenly she found herself collapsed on the cold ground.

She shakily lifted her arm in front of her and looked around. She wasn't burning. Nothing was burning. For a treacherous moment, she hoped that it had just been a sort of nightmare. But then she saw her friends picking themselves up off the ground, and she whimpered. It was a nightmare she had made real for all of them.

Superboy rushed over to her and tore off her limp connections to the throne before pulling her into his arms. She couldn't help but grip tightly to him as tears welled up in her eyes. It was such that she almost missed the sound of struggling behind her. She looked to see Psimon trapped by the ruined remains of the throne, trying desperately to remove his own connections.

"Help me!" He said as he pawed at the metal tendril at the base of his skull. Smoke and flames were starting to pour from the ruined machine, and were creeping closer. "I'll give you anything you want, just help me!"

Superboy stared at the man for a long moment before he turned and walked away. M'gann heard him scream for a few moments before it was cut off by an explosion.

And yet she could still feel him in her head-

M'gann curled in on herself, trying not to let that pit of bitterness consume her.

She finally came out of her room hours later, long after most of the team went home and Connor went to sleep. Staying in her room had done nothing to quell the ball of anxiety in her gut, so she left it to do one of the few things she could think of that might help: cooking. She wasn't going to be able to get to sleep like this, and she had found the act of making food soothing before.

And yet as she set about work, she just couldn't get things right. She wanted to make a pie, but measured the ingredients wrong and had to start over. She had an accident in mixing that caused her to lose a good bit of the filling. She couldn't get the designs right on the crust, so she just threw it into the oven in a fit of frustration and stormed off. And when she came back later, she realized she had set the oven temperature too high.

She cursed and moved to quickly pull the pie out of the oven, setting it down on the counter. The crust was blackened and burned and no doubt it's insides were overcooked as well.

M'gann… just stopped, and stared at the ruined pastry. The only sound in the kitchen was the clock on the wall ticking. Slowly, she started to shake. Her teeth grit as she tried to get a hold of herself, keep it together. Plates and furniture around her rattled as she squeezed her eyes shut, trying her best to just get everything to stop-

Arms suddenly wrapped around M'gann, snapping her out of her fugue. "It's alright," Kori's voice whispered in her ear, and M'gann felt the warmth of her body against her. "It's alright."

All the bits that had started to float fell back down, and M'gann stiffened in surprise. "K-Kori! I- when did you-"

"I just got in," The other woman said. "And I saw what was happening."

M'gann twisted a little in the other woman's embrace. "You- I- I'm fine, you don't have to..."

Close as she was, M'gann couldn't miss the flat look Kori gave her. "I've heard that phrase said to me enough times that I can tell when it's not true. Come with me."

Somehow, though a combination of physical wrangling and soothing words, Kori had moved the two of them to the common room couch. The Tamaranian still held on to her, letting M'gann lean back against her while she kept her arms around her middle. This wasn't the first time Kori had tried something like this since the mission, but at that moment M'gann was just too tired to fight her off. "Are you going to try and get me to open up too?" She asked in an almost defeated tone.

"Not if you don't want me to." Kori replied. "But you do know they're just trying to help, don't you?"

"I know, but…" She trailed off and gestured vaguely.

Kori didn't ask her to explain, or say anything else. She just continued to hold on to M'gann and gently rock side to side. M'gann tried to summon up her indignation, but given how warm and comfortable she felt in that embrace she couldn't manage it. So she let it be for the moment, taking the time to gather her thoughts.

Eventually, M'gann managed to figure out what she wanted to say. "I think I have to leave the team."

She felt Kori go stiff against her. "What? Why?"

M'gann pulled herself out of Kori's grasp and sat up. "I messed up. I let Psimon in- I mean, he beat me. And it endangered the rest of the team."

"And they don't hold it against you."

"It doesn't matter," M'gann muttered. "After what happened I can't trust myself not to hurt my teammates. I just… I can't."

"M'gann, I don't believe that. Psimon was using you-" The woman cut herself off as M'gann twitched, and then continued. "This was out of your control. You're not going to hurt us. Why do you think-"

M'gann shook her head, cutting Kori off. "You don't know that. It will only be a matter of time before I mess up again."

Kori paused. "Well, if you feel that, then maybe you could get some more training with your uncle? He's been a Manhunter for a long time, I'm sure he's experienced something like this before. If you talked to him-"

"No." M'gann said quickly. "There's nothing he can help with."

"But I'm sure he'd understand-"

"No he wouldn't." She said sharply. "He doesn't know what it's like to have the worst part of you brought out. I don't want him to see me as a freak."

"Wait, you're not-"

"There's nothing to say! Nothing anyone would understand! Not you, not my uncle, not the team!" She yelled. "I can't get past it! I feel like I've been damaged in a way I can't fix, and it's taking everything just to not fall to pieces! That wretched bit of me is still there and I hate it! Even now I can still feel what that bastard did to me and I just feel so, so… disgusting!"

M'gann clamped her eyes shut as she tried to calm down. After a few moments she got control of herself and slowly opened her eyes again. She expected to see Kori looking at her with an expression of unease or pity, but that wasn't quite what she saw. For once she couldn't place Kori's expression, the normally open woman's face having turned into a still mask.

Kori was silent for several long moments. Eventually, she reached out, not to embrace her again, but just to take her hand. "You don't have to talk. But I ask that you listen to me, for just a little bit." M'gann wasn't sure what Kori was going to say, but she gave a shallow nod and the woman continued. "I remember when I was young, when my parents were training me to lead our people, they told me of the atrocities people can bring to bear on each other. What it can do to a person, how it can weigh down their soul. Being young as I was, it wasn't until later I understood what they meant. After I had been given away as a slave."

Kori looked away, her eyes not focused on anything. "During my enslavement I suffered a number of tortures. I was given out to new 'masters' periodically, high ranking Citadelians or Gordainians. Most of them used me for hard labor, or put me on display as a trophy. I suffered it all, never losing my resolve. But the last one was… different. He liked to pit his slaves against one another in bloodsport, and placed me among them. I tried to convince the other prisoners not to fight, but having been broken for so long they only saw my pleas as a sign of weakness. Most of them ganged up on me when the battle started."

Kori shifted a little, and M'gann could feel a tension building. "I suppose I was lucky I survived, most of the others didn't. I had to be dragged to my own cell. Chained down to that cold floor, I thought I could not get lower." Her expression hardened. "But then I learned I had not been given my own cell to keep me away from the other. It was because I had captured my slave master's interest."

With mounting dread, M'gann listened to her continue. "I was exhausted, weak, at his mercy. And he wanted to break me for my defiance. And in his sick mind, there was only one degradation that was suitable." Kori looked back at M'gann. "He raped me."

M'gann didn't say anything. She couldn't, she could only listen as Kori continued. "That was the thing which broke my resolve to endure. That feeling of filth, of helplessness, of violation that settled in me that I just couldn't stand. I gave in to rage to smother those feelings, and I killed him the first chance I got. I didn't care that it would mean my own death, as I couldn't live with myself otherwise." The woman drew in a deep breath. "I can't say it was the wrong choice, but it did not remove the twisted hurt that I felt."

"...then what happened?" M'gann hadn't meant to speak, but the soft words slipped out of her. She didn't understand what she was feeling, just that the sense of tension in her core needed the other woman to keep talking.

"My capture by the Psions, and then my escape." Kori said simply. "With that bit of hope, I remembered everything I had been through up until then… and everything that was waiting for me if I could press on. And with that I realized I could get past it." She sat up a little straighter. "I'm not going to say what happened to me is the same as what happened to you, trying to compare such vile things is pointless. But I want you to know what I've been through, so that you'll believe what I have to say next."

Kori leaned in and cupped M'gann's face. M'gann froze, and for a moment the only thing she could focus on was Kori's vibrant green eyes, filled with warmth and love.

"You are stronger than what happened to you. I have lived with you and fought by your side, I know who you are. You have been wounded, but you don't have to let those wounds define you. This pain hurts, but when it fades, the brilliant and wonderful person that you are will still be here."

There was silence. Then, slowly, M'gann felt that pit of bitterness inside her start to break. That tension, that hollowness she had been trying to crush down simply came apart. She trembled as she lost control of herself, and every emotion she had been trying to hold back rushed forward. A wail worked its way out of the girl's throat as she pitched forward into Kori. The other woman caught her and pulled her in close as M'gann sobbed against her. "It's alright," Kori said while she cried. "Everything is going to be alright."

They spent most of the night on that couch in each other's embrace, but by the end of it, M'gann started to believe her.

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A/N: Oh boy, am I nervous about this one. This chapter was particularly stressful for me to write as, well, if anything I've ever written needs to land correctly it's this piece. I spent inordinate amount of time stressing over individual sentences, just to be sure they felt right. And I'm still not sure if they are, but I hope I'm getting the tone where it needs to be.

Given the stress of this chapter, and the stress I've had for the last few in general, I think I'm going to take the rest of the year off from writing.