Issue 1 Downtime

A huge cloud of buzzing insects pours out of one of the windows of the lighthouse, swirling and spiraling towards the ground where they condense into the shape of Teri who then excitedly walks through the grounds and towards the mansion.

((open))

Apparently having seen this spectacle, Elise goes running up to Teri, an excited grin on her face. "Ohemgee that is so stellar? Is that your power? Ohmygosh that is freaking amazing!!!" She seems to be extremely fascinated by Teri.

The young woman looks extremely confused for a moment. Even here that tends to not be the reaction people have to her power.

"Oh. Yes. Part of it anyway." she says as a couple giant locust settle on her hair and shoulders.

Elise continues to look fascinated, almost as if she'd squeal if more happened. "Oh! Oh oh I bet you'd like Frankie. Do you like spiders?"

"They're alright." she says, smiling. "Very versatile."

"All insects are awesome," she says with a big dopey smile. She begins to look around her. "Frankie, I know you're here somewhere. Hey. Hey, you're cool to someone else! Come on!" It doesn't take long for Frankie to slip out from up her neck and hair, sitting on her shoulder, much like the locusts are doing.

Who's this then?
I dunno, but she seems freaking stellar!

"So this is Frankie. He's really cool." Frankie was clearly a female to those that knew what black widows looked like, but Elise didn't know that and Frankie probably hadn't corrected her. She probably seemed bigger than normal black widows.

"They are. Though you mean Anthropodea if you include spiders. They're not true insects." she says, still smiling. This is an area that she feels comfortable with and she's in a good mood. "Hello Frankie." she says, extending two fingers to the oversized black widow. The locust on her shoulder scatter into the air before landing in the grass and disappearing.

"Anthropoedeea. Neat!" Elise chimes, smiling wide. Frankie sits there for a few moments, almost as if she's fascinated by Teri's reaction, then slowly she extends her prickly legs, climbing onto Teri's fingers.

Well...this girl seems...nice.

"Wow, Frankie normally isn't that comfortable with people. I mean, sometimes he'll climb on them to freak them out intentionally, but...he hasn't done this before, really."

Something happens when the spider touches Teri's fingers. A strange shudder runs through her and half a dozen locust tumble from her hair before catching themselves and disappearing back into the black tangle. "She has a voice!" she gasps, lifting Frankie up to her face to look him/her in the eyes.

Elise's eyes widen. "You can hear him?! Are you like...a telepath? I think I only know like, one other person that can hear him."

"No. Kind of. Not with people. And anthropods never talk back. Not even the ants." she says, her voice somewhere between excited and extremely skittish. "It's strange. Makes it hard to stay centered."

She very carefully reaches out to Frankie again with her thoughts.

"Can you hear us?" she sends but underneath it a chorus of thousands of voice chirp, sing and chatter.

Of course I can hear you. My my, this is fascinating, isn't it? Frankie sends back to her. The voice was rather clear, but not loud. If spiders could tilt their heads, she'd be doing it. Instead, she extended her legs to raise up higher, her many eyes peering back at Teri.

Elise watches between the two curiously.

"Incredible! She's so smart!" A locust slowly crawls over Teri's shoulder and down her arm until it's eyes are right in front of the spider. "How is this possible?"

"Wait...she?" Elise asks, tilting her head, then looks to Frankie.

Yes, she. You never asked, so I never said anything. You just assumed. Typical. She looks at the locust, and Teri may get the vibe that it makes Frankie a bit uncomfortable. It's probably not every day this has happened. Not that she was scared, mind you, but it was a strange thing.

"I mean, I don't really know the whole 'how it works' thing. It's all so confusing," Elise says.

Teri is very careful about letting her power stay in contact with Frankie to avoid throwing her carefully balanced mental state out of order. It's only partially successful.

"Where is she from? Why is she so large? Did you train her somehow? Are there others like her? Does she talk to you?" she rambles on, her thoughts going in a million directions at once.

"Oh, well she's from my arm. When I got her, I wanted her to be a bit bigger than normal just for the look. And yeah there's Wiggles as well, but she's a lot different than Frankie. She's right here." She says, pointing around her thigh. "And she won't be there forever until I get her permanently." Elise seems to think for a minute. "OH! And yeah, we talk all the time."

Unfortunately...

"She's part of you?" she asks, really excited now. "Like a voice in your head?"

Elise once again gets wide eyes. "Ohemgee, yes!!! How did you know?"

"We're like that!" she says, a burst of locust flying from her hair and buzzing around her head in very distinct orbits. "There's just more of us."

"Oh that is SO STELLAR!" she squeals. "Isn't it hard to concentrate? I can't imagine how hard it would be to with more than just the two I have right now. It gets so loud sometimes!"

"It is. Was. We're learning how to be less chaotic." she says, lifting her free hand to bring up a small swarm of all kinds of bugs from the grass in a cloud that slowly took a more organized shape, pulsing and twisting in the air even when the individual insects were flying all over the place.

Elise looks absolutely fascinated. "Frankie would never want to be controlled like that. He-...er...she...is so independent. I think that's why we butt heads all the time."

You seriously think I'd want to be controlled by a little child such as yourself? Especially once such as yourself.

"...and she's a bit mean."

"Oh. No no, they're not part of us." she says, waving her hand to make the swarm disperse when she realizes it had given the wrong impression. "They're just mindless bugs. We are different." she says and shakes more locusts out of her hair which seems to be noticeably thinning now. "But none of us control the others. Professor McManus says that we... that I am a combination of them all. Together. Maybe Frankie is mean because you want to control him?"

"Oh I think I've seen this in a movie once...like a hive-mind thing, right? That's so cool. And...I dunno, maybe you're right. But Frankie really can be mean sometimes. Especially as of late. I think she misses home."

"Yes." Teri tilts her head and the locust rush back into her hair and disappear. Her movements become a little twitchy and her yellow compound eyes don't exactly make her seem more human as she thinks. If she's like us. We could help. It's different. Only two of them. Mentioned another one. Still might be different. Not balanced. Or separate? Help them. Could make it worse. Being a hero means helping. Not just punchy-kicky stuff. Be careful.

"Do you miss home?" she finally asks Elise.

"Well...well yeah. It's really different here. And it's like...I dunno. I can make friends and stuff, but it just isn't the same."

"It will be. At least mostly. And making new friends here doesn't mean you'd be missing your old ones any less." she says, more talking to the spider sitting on her hand oddly enough.

"Yeah I guess you're right," Elise agrees. "What about you? Do you miss home?"

Meanwhile, Frankie seemed to be quite content there on her hand, giving off the vibe that she was relaxing a bit. It's so different here. Unfamiliar.

"The mountains and forests, yes. The rest is... complicated. We forgot a lot when our power manifested too. But now this is our new home."

"It's important not to fight each other." she adds after a moment of regarding Frankie.

"Ohhh you lived out around mountains? That's so stellar. They're really the best place to get inspiration for paintings. You don't have a lot of that in New York."

Her mind is that of such a child that it gives me a headache. Frankie pointed out. Elise didn't seem to hear that, as she hadn't chimed in or gave any indication she heard Frankie. Apparently Frankie was speaking exclusively to Teri for somehow for some reason.

"Northern Greece. It's very pretty and we lived in the mountains by ourselves for a long time." she says, sitting down and running her free hand through the grass.

"You want her to be more grown up?"

Elise takes a seat on the ground as well, smiling. "Oh man, Greece? I've seen pictures and it looks sooooo pretty. I'm super jelly right now. You lived like...IN the mountains? Or in a cabin or something?"

I know it is impossible for her to grow up quickly, but her mind is so sporadic and wild. I know that she gets frustrated with having to hear me all the time, but she does not realize that I have to hear *her* as well. She doesn't *have* to hear me. I choose to let her. She could do the same for myself. It is something that I want her to learn without just giving her the answer. But she is so caught up in childish thoughts and annoying emotional turmoil that she will not see.

"Something like that. More of a cave we built on to. Ants to gather leaves, wasps to chew up wood pulp and glue it together, spiders to tie tree branches together. It was nice but lonely in retrospect."

"We don't really understand wanting to be separate... You are different than we are but we think you might still be one. You should listen to each other. Disagree but understand. It must be frustrating if she is in charge all the time. She fights you because you are angry at her childishness and you are angry because you are frustrated she won't listen." she sends carefully, trying to draw on the things Professor McManus had told her. "It is hard to find common ground, the united voice. She mentioned another? A third?"

"Was it really that lonely though? I mean...if you had all those helpers, it couldn't have been that bad, right?"

Frankie seemed to contemplate the words a bit before answering. Yes, one that has the hyperactive personality that she does. Overtly optimistic and seemingly the complete opposite of myself. I also imagine she will only add more voices in time. In fact, I'm sure of it. She thinks up new designs all the time.

"They don't talk or think. They're mindless and only run on instincts. But lonely isn't always bad. It was also very peaceful to be among all those things in tune with the world."

"Are you worried she is trying to replace you or drown you out?"

"Oh, that's true. So is it all bugs that you can work with? Or just specific ones?"

"Yes. I was the first, and I feel she views me as a sort of toy. Easily replaceable for something new and fresh."

"All of the ones we've encountered so far. Crustaceans are different though, despite being classified in the same phylum. They're strange."

"That's not good. Even if that's not what she's doing, you shouldn't feel like that."

"Are they really all mindless and stuff? I mean, you hear a lot about how things have feelings. But what is it, really? Just instinct?"

I doubt she even realizes she's doing it. Like I said, a child. Back home, it was her and I. Her creativity was on paper and hardly extended to what she could create. Things were simply. Now that the door has opened to the power control, she reaches as far as she can. It's normal, of course, but also overwhelming.

"Instinct and programming. They feel air pressure increase and they take flight away from it. They sense food, they head towards it. Ants and bees are a little different but it's just... like a clock. Lots of pieces make something that is impressive in it's own right but they do not understand anything outside what their wiring tells them to. They don't learn or feel, they change by evolution that changes their wires. They don't feel, they don't plan, they don't think. They only react. We don't know about other animals."

"You have to talk to her. Help restrain her when she goes too fast, be responsible when she's childish. But compromise. Be a weight that balances, not one that ties her down. More voices might help. It might make it louder but it could fill the rift. Less extremes. But most important is that neither of you will ever be completely right."

"Aww, well I guess that's a little sad to know, but still. They're pretty neat regardless. I love the videos about bees and their dances. It's so cool. And like, how ants can lift so much more their weight than they should."

Sometimes I push her a bit because I enjoy watching her fall. It may seem cruel, but watching her pick herself back up proves to me she knows how to continue. I know I go too far sometimes. Tough love is what they call it, yes? She seems to clean her face off a bit, her little legs batting at around her fangs. Do you truly believe more voices will help? I am concerned she herself may not be able to handle it.