Siren felt the surge of alarm from the occupants of the burned out warehouse about as soon as they hopped the fence. Well... As soon as they did a combination of 'hopping' and Icy just lifting them over it with a manifestation. He knew this was them, he recognized some of the people inside from the emotional patterns they were giving off. Plus, this was totally the kind of place that this particular group of rogue psychics would hide. They must have had some hidden perimeter cameras to detect them this far out, an empath probably would have picked them up sooner. Back when he'd worked for them, he would have felt them coming from blocks away.
"Hey, you guys can't be in here!" A man dressed like a street thug approached them, brandishing a pistol. Siren was pretty sure that the whole thing was for show, this guy was probably telekinetic just like Icy. He didn't feel murderous, or upset, despite the way he was acting, he just felt alarmed.
Icy glared at the man, but she didn't make a move at him since Siren took a quick step forward, holding his hands up disarmingly. "Hi! Sorry, I worked for you guys in the past, I found you 'cuz I'm an empath. Can we come inside? I wanna talk to whoever's in charge."
The guy narrowed his eyes at Siren, suspicion flaring up hard, but Siren picked out a tiny surge of excitement. "I don't know what you and your mom are on about, boy, but you get lost before I shoot you in the-" Siren hit him hard with a wave of dampened emotions. Just enough for about half a second of emotional emptiness. It wouldn't hurt him or even really deter him at all if he decided to attack, but it would let him know that he was what he claimed to be, a tiny little display of ability, like dropping a code phrase.
"Can we come inside? It's probably not a great idea for us to be out here." Siren smiled disarmingly as the man blinked in confusion.
"Oh... shit. You're legit. Alright, come on in, but no funny business. Your mom a Psy too?" Gods. Really? His mom? Icy was bigger and taller than him but they weren't even the same nationality. The suspicion in the guard died down a bit, but didn't go away completely, which was probably fair.
"Yeah. Kinetic and Pathic." Siren nodded, ignoring the comment about Icy being his mom. The guy led them into the burned out structure, and down a flight of stairs into a basement.
"Two Psys coming to see the boss. They say they're friendly." The man muttered quietly, probably into a hidden microphone, as they made the short trip to an armored 'door.' It wasn't a normal door in so far as it was a scuffed and cracked wall that Siren recognized as a door that only a telekinetic could open. Well, a telekinetic or a battering ram. He sent a few manifestations into the cracks in the door and the wall slid forward, revealing the hideout.
"Two Psy's walking right into my little hideout? What kind of day is... Siren??" He felt a surge of alarm flare up from the woman who was addressing them, a skinny older lady who was by far the oldest psychic Siren had ever met. Erinyes. He immediately felt her presence in his mind, an uncomfortable hand, clawing at his recent memories. Siren knew that she could be subtle if she wanted, she had a lifetime of practice with telepathy. This was anything but subtle, it was agonizing and incredibly invasive. "What are you-"
The sleeping Goddess awoke. A surge of force emerged from Icy, slapping away Erinyes' claw like a tidal wave sweeping away a small animal. "NO!" The overpowering voice reverberated in his skull, making him unsteady on his feet as the simple command overwhelmed his entire brain. By the looks of it, everybody else in the room was feeling the same thing, several people lost their footing.
"Icy! Stop!" Siren pleaded as he lost his balance and collapsed too. He reached out towards her, and, to his relief, she did what he asked. Her telepathic voice went quiet, and she immediately walked over and kneeled next to him. She put her arm around him protectively, one hand around his shoulder and the other stroking his hair, as she glared daggers at Erinyes.
"You do not touch him without permission," She growled softly. The sound of her voice sent shivers down Siren's spine, and suddenly he was terrified that he'd brought Icy here. What if this turned violent? It wasn't a possibility that he'd thought of and he felt incredibly irresponsible for not properly weighing the risks.
"Please, everybody, calm down." Siren pleaded as the six people in the room staggered and stared wide-eyed at the two of them. He felt a mixture of awe, fear, and curiosity coming off of them. "Icy, Erinyes wasn't going to hurt me she was just scared. She saw me get captured and taken away. Seeing me was probably like seeing a ghost."
"Yeah. Care to explain that, Siren? And who the fuck is this?" Erinyes had regained her balance and took a step towards them aggressively, but Siren knew she was all bravado, he could sense the fear coming off of her.
"Icy broke me out. It's... a strange story..." Siren winced, hoping Icy wouldn't overreact again.
Out of nowhere, Icy put one hand on the back of his head and gave him a quick kiss, rubbing across his nipple with her thumb at the same time. He shivered at that... and... the whole room probably felt the little spike of arousal. Fuck. He stomped the feeling down and tried to pull away from Icy but she held him tight. Even without her manifestations she was physically much bigger and stronger than him. He pouted at her, why did she always pick the worst times to do this...?
Erinyes looked at Icy, shocked, and then back at Siren. She broke out laughing. "Yeah... Same old Slutty Siren. Everybody's still in love with you, huh? Alright everybody, back to work." Her suspicions faded away immediately, replaced with a sort of warm affection. She waved everybody back to whatever it was they were doing as she gestured for Siren and Icy to follow her into one of the back rooms.
"I'm sorry..." Icy whispered to him as she helped him back onto his feet. She lifted him up herself, rather than use manifestations, like she normally did. "I saw that she was hurting you, and I wasn't sure how else to stop her."
Siren felt... a bit of affection for her, but it was a bittersweet feeling. What Icy had just done wasn't an overreaction, she'd held back, and she'd done it because he'd asked her not to kill anybody if she didn't have to. It was pretty unnerving at the same time that it was kind of sweet. "Erinyes overreacted too. We're all on edge." He smiled at her and squeezed her hand as she turned and followed Erinyes back into the room she'd disappeared into.
He let her drag him into the cramped little room that was occupied by a beaten up circular wooden table and five chairs. Erinyes took one of the seats and looked up at them, a bit of good-natured cheer on her face but Siren could sense the curiosity she was feeling. "So... You gonna tell me what the fuck happened to you after they snatched you, SS?" She asked, using her pet name for him.
Siren pouted a little, he'd never really been a fan of being called 'Slutty Siren' when his... effect on people wasn't even really his fault. He ended up ignoring the smarmy comment and giving Erinyes a shortened version of what had happened. He omitted most of what Icy had told him about this endless void she'd been trapped in, since he'd barely believed that himself, and he knew Erinyes would think he was on drugs if he started describing it. His version of the story had Icy waking up with amnesia and she didn't correct him. She usually let him do the talking. Usually.
"Shit. How strong are you to pull that off, girl?" Erinyes gave a low whistle when Siren described how Icy had ripped through the elevator shaft into the parking lot.
Icy looked down at her hands. "I don't know," She admitted quietly. Siren couldn't feel anything from her, she was shielding her feelings from him. "I don't know how to measure. But I know that I can do so much and it barely feels like a whisper of my Inner Voice."
Erinyes frowned, confused. "Right, so, how many manifestations can you form and control at once? Make a bunch of cubes, this size until you can't make anymore" She gestured to show the size she meant, about a handspan on each side.
Icy paused for a moment, unsure, before the air began to shimmer. They formed so fast, and so many of them. They poured out of her and drifted around the room like snowflakes until the entire place was covered in a translucent haze, the objects bouncing softly against Siren's skin, feeling kind of like square balloons.
"There's no more room... Do you want me to make more?" Icy asked, after Erinyes and Siren sat there, shocked for about ten seconds, which was longer than it had taken for her to form them.
"Uh... no... put them away..." Erinyes' voice sounded distorted and muffled, and Siren felt awe and worry spike within her as the manifestations winked out of existence instantly.
"So... the most I've ever seen a telekinetic make was nineteen, and it took him like five minutes. We usually rate telekinetics from one to twenty... and... that was...?" Erinyes looked around the room wide-eyed, as though she was looking for some kind of trick, or to find some manifestations that icy had perhaps somehow missed.
"That was seventy four. I could have made a lot more, that felt like nothing." Icy spoke quietly and innocently, unaware of how much of a display of raw power she'd just delivered to them. Siren knew she was strong, but as he spent more and more time with her he was beginning to realize she was probably in a class all to herself.
"So... you might just be more than ten times stronger than any kinetic I've ever met, and you're telepathic, too." Erinyes shook her head and rubbed her forehead with two fingers, like she couldn't believe what she was seeing. She probably couldn't. "Figures you'd run across Siren, he's the strongest empath I've ever met, too."
"Little good it does me," Siren muttered, crossing his arms indignantly.
"Oh, don't be down on yourself little guy, you did great work, it was totally worth the fact that you're a walking drama bomb. I was really sad when they grabbed you." Erinyes gave him a coy smile.
"It's not my fa-" Siren began.
"Leave him alone," Icy frowned at Erinyes, and Siren felt a surge of annoyance bleed out of her, past her protections. She put a hand on his shoulder, and he quieted down. "Stop teasing him," She glared at the older woman, hugging him close.
"I'm not saying it's your fault, kid, it's just the truth. Your little display back there made everybody in that room pop a boner, or a lady boner, respectively. I'm used to you and I still had to put a bit of effort into shaking it off," Erinyes chuckled softly.
