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Sylvia had gotten Torrance's class schedule from Dave.  She thought about going to see the nurse about being sick and then using that as an excuse to slip out and spy on the other girl, but when she realized they'd call home she decided to take the slacker approach.  She just skipped classes.

She leans into the gap between two rows of lockers, hands tucked in the pockets of her cardigan, face a mask of doll-like indifference.  As she waits, she thinks about Smith and Torrance.  Smith killed people for money.  Smith reads them and breaks them.  It's what he does best.  Torrance murdered her friends and came to believe that the people around her were no more than clockwork drones, meant to be manipulated.  For her own amusement she, too, reads people and breaks them.

Sylvia worries sometimes that this is where her strength lies.  She worries that this is what she's meant for, that she's not doing right by her friends and the people around her by maintaining ethical quibbles about mental privacy or integrity.  If she weren't so intent on not using her powers, if she weren't such a pussy, Torrance might not have subverted Donnie.  Elrod might not be in the hospital.  With Smith gone, Sylvia has to find the strength to do all every nasty task she might otherwise have foisted off on him, and she wonders now if she can or can't, will or won't.  I have to do my own dirty work now.

Torrance moves from one class to the next with a cluster of friends.  They have the vapid air to them that some people in high school have.  A vacancy that will haunt some later in life, and others will maintain until the day they die.  There is laughing and giggling, and pointing.  Whispers and snickers and the occasional "Opps, sorry." 

Sylvia's intensity is revealing layers around her she had normally been oblivious to.  Like patterns of color that were shifting into a kaleidoscope like evolution.  The colors are people though, with their thoughts and feelings sticking out of them like clouds of overlapping fabric fluttering on the breeze as they move.  Some of them blend into tapestries, so float alone in the sea of color.  some vanish completely in the movements of the lives around them.  It's then that Sylvia's attention is pulled back towards the world of sound and physical presence by a bright sound, a warm color and the urging of a physical motion, a gentle shaking, but with a grip like iron.  The sounds around her rise up into a cacophony and then coalesce into a single clear word.  "Sylvia."

It's John, his hand on her arm and his body near hers.  She can feel the heat from him, almost unpleasant as he gently shakes her arm.  "Are you okay.  I got your text, what's up?"

It's possible the look she gives him is at first cold.  Humans have a habit of looking at each other's faces to glean the information they need about what each other is thinking or feeling.  Sylvia, with the colors still vivid around her, doesn't need that, and so her eyes bore right through him.  She sees his fear, his loneliness, his sense of duty, his aspirations, and they mean so much more to her than his face.  "I'm all right."  Those three words change his colors.  Anxiety dissipates a little.  Excitement rises.  He's like a kaleidoscope, and Sylvia begins to understand the temptation to play with him, or anyone.  "Torrance manipulated Donnie into attacking Elrod.  I'm here to find out if a friend of mine did what I asked and turned her powers off.  The others didn't want me to go alone."  She sees his colors change again as he parses her language and watches her remote expression.  "I'm glad you're here," she reassures him.

"Is Donnie okay?  I haven't heard anything about Elrod's condition since Dave told me he was at the hospital."  John shifts his gaze to Torrance and her crowd, and his eyes follow them even after they turn the corner and continue down the hall.  "She seems calm, too calm for someone who might have had their paranormal powers recently turned off."  He cocks his head slightly and Sylvia can see the colors of others shift slightly as his perceptions extend out over them.  "They're talking about going out tonight, Torrance is suggesting they go have a few beers at her place."

"Colin and I removed what Torrance had done, but he's sick with guilt and disgust."  Her gaze swivels to Torrance.  "You're right.  Too calm.  Maybe she doesn't know.  I'm going to have to dig in to find out if it worked.  If it looks like I'm losing the fight, knock me out and get me out of there.  She  might try to turn me.  She's done it before."

"Turn you?  I don't like the sound of that."  John says.  "Just try to be careful."

Sylvia nods and follows Torrance down the hall.  She tries to wait for a moment when Torrance is alone, and she's not above nudging Torrance's friends away--one with the excuse that she has to visit the lavatory, another with the pressing feeling that she forgot something in her locker.

With little effort Sylvia isolates Torrance, as much as anyone can be isolated in a school with this many people moving through it.

It's when her hangers-on have left Torrance that Sylvia begins to slide into her mind like a cat burglar stealing into the Louvre.  She's careful, but in a way she's testing to see if Torrance notices or if she has, in fact, been declawed.

It's only a second before Sylvia realizes that there is an outside influence reaching into Torrance.  It has a familiar hum to it, which is the only reason she noticed it.  There is a sound like a wire snapping, and Torrance begins to collapse.

OOC: Sylvia make a Will Save DC 10

Will Save (1d20=7) (http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1463192/)

OOC: This is a new chapter and you have your Hero Point to spend again if you wish.  OR, we can see what happens when we come back from commercial break :)

[Drama, baby!  Bring it on.]

Sylvia feels Torrance's brain flutter.  Something deep inside her mind spasms once then falls limp.  She beging to follow, falling towards the floor with a trail of blood oozing from her right nostril.  Sylvia feels that same force that sent Torrance to the floor tugging at her, pulling her in like the vortex of a sinking ship.

OOC: Sylvia make a Fortitude Save DC 10

Fortitude Save (1d20=10) (http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/1463322/)

Sylvia manages to pull herself out and away from the black hole.  she returns to the world of physical reality with John holding her and looking into her face.  She can still sense his concern, "Are you okay?"

She blinks at John for a few seconds and manages a feeble nod.  "He's doing it now.  I almost got caught in it."

Sylvia knew Smith was powerful, but she knew the way she knows Carolyn can do stunt jumps on a motorcycle.  She's never seen it.  She takes it on faith.  But this is the first time she's felt it, the raw power of it.  There's nothing jittery or hesitant about his psychokinesis.  Instead, it's vast and implacable, irresistable.  She and Torrance are nothing more than bonfire sparks in the face of his supernova.  It's humbling and, if she forgets his dry humor and rumpled pajamas, terrifying.

"Well, maybe he could be a little more subtle."  John nods and Sylvia can see people crowded around Torrance.  "They called for an ambulance while you were still fuzzy."

She braces herself against the wall and gives the crowd a haggard look, then starts to push her way through the tangled throng of spectators so she can see for herself.

Torrance is lying on the floor.  A trickle of blood from her nose.  A teacher is keeping the students a respectable distance back from the girl.  Her breathing seems regular, and it's almost as if she were merely sleeping.

A few minutes later the paramedics arrive and cart her off to the hospital.

[Done?]

OOC: Sure