>>"Isn't he? Because that's pretty much what it looked like from my point of view. You know, you're sweet and all kid but you need to pick your friends better. You got a sewer monster and a professional pick-pocket in your kitchen right now. Who knows what monsters you're hiding under your bed at this point."

Serena visibly twitched at that last comment. Sylar retorted before she said anything. Serena glanced between them and then her gaze drifted down to Tses. It became cold and her usually sweet and innocent voice came out rather cold as well. "Monsters. Don't even go there. You know nothing"

If the last comment didn't strike such a nerve, it probably would have shocked her as well. Her nightmares, peoples blood on her hands, metaphorically and literally.

"Both of you are being ridiculous. I made friends with both of you, yes. But you're saying that's a bad thing? Tses, you practically saved my life. I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't found me that night. And Sylar, you are in a horribly unfortunately situation. her voice was still firm.

"Look at Sylar Tses. Not as a monster, as a teenager, does he look like someone who gets what he wants and attacks people? No, he looks like someone who has been forced into a corner and barely gets by on food. Surely you must have some idea what struggling to survive is like? I'm not trying to justify his actions, they were wrong. But can't you understand that someone who has to fend for themselves constantly and who feels he only has one safe haven in his home might be a little irrationally territorial over it? I'm sorry that both of you got hurt, but try and look at it from each other's point of view." Then Serena stopped to breath.

The conversation was less amusing the longer it went on. As Serena snapped, Tses felt her own gaze darken, and she glared right back at the girl. Exhaling through her nose, food forgotten, she crossed her arms over her chest.

"Why is it he's automatically the victim? 'Oh, poor sewer monster. He only terrorizes people because he has to fend for himself constantly!' I don't look at him like a monster because that's what his skin looks like. I look at him like one because that's what he chose to act like. I defended myself. You know what it's like being a kid on the streets? Always fighting someone whose bigger than you? At least he has claws and teeth to shut people up with. I've slept through blizzards, I spent most of my life with no home, no family, no friends. You think it's perfectly fine for him to slice me open and let me bleed half to death, but I use my powers to protect myself, and I'm at fault?

And I know nothing huh? Nothing of monsters? Well tell that to the man who got me buried alive in a burning house. Tell that to the sister who assumed I was dead because I spent a year in a coma. While we're at it, tell that to the cops who put me in the hospital for a crime I didn't commit, because another mutant decided to go killing people. He may have dropped me off at the mansion, but something tells me that's not what he normally does, Serena. You want to keep pretending we're both perfect, but look around the room." She took the dish of food and dropped it in the sink. She wasn't hungry now. "We're all monsters."

Seemed Sylar wasn't the only one in the room who'd dealt with the word before. Hearing Serena go cold was unusual, and something to keep track of. No wonder she didn't like him using the word for himself. She kept playing the middle ground to the best of her ability, but Sylar's timid inability to deal with this problem and Tses's caustic attitude was leaning more towards a total explosion of anger. Not what he needed or Serena wanted. Why were other people so difficult.

Serena tried to explain Sylar's condition to Tses, but in the end neither of them was going to admit to being the wrong party because both of them felt justified. A terrible dispute to want to even attempt to settle. Seemed Tses felt just as unlucky as Sylar looked from her words and anger. Sylar tried one last time to talk his way out of a problem he really just wanted to turn tail and run from like no tomorrow. "I think she wants us to see we're both victims in some manner. I don't know you girl, and I really don't want to know you." Sylar spat at her, speaking her language. "But I live in a sewer on scraps because of what I look like, you at least get to stay up here, and pass for one of them." He continued, pointing out Tses at least looked human, instead of like some nightmare from one of Giger's pictures.

"So we're both screwed up, let's just admit that and let Serena feel successful for dealing with our sorry butts." As Tses continued on, telling tale after tale of bad events in her life, and claiming everyone was a monster she did manage to finally snap a deeper wire inside of Sylar's mind. "But don't sit here and claim to be a monster, all that you just talked about but you're still here, eating crap out of a microwave and acting like any human. You aren't a monster, you're just prey for the monsters." Sylar's voice was actually angry by this point, what little restraint he had was inches from breaking.

In fact during that last outbreak Sylar's tail had begun to point at Tses, like a creature wanting to strike, but the boy turned from the room and faced the hallway. "I could have killed you Tses. I could have carved the meat from your bones, and eaten it over your dying body. That's the monster I could be, but I didn't. You're alive because of her, and that's all I came to say." Sylar spit out angrily. Serena wanted him to act more like a person, to be more friendly and normal, and that was the only reason he was here, for a friend. And Tses should at least be grateful because that same friend was probably the reason she lived through that night. "I don't know what good you see in me, and I definitely don't know what you see in her..." He said, pointing his tail at Tses again. "But I don't think we're getting anywhere." Sylar finished, his tone once again turning monotone and emotion free.

Serena was slightly taken aback at Tses' outburst. And then it set in. Anger. She wasn't used to feeling angry, but this was white hot rage. Hell hath no fury were the words that would seem appropriate right now.

Serena bit her lip. The fingers which had been so gently clutched around her arm were now shaking, and the long nails that were attached to those fingers were digging into her arm rather roughly. It was the degree of pressure that would normally make a person uncomfortable enough to wince, but she hardly noticed it, her mind was too clouded.

She barely took note how what Sylar was saying. As he spoke her face was down, she was staring at the ground. Almost immediately as he finished speaking she began as if a storm had just finished brewing and started thundering, or a bottle of champagne suddenly bursting from the pressure behind the cork.

"YOU THINK I'M TRYING TO MAKE HIM THE VICTIM?! I am fully aware of what Sylar can do, and I'm not saying he isn't at fault, I'm saying it's not something he would normally do. The reason I say that is because what he did was completely disgusting and ridiculous, the correct response IS NOT to try and blow his face off! And you think I don't get what it's like to lose people you care about because of DISGUSTING people?!"

Serena's arm was going even more pale from the pressure her hand was exerting on it, she didn't even notice when she broke the skin. Blood began trailing down her arm slowly. Tears were beginning to well in her eyes.

The young blood mancer's voice was very quiet and strained."I have watched as every person I have ever cared about has dissappeared around me, either through death or getting up and leaving. I KNOW What it feels like to lose someone to you and blame yourself. I watched as my older brother, my whole world was torn from me as a murdering scum... riddled him with bullets and showered me in my own brothers blood......

The tears and blood were flowing heavier now. "And then... laughed at me and my- his memory." her knees were beginning to feel weak now.

"And I'm fairly sure... I think I killed him. I am well aware I am a monster Tses. I don't need you to remind me of that. Now, you two grow the F*** up and realise that neither of you should have done what you did, I don't give a F*** which one of you started that, You both have some measure of good in you so F***** show it." Serena's voice fell weak on the last words and her legs gave in. She slid to the ground.

This was getting nowhere. There was too much yelling, no one listening, and Tses was exhausted, tired, and irritated at the world. Even Serena. As much as she liked the kid the condescending tone was just chipping at her nerves. "Right, next time he attacks me, I'll play dead." She snarled. About the same time blood started flowing down Serena's arms, light started flickering across Tses' and the green energy licked it's way up her shoulders to her face.

Sylar's words just annoyed her more. He acted like life would be handed to her on a silver platter because she looked normal. He acted like the world hated him just because he looked sort of monstrous. She saw plenty of freaky looking people though, and they didn't live under Manhattan like Sylar. "You keep blaming everyone else because you live in the sewer. I just think you hide there because you don't have the spine to live topside. I live where I want to live, and it's not because I look 'normal'. It's because I didn't let jerks like you push me around." She spat.

The light on her arms got brighter with her Sererna's last words, and Tses cross her arms, glaring out from the light. A spark of concern flickered as Serena slid to the ground, but the walls had already gone up and Tses was in a cocoon of anger. Serena wanted to take the side of the sewer lizard, fine. She could take his side. She didn't know why she bothered with people anyway.

It seems Sylar and Tses's feuding finally broke Serena, the girl exploding shortly after Sylar's last words. Sylar actually jumped a little, Serena's words and tone surprising the boy as he figured Serena was an infinite well of patience and kindness. He and Tses must be truly stupid to have overwhelmed the girl to the point of screaming. Sylar's tail fell to the floor, like a frightened dog that knew it'd done wrong, the murderous appendage hiding from the girl's anger.

It didn't seem to stop Tses though, as the girl derided him for his cowardly nature. Sylar knew as much, that he was scared of what he was, and why shouldn't he be? If he acted how he wanted, and behaved selfishly he'd be murdering people to eat them, hunting them down for sport just like his instincts told him too. But he didn't want that, he didn't want to be a monster, why did this foul mouthed girl want to be one? Sylar's body couldn't figure out if he wanted to be pissed off, or disgusted. Either way he couldn't stand this girl and really hoped she'd just go away, for like ever.

He wanted to shove the girl's words back in her face, she spouts off all these bad things that happen to her, how much her life sucks, then acts like she's all that because she does whatever she wants. Maybe your bad attitude and foolish pride was what kept getting you into trouble you...no, shes not important, Serena was. Tses and Sylar's words seemed to finally snap Serena as the girl lost her footing and fell, Sylar dropping his rage and bending down to catch her. "Serena!" He exclaimed, not sure why the girl collapsed after her explosion of anger. "Serena I'm sorry, this is my...our fault. Just relax." He said softly, his usual soulless voice sounding very human and boyish now as his only concern was his friend.

Sylar wasn't sure how to respond to this situation, being human was so much more difficult now. Words were so bad at solving problems, usually he could just run and hide, or kill whatever issue was in his way, but this wasn't a situation he could do that. Running would just further his descent from being human, and killing Tses would certainly make the situation worse. "You aren't a monster Serena, we are." He said, before turning his head back to Tses.

Sylar's voice was devoid of any previous anger, he was going to act like a man, not a monster. "I live down there because I'm dangerous. I live down there because I'm afraid of what I'd do up here." Sylar didn't know Tses, and didn't know what crap she'd gone through, but he didn't care either. Every mutant had their struggles, and had to deal with them. And if this girl wanted to deal with hers by being foul mouthed, mean, and immaturely? So be it, Sylar was already half monster, he at least wanted to better his half human part today.

"Round 2 is over, and as much as I'd like to go round three and beat the jerk out of you again, She's right, time to grow up. I'm dangerous and you got hurt. Sorry. But that night, and all this other crap you went off about? Ever think it might keep happening to you because of that bad attitude? You wan't to be a monster? Fine, be one, have fun." Sylar continued, still showing no anger in his voice, speaking more calmly than before.

"I only came here today because I don't want to live in the dark anymore. I won't be another excuse for you and the venom you spit. We're both idiots, but at least I"m sorry for being one." Sylar turned back to Serena. "We should move you somewhere to rest."

Serena pulled her hands over her face, rubbing the tears out of her eyes, even accidentally rubbing blood on her face. Her eyes flared up at Tses. "You know that's not what I'm trying to say. But if you make things explode, defending yourself from a humanoid.. by throwing explody things at it, isn't really a good thing..." Serena's voice came out strained.

She could feel her throat getting sore. Great.

Sylar was attempting to comfort her, but she felt like she was all over the place. She looked down at the blood that was draining down her hands, which was now on both of them, and her clothes. It was something she had picked up on, it didn't take much blood to thoroughly stain clothing.

She froze, and her gaze became glued to her blood covered hand. She was still shaking. Memories were flooding through her.

A faint blue glow began to project from the young girl. She became aware of the blood being pulled out of the threads of her clothing. She shook herself out of her daze. She stopped it where it was and took in a deep breath.

"But if you make things explode, defending yourself from a humanoid.. by throwing explody things at it, isn't really a good thing..."

Well, that made absolutely no sense. The only way she could defend herself against Sylar was with 'explody things'. She was done arguing though. The light curled around her, and it was taking all her effort to stop the energy from condensing in her hands. Once it was there, there was no going back. Sylar apologized, comforted her, acted like he was her friend. Tses' glare darkened.

>>"But that night, and all this other crap you went off about? Ever think it might keep happening to you because of that bad attitude?"

She turned her back and headed for the door. "Well, when you're six years old and the person who is supposed to be your father breaks your arm for stealing food in your own house, because he hasn't fed you in a week, you sort of develop a defensive personality. No one touches me, or hurts me, and gets away with it. I don't care how you do things, that's how I do them. So you can do what you want. Be a house pet. Hang around Serena, or live in the sewers for all I care. But I don't care whose friend you are, or what side you think you're on. You ever touch me again, or heck, you even touch her, and the next explosive you see is going to be vanishing down your throat."

Serena was levitating blood again, Tses ignored it. Her focus wasn't on the girl, it was on the beast. There was a flash of movement and one of the knives she'd pulled out in her cooking disaster buried itself in the door behind Sylar. "And I don't need explosives to defend myself."

Serena's thermals were seriously weird, patches of excess heat and possible bleeding? Just what happened to this girl when she was upset? Sylar would rather not find out just how bad it got when she was actually pissed as opposed to upset because both of her friends were argumentative rejects. Serena also seemed to be getting her words mixed up. "Don't worry about that Serena, whether or not she fought back. She wasn't a threat." She said, trying to convince Serena about just how durable Sylar really was.

Sure Tses could make explosives, and toss them about like hand grenades. But that night down in the tunnels, they didn't hurt enough to make Sylar afraid of her. Maybe at her best she could possibly kill Sylar, but what was important to the boy was knowing this, if he had wanted to, that night, he could have murdered that girl with one fell swoop, but he didn't. That was enough to make him feel successful about this attempt to deal with this girl. "Just calm down and let's forget about this Serena, some of us just weren't meant to talk it out." He said grimly.

Tses however wanted to huff and puff and make herself seem as threatening as possible. The issue with trying to intimidate Sylar was the fact that Tses pretty much just looked like food to him, like any other regular human just asking to be hunted down. And her attitude made part of the boy really wish she was human, so that if he did lose it he wouldn't feel so bad about killing a certain someone. "So sorry your dad abused you, I threw mine away before they had the chance." Sylar retorted to her statement, his empathy for the girl weak at best. "But don't threaten me, don't even try to scare me. You can puff your little chest out as much as you want, but every time you want to count on that pride of yours, that ego to make you a fighter? Just remember that night, because if I hadn't said anything you'd have never seen me coming. Our first meeting could have been me sneaking up on you, silent as the night, and the first thing you'd hear is my tail ripping right through your rib cage."

She claimed she didn't even need the explosions, tossing a knife into the wall to try and finish her point, though Sylar was beyond her reach. If the girl wanted to scare the boy she'd have to strait kill him, because Sylar had seen worse than her. He stood up, and wretched the knife from the wall, pressing his thumb against the blade, the steel bending before giving way and snapping in half. "You'll need a lot more than nasty words, explosions, and toys to beat me if you want to fight again Tses. Because next time you wouldn't even see me coming." He clenched his fist, the handle and rest of the steel bending and crushing within his grasp, before he dropped the scrap to the floor, his mind done trying to process this girl named Tses. Did she truly have no idea how frail she was? Maybe Sylar underestimated her, but Sylar took any threat seriously again. If the girl wanted to pick a fight, the boy would vanish, and the next time they met she'd be greeting with a spear through the heart.

Sylar offered his hands to Serena, to help her up. "I think my apology has been rejected, and we've decided to despise one another. Might be time for me to leave Serena." Sylar didn't like failing at a task given to him by Serena, but Tses was bratty and angry, there wouldn't be any reasoning with her, and Sylar didn't care much for reason anyways. If a problem couldn't be solved with strength he'd just avoid it from now on.

Serena was vaguely aware of the conversation raging around her, the back and forth intimidation from Tses and Sylar, just taking in the odd phrase and feeling pain at every word the two of them threw at each other. She didn't know what to do, she didn't know how to stop this.

She needed to help them, she needed to help both them! As her mind raged a storm in her brain, she very slowly and silently began to rise from the floor.

She was suddenly getting the feeling of Deja Vu. Her mind flashed back to the encounter with Leon and James, the two of them trying to help him and refusal, outright disregard for the way the felt.

Another spike of Deja Vu. Anger. She shouldn't need to do anything about this. Why were people always so stupid? Why was she always the one who had to help people. The blood began to float higher.

Her hands clenched into fists again. Her arms shook for just a moment, before she looked up, tears still rolling down her cheeks. "ENOUGH!" Serena screamed.

The girl had been between the two of them, yet was facing the cabinet (Luckily for the two of them) So when she screamed, and the blood took the shape of crude blood spikes, there wasn't a person in the way.

The flew with amazing velocity at the kitchen walls, as they made contact with the wooden cupboards a huge hole was blown into 3 seperate places along the kitchen counter, the blood lances went straight through, piercing the thin wall behind them and landing in the ground outside with a crack.

Thankfully this time of year, there weren't any students walking past the kitchen outside to be caught by it.

Serena stood for a moment, then spun on her heels and stormed out of the kitchen, not listening to anything that might be yelled at her from behind, tears falling through the air behind her as she quickly paced away from the place which had caused that breakdown. She found her room, slammed the door behind her, dripping blood from her arm the whole way. She slumped against the door as it was shut, pulled her knees up to her chest and cried.

Tses was already walking to leave when Serena's temper snapped. The threats from Sylar vanished, the empty argument, all torn apart with the sound of splintering wood. Tses didn't need to turn to know she'd messed up. And there was too much anger bubbling in her for her to feel the remorse she should have for arguing to this extent.

Sighing and rubbing her forehead, she was momentarily torn. Serena had left, she wasn't hungry, and there was still this darn sewer monster in the kitchen. They could brawl it out, end this now. Make the point they obviously started to that they would never get along. Instead, Tses just shoved her hands in her pockets and went out the other exit. Thankfully, kitchens had more than one door.

She didn't say a word to Sylar as she left. She knew he blamed her. Maybe in some way she blamed herself too.

Sylar's body tensed up as Serena shouted, her power exploding and sending blades of blood smashing into a wall, shattering various parts of the cupboards. So this was what Serena was capable of, Sylar's eyes could see the heated shape of floating blood, but it was surprising still. He'd make a serious mental note to not upset her again, though this time wasn't even his fault! Well maybe partly his fault, but mostly it was her fault. Sylar found his vision turning from Serena storming off to Tses herself about to leave, and the taste of extreme dislike, no a loathing bordering on hatred for that girl.

Serena had stormed out of the kitchen, clearly tired of putting up with Sylar and Tses's inability to come to an understanding or even a moment of peace between them. The girl said nothing as she left as well, through a different door, but Sylar knew she felt the same as he did. The boy stood, and found him self staring at the wall Serena damaged. His eyes couldn't see much of the damage now that her blood was gone, but enough lingered for him to know she had been truly angered with them. He'd have to talk to Roach about this, Serena was in no mood to hear Sylar's opinion or feelings about Tses or herself, and he really wasn't sure how to react to this. He wasn't a social boy, he was only half a human to begin with, emotions and drama were just entirely too foreign for him to grasp.

Roach might be able to help him sort out his feelings, or at least offer to do something about Tses...actually don't wish for that Sylar, Roach is likely to put a hit out on the girl for ticking you off and bruising you up like last time. Maybe he wouldn't talk much about this second encounter with the girl, even if he hated Tses, Serena didn't which meant hurting Tses was out of the question. Dammit this whole night was just stupid, he wanted to just curl up and sleep it off. He made a tch sound as he turned to leave himself, heading through the halls to the back door like he usually did, having memorized at least that pathway his few times here. "Sorry Serena." He mumbled to himself as he left the Mansion and made his way across the grounds to head back to the sewers and get away from this part of the city, the encounter leaving one massive bad taste in his mouth and an headache to boot.