Taken from All That Is Known

It was the worst pain any person could ever possibly feel, the pain tore at Max's heart as she looked out the window of her parent's car. Max looked at the house she had spent most of her childhood in as tears streamed down her face while her best friend, Chloe, stood in front of her half-painted home.

Even from this distance Max could see the tears rolling down Chloe's cheeks, nearly mimicking her own as she sat in the car powerless to do anything. She wanted to throw the door open and hug her, promise her that she wasn't going anywhere and that she would always be there for her.

Max could do none of that, all she could do was wait for her parents to finish packing the car with her clothes and belongings that had taken residence in the Price Household over the years. Her heart nearly shattered when she heard the thump of the boot closing and from the way Chloe's knees trembled it looked like the girl was close to losing it completely.

Her parents got into the car and Max watched Chloe slowly walk towards the car, one last desperate goodbye on both of their minds. Her mind muted out her mother calling her name as she pressed the button on the arm rest of the door to slide the window down.

Chloe stood there, looking at her friend as a gentle breeze disturbed her blond hair while tears continued to pour. "T-this… This is it h-huh?" Chloe's voice cracked and she stuttered as she asked her friend the damning question.

"I…uh…Ye-year…" Lifting her arm the youngest Caulfield used the sleeve of her hoodie to wipe away some of the tears while Chloe continued to look at her. "I'll call…every day Che, I…"

Max held her tongue, there was nothing she could say that could make her friend feel better or take away the pain. William was like a father to her as well but she still had her father, Chloe didn't and now she was basically abandoning her best friend when she needed her the most.

Max stood up as much as she could and reached out for Chloe, the taller girl quickly coming closer and hugging her friend tightly. Vanessa and Ryan looked at the two girls, the Pirates of Arcadia Bay and not for the first time regretted the decision to go to Seattle.

This situation definitely wasn't ideal but they thought that moving away from pain like this would help Max. Ryan's promotion at work was the main cause of them moving to Seattle and Max had always told them that she did like Arcadia Bay but would love if they could move away from the town.

After five minutes Chloe pulled back, causing Max to sit back down and look up at her only friend in the world. Both their faces were covered with still wet tear marks and Chloe gave Max a sad smile before the car started moving.

"This will be good for us Max, we can go see the sights in Seattle and you can make new friends at school." Vanessa told her daughter, trying desperately to highlight the positives of the situation but Max quickly muted her voice, whatever her mother was saying becoming background noise to the sound of her life falling apart.

She looked at quickly for as long as she could before they turned a corner onto a main road in Arcadia Bay and she disappeared. Max closed her eyes, hoping desperately that it was all just a big nightmare, that once she opened her eyes she would be back in Chloe's house eating Joyce's pancakes with William never getting into that accident.

She begged, screamed and pleaded in her mind for whatever god or being that existed to undo all of this and send her back. Back to when she and Chloe were happy, when they were the Pirates of Arcadia Bay and had nothing to worry about but school and homework.

She quickly became lightheaded and Max fell onto her side all the grace of a falling tree, her head bouncing against the upholstery slightly. She felt funny, like she was going to throw up and have her head split open at the same time.

She stopped her begging and started crying softly to herself, soft whimpers and tears the only indication that she wasn't sleeping. She ignored everything around her, the way she bumped against the back of the seat as if the car just started and how they turned even though this road out of Arcadia Bay was straight.

After a few minutes Max fell asleep, the tear she shed slowly running down her face while she clutched the Captain to her chest tightly.

ooo000ooo

Jodie Holmes was a very awkward and sheltered teenage girl, far more than any regular teenagers considering she had no social life or friends. Considering where she lived from sometime after he eighth birthday it wasn't that much of a surprise.

The thirteen-year old girl didn't hate it in the DPA Facility but it wasn't exactly child oriented with the black grey corridors, doors without labels and her lack of utter freedom. It could be worse but it could also be a lot better, she could go almost anywhere in the facility and even some places she wasn't supposed to with Aiden's help.

She'd begged Nathan to let her go outside for a bit, explore the world and expand her horizons outside of the drab and boring Lab Facility. He'd denied her at every time, making other concessions instead of just letting her go outside and get a coffee from a Starbucks for the first time in her life.

She had the best tutor's money could buy, did tests on Aiden's powers and how much she could control him but besides that she had nothing. She could listen to the radio and get tiny glimpses of the outside world with her heavily restricted internet access.

"I know Aiden, I get it." Jodie mumbled after her Entity made a soft growling noise while she lay on her bed looking at the ceiling. "My life starts and ends with this place, we're both stuck here and Life sucks."

He made another noise as the lights to every area of her room shut off and slowly moved until he was floating above her bed, imitating someone sitting on the edge. Turning her head to her left Jodie looked at her bedside clock and frowned, Aiden quickly showing his displeasure as well.

It was only six o'clock right now, four hours too early for them to want her to go to bed and considering the clock still showed the time it wasn't a power failure. Getting off of her bed Jodie walked towards the large two-way mirror that took up most of a wall in the kitchen/sitting room.

"Hey, anybody there?!" She had no need to yell considering the high-tech microphones they had but they responded faster whenever she did, well…. If she wasn't angry at them that is. "Hey Cole, are you back there? What's going on?"

Jodie stood there like an idiot with her arms crossed for at least a minute while she waited for anyone to answer her through the speaker system in her 'home'. Getting fed up she gestured to Aiden and the Entity quickly floated through the one-way mirror into the control room for her rooms.

Closing her eyes Jodie saw what Aiden saw as he looked around, empty seats with computer monitors lighting up the otherwise dark room. This was usually how the room looked when she had lessons or free time but considering there was a test in half an hour it told them both something was wrong.

"Open the doors Aiden." A few seconds later there was the metallic click of two sets of doors unlocking themselves after her manipulated the locks. She gave him a mumbled 'thank you' as she walked into the control room and them into a bland, grey corridor.

Looking left and right Jodie quietly closed the door behind her before choosing to walk towards Nathan's office. It was only two corridors down from her room so the trip was short and she didn't bump into anyone on the way there so that was a plus.

Most days the corridors were empty as everyone was where they needed to be so the thing that told her that something was happening were the flickering wall lights. Cole had one told her that the Facility ran off of a tri-core thermal generator that couldn't go offline from too much power draw or a short circuit.

She hadn't understood most of what he told her at the time but what she did understand was that there could never be not energy electricity for the facility. Knocking on the door to Nathan's office Jodie took a step back as she waited for the door to open.

She frowned when nobody did and she couldn't hear anything coming from inside the office. Stepping forwards she grabbed the door handle only to find it lock only for it to open on her second try after she hear the bolt on the door open itself.

"Thanks." Walking into the office she saw darkness before switching the lights on to reveal a desk filled with papers, files and a large computer screen. Not surprising since Nathan was the boss of the Facility so he was the one that had to deal with all the shit that went on as well as the things Aiden did when he was bored.

Dropping herself into his leather padded spinning chair Jodie hit the power button on the screen and voila. Nathan had left it unlocked just like he always did, most times it was Cole that locked the computer for the man.

"Hey Aiden, see if you can find anyone okay?" Her Entity mumbled his reply before floating through the walls, intent on going as far as he could. Jodie herself spent the next twenty minutes going through Nathan's computer, opening recent files first before looking deeper.

Nathan was always secretive but she ignored it as he was a kind of substitute father for her considering her real 'father' was an asshole and hated her. That was alright with her, when he and her 'mother' left her here she wanted Aiden to kill the man.

She now knew being an eight-year-old murderer was a very bad thing but considering how angry he always was and how close he came to abusing her whenever he got angry. Some of the files she was reading threw doubt and suspicion at her pseudo father Nathan Dawkins.

Something especially disturbing was the videos of her in the bathroom, the bathroom in her room whenever she went to bath or shower. Quickly deleting and memorising where the cameras were, she shut down the computer after corrupting a few files in anger as well.

Aiden seemed to know what she had found when he returned considering how angry he was but he did tell her where everyone was. They were in the basement lab of the Facility, an area the was supposed to be locked away from her but with Aiden's help the locks and security scans proved more annoyances than barriers.

Reaching the first main room Jodie began her search for Cole or Nathan while Aiden floated about, looking at why all the lab techs and assistants were rushing about. Jodie could feel the knowledge of their activities slowly trickling into her mind and while she didn't understand a lot of it she did get the general idea.

"Jodie!" The girl spun around to see Cole Freeman, maybe her only sorta-friend, walking towards her with a tablet in hand. "What are you doing here, thought you weren't allowed in here?" That was what she liked about Cole, he didn't chastise her like every other adult.

"That's why I'm here." She told the man when the lights in the room flickered and she started walking next to him as he went towards another section of the lab. "What's going on Cole, my lights cut out and Aiden says that everyone's going mad here about something Emerging?"

Letting out a sigh instead of asking her how her Entity knew that Cole led her towards a doorway at the back of the room. Jodie raised an eyebrow when she saw the kind of security on the door, retina scanner, fingerprint scanner along with a final key-card lock.

Aiden could get her in after half a minute maybe but it was the amount of security on the door that surprised her. Most doors in the facility had maybe a fingerprint scanner or key-card lock and that was it, whatever was behind this door had to be extremely important.

After they walked through Jodie took in the room while Aiden growled softly as he began moving around, looking at the large sphere in the centre of the room that had ring, upon ring of high-tech super-computers around it.

"W-what the hell is this?" Jodie whispered softly as she continued to gaze at everything, she was a confident thirteen-year-old and she was quite strong and self-assured but the feeling of that sphere thing made her weak and tired, reminding her that for all she was she was still only a thirteen-year-old girl.

"This is the PathFinder, a machine we made to detect anomalies in the 'fabric of reality'." Cole said as they walked down a small set of stairs. "It's how we were able to find you and Aiden, you disturbed reality around, especially when Aiden does stuff."

"You mean…You can tell where I am with this thing?" Cole gave her an absent-minded nod as he read something from him tablet only to nearly drop it a second later. "Then why are there fucking camera's in my room!?"

"Jesus Christ girl." He told her as he had one hand clutching his chest and Jodie at least had the decency to look embarrassed. "PathFinder can't tell us exactly where people like you are Jodie, we can get it down to a city at best if we're lucky."

"What do you mean people like me? Are there other people like me an Aiden, people with Entities?" Jodie asked excitedly and she didn't notice the sombre look on Cole's face while she thought of how great it would be if there really was someone else that was like her.

"Jodie…I-I really have to work on this, can you go back to your room?" Cole told her causing Jodie to look at him with a confused expression. "This is really important alright? I'll come by later and explain everything to you."

"I-uhm, alright." Giving him a nod, Jodie turned around and walked through the heavily secured door Aiden quickly unlocked while Cole moved towards one of the computer stations closest to the PathFinder.

ooo000ooo

"Max, c'mon Max it's time for breakfast." Ryan said through the closed, locked, door of her daughter's bedroom. "Vanessa made your favourite, Blueberry Pancakes with cheese."

Max tried her best to ignore her father as she lay on her bed, Captain clutched tightly to her chest while she looked blankly at the wall in front of her. They'd been in Seattle for two days and leaving Chloe, Arcadia Bay and losing William still hurt her deeply, even more so now that she didn't have Che by her side.

They'd talked over the phone, most of the time it was just both of them listening to each other's breath as they sat there taking comfort in one another's pseudo presence. In fact, that was what hurt Max the most about the whole thing, having Chloe so close to her yet so much farther away.

Her parents did try, they really did want her to have a good time in this place and to build a new life in Seattle. She just couldn't, her life was in Arcadia Bay with her best friend Chloe Price, to basically abandon her when Chloe needed her most tore Max nearly in two.

The only thing that really held Max together at this point was the fact that she could still talk with Chloe over the phone. Her dad promised her that he'd take her shopping this weekend for a cell phone so that she could text Chloe whenever she wanted.

Her dad knocked on her door again in an attempt to get Max to come outside, eat breakfast and go to her first day of School. She thought of trying to stay home and not go but in the end her logic and self-preservation won out, forcing her to get off of her bed and go to her bedroom door.

Ryan Caulfield nearly jumped for joy when he heard the lock on his daughter's bedroom click open only for him to nearly drop to his knees in sadness. Max stood in front of him, still wearing the same clothes she had on when they left Arcadia Bay, old and fresh tears marks marring her freckled face while her hair was half-in, half-out of her normal ponytail.

"Max…sweetie, let's get you cleaned up alright?" He gently placed a hand on her shoulder and when she didn't shrug it off, began leading her to the bathroom. There he spent the next ten minutes cleaning her face and convincing her to take a shower while he brought her breakfast to her room.

When she didn't argue or rebuke him Ryan took that as her agreement before he walked out and closed the bathroom door behind him. "How's she doing?" Vanessa asked her husband as she sat at the small dining table, her empty plate already in the sink.

"She's in a lot of pain, losing William and leaving Chloe behind was really bad." He told her as he took a plate before putting food on it two pancakes on it with a little cheese. "We shouldn't have left, even with my promotion you and Max could've stayed in the Bay."

"Then what Ryan, Max already lost William and it would've been worse if she suddenly stopped seeing you all the time." She rebuked while he sat in the chair across from her, taking the hand on the table with his own. "I know Chloe meant a lot to Max but she'll get over it."

"You know she won't Vanessa, ever since she met her Chloe's been Max's entire world." Vanessa had to drop her head slightly when he reminded her of that. "She was always so happy when they were together and over the last year I could see Max really cared about Chloe, she was probably in love with the girl."

It was something that Vanessa had also seen in their daughter, Max had started looking at Chloe the way she looked at Ryan. It didn't help that Chloe did the same, looking like she wanted nothing more than to cuddle with Max and hold her tight and never do anything else.

"Sh-should we send her to therapy?" Ryan wasn't surprised how desperate she sounded when she asked him that, he'd thought about it yesterday at work. "I mean…they could help her right, get her to move past this?"

"It's a bad idea Vanessa. Max doesn't need therapy, all she needs is her friend and we took that away from her." He stood up and walked towards the hallway after grabbing Max's plate of food but not before speaking again. "It wouldn't surprise if she started hating us for that."

When he reached Max's room he peered through the open doorway and saw his daughter sitting on her bed with a towel wrapped around her body. Her hair was still dripping wet, evidenced by the water running down her shoulders, while she stared at her closed cupboard.

"Hey there short-cake, brought some pancakes." Ryan told her with an uneasy smile which turned into a despairing sigh when Max didn't even twitch. "How about I help you pick out your clothes today, it'll be just like the old day?"

Not waiting for her to say anything Ryan opened her cupboard and began looking through all the clothes that she had inside. He had some idea of what she could wear together considering Vanessa had asked him often enough to grabbed some clothes for her when she was in a rush in the morning.

He grabbed Max's usual grey hoodie, a pair of light blue jeans and a sleeveless white shirt for her to wear underneath. Her old and faded grey sneakers were put on the floor next to her bed along with some grey socks that he found hiding inside one of her other shoes.

Putting everything on or on the floor near her bed Ryan left her to get changed, closing the door behind him before he began getting ready for work. He honestly hoped Vanessa could do something when she dropped Max off at school.

Max herself looked at her door after her father closed it, dull blue eyes looking at the white paint of the wood. Slowly she stood up, dropping the towel onto the floor and moving to her cupboard to her a bra and panty for herself.

Not caring if they matched or not Max grabbed the first ones she saw and pulled them one before looking at the clothes on her bed. Considering she was a Waif Hipster, whatever Chloe meant when she told her friend that, she would normally be excited to see the clothes she liked.

Now it only reminded her of the time she spent with Chloe but she nonetheless pulled it on, her hair getting her hoodie and shirt wet as she did so. She grabbed a band before pulling her hair into a ponytail, her half-hearted attempt got her a lopsided one but a ponytail either way.

Once she was dressed Max looked at the food her father had brought her as she heard the sounds of him saying goodbye to Vanessa and leaving for work. She hadn't felt hungry over the past few days despite barely eating any food and it was starting to affect her considering how weak and tired she felt.

Grabbing the fork and knife next to the plate Max began to slowly cut the pancake into bite sized pieces before eating them. She managed to finish three-quarters of the first one before she couldn't eat anymore and knew she'd be sick if she even tried.

Putting it on her desk Max grabbed her messenger bag filled with her school books and the Polaroid photo of her and Chloe. Looking down at the picture Max gave a tiny, sad smile as she saw how happy the two of them were cuddling on the couch as they watched Blade Runner on the tv.

Looking deeper Max could almost hear the sound of the movie as she focused on the picture, nearly feel Chloe's breath on her neck as her head lay on the shoulder of the older girl's shoulder while her own head was inches away from the back of Max's neck.

For a second she could see the tv, Blade Runner flashing on the screen and feeling Chloe's hand in hers instead of seeing from the view William's Polaroid Camera took. Closing her eyes and wiping away the tears that fell Max placed the photo back on her desk, the edge underneath a crocodile clip to keep it in place.

Closing her eyes when depression and despair hit her with a double punch Max had to breathe deeply for a few minutes to keep her composure. Grabbing her wallet from her bedside table Max walked down the hall towards the front door where her mother was waiting for her.

"Ready for your first day of school Max?" Vanessa asked with a smile but her daughter only looked at her with a blank expression with a small nod of her head. "Do you have everything you need?"

"I need my Che." Max whispered quietly enough that her mother heard she said something but didn't know what her daughter had said. "I'm fine, can we just go?"

Vanessa frowned slightly but opened the door anyway and Max got into her mother's car while she locked the house behind her. The buildings went by in a blur as Vanessa drove the six blocks to Max's school that was literally on the road to her work.

Soon enough Max was getting out of the car and walking towards the school gates after saying goodbye to her mother. The cold wind of Seattle Winter chilled her still wet hair as she walked and Max could see out the corners of her eyes a few kids pointing at her and whispering.

She paid them no attention as she walked into the school building at went straight to the reception office. Knocking on the wooden door Max opened it a second later and stepped inside the generic office that had a secretary sitting behind her desk sorting through papers.

"Hi…I'm Max Caulfield, I'm starting here today." She told the lady in a monotone voice which was quickly becoming the norm for her. "My mom said I needed to get checked in a get my class schedule."

"Yes, here we go Maxine Caulfield." The lady said as she grabbed a file that was sitting on the edge of her desk while Max mumbled under her breath. "After seeing your marks from Arcadia Elementary you should fit right in here."

Taking the file Max automatically checked the contents while tuning out the droning of the secretary as deep inside her it finally hit home. Her world view completely shattered as the world took on a bleaker hue than before as she realized that this was her new life, one without her Chloe Price.

Taking out her class schedule she looked at it and couldn't even summon up the emotion to groan at it. Having double Mathematics and Chemistry on her first day of school completely paled in comparison to the destruction of her life.

She left the office, not noticing the secretary was still talking, as she put her class schedule in her bag and looked for where she was supposed to go on the map of the school she'd been given. She brushed past countless other students, more than a few giving her a wide berth as they took in her appearance, expression and wet hair.

Stuffing the books she didn't need into the locker she had been assigned, Max closed it after changing the combination and made her way towards her class. The door was open and the classroom was empty so she decided to take a seat at the very back of the class in the corner of the room.

She pulled out a notepad and her pencil bag before leaning back in her chair and closing her eyes as she waited for class to start. Without thought she pulled one arm across her chest, as if she was holding Captain to her body with it while she tried to drown herself in happy memories.

It wasn't long before the class was filled with students and the bell rang as the teacher walked in, dropping his bag next to the desk in front. "Alright, settle down everyone." He told them and surprisingly they all did. "I know you all had lovely weekends but it is time to focus on school again."

"Now, we have a new student joining us today so I'd like all of you to at least make an effort so that she feels welcome." Spying a quick look at her schedule again Max read her Mathematics teacher's name was Terrance Williams. "Why don't you stand up and give us a bit of an introduction?"

Looking around the room at all the students staring at her Max briefly considered shaking her head but eventually stood up. "My names Max Caulfield, I left Arcadia Bay to be here, I abandoned my best friend and I really don't want to be here in Seattle."

"Well-uh…thank you for…that Max." Williams said awkwardly as a depressive atmosphere blanketed the class. "Anyway, today we're going to be learning about the Pythagorean Theorem, so if you could…"

His voice became a dull buzz just like everyone else's had become in the past few days but she still managed to somehow open her book to the right page and take down proper notes on the lesson. Most of the students ignored her as she did the same to them, even Williams didn't want to call on her to answer a question.

Max blinked in confusion half an hour later as she sat under the tree in the small grass area that the school had next to the cafeteria. She couldn't feel water running down her neck anymore so her hair was dry and she had a tray with a small amount of food sitting on her lap.

The last that she could remember actually doing was sitting down after introducing herself in first period. She knew how she got here and everything in between the two events but Max couldn't remember doing it herself or wanting to.

Ignoring her food Max reached into her bag and pulled out her Mathematics and Chemistry Notebooks. She flipped through the first ten pages of each of them and saw every page completely covered in notes that couldn't possibly be her handwriting.

She grabbed her diary from her bag and opened to the last entry…the day before William died in the car crash. She put it next to her open Chemistry book and there was a major difference between the two styles of writing.

"This isn't possible." Max whispered to herself as she grabbed a pen and started writing in her diary, watching the neat and perfect style of writing appear on the page in the wake of the tip of her black pen. "What the hell is happening?"

Her head jerked up when she heard the shrill screech of the school's bell and she stuffed her books back into her bag before nearly inhaling the food on the lunch tray. She'd put enough on that she was full but not too much that it would take too long to eat, a good thing considering she had to rush a bit.

For the rest of the day Max questioned what was happening to her, desperate for answers other than she was going crazy. She noticed how while thinking deeply and questioning her sanity during her classes that her hands moved automatically, writing notes and she could clearly remember with disturbing clarity what every teacher in her class had said.

Hell, she could remember what she heard other students whisper or talk to each other about in class and as they walked down the hallways. When the final bell rang Max was one of the first out the school gates without looking like she'd run or was in a rush.

Since her mother and father were still at work Max had to walk the six blocks back home, where she could hopefully find out what the hell was going on.

ooo000ooo

"I-I don't get it…why didn't you tell me about this before?" Jodie asked Cole and Nathan as she sat in the latter's office a week after she saw PathFinder. "There are other people like me? You made me feel so alone…Like I really was a freak."

"Jodie…you're not a freak, we didn't tell you because there really isn't anyone like you." Nathan told the girl, reaching a hand to take one of hers by the girl pulled them off the table and onto her lap. "The others Jodie, they have powers yes, talents that normal people don't but they don't have an Entity with them like you do."

"But…you said that PathFinder found me, that it finds them as well." She was very near tears as she sat there while Aiden floated above her with no idea how to comfort her. "That means they have to have Entities, right? Something has to help them do those things."

"They don't Max, PathFinder can't tell the difference between a Talent and an Entite like you far away but we bring them here. In the same building, it can tell us the difference, even what they can do sometimes." Cole cut in as gently as he could and cringed slightly when he saw tears building in her eyes.

"We didn't want to tell you and get your hopes up Jodie, we've never come across someone else like you." He continued as the tears slowly ran down her face and fell onto her hands. "I really don't want to see you hurt if I'm wrong Jodie but this one does seem similar to when we found you."

"W-what…do you mean similar?" Jodie heard Aiden's warning growl that he gave the two unhearing men as a flicker of hope settled in Jodie's mind. "Are you…"

"The data PathFinder is receiving does indicate that an Entity is involved but we're still not sure if it's bound to a person or merely an extremely unusual talent." Nathan told her and despite the negative ending Jodie began feeling very hopeful about this now.

"Can I…Can I help?" Cole looked almost ready to take her to PathFinder right now while Nathan looked as if he wanted to reject the idea outright. "Aiden can help as well, he can tell you about stuff he feels. He really didn't like being near PathFinder but…he told me he could feel."

"What do you mean he could feel Jodie?" Nathan asked, his face filled with curiosity as he suddenly became somewhat supportive of her idea. "Do you mean he could feel like we can? Emotions and touching objects with his 'body'?"

"No, it's… hard to explain, he can feel like we do all the time but he says it's different…" The two men watched as Jodie turned her head to look at a seemingly random empty space next to her. "Aiden says that…it's almost like a map, you can tell a general area or direction but not exactly and it doesn't focus very long."

"Please Nathan…If it really could be someone like me, just let me help." Even to someone who distanced themselves and tried to avoid any feelings, such as compassion, with co-workers Nathan felt sadness as he looked at the desperation and despair on Jodie's face. "Please…"

ooo000ooo

Max stood in her bedroom looking into the body- length mirror, looking herself over to make sure she looked fine and that she had everything for the day. Three months after moving to Seattle she had finally accepted that this was her life now, although getting a cell-phone and a laptop she could video chat Chloe on helped a lot.

The once Waif-Hipster teen had changed a lot over the three months and she was sure that it would take Chloe a while to recognize once either of them visited. After a month of believing she was going crazy and two months of training the shy, geek that left Arcadia Bay was no more.

The first month was the hardest and her parents had very nearly sent to her to a therapist after she began freaking out over things that happened around her. The most prominent in the beginning was the change in her writing, her ability to know everything that happens around her, even if she wasn't focusing.

After the first day of school more things started to happen and she had no explanation other than thinking she was crazy. At random time seemed to stop or rewind around her, not enough to send her into full blown panic as she was thrown days into the past, at most it was a few minutes.

She did the only logical thing she could, secluded herself in a library whenever she could, looking for books on time travel or just time itself. When that failed, she did find one useful book though, Max shifted to online forums under multiple accounts and posing supposedly 'theoretical' questions to the masses on the internet.

She hadn't stopped her questions on the forums by the second month but now she had some control over her powers and knew she wasn't crazy. She could stop her powers from acting up at all and she could feel the energy or whatever inside her, the stuff that let her control time.

She'd spent the second month in Seattle trying to figure out what she could do and what she couldn't do with her powers. Finding out what she could do was easy but knowing what she couldn't was difficult because of the fact she could just be trying something in the wrong manner.

Max could rewind time, freeze it completely or push herself into the future in the opposite manner. Rewinding time was the easiest thing to do while trying to move while she froze time was an absolute nightmare that gave her a bloody nose and a migraine that lasted well into the next day.

Jumping forwards in time wasn't difficult nor was it easy but not in the normal sense of easy and hard. She had to focus on how far she wanted to go and where she wanted to be when she went which made it a little bit of time travel and a little bit of teleportation.

One thing she wasn't sure she could do but was very unwilling to try was Time Travel through a photograph. She remembered how she felt on the first day of school when she looked at the picture of her and Chloe watching Blade Runner, how she could feel herself laying there with Chloe.

It was the two months in which she trained that Max had become jaded and uncaring for the world around her while she grew into her powers. Her parents had worried about it at first but when they saw she was still their loving daughter the worry washed away.

She spent more time alone than she used to, wrote a lot more in her diary and got a job in a tattoo parlour near her house. It couldn't be called a job because of legal reasons but she was there every day for a certain amount of time, she helped out and every two weeks the owner 'invested' a certain amount of money into the future of a bright young girl.

She didn't make thousands but she did make more than eight hundred a month most of the time and with the pocket money her parents gave her every month Max Caulfield had a lot of spending money and no one to share it with.

And that's why spent it on herself since nobody at school wanted to be friends with the crazy Emo girl. They'd called her that before she'd started wearing black so Max was honestly confused as to why they did, it made sense now but not before.

Her wardrobe change was sudden and very much unexpected but her parents didn't mind that she changed her mind on what kind and colour clothing she liked to wear. What they did mind though was the four piercing she got last month as well as the face tattoo she got without telling or asking them about it.

Ryan was somewhat calm when she'd come home with them all, the left side of her face wrapped in bandages with a layer of plastic underneath to protect the tattoo. Her mother on the other hand had been absolutely livid, yelling about how she shouldn't have done that and how Seattle had corrupted her baby.

From a place of somewhat justified anger and a need to make someone feel bad Max told Vanessa that it was her fault then. She was the one that had them move to Seattle when they could've stayed in Arcadia Bay with Joyce and Chloe.

As a growing teenager it should've felt good, made her felt better now that someone else felt some of the pain she had felt. The only problem was the it was her own mother that felt it and it made Max feel so much worse.

They'd both apologized and after a week Vanessa seemed to like Max's piercings and tattoo's, she couldn't really do much else. She did make Max swear to her that she wouldn't do something like that again without telling them and Max was forced to agree, she had no money to do it again anyway.

So here Max stood in her bedroom ready for School, the final product of one month's Madness, two months training with Time Travel and being able to talk to and see her best friend, even if they weren't in the same city.

Max had to crack a smile as she looked herself over once more, she had nine sets of the same exact outfit and she could happily say she didn't care. Other people, people who didn't matter, would say she was boring and predictable but she really liked her style and nobody could make her change it.

She had a sleeveless, blood red shirt on that curved down her upper body quite a bit but didn't show any cleavage, not that her B-Cup breasts had any. On the front of her shirt was the design of a snake wrapped around a cross shaped sword in a dull grey carbon colour.

She wore tight, black jeans that had to be rolled up around her ankles so they didn't get caught underneath her shoes as she walked. The jeans were half a size too small so while they curved around her bubble butt as well as emphasize it, she had to use what little she had after all.

She'd chosen black and white Converse Sneakers as part of her outfit, she really liked them because of the design on the sides of the shoes. It was a cartoonish skull motif with thick, orange sunglasses on with some background detail around it in dull, muted colours.

Even though she had changed a lot Max didn't want to lose her signature hoodie so she changed it, she now wore black jacket with a small hood. It covered enough of her face when she had it up that it cast a shadow over her eyes and nose but it was still slightly tight, not leaving a lot of space on either side of her head.

She'd swapped out her old grey and used messenger bag for a slightly slimmer black one with a carbon black strap. It didn't have as much space as her old bag but she made up for it by using one of the thinnest, but still powerful, laptops she could afford.

Max had also taken to wearing fingerless gloves as part of her outfit, they were the same black as her jacket and jeans. On top of each knuckle there was a hole that showed skin as well as a larger hole just above her wrist on the top of her hand.

She'd had her hair dyed a type of pitch black that glinted slightly when it caught light at the right angle and she had two strips of blood red hair in the front, leaning more to her left side and separated by a strip of black hair.

She had her ears pierced like almost every teenage girl in the world but not directly on her earlobe, she'd had it pierced slightly higher so whatever she wore wasn't too close to her neck. That was a good thing as the earrings she wore consisted of a small chain connected to the end that went through her ear while a blood red heart hung from the other end of it.

She had two ring piercing through her lower lip of the left side, she'd gotten them as close as possible without them being in the same hole. It had been a nightmare to eat for three weeks after getting it since every small touch on the rings caused her pain.

Her third piercing was on the bridge of her nose, as high as it could go. The curved barbell piercing was shorter than most since she didn't want it to inconvenience her eye sight and it hugged her nose slightly as it curved towards her face instead of away.

The second curved barbell that she had was not even half an inch underneath her left eye. When she got the other piercings she wasn't scared, she knew the people were professionals that knew what they were doing but since she could mostly see what they were doing it did scare her.

The final piercing that she had went underneath her eyebrow above her right eye, curving down towards her eye but not very far. She'd had them do this one last and by the time they got to it she was desensitized to the process of having a piercing near her eye, especially after the other one.

The tattoo she had sat nicely one the left side of her face, tying her entire Emo-Punk image together quite wonderfully. It consisted of sharp points, circular curves and the fact that the Tribal Tattoo was not one singular thing but rather four parts were place close to one another.

The final change to her appearance had actually been caused by Max's powers rather than the girl herself. Her eyes, while blue before were now a glowing cyan blue that seemed almost mystical and very nearly gave light in darkness when she used her powers. ( . )

Max smiled after she finished inspecting herself and looked at the clock on her bedside table, quickly rewinding the time she spent looking in the mirror. Grabbing her phone and wallet before slipping them into her pockets Max moved over to her desk to grab her Polaroid camera.

Her dad had gotten for her after she'd begun bringing home Straight A test results over the past two and a half months. Then her mother had bought her enough film for the camera to last her a good few months if she was responsible in using it.

She couldn't carry it all so as she clipped the camera onto the strap of her messenger bag Max grabbed three cases that were slightly bigger than poker card packs. She always carried around enough film for a week or more since, with her time powers, she didn't know how many photos she would take.

She clipped them onto the belt going through the loops of her jeans Max looked at the time again and turned to her door. Before she could take a step though her phone buzzed in her pocket and stopping her in her tracks as she pulled it out to see who wanted to talk with her this early in the morning.

Che: Hey Maxi-pad, face chat now. Wanna show you something hella awesome!

Smiling Max threw all thought of school and breakfast out of her head when she saw the text from Chloe. Throughout the last three months she'd always been there for Chloe, even when she could've been crazy Max always had time for her friend and the girl especially needed that the past two weeks.

Max really couldn't blame her but she knew that it was really far too soon for Joyce to even think of dating anyone. Granted she wasn't dating the man per se but he was at the house a lot and did seem to become a fixture in the Price life.

Sitting at her desk she opened her computer, minimizing her web browser and torrent downloader before opening video chat. 'Wonder how Che will react when she sees me.' Max thought as she brushed part of her fringe away from her eyes as her computer quickly connected to Chloe's computer.

"Hey Super-Max! Check out my-my…" Chloe started off strong and excited about showing her, her short, neon blue hair to her best friend. She was quickly shocked into a stupor when she looked at the girl that was displayed on her laptop screen. "Holy shit Max, is that really you?"

"It's looks pretty cool doesn't it Che?" Max asked her with a cheeky grin while the Price girl continued to gawk at the Emo-Punk that was her friend. As she did that Max looked her friend over, happily surprised by her friends change in appearance.

It definitely wasn't as drastic as Max's but it was big, her long blond hair that usually flowed down her back was now replaced by shocking neon blue hair that was cut to different lengths in downwards spikes while an old, black beanie sat on her head keeping everything in its place.

"Hey, isn't that my Super-Max beanie? I thought I lost that when we moved." Chloe blushed slightly as she was broken from her stupor and lowered her head as she pulled the beanie downwards to hide her face. "It's cute Che, I think it's really nice that you'd wear it."

"Yeah well…It helps…a lot when we can't talk or text…helps with…you know…" The blue haired girl looked down at her lap while Max's smile slipped a little. "It's fuckin' messed up Max, Mom's hanging out with this military freak like Dad never existed and I can't hug my best friend."

Max's eyes hardened as her Bat-Max persona came out, she'd jokingly referred to her apathetic and calculating mind-set as that and now she couldn't stop. It really helped when she was faced with problems she tried to figure out without her time powers when she didn't want to use them.

She couldn't blame Joyce for hurting after William's death but the way Chloe told her about the woman's actions and her new 'friend'…Max had no sympathy for her. Chloe was drowning in an ocean of darkness and sadness while she did nothing to help and went off with this man.

It might not have been so bad had Max been there for her friend but she was may half a state away with no way to get to Chloe. And the way Chloe told her how this Madsen character acted around her and tried to order the girl around made Max's blood boil as her anger warped time around her.

"Hey chin up Wonder-Che, I know it's not much but I'm always here for you. If you really want I'll run all the way to the Bay just to hug you." She could see Chloe really perk up when she said that while a light blush spread on both of their cheeks.

"Y-you think you could… come back for the weekend?" Chloe looked deep into her friend's bright blue eyes with a tiny smile full of hope. Her eyes sparkled with happiness replied with a smile of her own and a firm nod of her head. "Super-Max and Wonder-Che together again."

"Hey I-uh…I gotta get to school, keep my grades up for my nerd friend y'know?" Max stuck her tongue out as Chloe teased her before they both smiled again. "I'll see you later Super-Max."

"See you later Wonder-Che." Max let Chloe end the call on her own time and the girl did so after maybe a minute of them looking at each other happily and sappy smiles on their faces. Max leaned back in her chair once the screen went black and she looked up at the bland ceiling of her room.

'I'm hella gay.' Max thought to herself, unaware of the same thought going through her friend's head. Sitting up she opened her drawer and pulled out two A4 sized manila folders with different contents that were both equally important.

She'd looked into this David Madsen, with her growing computer skills, that Joyce was spending time with as she ignored her daughters suffering. Even before she compiled information on him she knew that he was a broken man trying to fit in where he didn't belong, no one but William deserved Chloe and Joyce but now Joyce didn't deserve William.

"Bring Him To His Knees, Che. Maxine Caulfield." She'd written it in bold, black marker on the front underneath the sending address and postage stamp. Inside was everything about David Madsen she could find, from his first job to his military record and being dishonourably discharged.

Placing it to the side with the intent of mailing it to Chloe on the way to school Max picked up the second folder, her expression softening. She'd had the idea to fill it with Polaroid pictures of herself all around Seattle and send it to Chloe so her friend could look at her every day.

It was extremely cheesy, she knew, but it honestly was all she could do from her current position. She could theoretically walk to Seattle using her rewind and time stopping power but she was scared her powers would take too big a toll on her before she even reached the halfway point.

She stood up and grabbed David's folder before leaving her room, saying goodbye to her parents and going out the front door. Picking up a light jog she went two blocks further than her school to reach the nearest post office and quickly stepped up to the counter, using her rewind to skip to the front.

"Morning." Max told the lady behind the counter as she placed the folders on the counter before pulling out a ten from her wallet. "Arcadia Bay please, express delivery."

Getting three dollars in change Max hurried back to school with ten minutes to spare before classes were set to start. Deciding to get her books for the first few lessons Max began walking towards her locker, more than a few giving her a wide berth and trying to stay as far away from her as possible.

"Caulfield!" Max spun around as fast as she could when she heard an angry voice yell her name, her loose hair hitting her face. She saw a boy approaching her, Logan something-or other, angrily stalking towards her as she stood still and when he was three feet from her he raised his clenched fist.

With a simple hardening of her eyes and a quick blink time completely froze as Max Caulfield looked at the football jock. With his face and body frozen his anger looked really pathetic and in truth the reason why he was angry was pathetic as well.

The boy was angry at Max because she'd told both the girls he was dating about the other and both of them had dumped him after school the day before. The child was angry that he had to face reality and deal with the consequences of his actions.

Curiosity gripped her before she looked around at the students in the hallway and what they had been doing when Logan advanced on her. Almost everyone around them were either sneering at her or smiling that she was about to get 'put in her place'.

Sneering back at the frozen people Max took her camera before looking through the lens and aiming it at the angry boy. One thing she'd found out was that freezing time and taking a picture gave the Polaroid some rather interesting effects that enhanced it in almost every possible manner.

The flash went off and Max walked around the hallway as she gently waved the film in the air even though it wasn't necessary for the development. She went past a few of the girls sneering or smiling and made a few alterations to their possessions of clothes, Bat-Max wasn't a very nice person to bullies after all.

She looked down at the photo of Logan and even though the subject was a horrid child the anger and hatred captured within the image was breath-taking. Max never liked admiring or complimenting her own work but sometimes she couldn't help but feel that quite possible no one could attain the level of Photography she could.

He was frozen in a half step, back foot just leaving the floor while his right fist extended towards the viewer. A look of hatred in his eyes with an ugly sneer on his face while the area behind him blurred slightly and dulled in colour while Logan was put into a sharper focus while the colours on and directly around him were enhanced.

Slipping it into her bag Max clipped the camera back onto her bag strap before she walked towards the angry child. Kicking his front foot enough to bruise it Max walked towards her locker and opened it before letting time flow again after wiping some sweat off of her forehead.

"AAGGH!" Logan's screamed was heard throughout the hallway as he stepped onto his front foot which Max had shifted enough that he would fall. Grabbing two books she had her locker closed and locked by the time his face hit the ground and the cracking of cartilage was heard.

There were whispers and gasps, maybe a few screams, from the students as Logan himself curled into a fetal position. He screamed a bit before the pain really hit and he covered his nose as it began bleeding quite a bit as he sobbed.

Deciding to complete the collection she'd just started with an ending picture Max froze time again and positioned her camera just right. She'd decided to lay down on her stomach to get it right and once she got the photo she walked towards her class and sat in her seat before deciding to let time go for the second time that day.

People ran past the doorway of the classroom while the whispers reached her ears two hallways away from the scene. Blocking out the noise Max looked at the second photo and knew she would've felt revolted if she took pleasure in the pain she caused but she only took pleasure in how she captured the emotions.

Just like before anything behind Logan was slightly blurred while dulling in colour but this time Logan himself also dulled in colour. He didn't blur out but the focus of the shot was the blood leaking from between his fingers and the small puddle beneath his head that stained some of his hair.

Hiding the only evidence that she had been a part of what happened Max pulled out her laptop and opened her digital diary. 'Need to back it up again soon, really don't want to lose any of this.' Max thought to herself before opening a new entry.

Bat-Max had to come out early today because of Jackass-Logan.

I understand what everyone around me is going through, side-effect of my brains evolution I suppose but I can't connect nor bring myself to really care about it. It seems so insignificant to me, squabbling over popularity and trying to do as many stupid things in as little time as possible.

At least I got two decent shots out of Logan's stupidity, if they wouldn't get me in trouble I'm sure I could send them to an Art Gallery to get some feedback. Alas, I shall have to settle for my landscape and crowd shots of Seattle…:(

Chloe finally saw how much I changed this morning and I saw how she had dyed and cut her hair, the blue looked hella hot on her. God I'm fucked up, falling in love with my best friend when she's in so much pain and not being able to help her in a way that matters.

This weekend I'm gonna do my best to help her, get Chloe's mind off of Joyce and fucking Madsen. We'll definitely be visiting our old Treehouse in the forest, god we had so much fun there…

"Put that away Max, class is starting." Mr. Williams told her and Max quickly closed the laptop before putting it away and grabbing a notebook. "Now in light of what happened earlier today we will be discussing distance, speed and time in reference to moving objects or vehicles."

ooo000ooo

"Hey Max, wait up!" Max didn't stop walking when she heard someone yelling and running at her from behind but she did slow down a little and turn her head to look at who it was. Jamie Oliver's, one of the school cheerleaders and one of the two girls Logan had cheated on was running towards her.

"Hi Jamie, don't you have practice today? Thought cheerleading was a full-time commitment." The girl gave a small smile as she breathed deeply while walking next to the Emo-Punk of the school. "How're you doing after Logan…"

Jamie's head dropped slightly as Max trailed off with the rather obvious question. "I'm…it hurt yeah but I think it's good that you told me." Jamie admitted before looking up at Max. "Thank you, you didn't have to tell me but you did so yeah…thanks."

"No problem, I wouldn't want someone keeping something like that a secret from me. I'm sure it would've been a lot worse if I let it go on." Jamie nodded in agreement as she held her books to her chest, not knowing what to say now.

"If you…want to sit with me during lunch I wouldn't mind, it'll be a nice change of pace." As the words left Jamie's mouth Max looked her over, assessing her words and the girl's body language and she saw it was eerily similar to Chloe's.

The girl had been betrayed and hurt by someone she thought she could trust and now she was reaching out for the person that helped her. Albeit the help did hurt her but Jamie seemed to want Max to accept her despite that and all the whispering the others did at school.

"Sure, it'll be nice to corrupt you and bring you to the Dark Side." The girl looked mortified before seeing the smile on Max's face. "Don't worry Jamie, I don't know how you're feeling but I have a friend that's going through something similar. I'll be there for you."

The girl surprised Max by giving her a quick hug and a mumbled thank you before running the block they had walked back to school. Running her hand through her hair Max ignored it and walked the rest of the way home after having taken the day off from work today.

The house was silent as always when her parents were at work and she came home early. The only sounds were her keys hitting one another as she locked the door behind her and took her shoes off before turning to walk to her room with her shoes in hand.

Max nearly dropped them in shock when she saw her parents, a man in a lab coat, a man in a grey suit and a girl about her age all sitting in the living room. She was concerned with what could possibly going on but her eyes focused on the nervous looking girl sitting at the edge of the sofa.

Something was telling Max to be careful with not only the girl but something she could feel around the girl. "Mom, dad?" Vanessa and Ryan looked at their daughter with an expression she couldn't place. "I'm not in trouble, am I?"

"Well I'm afraid that all depends on you Max." The man in the suit said and she immediately hated him, he gave off the air of a sleazy politician. "My name is Nathan Dawkins and I work for the DPA, Department of Paranormal Activity."