Masked Pain

Fading

Jay pov:
As soon as they made it back to the monastery he began making his way back to his room, hoping Zane had forgotten about checking his powers out. That didn't work, he didn't even make it 3 steps in before Zane grabbed his arm lightly and dragged him into the repair room. Calling it the "repair room" felt inhumane considering that's also where Zane sometimes did tests on them, it made him feel like he was broken and needed to be fixed, he didn't necessarily enjoy feeling broken.

He sat on a grey desk that was attached to the left wall as Zane stood in front of him. "Has anything else been going on with your powers other than what I already know?" Zane asked him patiently, referring to the dragon and museum incident "Nope not yet" He replied to Zane, though that was a complete lie. Using his powers made him a lot more tired than normal, he couldn't use them as long as he used to and when he did use them it made his ankle tingle, but not in a good way. It didn't hurt all that much but it still stung a bit, though he didn't wanna mention any of this to Zane..or anyone. It made him feel weak, helpless, useless, a burden, the list could go on. He'd been feeling like that a lot lately.

Zane hummed in thought. "May I scan you?" Zane asked him politely, "Yeah" he replied stating the obvious answer, of course Zane asked them every time no matter what and he liked that, it made him feel in control. Zane scanned him, it wasn't as awkward as it used to be, him and all the others had gotten used to it at this point. Zane looked....confused? That wasn't a good sign, Zane was rarely confused, he looked back at Jay, luckily he didn't seem worried just confused. "Have you had any contact with..vengestone lately?" Zane asked curiously, he froze. He didn't think the vengestone would've affected him after he erased the timeline. It'd been a couple of seconds, he wasn't counting, Zane kept looking at him, patiently awaiting his answer. "Uhm- no, not that I know of" He was able to keep calm on the outside but his heart was racing on the inside, he desperately hoped Zane didn't notice "Hm, alright, well if you did your powers are just confused and it seems to have forgotten how to work properly for now. They should come back shortly" Zane told him, he obviously noticed Jays panic but he was grateful Zane didn't mention it. He was glad his powers would fade back, relieved it wasn't fading away instead.
.  .  .
It'd been around an hour since Zane had checked his powers and of course he'd been in his room since Zane let him go. He assumed the others knew by now and as much as he was relieved his powers would come back, he hated this. He didn't want the others to know he was weak, he hated being the weak link of the team. He needed to go to the bathroom but as he was walking Cole stopped him, "Hey....what happened to your eye?" Cole asked him worried, he asked that the same way he did when he found Jay on the misfortunes keep. He hated that question, what did he mean what happened to his eye? "Uhm- nothing..why?" He asked Cole after a few seconds "There's a mark or something there, did you get hurt at the museum?" Cole's worriedness was growing by the second, "Oh-" He desperately tried to think of an excuse "I was just practicing my makeup skills, does it actually look believable?" What he really wanted to know was if his act was believable, but he obviously couldn't ask that. "Ohh yeah it actually does, dinners almost ready by the way" Cole told him as he walked away.

Once Cole couldn't hear him anymore he sighed in relief, until he remembered what Cole had asked him in the first place. He ran into the bathroom and looked at his eye. His heart dropped, there was a scar going from the left of his right eye brow, slashed diagonally, ending in the middle of his right cheek, through his eye. Only when he went to touch a hand to the scar did he realize how much he was shaking, he remembered how grateful he was that the dreaded eye scar wasn't there when he'd looked the first time. He touched and traced the scar, he could feel it engraved into his skin and it was the same colour as all the others. He snapped out of his almost frozen state once he realized he desperately needed to cover it up before anyone else noticed. He frantically searched for makeup in one of the cabinets, his hands were still shaking violently so that made it 10 times harder. He found it after a couple seconds or minutes and stood up, ready to apply it.
.  .  .
By the time he had finished applying the makeup he'd stopped shaking, though he was far from calm. When he was done it looked completely normal, he ran a hand past it and you could still kind of feel it but you wouldn't be able to tell if you didn't know it was there.

He started panicking again, what if more of the scars were visible now? He took off his clothes and checked. He seemed to be fi-....his ankle. The same ankle that hurt when he used his powers and the same ankle the vengestone had been attached to. There was a thick strip of a scar the same shape as the cuff was, with a lightning shaped scar coming from it. The lightning went down to the end of his foot and up to the bottom of his knee. He knew the vengestone hurt him a lot so he kinda expected there to be a scar the first time he'd found the other scars but he didn't think it would also leave a lightning scar around it.
.  .  .
He was on the floor, he couldn't move his legs, everyone around him was cheering and laughing. He needed to stand, he needed to get away, someone was coming towards him, he couldn't tell who it was anymore, his vision was too blurry. He was panicking he desperately tried to move his legs they wouldn't budge. Wait, his body had electricity in it right? Maybe he could control it, he had the vengestone on but he needed to try.

He closed his eye, it's not like it was much help anyways and focused. He could already move his toes before hand, he wiggled them, trying to send the electricity to his legs. It hurt, it burned, but he kept going. He took deep breaths, trying to calm himself, hoping that would help. The person stopped in front of him, they seemed to be enjoying his pitiful and pathetic appearance. He winced as the pain doubled for a second before going away completely. He tried to bend his legs and....it worked!? He opened his eyes, spotting the person in front of him before sweeping his now working legs under their feet, causing them to fall. It wasn't too long after that when he was knocked out.
.  .  .
He woke up in his cell, everything hurt. He didn't move for fsm knows how long, he only did move when the vengestone around him started burning slightly, he winced at his first attempt to sit up. Though he eventually got it, his back leaning on the wall. He pulled up the sleeve around the leg that was attached to the vengestone and looked at it in horror. There were lightning scars around his leg all leading to the same place, the vengestone cuff.
.  .  .
He didn't notice he was crying until a tear dropped onto the floor he was staring at. He quickly wiped away his tears, this was pathetic. He was pathetic. He assumed these scars were going to fade back with his powers, he really didn't want anymore scars but he desperately wanted his powers. Meaning he couldn't win nor lose with this. He put his clothes back on and made sure he looked fine before leaving the bathroom, he didn't even make it to his room before he heard someone "Dinners ready!!" He heard Kai yell from the kitchen, he quickly changed corse, turning from his room to the kitchen to join the others for dinner.