Chapter 8: Katie's Trials, Part 2

'This power... is so intoxicating...' Katie thought to herself through her blurred consciousness, not really understanding what she was doing nor the ramifications of her actions. As the floor was falling out beneath her feet, she only had a single thought in her head. "Wheeee!" Katie yelled amongst the golden debris, while the drug CEO had the exact opposite reaction, "FUCKFUCKFUCKWHYYYYYY!!!"

*KATHUNK* All the rubble/human beings from the room above crashed down into this empty conference room, causing a massive sound to rumble out, and the tower to shake. The shaking carried its way up to the top floor where the executive office was located. This disturbance caused an old man who was dressed in a sharp business suit to glance downwards where the commotion came from, and a flash of both anger and panic appeared on his face.

He snapped at an assistant beside him, saying, "Find the problem, and fix it! If anything happens to my grandkids, someone is going to pay!" The assistant had worked with this man for many years, and had only seen him this serious just a handful of times, and each time, there were consequences that affected the world over.

"Yes, sir!" The assistance punched out, breaking the full wall-sized window, and jumping out. This regular business secretary happened to have a very nice quirk, Flight. These kinds of quirks that grant flight directly, without having to experiment around are very rare, and equally as desirable. Anyways, he quickly flies down a few floors before seeing a sheet of gold in place of glass, and through some broken parts of the window, sees a massive hole that leads further down. He paled at the implication that this had anything to do with the recently resuscitated Katie, he quickly flew in through a gap in the window.

He was shocked, the entire interior of the room was solid gold, the walls, the door, the glass, everything. 'Katie shouldn't be capable of transforming things into gold at such a rapid pace, there is something deeper to the whole thing,' but he quickly shakes his head of unnecessary thoughts, and flies down into the hole. He flew down 3 or 4 stories before seeing a massive pile of debris, littered with chunks of gold here and there. He quickly shouts out for Katie calling her name, but receives no response. The secretary hesitates, worried that if he tried sifting through the rubble, he would cause further collapses. He quickly calls his boss on a radio.

"Boss, there is a pile of debris, and I am nearly certain that Katie was caught up in it, what do I do!?"

A voice came from the other end of the radio, the old man who was the secretary's boss said, "We don't have anyone nearby that can make a difference, just try, no matter what happens, I wont hold you responsible." This hardened the man's resolve, as he dove into the pile of debris, calling Katie's name, and rapidly sifting through the wreckage.

-0- Katie

My head... hurts... and I feel all... fuzzy...?

As I regained a little bit of composure, I realized that I can't see anything, and that it's hard to breathe. I fished my phone out, and felt that the screen is totally shattered, luckily I can still turn on the flashlight. The sight that I was met with left me speechless. Buried in rubble... and a lot of it is gold? What on earth happened? The last thing I remember was that the CEO was pulling out a... dart gun? And shot me with some kind of drug? ...Trigger!!! Holy shit! That's what that does!? I felt all of my reason slipping, and just started transmuting everything, the weight of the gold should've caused the floor to collapse. Even now, I'm battling to retain my rationality and not just start turning things into gold. It feels so... smooth... like there was a blockage inside of me that was removed, letting my power flow freely, man, if I'm not careful, I could get addicted real easily.

Well, shit. I just accepted my new lot in life, and now I'm gonna get crushed. Maybe I'm accepting this outcome too soon? Maybe with a new life, I have to have a new attitude? Hmm, if I live, I'll think on it.

"..tie!...Kat...!...Katie!...KATIE!!!" A panicked voice that I had never heard before was calling my name, and from the sound of it, digging through the rubble. I tried to call out, but the dust in the air is choking me, making me unable to call out, so I started kicking the metal plate above me, creating clanging noises. Whoever was searching for me obviously heard that, because the shuffling noises that were barely audible suddenly became digging noises that were just overhead. Suddenly, the metal plate that was just over her was roughly tossed aside, letting her see that her savior was just a man in a business suit that was flying.

"Oh my! There you are, come here. let me get you out of there." As he said this, he scooped up Katie, carefully pulling her out of the rubble. This care and concern that was shown to her by a complete stranger, in her mind at least, made her heart quiver for a moment. In her previous life, there really wasn't anybody to support her, even her family just tolerated her, this was a new feeling.

'So, that's what a hero is supposed to be.' Katie thought to herself.

"h.e.l.p...m.e..." whispered out a raged voice.

Katie looked over to see the CEO who had shot her was pinned underneath some rubble, and that the mad digging the secretary had done had exposed him. He didn't know who the person that was flying was, but if he had even a glimmer of hope, he would try to survive. That was how he had gotten to this point, even after being raised in the slums.

Katie looked over at him, disgust clearly displayed on her face, which the secretary saw, and decided to abandon the trapped man. He wasn't a hero, he didn't have to save the trapped man. As the secretary drifted away, Katie saw the desperate look on the mans face, and hesitated, thinking that if she had felt that care and safety, that she should at least try to give it to someone else. She tugged the sleeve of her savior, and pointed at the trapped man. The secretary knew well and good what Katie was trying to say, and judged that even if the floor collapsed again, Katie would be perfectly safe. So he drifted closer to the trapped man.

The man's eyes brightened and thought that he was going to be saved. He reached his hand out as far as he could stretch it, and Katie did so as well. It flashed through his head for merely a moment, that he shouldn't receive help from the Yaoyorozu girl, but his desire to survive trumped any hostility he may have had, and stretched a few inches outwards.

Their hands were mere centimeters apart when the floor fell out from beneath the man, sending him plummeting downwards, his eyes full of fear and shock. Katie's full of sorrow and helplessness. This was the straw that broke the camels back, causing the entire building to creak and crack. The secretary, noticing the signs, apologized to Katie, and sped out of the way of harm. It was at this point that Katie finally passed out, whether it was due to stress, injury or something else, no one could say.

The building finally collapsed into a pile of dust and debris.

-0- 3 Days Later

"whywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhwhy....." Katie mumbled endlessly to herself staring blankly at the ceiling of her VIP hospital room. To explain the current mental state that Katie is in, we will have to go back to when she first woke up in the hospital.

-0- (Flashback)

*Beep... Beep... Beep...* "W-where am I?" Katie questioned, waking up in an unfamiliar place with a massive headache. "Is this... a hospital?" It did seem like that, other than the obviously lavish room and decor, there were plenty of standard hospital machines around, giving off a variety of noises. Katie looked around her bed for a call button, and pushed it once she found it. It took no longer than a minute for a group of people to rush into the room, only the one in front visibly being a doctor, and in the crowd Katie swore she saw Momo, who was staring at the floor in a daze.

A middle aged man in a suit asked the doctor, "Dr. Tsubasa, how is she, will she recover!?"

The man now identified as Dr. Tsubasa glared back at the man, snapping at him, "I'm a research doctor, not a surgeon! Yes she will be fine, we ran plenty of tests, and other than a broken leg, she will be fine." Everyone heaved a sigh of relief after hearing the doctor's words, but then he continued speaking, "However, while her body will be absolutely fine, she will probably suffer some mental trauma over the incident. Worst of all, the drug that was in her system that enhanced her quirk may have caused permanent damage to her quirk gene. More testing will have to be done to make sure of that fact though."

Everyone was quickly silenced when they heard the doctor's analysis. It was at theis time that a very tall, silver-haired man sporting some fine wrinkles stepped forward. His entire demeanor cold and aloof, seeming s though he could control the entire world just by saying a few words. He spoke up at this time, "Doctor. We both know that you are interested in researching what happened to her quirk gene. Don't try to hide that fact from me, I've paid you way too much money and time to not know that. If you can fix her quirk, you can research it all you want. This is not debatable, I will see someone else if you can't follow through. You may be the best in the world at analyzing and fixing quirks, but there are others that are only a bit worse than you."

The doctor had a dark look on his face, but if anyone had looked close enough, they would have seen an evil glint in his eyes, and a small contemptuous smile flash on his face. "OK, I will work as hard as I can on fixing her quirk, but you have to understand that I am not a psychiatrist, and if we delay her quirk repair for too long, the damage may remain permanent, if it wasn't already." The old man gave a curt nod, and turned away, striding out of the room in the same measured steps that he had used when he entered.

After the man left, the rest of the guests looked at each other, said their well wishes to Katie, and left, Momo being the last one to leave, giving Katie a strained smile and a wave. In the end, it was just Dr. Tsubasa and Katie left. He turned around to tinker with Katie's IV drip, and suddenly she became sleepy, looking over at the doctor, and swearing to herself that she had seen the devil in him moments before she went under.

-0- 1 Day Later (Flashback)

Katie didn't react to the tests, the pokes, the prods because the same scene kept repeating in her head over and over again. She reached out to save the man who tried to kill her, and he plunges into the infinite abyss, his horrified face burned deeply into her mind.

'Why? Why couldn't I save him? Would it be different if I hadn't hesitated? Why didn't I ignore him like I did so many other suffering people? I am apathetic towards other people, aren't I? That feeling of being cared for, being saved, why does it make me hurt so much more now? Should I have been the one to die?' Questions like these swirled in her mind without end or answer, suffocating her the more that she was awake, typically liking to sleep her thoughts away. Sadly, that nightmare repeated each time she slept, which fueled her guilt laden questions, which she tried sleeping to forget, creating an awful cycle.

This state of things ended up devolving into her waking hours asking 'Why' over and over again without pause or purpose, and her sleeping hours just being a blank black void with no image, but she can still see the man's horrified face in the corner of her vision, never being able to see it directly.

This deep seated trauma will last for years, and wont be cured or worked through for a very long time.