Ophelia straightened her black leather jacket as she walked through the white dungeon in Headquarters. Normally, dungeons were dark and desolate, and they were for quote a while under the Defenders' previous leader. Ophelia, on the other hand, wanted to modernize things and make them more...holy... So she made them all white. And each cell was made of impenetrable glass so that all prisoners could see one another. So they could watch their friends get tortured. It was a very efficient way of using psychology to get info out of people rather than having to waste time torturing every single person.

The magnificent woman stopped in front of a cell containing a rather odd looking girl suspended to a chair. Curious, Ophelia inspected the clipboard that hung on the outside of the cell. On it read a name: Eridan Harmon. Below it were some frantically scribbled notes, saying that this girl was mental. The crazy ones were always the most fun to torture. They scared the prisoners just as much as the torture devices did. Ophelia smiled and unlocked the cell door with a simple wave of her hand. 

With a smile, Ophelia took off her jacket and hung it on the back of her chair, straightening it meticulously before turning around and sitting in the chair, crossing her legs and looking intently at the blond. "Welcome, Ms. Harmon," she stated cooly. "You're probably wondering why you're here."

Eri awoke with a wicked headache and the taste of iron in her mouth. What on earth had she done last night? Opening her eyes, she expected to be greeted by her warm although somewhat lumpy bed at the academy, but she instead found herself strapped to a cold chair in the center of a harshly lit room.

As her eyes darted around the room, Eri began to panic. Had her parents found a way to steal her from her new life? We're they going to hurt her again? She had been good, she hadn't done anything wrong! She didn't want to be punished. Last she remembered she had been just walking around after a conversation with a weird boy in the Academy. What had happened to get her from there to... wherever she was now?

A door opened. Eri snapped her head upwards, eyes wide. A tall woman with the most enchanting blood-red lipstick Sat down, hanging her black jacket on the back of a chair. She greeted Eri in a rather formal tone. "You're not mom," breathed Eri with just the barest hint of relief flooding her voice. The woman asked Eri if she was wondering why she was here, to which Eri only nodded in response. She was simultaneously terrified and comforted. Her parents had no involvement, but this unknown evil was, well, unknown.

Ophelia's narrow eyes widened slightly at the girl's relieved response to her situation. Most people screamed to be released or begged for mercy. But this girl that was labelled as crazy seemed the most sane of all! Interesting... At the sign of the young girl's nod, Ophelia continued. "You have been deemed impure." She felt that that was all she needed to say. Academy members were usually very aware of the signature catchphrase of the Academy. However, Ophelia's definition of impure was extremely different than how the rest of the Defenders used it. Anyways, she would explain more after Eridan was...softened...

Standing up abruptly, Ophelia walked over to the side of Eridan's chair, placing a cold hand on Eridan's head, willing for nothing but darkness to seep into the blond's head. Ophelia believed that the best way to warm up her victims was to introduce them to a memory that hurt them in order to put them in a weaker state. Using the dark energy that poured from her fingers, Ophelia willed that Eridan suddenly be placed into a moment of despair. She removed her long fingers after a moment, walking back to her chair and waiting silently for Eridan to live out her worst memory.

She was... impure? Eri tilted her head to the side. What did that mean? There was nothing impure about Eri that she knew of... was she saying that Eri was dirty? But she had just showered yesterday! And she had managed not to get any blood on her even after her encounter with Kaz!

Suddenly, Eri felt cold fingernails digging into her scalp as the woman poured something unnatural into Eri's mind. It felt like darkness and dust.

And then everything went black for the briefest of moments.

A young girl played in the garden behind her house, her parents watching from the patio. It was just short of her fifth birthday and Eridan Amaris Harmon was about to be changed forever. But for the moment, she was still just a naïve little child without a fear.

As she tromped through the flowers, Eri noticed something just before she put her foot into it. A bloated corpse of some small rodent, a squirrel perhaps? Covered in flies and showing bone. Rather than scream and run like most little girls would have, Eri bent down to pick up the carcass despite the warning shouts of her parents. Unbeknownst to her, the magic running in her veins flowed from a scrape she had made on her finger earlier and into the squirrel, which began to breathe. The little animal sat upright in Eri's palm, and delighted, the little girl ran to show her parents.

Now, the girl's mother knew what this meant. She knew she was a magician, and her mother knew because she was the origin of the trait. But she had married a mundane man, and her two other children had been completely normal. Her youngest... was ruining their perfect happy life by being so abnormal, by showing off her power to the hostile world. Soon enough, Eri's father figured out what it meant as well. And as far as he knew, his while family was normal. Eri was a freak.

But as Eri stood there with her zombie rodent, she knew what none of this meant. She had just shown her parents what she had discovered, thinking it would fascinate them as much as it fascinated her. Maybe that's why it hurt so much when her father threw her to the ground.

Eri wasn't aware of it, but as her earliest recollection of her parents played out in her mind, she began to whimper, an it quickly turned to sobs and screams. "Daddy, don't hurt me," she cried, her voice ragged. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you angry! I'll try harder! Please!"

Ophelia watched as Eridan's face began to twitch, and soon enough she began to scream out to her father. Great. Daddy issues. Whatever, Ophelia could work with parental memories seeing as she herself was a parental figure to many Defenders that came under her wing. Ophelia sighed as Eri's wimping came to an end, fixing her posture and staring into the blond's eyes. She had to show that she was in control of this situation, and eye contact was the best way to do it.

Casually flipping through a maroon notebook, Ophelia cocked the slightest of grins. Simply to intimidate Eri. "It has come to my attention that you attend the Academy," she stated, her eyes unblinking. For the extra effect, Ophelia decided to add just the smallest change in her appearance. She extended her mind until she was in Eri's and saw the reproaching eyes of her father. Ophelia pulled back, and focused her illusion on her eyes, making them the same as Eri's father. Her plan was to make Eri completely lose it. Ophelia hated physical torture, she just liked to drive her victims insane. "Tell me, darling. Where is it?"

Eri watched as the scary woman's appearance changed, ever so subtly but in a horrifying enough way for Eri to notice right away. Her breathing quickened and she began to shake as she stared into the startlingly blue eyes of her abuser, no, hertorturer. Her father. "No, please! No! I didn't do anything! Pleasepleasepleasedon'thurtmei'msorryplease--"

As she began to babble almost incoherently, Eri completely missed the question the woman had asked her. Not that she could have been of much help anyway. She had no idea where the Academy was. She hadn't really cared to pay attention and she never left it to see what was outside. So rather than provide an answer, she cried and spoke as quickly as she could, begging the woman with her father's eyes not to hurt her.

This girl was pathetic. Ophelia honestly expected so much more. And here Eri was, crying and begging for mercy because she had done something as simple as messing with her eyes. Ophelia's torturers called this girl insane, but insane she was not. She was just like the rest of them, and her daddy issues made her even weaker. "Pathetic," Ophelia grumbled, lowering her tone to where it matched the pitch of Eridan's father. "There is only one way you can ever make me proud of you."

Ophelia smiled -- this girl was how she would enter the Academy. After all this time, Ophelia found her ride. "You must take me with you into the Academy." It would be perfect. Ophelia would shapeshift into a bird and ride along with Eridan into the Academy. And then she would purge them.

Eri whimpered as the woman sneered. She was pathetic, wasn't she? But she could redeem herself... she could make this woman proud... she just had to lead her to the Academy. There was only one small problem with that.

"I... I don't really know where the Academy is," said Eri in a small, quivering voice, shrinking away from the woman as much as she could in fear of a punishment. "B-but I think I might be able to get there. I -- I tried to make a blood portal to my room, and I think I can get through it myself, but... I'm not really sure how it would work with two people. I can try, though!" Eri really hoped it would work. She didn't know how to do much with her power -- if she tried really hard she could manipulate someone else enough to stave them off, as she had learned quickly when her magic was first blossoming along with frequent patterns of bruises, and her teachers had suggested the blood transfer, but she was very weak. She had no idea if this could work.

[and this is where my OOC name comes into play lol I'm ripping all of this from A Darker Shade of Magic]