"Clarke, we all trust you,"said Raven soothingly as she pulled the younger girl closer to her,"We're just worried about you. You're trying to close yourself off and act like everything's fine, but it's not. Roma died not even a few hours ago. You buried her one hour ago. No one here will judge you or anything if you need time to mourn. She was your friend Clarke and so are we. We're all here for you no matter what you need."
Clarke felt her heart clench at the words Raven said and she took a deep breath and stepping back from the hug and said," Thanks, Raven, but I'm fine. Trust me. I trust all of you and despite the short time we've been on the ground. I do trust all of you. It gets hard, sometimes, to know that I have all this strength available. I can punch people through trees and shoot fire from my hands and heal broken bones with a touch, but even then Roma died under my watch and it's my fault."
Raven was about to speak, but Clarke raised her hand to stop her,"It was my fault. I didn't even bother to think there were other Guards at the Exodus ship or that Diana might aim for someone other than me. I was arrogant and stupid and naive. "
Clarke was now taking her time to look at everyone in the room in the eyes as she said," There's a good chance that everyone on the Ark is dead. Tomorrow we're going meeting with the Grounders to negotiate peace and if we don't come to an agreement we're surrounded by who knows how many superpowered Grounders that were born and bred for combat since they were kids. Let's not forget that all we have to fight against them are us and a bunch of teenagers who have never shot a rifle in their lives. I was given that gold serum for a reason and I'll be damned if anyone – Grounder or not – thinks that I'll just roll over without a fight. "
Clarke paused for a second to compose herself and she said,"Starting from tomorrow everyone is learning how to shoot rifles. There needs to be mandatory guard and hunting duty for everyone. If people have a problem with that then they can leave. This isn't the Ark. We need to change and adapt and evolve or else we'll waste away and die. We're meeting with the Grounders tomorrow at a nearby bridge. No weapons. Lincoln will come and guide us to it. Tell everyone who's on guard duty to not attack him. Bellamy and Octavia will come with me and I'll need the rest of you to keep control of camp. If anyone slacks off, they're exiled. If anyone tries to fight, they're exiled. We'll give whoever wants to leave a gun and rations and they can go wherever they want. The last thing we need is to be fighting amongst ourselves. "
It was as if a switch had been flipped and Clarke had gone from a genetics geek to a leader in an instant. The others began to file out leaving Clarke alone.
The notes had gone into detail about how the powers usually activated when the user was in danger such as when Roma had almost been killed the first time around by Grounders or it happened spontaneously.
Clarke couldn't in her right mind throw teens into conflict with aninals or sit around waiting for their powers to activate, but she didn't have much of a choice.
Activating Diana's dormant power, which was essentially the ability to convert matter from one substance to another, had actually been taxing not just on Diana, but on Clarke.
It had taken all of her willpower to not collapse from the sheer pain and exhaustion she had felt at the time. The in-depth analysis that the Novus gave Clarke – Insight for lack of a better term– into Diana's body had shown extreme levels of stress being exerted onto Diana's body and in fact, Diana had been lucky to not have her body torn apart from the stress.
It was why Clarke wouldn't dare to try it on anyone of the 100 at least until she got better at it, but that was a long way off.
It would probably be a good idea, though, if Clarke could use Insight to see who and how many powers everyone could activate. Those who weren't able to manifest any powers at all would be kept inside the camp where they'd be safest.
It would ruffle some feathers, but like a part of Darah's journal had said. Humans can't be trusted to know what's best for them.
If there was a part of Darah's way of life that Clarke agreed with then that was it.
"You probably get a kick out of that, don't you?" said Clarke to the empty room.
There was no response and Clarke sighed before she blew out every candle in the room. She shut the hatch and climbed down the ladder.
Clarke eventually reached her tent and she decided to forgo dinner and just get ready for what could shape up to be a long day.
She pulled her ring off and she placed it underneath her pillow where she also kept her father's watch.
Clarke hadn't worn the watch since she had killed the first Grounder. It somehow seemed wrong to wear the watch while she killed other people and maybe if they got peace with the Grounders then she would be able to put it on again.
The other, less depressing reason Clarke didn't wear the watch was because of the little experiment she had been working on whenever she had had the time.
Clarke took off the long sleeve jacket she was wearing and folded it before finally sitting down on a chair salvaged from the dropship.
She ran her fingers over the small depression in the metal of the chair as she remembered the first time she had activated her powers.
To Clarke's slight shame, she hadn't quite told everyone everything the Novus enabled her to. She was probably doing a disservice to Raven, Bellamy, Monty and Octavia, but although she didn't quite have anything against Miller, Jasper and Harper it was Finn that worried her.
She was quite aware of the looks of disdain and disgust the boy sent her way as well as Raven, Bellamy and Octavia. It irked Clarke as she suspected the reason he was doing his best to kill them with glares and sneers was due to the fact that the four of them had at one stage or another killed.
It irritated Clarke that Finn only saw them as monsters and truthfully it was quite pathetic as well. For all his heroism and bravado, Finn wasn't quite able to walk the talk. He had ran away in their second encounter with the Grounders and when they were looking for Octavia he had frozen in shock during a battle.
He would have probably gotten himself killed if Bellamy hadn't been there after Clarke had been blown away by one of the Grounders.
It was also why he wasn't coming along since tomorrow because if things got hairy then Finn would be dead weight in a fight.
Clarke shook her head and instead lifted her left hand up to eye level. The Novus was said to offer greater flexibility in the abilities that were given to the user. Any power she stole could only be used just above it's usual constraints however the powers Novus bestowed.
The prime example was evident as a flower made of ice appeared in midair before disintegrating into steam moments later. Diana had only been able to make basic shapes using ice from what Clarke had seen using Insight and the ice flower that Clarke had made would have been out of Diana's immediate reach if she had her powers.
On the other hand, the powers that the Novus gave her such as the elements control could be taken to the extreme.
Case in point, Clarke held up her hand it ignited into fire, but Clarke knew it wasn't that simple. It was like her fire had become fire itself like Octavia or Miller's respective armours. Clarke didn't exactly use this since the last thing she wanted was for her clothes to get burnt and then she'd end up being naked wherever she had decided to turn herself into fire.
So, basically a bad idea.
There was a voice inside Clarke that said she could transform her clothes into a material that worked seamlessly with her powers in matter the situation, but Clarke ignored that voice.
Clarke yawned suddenly and feeling the pains and aches of the day washing over her Clarke ìn what was unfortunately becoming more and more necessary by the night she reached into her makeshift sac and she ate the cherry her fingers had latched onto.
It was only moments after eating the cherry that Clarke felt the arms of sleep envelop her and she fell asleep soundly.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Are you sure this is still a good idea?"said Bellamy as he stood at the the top of the dropship's ramp alongside Clarke.
Clarke nodded and said, "We need to know who can manifest powers and who can't. The best way to activate powers is either through an emotional high or in a life or death situation otherwise it's sporadic like with Miller, Jasper and Monty and no one else has shown any signs of activating powers beside Harper and that was because she had been attacked by a river snake."
Bellamy sighed and said,"I still don't think it's such a good idea to do this all publicly. I'm sure some people won't take too kindly to finding out that they can't activate any powers like the rest of us. Anyways, I'll be at the back of the line."
The majority of what had been discussed yesterday had been shared with the rest of the camp with the exception of most of what Clarke's abilities entailed except for obviously being able to gauge how many powers an individual had.
The reaction to the thought that Clarke could literally steal everyone's powers would probably not go down so well especially with people that were not partial to Clarke.
"Okay, guys form a line. I'll put my hand on your head and the number I tell is how many powers you can get. If you have any active powers, I'll be able to tell you what they are and how many you have active, but if they are not active then I can only tell you how many, if any, powers you may have."
The anticipation in the air was palpable and Clarke almost winced as she heard everyone begin to talk about what they wished they had or what they thought they had. It was rather upsetting to know that Clarke was going to be the one to burst quite a few bubbles today.
The chatter continued even as the first delinquent began to walk up the ramp. Clarke smiled at Monroe before she placed her hand atop the girl's head.
There was a sudden lull in the camp as Clarke closed her eyes and focused. It was maybe ten seconds later that Clarke opened her eyes and said,"You have no active powers."
The smile on Monroe's face dropped, but it returned as Clarke said,"However, you have two dormant powers. You'll need to join the hunting parties and begin combat training with Miller when I leave that should hopefully nudge you closer to activating your powers."
The others had also agreed it was extremely unsafe for Clarke to try and forcibly activate their powers especially since it had had a detrimental effect on Diana and the risk wasn't worth it.
The crowd seemed excited and the chatter began to rise. Clarke rolled her eyes as she saw Mbege was the next one to step up. He walked with swagger and practically strutted up to Clarke.
...