So darken your clothes, or strike a violent pose
Maybe they’ll leave you alone, but not me

Cicada was not a working out person. Just by looking at her you could tell: she was basically bones with a little bit of fat and muscle to make her not a skeleton. She was not fit or muscular, not even in the way that many girls seemed to be. She was not bothered by this; her hyperactive metabolism usually kept her running around fast enough, but she was still as weak as a five year old.

One day, she made the executive decision to go to the school’s gym. After all, she had never been there before, despite the fact she had been at the school almost three years. She had absolutely no idea what to expect, or even what one wore when going to the gym. She slipped into short sweatpants that, on her small frame, fell to her mid-thighs instead of her knees, and a tank top. She debated putting on shoes, but decided against them. She didn’t wear shoes unless she absolutely had to. Feeling quite empowered by her new brilliant idea, she bounded out of her dorm, in the general direction of the gym.

Cicada got lost quite a few times, but luckily the school had several helpful signs pointing her in the right direction. She tugged open the door, peering inside. So far, so good; there wasn’t anybody else there. She slipped inside, wrinkling her nose at the smell of stale sweat. The room was quite impressive, full of all kinds of complex-looking machines. Cicada hadn’t ever used any of them, and could see herself having a very fun time here.

She skipped over to a tread mill, though she had no idea what it was for. She stood on the platform, contemplating the array of buttons on the panel in front of her. She decidedly pushed a large green button, when the surface under her feet began to move backwards. She stood there, perplexed, as she moved backwards a few feet until she fell off the mill with an oof. Undeterred, she jumped back on the machine, only to fall off again. She tried once more, this time starting to run to keep up with the machine. To her surprise, she didn’t fall off. She felt she was finally beginning to understand this exercise business, despite the fact that she was barely going faster than a walking speed.

So darken your clothes, or strike a violent pose
Maybe they’ll leave you alone, but not me

Cicada was becoming more and more confident with this whole running in place thing. And really, whoever invented this thing was a genius! You could run for miles and miles, and never actually move anywhere. Or in Cicada’s case, you could walk in place forever. She examined the buttons before her, debating on what to push next. She assumed that the big green button was the start, and the big red one was the stop. There were a lot of arrows, and she experimentally pushed one. The machine started going faster, so Cicada had to jog. However, she soon got tired of that, and slowed it down to a brisk walk.

She heard the door open, but it didn’t register that there was somebody else in the room until a few seconds later. She glanced up, almost falling off the tread mill again, and scowled ever so slightly. She should have known that there would be people coming soon, especially guys. But she hadn’t counted on Skylar King. Naturally, even the social outcast Cicada knew who Skylar was, and she had made a point to stay as far away from him as possible. Most of the time, she didn’t judge other people based on who their deity was, but Cicada knew that there were two people she should stay away from, and Skylar was one of them. Considering Arachne had basically told everybody how much Zeus was a cheating, faulted god, Cicada figured mixing her and Skylar would only cause trouble.

However, Skylar didn’t seem to agree, though she wasn’t surprised that he didn’t know who she was. Cicada tended to stay out of the big, school-wide spotlight, preferring to be spastic on her own without an audience. Regardless, Cicada couldn’t be un-judgmental; she knew of Skylar’s reputation, and was rather annoyed by it.

He got onto the step machine thing next to Cicada’s treadmill, which honestly didn’t surprise her. She had planned to ignore him, but clearly he did not have the same plan. After he spoke, Cicada’s scowl deepened, though she did reply, “Bien. I hear exercise helps defuse violent tendencies.” She didn’t know why she said that, but then again she didn’t know half the stuff she said. Besides, she might freak out Skylar so much he’d leave in a panic.

So darken your clothes, or strike a violent pose
Maybe they’ll leave you alone, but not me

Cicada was not good at ignoring people. She simply didn’t have it in her to be quiet and pretend somebody didn’t exist, especially if they were being annoying. She was the kind of person who, instead of giving the silent treatment, will say “I’m not speaking to you!” every five minutes. In fact, though she was good at getting angry with people, she was horrible at holding grudges, simply because she forgot what most people had done to her. Skylar hadn’t done anything to her yet, but still. She could hold a grudge if she wanted to. It was a free country.

Cicada had mostly been kidding about her violent tendencies. Her violence was mostly reduced to her screaming insults and threats at the top of her lungs, then sulking for a few hours until she got over it. Skylar, however, seemed to take her seriously, which annoyed her, to no surprise. Who took people seriously? Who was nice to people that were saying they were violent? There was clearly something wrong with him.

However, she was surprised when a punching bag appeared out of thin air. Cicada stopped walking in shock, and fell off the treadmill again. Scrambling to her feet, she circled the punching bag warily, as if expecting a trap. She didn’t know about Skylar’s powers; she had assumed they had something to do with frying people with lightening. Where did this come from? She poked it experimentally, and it swung slightly. It wasn’t just an illusion; it was very, very real.

“How did you do that?” she demanded, turning to Skylar and putting her fists on her hips. She might not have been the best student, but Cicada knew it was impossible to create something from nothing. She punched at the bag again with a tiny fist, and it swung a bit more. Curiousy, she drew back her fist, and punched the bag as hard as she could. It swung away, then came back, aiming for Cicada. Instinctively, she dropped to the floor, and the bag swung over her head. Waiting for it to stop, she sat up, cross legged on the floor. She realized she was being silly, but was too stubborn to say anything about it. Let Skylar make fun of her if he wanted.

So darken your clothes, or strike a violent pose
Maybe they’ll leave you alone, but not me

Cicada supposed it was a bit unfair of her to hate Skylar. After all, she had never really met him before. And she’d be fairly annoyed if people started hating her before she annoyed them enough for them to hate her. However, not only had she heard of Skylar’s reputation, but she had never really been fond of Zeus. He was too angry and cheated all the time. Just because Arachne’s tapestry had been insulting to the god didn’t mean that it wasn’t true. And just because Skylar hadn’t done anything to her yet didn’t mean they would get along.

Regardless of whether Skylar was Zeus or Hades or some kind of evil spider-killing god, Cicada could not ignore a punching bag that appeared out of thin air. And of course, she had to poke it. Then hit it. Then act like a dork. She had expected Skylar to laugh, but she still scowled when he did. Pssh, just because popular people didn’t act like idiots, it was like he wasn’t used to it. The punching bag swung to a halt above her head, and she grabbed onto the bottom of it, then climbed to the top. Her wall crawling kicked in, and she was able to climb to the top and sit up there. Her legs dangled over the edge of it, and she lightly held on to the chain that connected it to the ceiling.

Skylar explained his power, though it still didn’t make much sense to Cicada. Air was air, how could that turn into a punching bag, or anything else? She peered down at Skylar, feeling a certain smugness at being taller than him. She tilted her head, still trying to comprehend his power. But alas, it still made little sense. She shook her head slightly, as if shaking away a fly that was buzzing around her ear. Of course, if there really was a fly, she could just make it go away, but that wasn’t quite the point. “Hmm…if you say so,” she replied dismissively. “I’m Cicada, by the way,” she commented, figuring Skylar should know who was snubbing him. “Not that’d you’d know,” she muttered under her breath.