Curtis sat at the table listening to Carson. After what had transpired in the back room it was nice to have a regular conversation, however his mind didn't drift too far from the fog seeping into the cafe. Apparently others hadn't stopped thinking of it as well. Curtis could only sit in surprised silence as Rose suggested knocking on the door, and walked by to try and open it. Luckily it was locked. Curtis has no idea what to do. Rose was very interested in what was going on on the other side. Before long Rose stopped trying and moved on to the ladies room. Curtis directed his attention back to Carson. "Not a huge coffee fan myself, but I can drink it." his voice wasn't even anymore, it was rising and dropping as if he was on the edge of screaming and running off. "Usually just end up meeting people here, gotta handle my time wisely or else I never end up doing anything. That freezer seems to be a big issue though, look at all that fog. It can't be healthy to inhale that."
Before Curtis could even think of another half-baked excuse Ash burst forth from the back room, heavy fog billowing from the open door. "Uh, the girl and I were fooling around and kinda kicked the freezer into overdrive," Ash glanced back at the door, not sure why that was his default excuse. The jerking under his shirt resumed as thick muscles squirmed along his chest, Yormie poking her head out of the jacket. "Get back in yo-" Yormie nearly lept from his jacket, falling to the ground with a wet slap. The barista shrieked, Ash sighed, Yormie contently pushed her way along the ground toward one of the new faces, her tongue flicking out to get a good scent of the girl. "Oh," Ash said flatly, looking over at the barista. "Get out, now." He ordered her, the barista about to make a protest when she noticed the flames on his finger tips and shot out of the cafe like a gunshot. "Hope you don't like this place's coffee too much, Cutie," Ash looked toward the girl, who commanded Yormie's complete attention. "Sharade's up, girl. Spill while we all still have time to play this little game." Before she could play the bullshit game like the ice queen, he held up his right hand and formed a ball of fire that rotated in his palm. "Oh, and other guy. I hope you're either special or good at playing dumb. Cause if you aren't, you ain't leavin."
Shit. Just when Curtis thought nothing else could happen today. It wasn't bad enough that Crystal knew about them, but now Rose and Carson. However Yormie was correct about Crystal, so maybe Rose was hiding powers as well. Curtis wasn't whether to strangle Ash for making such a scene or to jump in and try to get some info out of Rose. Eventually one side of the internal argument won. Curtis rose from the seat, allowing more tile from the floor to join him. "Rose, what my brother here is trying to say is that his snake has a nose, err tongue, for sniffing out people like him and I. Right now Yormie is looking really interested in you. We're fairly certain you can do something special. As you can see now you're not alone. So why don't you show us what it is you can do?" Curtis looked back at Carson, "Carson, I'm gonna need you to keep quiet about what's going on here. Okay? And will you help a friend out and close the blinds on the windows before the whole mall knows what's going down?"
"Holy shit." he said, surprisingly managing get a grip on himself to sound dumbfounded instead of screaming and running as he wholly intended to as soon as he got out. It wasn't even a second thought, as soon as he was out of this cafe, he was going to become a hermit, find an abandoned house to live in, never speak to anyone ever again. Slowly curl up and die away. This was it. The last straw. Panic had put him on some autopilot, just when he thought he was as weird as they got, LavaBoy kicked down that assumption. He kind of assumed that maybe, somewhere on this planet, there had to be people that could do extraordinary things. He just hadn't guessed they'd be in the very small town of Pavar.
The flames were nerve-wracking to watch and distracted him while Curtis spoke, but he found himself getting to his feet to take care of the blinds anyway.
He would have found the scene sort of beautiful if he wasn't so afraid. His gaze found the girl with the pewter hair and the oceanic eyes, the cold seemed to be coming from her in it's billowing fog. It was stunning, it was magnificent, it was blatantly horrifying. This was something out of a movie, a really good movie with really nice special effects. He could see just beyond the door, ice had trapped the ground in it's transparent prison and glimmered beneath the fluorescent lighting. It had transformed the room into something of an icy wonderland and the power of it struck him as momentarily kind of awesome.
The mohawked boy, who he vaguely recognized by some manner of local speculation, Ash, was practically burning like a coal. It was amazing and yet the fact that he could tell the fire was very real and very hot, fear tugged at him. He was afraid to get too close to him and side-dodged the whole scene to pull the blinds down with a jerky motion. His hands were shaking by the time the blinds actually closed and it blocked out the excess lighting from the mall. There was still the cafe lighting but it suddenly felt a lot less friendly and a lot more menacing. Stepping back to his table again carefully, he sunk down in the seat and drug a hand through his hair. His gaze uneasily landed on Curtis again. He wondered what he could do, it was a passing thought and it triggered more panic before he realized it must have something to do with the floating tile.
"I can do something, I think." it slipped out in something of an unsure voice, the wavering voice was almost childishly perplexed. He directed it mostly to Curtis, trying to block Ash from his line of vision because the snake didn't seem as interested in him as the blonde girl and he wasn't about to question it. As much as he preferred animals to humans, snakes had never appreciated his company much. He had always liked dogs the best anyhow, if his dad hadn't been such a neat freak then he would have tried to adopt as many as he could. "Two days ago, at this party, y'know. People keep blathering about it and this place is small. Anyway-"
Spinning his hand in some motion that was supposed to inspire him to keep talking instead of clamming up out of fear. Ah, hell. He was becoming a hermit anyway. Right? Right? Words began to tumble out before anyone could stop them. "I was a little disoriented and I don't know- God, I just thought I was drunk or something but I didn't even drink that much- This girl like told me this kid was trying to get my attention? And I don't know any kids so I was rightfully confused but I like got a good look at him and he was me. He was me when I was like four and I tried talking to him but he was like four, and he kept telling me I looked like his dad- huge insult by the way, I look nothing like my father- and he kept smiling like an imp which means that I used to smile like an imp and that's horrifying. Why didn't my parents toss some holy water on me and call it a day?" laughter, nervous, pitched laughter. Did this kid ever shut up?
"Point is, I guess, I think I can do that. Whatever that is, y'know? I- I think I can make more of me but- I haven't tried it again because I've been scared senseless and I'm still scared senseless, even more than I am right now. Can you imagine that? Do you know there's a legend about seeing doppelgängers and dying? I'd rather not die anytime soon- I- Sorry. I'm being endless. Just- Yeah."
A guy emerged from the freezer with a girl behind him. Well that explained everything. They must had been hooking up or something. She watched a snake wriggle out of his jacket and to the floor in confusion. This town really did just get weirder and weirder every day. "Hope you don't like this place's coffee too much, Cutie," The guy said, "Sharade's up, girl. Spill while we all still have time to play this little game." Was he talking to her? Rose nervously took a step back as a ball of fire formed out of no where in his hand. "Oh, and other guy. I hope you're either special or good at playing dumb. Cause if you aren't, you ain't leavin." Rose could recognized him from school as well but she couldn't place his name. She knew he was Curtis's brother at least. Speaking of which, Curtis was next to talk.
"Rose, what my brother here is trying to say is that his snake has a nose, err tongue, for sniffing out people like him and I. Right now Yormie is looking really interested in you. We're fairly certain you can do something special. As you can see now you're not alone. So why don't you show us what it is you can do?" Curtis looked back at Carson, "Carson, I'm gonna need you to keep quiet about what's going on here. Okay? And will you help a friend out and close the blinds on the windows before the whole mall knows what's going down?"
So she really wasn't the only one who can do freaky things after all. That was somewhat comforting but Rose wasn't sure she wanted to spill the beans to a bunch of people she didn't know too well. It would still be easier than telling her mom. However the only thing she could manage to think of to say was: "Aw well Yormie's really cute. Hi little snake! I think you're interesting too." She forced a giggle to lighten the situation. What if these people were crazy or something? Would they kidnap her? Thankfully, Carson went on a story about how he met his four year old self and could make more of himself. She wasn't sure she believed that one but she supposed anything was possible if she could make things fly and the snake guy could make fire balls out of thin air. Maybe she was on a reality show and she was being pranked.
"Wow Carson. That's crazy. What a wild story." Rose commented and patted his shoulder gently, "I hope that works out for you well buddy... Mom! Is that you waiting outside the coffee shop? I hear you mom! I'm coming!" and with that, she made a bolt for the door.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, sugar," Ash made a throaty growl, flicking his wrist toward the door. A torrent of flame roared from his hand, flames splashing against the door and dropping down to shroud the door in a wall of smoldering metal and rumbling flames. "Careful, girly. I'm can play nice, but fire ain't too picky on what it likes to cuddle with. Ash ran a hand through his mohawk as he closed the gap between himself and the blonde trying to make a run for it. Ash leaned down and slid his fingers under Jormungdar's muscular body and draped her around his neck. He stopped before her, grinning and allowing the cigarette to drop from his lips. The smoke still trickled out from between his lips.
He offered her a hand and motioned with his head to the room and the small group of powered people. "Now," Ash's lips turned in a chesire cat grin, "Let's all act civilised and get to know one another. We got about ten minutes before the fire department shows up and I'm not letting that flame go away. Play nice and I'll do the same sugar. You don't wanna get smart and you don't wanna get mean, cause I'll win, honey. I'll win and you'll be right back where you started."
Curtis couldn't believe his eyes. Everything was going to hell in a hand basket. Luckily Carson had enough composure to get up and actually close the blinds. Maybe now they could at least get some talking in before the mall went completely crazy.
"I can do something, I think." it slipped out in something of an unsure voice, the wavering voice was almost childishly perplexed. He directed it mostly to Curtis, trying to block Ash from his line of vision because the snake didn't seem as interested in him as the blonde girl and he wasn't about to question it. As much as he preferred animals to humans, snakes had never appreciated his company much. He had always liked dogs the best anyhow, if his dad hadn't been such a neat freak then he would have tried to adopt as many as he could. "Two days ago, at this party, y'know. People keep blathering about it and this place is small. Anyway-"
Spinning his hand in some motion that was supposed to inspire him to keep talking instead of clamming up out of fear. Ah, hell. He was becoming a hermit anyway. Right? Right? Words began to tumble out before anyone could stop them. "I was a little disoriented and I don't know- God, I just thought I was drunk or something but I didn't even drink that much- This girl like told me this kid was trying to get my attention? And I don't know any kids so I was rightfully confused but I like got a good look at him and he was me. He was me when I was like four and I tried talking to him but he was like four, and he kept telling me I looked like his dad- huge insult by the way, I look nothing like my father- and he kept smiling like an imp which means that I used to smile like an imp and that's horrifying. Why didn't my parents toss some holy water on me and call it a day?" laughter, nervous, pitched laughter. Did this kid ever shut up?
"Point is, I guess, I think I can do that. Whatever that is, y'know? I- I think I can make more of me but- I haven't tried it again because I've been scared senseless and I'm still scared senseless, even more than I am right now. Can you imagine that? Do you know there's a legend about seeing doppelgängers and dying? I'd rather not die anytime soon- I- Sorry. I'm being endless. Just- Yeah."
"Wow Carson. That's crazy. What a wild story." Rose commented and patted his shoulder gently, "I hope that works out for you well buddy... Mom! Is that you waiting outside the coffee shop? I hear you mom! I'm coming!" and with that, she made a bolt for the door.
Before Curtis could even ask her to stop Ash had thrown more flames towards the door.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, sugar," Ash made a throaty growl, flicking his wrist toward the door. A torrent of flame roared from his hand, flames splashing against the door and dropping down to shroud the door in a wall of smoldering metal and rumbling flames. "Careful, girly. I'm can play nice, but fire ain't too picky on what it likes to cuddle with.
He offered her a hand and motioned with his head to the room and the small group of powered people. "Now," Ash's lips turned in a chesire cat grin, "Let's all act civilised and get to know one another. We got about ten minutes before the fire department shows up and I'm not letting that flame go away. Play nice and I'll do the same sugar. You don't wanna get smart and you don't wanna get mean, cause I'll win, honey. I'll win and you'll be right back where you started."
"Everyone just calm down", Curtis said as he allowed the tiles to fall onto the floor, "We're all just a little excited because we know we aren't alone. Ash, brother o' mine, will you pretty please get rid of some of this fire? We aren't all as ready to cope with it as you are, and in return I'm sure Rose won't try to run away! Right Rose?" Curtis shot Rose a pleading look when he said her name. He didn't want to see anyone get hurt, or much more damage done to his favorite cafe either.
Phi walked across the parking lot leading to Pavar's Mall. While he could sense a few more metahumans in the town it seems that at least five of them had taken refuge inside of the mall. Those fools, he thought to himself. With all of them so clustered together it would be quite easy to dispose of all of them properly. After another minute of walking Phi finally reached the entrance to Mall, one of the electronic doors seemed to be malfunctioning. He made note of the faulty door while he entered the building. His appearance got him more than a few glances as he made his way towards the cafe across the food court. It didn't matter. In his line of work you had to use all the protection you could get, which in his case was the best suit of armor Upsilon could build. Phi finally made it to the door of the cafe, the scent of metahumans on the other side was almost palpable. He slowly placed his hand on the door. It was hot. One of the metas must be a pyrokinetic. Those can get annoying. With the door so hot a calm entrance we out of the questions. Phi took a step back and kicked the door in, quickly stepping inside once the door swung open. He did a quick survey of the room, three males and two females. All metas. Phi drew his large handgun from the holster on his right hip and pointed it at the male bathed in flames. "Its been a long day. Now this is my last stop before I can head home for some much needed rest. You all can give up or I can end you all by force. The choice is yours." He cocked the gun in his hand, not moving it from its position.
Rose gaped at the door as the flames engulfed it. Had that really just happened? She backed away, cringing at sudden heat. "Careful, girly. I'm can play nice, but fire ain't too picky on what it likes to cuddle with. "The guy sure had a lot of nicknames for her. She watched as he moved between her and the door, cigarette in mouth.
Nervously, she looked around for another escape route. This door was the only way out it seemed. She could break a window and dive for it but she was not interested in this psychopath cooking her like a thanksgiving turkey. She had to stall until she thought of a better idea. "You know what else isn't picky? Cancer. That's exactly who you'll be cuddling with if you keep smoking that thing."
"Now," The creep grinned like some kind of disney movie villain, "Let's all act civilized and get to know one another. We got about ten minutes before the fire department shows up and I'm not letting that flame go away. Play nice and I'll do the same sugar. You don't wanna get smart and you don't wanna get mean, cause I'll win, honey. I'll win and you'll be right back where you started."
It was probably less than ten minutes considering the town was quite small. If she could stall until then, she might be saved. Although, it would be risky to sit here trying to make small talk with a dude who can spawn fire out of thin air. Notable to mention, this guy was clearly not sane.
"Everyone just calm down", Curtis suddenly said, "We're all just a little excited because we know we aren't alone. Ash, brother o' mine, will you pretty please get rid of some of this fire? We aren't all as ready to cope with it as you are, and in return I'm sure Rose won't try to run away! Right Rose?" So they were brothers. It was clear Curtis was obviously the more civil one between the two.
Rose took a deep breath. They just wanted to confirm she could do weird stuff too then maybe they'd just let her go. "So you guys just want to know what I can do right? Then you'll let me go? Promise you won't try to hurt or kidnap me or anything...?" She paused a moment then glanced at a nearby table, focusing on it. It started to float up into the air along with the chairs and utensils. Gently, she levitated it back down to the floor after giving them a moment to take it in. "I can move stuff around without touching it. It's not as interesting as making fire show up out of no where so if you don't mind..." She took a step toward the door with that only for it to violently swing open. A guy stepped in and after taking a look around, he took out a gun and pointed it at fire boy.
"Its been a long day. Now this is my last stop before I can head home for some much needed rest. You all can give up or I can end you all by force. The choice is yours." Rose almost laughed. She was about fifty percent sure that this was some stupid joke by a bunch of comic book geeks. The other fifty percent of her brain understood that this was real and someone did not like them doing wacky stuff in coffee shops.
"I propose a third option. How about you sit down for a nice, relaxing cup of coffee then everyone goes home and we forget about this long, enduring day. "
Carson had been a little bit wounded by the girl brushing off his power as if he was not more than a child talking madness and he nearly got spiteful enough to tell her that he didn't believe her. It would have been a lie, he did believe her, he believed that every poor soul in this coffee place was stuck in the same little hell as him right now. It was horrible but it also felt so good to be validated, he wasn't alone in this and he didn't need to feel like the sky could fall on him at any moment. It didn't exactly feel like the sky could fall anymore but it felt like it had already fallen and here he was stuck in the rubble. He didn't feel like kicking clouds but his mood wasn't soaring in the slightest, he was actually feeling sort of petulant and cramped. It was nearly the same thick fog that had settled over him at the party- it was definitely time to become a hermit.
"You all have such great powers, I'm so happy to have witnessed some of them. Grand show to Ash and his horrifying flames of doom and a grand show to Curtis and the floating tiles- A grand show to you all! Truly wonderful!" he sputtered absently, mostly in a mumble that could have gone completely without notice. "But I can't summon my power-maybe it's not even a power! Maybe I was drunk!"
These people were better, even the freakish powers of other people were better than his freakish powers, he just wanted them all to go about their business while he made an exit route. Rose quickly gave a rundown of her power-- it almost seemed that she wanted out more than he did and Carson decided that her power could be very useful in a positive way. He nearly wanted to tell her but auto pilot had taken over his body and he was standing up to make his way to the door. It was submerged in flame but burning the living hell out of himself seemed like a better option than sulking right now and that's exactly what he was about to do if he stayed here any longer. Maybe it was just him- maybe he was just not meant to-
He made it maybe a step away from his seat before scrambling back in what could only be identified as blatant horror.
The door had busted open like something out of an episode of a bad seventies cop drama and the man who strolled in was completely encased in armor. It was awe that filled his sky blue eyes for a moment, some edge of his story telling mind was incredibly impressed by the being with the gun clutched in his hand. It swamped his fear for a long moment while he tried to figure out what setting this individual would have belonged to. He could see an amazing scene of rising chrome buildings and the charred remains of what once was, he could see entire floods of images and he-
Did he say, "You all can give up"? The redhead shook away his faint admiration long enough to squint at the man, his mouth setting down at one corner. What did he do to this strangely terrifying power-ranger? He didn't remember pissing anyone off lately-or did this guy just like killing kids in coffee shops? Was that how he got his sick kicks? Was he a serial coffee shop murderer? Carson wracked his brain for any mention of him on the television but nothing came forth except for a vague sense of unease that he was avoiding the point. He knew that sometimes he flew straight over exactly what was happening and he knew he was doing that. This man wanted to wipe them out for some reason, he could guess why if he tried hard enough.
"Totally expected fourth option from that guy that gets killed in the horror movies-" another nervous laugh, more pitched and frightened then before. "You do settle down as Rose suggested and we all go home, get a nice dinner, try to forget that I think I'm going to have a heart attack and die. Like right here before you can kill me yourself."
Everyone was talking at once now and Ash could feel his temper begin to bubble up beneath the surface. He cocked his jaw and glowered at the blonde girl who was adamant about the whole running away from this oddly huge fucking coincidence that was all of them running into each other is a coffee shop. A coffee shop in Pavar. Pa-fucking-var. He didn't understand it and everyone wanting to do their best to just gloss over it and run away from each other was enough to make his blood boil. Ash was practically a superhero and these idiots were as well, but they didn't want to do something with it. They all seemed to want to do their best to be normal. 'Fuck normal,' he wanted to scream. 'Fuck normal and fuck this little town. Fuck you guys,' he mentally amended his original statement, beginning to part his lips to tell off the crowd of scared shitless kids. Even the redhead was trying to run off now.
The door blew in, flecks of burning debree hitting his body and falling to the floor around him as a man made his way through the door. Well, maybe a man. Ash couldn't tell through the suit of fucking armour he was wearing. And that got Ash thinking.
In a moment things had gone from bad to potentially catastrophic. Normal people didn't wear armour and normal people didn't have weapons on open display. This guy was not normal. He was not someone showing up to the scene of a fire. He might have had powers. He might have been on their side. Ash would have been willing to accept that if there wasn't a Sig Sauer aimed straight at his dome a moment later.
"Its been a long day. Now this is my last stop before I can head home for some much needed rest. You all can give up or I can end you all by force. The choice is yours." It said, the voice vaguely masculine but still distant and muffled behind the mask.
"Like hell!" Ash hissed, reacting before his mind had time to catch up with his muscles or his lips. Ash threw a hand at blondie's feet, making a ripping motion that ripped up the concrete beneath her feet, throwing her backwards and rising up like a wall, sending her on a crash course with the redhead. Curt was gonna be pissed when he realised that Ash had been hiding his other power from him. More precisely, Ash was hiding that he had Curt's power and had been practicing extensively with it since their powers bloomed. He had also been hiding that they shared their gifts. If they made it through this, Curt was gonna be pissed. Maybe Ash would get lucky and get offed before he had to deal with his brothers bitching or that damn "I'm just disappointed, Ash" bullshit he had bulled on Ash a few times before.
Ash's body burst into roaring flame that consumed him. He was now a silhouette under a roaring flame. If this were a movie, Ash would've yelled something witty and blown the guy across the mall in a single blast. But this wasn't a movie. And all that Ash could do was let out a thunderous battlecry as flames ripping from his hands on course with the intruder.
A deafening boom filled the room followed by a silence.
The roaring flames disappeared as suddenly as they were made and for a moment Ash and the man in armour stared at one another.
And then Ash dropped to the ground. Mouth agape, eyes wide in shock as if he had just been caught doing something embarassing, while a stream of blood ran down the side of his forehead from a hole dead in its center.
Everything was happening too fast, it was too much for his brain to put together and too much for his mind to handle. It made him shift into a fight or flight set of mind and suddenly he wasn't so sure that he could flee without taking a bullet to the back and he wasn't in the mood to be shot today. The gun-toting-metal-encased man had come here too fast and Ash was reacting much too fast. Much faster than the redhead could have reacted in that situation, his bravery was sheer recklessness and it made a pit in Carson's stomach. The boy with the fire in his eyes as clearly as the fire in his veins was reckless but it was an admirable recklessness, it was much more than Carson could have conjured and that was admirable enough to him, it made him want to write about him, it made him very nervous. His recklessness would undeniably be what ended him.
There was a roaring, crumbling sound and everything seemed to tremble. It caught him so off guard that he tried to stumble back before Ash seemed to reveal another trick up his sleeve. The blonde girl was rocketed into Carson and he'd softened her fall by collapsing like a sack of rocks beneath her. He hadn't expected the concrete foundation to rise up through the floor like some sort of beast, he hadn't expected it to shoot the blonde girl off the ground like she weighed nothing and he hadn't expected the inevitable bang.
Sharp and cutting through like a knife, the sound rattled his bones.
He knew what that sound meant logically but he couldn't bring himself to react to it quickly enough because it was so loud that his ears where screaming with backwash and his head was spinning. He reacted too slowly again, guiding Rose to her feet with a gentle push, his hands stabilizing her by gripping her shoulders lightly so that he could get up himself. When he was finally to his feet, he stepped away from Rose and backwards, overviewing the damage and nearly sputtering at the sight of Ash lying on the ground with a hole in his head. Just moments ago he'd been spitting off insults and rounding them up like a herd of sheep but now he looked so still that it made Carson sick to his stomach.
He was dead.
He'd never seen a dead body before but he found himself wishing that it would have stayed that way. Ash had been too full of life to be laying on the ground like nothing and now he felt somewhat hopeless because if Ash could be killed then any of them could be killed and this was unnervingly real. He wanted to go home suddenly, he didn't want to go anywhere but back to his quiet mother and his volatile father. He wanted to go back to his green room, curl up on his bed and cry like an infant for a few traumatized hours. He wanted some time to process everything, his brain was whirling too much to make any decent decisions, he was usually quicker than this and he was usually good at mapping out plans but now he could only stare in dumbfounded amazement.
This was real and Ash was dead and there was still a gun in that man's hand.
Curtis barely had time to look away from Rose before they door swung open and a man in black armor came charging in. Curtis barely noticed the man, all he saw was the gun that the intruder was brandishing. "Its been a long day. Now this is my last stop before I can head home for some much needed rest. You all can give up or I can end you all by force. The choice is yours." He heard the gun being cocked, ready to fire at someone. Currently that someone was Ash. Honestly this whole thing seemed kind of absurd to Curtis. This guy did seem to know a thing or two, but he was horribly outnumbered. Maybe he was all bark and no bite. Maybe they could all just smooth this over. Before Curtis had the chance to say anything to the armored man Ash was already retaliating. Everything seemed to move in slow motion. Ash reached down and grabbed the floor beneath Rose's feet and pulled it up. Pulled up the CONCRETE. Curtis couldn't make sense of it. That was HIS power, not Ash's. How the hell did Ash manage to do that? After they got through this he was going to have to talk to Ash about it. They were supposed to be brothers, and brothers should keep secrets like that. However right now Ash was back to using his normal abilities. He body was a bonfire, completely enveloped in crackling flames. Ash screamed, and rushed at the man. Suddenly a boom echoed through the room, louder than the flames and Ash's roar. All of the flames subsided, the only smoke in the room being a wisp escaping from the end of the man's gun. Curtis looked at his brother's body lifeless on the ground. He dropped to his knees in shock. His twin brother was gone. The only person he felt like he could talk to about this crazy shit. Tears running down he face he looked up at the man, who had turned to face him. He sent up tiles to strike the man, but they shattered against his armor. In a calm, methodical fashion he placed the barrel of the gun against Curtis's forehead. "Its a shame. The other one put up a much better fight." Curtis closed his eyes
The gun bucked slightly in Phi's hand as he put down the second meta. This one didn't even put up a fight. It was always more fun when they fought. With two disposed of he turned to the remaining metas in the cafe. Phi focused on the area around his left hand. Slowly a semi-transparent blade formed in his left hand. Barely two feet long, the blade was made completely out of the might of his mind. While not his favorite ability the psionic weapons he could make did come in handy on occasion. Phi pointed his gun at the girl by the counter and motioned his blade towards the two laying on top of each other on the ground. "Now. I'll ask you all one more time. Are you going to give up? Or will you make the mistake that the hothead made?"
Everything happened so fast that it took until after the gunshot roared through the coffee shop for Rose to realize she had just gone flying into Carson. She blinked, eyes wide with shock. "U-Um sorry. Just dropping in." She smiled faintly at Carson and thanked him for helping her up. She too stepped backward when she caught sight of Ash. Rose found herself staring in complete shock. She had never seen a dead person before. Well, she had in movies but there was just no comparison. This was real and it was terrifying. He lay there limply on the floor, lifeless eyes still wide open. It had been nearly minutes ago that he was up and speaking. Now he'd never speak again. One of his last actions had been to throw her back toward safety. Tears swelled in her eyes. She wished she had done more. There had to have been something she could have done. Anything would have been better than nothing.
When she finally was able to pull her gaze from Ash and look at the man, she found his gun cocked at Curtis's head. Curtis had shut his eyes, given up. Before she could do anything, the gun went off for a second time. Rose felt anger fill her. How could anyone just go around killing people like it was meaningless? She wasn't going to give up and she certainly wasn't going to let Carson or the other girl behind the counter die. Taking a deep breath, she tried to push her fear aside and looked at Carson. She gave him a warm smile and mouthed to him that it was going to be alright.
"Now. I'll ask you all one more time. Are you going to give up? Or will you make the mistake that the hothead made?"
Rose remained silent and shut her eyes, looking down. She didn't move or make a sound, giving her resignation with her body language. However, after a few seconds she rapidly waved her arm focusing on the armored man, telekinetically attempting to throw him backward through the door into the mall. If that did succeed, she would take another step forward and wave both her arms outward, sending both the gun and sword spiraling away from him.
As the gun rose a second time, beneath the armoured man his shadow began to darken, stretching out behind him as though he stood before a great light. The shade crept outward, spreading along the floor and coating the wall in ink-like blackness. As the blackness consumed the wall, with it came a creeping darkness that crawled along the room and a total silence of the outside world as if the black film had separated them from the world outside of this coffee shop. It crept along the ground, mingling with the shadows of two metas who just witnessed the two boys drop dead and was slithering along the ground like a serpent toward the frigid girl behind the counter. The blonde began to move her hands as the armoured man pulled the trigger a second time, dropping the second boy. As she moved the shadow at her feet lurched up from the ground, tendrils of blackness roping around her wrists, clenching them tightly.
"The bold and impotent are only rewarded with death," a lukewarm voice whispered into the ear of the blonde, as if someone were standing on both sides of her, their lips on the edge of her earlobes. The blackness had nearly consumed her at this point, as if aiming to swallow her whole in the way the tide does a sandcastle.
The man in armour had noticed the shade and drew a blade of psionic energy that hummed a crackled with a fierce intensity. He recognized what was happening and that if he had made a move toward the children now it would only be a wasted effort. A figure of what looked like billowing smoke emerged from the blackness before the gunman. His body lean and textured like charred bark. His aquiline face looked more like a helmet that bore a pair of red eyes that smoldered like burning coals. The texture of his body was constantly shifting as if his body wasn't a solid object. Its body spread wider beyond its waist, resembling a loose robe of shifting blackness. Along the lower half of his body grasped hands while agonized faces appeared in the shifting surface like the faces of men drowning in water, continuously bobbing to the surface and being dragged down beyond sight. Its gaunt arms hung limply at its sides, ended with claws that resembled rakes dipped in ink.
Shades rose from the darkness behind the three metas, standing silently and watching them as the events unfolded before them. The gunman moved first, swiping his blade at the shade who lurched backward, its body shifting around the blade. The man moved further and further toward the shade who glided backwards, its body shifting and twisting around the blade letting it only cut air. "Much too slow, Phi," the being mocked, its voice filling the room, emanating wherever the blackness had spread. "You've already killed the only omega among the group. These Alphas are mine to take." its movement slowed if only a for a moment, the blade managing to catch the shade, cutting it open to reveal pale ghostly white flesh beneath it, a spray of blood coming from where the blade met the skin. "You dog," the being snarled, the being suddenly collapsing into the darkness leaving only a splatter of blood on the wall behind it as evidence of it ever existing. The shades standing behind the children jerked forward as the blackness began to dissipate, consuming them in a shroud much like the being.
In the shroud, the children would feel weightless and as if they were sinking in a pit of tar. The experience would feel like hours for the children. The first time was always the worst.
They were spilled out onto the floor of a barren room with gray concrete slabs for walls, the floor, and the ceiling. The blackness was gone, though the only source of light was a naked bulb hanging in the center of the room, bathing the three young metas in light. At the edge of the light hand a silhouette of a man, his back only slightly visible from the light. His skin was white like freshly fallen snow, the whiteness tainted by the black tattoo of the Greek letter of the alphabet for Epsilon covering the entirety of his back. He was quietly humming as his hands worked away out of the vision of the three and only when he reached for a bottle hydrogen peroxide sitting next to a wad of bloodied cotton, a pile of bandages, and a sewing kit did it become clear that he was in the process of doing some back-alley surgery on himself. Besides his first-aid equipment sat three cellphones, their batteries sitting next to them.
A trickle of smoke rose from in front of him and when he glanced behind him the red tip of a cigarette giving more of an outline to the silhouette of his face. He had an aquiline nose and a sharp chin, the sides of his head were shaven and a pastel blue mohawk ran from the peak of his hairline to the base of his neck like a headdress, the dream-catcher tattoo on the left side of his neck and head only further adding to the motif. He parted his lips as if to say something and closed them, his eyes studying the three of them. Eventually he spoke, his voice soft and warm "Sorry about your friends." He turned away from them and returned to his first-aid, returning the brown jug to his side and grabbing a needle with a length of thread. "Go ahead and ask any questions you might have."
This wasn't what he thought this would bubble up to and staring at the man now, he felt his stomach drop when he realized there was nothing he could do to help here. He wasn't powerful enough, he didn't think that any of them were and he had never felt so pathetic before. It was a bad feeling and it swamped him, rising with his hysteria and clawing for a grip of anything that might calm him but there was nothing calming about any of this.
There wasn't a plan to be made and there was nothing he could do, realizing that was somehow worse.
His breath came out in one sharp hiss of an exhale and he straightened up, he could feel a burning in his eyes and it felt like his throat was stuffed with cotton. Two dead bodies lay sprawled on the floor like discarded garbage and he felt as if he could vomit, his breathing was sharp and whistling in his throat. It was too much, he felt a tremble run through him and if offset the shakes, his body shuddering at the sight before him. He barely knew these people, he barely knew any of them and yet he felt so miserable about seeing them on the ground, he wanted to cry. He couldn't save them and he couldn't save himself, he couldn't save Rose or the girl with the pewter hair. He wasn't a hero and he knew that.
He wasn't a hero and he was going to die, he couldn't even pretend that he was heroic. He couldn't even put on a good show, he wasn't reckless or self sacrificing, he wasn't ever going to be. There wasn't a heroic bone in his body, he was a coward down to the last hair on his head, he couldn't do anything. He was about ready to hold his arms up in defeat when he noticed something very strange creeping forward. It stunned him for a moment and he stilled, he barely caught what happened next.
Seemingly, a ripple in time took place though he supposed it must have been his imagination and the panic settling in his body but he barely saw- he barely heard- he was swamped. He couldn't keep up with the wisp- or whatever the hell this anomaly was- he couldn't- had he read something about something like this? About shadows being the bringers of- was it the bringers of prophecy or death? Why did he know so much useless lore anyhow? His thoughts were becoming babbling mush and he gave up thinking in general for sometime. He just shut his eyes and breathed.
It felt much too long and when he had just decided he must have died, he realized he was sitting in an empty concrete room with a lone lightbulb and a man. The others were nearby but his brain felt too pressed to try to decide whether it was safe to look at them or not. He wondered if they were dead, he wondered why they would be dead if he wasn't and nearly snorted out loud before glancing to them. Breathing, in tact and just a few hairs out of place. That was fine. The man that turned towards them seemed mostly normal, it calmed his heart rate enough that he managed to stumble out his words. "Where are we? I- Why are we here? This isn't bad, right?"
He realized how young and scared he sounded for a moment and took in a rattling breath and drew his fingers through his red hair to smooth it as much as he could. His pale blue eyes were still wild with fear but at least he'd regulated his breathing, he wondered if this would turn out badly or if they were really, truly done with battles for the day. "Because if I'm going to die a tragic death, I could have done it back there and I'm still not feeling it." a desperate laugh.
Alan sat a few feet from the microwave, watching his hot pockets slowly rotate inside. Epsilon said he had twenty minutes to go back and get the last kid who wasn't in the cafe. Suddenly a realization occurred to Alan, the twenty minute deadline started around sixteen minutes ago. "Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!" He jumped up from his chair and ran towards the room where Epsilon had placed the portal. A humming filled the underground facility as Alan picked up speed, faster than was possible for any human. Within the seconds he was running through the portal, a inky black shadow spread across the back wall of the back of the sleeping quarters. Instantly the cool damp air of the underground facility was replaced by the dry Arizona heat. He didn't break stride as the ground beneath his feet went from concrete to sand. The straggling meta was supposedly in the parking lot of some mall. After a few more seconds of running he was combing the city for a shopping mall. He didn't have to look for very long. Within moments of reaching the western part of the city he could sense a very powerful metahuman. Phi must still be in the mall, where the hell is this kid? Phi made it hard to feel other metas, but after focusing a bit he could pick out the kid walking up the parking lot towards the mall. Alan adjusted his trajectory and raced towards the kid. In one smooth motion he threw the kid over his shoulder and back towards the portal that would take him home.
Alan bolted out of the portal and into the sleeping quarters, and raced back towards the microwave without dropping the young man slung over his shoulder. On the way he grabbed a chair for the boy to steady himself in after they stopped. Everyone reacted differently to moving at this rate of speed for the first time. Best case scenario he'd just need to sit down for a few minutes, worst case scenario Alan would be cleaning vomit off the floor. He slowed as he approached the corner of the mess hall that contained the microwave, still not even close to being finished with his hot pockets. The second chair was placed next to his and the kid was gently lowered atop it. "Sorry about not being able to warn you that you were about to be snatched up. If you had moved any when I came in to grab you then your neck probably would have snapped." Alan looked at the boy closely for the first time. His long brown hair was a complete mess from the ride, his eyes slowly adjusting to the lower light levels. The kid had some sparse facial hair on his lip and chin, he couldn't have been older than 19. 20 tops. "My name's Alan, but you can call me Delta. If you would have made it inside that mall then your brains would have decorated the floor. Don't worry, its chill here. Epsilon grabbed a few more metas your age, so while he's tending to them you're stuck with me. So...what's your name? Oh, and do you want one of these when they're done?" Alan motioned to the microwave, its soft buzzing filling the mess hall while he waited for the boy's response.
Before Rose could do anything, something yanked her wrists and tightly clenched them so tight she was sure they were causing a blood clot. She glanced over at her arms in panic to find a strange black roping around it. She tried to thrash her arms against it but she wasn't strong enough to even budge them.
"The bold and impotent are only rewarded with death," a voice whispered from behind her. It felt like he was whispering in both her ears somehow. She tried to look over her shoulder to see the speaker, managing, "Well that's not me. I am not bold or impotent at all." Her eyes darted around the room in panic as the room seemed to get darker an darker and the black substance spread across the room. This was a nightmare come to life.
Rose thought she heard the voice conversing about Phi or something but she couldn't pay too much attention to it. The darkness had shrouded her at this point and she couldn't see anything nor feel her own weight against the ground. Was she drowning? She sure felt like she couldn't breathe. Rose had no idea how much time went by like this. Though it was a dreadful experience, she knew the end of it probably meant her death and she was grateful for final moments even if they were kinda traumatic.
Then suddenly the blackness was all gone. She slowly dared to open her eyes when a dim light intruded through her eyelid. She ran a hand through hair, brushing strands that had fallen in her face back to their spot in order to clear her vision There was one light bulb in the room and a guy standing there. She couldn't see him too well except for his pale back. She wasn't sure but it sounded like he was humming. He turned around, the cigarette lighting up his face for them to see. It seemed they had another smoker with a mohawk in their presence.
"Sorry about your friends." The guy finally said. His voice was warm instead of threatening or frightening which she had expected. He turned away from them to fiddle with something she couldn't see and said, "Go ahead and ask any questions you might have."
Questions? Rose had a million of them. The one that played over and over in her head was whether or not she could go home but she knew she couldn't just leave without understanding what had happened. "Okay. Who are you and why did that man want to kill us? And what was that black stuff? "
The man waited patiently for one of them to talk and turned away once the boy with ghostly pale skin and a shock of orangish-red hair spoke up, tripping over his words as they spilled out of his lips. "Where are we? I- Why are we here? This isn't bad, right?" He asked and even with his back toward the boy, he could still feel the kid's frantic eyes staring into his back as if it had the answer written across it. Well, it did have the answer written across it. The boy just didn't know what it meant yet.
The man's lips began to part, before pressing back together at the sound of another voice, the blonde mirroring the boy's question. "Okay. Who are you and why did that man want to kill us? And what was that black stuff? " She questioned him, having the wits about her to ask about what restrained her. She had a feigned confidence to her voice. Or perhaps it wasn't feigned. Perhaps she was just an overconfident brat that had no idea what she was in for. She had told him that she was neither bold nor impotent. To try and throw around Phi and fail so spectacularly spoke much more strongly than her words. She'd probably die in her next confrontation. Kids like that rarely lived long. Their brains tended to be wired to shut out anything he did to teach them.
The man made a mental note of her. Dead on arrival.
"Because if I'm going to die a tragic death, I could have done it back there and I'm still not feeling it," the boy spoke again with a nervous laughter that reminded the man of his first experience with an Omega. He had laughed too. Gallows humour. It tended to help a lot of folks get through tragedy.
The man made another note, letting out a puff of smoke as a mental period to his thought. He might have a fighting chance.
He let out a quiet hiss as the pain of antiseptic began to sizzle away at the open wound, stinging sharply along the crudely sealed wound. He had improvised in a rush to treat the wound from Phi and used butchers twine instead of thread to sew shut his wound. It'd leave uglier scars to accompany the new gash that ran just left of his gut, three inches in length, deep enough to make it gurgle up blood before being packed with gauze and sewn shut.
Wound closed and blood partially washed away by the hydrogen peroxide he turned and planted his two bare feet. He had long gaunt limbs with a sharp chin and aquiline nose. His face glowed a sullen maroon from the already dying light in the cigarette which trickled visible streams of smoke with every long slow breath. He eyed them up and down, offering only a flat neutral expression to the lot of them. Deciding that enough time had been wasted, he reached a hand farther into the light from the naked bulb, deciding to answer one of the questions right out of the gate. The hand was plain. Pale skin, short trimmed nails with pink nailbeds, long fingers with callouses running along the palms of his hand. The blackness from the cafe emerged from beyond the light and moved like a snake up his back until it squirmed along his arm and wrapped around the outstretched hand, making it appear as if it had been dipped in ink. The fingers stretched and drooped, coming to long talon. The hand looked sickly and unnatural. They type of unnatural that would make a priest run the other way and cry that Lucifer himself walks the world.
"You are in the holding room of my home while I decide what to do with you. Any more information could compromise my chapter of the order, so you'll have to allow me some time to decide what is on a need to know basis and what you two need to know." He spoke in a polite and gentle tone, retracting his hand from the light and dismissing the shadow as he did so. "The one who tried to kill you was a member of the Omega order, a metahuman hunter known only as Phi. He is their order's bloodhound and holds a sterling record for subdued metahumans such as yourselves. So, yes. This is bad. Your current location is the safest you'll ever. You're welcome to leave, though I cannot guarantee your safety."
"I am Epsilon," The metahuman began to conclude his little introduction, "or the Revenant if you're at all familiar with cryptozoology. You're in the current home of the Alpha Order's recruitment chapter and I'm offering the lot of you a chance to make some use of yourselves and a chance to survive. I am not going to promise you will survive if you join, but I can promise you will the moment Phi has a chance to locate either of you again." Epsilon reached down and tossed the pair of cellphones that belong to the girl and boy, two spears of raw black energy that seemed to absorb the light that touched them lurching out of the darkness and slicing through the phones as if they were made of tissue paper. "Any contact to the outside world is strictly prohibited and any connection to an internet enabled device will result in more than just your own death from this point forward. Now chose," Epsilon ordered, standing up from his seat with a rigid spine, his freshly sealed wound threatening to burst at the seams. "Will you join us or leave?"
Epsilon thought for a moment to mention that if they were to attempt to leave, deciding it was best to hold his tongue. Knowing Phi, everything they had any involvement in was being scoured for information and their loved ones were likely going through advanced interrogation techniques. If they knew what was happening, they'd want to run and save their families. Epsilon held his tongue because he knew that by the time they found their loved ones, it'd be to late. There wouldn't be anything recognizable left.
His head was spinning. The room was spinning. Everything was in a constant state of motion. He honestly had no idea what the fuck was going on. Disoriented was no where near strong enough to describe how he felt. It was if he was delirious from dehydration and then placed on a carousel trying to break the sound barrier. It was all a blur, his mouth felt like cotton, his stomach felt as if it was trying to rip it's way out of his body and his head felt as if someone had repeatedly slammed it into a brick wall. Suffice to say Justin felt like hell.
It took a moment for his head to even process the fact he was sitting down. Even more so the guy in front of him talking. Wait a minute. His mind finally caught up with reality, or well maybe not, he wasn't in the mall parking lot staring at a burning truck anymore, he was sitting down in some unknown room, with a completely unknown guy, for completely unexplained reasons for his being there or even for that matter getting there. His body settled and his situation finally somewhat grasped Justin realized the bearded guy was talking. Something about warnings and necks snapping, but before Justin could even piece together everything and reply the guy continued. Introducing himself bearded guy continued, saying something about more metas, and junk.
Taking a moment to just breathe and make sure his head was completely clear Justin looked over bearded guy, or Delta, or Alan, whatever the fuck his face was called. The guy had what appeared to be complete sleeves on both arms, a rather thick build, and similar height. Hesitantly Justin replied, "I'm Justin and yeah neck snapping would have been bad. Now, um if you don't mind. What the fuck? What the hell are meta? Where am I? How did I get here? Why would my brains have been everywhere? Who is Epsilon? What the fuck is with the Greek alphabet code names? And no I don't want one."
Too much of his attention was stuck on the gruesome looking hatch-work of stitches on the shadow-tamer's torso. It was still a new wound and though Carson wasn't exactly a doctor, his father was-, he knew that wounds like that got infected easily and it worried him briefly. He was never a fan of makeshift doctoring to serious wounds and yet he did well in not saying anything, he assumed the man knew what he was doing. He turned his attention away from it but it left a note in the back of his mind somewhere. He hoped the man didn't get an infection.
He didn't want to speak out as the man was talking, unable to process a clear enough thought to offer in return of his words, unable to offer him anything that would be of use to him. The redhead was feeling pretty useless as far as good replies were concerned and he didn't feel like making a blubbering idiot of himself just yet. He'd almost let himself be killed by some maniac because he'd decided he couldn't save himself, he felt like a huge baby at the moment and it was embarrassing him horribly. He'd never been good with trauma of any sort, he got too anxious and he was an escapist but he couldn't escape this and that was bothering him more than anything. There was no escaping left, there was no more to run, he felt cornered.
He'd been trying to escape his parents house in hopes of pretending that those problems didn't exist, he'd tried to escape his power in general and now he was here. He was here and for the first time since he'd realized there was something different about him, he wasn't so sure he could get away from it anymore and he found himself growing weary. There were no more battles today but the battles were far from over by the way the man spoke. He barely flinched when his phone was sliced and he ran his hand up through his hair worriedly, his pale blue eyes flashing in the lowlight. He didn't think his mother would be texting soon anyhow, she was probably in her usual ritual of TV and avoiding his father's endless spew of dribbling nonsense about how he was under appreciated.
It was routine, he expected it by now, he didn't want to think about anything else happening. He wanted them to be going about their usual daily problems of one-sided arguing and Tru TV endlessly chattering about some serial killer while his mother silently watched. He may have inherited his father's fiery hair and freckled nose and quick temper but he'd also inherited his mother's tendency to bunker down from her problems instead of facing them. He was really wanting to do that now but the man seemed to have other plans and it seemed more sane than Carson could fight.
He definitely didn't want to have another showdown with the mysterious Phi and his not-so-mysterious gun.
The man standing before him however was some otherworldly force, a creature of shade and ink, someone who probably knew much better than him. This man was someone that he decided he could trust, if warily, he felt wary about everything right now though. He knew much better than to question someone like this and he drew in a breath. "I don't suppose there's much to return to, huh?" he asked somberly before nodding very slowly, his fingers running through his hair a few more times as if to smooth what was already flattened against his head. It was a nervous habit and jittery shudders were running through him as if to get out the last of his anxious tension.
"Contrary to popular belief I don't want to go home and get wiped out. Surviving death once is fine by me." a weak smile, half-hearted and crooked. "You've got me. I don't know what good I'll be and I'll probably end up crying by the end of today but I'll join."
Sayuri looked up at the sky. The white clouds covered the blue expanse a mile in every direction. As she watched, the sky started to darken as the clouds began to turn gray. She closed her eyes and breathed slowly.
The clouds were a puffy white again when she opened her eyes. An image of her mother flashed before her eyes and thunder rumbled in the far distance. She mentally chided herself and looked towards the sound. She could feel the boom echo inside her. It wanted her to set it free - it always wanted her to set it free. She wondered what the people near that lonely sound of thunder might have thought.
Part of her wanted to make it rain. She didn't want to think about it, but the thoughts came anyway. Since she couldn't cry, the sky would sometimes do it for her.
"Dead she's dead dead she's dead no bad thoughts no bad thought only good thoughts only good no bad thoughts make it stop make it stop rain don't rain I want it to rain- don't let it rain control bad thoughts no bad thoughts I'm going to die I'm going to-"
She mentally slapped herself. Her body twitched with the effort to keep the thoughts away. Sometimes she had days or weeks of perfect clarity. Then it would come back even stronger than before. Fitting that the thoughts would haunt her on her birthday.
Her head twitched as she blocked another thought. At first she didn't notice she was doing it, but she made it stop.
A cool breeze swept past her and she closed her eyes. The wind was speaking to her. It was telling her that things would be ok no bad thoughts no bad thoughts no-
She felt herself pull on the breeze and it picked up. Cool air ran through her long hair and caressed her face. She felt herself lift from the ground slightly, only the tips of her bare toes touching the ground.
Image of her father. Thunder boomed in the distance and she fell to the ground.
"Shut up!" She screamed in the direction of the sound. "Shut up!"
She paused, but the thunder didn't respond.
"I hope I'm finally going crazy," she said out loud. She'd probably have to hear lectures about the thunder. She sighed.
She looked up at the clouds and decided she would try to make shapes in the clouds. The shapes weren't very good.
She rose and dangled in the air, his legs limp and toes barely touching the blades of emerald grass that lied flat against the violent winds. When the girl with porcelain skin screamed the wind screamed with her, his raven black hair whipped by the wind that so harshly swept across the inconspicuously located field that was oh so conspicuously square shaped. The wind was culled as the girl returned to the calmed grass and though the sound carried well along the rolling field, her lips moved and her secret admirer of sorts heard no words.
He never needed words to know what she was feeling. She had an expressive face when she thought no one was watching. The kind that spills her soul out for the world to see. The kind that swallowed her soul back up the moment the world looked. He admired her for that. One of these days he planned to let her know that she could open up the flood gates and let it all out, but she wasn't ready for that yet. No one knew that more than the man watching her from the shadows cast by the nearest line of trees. Her watcher smiled softly, the type an old friend would have after seeing a long lost friend in the distance. He leaned against the nearest tree, shrouded in the heavy shade. Then he was gone.
The girl's shadow twisted and pulled, stretching long and flattening out before it twisted along the ground and separated from her altogether, forming a puddle black as tar by her side. It rose like a souffle and, like an amateur chef's first souffle, parted and sadly sunk back down leaving a young gaunt man sitting where the living shadow was. The only noise from him was the gentle puffs of air from between his lips as he leaned back and laid out on the grass, watching he clouds that shifted and pulled as if god himself were pulling at them. The man's blue pastel mohawk hung limply to the left side of his head, making the vibrant tattoo of a dream-catcher along the right side of his neck all the more prominent. He wore a worn grey hoodie over a thin white button up shirt that showed the outline of the tattoos under the thin fabric. In polite society he would have been asked fasten at least two more of his buttons, though the tattoo of Gir from Invader Zim riding a flying pig that was ever so slightly visible on his right wrist and his various piercings spoke volumes about his relationship with polite society. His pants were neither tight nor loose and hung freely on his hips, no belt in sight. His shoes were casual black dress shoes beaten to high heaven and dragged back kicking and screaming.
He wagged a finger in the girl's general direction and up rose a slithering serpent of shadow that ran along her body and coiled around her eyes, blindfolding the porcelain girl. "If you keep distracting yourself with how they are now, you'll never see them the way you want to. Imagine what you want to see most and push your will out," he spoke softly, nearly made mute by the now calming winds. "It's been three months, Sayuri. I know you can move clouds. Now do it."
A part of her knew he was there. When he wasn't shadow, she could feel him moving through the wind. It was purely incidental, of course. Sayuri knew that she wouldn't be able to know he was there if he really didn't want her to.
She didn't flinch when she "felt" the shadow climb. She didn't even flinch when the world suddenly went dark. She smiled a little before she realized she was and clamped her lips.
Sayuri tried to ignore what he was saying. Her head twitched slightly and she hoped he hadn't noticed.
"Pushing my will out is hard, Slate." She whispered. "What if I can't pull it back?"
Dead dead she's dead he's dead he'll die no he won't die-
She breathed out slowly. The wind that left her becoming part of the breeze that picked up again. The could feel them all, the Easterlies, the calm Westerly winds, the strong Northerlies, and the Southerlies. She could feel them going about their day. She could feel the clouds waiting for her. The clouds always seemed to want to please her. They were the nicest. Thunder always seemed to be accusing her of something and she was sure that the lightning hated her. Or maybe it was just her hate personified.
The rain. If lightning was her hatred and anger, then the rain was her sorrow and sadness.
Rain rain let it rain no don't rain-
A few drops fell from the sky. She almost giggled when she thought of a few drops of water falling on Slate's face. That made her smile, despite herself. The clouds had started to darken, but they got bright again. She couldn't see it happening, but she knew how they were feeling.
Slate believed in her. He probably knew her more than anyone else had ever known her, including herself.
His words echoed again in her mind - "It's been three months, Sayuri. I know you can move clouds. Now do it."
She braced herself and let her will, at least a part of it, flow freely. The imagined the clouds smiling inwardly at her, praising her. She wanted to see a face in the clouds. She thought that when she might look, it would be her mother's. But the clouds wouldn't take her mother's shape. They would show Slate.
He sighed and placed a hand on her back, his hand molding to the contours of it. He could feel her every breath through his hand and continued to watch the sky, letting his hand tell him everything he would have needed to know about her by watching her back. He offered her no more advice, in part because he had no more advice to give, and in part because it was sink or swim. He couldn't coddle her forever. He had done enough of that when she first arrived, but she couldn't mourn the loss of her mother forever. Slate never had the luxury of mourning, but he understood its importance. There was very little closure to be had with the sort of end her mother had and the poor girl was now in his care. She was like her mother in at least one way. She was dead to the world.
The cool dribbling of water nearly dragged a groan out of Slate until he felt her spine straighten, her shoulders tighten, and her body stiffen ever so slightly. She was trying to hide a smile. She wanted to get a grouchy complaint out of Slate and he'd sooner die than gratify her.
She tensed up again, this time it felt as if her entire body was tightening up into a ball. The muscles on her back clenched and pressed tightly against her spine and held there tightly under his touch. He rose the palm from her back and pressed his fingers into her back and whistled the guitar to The Sonic's Cinderalla. The tension in her back slowly faded away, which Slate assumed came from her letting her will go free. She hadn't quiet grasped the concept of the will. With a power that required one to make operate something beyond their body as if it were an extension of their own, required the projection of will. The secret wasn't to force the will onto your subject, but to offer it. Few things in this world lack the social tact to turn down a gift.
The clouds begin to part and press against each other, melding and shifting, becoming one, and then many, and then one again. Like temperate waves under the full moon, the clouds pressed against and pulled away from one another. Every collision brought more form to the shape. The clouds were Sayuri's clay.
As the image began to form, Slate's eyebrow slowly cocked, as did his one sided smirk that served to flaunt his lip ring. The blindfold of living shade melted away in the gentle light, allowing Sayuri to see her creation. The somewhat crudely drawn, but admirable attempt at creating a mohawked man with aquiline features with a litany of piercings attached to his face hung in the sky, like something straight out of the Lion King. If the Lion King had a significantly lower budget and was forced to be drawn with crayons. "Care to explain," He asked, holding back any signs of laughter or amusement in his voice as best as he could, "what it is that you decided to hide among the clouds?"
Sayuri frowned and then glared at Slate as if it was his fault. She realized that she probably looked like she was pouting, but she couldn't help it.
"The clouds have a strange sense of humor," she said, fighting back a smile. "I think it needs a little something." Her hand rose to the sky as she gave a few "brush" strokes. The face in the clouds now had a very distinct mustache. She looked back at Slate, her own eyebrow raised.
"I think it's an improvement," she said, trying to keep a straight face. She actually felt a little happy. The face in the sky hadn't been what she'd intended, but it was progress.
"Ok," she said, looking back at the clouds, "now my mother's face." She pushed at the clouds. They began to shift, stretching and contracting. The face seemed to be swollowed up as she tried to mold them into a new face. It wasn't going very well. She clenched her jaw and made the clouds begin the formation of a face. It was like pushing against a wall.
"Why isn't it working," she muttered, "it was working a second ago." When she had painted on the mustache it had been easy. All she had to do was see it and it was there. She barely even had to think about it. But now the clouds were fighting her. They started to darken as she pushed and pulled. The wind picked up. She could feel herself being taken by it. She knew she should stop, but she wasn't sure how. She wanted to tell Slate to help her stop, but she couldn't move.
She had shifted her efforts from trying to make a face to keeping the clouds and the wind from getting out of control. She cursed herself for letting this happen. She was no better than a child. She'd been training for months and this was all she had to show for it. Sayuri was afraid that Slate would be disappointed with her. And Delta too. She was a failure.
"Trying to convince me to grow out a mustache now, are we?" Slate patted her back and let out a terse chuckle as he brought his hands back under his head, the slightly damp ground making him regret laying down. At least he'd have less grime to wash out of his hair this way.
Slate offered her no reassurance or encouragement as she announced her effort to recreate her mother's face in the clouds. There was a lot of trauma associated with that image and no matter how badly she wanted to remember her mother without flashes of the woman's end, she wasn't far enough along to be free of those thoughts. The poor thing, Slate thought as the clouds bucked like raging bulls against her control.
The wind roared and Sayuri's form began to lower when the great weight of self-doubt bared down on her. With the winds came a fast approaching darkness, the clouds ash gray and on the verge of pouring all of her frustration out onto the world below. Slate remained on the ground beside her, hands behind his head, eyes half open, his left foot wiggling in a mixture of anticipation and worry. If she lost control, they could be blown away by a rogue lightning bolt and as fast as Slate was, he wasn't that fast. He reached out and wrapped the calloused hand around her shoulder before giving her a sharp tug to lay down on the grass beside him. "Lightning hit the tallest object around and we're still in a field," he reminded her, glancing momentarily from her to the sky once more. The glance away had been a bit quicker than intended, but he hadn't meant to pull her as close to him as he did.
"We're making a bet right now," he paused, sinking his teeth into the inside of his cheek as he thought of something to throw at her to get her to focus. "I bet you can't recreate your mother blowing you a kiss. Winner of the bet sets gets to give one demand any one thing from the loser."
Slate dug a hand into his pocket and jerked out a rusted pocketwatch that still ticked away as if it were made yesterday. He snapped it open and checked the time. "You have five minutes. Time starts now."
Being so close to slate seemed to break through whatever haze had overtaken her. It wasn't a slow return to awareness, but rather a sharp snap back to reality. She could see into his eyes and she thought about getting lost in them.
He has nice eyes, she thought. She was very aware of his grip on her shoulder and she didn't want him to ever let go. There was something she wanted to ask him that she hadn't ever been able to before. As she stared at the pocket watch she realized that this was her chance. She was never, and this she knew for a fact, she was never going to have an opportunity like this again.
"I don't think it's a good idea to bet against me," she said, actually smiling - she hadn't yet realized that she was embarrassed to be so close to him. Slate's words about the lightning came back to her. He was right, she was putting both of them in danger. What was it that she needed to do? The answer was inside her somewhere. Her power was to dominate the atmosphere. To control it and bend it to her will. She'd tried to do that. She had extended her will and commanded the clouds to make the shapes she wanted and it hadn't worked out well so far.
Looking into his eyes, Sayuri though about how Slate's shadows seemed to have a mind of their own. They would listen to him. Except, that wasn't exactly right. There was something about the shadows that she had to understand. Something that also related to her and the clouds and the wind and everything in the sky. The image of the mustache came back to her. She had imposed her will successfully upon the clouds - except, she hadn't. She had merely seen the mustache and extended her arms. But she wasn't extending her arms, it was her will.
It almost clicked with an audible "pop" in her head as she realized that the clouds and the sky and the wind wasn't subject to her will, it was an extension of her very being. Just like Slate and his shadows. She could feel it now, she could sense the clouds and their movements. The wind around her seemed to be made of her. The wind slowed down as she became aware of its speed. She hadn't "told" it to do that - it simply happened. Just like how she never "told" her arms to move or her feet to take her places. It simply happened.
She let out a laugh, "you're so going to regret this Epsilon!" She let the awareness of the clouds come into focus, like she might her hands when she was about to do something delicate. An image of her mother blowing her a kiss came into her thoughts. She didn't fight it. She let it move through her. The clouds brightened and she could feel them moving, shaping themselves into the image she wanted. She still didn't quite understand how this worked, but she knew that she now at least understand that it wasn't about sending out her will, it was about her will itself encompassing the atmosphere around her.
As she stared at the image of her mother, she felt peaceful. Not the lasting kind, but it was like a glass of cold water on a hot day. Even as she smiled at the face she felt her connection lose its clarity. She wasn't losing control of the them, this time it was like leaving a yoga pose. The clouds slowly returned to their normal state of being. The wind became normal wind and the day returned to normal. Whatever normal was.
Her influence on the clouds was still there, but she'd grown so accustomed to keeping the clouds constantly over their hideout that she didn't have to think about it at all.
"Well that was nice while it lasted," Sayuri sighed, not unhappy. She was trying to not look so happy. She liked having a cold aura about her. She'd gotten so used to wearing it that it was hard to take it off. "I hope you enjoyed that work of art because I'll probably never be able to do that again."
She saw the pocket watch again and smiled, "So I bet your wondering what I'm going to demand from you now."
Sayuri decided that she would let herself be happy for a short while. She had earned it. Seeing her mother in the sky as she remembered her when her father was still alive - it gave her hope. Hope that there was a reason to live.
Then she remembered how close she was to him and tried to fight to keep herself from blushing. She probably should move away, but part of her didn't want to.
Alan watched as the boy slowly regained his wits, so far it appeared that he was gonna be alright. Sweet! No mopping up vomit today! Alan thought while allowing a small smile to creep across his face, the kid had already managed to impress Alan. However the boy was about to impress Alan further, by actually managing to gather himself enough to speak. "I'm Justin and yeah neck snapping would have been bad. Now, um if you don't mind. What the fuck? What the hell are meta? Where am I? How did I get here? Why would my brains have been everywhere? Who is Epsilon? What the fuck is with the Greek alphabet code names? And no I don't want one."
"Pleasure to make your acquaintance Justin! Now to answer your questions in order. What do you mean "What the fuck?"? Meta are what we are. Someplace safe. I carried you here. Cause Phi would have shot your sorry ass. My partner-in-crime. I'm not sure, Pops thought of it quite some time ago. Nice, more for me! The microwave had dinged in the middle of Alan speaking, signaling that his pockets of "meat" were finished cooking. He quickly spun around and grabbed a paper plate from on top of the microwave. Alan reached into the microwave and placed the two hot pockets on his plate. Sitting down he eagerly took a bite of the first pocket. "Oh mother fu-", he spat the steaming bite onto his plate. Justin seemed unamused with both Alan's half-assed answers and the fact the grown man had just burned his tongue on a hot pocket. With a sigh he turned his attention away from his food and back to Justin.
"I guess you want some better answers. Okay. Meta are what we are, and what Epsilon and the yahoos are downstairs are. We're people that, for some reason, either Pops or Omega chose to give a sliver of their power to. When those powers actually kick in varies from person to person. I've heard of little shits that have almost vaporized their mothers on their way into the world to old folks who start levitating on their death beds. However a vast majority of us realize that we're special between the ages of 13 and 20. For your next question I'm going to retain my previous answer, I nabbed you in the parking lot of that mall and carried you here. Phi was waiting for you in that mall. He's a higher-up on the Omega side of things. His job is to snuff out young metas before they have the chance to take up arms against Omega. So if you would have set foot in there he would have ended your life without hesitation." Alan paused for a moment, not sure how much Justin actually needed to know. After some contemplation he continued his explanation. "Epsilon and I are both good guys. We've been working together to get to young metas before Phi can. Which reminds me..." Alan darted forward, sticking his hands into Justin's pockets and removing his cell phone. He threw the device on the floor, and stamped on it multiple times. All of this occurred within a fraction of a second. "Sorry about that, Epsilon has a rule against internet-enabled devices in the base. Now I have one more question for you. Are you gonna stick around here and join the fight, or do you wanna head back to town and try your luck with Phi?"
