There was a man with the heart of a rolling stone. He found a Girl who desperately wanted to be married to Lord, but he wooed her for one night with the tinkling of the World. This girl, a daughter of a Reverend, knew how her actions would be seen but knew there was no alternative. But apparently God doesn’t save those who own up to their sins, instead of asking forgiveness, as that Girl’s heart began to slow in the last moments of childbirth. Her cries ebbed out as a new set of lungs etched into the world, her little Baby Girl, Je Lisa.

...or at least, that’s how Je Lisa interprets the story from the tidbits of information she can salvage from her grandmother. Enter in a girl displaced and not-so subtly unloved by a family too clouded to care. Je Lisa knew her story wasn’t new after a year or two of residing almost exclusively in her county library. Where else does a girl go when, in her home, there’s the unrelenting thought that Je Lisa herself caused the death of her mother. A baby born from wedlock, from a man nobody knew. Her skin, seen as a testament to God’s message, the visual representation of sin. “And something just wasn’t right ‘bout the way she died. They said she was too cold,” while Je Lisa herself ran a fever for the first week of her life. A cruel introduction to the girl who felt cold for the majority of her formative years.

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And of course Fortune decided to bend a bit more for Je Lisa in the onset of her abilities. Caught reading Margaret Atwood in church, it had been the last entry in a petty list of grievances her grandmother kept a mental list of. Dragging her granddaughter to the “Sin Box”--a crude contraption that resembled an outhouse shed with no latrine and completely devoid of light inside, Je Lisa’s grandmother wailed consistently about her being such a “pretty little broken thing. A pretty broken thing that needed to be fixed and reflect in the light of the Lord,” as she locked the door on Je Lisa.

In the first moments, Je Lisa felt flustered from the rage she felt. But it didn’t dissipate, she fumed more and her cheeks only continued to flush more--until the sensation transferred to her left hand and all around her things suddenly felt cool, a little chill actually. It wasn’t until she heard her grandmother’s battered boombox flare up with an AM gospel radio station that Je Lisa began to feel her anger again. Nettling her, she repeated to herself:

“I’ll show you pretty and broken things. I’ll show you pretty and broken things.”

Looking up for the first time in the midst of her mantra, Je Lisa could detect the chill in the air and felt her breath hang for a moment too. Placing a foot down, she noticed a new slick feel to the floor. Baffled, she reached out to the door, just able to make out a gloss to the frame. The door shattered at her touch and light flooded in, casting a brief iridescent reflection on the shattered pieces of the broken door.

Those who have power, succumb to that power. It’s only a question of how they do so. Growing up in an age burgeoning with heroes, there was something that rang harmonic with her seeing the power they had. It wasn’t only “so cool” to have it, it was a burden. But they didn’t let their abilities define them or control them and by proxy, they didn’t let their circumstance have the ultimate say over their lives. So why not her? Why couldn’t she be the one to help save the pretty little broken things that need actual saving?

[Okay, I’m trying to expound on and show a need and resolve to save things stemming from a fear of having a mother who couldn’t be saved, not being able to be saved [accepted] by her family, and need to atone for the lingering guilt over her mother’s death. Her aim is to help and she is aware of her position as an individual with powers. On some level, she feels it’s all she has that she can contribute to the world where they won’t the abnormality that is their perception of her skin.]

Maybe it was never supposed to pan out like this to the end. We never imagined a sunset and warm tones to kiss our skin while we aged. But was it too much to hope for a legacy? Hell, maybe we were never meant to see any end besides the bitter one. The one that stains taste-buds for generations to come.

Maybe we were never supposed to grow so large, our shadows so long. Were those the places evil was given a chance to breed? With our faces to the bright light of the future, what do the shadows of our past have to say about it? Maybe we shot too far.

But then again: When has a Maverick ever dealt in "maybe’s"?

A silence hung with the chill in the air. And he was the most beautiful as he hung in the chill of the air. His identifying features -- magnificent and splendid even in the fog, shone against the chains holding him. Strung up, a display for all. The loll in his head only solidified his martyrdom. Looking too long where life used to dance in his eyes was life-threatening and we’re not here for that.

We’re not here for “used to” and mourning like the rest of the city, gathered on this unholy of Sundays. No. We’re here for “will be” and vengeance on scale with an angered god. Because that’s what we’d need to pull this off, right? The blessing of at least one god to do what we’re about to.

So then, it’s probably good that we’ve got the closest things to two of them on earth with us, and they’re pretty pissed. One of them chimes in my ear, his intensity near palpable through a simple comm-link.

“PsycheOut, what’s your position? The barrier is going up in 3.”

“Roger that. 2 meters from the set-up spot, moving in now.”

The entire Central Street of New Lilith milled with the crowd of people, nervously glancing up, but never for too long. Above them, on 8 foot stages spaced evenly on both sides of the street, stood a dozen Guardians of Light. The towering figures, donned in white armor, held their assorted weapons in one hand and their respective hostage in the other. A warning and challenge to any who thought to interfere with today’s proceeding.

[...]