Maxx

CHILDREN OF LEE - THE FIRST GENERATION OF SUPERHEROES

Silent Shadows by Peder B. Helland

Several passersby turned as Henry began to shout. A cloud of confusion formed, people stopping and looking at Henry and at the crack in the sidewalk. Mumbles floated around:

“earthquake? Not here certainly;”

“Eh, probably just the ground shifting;”

“Shit construction. That’s what’s wrong with America- we have no standards. Back in my day…”

In short, few folks heeded the words of a giant teenaged lizard, especially when they didn’t feel any tremors themselves. A few people stood in a crowd, though, watching and listening. One man knelt down and pressed his hands onto the ground to feel for anything. He squatted for a long time, people’s gazes darting between him and Henry. A weird look appeared on the man’s face, like he could feel something very faint. He cocked his head and, hesitantly, pressed an ear to the ground.

“Hold up,” he said. “Actually, I think I do hear…”

The ground rumbled. The crowd leapt back in panic. Several screams sounded from the street, but then things went quiet again, like a shadow had fallen over it. That faint crunching sound Henry had heard before vanished, and then transformed into something else, a squelching, bubbling noise, like the concrete was boiling. The cracked sidewalk block suddenly turned very dark, as if it had reverted to wet cement, and from it bubbles trickled. People began to stagger backwards. Several folks took off running. From below the ground, there was a twisting, groaning noise, like metal bending.

And then the ground exploded.

Iron Golem - Dark Souls Soundtrack

People freaked out. The crowd was sent flying backwards. A car parked on the side of the road was ejected into traffic, colliding with the side of a Prius and shoving it into the wrong lane of traffic, causing a pileup. Henry was sent soaring backwards, crashing through the front door of Saturday Comics as the glass in the windows shattered, sending down razor-sharp shards The rumbling could be heard by everyone now, but it was different; it sounded less like rocks were breaking and more like two stones grinding against each other, or maybe...something slithering?

As the dust from the explosion cleared, a humanoid figure could be made out in the middle of it. They were gargantuan, nearly twenty feet tall and broad-shouldered. They towered over the whole rest of the street, dwarfing people and cars and even the light posts. As the dust settled, the silhouette turned to being, and the creature’s skin came into focus. It was a light grey, with the color and porousness of concrete, but seemed to move with the flexibility of flesh. It had no features besides this: no clothing, no face, no hair. Where it should’ve had legs, its body instead melded together into a serpent-like tail thick as a man’s torso that stuck into the ground from the spot where the sidewalk panel had been . As the crowd began to panic and people ran for their lives, the creature bent down wordlessly and grabbed a light post by the base. It ripped the post out of the ground with the ease of a blade of grass and, holding it two-handed like a baseball bat, smashed it into the front windows of the boutique next to Saturday Comics, smashing them and denting the metal doorframe.

People poured down Main Street in a panic. From the windows of Mooncash Coffee, the explosion and figure could be seen half a block down. Confusion swept the crowded room. Some people instinctively dove beneath tables and counters for cover, while others ran for the door, running out into the night. Still others took out cameras or early iPhones and began to take pictures. Helen stood stock still behind the counter, face flushed white and eyes locked on the figure. She seemed stunned, like a deer in headlights. The golem turned towards Mooncash, light post in hand. Its head tilted, and then it lifted the post and hurled it towards Mooncash like a javelin.

“GET DOWN!” somebody in the room yelled. People at the windows dove to the floor, covering their heads to prepare for a deluge of glass.

Helen still stood frozen.

CHILDREN OF LEE - THE FIRST GENERATION OF SUPERHEROES

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H E L E N

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Work was busy as usual, and Helen trucked through the mounds of orders with practiced discipline. Coffee splashed. Whipped cream dripped onto her shoes. A grown woman cried because her espresso wasn't hot enough. Truly dangerous volumes of sugar substitutes were poured into frothing milk. Out of the corner of her eye, Helen caught sight of a familiar face in the crowd: a fellow student from Kirby- one with a reputation for violence, at least according to the news. Of course, Helen didn't trust the news, and Chris had always interested her, not in a romantic or sexual way, but just with curiosity. Helen had occasionally seen snippets of the conservative newspaper in town, the Leesburgh Patriot, and they talked about Chris Christian like he was the spawn of Satan. Of course, Helen knew they were full of shit (this was the same magazine that said homosexuals were sent by China to destabilize the US breeding population), but still she couldn't help but think about what he was really like.

Helen handed Chris his coffee without a word. She smiled a little, but then had to run back into the fray as six orders for strawberry Frappuccinos came in. She glimpsed Elle out of the window. Helen liked Elle a lot, but they had few classes together and barely talked anymore. Helen missed her, but now wasn't the time for catching up. Now was the time for coffee-based warfare on the mob of entitled rich. She made a mental note to text Elle later.

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6:30 PM

Silent Shadows by Peder B. Helland

By 6:30, Main Street was bustling with activity. Crowds chittered in restaurants, packs of teens moved along the streets. It was Labor Day Weekend, and people were celebrating the arrival of a long break from school and work. Music poured from car windows. The smells of fried food and barbecue wafted through the air. Everyone was happy, or at least doing their best to look it.

Outside of Saturday Comics, though, something strange was happening. Beneath the rumble of the street came a dull grumbling noise, like rock being turned to gravel. Most folks didn't notice it over the hum of the street, but it was there and it slowly grew louder, as if it were moving closer. Outside of the comic shop, there was a snap. A frightened teenager leapt from where he was walking and bumped into a telephone pole. He looked down to see a crack in the sidewalk, a single split breaking it clean in two.

"What the hell?!" the guy said.

"Damn bro!" his friend replied. "Guess you're so fat that you broke the fucking sidewalk."

"Hey not cool bro!" the guy replied. "You know I'm sensitive about my weight!" They squabbled as they walked past down the road, forgetting the crack in favor of an argument. Under it all, the sound grew louder, though not enough for the average person to suspect anything beyond road noise. Perhaps if you had very good hearing, though, you would notice that something isn't right...

CHILDREN OF LEE - THE FIRST GENERATION OF SUPERHEROES

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H E L E N

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From the school lot, Helen turned onto 14th Street and drove down a few blocks to merge onto Summers Boulevard. From there, it was a few blocks, past Summer Park and the skate ramp, and the well-manicured lawns of suburbia gave way to the bustling crowds and bumper-to-bumper traffic of Main Street. Main Street was the spot where most of the town's businesses congregated, six blocks of restaurants, bookshops, and kitschy boutiques. At the head of the street, where it collided into Summers Boulevard, sat AMC Leesburgh, its neon marquee reminiscent of an old-timey jukebox. Playing this weekend: The Town, Resident Evil: Afterlife, Easy A, The Last Exorcist.

"Great, another exorcist movie," Helen mumbled to Willow. "Because I guess that old cow still had some milk in it." Nonetheless, Helen knew she'd probably end up seeing it and inevitably dragging Willow along. Or maybe she'd text Elle- they hadn't hung out in a while, though Elle sometimes came on a little strong for Helen's liking (though being friends with Willow made everyone seem like they came on strong). Beyond the two of them, Helen didn't have many friends in Leesburgh... or beyond. There were the people from the Spore forum, but...eh. Maybe she should just stick with ghost girl.

After a while in traffic, Helen came to her destination: Mooncash Coffee. It sat on the corner of Main Street and Gaiman Way. It was a modern-looking place, with wide-open windows and a tasteful metal and concrete façade. The symbol of the company, a golden Chinese coin half-sunk into a stereotypical coffee cup, was inscribed above the door with a glowing golden silhouette. Inside and out, people bustled, from businessmen on coffee breaks to kids off school lining up for their daily shot of caffeinated iced sugar. Helen didn't mind working at Mooncash- the hours were flexible and the staff was fun to work with, but gods could she do without the existence of the Frappuccino. She pulled Doug around the side of the store where there was some employee-only parking. Doug ground to a halt (Helen wondered if this would be the time the brakes would fail and send her putting a new hole in the break room) and Helen got out. Before she hit the door, she had her golden Mooncash apron on, and she elbowed her way through the crowd, Willow close behind.

Gypsy Jazz in Paris, 1935

Inside, the store was dark wood and grey brick. A line had made its way back to the front door, and Helen had to practically wrestle her way through the crowd. She considered drawing an eye on an old Italian man's briefcase, just to give her something to do during work, but then decided against it. Helen made it over the bar dropped her bag off in the back. The store's manager, a middle-aged gay man with blue hair named Billy Morehouse, waved to her from the computer, where he was intently watching a mandatory video conference on coffee bean sourcing from Central America. Helen waved back and shoved her things into her locker in the back, one of several rammed up against the back wall behind the pastry racks.

The moment Helen came out from the back, she was directed onto the espresso machine closest to the crowd and confronted a mountain of empty cups. She had been working at Mooncash for about 4 months, and by now she had mastered the codes the cashiers wrote on the sides of the cups in Sharpie. She steamed a mocha and blended a frappuccino simultaneously, served four extra hot chai lattes to a school of businesspeople at the same time, tossed a whipped cream canister through the air like a baton and nearly knocked Billy's teeth out (though he caught it without looking and handed it to the barista it was intended to). This would be Helen's life for the next four hours: slinging coffee, beating back the horde of elementary schoolers desperate for trendy milkshakes with the lightest bit of coffee in it, joking with similarly-overworked employees about their surprisingly intricate sex lives and who was sleeping with whom on the staff now. It was a chaotic frenzy, and she loved it.

CHILDREN OF LEE - THE FIRST GENERATION OF SUPERHEROES

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H E L E N

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Helen jumped as Willow's ghostly-pale face appeared through the car door. All these years of friendship and that still freaked her out sometimes. Helen laughed it off and put on her seat belt as Willow got situated. It took a minute to get Doug going, but after several key turns and the sound of a smoker coughing into a megaphone, the car sprung to life. WLEE, the local radio station, was playing Superbass Nicki Minaj. Helen turned the song up and wound down the windows. Slowly, she waited her turn in the line of cars that mobbed their way out of the parking lot: a Honda, two Toyotas, Chad Charles’ obnoxiously yellow BMW. Eventually, Doug groaned its way out of the parking space and into line.

“How are you doing love?” Helen asked Willow as they sat in the traffic. B.O.B’s musical stylings still floated through the air from the back of a Jeep Wrangler that no less than seven members of the soccer team had packed into.

As Helen drove out of the parking lot, she felt a warm breeze flow in through the window, despite the autumn chill. She saw the source up ahead: standing by the side of the road was Evelyn Noblezada. ’That bitch, Helen thought, afraid that if she said it out loud Evelyn would hear. Nobody needed a primer on reasons to dislike Evelyn- she had made Helen cry a minimum of three times just in the sixth grade, and this was actually a little below average for tween girls at Moore Middle School. Poor Kelly ended up spending lunch in the bathroom every day out of fear of running into Evelyn at the lunch table.

The worst part about Evelyn Noblezada, though, was that Helen couldn’t stop looking at her. She was just so...hot: stupid perfect makeup, stupid smooth caramel skin, stupid pretty eyes, stupid toned soccer legs that Helen would love nothing more than to...

There was a shout. Helen instinctually slammed on the brakes. Her eyes shot up to see that she had come within inches of hitting Letitia Green. Doug’s bumper was hanging over the edge of the sidewalk and a conga line of traffic was piling up behind it. Helen’s eyes opened wide as dinner plates.

“Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod I’m so sorry Tish!” she yelled through the open window.

“Dude, fucking look where you’re going!” the surprisingly tall and muscular Letitia said. Her face was more shock and fear than anger. Her green skin was covered in a sheen of cold sweat and her chest heaved with adrenaline. As Letitia grabbed her backpack (which she’d dropped in the panic), she kicked out at Doug, striking the bumper and leaving a Size 13 dent. Then she stomped past and off into the parking lot. Helen blinked hard. She slowly reversed the car and then drove off down the bus loop and onto Gaiman Street, her skin even paler than normal and her eyes wide open and glued to the road.

“Uh...sorry about that,” she said to Willow.

CHILDREN OF LEE - THE FIRST GENERATION OF SUPERHEROES

Dare you to Move by Switchfoot

September 1st, 1992

Room 205 of Leesburgh General Hospital is a flurry of activity: nurses shuffling past one another, doctors donning gloves and gowns and masks at the door. The room is bare and beige and a fluorescent light hanging from the ceiling illuminates it in stark, sterile white light. In the center of the room is a hospital bed, and in that bed is a woman who is giving birth to her son. The woman is screaming and crying, her face a contorted red mask of pain and pressure. Her husband stands at her side, his face a porcelain white mask of fear, drenched with a healthy dew of sweat. The woman’s mom sits in a corner with a camcorder in her hand, recording the birth for some godforsaken reason. The doctors and nurses move around the woman in a flurry, checking vitals, whispering words of encouragement. Pulse? Elevated, but healthy. Cervical dilation? Sufficient. Spinal injections? Administered. Everything fell into place like cogs in a machine; the baby would be healthy, the mother would make a quick recovery.

The doctor whispers something into the woman’s ear. She begins to push with all her strength. The nurses gather around with scalpels and suction tubes and thick blankets for swaddling. The father is pushed out of the way like a stray shopping cart, his hand now sandwiched between two nurses and his fingers going white from the pressure of the woman’s grip. The woman cries out, a mixture of pain and barbaric might coursing through her. Within her womb, muscles contract. Fluid shifts. A new life is about to be abruptly hurled into a brand new world.

The doctor gasps as the baby’s head begins to emerge. Like a spotlight, a burst of light erupts from beneath the woman’s gown. The doctor stands stunned, his pupils dilating with the blinding light but unable to look away. A collective burst of shock and fear comes from the nursing staff. The mother of the woman, jockeying her camcorder between medical personnel, screams “WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?” She is pushed out of the way as one of the nurses moves to act. The doctor, confused and stunned, stumbled to the side as the nurse springs into action. The baby comes further and further out. He is crying, and his whole body erupts with light to the point where it burns to look at him. The nurse does it anyway. She delivers the baby single-handedly, the rest of the staff too shocked and confused to act. The umbilical cord is cut. The mucus is gently sucked from the baby’s mouth by a vacuum tube. He is wiped and wrapped in blankets and a little hat is put upon his head. The baby is still glowing. Its eyes are like looking into the sun. The woman looks down, exhausted and dizzy from the pain and pressure. She sees her son for the first time, and sees that he is glowing bright. Her jaw goes slack.

In other parts of the hospital, similar things are unfolding. In Room 207, a green baby girl is born. In 208, a baby slips through the doctor’s hands as if it’s made of maple syrup. In Room 210, a doctor towels wet cheese dust off of his face and gown. No one knows what is happening. Most people are too shocked to act. But the births happen anyways, and soon there is a maternity ward filled with very, very strange babies. By the end of the day, the hospital is more crowded than an ant hill. News reporters and FBI agents elbow eachother out of the way. EPA agents in full protective gear sweep maternity ward floors with Geiger Counters that buzz like beehives. Nobody knows what is going on, but it keeps happening: babies are born, and they are not normal.

The age of the Children of Lee has begun.

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September 3rd, 2010

Magic by B.O.B.

3:00 PM

Jack Kirby High School looks pretty much identical to every other high school in America. It’s two stories, a single large rectangle building with the gym sticking out of the right end, making the crook of an L shape. It has a bus loop in front of the glass double doors, a parking lot to the left, a soccer field, a football field with a red asphalt track around it and a set of rusty bleachers. Right now, a line of yellow school busses sit outside the front double doors in a neat row. A series of plastic tables sit to the right of the central stairs from the front doors, covered in various baked good. A boy and a girl sit behind the table. They have identical blonde hair and wear identical robin egg blue blouses. The distant sound of a monotonous voice over an intercom echoes through the doors and windows.

“Good afternoon Snow Leopards,” the voice says over the crackling intercom. “I hope you all had a good first week of school. This is Vice Principal Withers here, filling in for your afternoon announcements. We have just a few quick notes this afternoon: remember that there will be no school this Monday in observance of Labor Day. Please don’t show up to school that day, no matter how badly you want to.” The intercom cuts for a moment as VP Withers giggles to herself. She is the only person in school who laughs at the joke. “In addition, please note that school picture day will be next Tuesday. Pictures will be used for this year’s yearbook and for Student IDs. The Kirby Klefts, our brilliant and glee club, will be holding a bake sale outside of school to raise funds for their annual trip to the Pennsylvania Sing Off. Students reporting for detention should meet me outside of the Principal’s office immediately after announcements. With that, classes for the day are completed. Have a great Labor Day weekend Snow Leopards.”

The intercom clicks off and the school bells ring. Students explode from their desks, elbowing past one another as they rush through the doors and out into the linoleum halls. A sea of writhing acne and body odor erupts from the front doors of the school, accompanied by laughter, shouts, and the rhythmic bump of a handheld speaker blaring the musical stylings of B.O.B. It is sunny and warm, and the weekend looks full of promise.

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H E L E N

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The sky was clear as glass in the gaps between the branches of the trees. A warm wind blew between the trees, rustling the grass and lifting the first few fallen leaves of autumn skyward. The grass rippled along the hillside as dandelion spores danced in the summer wind. In the trees above, robins and blue jays and cicadas sang a discordant symphony of life. In the center of a circle of trees, Helen Hart lay in the dirt, hands behind her head and eyes closed gently. The wind rippled her green sundress around her knees and whipped her mess of straight red hair into a bird’s nest. Beside her, on an old tree stump, sat two books: a leatherbound journal with a heavy-duty strap on it and The Collected Works of Emily Dickinson. This is how Helen planned to spend all of her free periods as a senior: fully relaxed, at one with nature.

As the bell rang in the distance, Helen’s eyes fluttered open. On the tree stump next to where she lay sat a pudgy crow which eyed her books curiously. When she saw it, Helen’s eyes grew large; she had been waiting all her life to get this close to a crow. Slowly, she reached over to her backpack, a green canvas pack covered in pink flowers a mere arm’s length away. She grabbed the side pocket and pulled out a granola bar. The crow turned to look towards Helen. She froze, terrified of scaring it away. Instead of running, the crow hopped its way around to face her and looked down at the bar quizzically. Helen pointed at the bar and then the crow. It blinked. She assumed this meant the bird understood. She ripped the plastic packaging off the bar, crushed it in her hands, and held it out to the crow. It turned its head sideways in that way animals do, then pecked gingerly at the granola.

“Well what a beautiful boy you are!” Helen said. “What a gift from the Mother to see such a pretty bird up close!” The bird continued to eat, gulping down chunks of the granola neatly. Slowly, Helen shifted the food into her left hand, and with her right began to move to pet the creature. Before she could, though, there was a rustle in the grass nearby and a masculine grunt. A streak of grey shot across Helen’s vision and impacted the bird. It cried out in pain and stumbled with the weight of the impact, from the edge of the woods, a teenaged boy screamed:

“WORLD STAR”

Helen looked over to see two boys: one skinny and dressed in a dirty wife beater, the other fat with a mullet and literal tusks sticking out from the corners of his mouth. Helen’s eyes widened. She grabbed for her backpack and her books as the two boys ran forwards. The crow, aware of the mortal peril it was in, flew off, though its left wing twitched a bit.

“Nice shot Jack!” Mateo roared. His voice was nasally and deep.

“Thanks! Missed the other bird though!” His voice dripped with aggression. Mateo laughed, snorting a little as he did. Jack reached down and grabbed the empty beer can from where he had thrown it. Helen dashed off fast as she could as the two boys laughed and stood in what had before been her peaceful glade. She knew they wouldn’t bother chasing her- Jack and Mateo only got away with their behavior because they were just annoying enough to make you hate life but not dangerous enough to make your parents call the principal. For a split second, she considered turning around and giving them a facefull, but no, it wasn’t worth the risk.

After a few minutes of downhill jogging, Helen reached the parking lot of Kirby High. She darted past a moving school bus, the driver leaning on the horn as she did, and ran to her car. Helen’s car was, to put it gently, an acquired taste: a 2004 Toyota Prius painted pea green and covered hood to bumper in flower decals. On the back of the car, Helen had added some of her own personal touches to the deluge of decals: a pentagram, a Pride flag, a UFO, one shaped like a whale’s tail that said, fittingly, “Save the Whales”. The car was speckled with rust and peeling paint, but it ran like a charm (if you ignored the squeaky brakes, and the shitty AC, and the faulty gas gauge, and the solid minute it took the car to start some days). But Helen loved the car anyways. It was a gift from her mom for her sixteenth birthday, and to her the car was like a sibling. She called it “Doug”, which stood for “Da green car.”

Upon reaching Doug, Helen opened the door and sat down in the driver’s seat. Willow would be there soon, she knew, and then the two would commence their Friday ritual. Helen would drive to Mooncash, where she had a part-time job. She’d work four to eight while Willow occupied herself, and then the two would go out into Main Street and find something to spend their evening doing.

CHILDREN OF LEE - THE FIRST GENERATION OF SUPERHEROES

@Skai Accepted.

CHILDREN OF LEE - THE FIRST GENERATION OF SUPERHEROES

<Snipped quote by Skai>

I disagree. Banned for racism.

@JunkMail

You can tell me whether my characters are accepted when you finish The Promise.

CHILDREN OF LEE - THE FIRST GENERATION OF SUPERHEROES

Y'all some punk-ass bitches.

CHILDREN OF LEE - THE FIRST GENERATION OF SUPERHEROES

[hider=Helen Hart]

H E L E N H A R T

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Evil Eye - Franz Ferdinand

BASIC INFO

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Name: Helen Hart

Age: 18

Year: Senior

Gender: F

APPEARANCE:

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Height: 5’5”

Weight: 130 lbs

Skin Color: White with freckles

Physical Description: Helen is a pretty average-sized girl, not short or tall or thin or fat. She has broad shoulders for a girl, but also wide, feminine hips. Helen is quite proud of and comfortable with her body, holding her head high and her chest out in a more traditionally-masculine posture. She is by no means fit or athletic- occasionally she gets the urge to exercise or run, but the habit never sticks (they never do). If you saw her with her clothes off, she’d have a slight muffin top. Helen has a few different tattoos on her body. On her right wrist is a triple moon tattoo, a symbol of her Wiccan faith. On her upper chest on the left side is a Celtic Shield Knot, said to be a talisman of protection against dark forces. One day Helen plans to cover most of her body in tattoos, but she’s young and poor so she hasn’t gotten there yet.

Helen has a round face with a large forehead, often a point of scorn for bullies. She has prominent cheekbones and a slightly upturned nose. Her eyes are a gentle, pale green and her eyebrows are light to the point where they’re sometimes hard to see. Helen’s cheeks are more freckle than skin in some spots (this is the case for most of her body), but all in all she’s rather pretty. Helen’s hair is long and flame red, parted down the middle but often kept messy and wild like a mane of flame. Typically, she keeps her ears covered, as they get made fun of a lot for being too small for her head.

Clothing: Helen has a very feminine wardrobe, lots of flowy dresses and skirts. She loves sundresses and wears them often, typically with strong patterns (Helen isn’t one for plain clothing). Her favorite colors are green and purple, and as such that makes up much of her wardrobe. Most of Helen’s clothes come from the Rustic Palace or Goodwill (she loves thrifting) and she tends to become very attached to things she finds there that look like no one else would wear them. When it’s very cold, Helen will switch to jeans or leggings, but this is only when it’s absolutely necessary. She typically wears a nylon necklace with a metal pentagram on it.

Voice: High and airy, like Evanna Lynch minus the British accent (she played Luna Lovegood).

PERSONALITY:

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Character Traits: A lot of competing influences have shaped Helen: bullying by school children, support from her parents, societal prejudice, general Wiccan attitudes about not blending in. As a result, Helen is like a balloon full of weirdness: rising high until some bastard comes along with a needle to pop it. Around people she’s close to, like Willow, Helen is capricious and goofy, constantly seeking out adventure and mystery. Helen has a fascination with the occult, from witchcraft to ouija boards, and seeks such things out as much as she can. She loves conspiracy theories and fringe pseudoscientific beliefs, though whether she actually believes any of them is a mystery even to herself. Helen doesn’t have many friends, but the ones she does have she loves fiercely. She is incredibly open-minded and supportive of those she meets, typically making a point to be nice to the freakier CLs in Leesburgh.

Then some bastard comes along to pop the weird balloon. Despite all of this, Helen is really self-conscious and thin-skinned. Even mild judgment from strangers or bullies causes her to clam up and seek shelter, going so far as to leave her friends hanging when they need her. When she’s alone, Helen is, in fact, quite shy, not making eye contact with people and speaking only when spoken to. She is very defensive around strangers, as in her head she automatically assumes that they’re going to bully her (or if they don’t, they’re thinking about it). When it comes to social interaction, Helen’s strategy is to duck her head and wait until it’s over.

If it wasn’t obvious already, Helen has pretty bad ADHD. Even with medication, she has trouble focusing on things and can very easily become overwhelmed by sensory perceptions. She changes her mind constantly, thinks of the bizarrest ideas out of nowhere, and often speaks before her brain has processed what she’s going to say, sometimes leading to her being blunt or rude. Helen also has a tendency to snap at people when in tough situations, lashing out with anger even at her friends just due to how easily-overwhelmed she gets.

Helen is lesbian, yet another thing that makes life hard for her in a small Pennsylvania town. There’s not a lot of lesbians in Leesburgh, and as such Helen has never really dated anyone. She crushes on girls constantly, though, especially athletic girls. Much to her own frustration, she harbors a tremendous crush on Evelyn Noblezada.

Bonds: Like much else in her life, Helen’s career and college plans change constantly. Sometimes she wants to be a writer, other times a reporter or a painter or an oceanographer or a park ranger or a nature photographer or a helicopter pilot or a professional skier or a farmer. One thing’s for sure, though, she wants to do something great with her life and she’s excited to see what it’s going to be. For now, Helen has a part-time job at Mooncash as a barista. It’s not much but it gives her some spending money.

Activities: Helen spends a lot of time reading, especially about religion or occultism. She’s read most of the books in the Rustic Palace and regularly goes to the library as well. She reads a lot of poetry too and loves Emily Dickinson. Helen practices witchcraft as part of her faith and will often go into the woods to construct magic circles or perform other rituals. She regularly tries to get her few friends to join her for these rituals. Helen is also a sucker for other occult objects such as ouija boards and dowsing rods. In addition to this, Helen also is constantly picking up hobbies and then almost immediately dropping them. She has been involved in fencing, taekwondo, knitting, gardening, HEMA, painting, pottery, carpentry, candlemaking, and sewing at various points, and her room is littered with cast-off equipment of these various hobbies (including a European broadsword hanging on her wall).

Skills: Over years of picking and dropping hobbies, Helen has learned a little bit of many things. She has a basic understanding of fighting and knows a lot about various crafts and how to make them. She’s actually really good at sewing and her next hobby will probably be dressmaking, which may or may not stick. Helen knows a lot about literature, history, and religion.

BACKSTORY

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Backstory: Helen doesn’t know her birth parents, but it’s never really bothered her. At the start of the CLs appearing, she was abandoned by her birth parents for her abilities, but quickly adopted by Kristy and Ella Hart, a lesbian couple who lived on the outskirts of town near Mount Grey. Southern Pennsylvania was not very friendly to gay people in the 1990s, but Kristy and Ella made it work. In addition to this, Kristy and Ella were devout Wiccans, worshippers of nature and the mother goddess. Due to their already tenuous nature in the town, the couple kept their religious beliefs a secret, though they did indoctrinate their daughter.

Her entire life, Helen has known she was an outcast. She was always the weird kid at school, the one who would spend recess playing alone in the woods or in the library. She got bullied a lot and didn’t have many friends. In 6th grade, Helen was in the same class as Willow, and they quickly became friends. Helen spent most of her time and allowance deep in the Rustic Palace, reading the old used books that inevitably accumulate in an antique store. Occasionally, Helen tries to rope Willow in on her occult weirdness, but mostly she does that herself these days or with her mothers. Once she graduates, Helen wants to go to college and pursue a degree in english or religious studies.

POWERS:

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Description: Helen possesses the ability to manifest eyes on structures she touches. She can manifest an eye on any structure, from glass to brick to plants or animals. The eye can be structured to look like an anatomically-correct human eye, or it can be disguised to resemble a piece of art or a pre-existing eye on a poster or object. Once the eye has manifested, Helen can see through the eye as if it were her own and control it freely. The eye is fixed in place, but it can move like a normal eye and can blink or close (even if it normally wouldn’t be able to, like with a doll eye). The eye lasts indefinitely, receiving a supply of nutrients from Helen through mysterious means.
Helen can also cause eyes to manifest on her own body, and when she does this she gains some additional abilities. If Helen manifests an extra eye on her body, the eye can be modified to perceive other forms of light, such as infrared light, ultraviolet light, or radio waves. These eyes can also see through solid surfaces up to 3 inches thick, such as doors or cars. These eyes can be manifested on any spot on her body (she often manifests them on her hand in a homage to the Fates, or on her face to create a third eye on her forehead).

Limitations: Helen can only manifest up to 3 extra eyes at a time, and to make a new one she must remove a previous one. Once an eye is made on a spot, it cannot be moved. Helen must touch an object to plant an eye on it, and the eye appears exactly where she touches (so she can’t plant one higher up on a wall than she touches or something). The eyes can be made larger than a human eye, up to the diameter of a soccer ball, but cannot be any larger.

Weaknesses: Helen’s eyes that manifest on objects cannot see through objects or see non-visible spectrums of light, so just covering up one of them prevents Helen from using them. The biggest weakness of Helen’s eyes, though, is that they are inexplicably attached to Helen through mystical means. They receive blood and nutrients from Helen’s body and vice versa. A toxin placed into one of the eyes will end up in Helen’s bloodstream, and if one of the eyes are damaged, Helen feels the pain as if her own eye had been harmed and can lose blood. She can close an eye remotely, but the damage is still done. Additionally, once one of Helen’s eyes has been physically-destroyed, she cannot manifest it again for 24 hours, so her supply of eyes goes from 3 to 2 until it recovers.

Favorite Subject: English

Least-Favorite Subject: Math

Grades: Generally a B student, Helen gets Cs in science and math and As in English and history.

Embarrassing Moment: In middle school, a bully took Helen's pentagram necklace in the middle of a crowd of fellow students. Filled to the brim with anger, Helen held out her hand and began to mumble words in Latin which she'd read in a book once, attempting to inflict a magical curse upon the girl. Nothing happened.

Other Information:

Other Information: Helen has a car, a green Toyota Prius with flower decals all over it. It has a variety of bumper stickers: “Save the Whales”, a peace sign, a UFO-shaped sticker that says “I Believe”, a pride flag, etc. The car’s name is Doug (short for “Duh Green Car”). [/hider

CHILDREN OF LEE - THE FIRST GENERATION OF SUPERHEROES

H E L E N H A R T

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Evil Eye - Franz Ferdinand

BASIC INFO

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Name: Helen Hart

Age: 18

Year: Senior

Gender: F

APPEARANCE:

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Height: 5’5”

Weight: 130 lbs

Skin Color: White with freckles

Physical Description: Helen is a pretty average-sized girl, not short or tall or thin or fat. She has broad shoulders for a girl, but also wide, feminine hips. Helen is quite proud of and comfortable with her body, holding her head high and her chest out in a more traditionally-masculine posture. She is by no means fit or athletic- occasionally she gets the urge to exercise or run, but the habit never sticks (they never do). If you saw her with her clothes off, she’d have a slight muffin top. Helen has a few different tattoos on her body. On her right wrist is a triple moon tattoo, a symbol of her Wiccan faith. On her upper chest on the left side is a Celtic Shield Knot, said to be a talisman of protection against dark forces. One day Helen plans to cover most of her body in tattoos, but she’s young and poor so she hasn’t gotten there yet.

Helen has a round face with a large forehead, often a point of scorn for bullies. She has prominent cheekbones and a slightly upturned nose. Her eyes are a gentle, pale green and her eyebrows are light to the point where they’re sometimes hard to see. Helen’s cheeks are more freckle than skin in some spots (this is the case for most of her body), but all in all she’s rather pretty. Helen’s hair is long and flame red, parted down the middle but often kept messy and wild like a mane of flame. Typically, she keeps her ears covered, as they get made fun of a lot for being too small for her head.

Clothing: Helen has a very feminine wardrobe, lots of flowy dresses and skirts. She loves sundresses and wears them often, typically with strong patterns (Helen isn’t one for plain clothing). Her favorite colors are green and purple, and as such that makes up much of her wardrobe. Most of Helen’s clothes come from the Rustic Palace or Goodwill (she loves thrifting) and she tends to become very attached to things she finds there that look like no one else would wear them. When it’s very cold, Helen will switch to jeans or leggings, but this is only when it’s absolutely necessary. She typically wears a nylon necklace with a metal pentagram on it.

Voice: High and airy, like Evanna Lynch minus the British accent (she played Luna Lovegood).

PERSONALITY:

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Character Traits: A lot of competing influences have shaped Helen: bullying by school children, support from her parents, societal prejudice, general Wiccan attitudes about not blending in. As a result, Helen is like a balloon full of weirdness: rising high until some bastard comes along with a needle to pop it. Around people she’s close to, like Willow, Helen is capricious and goofy, constantly seeking out adventure and mystery. Helen has a fascination with the occult, from witchcraft to ouija boards, and seeks such things out as much as she can. She loves conspiracy theories and fringe pseudoscientific beliefs, though whether she actually believes any of them is a mystery even to herself. Helen doesn’t have many friends, but the ones she does have she loves fiercely. She is incredibly open-minded and supportive of those she meets, typically making a point to be nice to the freakier CLs in Leesburgh.

Then some bastard comes along to pop the weird balloon. Despite all of this, Helen is really self-conscious and thin-skinned. Even mild judgment from strangers or bullies causes her to clam up and seek shelter, going so far as to leave her friends hanging when they need her. When she’s alone, Helen is, in fact, quite shy, not making eye contact with people and speaking only when spoken to. She is very defensive around strangers, as in her head she automatically assumes that they’re going to bully her (or if they don’t, they’re thinking about it). When it comes to social interaction, Helen’s strategy is to duck her head and wait until it’s over.

If it wasn’t obvious already, Helen has pretty bad ADHD. Even with medication, she has trouble focusing on things and can very easily become overwhelmed by sensory perceptions. She changes her mind constantly, thinks of the bizarrest ideas out of nowhere, and often speaks before her brain has processed what she’s going to say, sometimes leading to her being blunt or rude. Helen also has a tendency to snap at people when in tough situations, lashing out with anger even at her friends just due to how easily-overwhelmed she gets.

Helen is lesbian, yet another thing that makes life hard for her in a small Pennsylvania town. There’s not a lot of lesbians in Leesburgh, and as such Helen has never really dated anyone. She crushes on girls constantly, though, especially athletic girls. Much to her own frustration, she harbors a tremendous crush on Evelyn Noblezada.

Bonds: Like much else in her life, Helen’s career and college plans change constantly. Sometimes she wants to be a writer, other times a reporter or a painter or an oceanographer or a park ranger or a nature photographer or a helicopter pilot or a professional skier or a farmer. One thing’s for sure, though, she wants to do something great with her life and she’s excited to see what it’s going to be. For now, Helen has a part-time job at Mooncash as a barista. It’s not much but it gives her some spending money.

Activities: Helen spends a lot of time reading, especially about religion or occultism. She’s read most of the books in the Rustic Palace and regularly goes to the library as well. She reads a lot of poetry too and loves Emily Dickinson. Helen practices witchcraft as part of her faith and will often go into the woods to construct magic circles or perform other rituals. She regularly tries to get her few friends to join her for these rituals. Helen is also a sucker for other occult objects such as ouija boards and dowsing rods. In addition to this, Helen also is constantly picking up hobbies and then almost immediately dropping them. She has been involved in fencing, taekwondo, knitting, gardening, HEMA, painting, pottery, carpentry, candlemaking, and sewing at various points, and her room is littered with cast-off equipment of these various hobbies (including a European broadsword hanging on her wall).

Skills: Over years of picking and dropping hobbies, Helen has learned a little bit of many things. She has a basic understanding of fighting and knows a lot about various crafts and how to make them. She’s actually really good at sewing and her next hobby will probably be dressmaking, which may or may not stick. Helen knows a lot about literature, history, and religion.

BACKSTORY

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Backstory: Helen doesn’t know her birth parents, but it’s never really bothered her. At the start of the CLs appearing, she was abandoned by her birth parents for her abilities, but quickly adopted by Kristy and Ella Hart, a lesbian couple who lived on the outskirts of town near Mount Grey. Southern Pennsylvania was not very friendly to gay people in the 1990s, but Kristy and Ella made it work. In addition to this, Kristy and Ella were devout Wiccans, worshippers of nature and the mother goddess. Due to their already tenuous nature in the town, the couple kept their religious beliefs a secret, though they did indoctrinate their daughter.

Her entire life, Helen has known she was an outcast. She was always the weird kid at school, the one who would spend recess playing alone in the woods or in the library. She got bullied a lot and didn’t have many friends. In 6th grade, Helen was in the same class as Willow, and they quickly became friends. Helen spent most of her time and allowance deep in the Rustic Palace, reading the old used books that inevitably accumulate in an antique store. Occasionally, Helen tries to rope Willow in on her occult weirdness, but mostly she does that herself these days or with her mothers. Once she graduates, Helen wants to go to college and pursue a degree in english or religious studies.

POWERS:

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Description: Helen possesses the ability to manifest eyes on structures she touches. She can manifest an eye on any structure, from glass to brick to plants or animals. The eye can be structured to look like an anatomically-correct human eye, or it can be disguised to resemble a piece of art or a pre-existing eye on a poster or object. Once the eye has manifested, Helen can see through the eye as if it were her own and control it freely. The eye is fixed in place, but it can move like a normal eye and can blink or close (even if it normally wouldn’t be able to, like with a doll eye). The eye lasts indefinitely, receiving a supply of nutrients from Helen through mysterious means.
Helen can also cause eyes to manifest on her own body, and when she does this she gains some additional abilities. If Helen manifests an extra eye on her body, the eye can be modified to perceive other forms of light, such as infrared light, ultraviolet light, or radio waves. These eyes can also see through solid surfaces up to 3 inches thick, such as doors or cars. These eyes can be manifested on any spot on her body (she often manifests them on her hand in a homage to the Fates, or on her face to create a third eye on her forehead).

Limitations: Helen can only manifest up to 3 extra eyes at a time, and to make a new one she must remove a previous one. Once an eye is made on a spot, it cannot be moved. Helen must touch an object to plant an eye on it, and the eye appears exactly where she touches (so she can’t plant one higher up on a wall than she touches or something). The eyes can be made larger than a human eye, up to the diameter of a soccer ball, but cannot be any larger.

Weaknesses: Helen’s eyes that manifest on objects cannot see through objects or see non-visible spectrums of light, so just covering up one of them prevents Helen from using them. The biggest weakness of Helen’s eyes, though, is that they are inexplicably attached to Helen through mystical means. They receive blood and nutrients from Helen’s body and vice versa. A toxin placed into one of the eyes will end up in Helen’s bloodstream, and if one of the eyes are damaged, Helen feels the pain as if her own eye had been harmed and can lose blood. She can close an eye remotely, but the damage is still done. Additionally, once one of Helen’s eyes has been physically-destroyed, she cannot manifest it again for 24 hours, so her supply of eyes goes from 3 to 2 until it recovers.

Other Information: Helen has a car, a green Toyota Prius with flower decals all over it. It has a variety of bumper stickers: “Save the Whales”, a peace sign, a UFO-shaped sticker that says “I Believe”, a pride flag, etc. The car’s name is Doug (short for “Duh Green Car”).