E L L E M I L L E R
E L L E M I L L E R
Life in New York was all about walking. Elle only took the subway if she didn't have the time, or if she was crossing into Brooklyn to see her parents. A hike out to the Southern Plateau of PRCU's island, all the students clad in their matching Athletic Training Uniforms, felt like nothing more than her morning commute to campus. Except Elle found herself walking at an easy pace, much slower than her usual New Yorker speed. Instead of metal buildings and the angry buzz of traffic surrounding her, Elle gazed at the trees and growing clouds above. She relished the smell of earth and salty air. She had gone out of the city a few times with her college friends, but she'd never done a hike like this before. Despite the group of new people to meet around her, Elle was too absorbed with her surroundings to really pay attention to what they were saying. She only listened when their trail guides spoke, or looked to her left or right to make sure she wouldn't bump into anyone.
By the time they reached their destination Elle had almost forgotten that they were to camp out here overnight. She'd never truly camped before, so this was certainly going to be an interesting experience. So many new experiences lately, and she had no doubt that there were plenty more to come. She was determined to see it through, whether she was sleeping on a mat or on the ground before a big event didn't matter. She quietly helped prepare a tent. Although it was more like looking to her building buddy every minute or so for guidance. It seemed simple enough, and yet she wondered if she could have done it on her own. By the time they were finished, Elle had quietly ingrained the lesson into her head. This could definitely come in handy one day.
She then moved over to the food station that had been set up. Pizza. An interesting meal after a workout, but Elle wasn't going to object. Soon she was preparing her pizza, choosing the infamous ham and pineapple for toppings. The student rep asked if anyone else was making Hawaiian and she nodded with a smile. Elle ignored anyone that scoffed about pineapple on pizza. She felt fine as she waited for her pizza to cook, but her eyes were soon starting to grow heavy as she finally moved to the fire. The exhaustion began to seep into her feet and legs as soon as she sat down. All she could offer anyone who spoke to her was a polite smile and her name in between chewing her pizza. She wanted to stay by the fire and get to know everyone. It would be vital to learn their abilities and gauge their personalities. Especially if they were to overcome the trials as a team. She had already decided that she would become the team's support. Her abilities weren't offensive, not unless it was a human that would face them, so if there were any obstacles that required force she would leave it to the teammates with physical abilities. Otherwise she would be ready to calm any anxious ones, or use her little trick to give them confidence.
Her teammates were already striking up conversations as Elle took her last bite. She happened to observe enough, just some names and how they held themselves around new people. Elle pushed herself onto her feet and wiped her hands of any residual flour and crumbs. She turned not to join the others, but for the tents. Instead of loosing sleep to learn their abilities, she'd leave it as a surprise with a fully rested mind and body. Today had been too long to fully process it all.
Elle gave her tent building buddy a wave of her hand to signal that she was turning in for the night and walked off. She picked a tent without a care in the world who would crawl in later on. A quiet spot furthest from the fire and closer to nature's music. She maneuvered her bra off without removing her shirt and stuffed it into her pack, then pulled on the PRCU hoodie before taking her spot for the night. With the distant chatter and the sound of nature a few steps away, sleep found her quickly.
Someone was pressing their hand to her shoulder, roughly shaking it as Elle began to return to the world. She immediately sat up, hair a mess and eyes squinting into the night. Her brows furrowed, utterly confused because the tent above her mere hours ago was gone and the rain was now falling onto her head. It began to soak her clothes and bed. There was no sound of crickets and breezes through leaves. This time she heard raised voices and concerned murmurs. The person that woke her was already moving towards the commotion when she turned to pull on her sneakers. As she slid them on, the wet socks squishing against the soles in an utterly uncomfortable way, she looked over to see the tent spikes had been yanked out of the ground. "What the he-" Elle quickly stopped speaking. Her attention snapped upwards towards what now appeared in her peripherals. Hooded figures, blocking the tree line, and slowly moving inwards.
Elle shot to her feet and turned towards the figures. The figures made no offensive movements. Elle began to back away from them, her hands curling into fists, but they only slowly inched forward. Elle's eyes darted around her as she realized they were pushing any strays inwards, towards the center of the camps. They weren't attacking... yet. Elle turned her back to the figures and let them follow her towards the gathered body, where all of the teams stood together and shivering in the cold rain. Elle slowly pulled her hood up over her soaking wet hair and found a spot on the outer edge. Her hair was sticking to the sides of her face, and now began to drip down onto her collarbone. She was already starting to shiver from the cold by the time her eyes found the people that held everyone's attention. Her body went stiff- not from the cold, but because of intimidation.
She could barely hear the two figures words from her spot, and yet their tones and movements told her that these people were powerful. Her eyes scanned the ones that surrounded them, and realized all of the figures that stood guard looked exactly like the one with the mask. She thought of the girl with duplicates, and wondered if this person could mimic abilities. She began to scan the crowd for her, wondering where that girl stood now.
The one with the mask seemed to will the crowd to part with the wave of their hand. They were singling people out. One by one, they preached an awful sermon to certain students. The crowd jolted with each flick of their wrist. The person next to her fell against her when the students were forcibly parted again. She took their arms and steadied them, but she kept her focus on the masked tormentor. They were pulling people into the air now. Elle's eyes darted about each time. Was there a pattern to this? How did they know so much about the students already? Personal, intimate details were being laid out for everyone to hear. Elle grimaced when they pulled one of her Firebird teammates into the air, the boys dinosaur plush dangling next to him.
“If you come home, I will unfold your future. It doesn’t lie here, in this military academy. This is built to appease those who are beneath you. To restrain and limit you, I give you a world with no limitations, I will unfold your future.” They declared.
Elle felt her stomach twisting inside her. Those words... and the arrogance. She could barely listen to it any longer. How much more torment awaited the trapped students. What was the endgame here? Would they pluck each student from where they stood until the last one remained?
Someone had called out from the crowd. The crowd parted again, this time almost knocking Elle completely off of her feet.
"...Stand with me instead, I assure you I want you by my side and there will be no more running.” She heard as she finally regained her footing.
So that's what this was. A call to join this group. A promise of limitless power. Elle wondered if they weren't lying. No one else had jumped into action. No one tried to fight back. The teachers were standing stiffly at the front of the crowd. Elle noticed with horror that the Blackjack Advisor was missing an arm.
Elle reached within her, a curious thought running through her mind. She attempted to spread her pheromones around her, just to calm the shaking students. She wouldn't dare attempt to influence the masked one's duplicates. It was a struggle to spread it further than the three closest to her. Her theory was correct. This monster, who wielded telekinesis, -
The boy who called the masked one squid game now flew through the air towards the front-
- duplication, and god knows what else, had somehow dampened her ability. They most likely held everyone's abilities on a leash despite how powerful some of them were. That thought alone was terrifying...
Quiet words were exchanged between the masked one and their new target, and then the boy was tossed like a rag doll into the air. Elle flinched and turned her head into her hood so she wouldn't have to see where or how he landed. Lightning struck overhead, illuminating the frightened faces nearest her. She couldn't calm them this time.
Two more flashes of light, this time from within the crowd. Elle forced herself to look with the hope that something had been done about this. Only to find that another boy had stepped out from the crowd of his own volition. What happened next... Elle couldn't look away this time. The boy didn't even get the chance to pull the trigger.
"We've made our point here."
The figure's laugh left a ringing in her ears.
Elle sniffed from where she stood by. Her face was a solemn mask. The black beret she'd never worn before had been pulled low over her forehead. Her eyes were puffy. She hadn't cried yet. No, she was still getting over a cold brought on from standing under pouring rain for over forty minutes. Those forty minutes had taken so much from the students around her. Their security, their classmates, and for some, their new friend.
Elle hadn't known Cassander Charon. Yet she knew his last moments. She knew the way his body had jerked as the masked figure shoved their hand through his chest. She wouldn't forget it. Not until she was long for this world and nearing her own end. If she even made it that far into her life.
She tried to avoid thoughts like those. The ones that made everything seem so fragile. They kept poking her at night, pulling her from the sleep that she so desperately needed to get over her cold. They'd yank her up on some invisible tether and she'd find herself dangling above her teammates. In front of her would be the masked figure, their mask streaked in the blood of the blonde boy that lay lifeless at their feet. Their hand would still be in that horrible shape as a muffled, genderless voice spoke words that didn't make sense.
Elle sniffed again and pulled a tissue from her pocket to wipe her nose.
She knew that a funeral like this was meant for bureau agents. Her agent friend back home briefly mentioned a similar one he'd attended half a year ago. To host a funeral like this for a student was a great honor. A nod to the bravery this young man demonstrated moments before his end. She tried to dismiss the nagging feeling at the pit of her gut. Should she have done something in those precious moments? No... she would have met the same end. A distraction may have given him a chance to fire that gun, but would a bullet even reach it's target?
She clenched her jaw as the raft was lit in flames. Hyperion. That was the masked figures name. She'd heard it whispered in the halls since that night. In fact, she remembered hearing about Hyperion's Children on the news one day. She did some research of her own, just to get any answers to the questions that kept her awake after the nightmares disrupted her sleep. The internet didn't have much to offer. A few days after the attack, as Elle lay ill in her bedroom, she sent a message to the agent. It had been short.
"Tell me anything you can about Hyperion's group. They just got a few more members. I'm sure you've heard already."
He hadn't gotten back to her, which only left her frustrated. The agent had been the one to suggest she come here. She knew that one day she would face hyperhumans like this. That didn't frighten her as she had agreed to come here. What did frighten her was that she hadn't been at this school for a week, and a rogue hyperhuman had already tore their way into it. She wasn't ready to face a threat yet.
Would she stand by next time, though?
Not a chance in hell.
Her fellow classmates echoed her thoughts as the crowd began to turn away from the distant burning raft. She heard a few of the students who had been singled out that night promising revenge. Elle stood nearby, still staring out at the waves and that distant light that was now fading into nothing. The only indication that she was listening to the others speak was the twitch of her mouth when the girl that lacked any color but the makeup on her face spoke up.
She had a point. Hyperion would likely squash any sign of retaliation. So, it was up to them to figure out how Hyperion was aware of their histories and locatio- A thought suddenly struck her. Enough to take her breath away, and then force her to sneeze into her tissue because of the sudden rush of air through her nose when she gulped it down.
What if... What if that boy, Tad, had given everyone up to Hyperion. It looked like he had gone with Hyperion willingly. If he hadn't, were there other spies in the group? Or was Hyperion once a PRCU student and had been through the same hike, stayed in the same tents like the ones they'd ripped from the ground that night.
Elle felt another sneeze preparing to ruin the grieving silence, and ruin her train of thought. She turned and quickly headed away from the classmates that had fueled her thoughts. She could get with them later, perhaps. When she was well enough to-
The sneeze was much more gentle this time. Damn it all. She could have stayed back to greet them, and to share that theory with them. Instead she was risking spreading this shit to anyone within a foot of her.
"Hey, Elodie Miller! Jessica wanted me to tell you that-"
Elle held up her hand to halt the girl that now approached her. Alyssa, she recalled from some brief encounter before. "Sorry, I'm getting over a cold." She breathed in slowly from her mouth and lowered the tissue to her side. "What were you saying?" She only half listened to her words. Change into the school uniform... team swap... had she been told about the team swap? Color ceremony. Got it... The classmates from Team Eclipse, that went with Hyperion, had they been contacted before?
Elle nodded to let Alyssa know she'd gotten the news before the other girl moved on. She turned to continue back to her dorm. She was moving slowly, the sneezes seemed to have drained her of most of her energy. Maybe her theories were just grasping onto straws that weren't really there. It could be the cold giving her one hell of a delusion. She could be right, but how would she prove it?
Maybe she'd take a Minotaur back to her dorm, just to give her a moment of rest.
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