I may be a child, but...

The Time Forever Before

One truth about life was that it was unfair. It was always unfair. It didn't care who you are, who you were, or how much you mattered. Life was cruel, it didn't care. It didn't care that Tommy was barely three years old when it took his parents. Only leaving fuzzy memories of burning campfires and calming smells of lavender.

Tommy was three when he learned the truth, the behind the scenes of kind smiles. Bruises that came before softer hands. And with this, Tommy grew up faster than any child should.

Forced to face the death of his parents, he trudged through a system of homes that only scarred him worse. What was only small burns on his legs turned into scars that littered across his body. All reminders that he was failed by the people around him again and again.

The development of his hybrid traits only brought worse pains. Pushing large wings through slits he clawed into his back on the floor of a basement he was shoved into for screaming in the middle of the night. With his wings came two things, his powers and something else someone can use against him.

He hated the fact that he was forced to look out for his own safety, running away from a particularly gruesome home early on. Living on the street at the ripe age of 11, stealing and fighting for his next meal.

It eventually got a little better. He found friends, people to lean on. Though one thing that stuck with him was his sticky fingers. What used to be getting caught every time he snatched something and ran became stealing largely expensive and shiny items that he raided a museum or some other place for.

He had slowly grew in the ranks of thievery. What used to be a nobody soon evolved into being the best thief in the world, able to steal just about anything. Heroes sent after him, sent to stop him, capture the slippery child who smiled and laughed as he ran. They never catch him. And that was that.

His most recent project included trying to get Purpled to sell him that enchanted earing that wasn't as old as his current, the enchantment fraying and almost broken. Then he will have a whole new set of problems.

His wings had always bothered him. They came in almost two years early, and only grew in irritating factor as they stayed with him. He was an avian, what he considered basically a bird person. Even with the enchantment that hid his ever annoying wings, he was still recognizable from the feathers that sat just under his eyes and behind his ears.

The feathers were a gold, no matter how poorly they were taken care of. They shone and gleamed when the sun hit them just right. It irritated him to no end. Especially with the fact that he wasn't any sort of predator, no that would be too easy. He was what was called a gilded songbird, they generally had wings that were made of or looked like some sort of metal or jewel.

On the other side of being a gilded songbird, his power that he had gotten soon after his wings was pretty cool. He was able to steal just about anything. More like he could steal anything he could think of.

Tommy and Purpled had tried out stealing someone's powers before, and were both pleasantly surprised when it had worked. They also found that if he didn't give the power back, it would become a card that appeared in his hand once he deactivated his power.

The people could still use their powers, it was just not as strong as before. They had pranked many of the heroes mid fight with it.

Slipping in and out of his mind, he drove to the area of the dead zone that he lived in. The open waste lands spotted with many trees and wildlife. The area around him warped and teetered, the fuzziness around everything not new, never new. The snowy area the perfect temperature to keep him awake on his journey. 

The clicks and growls from Shroud and Michael in the backseat brought him completely back to the present, looking over his shoulder to see two very grumpy toddlers, both huffing and probably overdue for a nap.