Lights, Camera, Action!

Chapter 26: Sidekicks

The Twins had long since felt like the supporting cast in the films that were their friends lives. The sidekicks, side characters, collateral damage, some small people who grow a motive but don't get the any of the credit. You know the type of characters. And the thing is, they are perfectly happy with that. The reader isn't meant to know more than the basics about them. They're the minor, inconsequential people along the sidelines who cheer the heroes on, tell them to get up and try again and the people who happen to have cool equipment to help locate the villain and destroy them. Yet it's not their story.

Their story wouldn't be worth the money people spend on films. People spend millions, sometimes billions, of pounds on making films or TV shows. A two hour long story about a pair of genius orphans and their extraordinary friends wouldn't cover the costs. So people are smart and enterprising and focus on their extraordinary friends to make a big profit. It's logical and the Twins love logic. Although Starlight does like to argue that there may be some people out their who might find their story interesting and worth something.

Yet Sliver counters this with a simple fact, another thing the Twins love: The lives of their friends suck. They end up going through some really tough times that evolves them greatly but also dies a lot of damage in the process. Therefore, Sliver is perfectly happy with staying backstage or in the wings. His sister is his life and should anything happen to her, he would be devastated. Sliver wouldn't and doesn't allow Starlight to get hurt. It's just the two of them. The two of them set out to raise each other and be successful in their lives.

Right now, the pair were back in their lab. It joined onto the studios as they had nowhere else to go. Much like Beauty and Amy, the Twins lived on site but people didn't come in and out of their home area at will to work. This section was private and not put on any of the maps. Despite having the luxury for a few months of unlimited money, now that debts were demanding to be repaid and filming had ceased, the Twins were careful not to spread anymore. They didn't want to add to the costs Beauty would eventually had to pay. If it was the Twins, they would do everything to make sure they had to pay before paying. They did everything by the book, never getting into trouble. The pair were not exactly going to start now.

"Starlight? Where are the agar plates? I need to grow this bacteria yesterday!" Sliver shouted to his sister, currently busy with E.coli and inoculating loops. Silence was his answer and he sighed. His beloved sister could daydream for decades if he let her. Especially about a certain tall, brooding, ebony actor who just happens to have a beautiful killer girlfriend. Greatly annoyed, Sliver stomped into their bedroom to find his sister. "Starlight? I need the agar plates! What's more important out in that ridiculously big and scary world than doing fantastic science with me?" He looked inside their room and saw Starlight looking up at the ceiling. She was fascinated by the space-themed mobile that hung above her bed.

She smiled at his presence. "Hey Sliver, the agar plates are in the kitchen under the sink. Don't ask me why they just are." Starlight reached up and knocked the mobile so that it swirled faster than it had before.

Her brother too became fascinated by it. "Where did you get that?" The Twins regularly made inventory lists of all of their belongings, their last one being only a couple of weeks ago. He didn't remember seeing that anywhere.

Starlight pointed beside her bed. "I was sorting through some old boxes and I found it. I thought might have a name on it or something." Sliver sighed then for he realised where she'd found it. The boxes belonged to their parents and contained stuff from when they were alive. However nothing inside them had ever given them any clues as to who they had been created from.

At twenty years of age, he'd expected them both to be done searching. "Did you?" A small, traitorous spark of joy lit up in his chest.

His sister shook her head sadly. "No, I found nada. Absolute zlich. Nothing. Zero, blank, an abyss." She laughed at her words and unhooked the device. Placing it back in the box, Starlight's fingers brushed against a soft velvety fabric. Pulling it out, she held a beautiful dress in her hands.

Midnight blue and floor length, it was fit for a princess. The bodice was small with sleeves that hung low on the arms. They were a slightly lighter shade of blue with a glittery gauze over them. The actual top half was the midnight blue but the centre was trimmed with what looked like diamonds. Then a swirly, sliver pattern decorated the stomach. If that wasn't pretty enough, the skirt appeared to be an even darker blue, maybe indigo, that spilled downwards and reached the floor. It flowed effortlessly at the front and back, surprisingly light as well. A sliver, sapphire-encrusted tiara and a pair of gorgeous indigo heels completed the look.

"Wow..." Sliver breathed, sitting next to his sister after thoroughly washing his hands. "Do you think...?"

"That this was our Mum's wedding dress? Of course!" Starlight hugged the outfit tightly to herself as though any trace of their mother could not only survive two decades in a box bit two decades in a box wrapped in plastic. Wrapped in plastic. "She never got a chance to wear this." She realised soberly as the reality of their lives sunk in. It wasn't a revolution exactly, the Twins had long since scoured every marriage certificate in the world and not found their parents. They had come to the conclusion that they had never got married.

Despite getting birth certificates themselves once old enough, neither genius had ever found those belonging to them. It was as if their parents had simply been erased from existence however that seemed far-fetched. They were Sliver and Starlight Holograms, nothing on that degree of excitement and intrigue ever happened to them. He hugged his sister. "Maybe one day you'll get to wear it." They were meant to be comforting words although Sliver wasn't surprised when she started to laugh.

He had long since protested against Starlight ever getting to know anyone who could ever be her spouse. The relationship she had with Shadow was as much masculinity as she was ever going to get. Sliver also prevented her from forming potential relationships with females as well. Starlight couldn't remember the last time he'd trusted Honey enough to leave the pair alone together and Blaze, despite having become one of her best friends, had yet to see her without her brother. "Hypocrite." Starlight teased through her laughs as Sliver shook his head. He was well aware that his attitudes towards her relationships were not practical to continue. In recent years, he had started to relax but to an outsider you wouldn't know it. However Starlight knew his protectiveness was out of a fierce love.

It was just the two of them. Always. Nothing could or would be done to change that. They were the Twins, the side characters who helped the protagonists and moved the story along. They wouldn't ever be added or subtracted from because it would make no sense to do so. Their lives had no impact on the lives of their friends. That did not mean that the opposite was also true. "Dreamer." Sliver retorted with a smile, putting the dress away. For that was his sister, a dreamer who hoped for the best. He prepared for the worst. Ying and Yang. Never switching or reversing roles. They had survived twenty years what many people in their beginnings did not by themselves, they didn't need anyone or thing else to be happy.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter, sorry it's a day late. I had a lot of maths to do. I like the Twins, I think they're interesting. I wonder where their story will take them... I'll most likely update again tomorrow hopefully. Until then, adiós.