A Crumbling Society

Part 1-9

Starlight

I entered this room and focused right on Veleeca as she was standing there in front of a giant screen with images changing in different rotations. "We need to talk!", I said as she caught my eye and I came to stand about three feet away from her, the light from the screen between us. She began with, "we already talked, and I said my piece", I told her she did, and I respect that she has a new life and how I really want to see her find herself. I also told her that I needed to get things off my chest, "There's nothing wrong with having a life, especially with everything that's happened to you. I'm excited and even proud of you, and I do want to see who you become; however, I am asking you this favor. The world needs you; the team needs you, and I even need you to help, it is extremely risky, but the team needs to be a team again, otherwise what was the point in us to begin with. The world looked up to us and we vanished, separated so easily and then chaos breaks loose. We contradicted what we said, and have shown, what we stand for, and there's no us without you! You're a powerhouse of this team and I am asking for your help, I need the mighty Phanta, the super strength, the ability to cause earthquakes, the fact that you could stomp and open a fissure beneath you or even clap your hands and blow a whole city away. I Also need the optimism, the charisma, and the love to help those in need because I know that's who you are. So please, for me, for the fate of the world, come back and help fight whatever the hell is coming; Carson can show you if you want. Also, come back as my friend, I miss you even if we in different countries and you have a new look, I miss my best friend".

She sort of gawked at me afterwards and I wasn't really sure what to make out of that, but then I got a poke on my shoulder, and I turned to see Carson standing behind me. He pointed to my left and I slowly turned around noticing a whole room full of people, or students I should say, sitting there with their mouths wide open. I guess I got carried away in the moment and didn't realize or think to realize who or what might be around me. "Don't worry, I spelled them in time, the dropped jaws are from you barging in here, they didn't hear a thing you said", Carson told me near my ear. Thank God honestly, but I turned back to Veleeca and held my hand out to Carson, picking up on why he planted the small item in my hand. I brought it over in front of her for her to see the tiny green artifact, beginning to shine even brighter this time. Her eyes went wide, and she asked how we found it, she's been teaching a class on it for the whole term. We explained everything, Carson showed her his vision and we talked about some of the villains coming after us. I even told her that no matter what, even if she's not an elephant anymore, we still needed her, and it was time for change anyway. She finally took it in her own hands. After a few seconds the light blinded all of us as Carson and I threw our hands to our face. Once it wasn't too bright, we looked and Veleeca was standing there inside what seemed like a holographic elephant around her that began to trumpet. It turned purple and retracted back inside her leaving nothing left in her hand, but she was now suited up like she had been a long time ago looking like a member of the Warrior Legion. "I think my choice has been made", she said looking at her outfit, it was mostly black with purple boots and gloves. There were bands on each forearm before the purple ended at her shoulders from where the chest piece was. It was sort of like a bra that covered a little at the shoulders but had a point right under the center of her breasts. This new look however did not dawn the elephant head we all knew, but the new Veleeca as Phanta.

"I'll take this as a sign from the Gods", she said with a calmer attitude. "And I also agree that I miss you too and that we should have stayed together during all this madness. It's crazy and hectic but we can figure it out, with the whole team!"

I smiled back at her and hugged her, it felt like a win, I got her to come back, and Carson got Ana to come back. We both convinced Andrew but it's progress, we will get there.

Summoner

Now that she was suited up and the totem gone, I looked at Liza and told her "Good job". She said thanks and then looked back at Phanta who asked, "okay what now?", I told her she could help the others with Castor and that I could send her there. It took a minute for her to think about and she said it would be nice to see everyone, so then she agreed to go. "What is everyone doing there?", she asked, we had to explain it wasn't everyone officially yet, just Castor, Afterlife, and Insight. I told her how they were looking for Archaic and it might help anyway that she goes since she studies specific artifacts. She agreed and while I tried to put my hand out to send her off, we heard an explosion. Walking to the doorway we could see people running from other rooms and smoke coming from the hall we turned off of. Every one of our eyes met while turning to each other and we slowly walked back in that direction with caution. Peering around the corner, there were groups of people yelling profanities and carrying signs that said, "India doesn't side with the supers", "Burn them down", "We hate supers", and many other things. Some had Molotov Cocktails and were throwing them; this part of the campus was on fire and if you looked out the window so was the rest of it. I looked at Phanta and flicked a finger at her to make her outfit turn back into normal clothing. We all agreed we need to get out of here and in a more normal human way to keep the attention off of us. I think the smoke helped mask me fixing her clothing situation but whatever this group was, they were making their way towards us. "Let's go", came from my mouth quickly and we began to hurry away in the opposite direction. It seemed like all we could breathe was smoke and it was awful. Liza led us right and as the three of us turned we had just missed another flamed bottle, it crashed, and fire spewed everywhere behind us. A stairwell soon appeared and one by one we made our way into it escaping the riot. Heading down the stairs we could still here bottles busting and people screaming amidst the hollering. Four flights later a door led us to an outside pathway, it would have looked decent if there weren't char marks, but we avoided any bit of fire that we could.