Spectrum

Chapter Five

"This is your destiny." Sable's words echoed in Diana's head as she stared at herself in her mirror. After Sable explained the situation to the girls, she told them to meet up the next day for their first training session, and they all went home to rest and prepare.

Diana's analog clock read that it was 2:25 AM. She needed to decide whether to embrace her destiny or continue to question it.
All her life, Diana had been confused on her path in life.
Due to her autism, she struggled to express herself, and her combined ADHD made it difficult for her to hyperfocus on a career goal.
She had switched her dreams between acting, singing, writing, even being a doctor. All she wanted was to find her place in the world, and here was the perfect opportunity.
A superhero.
Diana had never even imagined they could exist, and these felt like the powers one would see in an anime about high school teenagers, but here she was, a girl attending a community college, and tasked by a queen from another planet to defend the earth.
But the real question was, what was she defending?
Diana tucked her hair into her purple silk bonnet, and washed her face. She rinsed her hands and left the bathroom.
What was she defending? The sense of purpose tugged at Diana as she prepared to face the swirling uncertainty of her new reality.
She crept past her bed, where Sable laid in her cat form, stretched out in the middle of Diana's violet sheets.
Diana went to her balcony, which was small enough to just fit one person.
She stood under the night sky, feeling the crisp wind blow the scent of impending rain into her.
She wondered about her new teammates, and what they thought about this new reveal of their new identity.

Across town, near the edge of the city, Piper sat outside her house.
Being low income, her house was a small mobile home with her parents and her two sisters.
Her parents were inside, and so were her sisters, presumably sleeping.
Piper was standing outside, her noise canceling headphones padding down her dark red curly hair.
She fidgeted with the red crystal hanging from her belt. It was the source of her power, her connection to the ebbing flow of energy running through her veins.
Her mind wandered, wondering what it would be like to explore this town as an eagle or even a wolf.
Unaware of it, her prism power allowed her thoughts to become reality, as she shifted into an eagle, and then a wolf.
Each form was crimson red, same as her hair.
Piper looked down to her wolf paws, and looked towards the city, and then turned her head to her side of the town. The dry outskirts, with a lonesome highway that led to some other concrete jungle.

In the city, Rusty was sitting in the living room of her tiny studio apartment that her mother,  Leeanne rented.
The two learned to live with what they had, due to their circumstances.
When Rusty's dad tragically died in a horrifying accident, it destroyed Leanne, and thrust her into substance abuse that clashed with her mental health struggles.
Rusty stepped up, and takes care of her mother, despite only being 23.
At the moment, Leanne was asleep, and Rusty was on the couch of the apartment, locking lips with her girlfriend, Cherry Kokomo.
Cherry was looking over Rusty's shoulder at the TV, causing Rusty to pull away from the kiss.
"Cher?" Rusty questioned, looking towards the TV.
Cherry was watching the movie the two had put on as background noise. Some romantic comedy about a woman with memory loss.
She had seen this movie before, a long time ago, with her father. She remembered that her dad used to do impressions of the lead actor.
The camera shifted to him on the movie, and Rusty scrambled for the remote, turning the movie off.
"Hey!" Cherry exclaimed, looking back to Rusty, before noticing Rusty's solemn expression.
"Sorry." Rusty mumbled. "Seven years later, seeing things that remind me of dad just..." She looked to her partner, who leaned in and hugged her.
"I understand." Cherry said, her eyes shining at Rusty.
"I'm gonna get some air." Rusty said, suddenly getting up.
Cherry watched as Rusty went for the door to the apartment, noticing as she grabbed a pack of cigarettes on the way out.

A few blocks away, Stella was sitting at her desk in her very bright a preppy room.
For the past few hours, Stella had been attempting to master her craft of dreamweaving.
Her desk was soaked in the golden sand of the dream dust, and she had made sculptures of common dreams.
She smiled as she held in her hands a heart made out of the golden dust, her own dream.
Stella hummed to herself, turning her chair away from her desk, and practically skipping to her window nook.
Her one true dream in life was to live a long and happy life with her love, Nyx.
Pinching the ends of the golden heart, Stella added wings to the heart.
The wings began to flutter and flap in the night sky straight out of the window, and Stella sighed contently.
She turned away from the window, but was stopped as she heard the crackling noise of static, followed by a short whinny by a horse.
Turning back around, she saw Nyx standing in her window, on top of a large alicorn made out of indigo dust.
The heart that Stella had made was impaled in the center via the alicorn horn.
"Stella!" Nyx exclaimed, wincing at the broken heart. "Sorry! I didn't see that."
"That was my dream to see you, so I guess it worked." Stella then said, losing the fear in her eyes.
"How do you like my Nightmare?" Nyx said, sliding off the back of the horse, into Stella's window.
"Eh!" Stella hopped back a step, keeping distance from her eccentric girlfriend.
"Oh. Right." Nyx frowned. "That curse."
"I know." Stella folded her arms. "I just want to kiss you so badly but..."
"We don't know for sure unless we try." Nyx pointed out.
"I'd rather do try when we're around at least Diana." Stella said firmly.
"Why? You know I prefer privacy when it comes to public affection." Nyx rubbed the back of the alicorn, causing the Nightmare to whinny.
"I just want a way to stop or rewind time if things go wrong." Stella looked away. "It's late."
"I know." Nyx looked away as well. "I guess i'll see you tomorrow."
Stella watched as Nyx and the Nightmare fled, and Stella's uncertainty about being a hero sunk in.

Near the commercial district of the city, Emi Shion sat on the front porch of her host families lodge. It was right on the border of the large forest, and the host family were very chill and relaxed, so Emi sat outside, a bag of edibles to her left and eating a large subway sandwich that she had ordered from her phone.
She was enjoying her sandwich, and smiled with her eyelids growing heavy.
The night was cold, and the only warmth that Emi received was the heat of her moss colored sweater.
Near her foot was a small root that had just began to break the dirt.
Thinking about earlier, Emi put down her sandwich, beckoning the root near with her long fingers.
The root stretched out, extending into a leafy vine that wrapped around Emi's hands.
Emi stood up, the vine still entangling her hands.
She looked down at the dry patches of grass that surrounded the porch, wondering what else she could do with her new powers.

Inside the Wang mansion, Robin was cleaning up after the party, and had been for the past few hours.
Diana had offered to stay and help, but Robin got incredibly flustered by the idea of it.
Robin was not out about her sexuality, and wondered if she would ever be able to be herself.
As Robin carried dishes to the kitchen, she felt frustrated, thinking about the last conversation she had with her parents before they left for business.
Robin's father, Walten Wang, had insisted that she marry George Scrip, who was the son of a rich family.
Her family was obsessed with wealth, it didn't matter that Walten was a CEO and that Robin's mother, Crestine Crystal-Wang, was a famous actress.
The two were an unstoppable power couple, and their constant pressure suffocated Robin, who just wanted to be normal.
She fought them to fight for a place in her community college. They had the money to get her into any college she wanted, but she demanded to go to this small campus.
The truth was, she didn't know what she wanted to do with her life. Her parents set her up for life, and she never was taught to work for a goal.
She hoped college would give her a path, a purpose.
But now, with the arrival of magical powers, her crush growing closer to her and the added pressure she would face coming up with excuses to evade her parent's suspicion, Robin was lost.
As she was thinking about this in the present moment, she felt her hands grow sweaty.
She darted her eyes down, seeing her fingertips leaking water. She quickly lifted her arms up, not wanting to drop water on the carpet of her mansions grand foyer.
"Gross!" Robin grimaced, closing her hands together. "Tomorrow, I'll give these new powers a try."
Her eyes darted to the clock in the foyer.
"Well. Today actually." Robin frowned, seeing the clock read 3:00 AM.