Specials

Chapter 18- A Little History

"So, tell me what we're doing out here," Angel asked the rest of the group.

"Well, we saw a huge factory thing in the distance, so we decided to go out and investigate," Dawn replied.

"Ah. Just like my team did. There's an evil megalomaniac up there, calls himself Undertaker, and he the factory thing is used for him to leech magic from the surrounding forest area and convert it into power for himself. At least, that's how it went in my version. Some people say it's never exactly the same," Angel explained. Everyone nodded, thinking about this.

"But wait. There's no huge cities or towns in this surrounding forest area, so why would he want to make himself powerful? Power only matters to the evil people if they have someone to lord over," Chameleon was an inquisitive shade of teal.

"There's this huge, huge matrix of people. They burrowed underground to escape Undertaker, because since his magic power is from life, it doesn't work underground. There's a huge underground city miles from here, and now Undertaker just spends his time trying to figure out a way to get to them. Kind of funny, actually. The people sure would be relieved to get rid of Undertaker, though. It's gotta be hard living underground all the time," Angel replied.

"Yeah," Chameleon nodded.

"So," Dawn suddenly piped up, "What pronouns should I use to refer to you in the story if you aren't a boy or a girl?"

"What?" Angel was confused.

"This whole thing is a story, we just wander around the pages. So what pronouns should I use in my writing? Because right now I've been avoiding pronouns completely and it's getting kind of awkward," Dawn replied, with a tilt of her head.

"Oh, okay. Just call me 'they,'" Angel replied.

"Okay!" Dawn smiled.

Everyone walked on in silence for a while, before something occurred to Chameleon. "You know, we never really talk about our life before this whole superhero-slash-supervillain school thing. Like, our background and stuff."

"Ooh, character development time!" Jaina crowed.

"Stop breaking the fourth wall, Jaina. Only Dawn's allowed to do that," Kia chided.

"I lived in Wisconsin. My parents were really disapproving of individuality or fun I might have had. We lived in a gray house with gray walls and beige furniture, going through the motions of our gray life. My boring brown hair was a constant reminder of this, so one day I snuck out to the store, bought electric blue hair dye, and proceeded to dye my hair while my parents were out of the house. But something went wrong. Either a mistake of the company, or some weird radiation in the dye, or the chemicals reacted wrong or something, but the next thing I touched almost blinded my parents. Didn't bother me. My house looked like a circus until I figured out that I have to wear black gloves in order to not make people's eyes burst," Dawn started, getting more confident as she went on, "And that's how I got here today, with all you lovely people."

"Aw, you're too kind," Chameleon grinned. She turned a hesitant slate color, then, "I lived in a rougher part of New York. My parents could barely keep themselves alive, but insisted on caring for me. They were starving, giving me all they could find. So one day, I ran away. It'd be easier for them, I thought. The same night, I was kidnapped. I thought I could handle myself, but I didn't have a chance. The person I was kidnapped by turned out to be a scientist, experimenting with giving humans unique powers. He wanted to get a human to have the properties of a chameleon, shifting and changing color with it's surroundings. But that didn't go too well. I escaped, and was picked up by Tanya. Kind of hard to blend in when your skin changes color every day. Tanya says my parents know where I am, but... Sometimes I'm not so sure I believe her. Wouldn't they want to visit me? To see me? Anyways. That's me, someone else go so this isn't awkward."

"Uh, I guess I'll speak?" Kia hesitantly piped up. Sarah reassuringly put her arm around her. "Um, a really long time ago, I was walking home when a man appeared. He was carrying a gun. He shot me once, twice, and it hurt more than anything in the world. Everything around me went dark and black. After that, I just remember small pictures and glimpses. Seeing my mom on her bed crying, and wanting to reach out to her but I couldn't. A little baby with wispy blonde hair like my father's. Things like that. I could see, but couldn't touch. Then, one day, I woke up on a cold, cold table. I could see and touch, finally! There was a man. He told me I had been shot... 50 years ago. And he had new technology that had brought me back, as a ghost. I was terrified, but he explained everything to me and I was fine. I thought he was nice, but one day a bunch of armed men rushed in and killed him, and they told me that he was killed because he was doing a lot of illegal and dangerous things. They weren't sure what to do with me, so they sent me off to Tanya's and that's how I got here."

"My turn, I guess," Sarah shrugged. "I was walking home with my friends after a class, self defense or karate or something I don't remember, when suddenly we were cornered by 12 different people. They were all ridiculously beautiful, and pale, skin like porcelain. They were all dressed in Victorian era clothes, it seemed. They all surrounded me and my 8 friends, in a complete circle, and one stepped forwards. His lips were red, almost bloodstained, and he had dark hair, haunted red eyes. The area around his eyes were kind of a purple, like he had been bruised. He looked in turn at all of us, and his eyes lingered on me a bit longer than the others. 'This one' he whispered. He snapped his fingers, and my friends screamed for a few seconds, until I was the only one left screaming. Because my friends were dead, on the ground. The one from before stepped forwards again, and smiled, and I noticed fangs. He crept towards me, and I tried to back away but I couldn't, he lunged at me, there was a sharp pain in my neck, and everything went black. When I woke up, I was laying in a puddle of my own blood, and there was this terrible hunger chewing at me. I blacked out again, the last thing I remember was that there were some people coming down the street. When I woke up again, I wasn't hungry anymore, and... there were four corpses around me. That's when Tanya picked me up, and here I am." Everyone let out a sympathetic murmur.

"Um, not much to say, for mine. I was born this way. When I started to get noticed too much, Tanya picked me up. And that's about it," Jaina shrugged. Dawn noticed that she still didn't know what Jaina's powers were. She was about to ask when Angel spoke up.

"When I was younger, my mom sent me to a camp in a far-flung forest, literally in the middle of nowhere. You know how earlier, that other kid asked me if I was a boy or a girl, and I said no? Well, I told the same to my mom. And she thought something was wrong with me, so she sent me away," Angel began, drawing sympathetic, soft noises from the rest of the group. Angel continued with a deep breath, "At the camp, they told me that I was wrong. That I was an abomination, that I was confused. It nearly killed me. I was standing by the white-water river, contemplating throwing myself into it, when I suddenly felt a burning anger. Why should I destroy myself, when it was them who deserved the punishment? It was them who were wrong. It was them who were abominations. It was them who were confused. All the rage just piled up, consumed me, and I embraced it. It soared out of me, burning my soul and mind. It suddenly exploded out of me, in daggers and spears, literally. Wings thrust out of my back, everything went red. I woke up laying in the center of the camp. The instructors were dead. The campers were grateful. And I still haven't forgotten the feeling of the blood that coated my skin."

Everyone was quiet for a few moments, absorbing this.

And then the world shook.