Superhero or Superstar?

Tara Velasquez/Terra

What is all this stuff?

I said to myself in awe. There were so many weapons and gadgets that I have never seen in my life. Maybe in movies, but that's it. I looked around some more, completely focused on this room. This room that holds a lot of questionable things. I picked up an item that had the shape of gun but it had a bright blue glowing light on the barrel. Sort of like a laser gun.

"Tara."

I whipped myself around to face the person who called my name. I saw my dad leaning against the door frame.

"Uh.. D-dad. I umm- I was going to put this back.. I'm sorry."

I was absolutely tongue tied. I felt very nervous and I wasn't sure why. There was something about the way he was staring at me that got me shaking.

"How did you find this room?" He said to me in a stern voice. Almost like it wasn't even a question.

Once again, I found myself not being able to find the right words to say. "I was just trying to find a book to read.. and the bookshelf did a weird spin-y thingy and then i.. and then I ended up in this room. I don't know dad! It was weird. And I don't think I want to be in here anymore.. Can you please tell me how to get out of here?" My face felt red hot and this time I was trembling.

I don't think I was supposed to find this room, but I did so why is he getting mad at me? Well at least it feels like he is mad..

My dad turned over to a pad near the door frame. He pressed a few buttons and a few seconds later, my mom showed up.

"What is it, sweetheart? You know I don't like being in this room anymore. What if Tara-"

I cut her off. "What if i what? Find this place. A little too late for that. All I know is I wanna leave and dad won't let me. So can you at least help me?"

"I called her down here because you're down here. Tara this is serious stuff. No, you're not in trouble, but we have to talk you about something now. That is why your mother is here." He said before motioning me to a spinning office chair near a table with so many keys and buttons.

I sat down on the chair, my mom sitting on the table and my dad sitting on the chair opposite of me.

My mom began to speak. "Listen, darling, there's obviously a lot you don't know. But now you have to know since you found this room. We've been wanting to tell you, but we wanted to wait for the right time. Although we could never seem to find the right time.. okay well there's just a lot of things you need to know and so much to take in. It's also understandable if you don't believe us at first, but everything your father and I are going to tell you is all true. As crazy as it seems.. "

I looked at them with a confused expression. They looked at each other then back at me, still with the same look on my face.

My father took a deep breath and began to say, "Before you born, Tara, you're mom and I had superpowers. Our power is called geokinesis, the ability to manipulate earth. We still have it in a way. We're retired, so we don't use them anymore. When we wanted to conceive a child, we found a safe way to extract our powers so that the baby wouldn't be born with any. We wanted to keep him or her away from that dangerous lifestyle. Our powers are stored away. A place only your mother and I know of. Actually they're down here, somewhere safe."

I was in complete shock. "Wow. My parents had superpowers and no one bothered to tell me that. Well that's awesome! Kind of sad that you guys didn't want me to be birthed with powers but still awesome! But why hide this from me? You say it like being a superhero is a bad thing?"

They looked at each other again, but this time with the same look of confusion I had before this conversation. My mom grabbed my dad's hand and held it. Then she looked over to me. "Tara, darling, we weren't superheroes," she cleared her throat, "we were villains. That's why we didn't want you to have powers. We loved life as villains. But we were constantly fighting and we didn't want you to get hurt. That's why we chose to give up our powers. For your safety."

Villains?! You've got to be kidding me! My parents are- I mean were villains?

I let my mind catch up for a bit, then I spoke. "Hold up. You guys were villains? This is crazy. But I still don't see why I couldn't have powers. Even if it meant that I couldn't use them for battles."

"You do have powers.. We thought we had prevented that from happening, but when you were just 9 months old, I had a plant seed that just didn't grow. Normally I would have used my powers to make it grow, but I didn't have any so I couldn't. Well around that time, your father was playing with you and I was watering the seed. I turned to you and saw you looking at me, then you pointed to the plant. I saw the plant growing. It was big and very green. You giggled and began playing with your dad again. But he stopped playing with you and just looked back and forth at you, that plant, and me in concern. I was just confused. We did all the research and tests we could on you. Safely of course. But couldn't figure out how you could have done that. So we tried the test on ourselves instead.." My mom looked at my dad indicating for him to finish the story.

He opened his mouth to speak, but it took a while for words to actually come out. "When we got the results, they- they surprised us. It turned out that we still had traces of our powers. Not in our body cells exactly, but in our sex cells.."

It seemed like he wanted to gag at that word. I could see him internally cringe. Oh my dear father, I am 15 not 7. Shout out to biology for teaching me about those cells.

"Dad chill out. It's not like I didn't know what those were. But wait, how come I haven't experienced anything like that again? As far as I remember, I haven't made a frickin seed sprout into like a tree or some shhhiiiizzz," I said, slowly changing the word so I won't get in trouble, "in the past decade of my life. The other five are a little hazy because those first 5 years of a persons life are like the drunk yet un-alcoholic years of their life.. Anyway. How come I can't use them now?"

"You can," my mom said, "but since you didn't know about them and because you've also never had training, you never knew how. Darling, with these powers come serious consequences. You have to know that this isn't something you can avoid now that you are aware. Also since you're 15, you were supposed to be asked this on the day of your birthday, but since we didn't want you to know we didn't ask you, do you want training for your superpowers?"

I thought about it for a second than I excitedly said, "Um.. YEA! I would love to! When do I start? HOW do I start? I'm so excited!!"

"First thing's first, now that you want to be a villain, you'll need a name to call yourself."

I was doing a small dance of excitement until my mom's words actually processed. "Wait what, what do you mean villain? I have to be a villain?"

"Well you most certainly didn't think you'd be a hero, did you?" My mom and dad laughed. Then my dad said, " Tara, you were born from villainous parents. Evil is in your DNA. Even if you wanted to be a hero, you can't. You may have a nice and kind personality, but any intention you have of using your powers, will instantaneously become an evil action. It's inevitable that you, my dear, are going to be a villain. Also, training starts tomorrow after school."

But I don't want to be a villain..