Spellbound: Spawn of the Gods

Chapter Two: Two Future Avengers (Better Let Nick Fury Know...)

Cassandra and Evelyn had the kind of friendship that you didn't know when it started, you only knew it was there. It felt like forever, but it had really only been six years. They weren't exactly the kind of people you would expect to be friends, though. Cassandra Gray was sort of a rebel, with large blue-green eyes and brown hair that was always in a ponytail with the bangs braided on the side. Her dad might have bought her nice clothes, but she liked to keep it simple and was hardly without her favorite jean jacket. Cassandra loved being in charge and planning. Nothing could make her happier than devising some impossible, daring scheme; and that was something she did quite frequently.

On the other side of the equation was Evelyn Mackay, a pretty girl with stormy blue eyes and long blondish-brown hair, with which she obstinately refused to do anything. She loved her hair down and free, letting it blow in the wind; and that was also a pretty apt description of her personality.

Evelyn was the passive side of this rather unique friendship. It wasn't that she didn't agree with Cassandra, it was just that she couldn't imagine herself with a better idea. She was perfectly happy to follow Cassandra and trusted her judgment implicitly. Despite that, Evelyn wasn't what anyone would have called a pushover. In fact, if anyone ever had, she just might have ended up socking them in the nose! She was also the funnier side of the pair. Whenever a situation was tense, or a plan didn't work out, she was always there to lighten a mood with a joke, and it wasn't deadpan humor either.

They lived in a quiet town in Virginia where they both felt awkward and out of place. This was probably due to the fact that most adults did not exactly approve of the girls' 'ideal job', which was to become 'Avengers' (like the ones from the Marvel comics), and consequently treated them as outsiders. It had started out as a joke when they were only ten and fascinated by the characters, but they had decided to keep it up as all the adults took it very seriously.

Their houses were extremely close, and they both had rooms on the top floor of their homes, which made it fun because Cassandra would always devise a plan on how to get Lynn's attention by throwing notes through her window. Once, when she was eleven, Cassandra had even designed a tunnel-like walkway that could go between their rooms, but that was an idea which both her father and Evelyn's parents had vetoed.

They lived in a better part of town in a development where most of the inhabitants were over fifty, so it was all very quiet...except for Evelyn's house. She lived with her dad, her stepmother and her three half-siblings. As she was the eldest child by six years, she was often in charge of her younger siblings, something that was easier said than done! That was why Evelyn was thankful Cassandra was an only child. Whenever there were too many screaming kids or whenever she needed a quiet place to do homework, she would just slip over to Cassandra's house. Of course, once they were there together, they would spend about five minutes on their homework and then waste the rest of the time, fooling around and having fun.

Cassandra lived alone with her dad in a house where the floors were squeaky clean and waxed, and where there was not a speck of dust to be found on any of the breakables, which was what ninety percent of their decorations consisted. This was due to the fact that her father was sort of a neat freak; and also because since her father was a very prominent Economic Historian who often held official meetings in his house, he wanted people to receive a good impression.

"A disorganized home shows a disorganized mind," he would always say to Cassandra. In fact, he never let her forget it! Cassandra's father was a very busy man, and also suffered from a severe case of absentmindedness, so sometimes he hardly noticed his daughter. Anyone who knew about her family life would understand Cassandra's unhappiness. As she didn't have a mother, or even any other siblings, the poor girl felt alone and useless much of the time. So whenever Cassandra was feeling particularly reckless, or the house was getting too quiet, she would walk over to Evelyn's house.