The Element (TUA story)

I Heard a Rumor

29 years ago

Reginald was walking around the cribs where the little babies were laid. They all had different colors and numbers on them. A yellow crib had a black number one written on it and in it laid a little one-year-old boy. The boy was looking up at his father with loving eyes. He carefully reached up for him but only got a frown from his father as he just scribbled something in his notepad and continued on towards the other crib.

This time it was a red one with number two. Another boy was there but he was looking a bit too serious for such a young child. The child's frown only deepened when he saw his father.

"Something on your mind Number Two," The baby grabbed the rattle it had next to his hand and threw it at his dad who moved out of the way. But the rattle turned in the air and hit him in the back of the head. Sir Hargreeves hummed a bit angrily and wrote something in his notepad. He moved towards a bright pink cot where was the first girl. She was sitting up her curly hair sticking into every direction as she kept on talking gibberish. Hargreeves tried to focus on what she was trying to say but so far couldn't comprehend anything. And so he moved on to the green cot where a boy with curly hair was laughing at something.

"What's seems to be amusing here Number Four?" Reginald asked looking at the boy. Even tho he knew the little one wouldn't answer him as they couldn't speak very well yet. Number Four just laughed more and pointed behind Reginald making a cute squealing sound as if someone was standing there doing funny faces at the baby. Reginald turned around but couldn't see anyone and so with a confused face he turned back and wrote something down. He moved on to the blue colored crib with a big number five there. But the child wasn't in it. Sir Hargreeves looked around even went as far as checking the ceiling but didn't see Number Five anywhere. He felt the bed checking if by any chance the baby didn't turn invisible but no luck there.

He moved on to check the other three cradles thinking that maybe along the way he will find the missing baby boy. He passed the black crib with Number Six in there hugging his octopus plush toy. Every child was allowed one toy. They each got one on their first birthday. Sir Reginald thought that even if he was raising these kids to save the world one day that he still needed to give them somewhat a feeling of being humans and so he got each child a toy.

In the cradle next to the black one was a purple one with the little brown-haired girl sitting there looking around. She was just inspecting everything with her eyes and when Number Three started crying for whatever reason the little girl covered her ears whimpering slightly. Sir Reginald wrote it down, ignoring the cries coming from the pink cot as he moved towards the last mint-colored one where the youngest baby should be. He walked over there his monocle almost falling off when he saw the child sleeping and levitating in the air her fox toy clutching in her tiny hand. Hargreeves wrote almost a whole paragraph about this when suddenly the lost Number Five appeared with a flash of blue light in the cot under the levitating baby girl.

Sir Hargreeves frowned and picked up the boy carrying him towards his own crib and dropping him down there. Sometimes he wondered if he did the right thing when he took in eight little babies and planned on making them into heroes. He had a hard time ahead. But maybe one day in the future his hard work will pay off. 

Scarlett...

He said something about my powers being controlled by my emotions and that it wasn't me releasing them but my emotions driving them in the wrong direction. But can you do something without emotions? I got off the bike probably an hour ago. I stopped by some lake that I found. It is quite nice here. I do like it a lot. It helped me relax after such a long time of worrying about everything. I don't know if I was ever this relaxed in my whole life. Even as a child I felt more stress than I do now. I was lying under the tree just staring at the water in front of me. I still wonder what did father mean by that. You can't do things without emotions. It is just impossible. My shoes have been abandoned next to my bike a long time ago. You can say Klaus and I are alike in this one, we like to walk around barefoot. But there is this rule that you can't drive a motorbike with bare feet. Stupid I know. I started humming a random melody absentmindedly. After like two minutes I realized that I have been humming one of the Queen songs again.