The year is 2015, unusual humans have been around for decades, but well hidden and covered up by the government. But every year there are more and more, and the secrecy can't continue forever... what will happen when the world becomes aware of them?
Shun’s body had finally stabilized, and he had walked down out of the mountains in Mongolia, back toward his village, hoping to undo the damage he had done. Aahq was equally curious about the primitive life forms he was now bound to, unable to leave the body of the young human he had merged with.
The boy’s body constantly raged, even now, against Aahq, trying to burn him out and the boy with him. But Aahq’s fusion with the boy’s body at the molecular level had generated a change in the boy’s body at the subatomic level. Whatever mutation had developed in the boy was now, at least, of no threat to him or anyone else. Exactly what it was, Aahq couldn’t tell. He could vaguely remember that at one time, finding and removing such a thing would have been the work of a moment, no more than the effort it took Shun to take a step, if that much.
But Aahq had lost so much, he simply couldn’t recall even how to start, much less proceed.
As they reached the village, from half a mile away, they saw the scavenger birds circling overhead. Aahq had no idea what it meant, but Tien did. The boy raced forward as fast as his nerve damaged legs would carry him.
And when they reached the village, it was a nightmare. People, men, women, children, all dead. Not of radiation poisoning, although some showed it still. No, these were torn apart, their bodies ripped and torn, as if something had come along and run them through a blender.
Tien moves through the village, searching for his family, but if he finds them in the carnage, he can’t recognize them, with the amount of damage the remains have been subjected to.
Unable to process any more, the boy screams, his voice carrying, echoing off the nearby mountains.
There is an answer…
A deep throated roar, unlike anything Aahq has heard before. It’s cry increases, like a wild animal on the hunt. And then around the corner, comes a beast made of metal and chrome, screaming it’s hunting cry. Atop the monster sits a man dressed all in black, from head to toe, his head a black globe. On it’s back the rider carries a strange weapon.
Tien sees the motorcycle, and it’s rider, and stops screaming. Watching as the rider removes it’s gloves. Something is wrong with the hands, too slender, and they move with a clattery sound. The rider reaches up and removes his helmet, and long black hair falls down all around, perfectly framing the grinning skinless skull set on the thing’s shoulders.
Eyes, with the whites as black as the pits of hell gaze out at Tien. The rider gets off his bike, and unlimbers the axe off his back, his bony fingers plucking at the strings to produce a disharmonic chord that sends shivers up Tien’s spine. The rider speaks in a foreign language, one Tien has heard a few times on TV, English.
The fingers begin to move on the guitar, and despite having no amplifier, the electric guitar howls a chord of death and destruction, which blasts outward in a line at Tien. The blast slams into his only recently healed body, and blood sprays, bones crack, and the boy crashes to his knees, pain lancing through him, agony, as blood sprays around him.
The rider moves to play another chord, but shadows reach out from around him and wrap themselves around him, entwining around his legs, his hands, his axe. From the shadows, another voice is heard, this one stern and stentorian. The shadows move and form a robed and hooded figure, one hand reaching out as if grasping the rider, and the other holding up a golden crucifix. It speaks in the same foreign language.
The rider struggles to turn toward the new figure, and it breaks free of the shadows holding it, slamming it’s hand down over the strings again, another wall of sound crashing out and into the shadow.
The shadow and the creature circle one another, both blasting the other, either with shadow or discordant sounds of hell.
Kiran’s been living on her own for almost six months now. Only her spinning ability she discovered had kept her in something that resembled clothes. She didn’t really have anything to sew with, so she had to make do with wrapping herself in silk strips, like sarongs.
The silk was white, which left her an odd mixture of dark and white, with her new freakish nature. Her life had devolved into hiding by day, and sneaking out by night to steal food from trash cans, dumpsters, and sometimes even the ants on the ground who’d found something someone dropped.
It was late afternoon, and Kiran was hiding in the top of an abandoned apartment complex. There had been some homeless people here, but they’d gotten a look at her once or twice by night and abandoned the place. No others had shown up, but nobody had come looking for her so far, so she’d just enjoyed having a roof over her head for a few weeks, and tried not to remember her parents… her father…
The heat was oppressive, with no air conditioner. But short of going out into the out there, there was nothing she could do.
It was just after noon when she showed up. The woman. So pretty, so tall, so muscular. Wearing a black leather outfit and a loose fitting leather biker jacket over it, as if it wasn’t 85 degrees out. Kiran had moved deeper into the shadows, but the woman was very methodical, she moved from room to room in the old complex, obviously looking for someone or something. Eventually, despite the stairwells having been blocked by debris (Kiran had ensured that, and then glued it in with web), she was on the top floor, looking into Kiran’s room. The sudden popping in of the head so startled Kiran that for a moment she didn’t move. Then she fled, slamming through the thin interior wall into the next apartment, turning to fire the webs over the opening.
And then she just… appeared again. On the other side of the webs. The webs were still there, just… behind her now. ”I’m not here to hurt you, I’m here to talk…” The woman says, her form solid, no matter how impossible that is.
Caitlyn was really enjoying herself. The nice thing about moving from shadow to shadow was, it was just as easy to move by day as night, as long as you knew what you were doing. Starting out at dawn in the darkness under the armored car was easy, nobody bothered much physically guarding the truck when it was empty and sitting in the company’s yard.
By morning, there was a nice solid shadow under it, and as it drove out to pick up the money from various locations, all she had to do was float in it’s shadow, hauled around the city, no effort at all, as money was piled up inside it.
Finally, at the end of the day, they were nice enough to pull big bags of cash out of the back, and carry them into the bank. It was certainly easy enough to teleport from the shadow of the truck to the shadow of the guard and the bag, being taken into the bank, past security, and into the vault without any fuss at all.
Then, there were plenty of shadows in the vault itself to hide in, the shelves themselves were more than big enough to hide her shadow in.
And then after the bank closed, it was certainly easy enough to solidify and take out the drills and acid. After all, the door was designed to keep people out, not in, and all she needed was a small enough hole to be able to sense the shadows outside the door, to have a place to move to with the contents of the safe.
The drill was setup shortly, and was drilling at the steel, with Caitlyn spraying coolant on the bit as it did, when something strange happened. She felt a new shadow appear behind her. No… not a single shadow, three shadows… three human shadows…
Turning, the drill bit forgotten, she sees a trio of people standing in the center of the vault. The one on the left is a man in black, his eyes glowing blue as he looks at Caitlyn. ”See, I told you Shimmer, if I followed her long enough, I’d find a place she couldn’t get out of. And she was good enough to trap herself. I just had to wait for her to turn on the light and get to work so I could see where she was.”
The middle woman, a woman with grayish skin nods. ”Yes yes, you’re wonderful, you’re amazing, you’re perfect in every way. Can we get this over with?”
The woman on the right looks a little green around the gills. ”I really hate it when you do that, Shimmer. If god meant people to teleport, he’d have given us the ability to do so…”
The middle woman turns. ”But I can teleport, so obviously god meant for people to teleport.”
The man shakes his head. ”No, she means he obviously meant for you to teleport, it’s the rest of us she’s not too sure about…”
Jack had been practicing his special abilities, training himself to be a Jedi, for a couple of years now. Things had been going well… except for one nagging thing… he couldn’t get it out of his head that there must be something more.
He found it…not when he was looking for it…
He had agreed to go on a camping trip with some friends. Things had been going well, he was having fun, the mountains were beautiful, and it was nice to meditate in the early morning dew. Very relaxing… very calming…
Then, nature had taken over… a storm, heavy winds, rain… the tents had been blown down, and people had gotten lost in the night. Not him, of course, he wasn’t lost. He was searching for the lost ones. Surely he’d find them, the force would lead him to them! It had to, why else would it have been pushing him to walk deeper into the mountains after them?
He was almost losing faith in the Force when he came across the old mine. It was an old strip mine, the ground gouged and torn up, left into a lake that had no fish or anything else growing in it. Just oddly tinted water, a strange blue that didn’t reflect the sky, but an inherent color.
And on the other side of it, something glinting in the sun. A woman, made of metal, standing over a cage. Inside the cage is a man, dressed in rags…
Faye was hiding in the bushes, her wings beating rapidly, making enough noise she needed to be too far away to get a really good look at Billy Roster’s face, but his reaction was going to be priceless. The boy had broken up with her friend Julie, and so she’d snuck into his garage and, despite how long it took, she took his car apart. Yanked all the wires out of the engine, pulled the battery out, took the tires off, disconnected every hose she could find. He’d never understand how anyone had gotten into his locked garage, and he’d learn better than breaking up with someone over the phone.
Billy had just opened his garage door when a sudden burst of wind blew his hat off his head, and out into the street. He cursed and ran after it. Faye blinked, there had been some sort of something about the wind, she almost thought she saw something, but she couldn’t see anything as she peered around. Just as he finally got to his hat, it blew away again, a little further down the street. Faye couldn’t help but giggle, it was so funny, him chasing his hat down the street.
When he finally got it, he stalked back toward the house, but then another gust blew it off again, and again he had to chase it down. It took most of a half an hour for him to finally get the hat and get back to the garage, and by the time he was, Faye was having trouble holding her stomach from the laughter.
The laughter died in an instant when she heard the car start. With huge eyes, the car backed out of the garage, on all four wheels, and running smoothly… even more smoothly than she’d heard it, usually it misfired every few minutes. Billy seemed rather pleased with how well it was running, she noticed him patting the dashboard as he drove off.
”Now then, I don’t think ye should be pullin’ wee jokes like that, me bairn. It’s not right, and ye might get into a wee bit of trouble over’n it.” A voice says, a few inches away from Faye’s head. With a gasp, she turns, and see’s a woman dressed in a solid white outfit with rainbow ribbons draped from the head. Her voice is rich with an Irish brogue. ”Now then, you and I, wee bairn, need to have us a little talk about what is and is not acceptable behaviour for one with the gift.”
"Hurt me?" Kiran repeated, giving a click of her mandibles in place of a scoff, "You seem rather confident, thinking you can hurt a monster..." One advantage of her new form, the solid black of Kiran's new eyes made it difficult to tell exactly where she was looking. She took a moment to take what she could of the room, confirming the existence of a window before turning her attention back to the woman before her. "If you came here to talk, then speak..."
The woman gives a half smile. "Appearance does not indicate if someone is a monster. Believe me, the most beautiful of creatures can often be more monstrous than the most hideous or vile looking of creatures." Her voice is rueful. "And appearances can be deceiving. One person might look like a monster and be a gentle soul, another might look like prince charming, and be a horrible monster inside. One monstrous looking form might be mildly dangerous only, while a pleasing appearance might hide more danger than one can imagine." As she talks, she takes a seat on an old kitchen chair at the table that Kiran had ran past. Idly she reaches out and takes another metal chair, and balls it up into a small ball of metal the size of a softball, bits of paint flaking to the floor as she talks.
"The... the gift..?"
She takes a moment to reflect on the woman's words. Kiran had never been all that vengeful, let alone violent or sadistic. She knew for a fact she'd never hurt someone for no good reason, but in the end, she had. Her father was seriously wounded, if not crippled. She hadn't meant to lash out, but her new limbs had acted on their own, swiping in retaliation to a touch.
"And sometimes," She replied, her arachnoid limbs relaxing down and away from the woman, "A monster is just a monster..." She had no trouble controlling herself now, six months later, but even still, thinking back to that first day, Kiran didn't trust herself sometimes. She gave another click of her mandibles before adding, "Get to your point. You didn't come all the way here to lecture me on prejudice."
The girl's face is hidden, but her voice has a smile in it. "Well now, I figure ye're not a real nixie or pixie or whatever ye think ye be." The girl says, leaning against a tree, tapping out a rapid rhythm on her arm. "I got asked to look inta all the stories 'bout a wee pixie or nixie or sprite. So many rumors on the local web pages at ye're high school. I figure I might be a week or two ahead of the men in black. Ye don't want to be found by them, and I don't mean the movie guys. I mean the real guys, in the real black cars what really make people vanish. Really."
The woman nods. "No, I came to track down some rumors of a 6 foot insect that chased people out of their homes. I always try to find out if I'm dealing with a monster, or someone who's just in a bad spot and has no way out of it. If it's a monster..." She squeezes the ball of metal, and it oozes out between her fingers, glowing mildly red from heat of being crushed. "If it's someone needing help, I see if I can help them. So, which are you? The homeless people are terrified... but then again... I can see why, not knowing what's going on. So, tell me what's going on."
Cautiously, Caitlyn had started backing away while they talked among one another, until her back pressed against the vault door, one hand sneaking the acid she had brought and hiding it behind her back. She had to come up with a plan in case things went south and fighting fair was out of the question - it had been so long since anyone had so much as seen her during her nightly escapades that she stopped bringing weapons altogether. Waiting for their response, Caitlyn's gaze crawled across the floor to the shadows cast by the three figures. If she could just get close enough...
She glances back at the top two appendages, then down to the toiling pair and consciously stopped their work. "Now, I'm a freak, and the only people I think I could trust probably hate me..."
The man to the right stares at Caitlyn for a moment, then he turns to the woman on the left. "You know, she's right, you shouldn't come if you're going to give her grief about the transport." He steps behind the woman in the middle to argue with the other woman.
The other woman looks at Caitlyn, blinks, and then turns to the man. "I don't know what you're talking about.. uh.. you're the one who insisted I come... I uh.. I didn't want to you know..." She responds, hesitantly.
The woman in the middle rolls her eyes. "Really? Fine, whatever..." She takes a couple of steps toward Caitlyn, until she's only a foot or so away. Her shadow moves to fall over Caitlyn, partially, as she moves between Caitlyn and the light. "It's simple, you're a crook, you're gonna expose us, so you're going somewhere you can't make trouble. Simple as that."
The girl nods, her helmet tapping lightly against the tree. "Pretty much, bairn. Ye've made a foot print, and people have noticed ye. If I found ye in two days, ye can't expect to hide from long against a lot more normals." She says, then stretches. "How old are ye anyway?"
The woman leans back in her chair, and nods. "That's not actually that unusual. Used to be, not so much anymore. I notice that your parents haven't been on CNN going on about the alien that took over their daughter. Granted, the government might have shut them up." The woman's voice has a light english accent. "But, more than likely, they didn't tell anyone. I think if they hated you, they'd have told someone. What's your father's name?" She pulls a smartphone out of her pocket, and begins typing on it. "Let's see if there's any information on the internet..."
He can barely understand what's happening with all the information. From one side, he's confused with the man riding that raging beast, using that noisy weapon; from another, he's confused what a man in a motorcycle is doing attacking him with a magic(?) guitar.
And that's on top of the other hooded figure!
Aahq/Tien are still on their knees, dizzy from the first attack and barely feeling all their parts, when they make an effort, together, to try to stand up. No matter if they have no clue on what's happening, he's not going to simply run or lie down there; they traveled too far to be there, from outer space, from other dimensions, and now back here, home, with our entire village being attacked by a monster.
Wait? Other dimensions? Outer space? What do they mean by "our" village? They're still confused even with themselves, and the situation isn't helping much. The eyes burn with this strange body, or this strange alien thing inside of us, or both!
Sam had looked toward Janice, as if to ask what the heck these plants were. Janice had opened her mouth to answer on the ones she recognized when everything went wrong.
Markus Hale’s head had just vanished in a spray of gore, and Tina Martinez’s arm vanished at the shoulder less than half a second later, and her head followed as she spun like a ragdoll. Then Sam’s vest exploded, hit by a round, but the bullet proof vest, the expensive one his wife bought him, not the cheaper department issue, stopped the round, mostly. He went flying backwards into the undergrowth, his vest ripping and tearing again and again as two more rounds hit him in mid-air, within a hand-span of where the first had hit.
There may have been more after that, but Janice was in no shape to note it, as the death and mayhem reached her, her arm exploded, her hand, still gripping the forensics case, dropped to the ground. Then the opposite knee exploded, leaving one foot still firmly on the ground, but completely detached from the leg that it once supported. A third round punched through her stomach, blowing her spine out the back, all within the space of 3 heart beats, sending her body flying back like a rag-doll as well. That may have saved her, as the fourth bullet only grazed her head, rather than intersecting it directly.
As she landed in the pool of algea, pain exploded through her mind, but somehow she was still conscious… fading in and out as the blue water turned purple from blood being added to it in prodigious amounts.
Her vision wavers, and a magician appears above her, looking down. He moves on, looking around the greenhouse. Then he pulls a wand from his jacket, and waves it over a potted plant. The potted plant vanishes. He then continues walking around the greenhouse, waving his wand, making object after object disappear. Not everything, but all the odd and exotic plants vanish, leaving only the common plants behind.
He finally waves his wand over the tank that Janice floats in, and then she feels the sensation of falling, as the tank and it’s water and algea vanish, but she doesn’t. A 3 foot fall to the floor, some blood splattering around her.
Then the man moves to Sam. He sighs, and pulls his top hat off, and draws a heavy revolver from it.
”Nyet, you have done enough, ubiystvo.” A thick voice rumbles.
The magician turns, and bows. ”Oh, Kodiak, not nearly enough. Tell my sister I said hugs and kisses when you see her… oh and give her this as well…” And he turns the pistol to the side and fires.
A massive man charges into Janice’s field of view. It’s hard to tell, in her state, but it seems like he’s over 7 ft tall, close to 8. The man ignores the gunshot as he punches at the magician. The man ducks under the blow, and the man’s massive fist instead destroys a section of plant bed, as if it were balsa wood instead of pressure treated oak.
”Kodiak, that was a very expensive flower bed, if you’re not going to be a gracious guest, I’m going to have to punish you…” The magician says, with a smirk, and fires the gun again, at point blank range. The bullet slams into the large man, and at the same time, the shirt on his back rips as another sniper round hits him from the back. He grunts, but doesn’t move or go down, or even bleed.
”You are a persistent one, Kodiak.” The magician says, and fires another round, and outside, another round slams into the large man, another double tap.
The large man steps closer to the Magician, and brings both his hands together hard. Air rushes out, and all the windows in the greenhouse that aren’t already broken shatter outwards. A sonic boom rushes over Janice, and her vision swims black.
When it clears, the area is tinted red, and fire licks at the wooden greenhouse. The large man is carrying Sam out of the flames. Things go red again, and then the man is bending down over Janice. He pauses. ”Bozhe moy, kotyonok. I do not t’ink you are suvosed to be zelenyy. I cannot leave you for t’e others to find, dah?” He picks Janice up gently, but even so, the pain sends her back into darkness.
When she awakens again, afternoon sunlight coats her, as she lays in it… wearing only a bikini, and a minimal one at that.
When she moves, a woman’s voice enters her ears. ”Dah, I thought you’d be vaking up today. All the missing parts vere almost done regrowing yesterday… even if dey are a vit zelenyy.” The voice says. Looking around, she sees a dark haired woman sitting on a lounge chair outside a small cabin, her feet crossed, and reading a book. The two pistols in holsters quite obvious even from 50 ft away, but she seems more interested in her book, than in shooting at the moment.
The girl nods. Aye, danger ye be in, if ye ain't careful. How long do ye have 'till graduation?"
The woman types something on her phone, and then sits it on the table. "Friend of mine is going to run the research from somewhere else, just in case, and forward me the results. It'll probably be 10 or 15 minutes at best."
The pain is intense, but by sheer will, the duo manage to get their body back on it's feet. Beyond, really, as they realize they are actually floating a few inches off the ground.
The shadowy figure with the cross seems to be having trouble, being blasted into buildings, and unable to do more than jar the skeletal musician.
Finally, the shadowy figure moves next to the duo, and says something while pointing at a blasted out doorway. The doorway becomes dark, filled with roiling shadows.
Then the shadowy figure grabs them in one arm and pushes them through.
Things go even stranger, they are now in the house, but things are... wrong. Sound is a constant wave rising and falling, light is present everywhere, but with no source, and only dim. Darkness moves in waves, like wheat in the wind, everywhere.
The skeletal man blasts the house, over and over, making bits of it fall around the two (or is it three) people taking cover there, but none of the pieces that fall hit anyone. They simply fall through them.
The shadowy figure looks like a normal human here, an older man, wearing a hooded robe of a catholic priest. He puts his cross away, and beckons the boy and leads him out of the building, walking through a wall.
Blood loss hallucinations, Janice thinks, slipping in and out of consciousness, with an odd lack of emotion, as she analyzes what's happening. Lack of oxygen, most likely, to the brain; that and adrenaline might be keeping the pain from getting worse. What else? Oh, hypothermia. Systemic shock kicks the adrenaline response up as high as it will go, so there's no further metabolic quickening in response to heat lost into the water; if I get cold enough, that slows the bleeding, and more importantly, slows oxygen consumption, potentially keeping consciousness. No paramedics on the way, but it'll be too late now, anyway; unless something seals off the arteries in the next five minutes—no, it's already been a minute, four minutes, maybe six with hypothermia—I'll have lost enough blood through the leg to go into hypoxic shock, and then brain damage and organ failure will be irreversible even after blood transfusion.
And then she realizes that the shooting has stopped, and the greenhouse is on fire. Hmm, continued delusions of heroic rescue. Odd, but I suppose it's an entertaining enough last thing to 'see.'
* * *
Waking up in someone else's clothes, Janice is... confused, and extremely groggy. The sunlight feels different, and strange, but it seems to jog her memories faster than she would have expected, and suddenly she is standing up, knees bent, hands held out warily in front of her until she sees the guns and drops them, feeling foolish. "So," she asks, warily, "That was some edgy s%&$. Where am I, what just happened, who's dead, and am I one of them?"
The girl frowns, the only part of her visible being her mouth. "Aye, wee bairn, I'm tryin to deside if'n we ken wait for ye to graduate so ye can tell ye're parents ye got a job or school offer out of state, or if we need tae help ye vanish right now, and leave 'em worryin'. If it's no more than a month or so, we might be safe enough if you stay human thae entire time, and nae more mischief. If it's next year, then we got tae get you out of here now."
"Dah, edgy s+*$, as you say. Or at least, it sound like it, from vhat my brother said. There vas vone survivor, the man my brother took out ov the vire. He vas haert bad, but vill survive. Better life vest, or something like thet. The rest are dead. You, I am not so sure about. You are alive, but I am not sure you are you anymore. Certainly, not wit' the zellany.. pardon.. green vits." She says, not looking up from her book as she reads. "How are you veeling? Vhoozy? Vant some food? Maybe some vertalizer?"
"Zelenyy is... green? Hmm. Okay. Let's think about this." She remembers the word, remembers the whole scene, with perfect clarity. But with all the blood she lost, that shouldn't be possible. Right, the leg. It doesn't hurt at all; as she looks, there's a thick green scar running around her knee, and the skin below it looks... rough, somehow. It takes only a few seconds to notice the green scars on her chest and arm as well, and she feels almost as if she's perceiving things faster than she should.
"So... no. I'm not hungry. I should be, or at least weak from it. But there's no marks for a transfusion or even lines for a saline IV. I should be dehydrated from the blood loss, and starving, if nothing else. Which means that something's happened to my metabolism."
"And you're... what, Russian? Paramilitary? Mob? Did I get involved in some sort of organized crime turf war? Oh! Also, I should have bled out through my femoral artery in five minutes—did you or your brother see what happened to it?"
The girl nods. "Ok, then we do this. I'll stick around town, and if the men in black show up, I'll run 'em around the rosies. Maybe dye mae suit green, and tell 'em I'm a Leprachaun. I dinnae think they'll know the difference betwixt one fae and another. In the meantime, no more wings, got it? Get through graduation, and call this number if any suits with earbuds try tae talk to ya." She pulls a card out of her belt, and hands it to Faye. It has a number on it and nothing else.
"After ye graduate, we'll see about helping ye relocate. Exactly how depends on ye, if ye want to help other people stay out of some research lab, ye can help us. If ye just want to fergit about all this, and try tae lead a normal life, we'll see what we can do. But in that case, ye cannae be usin' your wings anymore."
"You can call me Shadowcat, if you like. We don't really give out real names, if you don't give them out, nobody can report them if they get caught." She says, then looks up as the phone beeps.
Reading it, she nods. "Apparently, your father was in an accident, he pulled a box of gardening tools off a shelf and fell down with them on top of him, and punctured some internal organs. He was in ICU for a few days, but he's pulled through and is recovering." She looks up. "That's what was in the paper anyway. Nothing about a daughter who turned into an alien, or a missing daughter."
"Dah, green." She confirms, listening to the rest, but not commenting on the out loud thinking. "Dah, Russian. I might, et one point, hev been in a profession thet required certain combat related skills, or I might not hev." She answers, not really confirming or denying either. "I do hev a certain very honed set ov skills, that come in hendy, from time to time. I em not the mob, I will forgive you this accusation this one time, out of deference to your injuries. I vould not make this accusation again, though." The woman's voice is calm, but there's a certain edge to it now. "You vere involved in a var of sorts. There vas a certain man, who vas growing certain plants, using certain special abilities by certain other people. These plants vere, how you say, dengerous? Unfortunately for you and your peeple, you stumbled onto him as ve vere preparing to take him up.. no, down, yes, down. Dis man, he have a very unusual man vatching his plents, a men with a sniper rifle, and with skills you vould not believe. Fortunately for you, he likes to play games. One shot one kill, two shots one kill, three shots one kill, four shots one kill, five shots one kill. If he hed jest shot you all in the hed in the first place, you vould all hev died before the first body hit the ground." She shrugs. "My brother had to... how you say... jump the sherk? I never understand these Amerikan sayings. Why moving too soon jumping sherk? Strange. So, this certain man, he can make himself disappear, and he did so. My brother then saved the other police man, then had you sent to a specialist, who determined you vere more plent then human, and suggested we leave you in a field neked. I felt a bikini vould be more appropriate."
The girl nods. "And if those guys in the suits do catch ye, ye cannae tell them what ye dinnae know, now can ye? Ye can call me Blur if ye like, most do. Think about what I said, tis too dangerous to do things by halves, ye know. If ye wanna be a flying thing, ye have to be a flying thing the whole way, not jest to play pranks on high school boys, and ye need to be tryin' tae not be caught, unless ye want to end up in a lab, bein' poked and prodded by scientests. If ye wanna be a normal human girl, ye cannae be a wee winged girl aenny more."
"Hmm. More... plant than human? That's... ironic, I guess, if I'm supposed to believe it." Janice rubs her leg, absentmindedly. Immediately, she notices the scars and ridges disappearing under her touch, and makes a face. "This specialist didn't leave any equipment, did they? I'd really like to see myself under a microscope right now, or maybe even—no, forget mitochondria, no way you'd have a sequencer here and I've got a feeling I shouldn't send my own blood into a government-funded facility."
I'm thinking fast—too fast. Something should be panicking right now, and it isn't. That's troubling. Maybe I'm missing an adrenal response, or—well, I'm not going to worry about emotional responses, could still just be psychological shock.
"Right. Well, a man died, and I found evidence on where it happened. That's what I do, and I'm damn good at it. 'Talking to the trees for information,' if you will, though not literally. And now there's three men dead, two of them rookie cops. Martinez comes from a blue family—his grandfather was commissioner fifteen years back, and two of his uncles are on the force—and there's definitely going to be an investigation. You say there's a 'war'—is the government involved, or are they a third party who would only make things worse?" I should be panicking right now why am I still talking. "I assume if there's no cover-up, a few more people will die needlessly in that investigation. So do you take care of that, or does the other side, or the government, or am I supposed to commit some evidence tampering? Are you even the 'good guys here?'" Why am I still talking—no, how am I still talking, I don't even have saliva right now "And I'll pass on fertilizer, but I think I'm going to need about two gallons of water, if you've got a bucket."
As Jack walks around the pond, he get's a better view of the man in the cage. Not that it helps. He's collapsed on the floor of the cage, which is made of wooden 4x4 beams, tied with rope. The man is dressed in shabby looking rain slicker. As Jack starts his walk, the rain starts up again, as the storm's second wave begins to wash over the area. By the time he's at the pond, it's raining hard and lightning is flashing.
With the lowered visibility, he has to move closer to get a good look.
The woman finally notices him, but seems to not care about the rain. "Hey kid, come here, I need some help. Got a prisoner here, eco terrorist..." She says, crooking a finger at him. Her skin, up close, looks like solid liquid mercury...
The man looks up, although his face is lost in the shadows. "Run kid.. run..." He says in a croaking voice.
The girl takes the locket, and puts it into a small pouch on her belt. "Got it bairn." She then vanishes in a blur.
Over the next few months, Faye does notice some strange men and women around, always with shades and suits and ear buds. They show up at school too, talking with the school administrators. Things get strained at school, rumors of shooting rampages and terrorist attacks put a serious damper on the school year, and the prom is cancelled. Budgetary reasons is stated, but nobody in school believes it.
Faye's parents are nervous and upset, and ask her if she's heard of anything weird going on, that the PTA sent out warnings to be on the watch for something odd going on, new drugs, or something.
Finally, graduation, and Faye's an official graduate. She had been planning on going to the state college. However, after calling the number, she receives a letter from Loyola, in New Orleans, saying she's been accepted.
Her parents are upset that she didn't tell them she had submitted herself, but it's a prestigious university, and they can't really deny their daughter, so they start talking about how to stretch the college funds to cover a college twice what they thought they had to pay for.
Assuming the blue lady denies the movie and fails to show the director and cameras, Jack attempts to use his Jedi Mind Trick, ”lady, you need to show me your identification.”
"The specialist... she no use equipment. She also have, specialized skills." The woman smirks, turning a page. "But no, I vould not submit your blood if I vere you, to any lab, anyvhere."
"If the man was, as you say, blue blood, he knew vhat he vas doing. You do not put on veapons and armor and not expect to die, not unless you are a fool. I have never vorn a veapon vithout knowing I could die for doing so, to expect to be a man in armor, with a veapon, and not chance death, that is shtupid. So, do not make little of the man in death, he died doing his job. There is dignity in that."
She finally bookmarks the book, and focuses on Janice. "Dah, the government is involved. Which government though, the public one, or the private one? The public one hides it, the private one hides it from the public one, and hides other things they do, as vell. Vone like you might do vell vith the government, if you don't mind putting your own kind into petrie dishes, don't mind turning children over to labs for dissection, they would velcome you. They vill do a very good cover up, cops and drug dealers. Some trigger happy cops will shoot some innocent drug dealers for the deaths of fellow officers in blue. Things vill go on. Another cop or two might die as the drug dealers feel they have nothing to lose, with the cops looking to legally murder them." She shrugs. "Is no different then any other veek in the vorld. As to vhat you do, that is up to you. You are dead, you left a hand and a foot behind in the fire, DNA records... no body, but nobody believes you are alive. They think you dead. Good guy, bad guy, everyone beat the crap out of each other. I learn long ago not to try to be good guy or bad guy. I just try to sleep at night vithout nightmares. If I do that, I be satisfied. There are those who try to stop people like the man who kill your friends, and there are those like the man who try to kill your friends, and there are those who try to kill all of us, no matter vhat ve do."
Then the seriousness drops off her. "There is vater in the cabin, as much as you vant. And a small fridge with bottled vater, if you vant it cold." She opens the book and begins to read again.
"That's not... exactly what I wanted answers to," Janice replies, after soaking her feet in the bucket of water she gathers, watching in fascination as it's absorbed. "But, great, you're saying this all just went X-files on me. Can't be the whole government' working on something like this; anyone who's been to the DMV could tell you bureaucracy's not that efficient. So we're talking secret forces, black ops, maybe a few members of congress tops. 'Hail Hydra' and all. Which means everyone local stays uninvolved."
"But I'd really rather not be legally dead. That sounds like career suicide. How long have I been out? The blood work will take up two or three days minimum, and if they're processing it locally, I can probably get into the lab and swap it with someone else. Hand and foot would be burned badly in the fire; botch the testing on those, and they could be anyone's. If the LT's still in the hospital, they won't have a final statement yet, especially if he's been hopped up on morphene during the recovery. If I can talk to him before he gets out, maybe there won't be too many questions."
The woman shakes her head. "We don't even know what causes it yet, it's not like we can go out on the internet and ask for an open source genetics research group. Far as we know, the government hasn't figured it out either. Besides, this isn't a thing you fix. It's not like it's a cold, or a broken leg. It's your genes, my genes. We don't know how yet, but it's... there's nothing doing this to us, it's what's inside us that's doing it." She sighs. "I hate doing these types of investigations, I suck at dealing with people. It's much easier to beat the heck out of people who are trying to steal money or hurt kids or whatever, than it is to play amateur psychologist to someone who really needs someone who understands what they're going through. Look, maybe this is permanent, maybe it's not. I know a guy who looks a lot like you... when he's not human. He changes from human to something that's bug like. Maybe.. maybe if you work hard at it, you can force it back. Or maybe not. I know people that change appearances eight times a day, and I know people who look like a four armed alien all the time."
"I have to show you ID huh?" She asks, and shrugs. "Ok..."
"RUN KID!" Jack's danger sense goes off, letting him know something bad is about to happen.
And then the woman leaps over 20 meters, landing in front of Jack with a thud, and driving her fist down.
The blow catches Jack in the stomach, and drives him back and down into the stoney ground, knocking the air out of his body, and driving him into stones, shattering them and pushing dirt aside.
The woman looks at Janice, and bookmarks her book. "You've been here two days. And yes, very much the blackest of ops." She tilts her head. "If you vant your dna back, I know someone that might be able to do so. Assuming you are not planning to go to vork for the black ops people, and that you can attempt to pass for the human, eventually. You can't, not now. If anyone sees you, they vill know. You vish to help us, ve can help you. Can a police officer vork vith people that are not, how you say, the legalest of eagles? It seems a possibility, given you are talking about breaking into a police lab, tampering vith evidence, and then lying about the circumstances of your disappearance..."
Janice shrugs, and smiles. "What's there to lie about? I escaped from the fight without any injuries that needed treatment, and hid out in the woods for two days before trying to find my way back. Clearly, the evidence they have isn't my foot, when there's not a scratch on me. We're still in county jurisdiction, which means any blood goes to the county forensics office, and there's no tech there that things they can run a cleaner restriction analysis than I can."
No wait, you're overthinking this. "But that doesn't even matter. I'm not in the system—even if they've already mapped my bloodwork, they've got nothing to compare it to. 'Unidentified Asian Female,' maybe, if Jones is competent enough to spot the markers, but it would take them weeks to finish the paperwork to ask one of my relatives for a comparison sample, and they wouldn't bother if I turn up by then." Shaking her head, "I'm sure you know more about most of this than I do, but forensics is slower and messier than you think. One tripped intern dropping a test tube, one petri dish contaminated by the wrong sort of bacteria, one leaky bottle of bleach, and you've got to scrub the whole work-up and start again from your initial sample or else the whole thing is invalid in court."
"I've got no interest in working for any kind of black ops. Even if they were the good guys here, have you seen the NDAs you have to sign as a CIA tech? Basically means you'll never publish again, great way to end a science career if you know you'll never be good enough for the real world. And certainly not interested in killing cops, whether those assassins are the same team or not."
"So yeah. I can work with you on this. Seems like whatever's going on, it's better to keep the local cops away from it for the time being." And, focusing, she puts pressure on her leg, and then her arm, and watches the scars fade away after a few seconds of force. Maybe it *is* adrenaline, and I haven't noticed because it's so constant. Maybe I'll freak out all of this once the clock stops ticking and I know I've got my bases covered. "I should be fine in long sleeves, but they might put me through a psych eval and a physical—I think I've still got a heartbeat, and I'm still breathing, so I might not have trouble with that, but I'd rather not chance it and appreciate any help you can offer. I'll need to talk to the Lieutenant, and get to the lab, and if you're people can take care of one or the other that makes things even easier."
He cannot run. She just demonstrated that she can jump further than him.
He can't concentrate to free the prisoner.
She impolitely told him that she is immune to his Jedi Mind Trick.
So, he attempts to take her down focusing on avoiding her follow up strike.
The woman nods. "They would, they have before. But I won't lie to you, we do things that aren't exactly peaceful either. Like this job, if you had been a monster for real, I'd have had to stop you. We can't let people like us use their powers to hurt innocent people. The police can't handle us, the government is covering us up, so... someone has to hunt the unhuntable, stop the unstoppable. That's not to say you have to do that.. If you don't, there are still people who will help you. I'm just letting you know that our resources are limited right now, and we'll do our best to help, but the people you need training from most are the people on the front lines, stopping the real monsters."
The woman looks you over, and then nods. "Very vell, I vill contact someone who can help you get back..." She looks off into the distance for a moment, and then turns back. "The person who can help you vill be here in the next 30 minutes, I suggest you dry off... and changed into something less revealing. There are clothes in the cabin, first door on the left. Something there should fit you."
Jack get's up, and then round house kicks her in the midsection, knocking her down. It's like kicking an iron post, his whole leg goes numb for a second from the blow. If it weren't for the force, he's certain he'd have broken his knee on that kick!
The woman roars, and stands up, dripping mud. "LITTLE BRAT! I KILL YOU NOW!
The man in the cage is on his feet now, reaching up through the top of the cage.
Jack flies back over 280 meters, bouncing along the ground as he goes.
Jack awakens some time later, the wind whistling through his hair, cloth flapping in his face. Lighting crashes around him, one flash after another, every 2 or 3 seconds. Rain slashes into him, cold and wet, as it slams into him at hurricane speeds.
It takes him a dozen or two heartbeats to realize he's flying through the middle of a storm, carried in a fireman's carry on someone's back.
The woman in the middle blinks, looking at the man. He rolls his eyes, and makes shooing motion. "Grab her, talk later, we need to get out of here."
The woman shrugs, and reaches out to grab Caitlyn.
[ooc]Made by 2[/dice]
The woman's hands move like snakes, and before Caitlyn realizes it, she's had her arms grabbed by the woman.