Chapter Log
18 posts in this topic.
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For logging the chapters. Obviously.
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Hero for Hire: Chapter 3
I think I'm going to start keeping track of word counts here, too, so that I can know what my total is as I go along.
Chapter 1: 1983
Chapter 2: 1913
Chapter 3: 2449
Total: 6345 -
Hero for Hire: Chapter 4.1
1437 words
Hero for Hire: Chapter 4.2
1193 words
Total for Ch. 4: 2630
Full Total: 8975 -
hmmm this week has been rough and I'm feeling down on my writing so I'm just going to document it here and turn it into a real chapter next week. Ch. 5, part 1 (draft 1). There's two scenes here that may or may not end up together, but it's what I have.
Word Count: about... 1320, because I have some notes in there. bleh.Spoiler
Scene 1:
Eli froze. He stared wide-eyed at Sebastián for a moment, then recovered, his instincts kicking in.
"What?" he scoffed. "I don't know what you mean. It's me, dude."
Seb raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms over his chest. "I'll try not to feel too insulted. You really think I'm that dumb, huh?"
Panic shot through Eli's head. How much did he know? "I... don't know what you're talking about." Damn it. Normally he was good at lying, but this confrontation had caught him blindsided.
Seb's expression didn't change, and he fumbled in his pocket before pulling out his phone. He tapped at the screen before holding it in front of Eli's face.
It was a news article. The headline read: SUPERVILLAIN PYRO IN CRITICAL CONDITION AFTER POWERS BETRAY HIM
[something something]
Eli looked up, swallowed. "What are you trying to say, man?"
Seb just watched him, waited.
Eli stepped back, raised his hands. "I get it. The news about Atlas is awful, and I wish that I knew what happened, and all we can do is pray at this point--"
"Eli."
"--and god, to think that he's been Pyro all this time is just wild--"
Seb's tone turned sharp. "Eli."
Eli flinched, the lies freezing in his mouth, bitter and insincere. Sarcasm had started to seep through in his defensive position, and suddenly he felt like absolute garbage.
Seb's were hard and unwavering, and he set his mouth in a thin line before speaking again.
"I know that you're a part-time villain, Eli. Just like him." He sighed, fiddling with his bracelet. "I've suspected for a long time now. All the late nights, burns, bruises, secrecy... and news stories that matched your timing. But I just thought I should mind my own business."
He clenched his jaw, guilt flashed over his face.
"But Atlas almost died last night, and maybe if I'd said something..."
He put a bony hand on Eli's shoulder. Eli squinted, unsure of where this was going.
"I need to know what you're doing now, dude. I can't--" A ragged breath tore from him. "I can't lose both of you. You're my best friend, man."
His hand weighed heavy on Eli's shoulder, and Eli stared at the ground, thoughts moving as if through molassas. He knew. He knew. But he wasn't angry, and maybe he didn't know Eli's full identity. He was just worried. Maybe there was hope that he wouldn't expose him.
The silence stretched between them, and soon, Seb let his hand drop to his side. The familiar sense of shame opened up in Eli's gut, gaping and rotten as an infected wound. He picked at his cuticles.
"Will you call the police?" His voice was small, and he grimaced at the weakness of it.
Sebastian was silent for a moment, and when Eli glanced up, his eyes were filled with hurt.
"Of... course not. I'm not-- That's not what I meant." Seb rubbed a hand over his face and let out an exhasperated breath. "I'm not trying to out you. I'm worried about you. I just wish that I knew what you and Atlas were... had been up to so that I could have helped keep you safe."
Eli coughed. "What could you do? You're not part of it. Your knowing this doesn't help. If anything, it makes both of our lives harder."
Seb tilted his head, as if this thought hadn't occurred to him. "Does it?"
"I mean. Yeah." Eli took a shuddering breath and readjusted his hoodie, trying to control the adrenaline pumping through his veins. "I'm not supposed to tell anyone that I'm a villain. The options are really that a) you call the police, or b) I have to move to protect my identity and you, from anyone who might want to kill me." He gave a weak smile. "This is all hypothetical, of course."
[space]
"So... if you're Rift, then that means that you have superpowers. Like Atlas has... pyrokinetics."
"Yeah."
Seb shifted uncomfortably, like he was about to ask something very personal. Odd, Eli thought, considering this whole conversation had been about exposing personal information.
"I'm sorry that I don't know this, but. What can Rift do?"
Eli tried to stifle the indignance at this blow to his ego. heh Rift wasn't very well known, and hardly successful. Zenith was pretty famous, but the two of them fought a lot of better villains than him on a regular basis. If anything, she was doing him a favor.
"Intangibility. Phasing. Invisibility." He listed them in a flat voice, resentment seeping into every word. "It takes a lot of energy and it hurts a lot."
Seb blinked. "Oh. Could I see?"
Eli sighed and focused. His hand's image wavered before them, then fizzed out. He pushed it into the tree and pulled it back out.
[space]
Eli glared. "Superpowers aren't as fun when they feel like they're tearing you apart limb to limb. And I don't want to be the villain."
"Did you get a choice?"
"No. The Program chooses. You do the training, you fill out the info sheets, you endure the evaluations. They assign you a position, a power, a suit, and a name. None of it belongs to me."
"Oh."
Scene 2:
Eli was slumped at his desk, scrolling blearily through his university email on his phone, when there was a soft knock at the door. He stood to his feet with a groan, clutching his shoulder.
He cracked the door, and froze. The flaming red hair gave it all away.
West leaned forward and grinned.
"Hey buddy. Long time no see."
[possible chapter ending?]
Eli gaped. "West? But... You're--"
"Not supposed to be here?"
West jammed his foot into the doorway to keep Eli from shutting him out. As soon as he did, Eli was very tempted to slam the door on his smug face.
"Yeah. But I just needed to check up on you!"
He slithered his way into the room, ramming Eli's injured shoulder into the door as he pressed by. Eli grit his teeth, and shut the door behind him.
He turned to face the Agent in the dimly-lit room.
"What do you want?" he hissed. "I got your message. I'm doing what you asked."
West tilted his head, pushed his clear hipster glasses up on his nose. "Really? Because my trackers told me that you went off campus today, almost immediately after I told you to, what was it? Stay low." He leaned in, grinning a wolfish smile. His teeth were dazzling white. "And I just had to make sure you knew what we're dealing with here."
He flicked a finger at his phone, clutched in one slender hand. West was offputting, because he looked like an art student that would never hurt a fly, when Eli knew for a fact that he wouldn't hesitate to commit murder (too blunt, fix it).
"The public is crawling all over this news, Eli. I'm surprised that no one's sought you out more than they have, with you being the only witness and all. I need to be assured that you won't go blabbing, or risk exposing yourself."
Eli watched him silently, unmoved from his stance by the door. "We shouldn't be having this conversation. You know that I wouldn't do that."
"You wouldn't? Not even if it's the trauma speaking?"
Eli resisted the urge to snarl. "No. And you owe me news on what really happened."
West's smile turned sharp. "I don't owe you anything. But you did suffer a great deal, and from what I can see, you've kept your mouth shut so far. So that's why I'm going to be generous, and give you a few days off to recover."
Eli's thoughts shuddered to a stop. "What?"
The Agent tilted his head, the freckles across his cheeks like a spray of blood. "Why so surprised? This is just a job, after all. You need some time."
[talk talk]
"Three days. Then you're back to the missions."
/curls up into a ball/ -
Feeling a lot better this week! Went ahead and posted Chapter 5.
Hero for Hire: Chapter 5
Word count for this one is 1307, though this doesn't count for this week's word count because it was all editing and very little new content. I'm getting on that now.
Full Total: 10282
Passed 10K!!! -
Hero for Hire: Chapter 6
Chapter Total: 1762 (minus ~300 bc I used a segment written last week)
Full Total: 12044 -
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Hero for Hire Chapter 8
Chapter 8: 987
I wrote 1798 words total this week, though, so here's the other 811 words that have yet to be incorporated into a chapter:Spoiler
Rift was acting strange. Well, stranger than normal. Happy Zenith, as he referred to her somewhat endearingly, was used to the quips and odd sense of humor, but she was getting none of that today. He hadn't mentioned her [...]
She'd gotten her mission fairly soon after class, and she'd caught him before he'd even made it to the mattress store.
("Mattress store, really?" Celeste had laughed. Emma's roommate, the other Zenith. "He and I destroyed a furniture shop just last week. What does the Program have against home decor?")
His black and white mask gave away no emotion, but he grunted in pain as she wrestled his arms above his head, trying to pin him long enough to qualify as a win. But normally she never got this far.
"Are you okay?" she whispered, and his eyes, barely visible in the slits in his mask, shot to hers. "Why haven't you phased away?"
He yanked one arm away and elbowed her in the chest, but she managed to keep her hold. She swept a leg into his ankles, and he buckled into her.
"Just feeling a bit under the weather lately," he gasped, voice ragged. She frowned in concern, even as she pulled handcuffs from her belt. She never wanted to arrest him, but she had to look like she was at least trying.
"Do you need more time off? Are you too sick to do this week?" she asked, pausing. She almost felt embarrased for him, at the ease that it took her to hold him still. Maybe he was sick. Would a fever mess with her abilities like this, too?
His chest heaved, and he shook his head in fury.
"No."
He dropped his weight all at once, causing her to lose her balance, and his skull drove up into her diaphragm at the same time. Zenith gasped and loosened her hold, and he was gone.
She didn't get a new mission for another three days. This time, it was to be a staged fight, sponsored by a prominent soda company- FizCo. She met Rift on one of the rooftops of the soda factory, the roof riddled with chimneys and air conditioning units. He was sitting with his legs dangling over the side, his shoulders slumped.
"Okay, what's the plan?"
He jumped at the sound of her voice, then seemed to wince at the movement. Still sick, maybe.
"Zenith." His voice was flat, the humor gone out of it.
She cocked her head and came up beside him. "I was thinking we can do some of those flip moves at some point, and you can fall through the roof to get the ball rolling. Just don't scare the workers too bad. Just enough to call 911 and the media, not enough to need it."
"Ah." He fidgeted with his sleeves, his black gloves gliding over his watch. It looked slightly larger than hers on his wrist. Maybe he'd gotten an upgrade. "About that."
He glanced at her, and his mask shifted in a way that made her think that he was smiling. "I'm still not 100%. Can we avoid roof debacles today?"
"Sure," she said, slowly, trying to stifle the concern in her gut. If the Program thought that Rift's performances were losing their energy, he could be reassigned to a lower tier, for lower pay. And even though their fights were always too easy for her, especially compared to some of the other villains she had been assigned to, Zenith had to admit that she liked working with him.
"I'll go in one of the employee entrances, and make a big appearance in one of the main workrooms, one with enough space for a good brawl. When enough cameras are rolling, you burst in. Sound okay?"
He sounded drained, like even discussing the plan tired him out. Zenith knew the feeling of burnout well. At one point, she'd feared that she'd had to drop out completely due to exhaustion and time pressure. She couldn't balance such a big persona on top of her pre-med degree. But then the Program had given her Celeste, the other Zenith, to take away some of the pressure, and she'd managed to co-maintain Zenith ever since.
"Sounds good," she said, forcing her normal cheery tone into her words. She felt that Rift needed it.
He stiffly rose to his feet, and promptly jumped from the roof to the next, about two stories down. He landed with a roll and popped back to his feet with ease.
Zenith leaned back, watching him go. She shouldn't get worried about him. He was just a coworker, and not one that she could afford to get close to. He'd either recover, or the Program would find a new villain for her and Celeste.
But she couldn't help but worry as she watched him disappear into the dark.
Total (according to the new doc that I congregated everything into): 14787 -
Hero for Hire: Chapter 9
Total in this chapter is 2182, but I wrote some of it last week so this week's writing is more like 1370ish
Full Total: 16969 (heh)
So close to 17K! -
k this forum may just turn into where I post my stuff because chapters may get to be too much work when I'm dying from school BUT!
I made it this week at 1163 words!
Total is then at 18,132! nice nice niceSpoiler
Emma emerged from the factory doors and immediately doubled over, choking on smoke. Her eyes watered. Her ears rang with the sounds of snapping wood, fire roaring, the popping of tile breaking. Rift collapsed to his knees as soon as they passed the threshold, grasping at his side. Blood shone from behind his fingers, gleaming in the dying sunset light.
Emma tried to speak but fell into a coughing fit. When she recovered, she managed to , "Did you do this?"
Rift looked up. His mask was shifted off-center, smudged with dirt. "No. I was trying to stop him." He gave a hiss of pain and curled over, hugging his side. "I mean, the bastard shot me, if that convinces you."
Emma swallowed the flare of panic and scanned her surroundings. A group of employees clustered together in the grassy courtyard outside the front doors, eyes wide with shock. Had they all gotten out?
She straightened, wincing at the new bruises forming on her legs from her falls.
"I have to make sure that everyone's safe," she said, pulling on her Zenith persona like a comfort blanket. It made her voice deeper.
Rift pushed himself up on one knee. "I'll help. This is my fault."
Zenith glanced at the employees watching and pushed a hand into his neck, like she was holding him down. She dropped her voice to a whisper. "You're bleeding, everyone thinks you set off a bomb, and the police are on their way, I'm sure. You need to get out of here."
Rift shook his head, struggling against her hold. "If I run, I'll look guilty. I didn't do this one."
Zenith shot him a withering glare. "Look guilty, then. I'm not going to be responsible for you bleeding out or getting arrested." She gave him a shake by the neck, and he gave a sharp inhale of pain. "Make it look realistic. You're in no state to be here."
In response, he fizzed out of her hold, and she fell forward at the sudden absence of his body. She caught herself just in time to see him reappear a few feet away, running with a limp towards the giant fence that lined the perimeter. Blood splattered on the concrete behind him.
"Oh god oh god oh god," Eli whispered. His head was pounding, and every step he took sent a streak of pain running up his torso. The bullet wound was just a graze, hardly anything, but damn, if it wasn't a bleeder.
When he'd found the man locking the doors, sweating like a stuck pig in the factory, his gut immediately told him something was wrong. As soon as the man saw him, he had pulled out the gun, and Eli had been too slow to activate his new teleportation device in time. The graze had slowed him down, but he'd managed to catch the man before anything could happen. Then Zenith came, and... well. Look how well that had gone.
He pressed the button at the bottom of his palm that activated the invisibility and teleportation device, courtesy of Seb, and pushed through the wall of one of the warehouses in this factory district. The device had to regain its energy after each episode, not unlike how his original power had worked, and he burst back into being inside the building only a few seconds later. An empty room stretched before him, gray and full of metal junk (what kind? idk lol).
Eli limped over to the cinderblock wall and collapsed. He yanked the clausterphobic mask from his face and leaned his head against the cold stone, the back of his neck slick with sweat. His withdrawal symptoms had been plaguing him all week, and he didn't know how long they would last. He was freezing all the time, like his bones were filled with liquid nitrogen, and the familiar knife of a migraine was digging into his temple. And on top of that, his dumb side wouldn't stop bleeding.
He pulled his phone out of the inner pocket of his suit and unlocked it. A message from Seb glowed on the screen, and he promptly opened the messages app.
Come back quick, read the text. I found something you'll want to see. Probably shouldn't send it over text, but it has to do with the P.
It had been sent a little over an hour ago, near the beginning of his mission. Before this all went to hell.
"Shit," he whispered, the realization dawning on him. Of course. Of course the bomb wasn't an unrelated event.
He knocked his head into the wall, exhaustion seeping into his core. How could he have been so stupid? This was just Atlas all over again. The Program had found out that he knew, and he had to go. It was only logical. The fact that he had assumed that he could just get away with it, that he thought he could just stop taking the pills and continue as if all was well, was the idiotic part of it.
The watch. Eli bit his cheek so hard he tasted copper. Was he honestly the dumbest human alive?
He flew to his feet and reached for his ankle, where the real Program watch now resided, since Seb's contraption had taken its place on Eli's wrist. He ripped the watch off and cracked it under his heel, grimacing at the sound of snapping glass.
The tracker would have been on until here. It might still be working. He needed to move. There was no time to call Seb to hear what he'd found, and besides, it might not have been safe to talk over the phone anyway.
He set his course back to Edgewood.
He avoided main roads, light, anything that signaled life that could give him away. He just needed to get to Seb and get out of here. Maybe he'd move home. No, that might not be safe for his parents. Maybe he and Seb could just grab the car and go on a road trip for a while, find a sympathetic police station, expose the Program to the news. Something. Something that didn't end with him captured or dead or... bleeding out in downtown [city name whoops].
His thoughts cut back to Zenith, to those poor employees that he'd endangered by letting that man go. He hoped that they were all right, that Zenith had found them all, that the bomb had only been one and had been neutralized.
God. This was a mess.
The campus started to pop up around him, a few achademic buildings here and there, before the dorm section. By now, it was completely dark out, and the street lights had been turned on. Rosiello Hall was still alive and wild, of course. Music streamed from some of the open windows into the chill autumn air, and some young men hung out on the front steps with beers in hand.
It all looked normal. Good. -
1292 words written this week!
Hero for Hire: Chapter 10
plus this extra bit:Spoiler
When he came to, crickets were singing in his ears. The night sky stretched above him. There weren't many stars tonight, but the few pinpricks of light that he could make out send sparks of pain through his head. He lay flat on his back on lumpy ground, and when he shifted, he could make out the rustle of dead leaves.
"Don't move." An unfamiliar voice cut through the chilly air.
He hesitated for only a moment before he tried to sit up, but there was something heavy on his chest, and a stab of pain lanced through his side. He groaned and fell back.
"Who--?"
"Shh."
There was a crinkling noise, and a piece of paper was held over his face. He squinted at it for a moment, unable to read it in the dark, before recognizing it as the list he'd found in the room.
His room. It came flooding back. Sebastian, gone. The bomb. Getting shot.
His hand jumped to his side, but he got slapped away before he could touch it. The weight on his chest compressed his ribs further, and he gave a gasp of pain.
"Leave it. I'm trying to keep you alive until you tell me what the hell you did. What is this note?"
Eli craned his neck back, and realized that the weight on his chest was the foot of a young woman. Her short cropped hair hung over her face like a black curtain as she loomed over him. Her eyes were so dark that they were indistinguishable from the shadows.
"Answer the question. The list."
His voice cracked, probably from the smoke inhalation. "I don't know. Who are you?"
She pressed down again, and he squeaked as the air was forced from his lungs. He grabbed her ankle in desperation, but she was unmovable. On instinct, he tried to turn intangible, before remembering that that time had come and gone. He realized with a jolt that Seb's device had also been removed from his wrist.
"You're either a supervillain posing as a college student, or a college student who's made some very bad life choices. Either way, a bomb went off, someone died, and Sebastian Reyes is missing. Care to explain?"
"Didn't do it," he gasped, struggling for breath. Awful, soul-sucking guilt sank into his bones. Someone had died? "I tried to stop... the bomb."
"You really expect me to believe that?"
He nodded, gritting his teeth. "They're trying to kill me. Sebastian was... helping me..."
The weight lifted all at once, and he gave a shuddered breath, struggling to fill his lungs. His hand creapt to his side again, but she slapped it away once more.
"Who?"
Eli didn't respond. He watched the stars, could feel himself starting to dissociate into the sky. He just wanted to sleep.
Two hands grabbed him by the front of the shirt. Suit. He was still in his Rift gear, he realized with a jolt. It seemed like forever since he'd been in that persona. Now he was just Eli, exhausted and terrified.
The woman hauled him to his feet, propping him up before her. Eli let his knees buckle, just to be difficult, but she held him up with ease. They stood eye-to-eye, and he saw that she had a black mask that covered the top half of her face. Another hero? A villain?
"The list. Did you write it?"
His head lolled to the side. "No."
"Who did?"
Seb was already gone. Telling her would make no difference. "Sebastian."
"Who's trying to kill you?"
He glanced at her. "You could be one of them."
She gave a short laugh. "I'm not sure whether I want to kill you yet or not."
"That's reassuring."
She paused, an unrecognizable emotion flashing across her face. He must not have been what she was expecting, cowed and quiet as he was. "Who's my competition?"
He saw no reason to lie. If she was part of the Program, she wouldn't be trying to keep him alive to find out why the Program was trying to kill him. "The Program."
total: 18743 (in document, since I'm not counting that last bit yet) -
I might be able to get around to posting an official chapter sometime this week, but I'm kind of dying in a pile and can't really get to everything right now. So! This week was about 1,200 words.
Spoiler
When he came to, crickets were singing in his ears, and everything hurt. He lay flat on his back on lumpy ground, and when he shifted, he could make out the rustle of dead leaves.
"Don't move." An unfamiliar voice cut through the chilly air.
He froze, his heart hammering in his chest.
The night sky stretched above him. There weren't many stars tonight, but the few pinpricks of light that he could make out send sparks of pain through his head.
He hesitated for only a moment before he tried to sit up, but there was something heavy on his chest. He fell back with a muffled gasp, and a stab of pain lanced through his side.
He tried to speak. "Who--?"
"Shh."
There was a crinkling noise, and a piece of paper was held over his face. The hand holding it had brown skin and clean moon fingernails. He squinted at the paper for a moment, unable to read it in the dark, before recognizing it as the list he'd found in the room.
His room. It came flooding back. The bomb. Sebastian. Falling out of the window.
His hand jumped to his side, to the bullet wound, but he got slapped away before he could touch it. The weight on his chest compressed his ribs further, and he gave a gasp of pain. A faint ache came from his newly healed burns.
"Leave it. I'm trying to keep you alive until you tell me what the hell you did. What is this note?"
Eli craned his neck back, and realized that the weight on his chest was the foot of a young woman. Her short cropped hair hung over her face like a black curtain as she loomed over him. Her eyes were so dark that they were indistinguishable from the shadows.
"Answer the question. The list."
His voice cracked, probably from the smoke inhalation. "I don't know."
She pressed down again, and he squeaked as the air was forced from his lungs. He grabbed her ankle in desperation, but she was unmovable. On instinct, he tried to turn intangible, before remembering that that time had come and gone. He realized with a jolt that Seb's device had also been removed from his wrist.
"I don't know!" The answer was pressed out of him in a painful exhale.
She was silent for a moment, considering. The pressure let up momentarily. Eli took a cautious breath.
"I don't believe you."
She pressed down again. He scrabbled at her ankle. "Please! I found it in my room. It's... not mine."
The woman paused and raised her foot slightly, but left it resting on his ribs. Eli coughed, his headache stabbing at his temples. He had to get out of here.
Her voice was low and even, as if she was conducting an interview. "New question, then. Who are you?"
Eli frowned, eyelids fluttering. "You already know that, if... if you're doing this."
She tilted her head. "Yes. But I want to hear you say it."
Eli considered this.
With a sudden heave, he grabbed her ankle and rolled as hard as he could to the side. She made a surprised noise, but he didn't wait to see if she had fallen over or not. He staggered to his feet, gripping his side, feeling new fabric crisscrossed underneath his suit. She had... bandaged his wound?
He barely had time to take a few steps, barely had time to take in the fact that they were in a far corner of the park a few blocks from campus, barely had time to breathe, even, when a terrible shock went through his whole body. His muscles spasmed. He collapsed to his knees, his jaw locked closed by the energy suddenly coursing through his bones. A groan forced its way out between clenched teeth.
"What was that?" the woman said, walking around to his front. Electricity sparked between her fingers. He shuddered, and then the energy was gone.
He sagged, falling into a sitting position, legs curled beneath him.
"What I know is this: You're either a supervillain posing as a college student, or a college student who's made some very bad life choices." She peered down at him, her mouth drawn into a thin line. "Either way, a bomb went off, someone died, and Sebastian Reyes is missing. Care to explain?"
"Didn't do it," he gasped, struggling for breath. Awful, soul-sucking guilt sank into his bones. Someone had died? "I tried to stop... the bomb."
"You really expect me to believe that?"
He nodded, gritting his teeth. "They're trying to kill me. Sebastian was... helping me..."
The weight lifted all at once, and he gave a shuddered breath, struggling to fill his lungs. His hand creapt to his side again, but she slapped it away once more.
"Who?"
Eli didn't respond. He watched the stars, could feel himself starting to dissociate into the sky. He just wanted to sleep.
Two hands grabbed him by the front of the shirt. Suit. He was still in his Rift gear, he realized . It seemed like forever since he'd been in that persona. Now he was just Eli, exhausted and terrified.
The woman hauled him to his feet, propping him up before her. Eli let his knees buckle, just to be difficult, but she held him up with ease. They stood eye-to-eye, and he saw that she had a black mask that covered the top half of her face. Another hero? A villain?
"The list. Did you write it?"
His head lolled to the side. "No."
"Who did?"
Seb was already gone. Telling her would make no difference. "Sebastian."
"Why?"
"Don't know."
"ho's trying to kill you?"
He glanced at her. "You could be one of them."
She gave a short, dark laugh. "I'm not sure whether I want to kill you yet or not."
He coughed. His chest ached. "That's... reassuring."
She paused, an unrecognizable emotion flashing across her face. He must not have been what she was expecting, cowed and quiet as he was. "Who's my competition?"
He saw no reason to lie. She wouldn't be trying to keep him alive to find out why the Program was trying to kill him if she was part of it.
"The Program."
She tilted her head. "The Super Human Project?"
Eli's head was spinning. No one called it that around here. "Yes. Can... can you put me down? Who--"
"Don't ask me that again." She shifted her shoulders, and he noticed that she was wearing a small backpack, one that nestled between her shoulderblades. Her black, long-sleeved exercise shirt had a cacti symbol stitched over the heart.
Something clicked. The short black hair. The half-face mask. The backpack.
"Battery?" he asked, uncomprehending. "Are you Battery?"
The woman stared him dead in the eye, then released her hold. Eli's legs buckled beneath him. He cried out as he struck the ground, pain jarring up from his wounded side. Before he could move away, the woman grabbed hold of the front of his suit, pulling him close to her face. Her expression was calm, neutral, but her voice seethed.
"I said. Don't ask again." She knocked his head against the ground before straightening. Eli flinched, almost expecting her to kick him.
Her response had confirmed it, though. She was Battery, a Chicago-based hero with electrokinesis. She carried a literal car battery in her backpack, because she couldn't generate her own power.
"If you didn't set off the bomb, who did?"
Eli relaxed, just a hair, and looked up at her. She crossed muscular arms over her chest. Her hands were wrapped in black cloth.
"The Program. They're punishing me for breaking their rules." He paused, then added, almost ashamed, "I'm being framed."
She rolled her eyes and crouched down beside him. Police sirens wailed in the distance.
"Sure. And are you going to blame them for all the other crimes you've committed?" She pressed her foot gently into his side, the bullet wound side. Eli hissed. Was this lady sadistic? He was telling the truth!
"Don't even think of lying to me. I've been watching you." She paused. "Though, I have to admit. I didn't think you had it in you to bomb anything."
Eli tried to shift away from her, but she only pressed harder. He squirmed.
"I don't! I didn't do it. Everything else has been staged." He craned his neck behind him. They were in a forested area, somewhere, but there was a road not too far away. The police sirens were growing louder. Had she called them? And... had she carried him here? He had no memory after passing out in his room.
"The list. What's the list got to do with it?" She put the paper before him again. "Future targets? Accomplices? Program contacts?"
Eli stared at the list in dismay. She didn't believe him. "I don't know."
One of Seb's notes caught his attention. Under the names "Emma Zhang" and "Celeste Turner" was a bracket, and a scribbled question.
Zenith?
"Oh my god," Eli whispered.
"What?" Battery snapped. "Better get talking. The police are on their way for you now."
Eli pushed himself up on one elbow. "Okay. Okay. I'll tell you. But you need to help me."
[how does he convince her? should probably be more dialogue. a good place for Program explanations and whatnot]
"If you're lying about this," Battery whispered under her breath. "I'll fry you so bad you'll smell lightning for weeks."
Eli leaned into her, limping down the dark street. His bandages were starting to seep through with blood, the wound reopened after all of the, well, battery.
"Lightning," he muttered. "Got it." He could add that to his ever-increasing injury list.
Apartments stretched down either side of them, with streetlights illuminating glowing circles of cracked concrete every few feet. Battery had parked her black motorcycle a few blocks away to avoid suspicion, and she'd allowed Eli to change out of his torn, bloody Rift outfit into his normal clothes. His identity was shot, anyway.
They soon arrived at the address that a quick Internet search had provided them.
Emma Zhang, thought Eli as they climbed the front steps (him, with more difficulty). Celeste Turner. Could those really be the names of the heroes he'd been fighting for the past year and a half? He wondered which one was Happy, and which one was Grumpy. He wondered if Happy had managed to save everyone from the bomb. He wondering if the Program had left her alone.
Battery rang the doorbell, and glanced over her shoulder. The street was empty. Besides, if you ignored her mask, and the blood on Eli's side, they looked like a couple returning from the bar. Maybe Eli had just had too much to drink. Wouldn't that have been nice? One big, hellish, booze-induced dream, and he'd wake up with a hangover and continue with his life like nothing had ever happened.
The door opened. A girl with dark skin and hair in bantu knots poked her head around the corner. She was wearing a ratty t-shirt and pajama pants.
"Who goes there--"
Her eyes caught on Battery's mask, on Eli's hunched posture, on the note clutched in his hand. Eli stared back at her, words caught in his throat. Her lips formed into a question before Battery interjected with a confident step forward.
"Emma Zhang?"
The girl shook her head.
"Celeste Turner?"
The girl frowned. "How did you--"
"We need you to let us in. Now." -
I live to see another week! I have yet to find enough time to put together the next chapter but we're getting there.
Words: 1164Spoiler
"No way in hell are you coming in here."
Celeste Turner filled the doorframe best she could, trying to block out the freaks on her porch.
The woman with the short black hair shook her head.
"I don't think you understand. You need to let us in. This is a matter of public safety."
Celeste squinted. "I don't think you understand. This is my apartment. I don't know you. I say you don't come in, you don't come in. Goodbye."
She tried to shut the door, but the woman jammed her foot between the frame. The nerve. Worse than some of those door to door solicitors. Celeste leaned her body weight into it, but peeked out again.
They were an unlikely pair. The woman was short and stocky, but muscular as hell, but the boy, probably Celeste's age, was lean and small, his face pinched with pain.
The woman tried to soften her tone. "Please? We'll explain ourselves inside."
Beside her, the beat up kid with the wild black hair looked about ready to keel over. Celeste felt a pang of concern for him, but not nearly enough to let them in.
"No."
"Is Emma there?"
Celeste stiffened. The fact that these strangers knew both of her and her roommate's name was creeping her out. "Go away."
She pushed harder. She felt a familiar surge of heat in her chest, as if her powers knew that she was tempted to use them whenever she was agitated. Oh, yes. She actually did want to blast the obnoxious woman right off of her porch step.
Before she could gather her strength and attempt at another shove, a soft voice reached her ears.
"Zenith?"
The voice was familiar, which was weird enough, and it took her a moment to register that no one should be calling her that name, not at her own home.
Celeste froze. Her mouth opened and closed, but no words came out. Luckily, the people outside couldn't see her, but damn it. She thought she was a better faker than this.
The woman managed to crack the door a few more inches at her mind lapse, allowing Celeste a better view of the battered boy. His lip was split, and his blue-veined eyelids fluttered with exhaustion. He swayed on his feet.
"It's Rift, Zenith. I... Things are bad. I need your help."
Celeste paced the living-room-dining-room-kitchen space impatiently, her bare feet padding on the worn, dirty gray carpet. Rift, or Eli, as he'd offered soon after she'd sat him on the old worn couch, was leaning into the cushions as if he hoped that they'd swallow him whole. He clutched his side, which was dark with blood. Celeste noted that she should probably address that soon. The annoying woman, who was apparently a vigilante from Chicago, was perched on the arm of the couch, as if she couldn't bring herself to fully relax in case there was unseen danger in the room.
There was definite danger in the room. Celeste knew that. She just wasn't sure which one of them it was, yet. Rift had told her all that had happened, and while she thought that she probably believed him, she still wasn't certain why this "Battery" lady was involved or whether she should be associating with either of them.
Emma wasn't due back until late, but it was already late. And she had been scheduled to fight Rift, so if he was here... God. Emma would know what to do.
Celeste picked at a thread on her ratty sleep shirt. "Okay, I can't stand it. Why is the Program so damn intent on killing you?"
Rift's (Eli, she tried to remind herself) eyes were closed, but he mumbled his answer regardless. His words slurred together. "I know too much. Atlas, he did too, and they took care of him... god, I don't even know if he's okay... everything's gone to hell. I tried to go off the pills, and I did, but now I don't have powers 'n she took my power thingy away." The woman shifted slightly, but her face was unreadable. Celeste couldn't help but feel a surge of protectiveness over Rift come over her. He'd obviously gone through hell, and now this woman who none of them were familiar with was bossing him around? Celeste didn't normally care much for other people, but this was the sarcastic, spirited kid she'd been fighting for over a year. She didn't like seeing him like this. She didn't want him to be taken advantage of in any way.
Eli took a shuddered breath. "But they couldn't use the pills to cause my powers to backfire, not anymore, so they framed me instead. I think. With the bomb and all that, and everyone knows my name and my room is destroyed... And Seb found a list," he gestured vaguely in the masked woman's direction. "And I don't know what it means but it had your name on it. You and Emma."
Celeste paused her pacing. "What was the list?"
Eli opened his eyes a crack. Celeste noticed a curious zigzag scar on his upper lip. "Please. I don't know. She's already interoggated the hell out of that question."
Celeste spun on the masked woman, trying to hold in her anger. She'd been interoggating him? After he'd escaped some murder attempts?
"What are you doing here, anyway?" Celeste spat. "If I'm not mistaken, you're a few hours out from Chicago area."
The masked woman sniffed and shifted her backpack straps. "You're not mistaken."
Celeste glared, waiting for an answer.
The woman shrugged. "This city has been experiencing a suspiciously high increase of superpowered persons in the past few years. I was curious to find out where they were coming from. Maybe it was in the water, or in the genes of those who live here, but I thought it was more likely that they were being found outside of the natural means." She scratched behind her ears. "I'm a biological super, so I've always been curious about what brings that about."
Celeste opened her mouth to ask another question when the front door opened. She jumped, but was immediately flooded with relief at her roommate's voice.
"Um, hi?"
Emma stood paused in the doorway, caught off guard by the group gathered in the living-room-dining-room-kitchen. She was dressed in her normal jean and t-shirt combo, a colorful baseball cap perched over top her two long, black braids. There was a bruise forming on her cheekbone, and a sportsbag was clutched in one hand.
"Emma," Celeste said quickly, jumping in before the masked woman could hijack the conversation. "Thank god you're back."
"What's going on?" Emma dumped her bag in the hall and came forward, eyes immediately sliding to Rift/ Eli. She paused, confusion and concern flashing over her face.
"Are you--"
Eli sat up slowly, hand clasped over his side. He tried to smile, but nothing reached his deadened eyes. "Long time no see, Happy."
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