The Story Or Summer (Ch. 1): The Young Heroes

so i have 391 points, and thought, heck, why not post the first of chapter of "The Story Of Summer" to-night, right? right.

Watch the trailer.

It’s a typical Saturday in February, the coldest Philippine month. School vacation is just around the corner, and the mall is chirping with shopaholics. Almost everyone is preparing for the impending heat (or what some would call summer fun). Almost. Because there she stands, a light-year away from being giddy of the prospect of beaches and resorts. She's too anxious to be excited; and too young to be anxious. Well, anxious about everything.

“How about this one?” Sunshine asks, holding up a floral dress.

Without even looking at her twin sister Crystal is quick to answer. “No.” She fakes a yawn, hoping Sunshine would see how bored she is. Unfortunately, Sunshine doesn’t mind at all. Sunshine has a way of not caring for important things, Crystal thinks to herself; like how they’re in a section where a saleslady already informed them is for women forty and above.

“The section for girlzzz is on the second floor, madamzzz,” the saleslady said, murdering the S on the end of her sentences with the fearsome phonics of the letter Z. “Thizzz—“ she flicked a hand toward the hangers, “—are not for you guyzzz, I'm afraid.”

But this is for young women, Sunshine told Crystal and the saleslady in her mind. Life starts at forty.

Crystal grunted in agreement with the saleslady, who in turn smirked and blinked; and it was quite apparent to Sunshine that she didn't have any telepathic abilities. Or maybe the recipients.

You become a woman at forty, Sunshine continued to reason, now exclusively to herself. She tips up the end of a hanger, a hint that she shall commence her quest for a dress. At forty, you’re a young woman. But she’s only seventeen, and she knew she was a young woman. Why would and how could she confuse herself so often?

“How about this one?” Sunshine asks, forcing herself into the present. She holds up another floral dress

Crystal, partially guilty of her rudeness but mostly out of curiosity, finally looks at what her sister has been showing her. “Eww!” is her response upon seeing the dress with the colors mustard yellow, deep blue-green, blood red, spinach green, and tangerine. She approaches her sister, annoyed that they have—pause—her mind corrects: that Sunshine has already wasted so much time. They’ve been here for around ten minutes already.

“How about this one?” Sunshine attempts one more.

Crystal sighs and clasps her sister’s arm. “Sunshine, you may sometimes think like a childhood-deprived, old woman, but that dress is atrocity. You’re seventeen, not seventy.” She grabs the dress and hangs it back rather awkwardly to accentuate her disgust. The saleslady sighs and fixes it.

Sunshine's lower lip protrudes. “But that was a nice dress.”

“That looks worse than the clothes Dianna's grandmother wore when she took her away!” Crystal snorts. “Okay, give me a favor. Leave these clothes for the old ladies and try on my dresses.” She lifts her hands, and the shopping bags she's holding start to bump into each other. “You can’t impress Lover Boy with granny outfits!” She shifts all the shopping bags to one arm, and starts to drag Sunshine with the other.

“This shopping is your idea. And who said I wanted to impress anyone?” Sunshine blushes.

Crystal guffaws. “You did. Just now. Now please, HOME!”

Back at the Tower, in Crystal’s bedroom, it is messy. Her bed is clattered with clothes, her desk full of sewing materials.

“Remind me why we’re doing this again.” Sunshine stands apprehensively in front of an acacia body-length mirror, which had belonged to their late mother, thus the only thing ancient in Crystal's “modern-designed” room.

Crystal is adjusting a dress draped over Sunshine's body; it looks like a loose sleeping garment. Sunshine involuntarily jerks to her left.

“Hold still, skinny!” Crystal says as her sister yelps for the twelfth time. “Hold still, I say!”

Sunshine inflicts herself with immobility and gasps, feeling the needle lightly scrape the skin on the small of her back.

“Now that looks better!” Crystal says. She moves away and eyes her sister from head to toe and back. “Oh, Sunny! You're gorgeous! It’s done! I’ll sew it on the machine tonight!”

Sunshine squints into the mirror: waist-length, blond hair that can be barely called lustrous; hallowed eyes, cradled by dark purple; stale skin as pale as her lips—she sees nothing gorgeous. “He hasn’t called me for weeks.” Sighing, she starts to undress. She is done with Crystal’s peculiar proposed problem and solution. What was the plan again? Crystal would give her a makeover? And maybe, just maybe it would help in bringing him back. Ridiculous. Nonsensical. It will never work. He’s already drifted away. “Months, maybe. I think. I lost count,” she says, biting her tongue.

He hasn’t called for two hundred sixty-five days.

She knows. She lied.

Sunshine gingerly folds the gown and rests it on Crystal's bed. She slips her suit back on. No pretty dress should swaddle her body. Just this apparel made from elastane. Or spandex.

Crystal eyes her with incredulity. “You know, I wasn’t really trying to make you look prettier for him.” She pulls her sister into an embrace. “That's bullcrap. I just wanted you to realize how beautiful you are, and if he’s taking you for granted, you have to get over him.” She pulls away in time to see the faint smile on Sunshine's lips. But the tender moment is cut when Crystal’s phone rings.

Crystal answers it, frowning. “What do you want, Helmet Head?”

Sunshine raises a brow at her sister. The only person Crystal calls ‘Helmet Head’ is Derek, their cousin, who is also part of the Team, therefore lives in the Tower—who is just a floor away. Sunshine does not like the idea of using a Phone for such petty conversations; it is a special device specifically and exclusively distributed to Heroes who are members of the United Heroes Confederacy (UHC)—it is for missions.

Sunshine bites her lower lip to stop a smile, guilty of the crime herself. Back then, when he would call, and they would talk for hours. Those days are gone, though. She sighs, absentmindedly listening to Derek’s distorted voice from the Phone.

“I’m playing video games… and… Oh, no you don’t!” Derek stops talking.

Crystal groans, hearing laser sound effects and metal clashing into each other. Tsing! Tsing! “Talk, Helmet Head! Talk for the sake of Pete!”

“Oh. Yeah. Um... guess who’s missing a thirty-four—wait, what you call the number after a trillion?”

“One trillion and one.”

“No! I mean—”

“Quadrillion, Helmet Head.”

“—guess who’s missing a thirty-four quadrillion, seven hundred... eighty-six—die! Argh! Basta!—it’s a big point punch in The Age of Zombie Robots: Ultimate!”

“Oh, my god! Really? Sunshine, got to go!” Crystal purses her lips upon seeing her sister's downcast countenance. “I mean—”

“It's okay.” Sunshine attempts to smile, but the smile that had wanted to escape from her lips was long gone.

Crystal mouths, “Sorry,” and dashes out of the room.

Sunshine approaches Crystal's desk, pinching here and there to pick up the needles, stabbing them into a carnation pink, heart-shaped pin cushion; but the alarm suddenly wails throughout the building, and she scrambles downstairs to the control room. Everybody else has followed.

“There’s trouble in EDSA,” she announces. And that was all she has to say for the Young Heroes of the Philippines to launch off and save the day.

•••••☻•••••

Cars crash into each other; traffic lights crash upon each other; people bump into each other like cars and traffic lights crashing into and upon each other.

“May robot! May robot! Aaaah!” a confused citizen cries, running past them, pointing towards the highway bridge. But the Team does not see anything.

Sunshine and her brother Neil fly towards the concrete overpass, looking for the creature that has caused all these damages; but failed to see the reported robot.

A moment more and a small piece of metal crawls toward Derek.

“K-E-W-L! A robot!” Derek is about to grab it when his mind absorbs the information gathered. “Robot!” He reaches for his belt and prepares his ammunition—his beloved discs. Even though he has no superhuman abilities, he passed the Hero test with his invented weapons. If only Crystal could see what a brilliant mind he has.

“OMG! It’s so cute!” Crystal slaps Derek’s hands. “Don’t hurt it!”

Crystal takes it in her hands, something Derek gets jealous of at once. “Stupid!” Crystal says. “It’s not even larger than a can of soda! How can it—”

The little robot releases a beam of laser, which shoots past them and lands on an electric post, sending it down to collide with a passenger tricycle. They watch as the tricycle gets wrecked flat as a pancake. Fortunately, the motorist gets out in time, and there is no passenger.

Crystal promptly throws the robot. She stares at it, shocked not at what it did but because Derek was right. For the first time in their mutual lives, he is right.

“But—but,” Crystal stammers, “but it didn’t look villain-y.” Breathing gets hard.

The little robot starts to vomit a yellowish-green thick liquid matter till it covers itself entirely. It continues to do so until the jelly-like matter builds up and makes him as large as a hundred-level building.

All this time people scream and run, and our heroes stare in awe.

“Oh, it looks like Bob from Monsters vs. Aliens!” Crystal declares.

“Young Heroes of the Philippines, go!” Sunshine finally orders; it is the mandatory command by any superhero leader before fighting a villain. She learned it once when she attended a workshop for young superheroes by the UHC

The team deftly executes their rehearsed positions; they do not attack the creature all at once, but one by one, as if they’re being shot on camera for a movie, and each of their moves has to be seen on the screen.

Derek throws his discs. But they don’t work. When his discs boomerangs back to him, they’re all covered in blob. “Eww! What is this stuff?”

Neil inhales, filling his lungs with an amount of air no one else in the world could breathe in, and blows a strong gust of wind at the little robot. He sniffs the air that has bounced back. It smells like… He feels chills down his spine.

It's Sunshine's turn. Everyone else has seemed to fail. She flies above the monster, aims at it, and flame throws. The jelly-like matter around the little robot melts. She doesn’t stop till the little thing blows up, sending pieces of metal and globs of unidentified matter all over the highway. And with that the Young Heroes of the Philippines has saved the day!

Our heroes are reposing at a nearby 7 Eleven. As usual they are waiting for the police to arrive, as well as fire fighters and newscasters. It’s all scripted, you know. Very familiar. That why when the chief of police suddenly enters the store demanding for the Heroes, they all smile. Of course, they all think, he must thank them for saving the day.

“We were just doing our job, chief!” Derek confidently proclaims upon seeing the officer. “No need to thank us so much.” He winks at the girl who works at the counter. She giggles and gives him the free large-sized Slurpee she promised him.

The officer grimaces at Derek. Sunshine stands up to greet the officer, who in return salutes her.

She can’t help thinking that it seems like a mocking gesture. There’s still no smile on the officer’s face.

“Do you need anything, sir? Is there anything wrong?” Sunshine asks.

“Two were found dead. A mother and a child.”

Each of the heroes gapes, except for Derek who has his mouth full.

“We—were there more?” Sunshine stammers. She feels like her heart is being ripped through her chest.

Crystal is cupping her mouth, tears swelling in her eyes. “Why couldn't it just be Helmet Head?”

Derek growls at her, mouth full of flavored crushed ice.

“You would’ve had a decent burial being a Hero anyway.”

“Ha! A hero…” the officer sneers. He glares at Sunshine and answers her. “For now that’s all that has been reported.”

“Thank you for informing us, chief,” Sunshine says. She wants him gone, but he doesn’t leave. Instead he resumes talking.

“Apparently, you guys were too late. Ha! A hero, you?” the chief repeats, facing Derek, laughing at the boy. “Villains are getting stronger. Maybe you punks need to recruit a new Hero.”

“Who do you want,” Neil interferes, “Mang Jose?” It is the first time he has spoken that day.

The officer sneers once more. “You know, those who are abroad, who actually ‘saves the day’.”

“Sir,” Sunshine says, “we did our best—”

“Well, your best was not enough!” The man is furious.

Sunshine, not knowing how defend her Team, does not talk back. She realizes for the first time what a mess they have been, and it disgusts her that since they were formed they have been performing their job in mediocrity. The officer is right: their best isn’t enough.

The officer again faces Derek who seems to be his favorite to snap at. Derek has been enjoying his drink all the while. “I knew you hooligans are nothing but pure trouble. People think they are safe with you, but you’re just putting up a show.”

“Before us, did the police do any better?” Neil retorts.

“Maybe we did!” the man answers.

Neil’s temper is rising.

“We’ll get... better, sir,” Sunshine says.

“I hope so! None of us wants any more casualties. Or we’ll appeal to the government to exile you.” He starts to walk out of the store.

“OA much,” Crystal mumbles.

Neil blows off the cap of the officer’s head. The man snorts, retrieves his cap from the ground, dusts it, and leaves.

“I can’t believe there are casualties.” Sunshine collapses on a nearby seat, holding her head in her hand.

“Maybe he was lying,” Derek says, sipping the last drop bits of his Slurpee.

“Maybe he was!” the girl at the counter joins.

“Pfff… exile. As if.” Derek winks at the girl, who in turn giggles.

“I don’t like accusing the officer,” Crystal says, “but we can consider the possibility that he could actually be wrong. You know, an honest mistake. Maybe there was a miscommunication. Even if we’re living in a time of great technology, there’s still no certainty of perfect transmission of information, right?”

“Nothing to worry about, Shine,” Derek says. “He’s just stupid. I don’t think the government will exile us for having casualties.”

There is silence.

“Let’s just go home.” Sunshine stands up. They all follow her. But she pauses by the doorway. She can’t help thinking about how they have been saving their country for two years and there had been no dead people every time they ‘saved the day.' Now there finally have been casualties. What happened? It had been easy, and how foolish for her to think it always would be. Instead of a Team, she feels like they were some random kids put together for Philippines' entertainment. All the praise, the popularity, the pride—all of those things shattered within her soul.

Sunshine realizes she’s been quietly sobbing. “I—I need to be alone,” she whispers, and flies away without waiting for an answer. She did not intend for her friends to hear anyway.

But all of them heard. Neil tries to follow, but Crystal stops him.

“She’s going through something. She does need to be alone.”

Neil nods. He lifts his head. Sunshine has already disappeared into the horizon, towards the setting sun.

Ch. 2: