Chapter 2

Chapter 2

“How’d your evaluation go, Angel?” Aurora and her bright blue eyes and big smile greet me as I  close the door behind me.  I just blink at her for a moment.  Really?  You were standing right outside.  You know exactly how it went, you nosy—

“Fine,” I mutter as I walk past her, set on the path for home.

Why is she following me?  I don’t know.  Honestly, I feel like Aurora is always looking for any chance to appear to be a bigger saint and savior than she already was.  “You don’t seem fine,” she frowns.  “You sure you’re OK?”

“I’m fine,” I answer again with a little more apparent anger in my voice.  Of course I’m not fine, but I wish she’d take the hint like any other normal person would.

She stops following beside me, and I continue, feeling a little relieved to be leaving her behind.  But of course, she isn’t done yet.

“Angel!” she shouts from behind.

I groan to myself and stop walking.  I turn to face her:  “What?”

She stands several feet away from me.  She has a slight smile on her face that I can’t quite read at first.  The light from the window beside her shines intensely and illuminates her.  Her long, straight, jet black hair glistens in the sunlight.  Her fair skin is glowing.  She is a tall, monument—a true, picture perfect hero.  She shines bright  and glorious like the star whom everyone worships.  And here I stand, in the shadows, blinded by her constant perfection.  I roll my eyes, realizing she would not say or do anything until I came to her.  I sigh and make my way over.  “What?” I repeat as I step to her.

“I want to help you,” she smiles innocently.

I roll my eyes.  “Help with what?”

“You know what,” she giggles a little.  How on Earth can she find this amusing? She overheard what they said.  Basically, my days as a superhero are about to end before they can even begin.  All this training, studying, and sacrificing for nothing.

 “Everything you’re having trouble with… I want to help.  We can study and train together!  You know.  Until you catch up again.”  When I don’t say anything, she keeps on:  “It’ll be fuuuuun!” she sings and gives me a nudge.

As much as Aurora annoys me, what other choice do I have?  It is either try and train with her or try and train with Speed some more.  Speed has pretty much already given up on me, so what good is that?  Really, Aurora is my only option and my only hope. 

She still has that silly grin, poking me in the shoulder as if she can force me to be happy about this.  “Alright, alright,” I groan.

“Yay!” she claps her hands together.  “We’ll start tomorrow morning, OK?”

“…OK….”

“Great!  I’ll meet you at your house at five tomorrow!” she chimes as she begins skipping down the hallway.

“In the morning?!”  She has to be kidding.

“In the morning!” she sings from down the hall.

Great.  She isn’t kidding.

***

I only have twenty minutes for breakfast before Saturday morning flight training with Speed and the others.  After what he said and did during my evaluation this morning, I’m not exactly looking forward to what is usually a fairly easy class.  When I enter our home, Espi doesn’t bother to ask how evaluation went.  I think she already has a pretty good idea.  After all, I’ve been on a steady decline recently. 

I sit down at the dining table, and she greets me with a smile and a plate of scrambled eggs and French toast.  I try my best to smile, but really I’m not in the mood.

Espi sighs and sits down across from me at the table.  “Don’t be so discouraged, my Sweet,” she tries, with a weak smile, “You will blossom soon enough.”

I poke at my plate of food, uninterested, and don’t respond.  I know Espi believes in me, but I am pretty much her child, and she is pretty much my mother.  She is supposed to believe in me, so it just feels meaningless.  If she had been there and just seen the look on all the staff’s faces… if she knew what they were considering.…  I think if she had, even she might begin to doubt my capabilities.

I feel her lips touch my forehead, but her kiss doesn’t lift my spirits at all.  If anything it just makes my heart sink, thinking of how disappointed she will be to learn that she is the unlucky one assigned to the hero who will never be.  She has sacrificed so much, living on base for the last fifteen years as my caretaker.  She gave up her entire life of normalcy, to be here to raise me.  Her hopes were to raise a hero.  She will be crushed if it never happens.  I just know it.

I force myself to finish what’s on my plate, and then leave for class.  As I hop off our front porch, Autumn is across the street, leaving her home.  Her caretaker, Charlene, is fussing over a stain on her blouse.  In a blink of the eye, Autumn disappears, and then reappears with a fresh, clean outfit.  Charlene pinches Autumn’s cheek and squeals about how adorable she is, and I can’t help but start laughing.  Autumn spots me and turns bright red with embarrassment.

Charlene has always been the most spoiling of the caretakers in my opinion.  Maybe that’s why Autumn turned out to be such a baby at her age.  She is about to be fifteen in just a few more days, but she still looks and acts as if she were closer to twelve.  She is the shortest out of all of us.  While Aurora and I stand at about five foot eight, and Astro at six foot two, Autumn stays short at barely five-two.  She is pudgier than us, too, with baby fat cheeks.  Her curly black hair is wild, and frizzy, and decorated with at least one bow or cutesy little hairclip.  Since she lives on the same side of the base as me and Espi, we always walk to our first classes together.  We must look like the oddest couple of kids.  Me:  Tall, with pale  ghostly, white skin, a tomboy, and apparently “mean” looking.  And she:  Short, with beautiful dark brown skin, the ultra girly girl and always cheerful.  Complete opposites, but somehow she has always been my favorite fellow hero.  Maybe because she isn’t a perfectionist like Astro and Aurora are.  But I think what I like most about her is that I’ve never heard her mutter the phrase to me:  “Cheer up!”  She accepts me as I am, and I accept her.

We meet at the center of the road, and I notice she is holding something in her hand.  “What’s that?” I ask.

She holds out her hand and shows me a piece of Charlene’s chocolate peanut butter squares, which I love.  “It’s for you,” she smiles.

I grin, and immediately stuff my face with the dessert.  “Thanks,” I say through stuffed cheeks.  “What’s the occasion?”

“Just thought you’d like it,” she shrugs. 

I swallow and realize her intention behind the gift.  I’m sure, with her power of foresight, I didn’t have to tell her that my evaluation went badly.  “Thanks,” I say again.

“No problem.”  She pauses for a moment, before changing the subject:  “Hey!  What kind of cake should I have at my birthday party on Tuesday?”  She hops up and down with excitement as we continue on our way to the stadium where class is.

“I dunno,” I reply.  “Whatever you want.  You’re the birthday girl.”

“Chocolate!” a dreamy expression crosses her face as she pictures her future dessert.  “No.  Strawberry!  Or!”  she gasped.  “Chocolate and strawberries.”

I can’t help but smile.  “Sure.  Sounds good, I guess.”

Autumn is nodding her head in approval of her decision.  “Chocolate with strawberries.”

We enter the stadium, and Astro and Aurora are already there warming up.  Before Autumn and I can join them, Speed enters the stadium, loudly slamming the door behind himself.  He doesn’t look at me as he walks past us.  “All done warming up?” his voice echoes throughout the giant building.

“Yes sir!” Aurora and Astro exclaim in unison, and Autumn lies and joins in, and responds the same.  I probably should have lied too, but that sorta stuff never occurs to me until the moment’s passed.  When I don’t say anything, Speed’s eyes finally fall on me, and my eyes fall to my feet, trying my best to avoid eye contact.

Usually flight class is easy for me.  I’m not the best at most things in our group, but flying is one of the exceptions.  I am definitely the fastest of us four.  But I don’t think that was going to help me through today’s class—not with Speed teaching anyways.  I can tell he has already made up his mind about me.

Speed picks up the whistle which hangs around his neck and blows the device loudly, signaling for us to line up.  We do, like the good little soldiers we are.  “Let’s get started!” his voice booms once again.

***

My alarm goes off at 4:45 AM.  Without opening my eyes, or lifting the sheets from over my head, I bang on the alarm clock on the nightstand, and groan loudly.  It is way too early to be up on a Sunday.  Sundays were supposed to be our one day off a week.  Monday through Saturday we train and study.  On Sundays, I don’t sleep in, but I’m most definitely not up at this hour.  Espi usually wakes me at about 7:30 AM, so that I can go with her to church.  I know church doesn’t sound all that exciting, but it’s the one place I get to go that isn’t on the base.  I look forward to seeing my best friend Gabriel and his sister Rosie.  But now that I’ve agreed to this extra tutoring with Aurora, who knows when I’ll get to see my friends again?

Before I’m able to even become fully conscious, I’m startled by a pair of piercing blue eyes staring directly into mine.  I yell out of reaction and stumble out of bed.  “Aurora!  What the hell?!”

She’s laughing at my reaction, but I don’t find it funny.  “What do you think you are doing?” I demand again, as she sits casually on my bed.

“I told you I would be here at your house at five.  So here I am!” she smiles.

“Yeah well it isn’t five just yet, and I don’t like you just coming into our home—and my room—completely uninvited!”

“OK, OK,” she stands from the bed.  “I’m sorry.  Just calm down, OK?”

I roll my eyes at her, but she doesn’t notice.  She’s too busy poking around my room, being the nosy girl I’ve always known her to be.  She wanders over to my work desk and picks up a framed picture of myself, Rosie and Gabriel.  A huge grin sweeps her face, and in a flash she’s in front of me, holding the picture to my face.  “Oh my goodness!  Angel!  Is this the Rosie girl you have a crush on?” she points to Rosie in the picture.

I feel my face immediately go hot, and I know I must have been bright red.  I tear the photo from her hands, and force a scowl on my face.  “No!”  I shout, and begin to shove her out of my room.  “Just wait out here, OK?”

Before she can say anything, I slam the door in her face.  Call it rude, but I find it a little ruder to be prying around in other people’s personal affairs, uninvited.  I return the photo to my desk.  “Should have never trusted Autumn to keep a stupid secret,” I mutter to myself as I get dressed.

When I leave my room, Aurora is standing there with sad, puppy dog look on her face.  I know I probably hurt her feelings, but I don’t really care at this point.  I walk past her and she follows me out of the home.

“Where should we go and what are we doing anyways?” I ask as we begin our walk down the gravel road outside my home.

Aurora walks beside me.  “I was thinking the stadium.  We’ll start by making a list of everything you need to practice on, and go from there.”

“Well that’s easy,” I mumble, kicking some of the gravel as we walk.  “Everything.  I need help with everything.”

She shakes her head.  “Angel, that’s not true at all, and you know it.  There’s plenty of things that you’re just fine at.”

“Yeah, like what?”

She pauses before finally saying:  “You’re the fastest.”

“Uh huh.  What else?”

A longer pause.  “You’re good at remembering stuff.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Well, when we’re super heroes together, we can always count on you to… um….”

“Count on me to remember things?”

“Yeah.”

I sigh heavily.  “Admit it, Aurora.  You know that I suck.”

“You don’t suck, Angel!”  She stops walking and glares at me.  “Just stop it, OK?”

“Stop what?”

“Ugh!”  She has her hands planted firmly on her hips, and she looks angry.  I rarely see her like this, and I’m shocked at her reaction.  “That’s your problem, Angel,” she points at me with a sharp gesture.  “You don’t believe in yourself.  Like at all!  What good is that?”

I don’t say anything, and she frowns.  “We’ll fix everything, Angel.  I promise.”

She places her hand on my shoulder and smiles that big, bright smile of hers.  “We’ll fix everything, and there will be no more talk amongst the staff about early retirement.  In fact, they’ll be talking about how they should make you leader of Generation Alpha!  That’s how good you’ll be!”  Her blue eyes are staring into mine, and I can tell she’s actually being sincere.  “I promise,” she repeats again.

 I don’t know why, but hearing that is enough for me.  Before I realize it, I’m smiling, too.  She continues walking, and I follow. 

I guess Aurora wasn’t as bad as I always thought her to be.  She was still pretty annoying.  But not that bad, after all.

***

We make the list, which takes a while because Aurora insists on it being in Alphabetical order.  I sit on the ground with my legs crossed as she paces back and forth before me, re-reading the finalized draft:  “OK, so first we have aerial battle, then defense techniques, force fields, power sensing, and lastly telekinetic discipline.” She stops and looks up from the sheet of paper.  “See?  Not that much at all!  This is going to be easy!”

I frown.  “You forgot healing.”

She looks back down at the paper and frowns, too.  “Right….” she taps the eraser end of her pencil against her lips as she thinks for a moment.  “Well, to be honest… I don’t know how I could help you with that one, Angel.  I mean... that’s supposed to be your special power.”

“Right,” I frown.

She sits down on the ground beside me.  “Have you—you know—tried?”

“Well there’s an idea!” I throw up my hands.  “I never thought of trying before!” I can’t help but be sarcastic.

“Well, how do you try?” she pouts.

“I dunno,” I shrug.  “When Speed tries to get me to heal, he just takes me to the hospital on base and finds me someone with an open wound and says: ‘Alright, Kid, go for it!’”

Aurora giggles a little, and I think it’s because of my impersonation of Speed.  “And when you try, you don’t feel something?” she asks.

“What?  Feel something?”

“Yeah.  Like the power inside of you.  Just like flying, right?  When we first started flying, couldn’t you just feel the energy grow inside of you as you suddenly begin to feel lighter?”

I think about this for a moment.  I never really thought about it before, but it was true.  While we grew up and began developing our powers for the first time, you could definitely feel the sensation of that power before it actually began.  I shake my head.  “No.  …Am I supposed to?”

Aurora nods.  “Yeah, just like anything else.  At least my special power was like that.  One day the tips of my fingers just felt icy cold.  And it was summer!  You were there, remember?”

“Yeah, it was lunch time and you were complaining that your hands were cold,” I smirk a little at the memory.  “And then you touched Astro’s cheek to show him, and froze his face solid.”  I laugh, “He was so pissed!”

Aurora giggles too.  “Yeah!”  She holds out her right hand in front of her, and admires it.  “It was like I felt this tingling growing more and more in my fingertips.  Then as soon as I touched Astro, it just… happened.  I couldn’t really control it, when it did.  It’s like the power wanted to come out.  Like, it just couldn’t wait to.”  She looks at me.  “You don’t ever feel something inside you like that?  Something you can’t explain?”

I think for a moment.  “I guess sometimes,” I say.  “But… it doesn’t really feel like healing.  I mean, I guess I don’t know what healing should feel like, so maybe it is.  But I dunno.  It just doesn’t feel like that.”

“What’s it feel like then?”

“Hot.  It feels really hot.”  I hold out my right hand now, just like she did before.  “It burns, and it feels like the flesh on my hands is on the verge of splitting or tearing.  Almost like my skin is ready to peel right off the bone.”

A horrified expression sweeps Aurora’s face.  “When do you feel that?”

“Not often,” I shrug, “Well, I guess a little more often than I used to, but it’s still pretty rare.  It’s usually when I feel mad or upset.  But when it starts to happen, I kinda panic, and it goes away.”

I look at Aurora and she has a weird expression on her face that I can’t quite figure out.  Before I can ask about it, she shakes it away and rises to her feet.  “OK,” she says as she brushes herself off, “You ready to get started?”­­

I stand, too, and nod.  “Sure.  What’s first?”

“Well, let’s just start from the top of our list. Aerial battle.” 

***

I’m surprised by how tired I am.  I guess I didn’t expect Aurora to be so hard on me.  It’s been almost four hours.  My face is sticky with sweat, and my limbs are beginning to throb with soreness.   Aurora’s given me a moment to catch my breath, but I don’t have very long before she charges at me again.  This has got to be our hundredth fight, and I have yet to win a single battle.  Something about multi-tasking in the air has never been easy for me, and it has always been Aurora’s strength.

I time her approach, and dart upwards and out of her path, at the last possible second.  She’s right after me though, as we ascend higher into the air.  Being a faster flyer than she was the only advantage I held.  She knew every trick in the book when it came to aerial combat, and has pretty much been able to predict every move I attempt to make, before I can even make them.

Finally, a new idea comes to mind.  I stop in my tracks, and turned in the air to face her.  Just before she can reach me, I shut my eyes tightly and disappear into invisibility mode.  As soon as I disappear, she breaks hard in the air.

Aurora’s eyes are wide as she searches for me.  I think I might finally have tried something she hasn’t expected.  Her ears begin to prick as she strains to find me.

While invisible, I carefully move behind her.  I reappear just as she begins to sense where I am, and grab her from behind.  She struggles to break free from my grasp, but I’m already pulling her down with me.  We hit the earth hard.  And even though I’ve knocked the wind out of myself—and choking on air pretty badly—I’ve finally managed to have her pinned down, winning my first match of the day.

I fall off of Aurora, and lay on my back for a while.  My heart is racing at this point, and I just need to rest for a while. 

“You did it!” Aurora’s grinning I’m sure, but I don’t see it, since my eyes are closed while I still wait to catch my breath.  When I open my eyes, I see her standing over me, with her hand outstretched.  I take it, and she helps me to my feet. 

Suddenly after that, I’m winning every match.  We continue training for another hour, and fight about twenty more matches, and I manage to win eighteen of them.  At first, I think that Aurora has just started to go easy on me, but after my fifteenth consecutive victory, I began to sense a little bit of frustration on her part. 

I’m using my speed to my advantage.  I think flying really takes a lot of energy out of Aurora; at least that’s how it seems.  But flying fast is easy to me.  So I drain all that strength from her, and once she’s out of breath, I attack.  I can tell that Aurora can see this tactic, and I can tell she can’t find a way around it.  It irritates her.  I can see it on her face. 

After our last match up though, she’s cheerful again.  Maybe because I’m laughing at her irritation, and she doesn’t want to look like a poor sport.  I probably shouldn’t be laughing at her, but I can’t help it.  I rarely get to celebrate this much. 

“Well, I think this is a good place to end for the day, don’t you think?” she says as she brushes herself off.

I smile.  “Yeah, I suppose.”

She makes her way over to her book bag on the floor and pulls out two bottles of water.  She tosses me one, and begins to open the other for herself.  I open mine and finish the bottle within seconds.

Aurora glances at her wrist watch.  “See?  It’s only 11:30!  You can still go spend the day with your friends if you want.”

I wipe my mouth with my sleeve.  “I guess I can,” I smile.  “What are you going to do?”

“Oh, I have lot’s to do!”  She says but doesn’t elaborate.  I wonder if she’s lying.  Autumn and I were the only ones to take advantage of leaving the base on Sundays.  Charlene always takes Autumn to a Sunday morning brunch and then shopping.  Espi and I do the church thing, followed by church picnic.  But Astro and Aurora always stay on base.  I think Aurora went shopping once with Autumn, but that was a long time ago.

I never usually feel bad for Aurora except for suddenly now.  I don’t know why, but just the way she said it, I knew it couldn’t be true.  “Have you ever tried asking Sara if you could go somewhere?”

Sara is her caretaker.  She’s an elderly woman, who never seems to smile.  She’s very strict and very cold.  I honestly don’t know how Aurora turned out to be so optimistic with such a pessimistic person raising her.  One time when I was a kid, I remember passing by Aurora’s home some hour in the evening after Espi and I returned from church activities.  I could hear the old woman counting:  “Seven thousand and three…   Seven thousand and four…. Seven thousand and five!”  Curious, I used my X-ray vision to peer inside the home, and I could see the two.  Aurora was on the floor, doing push-ups, with the short, petite, old woman sitting cross-legged on her back.

Aurora’s entire life was training to be a hero.  Even at home, she had no breaks.  Even on our day off, she still worked and studied.  I remember how she reacted to the photo of me and my friends, and I began to feel guilty.  In order to leave the base, a hero needs a caretaker or teacher present.  Sara never takes Aurora anywhere.

Aurora sips from her water bottle and doesn’t say anything.  I can’t tell if she didn’t hear me, or if she is just pretending as if she didn’t hear me.

“Thanks for helping me today, Aurora,” I change the subject.

Suddenly she hears me again and she’s all smiles.  “You’re welcome, Angel.  Same time next Sunday?”

“Sure,” I smile weakly.

A voice suddenly echoes throughout the stadium.  “Angel?  Training on her day off?  I never thought I’d see the day.”

I roll my eyes.  “Hey, Astro.”

“Hi, Astro!” Aurora greets him with enthusiasm. 

Astro stops in front of us, letting his duffle bag fall to his feet.  “What are you two doing here?”

“We just finished some aerial combat,” Aurora answers.

“Oh yeah?” Astro raises and eyebrow.  He looks from me to Aurora.  “So who won?”

“Angel did,” Aurora grins.

He rolls his eyes and snorts.  “Yeah, right!”

I glare at him, but don’t say anything.  Astro was always a jerk.  It must have been part of his design.  He pats me on the head, as if it made his insult softer; he always acts as if he’s so much older than me.  Like he’s an adult, and I’m some kid.  He and Aurora were just a year older than Autumn and I, but I guess that was enough for him to feel superior.  “Just don’t hurt yourself, Kid,” he laughs as he walks past us. 

                “She did beat me,” Aurora continues out of nowhere.  “Dozens of times, actually.  It’s as if it just clicked for her, and then suddenly she was on fire!  She can beat me now no problem, and she’d probably beat—“

                “It wasn’t that big a deal,” I interrupt right away before she can finish.  All I need is for Aurora to volunteer me to a match with Astro; that’s exactly what she was about to do.  Is she crazy or something?

                Aurora starts again:  “Bu you did!  It was amazing, Astro you should have seen it!  You two should—“

                “You wanna go to church picnic with me and Espi?” I blurt out, figuring this would be something to shut her up for good, before I was getting my ass kicked by Astro thanks to her.

                Her blue eyes immediately light up and the only answer I get from her is a girlish squeal.   She immediately begins to gather her things with excitement.

                “You’re really gonna go with her?” Astro raises an eyebrow at Aurora.  He talks over me, as if I’m not even there. 

                “What’s wrong with that?” Aurora blinks.

                “Well, for starters, we’ve got one more week until the Deltas come to base.  Kind of a bad time to start taking it easy, ‘Rora.”

                “She’s not taking it easy.  It’s just for a few hours off base,” I interject.  I can tell Astro has made Aurora have second thoughts.  It’s not like I’m looking forward to spending time with Aurora, but I don’t like the idea of her thinking that it’s somehow wrong to have just a little bit of fun.

                “I heard about how your evaluation went, Angel,” Astro says.  “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the hero that spends the most time off base, has the worst performance record.”

                I glare at him but don’t say anything.  I just grit my teeth and try to ignore it.  It doesn’t help to get angry.  When I get angry is when that painful feeling builds up inside me.  And lately, it seems to happen more and more.  So I try to avoid getting angry as much as I can.

                He smiles a smug smile and continues:  “I was surprised to see you in here, Angel.  I thought maybe you’d finally come to your senses and realized that your career is something you oughta take seriously.”  He shrugs.  “But, I guess I was wrong.  You’ll be retired fast, if you don’t learn any better, Kid.”  He begins to walk away from us, but first he adds:  “But then again, maybe retirement is just what you want.”

                I can hear my teeth grinding, and I’m clenching my fists hard as I begin to feel my hands grow fire hot.  As soon as that sensation sweeps me, I close my eyes hard and try to ignore the pain. It starts in my hands always, but then shoots up and throughout my body.  It stings my chest like a cold burn, and it becomes instantly hard to breathe.  Like some invisible weight lands hard on me, suffocating me.   I manage to shake the feeling away, but my heart is pounding.  That painful sensation never feels good, but it seems to be getting worse lately.  I don’t know what it is, and it scares me.  I just can’t have anything else be wrong with me.  The staff would get rid of me for sure if they knew I had yet another miscalculation like this.

                Aurora’s staring at me with wide eyes.  Astro’s gone, and doesn’t seem to have noticed.

                “Was that the unexplained power you were talking about?” she whispered as we walked toward the stadium exit together.

                I nod, and thankfully, she doesn’t say anything more.  Hopefully, I can trust Aurora with this secret.