Alternative Tactics

Helena's Motive & Prologue

Do you believe in magic? Things that shouldn't exist, but do?

You should, imagination is a strong thing, but, what I'm about to tell you doesn't come from my imagination. 

Maybe magic isn't the right word for the things in this story, superpowers, perhaps.

So do you believe?

I guess it doesn't really matter, your belief doesn't affect these people. 

Because this is the real world, and people among you do walk with superpowers.

They're called the Hidden. And there's even an organization devoted to them, Hidden Operations. Whoever came up with that name must've had a good laugh and is probably dead now. Let's just say nobody who works there anymore really strikes me as having a sense of humor. 

Anyways, I'm sure you were told stories, or read them, or have seen movies and tv shows about people who could move things with their minds, speak to the dead, change their form, change the form of other things, heal wounds with their bare hands, create cuts without ever touching anyone, see the past, and the future, transport anywhere in the world, find things without ever really searching, and last of all, people who can make others do whatever they want or who can even create lies that you have no choice but to believe.

These people aren't stories, they exist. The telekinetics, the speakers, the self-shifters, the shifters, the healers, the viewers and the bystanders, the searchers, the transporters and the compellers. 

The things from stories. Telekinetics move things with their minds, speakers talk to the dead and usually go insane because of it, self-shifters can change their shape into anything, shifters can change the things around them into other things, healers can heal any wound and open up cuts that can kill someone, viewers see the future, bystanders see the past and are tormented by what can't be changed, searchers find things, easily, without trying, transporters can go anywhere in the world in the time between one heartbeat and the next. Compellers, the ost dangerous, can create a reality you have no choice but to believe, they're dangerous and manipulative and so persausive you'd think you had a sister even if you're an only child.

There was a time when I believed certain things.

But what I used to know has fallen into pieces and all those pieces hinge on an emotionally confused, physically weak, possibly dying nineteen-year-old girl. 

There was a time when no more than two compellers could ever walk the earth at once.

Simply because their powers were too great, too manipulative and too dangerous to be unleased in more then small doses. And naturally, H.O., Hidden Operations, wants compellers the most.

It can be hard to find the only two people on the earth with this power.

But times have changed.

There were two compellers, once upon a time, but now there's a third. 

No one understands how she came to be, after all, she doesn't have the proper heritage to end up a compeller. But she is one. That emotionally unstable, physically weak, possibly dying nineteen-year-old girl, she's the third compeller. The impossibility. 

She's the daughter of my best friend. My dead, best friend. 

Remember how I said no one understands how the third compeller came to be? 

I lied.

I know. 

By accident. My husband, also dead, used to work for H.O. and stole something from them. Something important. Something containing information. And now it's mine. So yes, I know why the third compeller exists. 

But Agent Markov, the snake, is after the girl. 

I can't help her now, she has to come to me, I can't go to her, I can't risk it. 

I wish I was viewer, then, perhaps, I could see into the future and understand why everything is falling apart. Then, maybe, I'd know the girl's place, how she's supposed to complete her job. 

Sadly, I'm only a healer. 

And while I may have saved the girl's life after she was in a car crash, I still have to help her. 

So now, I have to wait for the girl to come to me. 

I must. 

Because I owe her mother, I never cared for the girl, but I owe her mother my life. And now that her mother is dead, I owe the daughter, at the very least, protection and knowledge against those who wish her to be their pawn.

But that may be hard, because she's in love with the boy. 

And love, as we all know, can make one impervious to your surroundngs.

That boy in particular.

His heritage speaks for himself, she should know better than to trust that boy, based on who his parents are alone.

I told her not to trust him, but she didn't listen. She ended up in capture for around two months because of him. He got her out, but, with his past, I'm not sure he can be trusted after all. And his friend, is friend has a little sister who is too easily impressionable, I worry the little sister will betray them all. So go ahead, continue their story. 

I hope you know what's already come to pass. 

The future may stand alone, but the past always changes what's to come.

Rosalyn, I'm waiting.

-Helena Wedifer

***12 years ago***

 "Cyric!" A man called out gently. 

"Yeah dad?" A seven-year-old, Cyric, asked, coming out of his bedroom, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

"We have to go," A woman said, briskly tying her hair back. Cyric yawned. The woman, his mother, turned around and started rearanging things on the book shelf, moving things, like a photo, to the front. 

"Go get dressed Cyric," The man, Cyric's father, said. He had always been the more gentle and loving parent. But both parents leave a mark on their child. 

"Where are we going?" Cyric asked. His mother glanced over her shoulder at him.

"Away, you'll see. You'll get to learn there, learn everything. There will be a few other kids your age, don't worry," She assured him before turning back to the shelf.

"Dad?" The boy asked. 

"It's what we've been training you for, remember?" The dad said, smiling. The boy nodded but it was clear he was confused and didn't know what to do. "Go get changed, we'll take care of everything," He said. Cyric left blearily, stumbling around to get changed in the dark. 

Cyric would grow up being trained. Always trying to improve. His parents realized what he was. 

He was eight when they died.

They'd been called Regina Dextri and Joseph Dextri, though those weren't their real names. Had you known Regina when she was a child, you probably would've called her Jane. Had you known Joseph, you probably would've called him Rick. 

But really, what top spy assasins go by their real name?