Laser [Wattys 2016]

Chapter 8

"Hey, thanks for coming at the right time," I blurted.

"Anytime, Stephenie," he said, "But next time I may not be there to save your butt from a psychopath."

I crossed my arms and rolled my eyes at him, "It's Anastasia, by the way."

"It was good to meet you Dustin, after a long time," The hooded figure spoke with his scathing tone, "And nice to meet your friend here. Well, let's see how long you can keep her."

"Sorry?" I narrowed my eyes at him but he had already gotten onto his bike and drove away.

"Who is he?" I asked him as soon as we entered the Megahuman Headquarter.

"Just a former member of the squad. We kicked him out because he's fey, and it looks like he's stuck up with an idea of creating a team of his own. Well, let him try, he's psycho anyways."

Peyton walked up to me with a bandage to cover my chafed skin, she was officially called The Purple Rain because of her purple suit. Long strawberry blonde hair and freckled skin, she had the face of a young child and an androgynous body. I had been introduced to her on my first day here.

"Heard you got attacked?" our co-leader, Harold asked. He was named The Eagle because of the power of his robot claws.

So here's the thing people, I would have never joined some superhero squad who went about fighting with people; I had already clarified that to Dustin. But he'd promised me that if I join, that they'd find a way to get me rid of my powers before my graduation so I could finally join university feeling less of a freak. I could finally get away from all of them; start a new journey of my own. But in the meanwhile, all I had to do was cooperate. For the past few days, the Megahuman squad got threatened by an unknown organization who called themselves Iron League of Hades. They were a massive syndicate wanted by the governments of many countries, but most of them had superhuman powers so they could not be defeated. They were responsible for the secret killings of many celebrated personas and included many drug and brothel crimes. Having extras on their squad would help them beat the Iron League better.

"Yeah, but I totally handled him," I spoke, faux condescending.

Dustin rolled his eyes at me but I nudged him on the side.

"Very well then, I'll leave to your own. Don't forget we have training at midnight."

My jaw dropped to my knees, I had almost forgotten all those. For a moment, I considered all these a very bad idea.

"How did you guys turn?" I asked Dustin when Harold was out of sight, who was cleaning the wounds on my legs to warp them up securely in dressing.

"How do you think we turned?" he chuckled.

"That doesn't answer my question," I pouted.

"Oh well, it's a long story. Many of us worked at the lab and injected ourselves with super strength serum. Many of us were soldiers who were genetically modified by the government to increase our efficiencies. Most of these had been very secretive missions. And many," he sighed, "Like you, got exposed to alien chemicals and God-knows-what."

"How did you turn?"

He looked into my eyes; his ones were chocolate brown marred with small flecks of lighter hues. The chocolate grew hard as I waited for an answer.

What do you mean? Oooh

When you nod your head yes

But you wanna say no