Secretly Powerful

Chapter 11: Wake Up

Aubrey opened her eyes with a start. She darted her eyes around, taking in where she was. She saw the tops of buildings and skyscrapers in the distance. It was her city, St. Louis. She turned to inspect the area around her. She stood on the roof of a building.
She crinkled her eyebrows in slight confusion. When she looked down, she realized she wore her Mystique suit. But, she didn't remember putting it on. Actually now that she thought about it, she didn't remember anything before this moment. Well she remembered what happened to her, that she'd had an allergic reaction. She thought. But...where was she?
She looked around again, this time turing around in her spot. She was definitely in the city, but...it was quiet. Eerily quiet. There were no honking car horns, no chatter of people walking on the sidewalk, no construction noise. It was just dead silence. It made her uneasy.
She also noticed that the sky wasn't blue. It was more of a light violet color. And as far as she could tell, the sun was nowhere to be seen. But it was daytime.
    "What is going on?" She furrowed her eyebrows more, worry replacing her confusion.
She ran up to the edge of the roof. She looked down to see there was a street below her, and the building she stood on top of was that bakery she ran into Wyatt at that one night. But, it was in the wrong part of town...
Quick footsteps echoed from down the street to her right. She snapped her head towards the sound, and searched for the person. She saw a figure emerge from the end of the street, or at least as far as she could see. She squinted, trying to make out who it was, but they were too quick. They had reached the bakery in a matter of seconds and when the person passed her, Aubrey felt like she knew the person, they seemed familiar to her.
On impulse she jumped down to the balcony and then down to the street. She chased after the person.
"Hey! Wait!" She found herself yelling to them.
The person turned back briefly, seeming startled. And Aubrey saw that the person was a man. But after a lingering look he continued his sprint, and turned into an alley.
"Wait!" She called. She sprinted after him, turning into the same alley. It was dark, the two buildings cast a shadow at the end of the alley, so she couldn't see the person she'd been chasing.
"Uh, Hello?" She took a step forward. And tried to strain her eyes to see in the dark shadow.
"Hello Aubrey Bridgette." She heard a familiar voice say.
In villain fashion, Noah stepped out of the shadow. She gasped, but somehow she felt like she should've known it was him. She turned to get away from him, she scrambled out of the alley and back into the street.
"Oh no you don't" He said. He charged after her and she felt a strong hand clamp her arm and yank her around. In the blink of an eye she was facing him. But, he was no longer alone. Like they had emerged from the shadows too, Noah's henchmen were there, right behind him. Daggar, Toxic Paint, the plasma gun man, the new girl 4-E, all of them. Even that mysterious blue person she caught glimpses of was there. She stared back at them in wide eyed horror. She tried to move, to get away, but she couldn't. Noah was anchoring her there.
"Time for you to give it up Aubrey Bridgette." Noah said. And they pounced on her. She shut her eyes and screamed.
    She expected to feel an intense barrage of pain. But she didn't feel anything. Instead she felt a cold air on her skin. And heard... a crowd of people talking??
    Cautiously, she opened one eye. She was surprised and confused at what she saw. She opened the other eye and took in where she was.
    Noah and his henchmen has disappeared. And what seemed to replace them was...the gymnastics center.
    "But how did I get here?" She wondered.
    She was in the main room where the meets and performances happened, the same room she went to for the meet earlier that day. But...it didn't look the same. Something was different. But she couldn't figure out what.
    There seemed to be a meet going on, people filled the stands, a judge's table sat at one end of the room. She stood off to the side, near the door, but she had a good full view of  the performance area.
    She absentmindedly rubbed her arm, goosebumps ran across her skin from the drop in temperature.
    Wait.
    She looked down at herself and saw that she was no longer in her Mystique suit, but now she wore a leotard...that oddly enough resembled her suit. She felt her hair, and was slightly surprised to find it in a neat bun on her head.
   "What is going on?" She whispered to herself.
    "Next up, Aubrey Bridgette Freeman."
    She snapped her head up.
    "What?" She said.
    A girl with bright red hair and pale freckled skin walked out to the performance area. And like a smack in the face, Aubrey realized it.
    That was her. Her younger self.
    "But how?" She stared at the ten year old her. Her young self wore a turquoise leotard, not one that looked like a superhero suit.
    Young Aubrey turned to the judges, raised her arms up, signifying she was about to start her routine, and she began.
    She watched herself perform her routine from back then. She performed it just like she'd practiced. And just like how she remembered. She jumped off the balance beam and walked forward, finished with her routine. She put her arms up again and turned toward the judges and the crowd. Claps rang out around her, and she heard the yells of her parents in the stands. Aubrey turned her head to the stands and saw two heads of red hair. She couldn't see their faces but she knew it was them.  She turned back to her younger self, and saw Young Aubrey walk off the performance area.
    The person after her stood on the edge, waiting for the signal to go. Aubrey squinted, she recognized that girl. But, who was she?? As the next girl stepped into the light, Aubrey immediately recognized her.
    The girl was Hadley.
    The same Hadley that would grow up to steal two medals from a local museum and then later attack her and her friends.
    Aubrey crinkled her eyebrows in confusion again. Why was she seeing this? Where even was she? If she was seeing one of her memories from an outside perspective....
    "Am I...dead?" She murmured with horror. But death surely wasn't like this was it?? It couldn't be? Right?
    When Aubrey looked up she saw that the scene before her had changed. Her younger self and all the other girls that had performed were standing in a line. Had she really not been paying attention for that long?
    One of the judges handed medals to the girls. When he got to one girl, she heard the judge announce the girl had gotten 3rd place. The second place medal went to Hadley. And the first place medal went to Aubrey.
Cheers and claps rang out, and one of the judges started to make announcements. But all Aubrey could focus on was the way Hadley stared at her younger self. Hadley's expression was that of fierce jealousy and anger.
"But why is she angry?" Aubrey could understand how she could be jealous. But angry?? Hadley was just as good as her. She didn't understand why winning mattered so much to her. Or maybe it was that winning didn't matter as much to Aubrey as it did to Hadley? Should she have cared more about winning??
As the judge finished his announcements and the parents in the stands moved to collect their kids, Aubrey saw Hadley give Young Aubrey one last sneer and then turn on her heel and stormed off to where her parents stood towards the back of the room. Aubrey watched her with a sympathetic expression.