AN: So it's my first story ever! I'm SOOOOOO happy to have this up! I just know everyone will love Lucky like I do, even if there's not a lot of action/adventure going on in this chapter. Just wait, I promise it'll get really action packed in the next chapter. ^__^
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It was a gloomy day at Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp when Lucky decided to sneak out, unknowingly almost becoming the victim of a plot far bigger than herself.
Of course, it wasn't her idea totally. Austin was to blame, with his stupidly brilliant ideas. "If you hate this place so much, why don't you go swim across the lake or something?" her best friend had grumbled at her, annoyed, only to cringe as she gasped. "I was kidding." Nonetheless, she was out of there like a bat out of hell. Screw this place, screw the teachers, screw the other kids. Why did they have to be so vicious? All she'd done was show up, and BAM! she was public enemy number one. A barrage of insults revolving around her name left her twitching, and a bunch of quips about her lack of telekinesis had made her desperately want show those jerks what a few good confusion grenades could really do. "Telekinesis is the most basic thing ever!" Kitty had sneered. "Even Dogen can do it!" Lucky felt her cheeks redden even now. Still, she was too logical to fight back, even if that voice in her head wanted to.
Telekinesis. Bah, like it was useful or something? The only other person who could confuse people was Raz, and it was his last power! No one seemed to comment on her rare, long mastered power, the one none of them had. It was like the other kids had gone insane in the past day. Mind you, before that, they were fine. There was a surprising amount of making out, but they were otherwise pretty normal. Now they were turning on each other, hurling insults and comparing powers and having all out fights with each other. Only Raz remained sane, and he was called away on official Psychonauts business with Lili, leaving batshit insanity in their wake. Lucky was too mature to get involved in the petty fights everywhere around camp. Instead, she was going to go somewhere nice and quiet, away from all of them, and wait this whole shebang out. Like she'd be stupid enough to feud with other kids her age. Like they knew anything.
Why did life have to always be so hard? All she wanted was to make friends. She had, here, then it had all fallen apart. It was just like her brother said. 'Everything eventually decays'. Everything had fallen apart. Each person she'd thought she was on good terms with had turned from her, treating her with the same unbridled anger they now directed at everyone. No matter what, it seemed, she was doomed to sit back in the shadows, unknown and too controlled to defend herself. A part of her wanted to throw confusion grenades at them until they had seizures and then run. A part of her wanted to teleport away whenever things went wrong. But she wasn't going to be that way, she told herself. She was going to be a Psychonaut one day, and they didn't do those things. Psychonauts didn't run from their problems or solve them with violence. Sure, this wasn't the easiest place to be, yelled at and insulted by every other kid. That didn't mean she should sink to their level.
Go throw a confusion grenade at one of them and say that again! the voice in her head argued. I gurantee you, one ass kicked and you'll realize just how stupid you're being. You could probably take them if you ambushed them, Rukki-chan. You're like a bomb when you go off, blasts everywhere and invisible and a terror. We could take out everyone who's wronged you, you and me, and you could be top of your class by default...
Ignore him, Luckinata! Think about what Raz would say if that happened!
Lucky smiled to herself, shaking off the voices in her head for a moment. Raz believed in her dream of being a Psychonaut. He believed in everyone's dreams, actually. He was such a sweetheart that way, and it did wonders for brightening up her mood. Granted, the first night he'd been just as freaked out by her as everyone else. An insomniac by nature, she'd been up all night running around trying to find psi challenge markers and cards. In her head, she thought that maybe she could get her rank up and learn telekinesis, but so far Ford Cruller refused to teach her as 'punishment for runnin' around all night'. Whatever. At least she got to meet Raz, the legendary Psychonaut, away from everyone else. That was worth the trouble, quite frankly. His presence made it worth it to hold back Shadow Luck in her head. She couldn't dissappoint him. He was her kindred spirit. Besides, she had promised herself that she would never be weak and let a little thing like schizophrenia control her. Psychonauts didn't have that kind of problem, and Lucky was definitely going to be a Psychonaut.
The waters of the lake were cold as the nine year old arrived, and in fact the sand seemed to be almost frozen together. The day was unseasonably cold and decidedly omninous. Dark grey clouds hung in the sky, waiting to shower the camp with yet another bout of rain. Lucky absent mindedly noted that Milla was still on the docks regardless, helping a few kids with their levitation. Immediately, Lucky ducked out of sight. Milla Vodello always acted strangely around her. She didn't hate her - could Milla ever hate anyone, honestly? - but she seemed supremely uneasy and disturbed by the girl's presence, which baffled Lucky. Lucky wasn't an unusual looking girl, no more so that any other child at this camp, yet Milla was always refusing to make eye contact with her and spoke in a very un-Milla like, clipped tone when the girl was around. Honestly, Lucky didn't see what was wrong with her. Her green eyes were just like Milla's, as a matter of fact, so why was the Psychonaut so edgy around her? It left the nine year old feeling very unwanted and out of place.
In any case, this threw a wrench into the running away plan, which had been pretty vague to begin with. The easiest thing to do would be to wait for Milla to leave in a few hours. Until then, however, there wasn't much to do, so the Psycadet found a rock to sit on and pulled out a book to read. She wanted to learn German, but it was much harder for her than any other language. Her tongue just couldn't seem to make the sounds. Now, Spanish, that was easy. Lucky had picked that up easily while traveling with the Galochio Circus - a lot of the people in the freak show spoke it. French was a bit trickier, but a year of studying and she had it down. Japanese... Lucky froze, memories streaming through her. Her Japanese classmates laughing at her accent, calling her gaijin. People staring at her everywhere she went. The glares. The whispers. Running away had been all she knew to do, damn the people who were going to adopt her. She felt her eyes well up with tears at the memories, and snapped her book shut, shaking her head. No, she wasn't going to dwell on this. She wasn't going to be a crybaby over the past. Other kids did that. She didn't. She was better than that, more mature. She forced her mind back to the present, ignoring both the voices in her head begging her not to. They said there was something important in her head, something about the chosen one, but Lucky shut her eyes tight, focusing on the situation at hand.
The lack of light did nothing to keep her from examining her own face in search of an answer to what she refered to as her 'Milla problem'. The mirror of the outhouse showed nothing she hadn't seen before. Pale, porcelain skin, a heart shaped face accented by a pointed nose, and deep set almond shaped eyes. Though she wasn't sure how, even here at camp she hadn't tanned, her smooth, flawless skin refusing to change pigment from pure snowy white. Her eyes were identical to Milla's, just as her thin limbs were. Black, messy hair flew into her eyes in what had once been an excellent bowl cut that, after monthes of not being maintained, fell shaggily into her eyes, covering them at times. The jagged edges of the razor she'd used to cut her hair still remained in her raven locks, creating a wild sort of look that suggested heavily her background in the Galochio Circus. When using her confusion and levitation powers, her eyes glowed a green-yellow that even she had to admit looked scary at night - no wonder all the students had been afraid of her great power when she got here. Her black, sleeveless hoodie fell to her knees, and her black pants, too, were a bit baggy. Ah, well, she'd grow into them. Absent mindedly picking at the arm of one of her black and neon yellow-green striped armwarmers, she sighed. The yin half of a yin yang pendant hung around her neck, the last memory she had of her biological parents hanging upon it. Fingering it gently, she tried desperately to tear her mind away from the thought of her parents death, and returned her dark, street wise gaze to the mirror. No matter how many times Lucky looked in the mirror, she didn't see what set Milla on edge, and it was driving her insane. All she wanted for her levitation teacher to not hate her. Was that so much to ask?
At a loss, she went back to her cabin, where Austin sat waiting, his chubby, round figure familiar as the sun rise to her after a few days as his cabin mate. He raised an eyebrow at her and she flopped down on the bed face first, but didn't comment on the downtrodden expression marring her heart shaped face.
"What happened to the escape plan?" he questioned as she flipped over onto her back. "I thought you were going to go ride off into the sunset to make your fortune."
"Milla happened, desu wa." Lucky sighed, meeting Austin's chocolate brown eyes with a tired look in her own green ones. "She hates me, desu wa. I can feel it, I can see it, and I just know she's thinking it, desu wa."
"No she doesn't, she's MILLA," Austin retorted. "The day she hates someone is the day Sasha Nein sells off all the children to the Chinese slave trade, moves to Sweden and begins taking opium rectally."
Lucky wasn't sure whether to laugh or stare at him, so she chose to keep talking instead. "Everyone here hates me except you and the new Assistant Instructor, desu wa." She blinked. "Where is the AI anyway, desu wa?"
"Family emergency or something, she had to leave," the brunette replied from his bunk, then returned to the first subject. "We could probably go hide in the cave by the cabins, if everyone's still acting crazy. Then we can try running away later."
"We, desu wa?"
"Yes, we. I'm tired of everyone fighting to compensate for the fact that they haven't hit puberty, and I'm tired of Oleander yelling at everyone to compensate for the fact that he'll never hit puberty," the twelve year old snapped. "I swear, one more announcement over the loud speaker and I'm going to spam him with a bunch of Rule 34."
As they headed out of the cabins, the air thick with moisture, Lucky asked, "What's Rule 34, desu wa?"
He rolled his eyes at her internet-naievety. One day he'd have to get the poor girl a laptop and some wi-fi. "Don't ask."
So they set up inside the cave, which was honestly something of a sanctuary for Austin when he couldn't stand the noise and stupidity of his classmates. Then again, most people registered as 'stupid' in his mind right now. He had stocked the ice box, brought some books in and settled by the end of the first day. By the beginning of the second, Lucky had decided she liked standing around in the cave listening to unwary camper's conversations. By the end of the third day, they'd formed an agreement that when they couldn't stand people, they'd meet here, drink Monster Energy and talk about everything and nothing. Lucky was grateful to have him as a friend, even if he got in trouble with Milla all the time for swearing. (Sasha, on the other hand, didn't seem to mind that much.) Austin handed her a can of Monster Energy, and they clinked cans.
"To Milla having the first known case of Luckyphobia."
"To your fluffy curly hair, desu wa."
And so preoccupied giggling was she, she didn't notice the way his cheeks turned deep red at the comment. She never seemed to notice the crush he had on her, actually, although everyone else saw it. Lucky was just a bit oblivious when it came to people sometimes. Having never had a crush of her own, she tended to miss those obvious signs everyone else saw. On top of that, her skeptical nature led her to not believe most people on instinct. It would take a real declaration of true love to get her attention, Austin mused. He'd have to get to her before Bobby Zilch did. Ugh, now, HIS crush on Lucky was bordering on stalkery, and really, would a pretty girl like her ever end up with someone as obnoxious as he was? Lucky didn't seem to mind his lisping and spitting, though. She was too sophisticated to be rude to someone for minor things like that. Yet she was still enough of a child to sit here and have a pop with him. Austin felt hismelf smile against his will. She was really something special.
Little did they know, as they sat there chuckling and swigging caffeine, something evil was about to unfold. For plots are dark and evil as what was brewing in Whispering Rock inevitably explode, and when they do, there can be no peace on this earth.