Prelude
I bet you've heard the story of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Maybe from the perspective of Tom Sawyer or Alan Quatermain. Heck, maybe even the captain of the Nautilus, Nemo. But never from the perspective of one of the Gentlemen themselves, or one of the gentlewomen.
The name's Miss Amelia Foxworthy, acrobat extraordinaire. I was the most popular acrobat on the face of the planet. Able to fly from beam to beam; literally. That's what makes me extraordinary, that's why M wanted me. I can fly. I'm also a pretty darn good pyrotechnic. That's my scapegoat for the team.
Here's how it all started.
My parents died when I was four, so I was just another orphaned urchin running about the central squares of London. But that all changed on my fifteenth birthday. They said he couldn't do it, all the people in the papers my friends and me stole from various men on park benches said. It was impossible, flying was for the birds!
I've always been an imaginative child, and I had nothing better to do with my life, so I set out for Canterbury to see if the man had any use for me in his experiments. After several filthy days of traveling, I finally came to his run-down looking country house. I knocked on the door, and was surprised at the immediate and friendly answer. Usually if someone sees an urchin like me and my folk, they just scream at us and slam the door in our faces or chase us away with brooms. One of my mates even had a man shoot at him, he was drunk though.
The man (Mr. James Foxworthy (I adopted his last name as my own since I didn't have one) set right to work on educating me on the process I was about to undergo. He said there were little particles in the air, called Gatromites, that, if applied with a certain chemical aura, one could ride them, thus, having the ability to fly! So I was to be his test subject since I was young and limber and he was rather old, too old, and it just wouldn't work right if he did it to himself.
I underwent several years of physical training, to learn to use different muscles to control my speed and streamline my form (James said it was very much like swimming except the Gatromites propelled you). And chemical testing, I had to be injected with protective chemicals (incase of allergic reaction) and then the chemical itself once a month until it became my aura. That process would take about five years.
Once I had pretty much completed my physical training, I had nothing much left to do with my life besides exercising and taking my shots. So James decided to teach me all the properties of fire. Different ways to kindle it, how to manipulate it, and, of course, how to make explosives.
In those five years, James became like a father to me (thus my taking on his last name).
After about four years, James started to give me flying exercises. For the first several months of that year, I was able to hover at various heights and lengths of time. Then I was able to sort of fly around the house. Up and down the stairs and around the house for several hours at a time. Then by the end of the year, the chemical had taken its full course and was now a part of my body. I was able to fly for most of the day without touching the ground. It was a miracle!
But sadly, on my twentieth birthday, James went to town to get me a birthday present and a congratulatory gift for completing my training. On his way back to the house he was followed by a man who shot him in front of his house in an attempt to get the formula for the flying chemical. He died in my arms, the only human that ever felt anything more than envy, pity, or hate for me. The man who cared for me through my teenage years as a daughter. My father.
I realized that the records of his work weren't safe. So I took them and ran. I ran into a group of gypsies who were fascinated by my "acrobatic" and pyrotechnic skills and took me aboard their small circus. I stayed with them for about a year until I was discovered by a big-time ringleader and taken into an actual circus for four years.
That's when my life changed in a huge way.