Destiny: Prologue
FrostFire sat on the roof of Titan's Tower, staring
at the fiery orb that was the sun as it set below the ocean's
level. She sighed and pushed a lock of her golden-orange hair behind
her ear, but the slight breeze pushed it right back. She held up her
hands and looked at the two symbols burned into the backs of them. On
her right, the cyan ice shard. On the left, the fiery swirl. They
were the two representations of her odd powers, and the two emblems
of danger. She just wanted to tell everyone the truth, but she
couldn't do that. Not yet. She'd wait until the time was right…
but she didn't know when that was.
With another sigh, she got to
her feet and walked back down the long flight of stairs to the living
room, shutting the door behind her. FrostFire reached the final step
and entered the living room, and saw Beast Boy and Cyborg on the
couch, madly tapping away at the Game Station 2 controllers. Beast
Boy heard her enter, paused the game, and turned to look at
her.
"Hey!" He said with a bright smile. "C'mon and play!
We could use another good pair of hands around here!"
"Yeah,
FF. Just for a little fun?" Cyborg laughed and waved her
over.
FrostFire stood there for a second, completely still and
silent. Finally, she shrugged and joined them on the couch. She sat
between them and grabbed her red-and-blue controller off the
floor.
"Okay, boys. Let's hit it!" She said as she restarted
the game.
After about 20 minutes, FrostFire was falling behind,
and she was on the edge of the couch, rapidly tapping the buttons.
But she wasn't aware of how hard she was gripping the controller.
She stared at the screen, determined to win, becoming oblivious to
the tiny fracture on the plastic casing of the controller
until…
CRACK
Startled, she looked down at her hands and saw a
rather large crack running down the side of the controller. She set
it down and sank to the floor.
"Whoa… FF, you okay?" Beast
Boy asked, his green eyes wide.
"Yeah… I was just holding it
too hard… you know me and my strength." She forced a laugh and
put the pesky lock of hair behind her ear again.
He looked
skeptical, but dismissed it, as did Cyborg.
"I'll catch you
guys later… I'm gonna go relax and try not to stress so much."
FrostFire said as she quickly got up and jogged down the hallway to
her area of the Tower. As she went, she passed by Starfire, who was
happily playing with Silkee, a little mutant moth larva that they had
found on a recent mission involving Killer Moth. Starfire waved to
her, but FrostFire had already rounded the corner when she did.
She
flew to the living room to find the boys still glued to the game. "I
fear something is upsetting our friend… she seems very distant as
of late." Starfire floated over to the couch and sat on its
arm.
"Eh, don't worry… probably just that time of the month
for her again…" Cyborg said without turning to the Tameranian
girl. "You know how she acts in that kinda situation."
"It's
not that." Beast Boy said immediately. "Trust me, I've seen her
during that time, and it's not pretty. She's not dealing with
that – she's worried about something."
They both looked at
him, stunned.
"Since when are you the expert in FrostFire's
moods?" Cyborg asked.
"Because…" He seemed to
blush.
Starfire floated towards him. "Then maybe we can go ask
her what is up and see if we can assist?"
Beast Boy nodded, but
Cyborg stayed put. Starfire hovered in front of him and put on her
most pathetic "puppy eyes" that she dad. "Please, Cyborg? Our
friend is depressed."
"Alright… let's go." He set his
controller down and they headed to FrostFire's room.
"Argh!
Why does this have to happen?" FrostFire threw a pillow from her
couch up into the air and shot it with an ice blast, freezing it. It
dropped to the floor and shattered into a thousand tiny pieces. The
door to her room opened as it did, the three of them looked down at
the shards, and then up to her.
"…Everything okay in here?"
Cyborg asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Just venting off a little
steam…" FrostFire lied. She rubbed her arm and stepped off her
bed. "I've been pretty stressed lately…"
"See?" Beast
Boy whispered angrily to Cyborg.
Cyborg rolled his eyes and shook
his head. "You sure? We don't want you getting hurt just because
of some stupid stress."
"I'm fine, really!" She forced
another smile. "You guys go back to… whatever it was you were
doing."
Beast Boy and Cyborg left, but Starfire remained. She
floated over to FrostFire and put a hand on her shoulder. "If you
need to converse about your problems… I am always open to helping
you." She told her with a worried smile.
FrostFire looked away.
"I appreciate it, Star… but not now." She shut her eyes and
squirmed away from the Tameranian's touch.
Starfire nodded and
reluctantly left the room, turning off the lights as she
went.
FrostFire stared blankly out her window at the dark sky.
Stars shimmered and the moon reflected on the sea's waves. Her long
hair draped over her shoulders as she sat there, and she pulled her
blanket closer to herself, as if she was cold. She looked at the back
of her hands again, and saw the bases of her symbols were glowing and
becoming harder to the touch. A very faint glimmer of a jewel beneath
her skin showed through, and she sighed.
"It won't be so bad,
I guess… It's natural…" She said quietly to herself. She
tried to believe it, but knew it was going to hurt. She continued to
stare out the window until a bright flash of lightning showed from
outside, startling her. She fell off the edge of her bed, blanket and
all, and clutched the sides of her head. She heard a very loud
screeching, and it was raking at her eardrums like a furious eagle's
talons. It wasn't an earthly sound, and it ran violent chills down
her spine. A sudden wet feeling on her hands made her eyes snap wide
open and she brought her hands in front of her. Blood shimmered on
her skin, and two glinting jewels had risen from her underneath the
two symbols of fire and ice. A pain in her chest made her reel back,
and she hit her nightstand. By now, tears were running down her
cheeks, and the pain from the whole experience was
intensifying.
"Stop! Why are you doing this to me? Why me?"
She suddenly shouted at her ceiling. She stood up and wobbled, and a
few seconds after, a final burst of white-hot pain shot through her,
and she instinctively shot the twin lasers from her eyes.
"Why…
me…?" She whispered as she fell to the floor with a hard
thud.
The last thing she heard before her vision completely failed
was her name being uttered by Starfire's voice…
