"Miss Vance? What happened to you?"
Mrs. Annabel Oxton, who taught English and Maths at New Alford College, approached the teenager with concern. Jocelyn Vance, an eleventh-grader, was lying on the floor. Her mousy hair was all tousled, her lips parted and her eyes wide with shock. Annabel knelt next to her and checked her body for fractures and traumas; she found nothing besides a few contusions here and there. The girl was lucky: Shepard had gone easy on her. Last term, Jason Mellor had been less lucky, and had to spend three weeks down at the hospital. Shepard got suspended for several weeks, and her grades went from barely acceptable to catastrophic.
Annabel turned towards Evangelina Henkins, Vance's inseparable friend, who was sobbing in the corner next to her.
"Would you care to explain what happened here Miss Henkins?" She asked.
The teenager pointed an angry finger at a red-haired girl who was discretely climbing onto the third floor's window still.
"It was her! She did it!" Henkins shrieked.
The teacher's eyes went wide when she turned around and saw the girl who was now frantically fumbling with the window's handle.
"Shepard! Stop! This instant! You'll get hurt-"
made for the window, but she was too late. The demon child had made the jump, and the concerned teacher could only watch her fall towards the ground below at dangerous speed. Just before she hit the hard earth, however, a faint blue glow enveloped Aemilia Shepard, slowing her fall and letting her land unhurt.
Annabel sighed with relief while leaning from the window to shout at the redhead, who was now sprinting towards the town centre.
"You won't get away with this young lady! You'll have to come back sooner or later!"
She closed the window and turned to the Vance and Henkins. The mousy-haired teenager was slowly emerging from her shock: her eyes were more focused, and she seemed to have at least some understanding of where she was, as she looked at with apprehension.
"Henkins, be kind enough to walk miss Vance to the Infirmary. I shall talk to the Principal and get back to you both."
The girls did as they were bid, and Annabel glanced back towards the window through which Shepard had disappeared a few minutes ago.
"Wild child." She muttered to herself with a tired smile.
I TOLD them to stay away! Stupid, stupid girls.
She was out of breath, and her sides hurt from the effort, but she stubbornly kept running until the College was out of sight. Only then did she allow herself a break, slowing down to a walk.
She hadn't meant to hurt Jocelyn; she hadn't meant to hurt anyone. Aemilia had always been a good kid, and a decent enough student… at least until her biotic powers started to manifest.
The first incident, so to speak, dated back to almost two years ago. Sam and her were playing in the family orchard, climbing on the big fig trees to get to the juicy fruits at the top. Samantha had spotted a huge one on one of the tallest branches, and Aemilia encouraged her to go for it, ignoring the loud creaking of the branches under Sam's weight. Her sister had almost reached the fig when the branch she was standing on snapped in half. Aemilia shrieked in fear, helplessly extending her arm towards Sam who was rapidly falling towards the ground. Suddenly a bluish glow enveloped her sister, pulling her back up towards her elder at full speed. The impact sent them both flying backwards; luckily, they landed on a large hay stack, and were mostly unhurt.
Her mother was scared at first, but her father knew that such incidents were happening to young children all over the galaxy. All kids showing biotic tendencies had to be registered with the Alliance for future reference, but Shepard's family had refused to do so. Mindoir was relatively distrusting of the military, and her parents were no exception; they'd heard rumours of horrible things happening to young teenagers on the Biotic Acclimation and Temperance Training program set up by the Alliance.
Luckily Shepard had only been involved in a few, isolated incidents, and nobody had reported her so far. Lately, though, she felt her biotics growing stronger; sometimes she would grow restless, feeling the strange energy building up within her body. It scared her; made her twitchy, irritable.
A few months ago, she sent Jason to the hospital after he made fun of Sam for wearing the same coat throughout the Autumn term because they couldn't afford a new one. Jason was in Sam's class; he was a few years younger, and several inches smaller than Aemilia. She only meant to shove him out of their way, but as she moved towards him a wave of energy shot through her limbs and she sent him flying. Luckily for her, his parents were friends with hers and didn't report her; but a lot of students had started avoiding her like the plague.
Aemilia grimaced at the thought, her eyes gazing up to the cloudy sky.
Every night, she dreamed about the vastness of space; it was comforting to think that beyond the prefabricated houses of New Alford, there was a whole galaxy to explore, brimming with life, adventure and excitement. She wondered if she'd ever get to see any of it, if she'd ever be able to leave this stupid planet. Probably not, she thought to herself. Interstellar travel was expensive, even if she ever managed to leave Mindoir, she'd likely be limited to this old, stinky system.
The thought made her angry.
She saw a pebble lying in the middle of the pavement and kicked it with force; it flew for a good few metres before landing at the feet of her family's farm's gate. Without realising it, she had walked all the way home. She hesitated, knowing all too well she would be in huge trouble.
I'll have to face them sooner or later. She thought.
Her heart heavy, Aemilia decided to walk slowly towards the prefab house that stood among large ploughed fields, bracing herself for the upcoming scolding.
"What happened Em? You should know better than to lose control with the other children." Her father's voice was harsh, but his eyes remained kind. "If someone were to report you…"
"I know what will happen if someone reports me." She hissed. "Dad, I didn't mean to hurt Jocelyn! I… I was feeling funny, like every time the biotics are building up and need releasing. So I went and hid in an empty classroom. But they followed me! I told them to stay away, I told them, but they wouldn't listen!"
Her eyes had reddened; she was afraid, afraid someone would call the Alliance, and she'd be sent away to some dodgy brain camp. She'd never see her family again, she thought anxiously.
"You're a good kid, Em." her father sighed, stroking her auburn hair in an effort to calm her down. "I know you didn't mean to hurt the girl."
"We have to do something about this, Arthur!" Her mother's voice was worried. "There have been too many accidents; someone's going to tell. Someone always tells."
Her father's face hardened.
"There's nothing we can do, Christa."
"We need to leave Mindoir! A fresh start, somewhere else. In some other colony, where no one knows about Em!"
"You know we cannot do that." her father replied, not unkindly. "All we have is this farm, and we are not rich; we'll have to make do for now."
Aemilia had heard enough. Seeing her parents worry scared her; if they were worried, then the danger was real.
She knew she couldn't hide her strangeness forever: they would take her, sooner or later. She stormed out of the kitchen, unable to hold back tears, and ran out of the house.
Author's note:
Holy crap, I finally decided to start posting a fic I've been working on for a while now!
It is going to be a long one, probably extending from Mindoir all the way to the events of ME3, so I wanted to make sure I had enough chapters written before posting it :)
Just to explain the setting a little better: I picture Mindoir as a rather poor farming colony, where most people don't have access to all the cutting-edge tech we see in the Mass Effect universe. As a result, I imagine their way of living is quite traditional, and perhaps more similar to the world as it is today (except for, ya know, space travel and aliens and all :) ). I hope this isn't breaking the immersion too much!
I hope this chapter wasn't too boring/uneventful; it was written to serve as an introduction for Aemilia Shepard, and there will definitely be more action as the story progresses. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed reading!
Finally, I am in no way an accomplished writer, and as you may have noticed English isn't my first language! So any comments/critiques are more than welcome :D