Lily Ann Peterson had never had a problem being quiet. Growing up, her father had operated under the belief that children should be seen and not heard. Truly, it was barbaric, but that was how things were with her father. She had grown accustomed to it all too quickly.
As a young girl, her father would snap or yell at her if she spoke out of turn or did something she wasn't supposed to. She quickly learned to fear him. By her fifth birthday she had understood that to keep her father appeased, she was to stay by her mother's side, silent and not doing anything she wasn't supposed to.
At school, she was labeled as the shy, timid girl, but she had been trained and, even away from her father, she didn't dare do anything she wasn't supposed to. If it got her in trouble at school, she would be in worse trouble at home.
If she was quiet at school, then she was silent at home. To be loud was to be in trouble. She learned how to walk in a way that would make her steps silent. Her breaths came out as barely a whisper. She, sometimes, could not even hear her own breathing.
She had to be careful, though. Being so quiet could lead to scaring somebody. If there was somebody in the room she was going to, she would take a step too heavy or breathe a little to ragged or even clear her throat.
Of course, like every other person in the world, Lily broke the rules. She had control over herself, but sometimes she just snapped and said or did something she wasn't supposed. She got in trouble, of course. However, no matter how many rules she broke, there was one rule she did not want to risk breaking.
"Don't go in the basement!"
Her father had snapped it at her when she was barely old enough to understand. She had cowered behind the counter and gave a quick nod.
When she was thirteen, however, her curiosity had overcome her. She had been walking past the basement door then froze. She turned her gaze to the door and her eyebrows furrowed. Her mind raced, and she tried to resist, she really did, but she couldn't.
She let out an almost silent sigh then reached out and opened the door. Her footsteps and breaths were silent. When she reached the bottoms of the stairs, her eyebrows rose, and her jaw dropped open to form a small "o". Her eyes moved across the room then she froze when she saw her father. He was standing at a desk and his sharp, cold eyes were on her.
"What are you doing down here?" He snapped.
Lily didn't say a word. What could she say that wouldn't get her into to trouble? But, she also knew that if she didn't say anything, she would get in trouble as well.
"I said, what are you doing down here?" Her father growled, stepping around the desk and towards her. Lily took a step back and turned her eyes to her feet.
"I'm...I'm sorry, father. My curiosity got the best of me," Lily murmured, her sweet voice almost too soft to hear. She turned to leave, knowing that was what her father would tell her to do.
"Did I say you could leave?" He snapped. Lily froze then turn back to him.
"I-i'm sorry?"
Her father moved back to the desk and pressed a few buttons. A wall slid to the side to expose a glass tube.
"Get in the tube, Lily Ann," her father commanded.
Lily looked at the tube then looked back to her father then looked back to the tube. She gave an almost imperceptible sigh and walked over to the tube. She stepped in and the door closed. She turned and looked back to her father.
Christopher Peterson was looking down at his desk and was pressing buttons. He pressed one last button then Lily get a quick stabbing pain in the back of her neck then it was over.
"Get out of the tube," he commanded. Lily stepped out, raising a hand to press against the back of her neck. Christopher came around the desk with a grenade-like thing.
Before Lily could do anything, Christopher threw what he was holding straight at her. She screamed and threw her hands up in front of her. She felt a surge of power run through her then a crash across the room. She looked up and her jaw dropped.
She was surrounded by a transparent blue shield. She looked to her father who was appraising the shield with a smug smirk on his face. Rage ran through Lily and she dropped her arms. The shield disappeared.
"What did you do to me?" Lily snapped.
Christopher's jaw clenched in anger, but he pushed it down and answered. "I made you better," he boasted.
"No," Lily responded, shaking her head. "No, you made me different."
This time, Christopher didn't bother trying to keep his rage down. Instead, he just started forward towards Lily, who met him with a feeling she didn't know she had. Just as he was about to touch her, she lashed out with her hand. Her palm landed on his chest and sent him flying across the room. He hit the wall hard then slid down to the ground.
Lily looked down at her hands with awe. Had she really just done that? A self-satisfied smile spread across her face. "You can't control me anymore. I am no longer afraid of you," Lily said then turned and left the basement, proud of herself.
She finally felt safe and would remain so for the next few weeks. However, Christopher was smart and though Lily was now technically smarter than him, due to her new bionics, she hadn't been expecting what he did.
He called her down into the basement one day almost three weeks after she got her bionics. When she arrived in the basement, he said something about an update. Lily grinned and got into the tube without a fight. A moment later, she was getting out, not really feeling any different.
"I don't feel any different," she said accusingly, giving Christopher a glare. Christopher just smirked and pressed a button.
It was a strange feeling, Lily quickly decided. It felt like ants were crawling through her veins. She tried to push it away, but it was stronger than her and quickly took control of her mind and bionics. It forced her to pull her shoulders back and keep her chin up. It forced her to do things that she didn't want to, and Lily immediately didn't like it.
"You like it? I call it my Triton app. It allows me to take full control of you," Christopher explained with a self-satisfied smirk that Lily really wanted to punch off his face.
Christopher pressed the button again and control of her body returned slowly to Lily. As soon as she was free, her shoulders hunched, and her chin tucked against her chest. She quivered with fear as her father towered over her.
"Now get in your tube," Christopher snarled, pointing to the glass tube against the wall. Lily walked over and got in the tube. Christopher pressed a couple buttons and the door snapped closed and locked.
From then on, Lily lived in fear. She spent the next month sleeping in her tube. When she was allowed out, she did her best not to upset Christopher ever again.
A year after she received her abilities, they moved to a town called Mission Creek. A couple months after they arrived, three new students started at Lily's high school. Adam, Bree, and Chase.
It didn't take Lily long to figure out that the three siblings were bionic. They didn't do a very good job at hiding it. They used their bionics often and were terrible at hiding it.
It was on the first day that he was there that Lily met Chase. He was cute and incredibly smart. It didn't take long for her to realize that she wanted him. It was deeper than that though.
When they first met, he had spoken to her with a calm, soft voice. She responded easily. He had talked first, after all. They easily dropped into a conversation that soon brought excitement into both of their eyes.
They weren't friends, not really. They had good conversations, but Lily wasn't the friends type and Chase was far too worried about exposing his bionics to make friends.
It was two years after she first received her bionics when it happened. She was standing at her locker. Adam, Bree, Chase, and Leo were across the hall, talking lowly to each other.
It came like it always did; crawling up her throat and into her mind like a virus. She tried to stop it, tried to push it away. But it just kept crawling through her, pulling her mind, pulling her bionics into its control.
She pulled her shoulders back and lifted her chin high as she turned towards the four of them mechanically. They didn't notice her until she began to step towards them. Leo noticed her first.
"Lily? What are you doing?" He asked, his eyebrows furrowing.
She turned her gaze towards him. She looked at him for a moment then heard her father's voice echo through her mind. "Get him out of the way then kill the other three."
Lily's eyes turned red with her heat vision. She let it loose and it sent Leo flying back against the wall. The other three gasped and glanced at each other.
"She's like us," Chase said to his siblings. Lily brought her arms up and formed her forcefield. She brought her hands closer together, making her forcefield smaller until it was just a ball in her hand. Then she let it fly. It hit the three of them and sent them to the ground.
Adam was the first one up. He ran at her with anger in her eyes. She fought him easily. He was strong, but her strength had been upgraded so often that she was far stronger than him. She sent him to the ground quickly. He groaned in pain.
"Adam!" Bree called, pushing herself to her feet. She ran at Lily with a fierce gaze. Bree was as easy to fight as Adam was and she soon joined her brother on the ground.
Finally, Chase pushed himself to his feet and turned his gaze on Lily. They stared each other down for a moment. "Lily?" His voice was soft and full of what Lily realized was fear.
Fear, Panic, and, to her surprise, pure white-hot rage bubbled up Lily's throat. She tried to fight the control, but the Triton app just wouldn't have it. It forced her eyes red with her heat vision. She let it go and Chase gave an eep of surprise and threw his hands up, forming his own forcefield.
They stayed like that for several moments before Chase spoke again. "Lily? Lily, please." His voice was soaked in fear and he sounded so pathetic that it broke Lily's heart.
With all her strength, Lily pushed the control away just long enough to close her eyes, to stop her heat vision. She froze in her spot and clenched all her muscles.
She had to do something. She couldn't kill them. She couldn't kill him. She needed to do something, but she had never been strong enough to fight off the Triton app on her own. She would need a catalyst.
"Think, Lily, think," she thought to herself. Her mind scrambled for an answer, and after a moment it came to her. She needed to shock herself back into control. But how could she do that?
"Lily?"
His voice was calm, but still full of fear and it gave her an idea. A kiss. If she could just kiss him then maybe she could get her control back. She clenched her eyes shut and pressed down the control of the Triton.
She wouldn't have long. She knew that. She would need to act fast. Lily took a moment to gather herself, to gather her courage, and to gather what little control she actually had.
A moment later, her eyes flashed open. They remained open just long enough for her to locate Chase, then she lunged forward. Using her super speed, she ran forward and pressed her lips against Chase's.
Chase froze in surprise then relaxed against her. And for a moment, just a moment, everything was a blissful perfect. The control of the triton app leaked away, and she was free. Lily pulled herself away and the two of them just stared at each other. After a couple minutes, Lily sighed and geo-leaped away.
She went home. She didn't have anywhere else to go. Besides, she was only fifteen; she couldn't support herself. Her father was waiting and he was angry.
Lily couldn't remember a time when her father had ever hurt her, but for the first time ever, he pulled himself to his full height and he raised his hand to her.
Twenty minutes later, Christopher shoved Lily into her tube. She fell to the ground, clutching at her ribcage and groaning in pain. "Maybe that will teach you," he growled then stormed away. The pain quickly made her fall asleep.
The next time she woke, she was standing in her tube and the news was on. On the screen was a picture of her. She wasn't recognizable. Her eyes glowed green from the Triton app and her face was covered in blood. Then, finally, she realized she could hear what the newscaster was saying.
"No one is sure exactly who this woman is, but it is known that she caused the nuclear reactor to explode. The blast killed almost two hundred people and sent radiation to the towns surrounding the reactor. The towns have been evacuated and the townspeople are being treated for..."
Lily zoned out the newscaster and collapsed to the floor of her tube. "It's a great story, isn't it?" Christopher said with a look of smug-satisfaction.
"What did you make me do?" Lily whimpered.
"What I made you to do."