Departing from my usual more lighthearted fare for a change. This will be, at the very least, a two-story series. There will be gore, previous child abuse, human experimentation, teens being teens, and swearing. Viewer discretion is advised.
I own nothing except for the plot of this AU, not even the chapter titles, which are lines taken from the song Who We Are by Imagine Dragons.
Chapter One: Up in the Morning, Up in the Evening
The late afternoon sun beat down on a group of teens and young adults that walked slowly down the street, trying to stick to the shrinking shadows. The man at the front of the group, who was less than twenty four years old, looked around with pale blue eyes at all of the other people walking by. His gaze also passed over his own group, making eye contact with the person at the rear of the cluster of teens, a girl that shared some physical characteristics of him-the ones that any sibling would share.
Ahead of her by a few steps, a redheaded teen carefully hopped from each section of shade. When the boy beside him, whose blond hair was streaked with faded pink highlights, tripped, the teenager quickly ducked underneath his friend's shoulder to support him. On the other side of the blond boy, a teen with choppy dark hair reached up to tap his right ear. When he wrinkled his nose slightly, the blond boy got his attention and then told a joke to distract him. Even though he couldn't really hear it, he could still read his friend's lips.
The sound of a gunshot shattered through the warm air.
As one, the group leapt forwards. The redheaded boy grabbed the two closest to him (the blond and the deaf teen) and took off like an arrow, feet pounding the asphalt as he sprinted towards an alley. The girl at the back of the group grabbed the hand of one of the male teenagers, pulling him along as he swivelled to try to face where the shots had come from.
"Roscoe, it's not worth it," she half-begged, yanking on his arm. The man at the head of the group turned to look at her, shoving another man, one with severe burns up and down his arms, into the relative safety of the alley.
"Lisa, what's going on?"
Roscoe ripped his hands away. "I'm sick and tired of running. I'm done with hiding. And now I'm done listening to you two. I love you Lisa, I really do, but I'm done hiding who I am just because some rich bastard says I can't go out in public unless I'm one of their little pets."
A man stepped out of his car wearing sunglasses and holding a gun, which he pointed at Lisa and Roscoe.
"No!"
The redheaded teen appeared beside the two in a blur of motion, shoving them away just as the gunshot rang out. He let out a yelp of pain and stumbled, hand jumping to his shoulder as blood started to paint his thin fingers scarlet. Roscoe swore and tried to grab his arm, causing the teenager to bite his lips together to prevent himself from screaming as he tore it away as fast as possible-so, pretty damn fast.
The man ran from the alley and grabbed his sister and Roscoe, pushing them towards the alleyway where the deaf teen pulled them in, much to the annoyance (and anger) of Roscoe. Then he tried to push the redhead along in front of him, but another gunshot made him fall back, although fortunately it didn't hit him.
A faint sound, akin to music, rang through the air. It curled around his head, and every member of the group expected him to fall to the ground and sleep for a week, but instead he just smirked and tapped his ears. Earplugs.
A second gunman ran in from a side street, pressing the barrel of the gun to the back of the teen's head. He froze in place, pain-filled green eyes widening. His arms were forced behind his back, and the men ignored his whimper of pain. They hauled him to his feet (when had he fallen to the ground?) and allowed him a good look at the alleyway where his friends had fled.
"Look," the man hissed into his ear. "They're gone. They left you alone."
They didn't see the boy grin. He was captured, but his friends had escaped, and that was all that really mattered.
He was barely paying attention as they read him his rights.
"You are under arrest for crimes against humanity…"
A crescent moon was at its zenith, spreading its silvery light across the dark cityscape. Glints of light reflected off of poorly concealed knife blades, and homeless men, women, and children sleeping in huddled piles in doorways. But this wasn't the type of city where everything started to calm down at night-no, here, night was when everyone started to finally wake up for the day.
So in the odd collection of prostitutes, pimps, officers, business owners, lawyers on their way to their clients, petty crooks, strippers, construction workers, tailors, grocers, homeless people, and the occasional honest human being, nobody noticed the two teenagers wearing dark glasses as they walked down the street. They were around seventeen years old, and they actually blended in well-the only thing that made them stand out was the fact that their clothes weren't as dirty as the criminal's or as clean as those worn by the businessmen (they had been recently cleaned, which the two were incredibly grateful for) and the small matter of the pair wearing sunglasses at midnight.
The pair was clearly on edge, muscles tensed and bright blue eyes suspicious behind the glasses. But while the boy seemed to want to be as far from the crowds as possible, the girl seemed much more at home-even as she carefully assessed everyone around her for weapons and threats, she also took stock of how healthy they were and whether or not they were eating properly. Most of them weren't, as a side effect of the city, and those ones got small scraps of bread slipped to them.
The boy, who pretended not to notice, didn't actually mind.
That is, until his attention was caught by a trio of people that didn't do the best job of blending into the mass.
"Di," he hissed, tugging on her sleeve. "We've got company."
Without looking, she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around his neck, appearing to press her lips against his ear. In reality, she was speaking in a low whisper that only her companion would be able to distinguish from the low babble that came from the crowd.
"Where?" She asked.
He turned his head until his mouth was next to her ear, mimicking her position. "Three men, one by that pimp over there, one by the brewery door, and one's pretending to talk to the police officer over there."
"Think that they've seen us yet?" His companion muttered, risking a glance from the corner of her eye. Even though she knew that the men probably couldn't see where she was looking, it never hurt to be careful when the Hunters were involved. Of course, if these even were members of the elusive group of trackers called the 'Hunters' in the first place. They could just be mercenaries, or random members of the criminal underground. "They could just be undercover dirty cops."
"Since when has our luck been that good?" He replied wryly. "Come on, we have to get moving."
"Okay, time to-" She broke off when she saw that one of the men (the one at the door of the brewery) had pulled out a gun and was pointing it at her friend's head. "Get down!"
She pounced, pushing him to the ground. The gun fired, and the bullet pinged off of one of the stone gargoyles that sat with hunched rocky wings above them. A few chips of stone rained down on their heads, and in a split second the two were up on their feet and running. They ducked and wove through the throgs of people that didn't seem to care about the gunfire-and they didn't, not really. In their city, bullets were as common as raindrops, only more painful.
What they were not used to, however, was seeing Hunters in their city.
It wasn't that they disliked them. In fact, most of the denizens would be downright welcoming. But Hunters rarely ventured into the dark city, instead choosing to stick to places where the population was less fluid and easier to set traps in.
Which made the whole gloomy place the perfect hideout for their quarries.
Especially the sewers, which was where the two teenagers were headed.
The girl ripped open a manhole cover and used it as a makeshift shield to protect the two from the next round of bullets, although it probably wouldn't do much. The boy jumped down without a second thought, and his friend followed in a heartbeat. As soon as the two were both down and out of the way, the girl pulled the manhole cover down over them and left the unusual pair in complete darkness.
A rumbling sound came from down one side of the sewer pipe.
Both of them froze. The pair dropped down into crouches, raising their fists after tugging off their sunglasses. The girl's bright blue eyes flicked over to the boy and saw that his own were narrowed into cerulean slits.
"The rumors," he stated. "They're true."
"I gathered," she answered. "I will face my fate with honor."
"We don't need to face our fate," the boy pointed out. "We aren't going to die."
"There are worse things than death."
"That may be true," he admitted begrudgingly. "But that thing isn't one of them."
As the rumbling got louder, the two prepared for what could end up being the fight of their lives.
A teen walked along a dirty street just as the sun was starting to peek over the top of the buildings and distant hills. He wore a thin black hoodie, hood up and hands shoved into his pockets. The boy took several deep breaths as his fingertips tingled with the power that he tried so desperately to hide from outsiders.
"I'll be fine," he muttered to himself, scanning the street for the millionth time. "He'll be fine. He's always fine. He's done this a thousand times before, and this isn't any different."
Almost immediately after he spoke, loud alarms started to blare from a nearby store. A man in his early twenties barrelled out like the devil himself was on his tail, arms flailing wildly and chest already heaving.
"Go, go, go!" He shouted, practically running the teenager over. "The Hunters will be here soon!"
Said teenager joined him in running, even outpacing the slightly older man. His broad shoulders may not have been as fit for running as the other man's lean ones, but he hadn't been living on the streets for nearly as long and still had the memories of full meals eaten at a table with family. Well, vague ones at least.
"I should have been more careful," the man who had broken into the store apologized in between labored breaths. "I didn't even see the Meta-Alarm."
"Did you use your powers?"
"…Yeah. But I had to! There were security cameras and stuff that I had to cover. I didn't even know that places like that even had Meta-Alarms." The man risked a glance over his shoulder and sighed with relief when he saw that nobody had started to chase them. "Oh man, Carol is going to kill me."
A sharp bang rang out, less like a gunshot and more like a small explosion. The ground beneath their feet went up, and the two let out cries of surprise and pain as they were lifted up off of their feet and up into the air by the force of the blast.
The older man grabbed the teen's arm and pulled him up higher in the sky, out of the range of any further blasts. He nodded to his companion. "You okay?"
"Fine. You can let go of me now." When he was released, the teen dropped down a few feet in the air before regaining his balance (so to speak) and rising back up to his friend's eye level. "What was that?"
"Hunters, I think. Gah, I'm so stupid! I shouldn't have broken in there in the first place, and now we're on the run again, and where the hell is Carol?!" The eyes of the young man who had broken in grew steadily brighter green until they glowed neon before slowly winking back down to their natural color. "Sorry. But seriously, where's Carol?"
"Right here, boys," a girl's voice spoke up, and the two males spun in the air to see a young woman glowing pinkish-purple hovering behind them. "Bad news-we're surrounded."
"Put your hands in the air and land on the ground!"
"For the record, this is all your fault," the younger teen sighed.
The secretary stared at the young man in front of her. He couldn't have been older than seventeen or maybe eighteen, and he was wearing nice clothes and had neatly brushed thick black hair. His large blue eyes were nervous but still certain, and they fit well with the rest of his face. She was pretty sure that she had seen him at church before.
She must have misheard him. She could have sworn that she had heard him say that he was a…
"I'm sorry, you're a what?"
"I'm a metahuman," he repeated. "And I'm here to turn myself in."
Looking around to make sure that nobody else had heard him, she leaned forwards. "Why? Wouldn't it be better to get out of town?"
He ducked his head and avoided making eye contact with her. "I don't want the police or the Hunters to come after my parents or my friends. It'll be better for everyone if I just turn myself in. Less people will get hurt because of me that way."
"That's… That's very brave of you," she admitted in surprise. She tapped the large, conspicuous, fire-engine red button on her desk for 'metahuman emergencies.' "The authorities will be here soon."
"I know." He sat down in one of the chairs near her desk and smiled. The secretary sighed to herself. He seemed like such a nice boy-it was such a shame that he was a metahuman. Her own son was most likely only a few years younger than him, and they might have gone to the same school if this young man lived in their small farming town.
By the time that a small squad arrived to pick him up, the two were engaged in a simple conversation about life in general. She watched as he was led into the back of a large black van with white lettering and a familiar logo on the side, hands cuffed behind him by stern-faced officers unlike the kind ones that she worked with/for. She hoped that one day, when a cure was developed, she would see him again.
But she knew that that was incredibly unlikely.
Most of the people who went into LexCorp buildings and Meta-Max facilities never came back out.
Five men struggled to hold down a thrashing and spitting-mad teenage girl, shouting for backup. The head of the unit barked an order at his right-hand man, who reluctantly advanced forwards and jabbed the girl in the stomach with a cattle prod. She screamed and twisted her upper body around, fist swinging and then smashing into his jaw as hard as she could. The man went flying backwards into a wall, and the head of the unit growled angrily and pulled out his gun, stepping deftly into the commotion and pressing the barrel of the gun against her temple.
"Try something like that again, bitch, and you'll be spitting out lead before you can lift a finger," he stated, nodding to the rest of the unit. All of the other men but two moved to handcuff the girl, albeit cautiously-the man who she had punched into the wall and his friend who went to make sure that he was okay.
The head of the Hunter unit spotted a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye and pressed the gun harder against his captive's skull. "Get her wings, too."
She glared at him angrily with bright golden eyes, and he sneered. "Come on, pretty bird. Won't you sing?"
She didn't say anything, instead choosing to keep glaring with her strangely colored irises.
He sighed and pulled the gun away before suddenly whipping it back towards her, slamming the weapon against her jaw. She slumped down, dazed and motionless but still conscious on the floor. Her enormous wings were trembling mounds of tattered dusty brown feathers stretched out on the floor behind her. They were weak from malnutrition and testing-if she was at full strength, they would be able to lift her up and out of the horrible place and into the sky, where she would never have to come back down to earth for anybody.
The girl sighed as she felt them being bound tightly, the familiar ropes and chains digging into her flesh as her hands were cuffed together in front of her and her legs were tied at the ankle and at the knee. She was roughly hauled to her feet by the metal collar around her neck and forced to hop awkwardly into the back of a black van.
Oh, she knew that the Hunters assumed that any last fight that she had in her was just a remnant, a scrap of fear that allowed her to push against them. They didn't know that she spent every waking moment (and even in her sleep, planning in dreamland) plotting their demise. How could they?
But soon, they would feel the wrath of the hawk.
"Did you get the meta?" The officer asked, crossing his arms and narrowing his eyes behind his sunglasses. He may not have liked Hunters in his city, but that didn't mean that he wasn't willing to tolerate them if they were in pursuit of a metahuman suspect.
"Yes. The metahuman is in our custody. There is nothing more to worry about." The Hunter's voice sounded… Mechanical, robotic, and very, very inhuman. The officer shivered-he would never get used to them.
"How did it even manage to escape in the first place? Aren't your facilities basically impenetrable?" He knew that he was treading into dangerous territory, but he was curious. Meta-Max prisons were supposed to be the hardest things in the world to break out of or break into, for normal humans and especially for metahumans. If they were anything less than what they were advertised as, than the world would need to know about it. It wasn't the same as everyday criminals breaking out of places like Arkham-they were superhuman, better (and worse) than the normal homo sapiens in every way.
"The metahuman had unforeseen powers that we had not yet discovered, as it was careful to keep them hidden from us. One of those powers was the manipulation of cerebrum and the cerebral cortex. It could control minds with a thought in the right direction." The Hunter's voice was even and flat, completely devoid of emotion. "It could also change the density of its body, allowing it to pass through walls and doors with little effort. All of those factors, along with the power failure of the facility where it was being held, contributed to its escape. It will not be happening again."
The officer nodded slowly and walked off-he had paperwork to do, after all.
Unbeknownst to everyone but the Hunters, a teenager was cuffed and bound in the back of the van that they had brought to detain him, looking normal in almost every way.
Except for one small detail.
His skin was completely green.
Seven teenagers all on their way to the same place. All without knowing that someday, someday soon, they would change the world.