Just a heads up, folks! I couldn't exactly say this in the summary because I didn't have enough lines, but this fanfic will contain themes of abuse, just to let you know, but because I have never been abused, I don't know what it's like, but still, just a warning, that this fanfic will contain ABUSE!

Disclaimer: Mage of Hope doesn't own Ben 10 series, only the OCs!


"Mom-"

"Shut up! You ain't the boss of me!" The mother of the young girl who was attempting to calm her down was clearly drunk as she was swaying back and forth in the kitchen. The kitchen was a disaster, with Chinese food boxes littered all over the table along with dirty pizza boxes, and beer bottles and cans spread across the white floor with some liquid coming out of them, creating a nauseating smell.

The girl dealing with the current situation is 12-year old Alicia Lute who was trying to stop her mother. Ever since she was just a small toddler, she had to deal with all sorts of abuse from her parents, resulting in various bruises and scars within her body. Even now, her blond hair was in a mess and her cheek had a bit of a bruise.

Gulping down the last of what was possibly her 5th beer bottle, Alicia's mother threw the beer bottle at the kitchen wall, making a dent as the remaining contents would stain the wall and drip to the floor, where the glass shards were.

"Mom! Stop, you need to rest!" Alicia cried out, tugging on her mother's arm. Angered, Alicia's mother yanked her arm away before smacking her daughter across the face, sending her straight to the floor. Panicking, Alicia curled up into a ball, hoping to ease some of the pain as she was once again forced to endure one of her mother's daily beatings as her mother proceeded to stomp and kick her.

"Shut up! SHUT UP! YOU'RE SO GODDAMN ANNOYING!" cursed her mother, increasing the amount of pressure by kicking aside Alicia's arm and then stamping her foot on it hard.

"Ow! Mom! Stop it!" Alicia cried, trying to pull her hand back. She succeeded in doing so, but accidentally caused her mother to fall back and tumble onto the wall.

"Bitch!" Further angered, Alicia's mother reached down and pulled Alicia up forcibly by the hair, causing her daughter to yelp in pain while trying to break free. She slammed her fist into Alicia's stomach, causing the air to whoosh out of her throat before Alicia was thrown back to the ground; her head throbbing like crazy.

Unlocking the front door and entering inside the small house was a middle-aged man who seemed tired and stressed. He locked the door behind him, bypassing his wife and daughter, ignoring the chaos that occurred as he reached upstairs.

Alicia's mother continued beating up her daughter until her drunken state led her to drowsiness, prompting her to sway around for a bit before collapsing on the floor, snoring. Alicia, having received bleeding wounds and bruises on her arms and legs, stood up and kneeled down towards her mother. Wrapping her mother's arm around her shoulder, Alicia grunted as she tried to lift her up and place her on the alcohol-soaked couch before putting a torn and ripped blanket over her body.

Every time Alicia's mother got drunk and tried to hurt her daughter, eventually, she would grow tired to the point of sleeping. Then, like the caring person she is, Alicia would tuck her mother to the nearest, comfortable bed or couch nearby. This was on a daily basis so Alicia had gotten used to this routine a long time ago.

Alicia didn't know how this all happened, but she thought it might have happened when she was a child and something to do with lack of family time and financial problems. Her father was always constantly working all day and usually comes home somewhere in the nighttime, barely acknowledging his own family as he decided to sleep or eat or whatever it is he does. Whenever he is extremely stressed, he yells at everyone and sometimes even beats up Alicia twice as badly as her mother. Was it strange for Alicia to think that she prefer her mother's beatings than her father's?

At the very least, her father isn't always neglectful towards her as he gives her some money to go and buy herself some dinner, but it's always an awful small amount, causing Alicia to become a daily customer at the cheap vegan restaurant, Tea Garden. She always ate soup or salad every single day, convinced that such things would make her healthy. While vegetables would make her healthy, there was more she had to include in her frail body.

With her dysfunctional family, Alicia often had to buy clothes and school supplies all by herself. Because she was too young to get a job, she often starved herself to gather the money her father's been giving her to buy the necessary things. During those days, she kept herself hydrated by buying water bottles since she knew water was necessary first before food.

Her mother had a variety of jobs that Alicia didn't know nor ask her of. Whenever she came back home, though, she was always drunk and bought various kinds of liquor. She took her stress and anger out on Alicia, yelling, insulting, and blaming her for a lot of things before sleeping for a couple of hours. During the nighttime, her mother would dress up and leave for a certain night job, another thing Alicia didn't know of.

The only other family member who didn't physically abuse her was her older sister, Anya, but their relationship wasn't really that different from their parents. They never hung out and Anya seemed to want to avoid any ties to her family as well as the house, only coming back to eat, sleep, and anything to provide her needs before leaving to hang out with her friends. Anya was cruel to her, not wishing to be bothered by her and not being the caring big sister she was supposed to be.

It was sad, but this was how Alicia's life usually is. Even when she got good grades and avoided trouble, she would never be appreciated or loved for her actions, but even so, Alicia was still grateful that she still had a roof above her head, a single small bedroom to herself, and at least some food money. She knew her parents had been dealing with problems for a long time, which is why they're like this and it was because of that that she's forgiven them each time when they didn't deserve forgiveness.

Taking the money her father placed on the table while her mother was beating her up before, Alicia got up, hiding the bruises and wounds by wearing her jacket before exiting the house with the house key in her hands, trotting towards Tea Garden as usual.


The next day...

Alicia sat alone at a small lone lunch table, ignoring some of the snickering from some girls nearby. She never ate lunch at the cafeteria because she couldn't afford to pay for lunch, but she always had breakfast bright and early at school because they always had free breakfast available. Once again, this was a treatment she's used to, and she should be lucky that even in middle school, they had free breakfast.

Things weren't any better at school than it was at home, but at least it was a little bit better. Alicia's been bullied ever since she was a child, with barely anyone helping her or wishing to be her friend and she was too ashamed and shy to confront with the teachers. She's been bullied for a variety of reasons, such as being an easy target, simply out of fun, and so on. It just grew worse when it came for her first junior year, where there was all the cool kids and a better school than elementary school. It was all about reputation and good looks, and Alicia didn't think she had either of them, despite her good grades and cute, child-like appearance.

Right now, the reason why some of the popular girls were glancing over to her was due to her clothes. Alicia's wardrobe of clothes was fairly small and she constantly has to wear the same clothes everyday, which consists of a black sleeved shirt underneath a yellow tunic dress with her long blond hair always up in a ponytail.

Ignoring them as usual, Alicia thought back a few weeks ago when it was announced to her History class that they were going on a trip to Mount Evergreen, the infamous mountain in her hometown that was famous for harboring loads of medical herbs and plants. A trip at the end of September was a bit surprising because it was just the start of her first junior year.

It took a while to convince her father to grant her permission because he's always been busy, but when she had the time, he didn't even question nor look at the permission slip before signing it and then resuming at his regular work in his room. At least one good thing out of this trip starting tomorrow was that she was allowed to skip the rest of the school day and that it was a Friday. She was pretty sure her other classmates had the same reasons as well.

Little did she know was that tomorrow was the day that her fate would change.


The next day...

It wasn't so bad listening to the two tour guides for several hours as they lead Alicia's entire History class up the mountain. In actuality, the mountain wasn't that high up but it was terribly steep, making everyone exhausted once they managed to reach the top of the mountain, where they were surrounded by wildlife and several caves-like entrances within the mountain.

"Alright, gang! We'll stop here for an hour break!" spoke one tour guide cheerfully as everyone else sat down on the soft grassy areas. "For now, you can eat lunch or wander around the caves! Don't worry about getting lost because the locals have already checked inside, and there are no dangerous animals inside and they all lead to dead ends anyways!"

Taking up the tour guide's offer, several people began to unpack their lunches and proceed to eat and chat with their friends while others decided to check out the caves out of curiosity. Seeing as she has no lunch and no other way to spend her time, Alicia decided to join the people entering and exiting the caves.

Like the tour guides said, there was nothing with rocks inside and a bit of light from the holes above that provided as guides in and out of the caves. Alicia planned to sit in the grass and rest until it was time to go when she saw another cave entrance.

However, this was one smaller compared to the other entrances and it doesn't look like just anyone could fit through. Getting on her knees, Alicia crawled through the entrance and found that she was a perfect fit due to her short and small stature. With the light from the holes guiding her, Alicia's curiosity lead her to another dead end.

At the end of that dead end, however, was a small, spherical container.

"Hmm?" Curious, Alicia attempted to stand up and reach for it, but accidentally bumped her head against the rocky ceiling, meaning she couldn't really stand up. Instead, she decided to gently nudge the container when she meant to grab it with her feet.

Upon being touched by something harm and life-like, the container instantly opened, revealing a bright yellow glow from within. Unable to get anymore closer because of the small space within the cave, Alicia tried to move the container with her foot once again, but much to her shock, that yellow glow suddenly attached to her ankle.

"Whoa! A...watch?" Staring at the strange yellow watch stuck to her ankle, Alicia attempted to remove it for a much better look, only to find that it was as stuck as glue and unable to get it off no matter how hard she tried. She actually wanted to get a watch for a while so it could help her with her schedule and help her tell time instead of constantly having her search for a wall clock nearby.

While fiddling around with the watch, Alicia accidentally pressed a button, prompting the dial to spring up with a strange silhouette image on the dial. She began to turn it around, finding more shadow-like images before gently pressing down the dial.

For some reason, it was suddenly a lot more easier to move around as everything was spacious, but it was a bit more darker now, so Alicia decided to enter outside. Much to her surprise, everyone else was a lot...bigger than usual as well as her surroundings. Come to think of it, it was time to get a drink since her throat was a bit dry.

Once she reached a nearby stream, Alicia took a glance at her own reflection and shrieked. The girl staring before her...was not who was she right now! Or rather, what exactly she was?

Her entire appearance and size has clearly changed. She was way smaller than before, being the size of a honey bee. Her ears were now pointy, her eyes and hair color green as grass with her hair now in two long pigtails at the back. Her clothing has significantly changed as well, for she had puffy green shorts and leggings while garbed in a short green jacket that exposed her belly button and has short green sleeves. Most notably was the pair of green butterfly-like wings attached, or rather, a part of her back. Additionally, a strange symbol was implanted on her shoulder.

"What happened?" wondered Alicia, twisting around to check herself out even more. After a while, she sighed, but unexpectedly, a strong gust of wind escaped from her sigh, enough to push a small wave of water from the stream before vanishing back into the water. Surprised, Alicia decided to test something out by hiding behind a tree and watching a schoolgirl talking to a few boys. Inhaling some breath, Alicia released it, revealing a stronger gust of wind that was enough to flip the girl's skirt.

"Eeek!" The girl squeaked, pulling her skirt down as the boys hooted at such a particular sight. "Oh, shut up!" growled the girl, slapping one boy on the arm before marching away.

'Yikes! I didn't mean for that to happen! Sorry!' thought Alicia apologetically. She knew something was strange the moment she released some sort of wind. Her breath wouldn't have affected anything, and it shouldn't have been possible to produce that much wind with a single breath, but the proof was before her eyes, even if she didn't mean to intentionally flip that girl's skirt over.

Wanting to test her powers out, Alicia tried to gather more wind by focusing this time, as she was breathing in and out. Soon, winds started to swirl around her, and in order not to bring any attention, Alicia pushed her palms forward, causing the wind she gathered to disperse quickly and in a bit of a force as everyone felt the strong winds.

"Whoa!" cried out a boy as the wind messed up his hair. "It sure is windy today!"

"Boy, if I knew it was going to be this windy, I would have brought a jacket!" complained a girl, shivering.

Now that Alicia confirmed that she definitely was the one manipulating the wind, she wanted to try out the other parts in her new body. She gently touched one of her wings, noting how sensitive they are even if she was gently touching them. Clenching her fists, Alicia tried to focus on her wings, which started twitching as her body became tense. Her wings started to move awkwardly, but after a minute or two, she still couldn't get them to flap in sync nor fly at all.

She tried jumping up and down while trying to flap her wings, and though she was in mid-air for a few seconds, it was still a slight improvement from the other methods she tried. Eventually, she managed to fly around, but only a feet off the ground as this was the first time she managed to acquire wings.

"You jerk!" A girl was currently arguing with her boyfriend, unknowingly heading towards the edge of the mountain. "And to think I lent you my phone that one time!"

"Who cares about it anyways? It was a stupid old model!"

"Grrr!" Out of frustration, the girl shoved her boyfriend away from her, unaware of the close edge nearby. The boy stumbled back and didn't realize that he had fallen off the edge until he felt his body flying.

"Aaaah!" Frantically, the boy managed to grab onto a tree branch hanging off the side of the rocky walls, but thanks to his weight, it didn't look as though it would stay stable long enough for anyone to get help.

"Crap!" The girl cried out, leaning down. "Hey! You okay?"

"I'm hanging on a tree branch which you pushed me off! What the hell do you think?!" shouted the boy.

"Well, if you weren't such a jerkass-!"

While the two were arguing, the students started to crowd around, wondering what the whole commotion was all about. Soon, the tour guides started to try to get some supplies from their backpack to save the male student as they've never had an incident like this before.

Panicked, Alicia wondered what to do. Sure, she could leave it to the professionals, but it didn't look like they would make it in time. Maybe...with this new form and its peculiar powers, she could do something! With her small size, she snuck past the others, who didn't notice her as she hid near the shoes of others until she reached the edge. She could see the boy still dangling on the tree branch, but the immense height from the bottom of the mountain up to the top truly made her heart skip, especially since she was so tiny now.

Suddenly, the tree branch gave way and broke, causing the boy to fall as well. "No!" cried out Alicia, leaping off without warning as everyone else behind her shrieked and screamed.

Alicia had no idea why her body moved on her own. Was it pure instinct? It didn't matter because she just basically did a suicide jump trying to save the boy. Suddenly, it was as though she knew what to do as her wings started flapping rapidly and she started gathering wind, even faster and bigger than before because of the amount of wind gathered while falling, which was rapid.

Nearing the ground, Alicia's wings saved her as she approached the ground first, glancing up to see the boy coming closer. With the wind she gathered, she began swirling around, forming a miniature tornado that wasn't as big nor strong as an actual tornado but just enough to prevent the boy from crashing and saving his life as he was slowly lowered to the ground as the wind dispersed.

Staring at her hands in awe, Alicia wondered what just happened. Did she just save a life right now? With the new powers she acquired? She was moving based on instinct but it was like she knew what to do to save that boy. She had now idea how to fly or use her powers properly but at that brief moment, she did all she could to prevent the boy's death.

Speaking of flying, she still was flying, so she decided to fly up the top of the small mountain to where the others were. With that plan in motion, she decided to think and focus on flying, because if she focused on anything else, she might cease the power of flight and plummet down.

Just as her feet touched the grounds of the top of the mountain, the symbol on Alicia's shoulder began beeping red over and over until a bright red light flashed before her eyes. "W-what?" Glancing at her reflection at the stream water, Alicia was surprised to see she had reverted back to her normal human form. She was so focused on the wind fairy form that she forgot about a method to return to normal. Guess that wasn't a problem now.

'What was that? I think the watch on my ankle has something to do with it,' thought Alicia, glancing at her ankle before hiding it by unfolding her pants sleeve down.


Later, at home...

Alicia collapsed on her soft bed, sighing in and out as she thought back on the events that transpired. She changed out of her clothes into some regular, ripped and torn pajamas that got tattered thanks to her parents through years of abuse. She had very few clothes, and this was the best comfortable set of clothes she could wear at the moment.

After the incident, the girl who pushed her boyfriend got punished severely, being suspended for a week. Plus, everyone had to pack up and leave their mountain trip, which wasn't that exciting to most of the students to be honest. As for the boy, he had lost consciousness out of shock from falling and was admitted to the hospital.

What was going to keep Alicia busy for a while wasn't just her homework or tests, but the fact that she wanted to test out the watch she obtained. In fact, she recalled the correct ways to activate the watch before slamming the dial on the exact creature she wanted; the same wind fairy form from before.

Being tiny, she examined her room, which was mostly spacious. Still, being in this form excited her as she leapt off her bed to attempt to fly. However, unlike before, this wasn't a dire crisis, so she fell flat on her bedroom floor.

"Ow." She got up and rubbed her aching face. Well, that didn't work. She had many questions about this weird watch, which wouldn't come off her ankle no matter. Plus, she wasn't going to pull off any dangerous methods to remove them such as cutting it off with a knife or burn it off.

Well, if she was going to uncover the mysteries behind this watch, she might as well give her new wind fairy form a name instead of calling it wind fairy form.

Since this was going to be the start of a...somewhat new friendship, why not...Airy?


Name: Airy

Name Meaning: Combination of the words "Air" and "Fairy" mixed together. Plus, Airy's powers are wind-based, and since air is part of the wind, it would make sense. Sylph is also a term for wind fairy.

Powers and Abilities: Airy's powers involve Wind Manipulation, such as gathering air around her to create any forms of wind such as wind shield, tornadoes, or any gusts of winds. The strengths of her wind powers depend on the amount of wind she gathers and it can be time consuming, but the more air she gathers, the more powerful her powers will be.

Because of her small size, she is easily agile and fast, and she can use the wind to give her physique a boost as well such as flying faster. She has the ability of flight thanks to her wings, but she can also grant temporary flight to others if she uses her wind powers.

Weaknesses: Though Airy is fast, she lacks defense and physical offensive power. If anything heavy manages to hit her, she's down for the count, and she can't really harm anyone when it comes to fighting physically.

Appearance: Airy is the small size as a bug or a bee, and she wears green clothing such as puffy green stockings and pants, short green sleeved jacket, and she sports green eyes while her hair is tied in two green twin pigtails. She also has green butterfly-like wings on her back which is fitting, because Sylph is derived from the Greek word, silphe, which means butterfly.

Species: Sylphians

Sylphians are high-spirited, laidback fairy-like aliens that are masters of the wind, conquering the skies as their domain. They compete in lots of air-based games with each other and don't get involved in important things like politics. They live in the planet, Ventusius, a planet with mostly air and clouds all around acting as a sort of barrier around their planet.


Whew! How was it? A small start, but it'll soon gradually get there! Read and review!