Author's Note: I wrote this for a themed writing competition. What really got me to write this was the color scheme of her eventual costume, which I ended up using in my continual series (accessible in my profile) through the hero "Fright Storm". I never continued with White Light, but I hope you enjoy - I especially liked writing this piece. Set in a basic Marvel universe.
White Light
One late night in the city of Chicago, a young girl, age 5, has discovered a gift she would have always treasured. She is Rebecca Lang. In the quiet of night, she began to rise from her bed, four feet above her covers. First there is a shriek of terror, then a giggle of pleasure. Becky has inherited early in her life a rare gene that has allowed her to fly. Here she had little control. She had her back against the ceiling of her bedroom and when all attempts to navigate are futile. Still, little Becky enjoys every moment of her first flight and little shrieks are heard across the hall and into her father's room.
With Becky's mother dying shortly after her birth, the father, Martin Lang, takes great responsibility for his child, and is in shock to see his beloved child floating with no control. All pleas for the girl to keep playing high above are ignored as immediately she is dragged to a "specialist". Mr. Lang takes Becky to the distrusted hospital, rumored through the ears of half the country to have a cure. The doctor reassured him she may feel pain, but it will save her a lifetime of torment and discrimination.
The child was strapped onto a metal board, a look of fear on her face, almost into tears. Rebecca had wires tapped into her, needles preparing to burrow into her skin. Mr. Lang looked away, unable to watch his only daughter suffer. A piercing scream rang through the lab as the needles entered her skin a monstrous pain shooting through her body causing her to only wish for it to end. The lights in the laboratory flickered from lost power, and moments later the procedure was complete. Young Rebecca could no longer feel the freedom of flight. The unlawful treatment left her with nothing but emptiness replacing the ounce of joyous feeling she had known of flight.
"Did it work doctor? Is my little angel cured?"
"Yes. The gene that mutated her cannot be completely removed, but the chemicals I placed within her should suppress any ability beyond the natural kin of man."
"Thank you Dr. Stanwell, she will thank me for this later in life."
Years have gone by with not a single trace of her power. At age 17, Rebecca was enjoying senior year with all her friends. Humans with superpowers have overrun the world, creating a half and half population between mutant and normality. At this very moment, a man who appears to have skin shaded purple is tormenting the town with his immense strength.
"HaHA! No-Body! Can mess wit this!"
Everybody ran in fear of the student, who was soon identified as Nick Burnstein. Though she too hid in fear, and didn't notice this about her, with the excitement she began to float an estimate of 4 centimeters off the ground. A small adjustment from normal, but still distinct. Everybody was out of sight and harms way, including Becky. She too had fled the scene, noticing her small ability, which appeared useless at the time.
Rebecca headed home, and to her relief, her father, a guard at the local prison, was at work. As she began to ascend up the stairway, the young lady was levitating, but to no avail as it seems her navigation is shot. Unable to move in her flight and in complete fear of how this is possible for her, Rebecca still knew this didn't make any sense. These people got their gifts primarily through puberty, a long time ago for Becky. It made no sense for her to be beginning this now!
Somehow managing to be planted safely on the ground, Rebecca raced up the stairs and changed into a half-length white top and a white skirt. She also dressed in knee-high black leather boots, black fingerless gloves, and black goggles. Becky knew of the specialist, unaware he is the same that mistreated her for what must have been twelve years ago, and she was determined to find an answer, through which time Becky was set to understand and control her abilities, admittingly before any "post-traumatic stress" sets in, and an outfit she had never warn would allow her to do so without being identified by the discriminating public, the goggles merely keeping the wind and her hair from her eyes.
When Rebecca jumped out of her second-story window, at first scared beyond belief, she found herself levitating yet again, but with the same reoccurring problem: no navigation. Becky found herself embarrassingly clinging from tree to tree in multiple backyards, unable to move by her new-found power alone. As she approached a loosely constructed clothesline, Rebecca used it as a slingshot, which by pure chance of direction, was aiming her toward the doctor's rumored hideout. When the clothesline sprang back, she was released at a surprising speed to which Becky was only visible as a white light. At this speed Rebecca was amazed at how easily she could navigate, and yet how she couldn't from the start.
She approached a broken building which was overwhelmed with the aroma of must and decay with the appearance expected in a horror film. Rebecca paused at the sound of what she guessed was a mouse scurrying. Upon her landing, Becky noticed many devices she couldn't recognize, but others she didn't know yet seemed vaguely familiar. A man lay in the corner, roughed up and squirming in a lab coat.
"P-p-please. Don't hurt me!"
"Dr. Stanwell, I presume? I'm looking for help? You see, I heard through the grapevine you specialize in the whole "powers" thing, so maybe – "
"Please leave!"
"What's your problem?"
"You've regained power! Don't you want revenge for what I've done? After all, I'm the one who – "
"What did you do?"
"T-t-twelve years ago you…" He stopped there, but through his silence and guilt combined with his rumored practices, Rebecca was able to conclude the whole story. She was "gifted". He made it not so. Now her powers were reemerging, at a somewhat stifled rate.
"How do you know it was me?"
"You were a special case. Mutated at the age of 5, it's very rare."
"What did you do?"
"Suppressed the gene that made you this way. I'm SORRY!"
"Look, I'm not going to hurt you, why did…" before she could finish, she knew the answer. Her super-fearing father did this to her. No matter how much she wanted to argue this, it remained fact. "Do you really feel sorry? Do you really want to redeem yourself?" she asked, tears welling up from inside of her. He nodded.
"Then…fix what you've done. Help me fly. Whatever you've done…..I can't move, I just….float.
The doctor grieved over the joy he's deprived her, and what must have been so many others. He spent the next several hours working on stabilizers, nearly invisible on Rebecca's boots. When she tested them, Becky could feel the world lift off of her. She knew she was incredibly late to be home, but her father wouldn't notice because of his late shift at the prison. The splendor of lying, the weightlessness she is experiencing of the world all around her, and the deceit she has accomplished to satisfy her somewhat evil delights on top of this has given her what she has missed all of those years. When Rebecca returned, the doctor still quivering a little, from what Becky could only assume was a fear of all people with power, she was in complete bliss.
Rebecca, by chance, glanced at a television set on mute with a familiar blur. Amateur footage has caught a "white light" blur across the camera. Becky turns the sound on to learn that the people are skeptical of the purpose and intent of this "white light", and some have began to fear it! As Becky is stunned in complete disbelief of how only one flight has allowed people to fear her, her first assignment of flight is clear as a man shaded purple breaks down most of the entire wall of the compound, screaming for a certain man in a lab coat.
"Yo, DOC! Fun for a WHILE, but this STINKS! No one will get NEAR me, I CAN'T HAVE A NORMAL LIFE! YOU'RE gonna PAY!"