Ch 2
Art class; something she used to enjoy. Now it was just a waste of her valuable time. The teacher was just too perky to deal with, besides she could spend the forty-five minutes doing her homework or at the library. Besides the teacher was also too attentive, case in point that day, the one day the redhead had prayed to be ignored;
"Gwen?"
She calmed herself to sound polite when she answered, "Yes Ms. David?"
"Can you come with me for a minute?" it was a genuine request. The rather willowy, dark haired and skinned woman had an indecipherable expression on her face that immediately made Gwen put her guard up and put her hand into her pocket to have a finger on the 'call for help' button on her badge in case her paranoid instincts were actually right this time as she said amicably, "Sure." She followed the instructor into the back room, slightly startled when the door clanked shut, Ms. David turned on the light and asked very gently, "Gwen what's wrong?"
Gwen cursed the teacher's attention to detail, removed her hand from her badge and blandly said, "Nothing's wrong Ms. David…"
"Bull." the other woman narrowed her eyes accusingly, "You used to be so vibrant, so full of life…"
"I still am!" Gwen said in a convincing manner but Ms. David wasn't fooled.
"Again I call bull," with a quick movement she uncovered the ten canvases, all various sizes, that sat again the walls and the redhead gasped, "You…kept my art?"
"Yes, you were so full of potential," Ms. David spoke sadly, "but look, it's becoming darker…"
And indeed it was. The work from the beginning of the year was bright, optimistic and saw the proverbial glass as half full but three to four pieces in she had begun using blues, purples and blacks. It was only slightly at first, shadows at the edges, as if only threatening to overtake the work until in the newest three. They were blacker than anything else she ever produced before. The subjects had changed as well; before she had done relaxing, calming or heartwarming scenes that she had seen around town and beyond. Now it was empty graveyards, unmarked and unloved tombs, skeletal Grim Reapers beckoning the viewer with a moldy and skeletal hand, broken down and abandoned vehicles (at least that made sense somewhat), or perhaps the worst, a library scene with the shelves totally bare and dusty with a skeleton librarian overlooking this mockery of an intuition of knowledge, and of her greatest desire.
She flinched visibly and turned her face away from the last one, "Please cover the last one," she requested wincing and biting her lower lip as her eyes clenched shut.
"No, you need to deal with it."
Gwen nearly laughed; deal with it? She dealt with it everyday, she battled the fear that she'd fail in her duty every minute of every hour of every day of every week since this nightmare of a situation began and it just became ten times worse and this pathetic human woman with no idea of anything bigger than the earth and no inkling of her double life was asking her to deal with it? What did she do to be involved in the rather cruel joke that the universe was playing on them?
"Cover it. Now." She ordered in the voice she used to intimidate alien scum, shocking both herself and her teacher. Ms. David smartly did as she was bid and Gwen visibly calmed, her shoulders laxing just the tiniest bit, "Thank you…"
"What's going on?"
"Nothing." dear Anodine she was starting to sound like him. But what could she say other than that? 'Well you see the guy I really like had this accident about two months back making him into a Metamorpho clone, you see he has alien powers (so do I actually) and they went wonky, and apparently he thinks I want him to stay this way despite the obvious emotional and mental toll it's taking on him because no other girl would approach him when in fact I've been awake since it happened, researching, trying to find a way to reverse it.' Yeah, that'd go over well. They'd cart her off to the asylum faster than one could say 'crazy'.
"Maybe I can help."
Again she almost laughed, and then she almost cried. But again she lied, "Nothing is wrong Ms. David."
"Is something going on at home?" Ms. David tried a new tactic; she was just as determined to find out what was wrong as her pupil was to keep it hidden.
"No Ms. David," that was the truth at least.
"Is he abusing you?"
"Who?"
"Your boyfriend. Is he abusing you?"
"He's not my boyfriend," she corrected robotically, her head drooping just a bit as she again bit her lip. How could he be when he didn't even trust her? She shook her head; she wouldn't deal with that until her task was done, she wouldn't be focused enough to do her job if she did and no matter what fate had in store for them as a packaged deal, she would help him.
"But is he hurting you?"
"No." At least not physically, but the emotional and mental trauma…No, she wouldn't let herself be sidetracked by her own pain. As soon as she was done she would lock herself in her room, blare bad country music from her stereo in order to keep the other three away, curl up under her covers, sob herself to sleep, and sleep for a good long while. This she promised herself.
"Gwen…"
"Honestly Ms. David, Kevin's a good man underneath that rough exterior," And this she knew to be fact, no matter what he or the others thought, "He'd never rough up a girl."
This also was true. They had gotten into plenty of arguments to prove that; heck even when he got into arguments with Julie he restrained himself. And their arguments weren't the semi-for-fun kind, but actual arguments.
"Are you off needed medications?"
"Nope."
"Tell me please, I can help you."
"Fine…I didn't want to tell you but…I have insomnia that can't be controlled by medication and it's been egged on by a personal duty I have…" she kept a mental record of the lies she told.
"A duty?" Ms. David echoed worriedly, "What type of duty?"
"Nothing dangerous or degrading," she rushed to assure, "but my cousin really screwed up in something and now I have to fix it or I'll never forgive myself and I haven't slept right for weeks because I'm trying to find a way to fix what he did and when my insomnia gets this bad I tend to go a bit emo about things but as soon as I find a way to fix what went wrong and fix what went wrong I'll be able to sleep and I should be back to normal." She was rambling.
"Why can't he fix things?"
"He doesn't care that it's hurting the person it happened to," how often had she asked for his help and he wiggled out somehow? Ben was only useful in battle, and never ever cleaned up the messes he made. He only cared for the fun, exciting part of being a hero. Hero of heroes her ass. He was just a spoiled brat.
"Why then are you cleaning up after him?"
Her eyes sparked dangerously; what was she supposed to do? Leave him to suffer, congratulate Ben for beating Vilgax and go on like everything is perfectly fine and dandy?
Her aura sparked; her powers were connected to her emotions which, because of her no sleep policy, were frayed beyond repair right now. And the one emotion she could show right now, feel right now, was anger. Her temper was always short nowadays and it took very little to rile it up. Bad things happened when she got mad…
She closed her eyes and centered herself, replying tiredly, "I just have to, okay? Please don't ask anything more about it."
She calmly turned and went back into the classroom, put away her supplies, threw away the sketch she had been drawing, grabbed her bag and still just a calmly left the room, knowing that Ms. David wouldn't call campus security. Besides the end of the day bell was about to ring and perhaps she could sneak past her mother, into her room and the library.
Unfortunately her mother was waiting on the front porch. She tried to brush past the older woman but she was stopped, "Nuh-uh, Gwendolyn you know our deal…"
"But Mom! I have a really good feeling about—"
"The books will still be there when you get back; oh quit with the scary pink eyes of doom, we've been letting you destroy yourself—"
"But I—"
"Over something that is not your fault—"
"I know but—"
"It's not anybody's fault but his own."
Gwen blinked, taking in what her mother just said and then just stood there gaping foolishly in disbelief for quite a few minutes. Then her aura again kicked up, drawing manna from the lawn, the grass around her dying and browning; she closed her eyes and took quite a few deep breathes; this was so not her day. Eyes still closed she asked for clarification, "Can you please repeat yourself Mom? I'm sure I misheard you."
"It's not anybody's fault but his own."
Gwen sneered, of course she heard right.
"Mom," she spoke quite calmly, "I don't think you understand what happened that night so let me retell you, kay? Yes we shouldn't've tried hacking the Watch like we did, we'll all admit that, yes me and him should've left Ben when he told us to run for it but he was trying to make sure that you still had a nephew, that Earth still had a fighting chance against Vilgax when what happened happened. He was trying to do good and we can trace the whole damn thing back to Ben ignoring the Master Creator of the Watch and trying to manually hack the stupid thing. So don't you dare stand there and blame HIM, and if you still do please keep your mouth shut and do it behind my back."
"Gwendolyn Tennyson you better drop that tone of voice with me or I will—"
The younger woman laughed shrilly, mockingly, "You'll do what Mom? Ground me? Please." She summoned a sphere of manna the size of a tennis ball, and began juggling it effortlessly, "In case you've forgotten, I have superpowers; you have nothing, nowhere, that I can't escape from." The tennis ball grew to a basketball and she continued to play with it, balancing it on the tip of her finger as she said, "And you won't dare call Grandma Verdona for help because you hate her; Ben can't take me on and Grandpa Max won't…"
"I know someone who can…"
"Oh, so you going to call him in to take me down?" she clucked, "I wouldn't do that if I were you, Mother. You see me and him sorta had a falling out yesterday and I just may react violently to his intervention." She narrowed her eyes, "Besides it's an empty threat; you wouldn't call him to help you even if your life depended on it. You think he's a bad influence on me…"
"Well if he is making you like this…"
"Mother, Mother," she shook her head sadly, "I've always had this power within me and I am now under so much stress that I am breaking the rules to get the job done. Sometimes good is not nice. Sometimes it's gritty and dark but you know what? It gets things done a hell of a lot faster than being nice and polite and following the rules and regulations. But if you really want to blame someone; blame Ben, blame Vilgax, hell blame the universe. Maybe even blame yourself; but I don't care anymore."
"That's it I'm calling him—" Jen pulled out her phone and hit the speed dial.
Gwen shrugged, "Go ahead; I can take him on easily, that was proved yesterday."
"But you won't hurt him." Jen spoke smoothly but her daughter smirked, "Wrong again Mother. I won't hurt him permanently true, but I know all his weaknesses thus I can simply disable him long enough to teleport away and they can't track me as long as I don't use my powers once I get wherever I'm going. But where I'm going they can't follow anyway so no matter."
"When your father gets ho—Hello Kevin, I'm having a problem calming Gwendolyn down and I know you are the only one that can safely take her on—Thank you, bye." She hung up, a smirk now on her face, "He'll be here in five minutes."
"Oh Mom, I so wish you hadn't done that," Gwen sighed before summoning two manna made seventeen foot long alligators (for that true New York feel of things; she'd have preferred to use crocodiles but oh well), ripping her bag from her mother's hold and eyed her pets as they waited, musing, "You two do look like a Bud and a Lou…"
Then the tell tale green GTO pulled up to the curb and out stepped Kevin Levin. He was wearing his ID mask. He did not look happy.
"Hey Kevin," she called cheerfully, "I want you to meet my new friends; Bud, Lou, go introduce yourselves."
The pink, almost see through, alligators snapped their jaws menacingly and took off after their target much faster than their real-life counterparts ever could. The man, big and tough as he was, screamed like a little girl and jumped onto the roof of the car, before yelling angrily, "Call 'em off Gwen!"
She grinned and opened her portal, calling as she stepped through the gateway, "Have fun boys!"
