I really hope you guys like this one, took me two days to write it (three?) Anyway, it was a lot longer than I thought it would be, so this chapter focuses on Pennsylvania's beginning. I'll try to get the next chapter to focus on her powers, though, so read and review please!
Chapter Two
Valor-Part III
Brooke sat down in the chair, shivering and feeling sick inside. Now I know they're telling the truth.
Squeaks sounded above her, and she looked up to see shadowed lumps hanging upside down from the ceiling. The lumps twisted and turned, chattering to each another, and all of sudden, one flew off, stretching its black fibery wings.
Bats.
The cave they were in was enormous, full of small caverns and little pathways, all leading up to one main cave. A waterfall could be seen, frothily pale from the glow of florescent lights. She could hear the loud splashes of water on rock.
Mr. Wayne is Batman. No more doubts.
Mr. Wayne sat next to her, looking oddly at ease in the dark surroundings. Alfred had left, along with Dick, who "needed his rest for school the next morning."
Endeavour flapped his wings, landing in front of her on the dank floor. He cleared his throat, his voice serious and firm, "Well, where do I begin? Dear Lord, it seems so long ago… yes. How she received her gifts. To begin a story, you have to begin at the beginning."
Raising his wings slightly, his eyes glowing gold in the dark, he began to speak.
"Maybe you remember your grandfather on your mother's side. He passed away nearly eight years ago. You were only a chick, two human years old. This is young, by your standards. He worked in a business that was very dangerous, called, um, called… what was it again, Bruce?"
"Genetics," Mr. Wayne said gruffly. "He was a geneticist."
"Yes, that's it. Genetics. You see, he wanted to work in this dangerous field ethically-"
"What does 'ethically' mean?" Brooke interrupted.
Mr. Wayne looked down at her, a smile on his face. "It means 'right.' He wanted to work in genetics without doing the wrong thing."
"Oh." I wish I could've met him.
"Can I continue? This story isn't short you know." Endeavour stared at them, looking a little ticked off.
"He wanted to discover new things without tampering with nature. He worked with other humans who shared the same ideas. But, after a while, your grandfather discovered that they had used his research to experiment unethically. While it was still legal, your grandfather didn't want to work this way, and quit.
Now, one of the leaders of this group with was a deranged human geneticist; Dr. Karo. While he was foolish and his ideas were wrong, he was very clever, and very good at his work. He changed himself, altered himself. He tampered with his insides, and became Cairo, a human with the abilities of a snake. His experiments left him hideous and powerful.
He dreamed that one day; he could take humanity to the skies. He wanted to do to others what he had done to himself, to give them the abilities of animals, but without changing their appearance. He experimented mainly with birds, stealing their genetics and creating a mutagen-"
"What's a mutagen?" Brooke interrupted again.
"Will you let me finish? I will answer all your questions at the end!" Endeavour flapped his wings angrily.
"-creating a mutagen of the combined traits of many of their species. Cairo was known for holding grudges, and when he heard of your grandfather's refusal to work any longer, he knew exactly who he was going to test it on…"
"What!" Dr. Karo shouted, his voice trembling with fury, his face partly shadowed. "That-that idiot! Riyadh thinks he can just waltz onto one of my tests; see it doesn't fit under his "standards", and then quit?" He smashed his fist down on his desk, his forked tongue slithering out of his mouth in an involuntary hiss. Moments of awkward silence passed.
He sighed, shaking his head. "Did he find Project Flight?"
"No, sir. He only saw our regeneration experiment with the lizards." The younger scientist stood at the door, feeling awkward and nervous.
"Good. At least that was one of our legal projects." Dr. Karo stood up, pinching his nose. His right eye was yellow and cat-like; and human-colored scales grew on the right side of his neck. His tongue slid out again, thin, forked, and unnatural.
The left side of his face was perfectly normal.
Dr. Karo stared off to the side, his eyes lost in thought. "Does Riyadh have any children?" he asked absentmindedly.
The scientist shifted his weight from foot to foot, uncomfortable with where the conversation was going. "Yes, sir. A boy and a girl. Both in high school."
"How old are they?"
The scientist furrowed his brow in concentration. "I'm not sure; I think his daughter is eighteen, a senior, while his son is sixteen, maybe fifteen."
"Bring the girl to Project Flight tomorrow at 10 o' clock. I think we've finally found our test subject." Dr. Karo smiled, his tongue flicking in and out of his mouth.
The scientist paled. "Yes sir."
"So, Dr. Karo went ahead and tested out the formula on your mother. It worked. She became the first human-avian. But one of his trusted scientists felt that what he had done was wrong, so, later, after they had left the lab to record data and information, he returned on his own and released her…"
"What did you do to me!" the girl slammed the young scientist against the wall, her arm pinned on his neck. "Why-why can I see in the dark? What did you do to me?"
"I-I'm sorry…" he gasped, unable to breathe while the girl choked him. "I wa- I wan…"he inhaled as best he could, clutching at her arm.
"You what?" she snarled, easing her grip on his throat.
He breathed in deeply, "I want to help you," he said weakly.
The girl narrowed her eyes.
The young scientist stared intently into her dark brown irises, now flecked with gold shimmers. "Why would I let you go and leave myself defenseless if I wasn't telling the truth?"
The girl hesitated, and then she stepped back, taking her arm completely off his throat.
"What did you do to me?" she demanded, her fists clenched.
The young scientist sighed, closing his eyes. "They, we, mutated you. Your DNA. Now, now you have the traits of common birds, while still maintaining the appearance of a normal human." He opened his eyes and looked back at her.
The girl shuddered, closing her own eyes. "You're a sicko." She glared at him. "You are disgusting, you know that? Running around kidnapping people and then performing illegal genetic tests on them-"
"Look, I know what I did, okay? Now I'm trying to help you. So, please, save the lecture for later and follow me." The young scientist turned around and walked out of Project Flight's test lab.
The girl paused, then she followed him.
"Here," he said, handing her a black gun-like tube. "Put this on your arm."
"Umm, what is it, and how do I do that?" The girl questioned.
"It's something I created a while back. Never really took off though, but I think in your case, it might work. See," he pointed to a thin gap in the object. "You slide your arm through that gap, and then you close the - well, I call it a wing – wing so that it clings to your arm."
The girl followed his instructions and put the wing on her arm. It went up to her elbow and down to her palm, ending at the base of her fingers. "Now what?" she said, looking unimpressed. "I'm starting to see why your "wing" never took off."
"Press the button in the center of your palm."
She did so, and the button glowed bright blue. She gasped out loud. "What the-?" A tingling sensation ran up and down her arm where the wing was attached, followed by a light pinching.
"It's attaching itself to your nervous system. Now, whatever you want it to do-"
Three shards of silver metal slid out slowly of one of the many thin vertical gaps in the wing, forming a "W" on her arm. She stared at the "W" with her mouth open.
"It does it. It's like a part of your body now. I think, maybe, it might just work for you. Ask it to take the shape of a wing, like a bird's wing. Just picture it in your mind-"
"I got it, bird boy, thanks." She said curtly, and more shards of sliver metal slid out, forming what looked like metal feathers, into one large silver half-wing.
"Here, put this on too." He handed her another "wing", and pointed to her bicep. She clasped on the wing; it reached down to her elbow and up to her shoulder. She pressed a button near her shoulder, and it glowed bright blue. The tingling happened again, and she formed the other half of the wing.
"And now put the other two wings on your other arm-"
"How is this going to help me get out of here?" the girl said, crossing her arms. "I'm not doing any more science crap until I know what I'm doing to myself."
The scientist stared quietly at the wing before placing a finger on the silvery metal. "This right here is titanium; the metal with the highest strength-to-weight ratio in world. The wing never worked in the labs; humans' bones were too solid. But you-" he paused, looking into her angry brown-gold eyes. "You just had your leg bones mutated. Now you have hollow-bubble-like patches in them, like a bird's bones. I think that, with all four wings on, you can fly."
"Fly? Are you serious?" She threw her hands up into the air. "It's official! I'm surrounded by crazies!"
A loud alarm went off.
"So, using the wings, your mother and the scientist escaped from the building. But that very morning…"
"What have you done to my daughter?" Samuel Riyadh hugged the girl, Pennsylvania, close to his chest as he glared at the young scientist. It was 4:52 A.M.
"I-I-" the scientist looked for some way to explain himself.
"It's okay, Baba. He helped me escape." Penny intervened. "God knows what else they would have done to me if he hadn't had a change of heart." She smirked at the scientist.
"I-I can't believe my old labs would do such a thing." Dr. Riyadh stared off to the side, his voice thick with disbelief, still clutching Penny to his heart. His brow hardened. "Those dirty sons of b-"
"Baba!" Penny interrupted, before her father could say something he'd regret later. "I'm fine, see?" She stepped away from him, raised her arms and twirled in circle. "See?" she repeated.
"I'm calling the police," he said, his voice dark, picking up the house phone on the table next to him. "They won't be testing formulas for a long time- You!" he suddenly shouted, pointing to the scientist, who had jumped slightly. "What's your name?"
"R-Ralph Milo, sir." He stammered.
"Thank you for helping my girl, Ralph," he said, his voice thick with gratitude. Ralph relaxed, and managed a small smile. "You're welcome, sir."
"But that doesn't excuse the fact that you participated in a very serious crime,"
Ralph paled slightly, and stared down at the floor. "I know sir."
Dr. Riyadh's face was gentle but firm. "I'd be willing to drop charges, but you'd still have quite a bit of legal trouble." He dialed 911 on the phone and placed it on his ear. "You could testify, however, against the labs and get immunity."
"I will do, that, sir…"
"...there had been an explosion at the laboratories. Dr. Karo, his trustees, all who knew of Project Flight, except Ralph Milo and your mother, were dead. Milo was arrested, despite his attempt at immunity, and your mother now had amazing abilities and the four wings Milo had given her.
But her genetics were unstable. Early on, our healers created a medicine for her to take that would protect her from genetic breakdown." Endeavour sighed, the story almost done. "The medicine could not protect her forever. Last night she died from the instability of her genes. For a long time we were all afraid the same would happen to you, and you would have to take the medicine as well, but you showed no signs of the instability, probably because you have a greater amount of human in you from your father." Endeavour sighed again, ending the long tale. "She planned on telling you when you were eleven. She did not want you to join her in her fight for justice too early. She asked the leader of Avia to keep it a secret from you also. No birds were allowed to speak legibly near you, pigeons and sparrows followed you from school and home and warned your mother of where you were at all times. Falcons watched over you to make sure no enemies or rebels told you of the secret. She only wanted to protect you."
Endeavour stared at Brooke, who eyes were blank.
She shuddered, feeling terribly sick. She didn't know why, but the story hit her deep in the pit of her heart. She was crying silently, just feeling overwhelmed by everything.
She pulled up her knees and sobbed into them.
Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh-
Mr. Wayne wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into his chest. She looked up and saw that his eyes were wet. He didn't cry; but they were wet. He cares.
She buried her head back into his hold and cried louder, letting everything out.
Mom! Mom, I need you! Why did you go? I still need you!
She felt herself being carried, and realized that Mr. Wayne had picked her up.
"Where are you taking her?" Endeavour protested, flapping his wings and flying in front of Mr. Wayne. "She can't leave now; there are still things she doesn't know."
"You can tell her tomorrow. It's three thirty in the morning. She needs her rest." Mr. Wayne gave him a glare that dared him to say otherwise.
Endeavour narrowed his eyes. "Very well. Tomorrow."
He alighted on the back of the chair she'd been sitting on. Mr. Wayne carried her into the metallic elevator and they went back up to the Manor.
He gently stroked her hair, but he said nothing.
He carried her in silence throughout the darkness of the Manor, until they reached a small guest room. The shades were closed, but a tiny drop of moonlight shone through. Brooke could make out a bed and a dresser, a wardrobe and a lamp.
Mr. Wayne lifted the sheets and set her carefully on the bed, then pulled up the covers and left.
Leaving Brooke alone with her thoughts in the dark.
Please review! And many thanks go out to Ash Veran, the first reviewer, Ranger Sage, for inspiring me, JediApprenticeLastQuest and LittleMissMia123, my fellow OC writers for reading and loving my OC, XXXMariellaXXX for making me feel like I've truly captured Brooke's grief, and last, but not least, to calliope821, who has recently been hooked by Valiant. Thanks so much for reviewing guys!