Enjoy this chapter and all its glory. I really like writing Richard, especially as he evolves, but Kori in this section was the most fun to write and I just got finished doing so. Therefore, not much to say about Richard. Still, he is evolving.
Chapter 10- Richard
To my father, I say I am sorry. I was wrong. I thought that going to work with you would be terribly boring, it absolutely was not. I also say goodbye. Because in the midst of all this chaos and all this weird, the only thing to do is run. I'll come when I have answers, but it will be much past curfew. I'm sorry. Think of this as a heightened version of my punching bag assault from the other day. Blowing off steam.
I didn't see the explosion like Victor did or experience it the way Gar and Kori and…. Uh… Rachel did. But I heard it. Then I ran into my father, who told me there had been an explosion in the experimentation room we had been boredly watching and that I needed to stay out of the way and be careful. A speech I'd heard before, the staying out of the way and being careful part anyway. I saw the look in my father's eyes. He was about to go from being Bruce Wayne to being Batman in a matter of seconds. It was in my best interest to stay out of the way, however, according to my dad, the room where people I admittedly cared about were had just exploded. I needed in a desperate way to see if there were survivors so that I could succumb to guilt the proper way. So I began creeping down side passages searching for the most efficient and unnoticeable way down, a bit lost in the sprawling building.
Then I noticed another soul fleeing destruction and bleeding heavily. Victor Stone. I would have just hidden away, but he knew this building better than I did and was probably concerned regarding survivors just as much so I pulled him into the side hall and told him my end goal. My father wouldn't let me out of the house without minimal first aid skills under my belt and so tending to that optic wound would be our next priority.
I did not expect, then, to actually run into the survivors while we searched for them. After that type of explosion, purportedly freaking massive (Victor's words), they shouldn't have been walking around. Much less flying, glowing, and expressing superpowers. I couldn't even look at or address Gar because my mind just couldn't wrap around his new green skin tone. Rachel and Victor have an exchange but I am staring at Kori Starr. She was in my math class for a few days, but that was enough. I've lain awake thinking about her enough to know I have a problem. No matter that now, from the frenzied scraps of information I've gotten I know this place isn't safe. So we flee.
Only after Victor's eye, or lack of, is treated can we settle in to sort out the anarchy. I finally have to look at Gar and his green skin and hair.
"Why are you green? What happened to you three in the explosion?"
"Radiation." Rachel answers. She appears much less demonic and much less noticeable than she did when she was controlling pure darkness a little bit ago. Before seeing her surrounded by shadows that bent to her will, I hadn't seen her at all before today, for Victor and I's playdate.
"That makes sense, but why would it affect each of you differently?" I ask. No response. No one knows yet. It's evident that Rachel can control shadow demons and Kori can fly and her eyes glow. Possibly other things also. Gar remains closed off, not speaking. Thinking. I have other questions I want to ask about the experience of the explosion, and our primarily unspoken decision to run away together, and whether or not Kori and Gar are dating. But it's so late. We're all exhausted and interrogation would just be agitating. We're bunkered down just outside the city and people are bound to come looking for us. Dad is going to freak out. I'm freaking out. I suggest sleep, not meeting anyone's eyes. I'm the least qualified here to be making suggestions and asking questions. I'm the one with the least stake and sacrifice in this whole ordeal. I'm the one who had absolutely no reason to run. That, I think, is the reason I fell blindly into leadership. Because everyone is too invested and exhausted by this to lead. So suddenly, all of their problems become mine. There is a weight on my shoulders as I lie down to sleep.
I have very weird dreams that night. I usually don't dream. But now my night is filled with odd pictures. People, places, powers. In my sleep, I realize that I'm terrified of Rachel Roth. And in my sleep, I'm convinced there is more to Gar than a new look. And in my sleep, I dream an uncomfortable amount about Kori. That part makes sense. When I wake up to sunlight, there's a weight on my chest. It's a cat. A green cat. I startle and the cat springs off of me, hissing and losing its mind, scratching into my shirt, and becoming my former best friend before my very eyes. He hugs himself and groans,
"Oh, that was so trippy… Did you see that too? Was that real?" This is the most Gar has voluntarily said to me in a long time. I don't know why I drove a wedge between us and taunted him for being on the wrong side. I should have been quiet or made nice. I don't know why I couldn't do that.
"Yeah. I saw. Try it again." He looks at me like I'm the one with green skin and big ears (the big ears aren't new though).
"I'm serious. Even if you never want to shapeshift again you need to have control over it or you could get hurt." It's one of those things I regret saying, but then, everything I've said to Gar- except for, "My condolences."- in the past five years has been something I've regretted. Because either it is unnecessarily or dishonestly hateful or cryptically and contradictorily caring. At this point, he probably thinks that I'm incredibly birdbrained and moronic. But he takes my advice and ignores my concern, thankfully. I watch him close his eyes, for a second, doing nothing. Barely breathing. And then, a little green spider takes his place. I wonder if it's because I hate spiders, but then, he probably doesn't remember anything like that. Then, he's back to being Gar.
"It was smart to start small and work your way up. Try a mouse." He tries a mouse, again it works after some concentration, but I can tell you that little green mouse and I are thinking the same exact thought. Dinosaurs. When we were little kids half of the games we played were some variation of playing dinos. But it would be way too risky in our barely hidden current location to attempt to shift into anything bigger than a medium sized dog. Still. A tyrannosaurus rex would be even cooler than Rachel's army of shadows. Way cooler… Gar changes back from a mouse and laughs, voicing the idea, grinning. Without thinking, I laugh too, a weight lifted from my chest and shoulders as a smile finds its way to my face.