L bowed his head. He couldn't quite believe that Matt had died, especially considering how he was an innocent, one without a power, that he had permitted to be implicated with matters that did not truly concern him. He listened to the sound of silence, and breathed in deep. He was making an effort not to make eye contact with that bloody woman, Elisabeth. Listening to thoughts and…
'Oh, fuck my life, fuck my death, they can't fucking hear me!'
His head snapped up in shock at the sound. That voice, undeniably familiar, and it could only be the one that was nailed into a coffin. A coffin that was about to be wheeled back using a conveyor belt into flaming oblivion. He froze, listening again to the thoughts that could only belong to Matt, the same Matt who everybody in a crowded hall full of children thought was dead.
'Immortality – A-list power? Oh, shit, I'm so dead… AGAIN!'
L's mind forced him to think fast, or Matt was going to end up a living pile of ashes, like the burnt toast crumbs. He had never panicked quite so much – in fact, he doubted he'd even panicked before. He glanced around him, seeing that nobody else was even reacting. He suddenly realized precisely who he was sitting next to. Of course; why hadn't he seen it before? He was seated between Light and Misa. Misa, who controlled fire.
He nudged her with his elbow, hoping to catch her attention. He turned his head and brought his lips to her ear. "Misa, Matt's alive," he whispered.
"He's… wait, what?" she hissed.
"He's got a power. He survived the gunshots. He's immortal."
"What do you want me to do?" she snapped near-silently. "Jump up and announce in front of every single kid in the room that the dead kid's immortal?"
"No, I want you to blow the furnace out."
She blinked. "Oh."
With one hand, she covered her mouth, pretending to cry, and exhaled sharply, as if blowing out a candle. L relaxed slightly when the whirring and whooshing of flames behind a small set of curtains went silent. Students also noticed the change, lifting their heads and looking around at one another in confusion. Roger, who was sitting near the front, stood and went to the pedestal next to Matt's coffin.
"I'm sorry, children, there seems to be a technical difficulty with the cremation at this present moment in time. If you would stay here and occupy yourselves while we get this sorted out…" he muttered. He was seen getting down from the pedestal and making his way through the doors to the side of the pedestal.
A wave of chatter swept over the hall. Elisabeth frowned and got out of her seat at the back, going to where L was sitting.
"I know you had something to do with that," she said quietly. "What the hell is going on?"
"Oh, now you want to talk?" he murmured.
"Shut up!" Misa snapped, startling them both, plus Light. "We have to get Matt out of that coffin, right now!" She locked eyes with Elisabeth. "He's immortal. He's still alive!"
"Matt's immortal?" Mello's words were almost lost in the hubbub of puzzled and murmuring students. "Oh, shit, we were gonna cremate him! We've got to get him out of there… but how? The whole orphanage is here, for Christ's sake…"
"I have an idea," Elisabeth said. "Stay exactly where you are."
"What are you going to-?" Mello started, but was cut off by the lights all shutting down.
It was pitch black, as there were no windows, and the doors were closed. She grabbed his hands and dragged him to the front in the jet black, as the screaming and chaos erupted in the room. She put one of his hands on the wooden lid of Matt's coffin and he instinctively knew what was necessary. Swallowing back his anxiety and hoping that he would not hit Matt, he brought his fist into the air and slammed it down onto the lid.
The splinters of wood skittered across the tiled floor in the hall and some touched the foot of Contessa. Feeling the small impact, she reached down uncertainly and scooped the splinters into the palm of her hand. Were they… pieces of wood? She had heard the crash and assumed that Matt's coffin had fallen off the conveyor belt, but now she wasn't so sure. After a minute, the lights flickered back to normal. Except the scene before everyone wasn't normal at all.
Matt's coffin had been practically ripped open, and chunks of wood lay scattered about the floor. She couldn't believe it? Who would do such a thing? She rushed over to the coffin, hoping this was just a silly setback, when she saw that there was, in fact, no body laid out on the plush cushions. There was no way on earth that this could truly be happening, not really…
Of course. The lights were Elisabeth's fault, the cremation Misa's, yet their motivation was still unclear. Why would they steal Matt's body?
"Matt," she whispered. Her eyes scanned the hall for Mello. He was… sneaking out of the door at the back…? She weaved her way through the crowd and followed him out, running after him through the graveyard. She yelled out. "Mello!"
She was catching up with him when she tripped over and jagged rock. Gasping for breath, she reached for his ankle and dragged him down with her. He kicked out at her, too late, for she was already leaning over him, forcing his shoulders into the ground. If he didn't want to hurt her really, really badly, he would have to stay precisely where he was lying.
"What do you think you're doing?" she barked. "Tell me why you ran!"
"Because you were running after me!" he responded, receiving a knee to the groin.
"Even with super strength, that's gotta hurt," she growled. "Tell me the truth, damn it."
"Don't make me hurt you, Tess-"
"Tell me the truth, and you won't have to," she insisted. "Just tell me."
She saw his eyes lift in the direction of the Range Rover that the orphanage had brought along. She followed his eyeline and leapt to her feet, running in that direction. She spotted a silhouette moving from within the confines of the car, the doors locked. Students were pouring out of the hall, though she did not see them at first. Mello saw L talking to Emilia, Light, B, Rose and Near, all of whom had their eyes widen, at least slightly. Near wasn't as reactive as the others.
"Tessa!" Lara called. "Tessa, please stop."
Tessa froze, feeling eyes looking back at her through the tinted windows. She could barely see who it was. Then the window rolled down. Elisabeth looked back at her.
"Go back inside, Contessa," she said firmly.
"You're lying to me too?" she replied disbelievingly. "What's going on, Elisabeth?"
"Go back inside. Now."
"You're not my mom, Elisabeth, you can't tell me what to do."
"Don't make me act like your mother, Tessa. Go inside, or I'll tell Mello to make you. I'll speak to you about this later, once we've decided what we're going to do."
XXX
The waves crashed against the cliff face angrily, influenced by the pure, unadulterated rage that the young woman standing on the cliff was emanating. She threw her arms into the air again, practically shrieking with her fury. She was ready to kill, to maim and mutilate. If she couldn't be happy, then nobody else on this godforsaken rock called a planet was permitted to be.
The truth of her circumstances had struck her with the force of a meteorite, sending her smashing back to Earth. Now her eyes, ruined by that fucking lightning, reflected the storm that she was beginning to create. Dark gray, swirling clouds, sparking and igniting, took up her irises. Perhaps, if the storm before had not affected her so negatively, leaving her appearance altered, she would not have been so angry. She maybe would have even thought herself better off. But not now.
Weather manipulation. Scientists working through climate change by trying to cool the planet down, and it turns out that atmospheric excitation was not the route to go. In fact, it's completely the wrong direction, but like drowning, pitiful creatures, the human race clutched at straws. They tried to work the weather, to control nature, and ended up wreaking havoc on themselves.
What had resulted were manmade lightning strikes, unlike any ever seen before in history. They hit four places all over the world, and then when the scientists tried to right their mistakes, believing that the machine had malfunctioned, they tried again, this time centering the strike only on Kanto, Japan. These strikes had been put together to change the world, and they certainly had.
Every single person struck by the lightning, out in the open, had been altered, their abilities heightened, morphed. She had been changed. Not only had the world created this new breed of human, they had despised them, ostracized them to the point that they were the subject of a sick kind of witch-hunt. Her own father… Ritsuko Takada had been one of the scientists involved.
Kiyomi Takada had returned to her family home, ridding herself of the scum she had previously considered family. With that, she had rifled through every file in her father's study, all of the scientific experiments he had kept such a careful track of. It was her father's, and the human race's, fault for what she had become. Anything she did now, she did because of them. If she caused harm, the human race had brought it upon themselves.
She had seen the others who had stood up for their civil rights, the ones who had gone to London to rescue one of their own, another child of the storm. Having seen the CCTV, she knew a teenage boy had been killed in their name. An innocent boy. She had rewound the tapes of CCTV from nearby streets and found the group on the bridge. She recalled now what they had named themselves.
"The Zapped," she murmured, a plan formulating in her mind. "So be it."
With that, she threw herself from the cliff's edge into the icy depths below.
XXX
"You think I'm going to back down that easily?" Tess snapped. "Elisabeth, what is it that you're not telling me?"
Unsuspecting teachers and students gawped in amazement. They couldn't quite comprehend the drama that was unfolding in front of them. Nothing this exciting ever happened in Winchester. This was just like a show you'd get on television! Finally, Elisabeth got out of the car and took Tessa by the shoulders. Tessa brushed her off contemptuously, eyes full of disgust.
"Leave me alone."
This time, Emilia stepped forward. "Tessa, right? Tessa, you need to listen to her."
"Screw that!" she said sharply. "You guys aren't telling me the truth!"
"Please, Tessa," Lara pleaded.
"Lara, too…" she sighed.
"Just let everything alone, and we can discuss it later," Near said in his signature monotone.
"Why don't we discuss it now?" Iago piped up. "Since that girl doesn't know what's going on, and neither do any of us… well, I thought we tried not to keep too many secrets here at Wammy's. That's gone down the pan, hasn't it?"
"Go to hell, Iago," Mello snarled.
"Mello," Roger warned.
"No, let him speak," Iago smirked. He charged right up to the blonde and ripped away the gauze that covered half his face. The sound of Mello's pain was nearly silent, and immediately his hand flew to hide what the gauze had masked. "This is part of the truth, isn't it, Mels? Show everyone the marks."
"You want to know the truth, you little shit?" Emilia said to Iago. "The truth is we saved Rose's life, so you can go fuck yourself-"
"Emilia," Light said, though he was pretty convinced he liked this new Emilia better than the old one. "Stop-"
"No," she told him. "No more persuasion. If we keep the secrets, these kids, all of them, will end up just like those bastards in London, prejudiced against people like us. We've got to show what we can do, or they'll hate us for staying silent. They'll think that we're evil, like the rest of them think."
The ones who had been in London took in what Emilia had said. It could have been guilt for the fact her mother was involved that had prompted her to speak out, finally, yet it didn't seem that way. The attack on seemingly innocent people, and Matt's almost-death had been the catalyst. It was time for her to voice a new opinion. Death was one of the world's greatest motivators.
Before anyone could stop her, she flitted to Elisabeth's side. Everyone gaped. Light went to join her, not demonstrating his power, but not needing to. Misa walked over also, her hair completely aflame. Lara emitted a sound like a bird's call. Suddenly, a series of sparrows fluttered to perch on her arms. She took Mello's hand, the one shielding his face, and led him to the group forming by the car. He picked up a rock and crushed it to dust in his hand.
Ben went to hold the hand of his older sister in encouragement. Rose and B flanked Near. They stood altogether, and, lastly, L joined them. He completely avoided Elisabeth's gaze.
"Is this the truth?" Iago asked, his voice coming out as a squeak.
They felt another presence nearby and all looked over to see who – or what – it was.
Matt strapped his goggles to his head once more.
"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, it is."
So - I'm back from Portugal, if that isn't obvious enough. Great sun, great food (or at least some of it), and a little while before I go back to school as well. Not bad. Also, I concocted a recipe for cupcakes using a delicacy from the area of Portugal I was staying in. Should be fun to experiment with!
Hope you're all enjoying your summer, and if you have it in you to make my summer that teensy bit better, please go ahead and review.
Thanks!
C.
