Mixed Beginnings 1.1
?. April 7th, 2011
Pain. The first sensation that comes to mind. Everything hurts, Nikki's skin is sensitive, the muscles in her legs hurt, her lungs hurt, her bladder hurts, and she was pretty sure she needed a new pair of pants so now her dignity hurts as well. All in all Nikki did not think she had ever been in this much pain before and it honestly fucking sucked.
When I was caught in the fireNikki froze, her breath hitching painfully in her throat 'The what? The fucking what? What fire?' That voice was not hers. It did not sound like her voice did in her head. It sounded lower, still feminine but lower and with a rasp.
Slowly Nikki forced her eyes open, and now her eyelids hurt "What the fuck is going on? And what is that-is that the ocean?" Blearily she blinked the spots of the light reflecting off the small waves and squinted. "Yep, that's water. Smells salty too. This….This is not good." Nikki lived nowhere near the fucking water. Did she get kidnapped? Where the fuck was she? Nikki knew she did not live here! Bleh her tongue and jaw hurt too.
Lived here all my life, gangs ruined everything though. "
Nikki shakily inspected her arms which did not fit her memories…. "I-I don't." She glanced up, catching sight of something that locked her eyes in place. An oil rig, with a glowing shimmering...light around it. "What?" Nikki felt like she would be saying that a lot. She had nothing else to say, couldn't think of anything else. The throbbing pain in her body wasn't as sharp as it was ten seconds ago, but it wasn't helping her think, and neither was the uncomfortable wetness in her drawers and that smell of ammonia.
The Protectorate East North East Headquarters used to make me feel so safe, now it's just a bitter reminder. Just like the scars.
Nikki knew she wasn't thinking that, knew she didn't have scars. Her parents were careful with that. Couldn't harm their perfect daughter. Those fu-
I loved my parents.
Nikki felt her throat constrict, choking her for a moment before she managed to relax it enough to scream. "NO! NO!" She reached up, slamming her fists into the sides of her head causing more pain to flare in the skin and muscles, and somehow the bones as well. "SHUT UP! SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTIP! You aren't me! You can't tell me what to do! I don't love them, I don't! You can't make me!" Nikki's vision blurred with a bout of dizziness. "I'm me, I'm Nikki Hunt. I-AAAAAIEH!"
The girl shot to her feet, hyperventilating as she grabbed at her hair and pulled at it, why was it brown? That wasn't her name. That wasn't her name. Why had she been using someone else's name?! "My name is Della Duke. My friends call me DeDe or Double D. DELLA DUKE! DELLA DUKE!" her panic and hyperventilating got to her and she leaned over, expelling her stomach's contents onto the ground, her throat lighting up with pain from the acidic bile. Trying to step away from the splatter of bile caused her trembling legs to give out, dropping Ni-Della onto her ass. She hurriedly shimmied away from her puddle of vomit and hugged her knees to her chest, slowly rocking back and forth trying to focus on the pain her body was experiencing. Slowly sucking in a deep breath, Della held it for five seconds before letting it out just as slowly. "I'm DeDe. I'm me. No one else is me. I'm no one else. My name is Della. Duke. Della-" For a good minute Della drew air in through her nose and exhaled it after a moment of holding it in. All the while repeating her name in a low comforting mantra.
After managing to calm herself through her mantra, Della slowly, painfully, ambled to her feet. Staring blankly out over the bay, over the shimmering oil rig. Her thoughts flitted through her mind at mach speed, trying to wrap itself around what she had learned, what some of her memories were telling her. It all seemed too much to be true and yet- "W-Worm?" She swallowed, mouth tasting of bile and dry to boot. "Does. Does this mean I was actually right?" The words she asks are quiet, almost lost to the sounds of the water hitting the docks.
"I-I WAS RIGHT! I WAS RIIIIGHT! FUCK YOU MOM AND DAD I WAS RIGHT! I WAS FUCKING RIGHT." The rush of exhilaration was great, but the screaming left her throat sore and hoarse. "N-not that I thought it was real either, but I was right. They aren't worthless stories. I was right." Della tittered, her stories about dimensions, about people creating them through the simple act of imagining them. They were fucking true. All that time she was writing wasn't worthless. Of course that was a very scary thought, but Della was going to ignore all that for now.
It was a question of how much, but Della was still right. Her parents were wrong. That was good. Another breath, in. hold. Exhale. Della felt some tension leave her body. "I can do this. I can do this. Just. Steps... One step at a time….Fuck me." She murmured, rubbing her face. "How did I even end up here?" Della swallowed softly, the hoarseness of her throat making itself known. "How am I going to get home?" Della didn't care about getting back to her home so much that she cared about getting back to her friends that she left behind.
"James." Della breathed. Then she froze, a memory coming up to the forefront of her mind. Herself falling, through darkness, her hands blurring and breaking apart before her very eyes. Something speaking to her and James as they- "JAMES!" The girl's heart soared as Della realized she would not be alone, and that James himself was going to be with her! "I can do this! WE can do this!" Suddenly the world wasn't so large, and suddenly Della didn't feel so out of her depth, it gave her a sense of resolve.
It was a good feeling, but James was good at supplying those.
Della giggled before clearing her throat to stop the girlish laughter and glancing down at herself, noting that the agony that had threaded her body was quickly fading. Like a soda losing its fizz. "Alright. Step one of a lot. Find clean clothes." There was a muffled pop of displaced air and Della jerked up, blinking as a black hole of some sort appeared in front of her, without the terrible sucking a normal Black Hole would produce, or what Della thought Black Holes would produce. "Huh, l-looks like a po-" THUNK without any warning or fanfare, a large black suitcase rocketed out of the black portal and slammed into Della's nose hard enough to knock her off her feet and flat on her back. The portal shut and the suitcase landed atop the flattened out girl.
"Owww." Della groaned on instinct, but it actually hadn't hurt all that much. Felt like she got hit in the face with a gently thrown baseball rather than a large heavy suitcase going fast enough to knock her flat on her back. The scarred girl slowly sat up, looking at the suitcase with equal parts curiosity and annoyance. "Why my face though?" she whined softly, pulling it off her lap and onto the concrete Della popped it open.
If you threw something at her face it was hers automatically. That was a rule of life that had helped her...once or twice. Not counting this suitcase incident. But it was a rule of life she would forever follow.
"Oh shit clothes." There were seven separate sets, shoes and socks included. It was a blessed sight to see. "Huh, cleaning supplies. Shampoo, conditioner, soap, razors, deodorant, hair brush, baby wipes, pads, tampons, toothpaste, and brush." something clicked in Della's head, a discrepancy and she snatched up a bra looking at the size, then compared it to her chest. "...My boobs are gone." she murmured sourly looking at the almost flat chest she had now, then a low groan escaped her as she focused back upon the contents of the suitcase. "B-But this, I picked this stuff, on that choose your own adventure thing." Della swallowed, paling a shade as she noticed the glock-like pistol, she had also chosen something to kill with. She didn't know much about guns, well anything really, except the basics of "point only at what needs to be shot" and "Don't finger the trigger".
Della wiggled her fingers in trepidation, biting her lips nervously at the weapon before her. She couldn't help but suck in breath as she reached down and picked it up, the first time she had ever touched a gun. The cold steel weighed heavy in her hand. Della jerked up with a yelp, almost squeezing the trigger as a white beam shot out of the barrel and went on until it started to arc into the water. It looked like the hand beams that VR controllers had in those videos that James had shown her. The beams that showed where one was pointing the controller. Where one was aiming,
Carefully Della pulled the gun firmly into her hands. "I can't believe I forgot my powers." She grumbled, trying to wrack her brain to remember what she had picked in that online thing, but all she really remembered was gently ribbing James for being such a nerd in his picks. Della wasn't sure it was that which brought her and James into Worm. But so far it was the only explanation she had for the stuff she picked hitting her in the face. Della tested the firearm in her hand, noting that shifting her hand, and even her finger's position on the trigger messed with the aim. But the line didn't disappear until she gently set the gun back into the case. She then promptly picked it back up and stumbled with the safety on it, flicking it on and blinking owlishly as the aiming beam disappeared. "Okay. I have aimbot? Maybe? Fucking hell that's weird." Della gently set the gun down, looking into the inside pockets of the suitcase.
"Debit card? And a uh phone. Smartphone?" Della paused as she came across...a costume. It seemed too large for her, too tall and the proportions more...what she had looked like. It was a costume for her, but which her? Della pulled in a shaken breath as she caught sight of the reflection of her own face that the black polarized glass of the futuristic mask gave her. A jolt of panic gripped the girl as she stared into a face she only half remembered. Della wasn't good at faces, or at guessing ethnicities, but she would assume that the girl staring at her from the glass was russian maybe, half her face was burnt scar tissue. The pink and white flesh splashed across the left side of Della's face as if a kid had tried to paint it on. Her brown hair was a mess, and her eyes were brown as well. A simple hazel. Not her eye color.
The fire was hot, I can still hear them screaming sometimes when I sleep.
Ni-Della let out a shuddering breath and pushed the memories away. "My eyes are blue. Blue." The girl glared at her reflection, at herself, trying and willing her eyes to change color. Because if there was something Della loved, it was organic technology. Shapeshifting, that trill, that scare of something lurking around and it could be anyone. If that 'choose your own adventure' thing had it then she would have picked a BioTinker. But she knew it didn't because she had been upset it didn't and she wasn't getting any Tinker ideas. She distinctly remembered being annoyed she couldn't Tinker with James in the damn thing unless she picked something like nanotech and that was lame, nanotechnology was just a lame ass version of biology. So she had to pick the next best thing and that much was obvious.
Panacea was cool for all she could do, but she couldn't do it to herself. Which was a terrible limit for a Biokinetic.
A joyous cheer escaped her as the color of her Irises became rings of baby blue, followed by a brief tingling sensation in the area. "Woah, that's so weird. I fucking felt them change, how the fuck does that work?" Slowly, Della looked down to the rest of her body, suddenly becoming acutely aware of her entire self. Every inch of breathing skin, every moving hair, and the millions of microorganisms in her. Della could feel her heart clenching in her chest, the hot blood flowing through her blood vessels with each pump of the heart, the subtle crackle as her nerves fired off. It was...beautifully disquieting. The knowledge of herself was overwhelming as it was underwhelming, it was standing on the moon and realizing just how small everything and everyone was. How all the issues of the world mattered so little. But also that there were simply so many issues within her body including-
She swallowed quietly as she realized that she had a tapeworm. "Fucking hell." the girl gagged softly. "Nope. Nope. Fucking changing this shit." Della went to look into the reflective glass again before frowning. "Hmm…" an idea popped into her head and the girl closed her eyes, focusing on the raging storm of information her Self-BioKinesis gave.
Della started with her hair. All the hair on her body, because Della enjoyed not shaving, was reabsorbed for additional biomass. It confused her as she thought that hair was actually dead but...if it works she wasn't going to complain. Then the tapeworms were gone, she might have felt ill at absorbing them but she was almost on autopilot at this point. The way her body changed before her mind's eye was something akin to watching a river change course in a sped up video.
Then she began to change her body to the way she remembered it. Della wished she had a photo of herself. Changing your body from memory was harder than she could really explain.
Della blanked for a moment before holding up her hands. Pale smooth flesh met her gaze. Trembling, the pale girl felt her face and sucked in a breath to keep herself from yelling with joy as she felt more smooth skin meet her touch. The final test came with the lock of hair she held out. Della had to bite her lip to stop tears of joy from flowing down her face as she found the platinum blond hair of her own original body.
"I am me. I'll always be me. I'm Della Duke." She whispered softly, a reassurance and a promise.
Della forced herself up and took stock of her surroundings, something she knew she should have done earlier. But she had been busy freaking out over a body and memories that weren't hers. "What the fuck is this place?" It looked like a kind of dock with a large plastic slatted chain link fence, and some of terminal for taking cash maybe?
The North Ferry Station. It's been closed for a long time.Another involuntary shudder traveled through Della's body. "Not that I don't like google maps in my head, fuck I hate hearing a voice in my head that isn't mine, or memories for that fact." She rubbed her arms and glanced around to see if anyone was around and it seemed that the area was empty so that was good for her short term goal of: Personnel Hygiene.
Della hurriedly moved over to the terminals and used them as cover. She yanked the wet and dirty clothes off her body, throwing them off and away. She was still upset that her chest didn't fill out her damn bra, but she could fix that later, not enough biomass on her yet. Fitted in a simple grey button up overshirt with a tank top underneath that. Della paused and grabbed the baby wipes, cleaning off the cold urine made the girl feel a hell of a lot better. A shower would have been a godsend. Getting a new pair of underwear and some cargo pants on made her mood lighten.
Della went to pack up her stuff and stopped. "I guess I'll need to carry this. Just in case." her hand trembled as she forced the pistol into her large pocket. The weight was heavy, physical and not. The debit card and phone all went in their own separate pockets and they felt...better than the gun. The gun symbolized exactly where she was: A gang infested shithole.
...And what she might have to do.
Della practiced her breathing to get her thoughts in order. "Alright. Alright….Alright. Plans. I need to plan. Stage one of Plan: Save Brockton Bay is a go. Find James, Figure out powers, and create a lair." she flexed her fingers. Feeling and seeing the muscles move with her mind's eye. "Fucking weird." she tittered once more, she'd always enjoyed school because she could get away with cursing there.
"School...School. Fuck! Winslow!" Della had briefly forgotten what she had been dragged into, but now she remembered exactly what was going on in the shithole known as Brockton Bay, or at least in it's school. Well one of the schools. Della had only ever read fanfiction, so if-if this was the canon universe? She was probably going to struggle. "I didn't know Worm was a fucking free online story. I thought it was an actual book." which would have prevented her from getting it, with her parents not allowing her much privacy in their house.
Della flexed her hand once more. "James is smart, I need to find out how to use my more important powers." She knew what the ABB did to young girls, and the idea of that happening to her made her sick to her stomach and ill at ease. Della knew which group she was going to cut down to size first.
Lung. We will cut Lung down to size, by taking out his knees.
Platinum blonde hair went wild as Della shook her head harshly. "No. Focus. Powers. James. A headquarters." She knew what she had to do. Sort of. Della had picked the Thinker shard, so she had no real guide on what the fuck she was doing. "Frustrating nonsense. I'm gonna find your body Eden and draw a damn mustache on it." For that though...Cauldron. "That is going to be a real bitch." For a split second Della gave in to the urge to glance behind her to make sure her mother wasn't standing there like she often would. Tension bled out of her shoulders when no one was found standing behind her.
Della bit her lip as her stomach growled. "Yeah. yeah. I should probably get food too." Get food, figure out power, find James, make an awesome base. Della smiled. She could get that done.
Fugly Bob's"Oh for fuck's-STOP." Della hissed to herself. "No wonder the Butcher's fucking nuts!"
Could never afford to eat there. Parents only took me once. "
For a beat she waited, the silence in her mind unshattered by any thought or memories. Neither her own or the stranger in her skull. The tightness in her chest forced her to breathe. "I suppose you aren't a stranger. Having our memories mix like this." Della tried to swallow and was reminded just how dry her mouth was, and the fact that she could still taste vomit. "Bleh. Just stop with that….projected thoughts thing."
Della grabbed the suitcase. "I know. I'll grab James a pizza. It's only fair. I get a big messy burger and he gets a pizza." The pale girl nodded happily. "Now just to get there, as I...remember… it's somewhere in the Market area? On the edge? By the beach!" With that exclamation Della ran off towards the edge of the Ferry Station suitcase in hand, squinting her eyes at the beach she could see in the distance. It didn't look so great from a distance.
"Alright. I'm like, seventy percent sure that I also chose a teleporting power. I could really use that right now." Della looked away from the beach. Instead looking over the closed down and equally worn down Ferry Station. "I suppose it's better to try smaller ranges before going for a few miles. If I can even do that."
She felt a muscle in her brain come to her attention and Della smiled.