Author's note: Yeesh, it's getting pretty hard to keep up with all my stories my peeps, sorry for delaying chapters for so long. Trying to keep track and write a chapter for each story is hard for me, but enough of that! Here's my early Christmas (or late Hanukkah) Present to you all! Speaking of which, I have a question for you to consider at the end of this chapter, so make sure to read my bottom Author's Note. Anyway Lets Go!
Disclaimer: I don't own Life is Strange or any of it's affiliates, nor do I own any of the OCs other than my own, however I do own the plot of this story.
Cathrine awoke gasping for air desperately, but quickly realized that she was in a hospital, and safe.
Well, not exactly what one would call 'safe'. Strangers she'd never met, definitely not doctors or nurses based on their ages and outfits, surrounded her. Actually, looking into one's face she paused, she recognized this girl, though the memories were fuzzy.
"Why are you all in my room?" She demanded, startling all present and grabbing there attentions.
"Oh good, your alive, I was worried that you wouldn't survive sucking smoke in you like you did." Her rescuer said, smiling and scratching the back of her auburn head.
Ignoring her one of the others, this one a dark skinned teen, spoke up. "We're here because we think that you may have.. uh." He leaned in close and spoke in a hushed whisper. "Superpowers." He finished.
Cathrine blinked, before speaking again. "I.. I remember, it's a bit fuzzy, but I was struggling to breathe, and then she came, and suddenly there was no more smoke and I started to feel better?" Her tone was confused and she turned to the Auburn haired girl. "Right?" She questioned.
"Yep!" She said with a happy nod.
"Way I see it." Another boy said, cutting in. "You can control smoke, like that guy in Infamous Second Son 2." Once he was finished Cathrine took in his appearance, he was definitely some kind of punk rocker type.
"Alright that answers part of the problem I have with this situation, but now for that other piece." She fixed her eyes on the darker skinned kid, seeing him as the obvious leader. "Why are you here?" She asked once more.
"We were wondering if you wanted to join us, we're putting together a group of people like us in order to decide on how to use our powers properly." He said.
"Well you can leave, because my answer is no, and don't worry I won't use my powers for evil or something, I won't use them at all." She said, leaning back.
"What!" Nearly everyone yelled, except for the blonde behind them, who seemed to not care.
"We-we need to be responsible with our powers, not using them is morally wrong!" The dark skinned teen said.
Cathrine sighed. "Okay, time to stop all your arguments. As much as I'd love to become a super-hero, I can't do it. Last night I was forced to see what could happen if I ever met someone who wanted to use their powers to hurt me." She said, and immediately the room was silent.
"What do you mean?" The leader asked.
"Last night, right before the fire started I was in the back, picking up orders when suddenly a grease vat was spilled onto the burning oven.
The one that was across the room.
The one that was turned off.
Once the fire started I and the cook quickly started scrambling to put it out, but then more grease started flying from their positions from across the room and into suddenly flaming burners.
We couldn't stop them all.
Quickly the flames spread through the kitchen and smoke filled the room.
I tried to escape and warn the patrons outside, but when I got out there I heard laughter and locked eyes with a redhead who was standing in such a way that she could see directly into the flaming kitchen. Her right eye glowed a vibrant red, like blood while her left seemed normal; green.
Her left hand was outstretched toward the patrons of the diner and they were floating, as if held by her power. Not thinking about it at the time I tried to push past her, and knocked her over, she apparently wasn't expecting this and bashed her head on the counter.
But not before she sent her right hand out and flung me back into the kitchen and into the raging inferno where I smacked into a wall and had the air knocked out of me."
"As you can see I'm not too interested in having a repeat of that." She said, finishing her story.
For a moment they all were silent. Then, the Leader replied. "We'll respect your decision, but if you ever reconsider." He paused and grabbed a paper cup and a pen and scribbled a number onto it. "Call this, I'll pick up." He said putting the cup in her hands.
Then the group packed up their stuff and left, leaving Cathrine in silence until the doctor arrived..
3:59 pm
Lloyd sighed. Another day at school passed with little note, even he couldn't lie to make it interesting. Sure, there were those times he used his powers to convince his teacher that someone graffitied his desk. That was fun, and he could probably stretch it to make it sound that his teacher lost his job. 'Yeah that would be neat..'
'Hmph, a waste of your powers, Lloyd.'Lillian thought to him. 'Now, get ready I'm bringing her down.'
Oh yeah, Lloyd did have one fun thing happening today, he was going to be apart of Lillian's plot to take over the world, probably.
So it shouldn't have been a shock when she came downstairs with the daughter of Kris Prescott (who was the heir to the Prescott fortune while her father was away starting his future campaign for president) who had a dazed look on her face.
Lillian reclosed her eyes and thought to Lloyd again. 'So yeah, remember how I told you that I needed you to help convince people? Well now's your time to shine.'
Lloyd blinked before thinking back to her. 'You kidnapped the most powerful woman in the town's daughter, are you suicidal, because I have meds for that you can take.' He thought back rather bluntly.
Lillian opened her eyes and gave him a look before mouthing: "Just show her something I can work with, something terrifying, remember I told you we're from the future."
Lloyd rolled his eyes before acting. He shut his eyes and concentrated on making something scary-not too graphic for the nine-year old that Lillian thought was a good idea to start with, just something bad and convincing.
He remembered a scene from Man of Steel, and decided to go with that, warping the room into a desolated wasteland of skulls.
When he opened his eyes again, Lillian was kneeling in front of the girl, eyes shut tight as she poured her commands into her. Lloyd felt a bit uncomfortable, and hoped that Lillian wasn't straight up brainwashing the kid.
"I can stop this?" The nine-year old said, looking around as if in a daze.
"Yes." Lillian said, not really seeming to be 'all there'.
'Show her a better future' Lillian commanded, sounding weak in Lloyd's head, this must have been taking a lot out of her.
With a flourish Lloyd slapped together what he sensed Lillian wanted, and this time made it so powerful that even he thought it was real.
Now they were on a balcony of a castle, with people in the thousands cheering from below. Lillian opened her eyes to take in the situation and noted that she was in a black dress, wearing a small crown, Lloyd had really gone all out with this one.
Shutting her eyes and standing, enjoying her outfit.
'Maybe I will wear this in the, heh, future' She thought, keeping this idea to herself. Then she looked down at the young Emily Prescott.
"This, my dear is the future if you take us to you grandfather, we can stop the war, unite the world under me as we planned, and everyone will cheer, don't you want that?" She spoke as she telepathically (it turns out that was what it was called) commanded the girl.
"Ok, yes, let's save everyone." The little girl said, sounding as if she were in a deep daze.
At that the illusion dropped, and so did Lillian and Lloyd, who each had used up all their stamina in this effort.
'Well, it was still easier than trying to straight brainwash her.' Lillian thought to herself.
"Well, come on, let's go." The girl said, grabbing Lillian's hand and walking them both over to grab Lloyd's hand, who was trying to keep himself steady on the wall. "We must save the world."
6:00 PM
Inori Merami
Inori was furious, not for any real reason other than the stress of being a teen. Her Geometry assignment had one certain problem that really ticked her off. Thankfully she knew better (from an unpleasant experience earlier) than to take her anger out on her desk table. Instead she strolled outside the girl's dorm and into the forest.
She found a tree, and shivered from the cold freezing her skin, but quickly heated up from the fury in her chest. Leveling her fist with the mighty Oak's trunk, she slammed her fist hard into the tree, causing it to crack and hit the ground loudly. Thankfully she was far enough out that no one would see until morning.
Or so she thought.
"Oh my God!" A girl yelled, startling the black and pink haired Asian.
She was wearing black track pants and a shirt depicting the worsening dangers of Global Warming, a stark change to Inori's solid black Yoga Pants and Tank Top.
"Did you knock over this tree?!" She demanded, sounding less scared and more angry.
"Hai?" She said, so confused that she accidentally slipped into Japanese due to the surprise. "I-I mean yes." She quickly rectified her mistake.
"Shame on you!" She said, kneeling in the grass as she scooped up a little squirrel who had fallen out of the tree, shushing it like a mother would a child.
Ok, she'll bite. "Why aren't you surprised that I knocked the tree over with my fist?" She questioned.
"It's not the craziest thing I've seen happen today, I can talk to animals." She said, not glancin up to face Inori. "And you just killed this little guy's home, where is he supposed to sleep now?" She demanded.
"We could sneak him into one of our dorms." Inori said sarcastically, but this brown-haired dark skinned girl seemed to take it literally.
"That's a wonderful idea!" She said. Then she looked at the squirrel and started to talk it over with him. "Do you want to live with me, I can put together a little squirrel house in a few days, until then you could sleep with me." As she spoke Inori could almost feel herself sweat like in Anime, this girl was insane!. Apparently the squirrel was fine with crazy, because she gave a happy smile and put him on her shoulder.
"Mr. Nuts is very cross with you, but he's agreed to let it slide on account of being able to have a nicer place to live. You avoid the wrath of the squirrel armies for now!"
Inori blinked. "Ooh-Kay then, I'm going to go back to my dorm, good luck keeping your new pet alive." She said, quickly removing herself from the situation.
Once she was out of earshot Kathrine rolled her eyes and said: "Girl can knock over trees with her fist, but doesn't believe that I can talk to animals, how silly is that?" She asked the squirrel.
"Really silly." The squirrel replied in a deep voice very unbecoming of a squirrel his size.
Then they walked off, toward the doors.
A few hours later
Lillian was tired, and she had a splitting headache. She and Lloyd had practically brainwashed Kristine Prescott and her guards to believe what they were telling them, it took hours of breaking down mental walls. Oh well, at least she was able to lay in the Prescotts' Master Bedroom to go to sleep, Lloyd got to sleep in one of the other bedro-
"Lillian, all the other rooms are occupied, they told me to sleep in here with you." Lloyd said, stepping bleary-eyed into her room.
"What? No! Your not sleeping in here!" She said, as loud as she could, which wasn't loud due to her headache.
"Please, Kristine refuses to let 'one of the saviors of humanity' as she put it sleep on the couch, and I don't want to accidentally break her mind control by saying it's Ok." He replied, rubbing his eyes.
"Oh my God, fine! But you better not try anything." She relented, she'd give anything to sleep right now. "Otherwise I'll lobotomize you!" She warned, before sighing. 'Guess I won't be sampling the Prescott's selection of silken pajamas.' She thought, believing it safer to sleep in her clothes than not.
She crawled into bed on one side, Lloyd on the other. "Stay on your side, nerd, or else." She threatened.
"Don't worry about it Lillian. I'm too tired to try my luck anyway..." He said, already drifting to sleep.
Lillian soon followed.
"Oh my God, how many times do I have to tell you people 'no' before you get it?" Cathrine demanded, ready to punch the Australian Man and her Co-worker's lights out.
"Listen, we just wanted to see if you were interested, I don't know your powers or who else may have come to see you, but if you change your mind call this number." The Australian said, grabbing a pen and a glove from the wall and scribbling his number down and handing it to her. "As long as I'm not out-of-my-mind-drunk then I should pick up." He said, before nodding to Landon and warping away.
"Just wonderful, so now I have the X-Men." She held up the cup with the number on it from earlier. "AND the Avengers." She held up the glove. "Trying to recruit me, my life is just wonderful isn't it?!" She yelled to no one in particular. "All I need now is for some shady Team-Rocket duo to visit me and try to recruit me too, but it wouldn't be truly complete without The Joker or Carnage coming to visit as well, huh?"
For a moment she wondered if she jinxed herself, but after neither of her other assumptions appeared, she sighed and shut her eyes, falling asleep.
Author's note: Wow! It's all starting to come together huh? Heh, well mostly (poor Cathrine). Anyway my question for you is simple. Who do you ship the most at this point in the story? I know it's a bit early, but the LiS fandom ships like no tomorrow, so I'm wondering who in this story you pair together the most at this point. Once everyone meets I'll come back with this question, but I just wanted to see what you've come up with so far, it's fine if you don't have one at this point, like I said I'll ask again later. I ship Lloydian, Lloyd x Lillian, and yes spoilers it's a happening, unless the original creators are both against it, it has to be both (remember you did give me permission to do this).
The Pocketwatch Ripper: Oops guess I forgot to review. Sorry! Damn Mace got scary wicked powers, I love it.
Ooh baby Landon got his spotlight, nice! That whole avengers spiel and Iron Man 2 reference was funny I liked it! I can't wait to see where this story goes! Also despite the box he had Landon loves Boston Creme donuts! He does enjoy chocolate sprinkled too though.
Me: It's fine bro, I missed your review last time so we're even. Mace's powers are scary in the sense that she can hear you, combat wise the worst she could do would be to blast your ears with music played at an earrape level, and as someone who does that for fun I can tell you it won't hurt too much.
Yep, Landon came into existence, but will he join? Well we found out this time around eh? You liked my Marvel jokes? Well I have more this time around. Hope you liked his cameos these last few times.
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fireandicephoenix: good chapter and nice rescue at the end.
i wonder how Mace would have done helping to trying people? and your right, Mace would Robbie as a boy toy and drop him as soon as she is bored.
i love the part with the fries being eaten and Caroline pulling on her knees screaming no. remembers of the time when my younger turned off the PlayStation while my other younger brother planning and he screamed no because he just won his game/mission and didn't get to save before the PlayStation turned off.
can't wait to see and meet the others and see whose side Mace will be on in the end. she would be on the winning side, be them the good guys or bad guys. for her, it's all about survive and only the way to surivive is to be on the winning side.
can't wait for the next chapter.
Me: Mace wouldn't have been to helpful in this situation, maybe if she got there earlier and used her powers to hear inside the diner she might have been able to warn people about the fire, but since she and the gang got there late, eh.
Yeah, I like to inject some of LiS' comedy sometimes, it keeps things feeling like an Episode 1. God, I'd probably kill my little brother if he did that, turning off my games is a definite no-no if you want to keep your fingers afterward.
I feel like Mace would prefer to survive and be on top, so she might jump between Lillian's group and our heroes every now and again in the foreseeable future.
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mayurie: Well that was... both serious and comedic, I suppose. Caroline's appearance here got me smiling for sure, thanks for that. And nice to see you updated this!
Oh no, Lloyd made a deal with a mini devil! I wonder whether he actually decided to agree with Lillian's deal, or Lillian used her power and Lloyd just got defeated by it (and his desire to be somebody). Well either way, I guess he still agreed to it... but hey, at least he wouldn't hurt others.
Sarunas and friends to the rescue ft. Sarunas' vision. Hm, so Mace is just want to be on the winning side huh? Who is the winning side, and will there be more superpowered group forming in Arcadia Neo? I guess we'll see.
Caroline, I know you're kinda ditzy and all, but did you really just contemplated whether you (and your food) is a ghost or not, when a diner just blew up!? And why the heck did it blew up anyway? But still, nice rescue. And my condolence for your fries, my girl. At least Rats will get his chicken.
Overall, a nice chapter. There are few sentences that got me confused because of your use of comma, but I can still understand it after reading it again so don't worry about it. Anyways, looking forward to the next chapter!
Me: First, did you change your name? Second, glad to see that you like her appearance, for a main character we haven't been seeing a lot of her y'know? I just wanted to remind you that she still existed..
I guess we will have to wait and see whether more super-teams will crop up in the future ;)
I think I made Caroline too ditzy during that scene, what do you think? Too much? Anyway as we saw here it lit on fire right after she left, due to Andrea, as for the explosion..we can only guess.. ;). Yep, at least Andrea didn't eat Rats' food, maybe they can share..
Sorry, I, am, really, bad, when, it, comes, to, commas,. But seriously, I am trying to get better about using them, I'm just not the best with commas.
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LostValkyrie: Will start off with an apology - been completely off the grid for a while so I missed chapter 4 and was only just catching up now.
First things first, really appreciate that the criticism is being taken to heart; that much is clear from these past chapters, i.e. interactions of characters, amount of time given to them, etc. The improvement can be seen from chapter to chapter. Each chapter (in my opinion anyway) is better written than the previous one.
Damn you for making it difficult to criticise :3
So I'll be really nitpicky about what I feel could do with a bit more:
- Establishing location. You already do it quite a bit. Establishing shots in LiS and BtS help set the scene, mood and tone of each point in the game. Obviously written is different from visual, but I do believe you will achieve it no problem
Me: It's totally fine, you got two chapters to read because of it, so that's good.
Of course I always do my best to improve and feedback helps me a lot.
Your welcome ;p
Now that said..oh bollocks (- I'm American so this word means nothing to me), I totally forgot to use establishing shots in this chapter! I'll definitely remember to do so next chapter. Hopefully it won't be too wonky when I write it.
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TheDreamSketchCrew: I've been gone for a month doing life and junk! Watching my laptop DIE from broken batteries and then buying a new one. And now I can't exactly say greetings and beyond the news, because my disappearance has got nothing to do with The Secret Saturdays nor I have been hunting cryptids tragically. It's all unforgivable really and I'm totally sorry.
I saw your comment towards mine and I was going to say "Oh god, now I'm going to have to watch out for nightmares about climbing sheep and falling tragically." or "Where's Katherine with a K when you need her" but my comeback's come far too late.
I'm happy to see new characters like Lloyd using their powers to make look themselves better than I do right now replacing my old broken computer. Also, Caroline's learning her abilities and I hope that the person isn't a character manipulating smoke and super dead right now. You also trying to subtly and natural insert a song right there. Honestly, I'm sorry for going inactive on you. I don't h9hestoy have any good excuses.
Me: It's Ok bro, sometimes bad things happen that you can't account for (like a whole chapter being erased by a mistake push of a button making me not want to write for the whole summer {see, Heart of Vengeance}). Also it's too bad you didn't get to go cryptid hunting, I did, didn't find much though.
Yes, it seems that you are late to the comeback party, but that's fine.
Glad to see that you liked the characters using their powers and getting used to them, it's fun to write. Don't worry about her, she's fine just has smoke inhalation problems and slight burns from fire..Oh and at least one broken arm because you don't walk off being slammed into a wall. Yeah, I thought I was slick inserting that song in there, but clearly I wasn't. It's fine, your excuse is perfectly valid, your computer broke, whaddaya gonna do? It's fine.
Anyway that's all for now so, Merry Holidays and
Until Next Time True Readers!