Authors Notes: Hi there! We are currently rewriting Dimensional Destiny. We hope you readers don't mind; there are many changes but none too ginormous, and most importantly, the writing has improved incredibly!
...And here comes a short first chapter.
Disclaimer: We (Reflections and I) don't own Dragonball Z, Gundam Wing, or Sailor Moon. However, we own Rika, Miryo, Pota and Kenja so no touchy.
Warning: Contains foul language.
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"Blah" Talking
'Blah' Thinking
-Blah- Telepathic Talking
Italics Flashback or Dream
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Dimensional Destiny
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Chapter One: The Kids of the Orphanage
"The orphanage sucks extra hard today."
On a gloomy gray day in a quiet little town, four teenagers stood outside in the rain. A girl with raven hair that reached just about midway down her back grumbled under her breath. Her fair skin was marked with lines of irritation while she kicked a clump of mud on the ground, as if it was the one who offended her, with her worn out sneaker. Murmurs of agreement rose in the air around her.
"Hear, hear," A girl with vivid gold, short layered hair, nodded at the other girl's comment. Raindrops splattered softly and her round golden eyes watched them in a pensive daze. Her wet bangs clung onto her forehead and she reached up a lightly tanned hand to brush them back into place. "And of all days, it's raining sideways."
Not long before, the two girls had been walking down the lifeless halls of the orphanage chatting away merrily. A caretaker had crossed paths with them and, apparently in a sour mood, began to scream at the two. The caretaker even proceeded to punish the two innocent victims by forcing them to stand outside in the pouring rain until dinnertime. Neither had been permitted to return to their shared room to grab umbrellas or rain jackets.
The blonde girl shivered as she huddled her knees to her chest for warmth. Unluckily for her, she had only been wearing a red tank top and dark gray cargo shorts. The morning had been relentless with sunshine and stifling heat while they were cramped inside the orphanage with no air conditioning. Now the weather further mocked them by switching to a sudden onset of heavy rain.
The other girl had gotten a better deal. She was wearing a fading black cropped jacket and dark jeans with tattered holes. Not that the holes were a fashion statement, but rather the result of being worn too often. With one fluid motion, the girl removed her jacket, revealing a blue t-shirt with a random assortment of black and white words splattered across the front. A blue bandana was wrapped around her left wrist. She draped her jacket over her shivering friend's shoulders. The blonde thanked her, and in their miserable situation, she held back a laugh as she put her arms through the sleeves of the jacket. The sleeves that perfectly fit her friend's arms ended up covering even the tips of her fingers.
Before the blonde girl could make a remark to try and break the dampening mood, she was interrupted by an outburst beside her.
"I want outta this hell hole, NOW!" A shorter boy with untidy black hair complained impatiently, walking about in tight circles.
There was a small area just outside the doors of the orphanage that provided them shelter from the rain (not that it helped, as it was raining into their faces). The boy had instead decided to stomp about outside the line of protection. His gray t-shirt was getting soaked by the minute, adhering to his scrawny frame, and the bottom of his baggy black sweatpants began to accumulate a thick layer of mud.
"Who doesn't?" A tall tanned boy with short, spiky, dark-brown hair sighed. He had claimed a spot on the dryer steps of the orphanage while the others had opted to sullenly stand. His weary brown eyes danced back and forth as he watched his friend pace angrily in front of him. Unconsciously, he began to fidget with the zipper to his puffy blue vest that kept him warm alongside a white t-shirt; a sign of unrest. He stretched his long legs, protected from the rain with his fading light blue jeans, down the steps and sighed.
The two boys had decided to accompany the girls despite not being punished themselves. However, the caretaker's actions caused the shorter boy to become extremely moody. It, unfortunately, winded the whole spirit of the group.
"Of course! Who doesn't? You tell me!" The shorter boy barked. The other boy inwardly groaned; he had set off the raven-haired boy for another one of his long ramblings. "We have to be back from school by 3:30 unless we have a job, and the only job we're allowed to have is in that shitty-excuse-of-a-fast-food-restaurant-that-pays-below-minimum-wage across the street so they can spy on us; there's that one ancient computer in the so-called "Computer Room" that has one program in it; only one hour of TV during hours our caretakers randomly select, without notice; only tap water and no pop or juice; no good, healthy food but stale crap, and only a freaking hour of being outside if the caretakers are feeling nice!"
He finally took a breath before continuing. "I need freedom! We're holed up in here like animals – they even treat us like animals! Look at the breakfast they give us! That bread is hard enough to shatter a titanium-enforced wall! I know they're not poor – all the donations and funding they've gotten has been spent for their personal enjoyment!" He threw his arms up in frustration. "And we can't legally leave until we hit 18, or if someone adopts us! We're old! No one would want to adopt teenagers! So we're stuck here to take their shit, like this completely ridiculous punishment they're imposing on Rika and Miryo!"
"We all know that Kenja," The blonde girl sighed, putting her hands to her head. She rubbed her aching temples, trying to figure out a way to calm the unsettled boy. "We've all been complaining ever since we've got here – it's nothing new."
"Yeah? So what Rika!" Kenja snapped. "It doesn't matter! I can complain all I want! I just don't see how you can be so calm when they treat you like this!"
The other girl scowled in response, narrowing her icy blue eyes at Kenja. "Cool your head off, it's just like any other day! Why the sudden outburst?"
"Don't scold me, Miryo," Kenja snapped. "You're not my mom!"
Immediately, the other three 15-year-old teens froze. When Kenja realized what he had said, he lowered his pained brown eyes in guilt. Although they had arrived at the orphanage at different times with different reasons, they quickly found common ground: their anger and sorrow towards the parents that neglected them. Their parents had always been a taboo subject. It didn't help when they discovered that the adults taking care of them had twice as much neglect than their parents.
Ever since they had been sent to the orphanage, the majority of the caretakers behaved harshly towards any children set in their sight. It was a wasteland driven by the most irresponsible adults imaginable; a rule of fear and violence. All the children had learned to band together in small groups for comfort. Bigger groups were targeted and scattered. The adults would thwart any hopes of a large-scale rebellion.
Thus, it led to the meeting of the four teens. It was an unexplainable attraction that banded the group together. The only support they ever knew as they grew older was each other. Moreover, they had discovered some strange quirks about themselves along the way that was not too popular around the other children.
Rika never cried, no matter how much she got hurt or scolded. Many of the orphanage's girls often whispered behind her back, calling her cold and emotionless. It led to the chatty girls spouting out nasty lies about the innocent girl. The boys, on the other hand, began speculating whether she was a robot or not. They repeatedly tried prodding her with sticks or held magnets up to her, hoping for a reaction of some sort, but Rika fended them off or ignored them. She knew better than to get offended by their nit-picking.
Miryo seemed indifferent to temperature and weather changes. It was helpful to her when the group often got stuck in the orphanage during stuffy summers. However, it did attract judgmental stares and pointing fingers. Occasionally in the summer, Miryo could be found sporting a hooded sweatshirt, and during the winter, a sleeveless jersey. She gave no further explanation of her choice in attire other than she "felt like it", or that her "normal clothes were in the wash". Children merely thought of her as an eccentric or attention-seeking being (sometimes even a sickly child with a contagious disease) and made sure to steer clear of her.
Kenja could catch anything, even if he didn't see it coming at him (there was some difficulty when it was unexpected – he just didn't want to admit it). This proved to help him in his favorite position in sports, being the goaltender, the most. To his dismay, it wasn't looked upon keenly among his fellow teammates or rivals, as he was often wildly accused of somehow cheating or using some form of witchcraft. Once, Kenja even caught a ball that was kicked at him while he had his back turned. Many children began to avoid him soon after, believing that he had eyes on the back of his head. They thought he was watching them, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike.
Pota would rarely run out of energy, no matter how hard he tried (although he did get lazy and sleepy like any other person; in fact, he is the laziest of the four). Most likely it was what explained the handful of long distance running ribbons he had won during school events. Others were amazed, and sometimes a little frightened, of the monstrous stamina he possessed. He was the least peculiar and intimidating out of the four. Nonetheless, having been associated with the other three, his reputation was no better than theirs.
When the four became fast friends, people called it "the opening of the freak show" because of their trivial, but strange, traits. It didn't mean that they didn't have friends outside themselves, but more often than they wished, they were looked down upon.
As the four had already been labeled as oddballs, they didn't bother to mention a very strange bond between them: they had discovered a telepathic link among themselves. When they hit the tender age of 13, they were able to communicate with each other by mere thoughts. None of them had an explanation for it. The only justification they could come up with was that they had grown to be extremely close, therefore developing a strong attachment to each other. They had not let a single being let in on their connections, thinking it would be the best for all of them.
In spite of this, many hopeful adults who had visited the orphanage always thought something was amiss. When they thought about adopting one of them, they somehow knew that if they did, they would have to bring the other three along. It resulted in the four being stuck at the orphanage, even at age fifteen, because no parent was interested in taking all four under their wing.
Kenja muttered an apology and shuffled his feet uncomfortably. "Why can't we bust out now? It's the perfect chance! We always miss chances like this!"
"Last time we got caught for booking it on a whim! We need to think things out religiously before we dive head first into shit! For one, there are security cameras everywhere," Rika stated bluntly, her gold eyes ablaze. "Pota's in charge of mapping out all the security camera posts, right?"
"Yeah..." The tall spiky-haired boy replied, his brown eyes traveling to the tall wooden doors of the orphanage. His face paled considerably. "And I just found the first one."
"Congratulations," A cold voice answered them. Rika, Miryo and Kenja swirled around to see one of their caretakers, looking quite angry with them. A security camera was tucked away above her in the corner of the orphanage's entrance. It wasn't clear how long she had listened in on their plans, but from the look on caretaker's face, she had listened long enough. "Come now, brats; it seems that further discipline is required in order for you lot to respect the ones providing you food and shelter."
The four teens exchanged quick glances before turning to Rika for directions. The short blonde girl gulped as the tension in the air grew; it was slowly suffocating her in its death grip. She subconsciously looked to the orphanage gates: they had been swung wide open (a rare sight) for the bi-weekly delivery truck of food supplies.
It was a split second decision on the spot that Rika hoped she wouldn't regret. -Forget what I just said; it's now or never!-
They bolted.
-Why do we have to be so stupid all the time?- Pota asked as he ran.
They ran as fast as they could, not daring to look back. It didn't matter that their sneakers were being flooded with rainwater after speeding past deep puddles. It didn't even matter that all they had were the clothes on their backs. The teens could only concentrate on what they had been plotting for the past few years: getting as far away from the orphanage as possible. A second longer in their prison was a second far too long; waiting for the entire group to become legal adults and graduate from high school was too far into the future.
Minutes streamed by before they heard the sounds of barking closing in on them, while neighbors poked their heads outside to see what the ruckus was about...
"THEY SET DOGS ON US?" Kenja hollered, looking quickly over his shoulder. He caught a glimpse of a large black dog with red eyes leading other dogs that looked equally as frightening.
"How come I never knew they had dogs?" Rika shrieked in horror. "I've never seen them around the orphanage!"
"There are first times for everything!" Pota remarked, running faster than he had before.
Pota, who was leading the group, suddenly slipped in mud; the rest of the quartet tripped and crashed over him in an unfortunate chain reaction.
"Aw, my freaking head," Kenja groaned, clutching his throbbing head with his mud-caked hands.
The quartet was drenched in rain and mud, thanks to Pota. By the time they had recovered from their little trip, the vicious-looking dogs had closed in and Rika grimly accepted that they were done for. The dogs would tear them to pieces and the pursuing caretaker would be able to catch up and sweep up their remains to make plant fertilizer.
Suddenly, the "mud" that was left from the ground expanded, growing larger and larger by the second. It let out a loud roar that reeked with stench. Rika heard the dogs whimper and retreat back to the orphanage and began to back away as well.
"What the hell is that?" Kenja screamed in an oddly high-pitched voice. He sat frozen in fear until Rika and Miryo pulled him back, while the tall Pota moved protectively in front of the three. But it was still no good.
The enlarged mud pile roared again, this time engulfing the quartet in light and blinding them temporarily. Its roar muffled their shrieks and yells for help. The last thing they remembered was falling towards a cold, hard floor headfirst...