woah, I just saw a new Incredibles teaser and mirage was actually in, like, two frames! Crazy. ok, you people, are really really awesome, I am still agog with how many people like my story! oh, and I upped the rating because I didn't realize that this story is a little more intense than I first planned. plasmabomb: thank you accept kudos I hope you continue to like this. you are awesome. SwordoftheKing: wow. thanks! I try.;-D Voicegirl: hm, you think Richard Lewd's going to cause trouble, well, read on, you just mught be right. oh, and it'll be awhile before Buddy/Syn enters the story, so, don't hold your breath or you'll suffocate. Blackfire18: this one's longer! dswynne: spanish? meh. it's too late to change it. whatever, and russian is more... Mirage-y Soccergirl: Thanx! Wildtotodile: because he loved her! or lusted for her... either way, he wouldn't be overly excited about getting rid of her too quickly. ProphecyWeapon: it just makes sense doesn't it? her being a super I mean. Pitbulllady: I don't even know where to begin. so...yay! you are awesome BeautifulMind: I totally understand, I just thought she was a wee bit out of character. I adore your story... stories any way and you are cool. Dashielle and Lady shelina Raven: thank you thank you! Base2: and that's why I wrote this, because she does deserve a backstory. PriestessLennoue: continueing! Tetra: ha! I knew it! that's an awesome game!

While my mother signed the papers necessary, I could not take my eyes away from Henry. He yielded so much power over us. As the last flourishing mark was signed on the paper, Henry smiled knowingly, he knew of his own supremacy. Power, such power, even long before any of the papers were signed, he had us right in the palm of his hand, and we all knew it. I… admired it.

He picked up the papers to check that everything was in order and looked up at us and smiled; a gesture I would soon discover to be rare.

"Well, Tatiyana, Anzehlika, welcome to Celestial Starz. Now, this is highly unusual in that I normally have girls coming to me who already have headshots and zed-cards and the like, but I can have that all made up for you, and before you know it, both of you will be out getting jobs. Tatiyana," He turned to my mother who, under is strong gaze, straightened up even more proudly than before, "you will most likely be doing fashion modeling, runway, catalogues and the like, due to your height" (5' 11", height being a trait I was not so lucky to receive through genetics), "and um, your 'look'."

He turned to me, "and Anzehlika, soon you'll be doing all sorts of children's magazines and catalogues and such, you're very pretty for your age-" he said the same words as everyone else did, and yet I didn't hate him for it, "- but don't expect to be getting jobs every time you're put out there." He stood up and opened the door for us. Taking our cue, we both stood up and made our way towards the exit as well.

We were almost out the door when Henry stopped us again, "wait, here's my card," he produced a small piece of cardboard paper, tucking it deftly into my mother's hand, "call as soon as possible, and we'll schedule a shooting for your zed-cards."

We were suddenly back in the greeting office. Richard Lewd was sitting nervously near the front door and the women behind their desks were typing busily on their typewriters. I wondered how long they had really been typing.

Upon seeing us emerge, Richard stood up nervously. I noted with amusement that he was drenched from the knee down and that the water-cooler in one of the corners was empty, obviously from trying to put out the "fire" I had started. He nervously walked over to us, and whispered urgently,

"Well? How did it go?" He nearly jumped out of his skin when a familiar dark voice answered for my mother.

"Excellent, they did quite well." We hadn't even noticed that Henry had reentered the room. "Now Richard, would you be so kind as to escort these ladies home. It's after dark, and I wouldn't want my two newest models to be mugged on the way. You understand? Excellent."

A ripple of excitement went through the ladies when they heard the phrase "newest models." And I could see a spark of genuine happiness in Lewd's eyes, which surprised me. We walked home without a word to Lewd, my mother grasping my hand the whole time. She would sometimes give my hand a little squeeze, and I would look up and my mother would smile at me. Something about that smile made me feel so hopeful for the future; it made me feel that maybe life would start looking up after all.

X

Henry paid for our headshots, zed-cards, everything. We couldn't afford them for ourselves, and he promised he would find a way for us to pay him back later. The headshots came out well, and everything was going smoothly. People told us that we were unusually photogenic, so I suppose that's why Henry took on a special intrest in the affairs of my mother and me. I grew to love him, and by the time I was twelve I came to see Henry as a sort of father figure. Like the father I hardy remembered. I could tell my mother admired him as well, but strangely enough, she seemed more afraid of him than anything else.

We were both getting jobs faster than any other models Henry had ever had. The ladies at the office, (Sally, Bertha, Simone and Kelly) all adored us, the other models… did not. In fact, they hated us.

Now, before I move on, I feel that I must mention something about my school life in all of this. Academically, school was… ridiculously easy. Unfortunately, school is not all book and numbers. Especially not middle school. There were cliques galore, and if you weren't part of one, you had no friends. I wasn't a part of any clique. You might think that since I was beautiful, I would be able to make friends quite easily, but that was not the case. I am not saying I was not beautiful for my age, because I was, very much so, but there is more to popularity than looks, not much more, but enough to prevent me from having any friends.

I was a bookworm. Probably more for company than actual enjoyment, although I did love the stories I read. I loved the characters more than any real people I had ever met, (excluding my mother of course) and I often wished that they were real. My powers weren't advanced enough to create the illusion of a person, and even if they were, I would never believe that the people were real, so it would defeat the purpose of creating them.

In my books, I always had a soft spot in my heart for the misunderstood antiheroes… like the phantom, in The Phantom of the Opera. It made me cry when he died of a broken heart at the end. He was unloved, and it was just so unfair. But these characters, they always seemed to have the most interesting, tortured pasts; pasts that you could delve into and get lost in.

I grew to love the fictional people so much, that my standards for real people became very high. I didn't like any of the kids in my school at all. I suppose I thought they were immature or simple-minded or something, but I couldn't stand talking to someone my own age any longer than a few minutes.

I would always dread the days when one of my pictures would be discovered in a popular magazine. The most socially influential girls would wave the photo around and desecrate it and hang it on my locker.

The first time this happened I forgot the combination of my locker and dropped all my books on the ground. The other girls laughed at me and as they walked triumphantly away wondered loudly how such a clumsy girl could possibly be a model.

It could possibly have been my fault then, that only moments later the leader of them slipped on a large puddle of slippery ice. She fell flat on her ass, with her skirt flying up, and her vocal chords emitting a satisfying scream. It happened to be the middle of June, and the streets were far from frozen.

Anyway, back to the other models at the agency; they hated us. I remember there were times when all of the models from the agency would come together and have a big meeting of sorts. The meetings would be at different cafes or small restaurants in the back party rooms. I didn't know what it was all about then, and honestly, I still don't fully understand, although I have the sneaking suspicion that they only had them to gossip and complain about their part-time waitressing jobs.

I remember distinctly one meeting in particular. But then, how could I forget it, with what followed. It was three years after we joined the agency and I was thirteen; that awkward age where I couldn't model for children's magazines anymore, and was too young to model for teen magazines either. Or rather, I should have been. I was still snatching up jobs faster than anyone else, which confused the other models' simple minds. They didn't know what to think about me, so they just turned their confusion in to hatred, and that hatred into a dreadful weight, just waiting to fall on my head and smash me to pieces.

The meeting I recall took place right after school, and I hadn't eaten all day, so I was ravenously consuming the celery sticks and ranch that had been set out as refreshments. One of the models came up to me and shook her head condescendingly.

"Ooh," she said quietly shaking her head, "look at all that ranch dressing." She had long dark brown hair, and big brown eyes; a real Americana girl. "You're probably used to eating just as much as you want without gaining a pound." Another girl had come up behind the first.

"I wouldn't get into the habit of that if it were you, darling," she said, "your metabolism will slow right down as you get older." I stared dumbstruck at both of them my already huge eyes even more enormous than usual, and a celery stick half way up to my mouth. They both looked at me expectantly but I had nothing to say.

"Just wait, you'll start getting fat like the rest of the world, and when you do, you'll balloon right up." They were grasping at straws to get a reaction from me, and it almost worked. Eighth grade was certainly hard enough without these beautiful idiots prophesizing the end of my thinness as I knew it. But I continued to say nothing, and after a few minutes of expectant silence, they saw that I was going to be no fun to poke at. And turned on my mother.

"Well?" the brunette asked wickedly, "what have you been teaching her?" My mother didn't have anything to say either. She had been standing on her own, looking around like royalty among peasants. And now she looked down her nose at the women who were heckling me and pushed past them to grab my hand. Together we rushed out of the room so quickly I didn't have time to say goodbye. Not that I wanted to.

We left that horrible place and slammed the door behind us and I was sure that I heard cutesy laughter as we left. We stormed through the trendy little restaurant, both of us in foul moods.

"This broke the back." My mother mumbled angrily. "The last straw" these small attacks had been building and building, none of them were huge, but mother was right, this was the last straw. Something had to be done. We walked quickly over the icy ground, partly out of anger, partly out of numbing cold. I was surprised when we passed the street to get home

"Ma-?"

"We're not going home, Lika." She said angrily.

Henry looked surprised when we arrived at the agency.

"Tatiyana, Anzehlika… what are you doing here? It's late." He said with a strange smile. Henry never smiled. And something about his smile made me, for the first time… afraid of him. "Come in," he said, "come in, come in" he shut the door behind us. "So, what's the problem?"

"Those models of yours," my mother began, "the ones you could not safely shake a stick at? They-" Henry cut her off.

"Wait," he said, "let's talk about this in my office." My mother looked up at him, startled. For some reason, I felt sick to my stomach. "Anzehlika, here, take this money and get a taxi, and go home, your mother and I have some things to discuss" My worst fears were confirmed, and so, it seemed were my mother's.I was only thirteen, but I wasn't stupid, and I knew that when Henry put his hand on the small of mymother's back and led her into his office without the smallest resistance from her,I knew he was doing something very wrong.

For a moment I couldn't think at all. I stared dumbly at the money in my hand then at the door shut before me.How did we get in this deep?How didwe no notice what a horrible man Henry was. No, how did I not notice? My mother, she knew all along.

This money in my hand was money he had made through us, through all the models. All the models… and god knows what he had done to them. He held our jobs above ours heads. He had such power, such power over us, and he knew it, and he used that. I looked again at the vile paper in my hand, hating it with every ounce of my being. Hating that man that I had considered like my father.

I threw the money onto the ground and ran out of the agency slamming the door violently behind me. I ran all the way home. It was dark and I had to push my way through thick crowds of prostitutes and drug dealers but I didn't care. I ran blindly home and threw myself onto the bed and sobbed myself to sleep.

ok, now you see why I changed the rating? I hope some of you were at least a little surprised.