Reborn in the Gutter
Prunella Potter chose death that continue her miserable existence as she found that she was always forced to give too much yet never got anything in return. That she boarded the train, leaving Dumbledore behind with the ugly flayed baby that was once Tom Riddle.
She hoped that she can live life on her own terms this time. As when the train further went ahead, there were train stops.
21st century.
22st century.
23rd century.
She got off at 23rd simply because wizards live so long she doesn't want to see any witch or wizard ever again. Many people went by here too while others chose to keep going.
She got a ticket from a skeleton dressed like a train station employee. She noted that others got a white ticket, others got a gray ticket, and she got a black one!
'What's this?'
'Where you're going.' said the employee in a hoarse voice, but rather its pitying her? 'Good luck. When you boarded the train, you rode a third class cabin. You're in for a rough start when you leave the train station...and you're a rare soul with memories intact too, because you still possessed Death's Cloak. You never got the chance to surrender it. Otherwise you'll reincarnate properly like these guys who'll be born again without a memory of their previous lives.'
'That's fine with me.' said Prunella. 'At least I can survive by knowing what to do. Nobody will exploit me this time.'
'Good luck.' and Prunella left the station where its a blinding light...
xxx
It was when she was three years old that she regained 'herself'.
She's living...in a shack made of metal sheets? It's as big as the Dursleys' living room and its an all-in-one room, with no privacy whatsoever.
Her mother...is dolling herself up? In a very revealing dress at that. Her expression was that of utter dread, before she picked her up from her crib.
'Ella, mommy will go to work OK? Be good to your babysitter Mrs. Burnett.' she cooed to her baby before sighing. 'Its another rough day with assholes for me.' she lamented as they left the shack, to go to a shack across theirs. Ella looked around that they're in the slums. A slum made of rusty metal sheets welded together somehow as that was how it looked like. Mrs. Burnett was an old lady who was wrinkly skin and bones.
'Another day.'
'Sadly.'
'Remember you have a kid OK? Your customers are a dangerous bunch.'
'I'm always playing it safe Mrs. Burnett.'
It did not take long for Ella to figure out what her mother's job was. A prostitute.
Her mother has a pretty face with large breasts, but that was it. Her name was actually Claire Brooke. And Ella was short for Elaine Brooke. How, baffles her. But whatever.
As she grew up, she learns from Mrs. Burnett how to cook and clean, and what kind of place she lives in.
They are on the planet Tarsonis. In its capital Tarsonis City. In a particularly nasty district called derisively by everyone as 'the gutter'. And how!
The Gutter was a disreputable area which consisted of the Southwest and Southern Districts of Tarsonis City.
The Gutter was a desperately poor area. People who live here are destitute that there's not much education, beyond what you learn orally from family and friends.
It was run by rival drug lords such as Orphy Jones and Grin. The latter killed his rival, only to be later murdered by his underboss, Fagin.
Eventually Fagin became the sole ruler of the area. The Tarsonis Police Force made virtually no attempt to solve crimes there, in part because of bribes from the criminals who ruled the area. It was divided into a number of suburbs, streets, etc. many of them run by Fagin's subordinates.
They're in an area called Duckworth. The...'nicest' district so far as it was where Fagin's headquarters are. Ella's mother works in a brothel there and who her father is, is anyone's guess, but Ella was growing to be more of a beauty that Mrs. Burnett thinks her father might be someone from a wealthy family because Ella was beautiful.
When Ella can walk, she tried accessing her magic if it was still there.
There is power...but...its different?
It's powerful, but no spell she tried worked, irking her.
One thing that DID work, was legilimency.
She mind read everyone she could and discovered the existence of psychic powers, and rumors that the Confederate Army drafts psychics in by force whether families like it or not. Heck, in hospitals, you're taken from the moment you're born, if you have a Psychic Index of 5 when detected while still in your mother's womb!
So the powers far away from Earth manifested as psychic powers instead. No wonder she can't cast magic. The energy she has, was mental energy.
And she obtained comics with Dobby's help in the past when she wanted comic books back in her Hogwarts days...and experimented with that knowledge.
She is capable of Telepathy, Teleportation, Telekinesis, Psychometry and to an extent, Mind Control. All of which, were a reflection of Legilimency, Imperius Curse, Apparition, and...er...she can't classify Telekinesis and Psychometry with its magical equivalent, but she can do pretty much 'anything' and even fly with it! She also went as far as modifying her body to grow up beautiful and without hereditary illnesses in her genes safely. She also aids her mother by 'porting out' drugs and alcohol out of her body so she would recover faster whenever she comes home...and STD if any.
But she cannot enjoy her powers.
Because HELLO Ghost Program!
She often helps her mother out by doing chores in the house, and pickpocketing in the capital while avoiding Wranglers. Psychics who hunt their own kind and 'sell them' to the government for a large sum of cash.
'Honey where do you get all this money?' Claire Brooke asked her daughter, astonished.
'I fish wallets!' Ella claimed, forking out 20000 credits. An average monthly salary is 300 credits as minimum wage pay as prices of products showed Ella that the value of credits is 'very high'. Cushy jobs can go as high as 1500 credits or if one works for a rich boss, 2000. Claire choked at the money.
'L-let's save that for a rainy day, alright? We can't let anyone know we got this kinda money!' Claire squeaked, shakily looking outside nervously. 'Let's focus on food, clothes and bills. In this rotten place, if you're rich you'll put a target on yourself!' she warned her daughter who nodded grimly.
'Yes mom.'
'Since you got this much, we can live off this for about five years. But I have to keep working at the brothel...so focus on buying food alright? As for clothes, they're kinda pricey so only buy as needed.'
Thus Ella wears plain clothes. A dark blue shirt, overalls and boots. As she grew older, its what she ever wears. Its a wash-and-wear outfit. Only changing when colors faded from too much wash-and-wear.
One day, at January 17 2500 when she's 15 years old, she was going home from shopping for groceries, when she suddenly felt a powerful psychic blast that made her mental world feel as if she was into one hell of an earthquake, disorienting her a little.
Using her telepathy, she located that crazy blast...from Terra Skyscraper.
From a pretty blonde girl her age.
Ella calmly walked into an alley and ensuring that there are no cameras, ported home with the girl she saw.
xxx
Distraught at losing her family to terrorists as well as betrayal from the man she saw as her second father, November Annabella Terra ended up wrecking the topmost floors of the skyscraper with the grief of a PI 10 Psychic and then all of a sudden, finding herself in a rusty dump!
'Where am I? How'd I get here?' Nova sputtered out.
'I took you to safety.' Ella told her. 'You're a psychic with immense power, and in danger of getting wrangled into the government's Ghost Program. A fate not even rich families can buy their way out of. Not even an Old Family girl like you.' she said bluntly and to the point as Nova stiffened at her words. 'I'll teach you how to use your powers and how to get by, before you go off on your own. Until then, master your powers. I'm Elaine Brooke, your fellow psychic and my mom doesn't know I'm psychic. Don't tell her.'
'You actually live in this dump...' Nova shook in horror, looking around, wondering how can anyone live in a place that's as small as a pethouse for the rich, as Ella laughed bitterly.
'This place is called The Gutter. A poor district where people who are so poor live.' Ella drawled with an armfold before sneeing. 'Law? Police? You can't rely on them when Crime Lord Fagin bribes them into looking the other way. It helps that the government doesn't care about its people, only their self-interests.' she said. 'And you'll have to learn how to be strong, before you can think of accessing your family's wealth again.'
'Can I go to my sister?' Nova asked her hopefully. 'She lives in Kusinis Tower now since she'll get married soon...'
'Flatly impossible, but you can contact her.' said Ella to Nova's disappointment. 'Tell her the truth about your family's murder through telepathy and what you know of it. This way she can secretly send you money to get by because as we speak, the government will pay your sister a visit, to pressure her to lie to the public that you're dead to make it easier to force you into the Ghost Program.'
'You keep saying Ghost Program!' Nova burst out impatiently. 'What IS it?!'
'Psychics who are forcefully inscripted into the army. Trained as elite commandoes and assassins given the toughest of missions with a high-fatality rate, yet they succeed because of their psychic powers.' Ella explained to her. 'Rumor has it that when you're in, you'll forget who you are and everything about you after you undergo a Memory Wipe, making you no more than a soldier loyal to whoever your boss is in the military, capable of only obedience...like a puppet.' she said in contempt.
'If your boss is a pervert, he can rape you any time he wants and you can only obey his orders in his bedroom as a morbid example like a sexbot.' Nova was highly disgusted at the notion. 'That is the danger we lady psychics face if we're forced into that shit.'
'Fekk...' Nova shook as she pondered her non-existent future due to being hunted for her powers. 'How can I contact my sister?'
'Learn how to use Telepathy first.' Ella deadpanned. 'I'll teach you how. And we'll do it in a place where wranglers don't go.' she said, snapping her fingers for a gadget to appear before her. 'This thing here measures a psychic's Psy Index. To be a Ghost, your PI has to be 5 and up. They don't take psychics with 4 below.' she said.
'Took me a while to locate a toy like this...I'll see how strong I am...never knew since I was five years old.' Ella snorted as she pointed the device at herself and let Nova see her level.
'...PI 10...' Nova croaked out, seeing the results. 'What about me?' Ella pointed the device at her...same result.
'PI 10 too.'
'...fekk...' Nova swore at this. 'This means we'll be sought after...'
'On the bright side, with a PI like that, talking to your sister from all the way out of town, will be easy as pie.' Ella grinned. 'We will train outside the city. Its how I was undetected for so long while mastering my powers freely.'
'That's interesting...'
'Let's go. My mom comes home in the morning. She works at the brothel at night.' Nova choked hard. 'Anything you want to take at your house before the government raids the place?'
'Yeah. A lot.' Nova told her grimly. 'Help me out here.'
'Alright.' and with a snap of her fingers, Ella's features were obscured with a large hooded outfit before they teleported to Terra Skyscraper, to Nova's wreckage site.
There were already people at the bottom of the skyscraper.
'OK girl, rummage fast while I delay the troops at the bottom of the tower. Take only what will make you future Terra Family Head with full control of your family's properties and assets as well as computers!' Nova quickly rummaged her father for his wallet where there's so many cards as well as keys on his person, before going off.
Ella delayed the military by deliberately malfunctioning the elevators by cutting cables when high enough to fall down to one's doom, while harnessing information from Nova's parents' brains. Since they're freshly dead, she can still glean something off their corpses.
When Nova was back with quite the equipment, they ported out.
xxx
'What do you mean mission failure?!' Ilsa Killiany shrieked at an officer that reported to her.
'Terra isn't alone ma'am...she's with someone unknown.' the officer reported. 'Satellites showed a person in black hooded clothes. Terra came back with this person to take her father's wallet and an entire computer set, before they vanished.'
'Vanished...' Ilsa shook where she stood. 'What type of psychic power is that...so far we only ever had Teeks and Teeps!' this got her excited now. 'We need to find those two, and fast! FIND THEM!' she hollered frantically as the officer quickly cut communication as she's clearly losing her marbles from pressure, as Mengsk overhauled the program by terminating half the Ghosts employed, thus she needed to find new replacements quickly!
They never did find Nova and the other...
xxx
Outside the city...
First in order, was how to cook healthy meals, before psychic lessons. Accessing, harnessing and using Mental Energy which fuels one's psychic abilities. Once she masters it, time to know what she can do.
'OK, we have Telepathy, Telekinesis, Teleportation and Psychometry as far as I know...I dare not peek into Ghost Academy and get caught, but this is a start.' said Ella. 'I have no idea if Teleporting is unique to me or not, hence this test out.' she said. 'Oh yes, I almost forgot...my name is Elaine Brooke, but everyone who knows me calls me Ella for short.' she said. 'While you were gone, I used psychometry on some adults there.' she said. 'It seems your parents originally intended for you to be shipped off to Tyrador IX to keep all heirs safe from the Anti-Confederate Rebels. To a resort house owned by the Calabas Family.' she said. 'Then if things went to shit, Arturro Calabas will tell your bodyguards to put Plan Razor to action.'
'Plan Razor?'
'Move to Shi, in Baker's Dozen.'
'Those fringe worlds are owned by the Calabas Family...' said Nova thoughtfully. 'Since you're a Teleporter, we can get out of this dump sooner with you stealing some money. Then by faking our IDs, we can get the fekk out of Tarsonis and away from the Confederates!' she exclaimed. 'We'll take your mother so she'll stop...with her job...' she croaked awkwardly, shuddering at Ella's mother's job.
'Being so poor with no education, that was what was available for women in the Gutter.' said Ella somberly. 'I chose to be a pickpocket with my powers instead for a reason. Mother, upon seeing how much I filched, wanted to quit but couldn't. The Crime Lord Fagin keeps a tight hold on his assets.' she said. 'We have to plan this carefully while we train.'
'Alright.'
And so they began cooking training, while Ella built Nova a secret base far outside the city, by hollowing out rock with multiple routes and well-insulated. They stole a lot of things. Solar Generators and other things for a comfortable living for Nova to be on her own.
Ella supplies Nova with food, water, hygiene necessities and when in need of a bath, Ella would teleport them to an empty hotel room in the city to use the showers within. They have their own toiletry of course...as for food, it's home-cooking.
For the time being, Nova wrote a letter to her sister, which Ella teleported in front of the woman in dinner in Kusinis Tower, startling the family.
