Evergreen
1.1
Her mother took from her too soon, a betrayal from one she'd considered a sister, torment bordering on torture for two years too long. In a world where one truly bad day could see someone gifted with powers and abilities, none of these things were what pushed the young woman known as Taylor over the edge.
Her mother had been an English Teacher, but before she'd switched majors she had been a Botanist. She knew the change hadn't been because of a lack of love for the subject but because of the horrors of a supervillain Seeder that had taken place while her mother had been in her second year at BBU. She'd never asked what had happened, her mother always got quiet when she spoke about her early years at university, but she knew it had been bad.
As bad as it had been though, her mother's love for plants and all things green had never abated, simply the pursuit of the subject for study. She raised Taylor with the same love she gave any of her budding plants and instilled in Taylor that same love for all plantlife, from the smallest weed to the tallest tree. So when Taylor's mother died she threw herself into looking after her house's tiny backdoor garden as a way to stay connected.
Her favourite was the Eastern Redwood birth tree, planted by her father the day she'd been born while her mother was still in the hospital, and then carefully tended to by her mother as she grew. A celebration of her birth and her parents love for her, and a way for her to continue to nurture that connection with her mother even after her passing.
So when Taylor woke one morning during her 16th Summer, remarkably at peace despite the horrors she faced at school knowing she was safe during the holidays, and came downstairs for her morning ritual of tending to those plants that needed to be, her peace was shattered upon seeing her tree vandalized.
Someone, though she had her guesses, had somehow carved several inches deep into her beautiful Redwood all the insults and slurs that she dealt with every day at school.
She didn't care about the insults, she had weathered those and worse physical bullying every day for two years now, but the weeping sap from her mother's tree and the simple number of insults carved into the tree meant one thing.
Someone had killed her Mothers tree.
As her mind whirled in despair and rage she slumped to the ground, an entity reached out the create a connection-
Two entities floated above the planet, shards began to splinter and fall-
-the connection stopped suddenly as something warmed, something Green reached out a comforting presence that settled over her. Without understanding from her part, her mind not yet ready for communication, a pact was made.
Beneath her skin her beating heart stuttered for just a beat before it began pumping anew, green spreading where once flowed red. Her eyes opened in shock at the sensations spreading over her body, her eyes once the brown of her father changed in a moment. The white of her eyes turned a green so dark it seemed black as her iris contrasted a luminescent green.
Where her fingers trailed against the grass they began to burrow beneath her skin, not quite painful, but an itch that began to cover her whole body as it adapted to the intrusion, ivy like protrusions fusing with her skin, capable of developing seeds or growing at great speed as a form of attack.
Her beautiful redwood began to heal as she stood and stepped forwards to it, her forehead pressed against it as she soothed the sounds of agony she could now hear from it.
In reverence and gratitude a few leafs fell to her long black mane of hair, turning it a shocking red as flowers began to bloom among her locks.
In the space of five minutes two girls in their pursuit of causing pain to someone who had never wronged them, had changed the fate of their planet forever.
The Green had found a champion for their planet, one who would fight against their enemies even as the humans succumbed to the faustian gifts they had been given. The entities would perish and the Green would bloom again, the planet was theirs for the taking.