Radiant Wasp (The Rise of the Gorgon)
Prologue
The smell of the fresh roses reverberated throughout the quaint little room where Christie played with her dolls on a soft white floor. Heat came up through the floor for warmth in the winter months that made the home feel nice and cozy. It was one of the largest homes in the United States of Africa, a palace. The family had several maids cleaning the house, and keeping it nice. An electric fence surrounded the property, and a group of security guards roamed the property twenty-four hours a day. The roses surrounded the house, and were the loveliest color of red. They were genetically engineered roses about three times as big as a regular rose, and the little girl had one in her hair. Her mother planted the roses a few years ago, and sold them at the local market.
Nana Blake, a young African girl around sixteen-years old, sat at the kitchen counter drinking a cola slowly. She had the door to the kitchen opened, so she could keep a keen eye on Christie playing in the living room. The young girl was her responsibility while the girl's parents fought for Africa's sovereign rights against the foreign forces. She was a petite teenager with dark skin, long hair, and a soft face. Nana lived about a mile down the street from Christie, but spent the majority of her time taking care of the child. Her parents were working class citizens with ordinary jobs outside of the government. She saved the money she earned from watching Christie, and hoped to use it for college in Europe.
Nana looked out the window for a moment with a grimace on her face. The plumes of smoke rose over the northern mountains, and the fires were visible. The war between the United States of Africa and the Justice Corp devastated every region of the country, and it saddened Nana. All Africa wanted was her freedom from the Western Nations, but they continued to use force against the natives. The war started after the Justice Corp burned a large portion of Africa's wheat harvest in the southern part of the continent.
Plumes of smoke floated slowly overhead from the skirmishes taken place over the northern mountains, and Nana watched an African fighter plane ram into the side of it. The sound of the explosion reverberated through the small town, and it caused Christie to scream. A sudden explosion-a group of cluster bombs-startled Christy and Nana, and they took refuge in the corner of the living room. Loud popping noises could be heard throughout the quaint community from the bombs knocking down essential power lines, but the girls continued to remain calm. The firefight between the African Freedom Fighters and remnants of the Justice Corp had obliterated the majority of the area around the tall mountains. Christie could smell the smoke, and clung on to Nana's skirt. When she looked down at the girl, she noticed Christie's eyes changing.
"Stay calm," Nana said with a smile. "Keep your powers hidden, girl."
"Yes, ma'am."
She loved Nana. Nana had been babysitting Christie for years, and she knew all about the family's secretive powers. After the initial wave of American violence over the skies of Africa, Christie sat back down on the floor, played with her action figures, and gazed repeatedly out the living room window. It was how she dealt with all the turmoil in the United States of Africa. Nana paced the living room floor for awhile, and then sat beside Christie. The nascent African nation had a great deal of resources at its disposal, and had buyers for its goods all over the world, but they were scared. Only a few nations had the gall to disobey the United States backed Justice Corp led by the money grubbing Doctor Hawkins. On several occasions, Superman personally destroyed two African freighter ships with his laser vision while the ships were on their way to South America. The country of Africa lost billions of dollars, approximately two hundred and thirty souls, and its precious cargo when Superman ripped through their ships. The UN wouldn't even acknowledge that the act was criminal in nature, and even gave Superman a humanitarian award the same year.
Africa had tons of products it produced for the rest of the world. Even the doll that Christy played with was manufactured right in the southern region of the nation, and the Africans were proud of their quality of work in all their products, especially in its blue kryptonite fortified grains. The African scientists with the help of the Brainiac discovered the secret recipe for making blue kryptonite. It was used to give Africa's crops an extra boost. The majority of their crops was healthy, but it also had healing agents in them.
Christie played with her shiny black doll, wearing a black uniform, and had the letters "BA" on the front chest in yellow colors. She made zooming sounds as she twirled the action figure around and around in circles, and said, "Go, Daddy! Go!"
"Your father can handle himself against any man of steel," Nana said with a smile.
A smell of putrid waste overwhelmed their senses, and smothered out the nice smell of the roses. Christie tried to cover up her nose, but it didn't help. The smell crept through the house, and made it hard for Christie to breath. Running over to the living room window, Christie watched the debris from the plane burning on the side of the mountain. It took them a minute before they realized the pilot ejected out of the plane. They saw him parachuting down out the living room window. Christie walked over to the window, and thought about the stories her father use to tell her about the old world, about the world in which her people lived free.
Suddenly, a winged man burst through the roof, and let out an agonizing screech. Christie realized immediately that the smell was from the creature that stood in front of her. Nana covered her ears and Christie ran to the far right corner of the living room. In a tremendous amount of pain, Christie fell to one knee and Nana passed out on the living room floor. She hit the floor hard enough for Christie to hear her head hit the ground. Christie slid down the wall, onto her butt, and tried covering her ears, but it didn't stop the pain. Bits of the roof fell haphazardly to the ground, banging the young child up side the head. When a piece of the ceiling hit her head, her skin turned into a shiny metallic like substance. A piece of the ceiling collapsed over Nana, but Christie dove through the air, and pulled her to safety. She screamed for a moment, and the force of her voice threw the winged man into the far wall.
"Gorgon," the winged man said in a bitter voice. "You will bow before the Lords of Decay."
The winged man leaped in front of her wearing a uniform of silver and metal with a sinister grin on his face. She knew what kind of creature he was from her father's tales of the Lords of Decay. Their king was King Carious, and the Lords of Decay all had the ability to turn living flesh into decaying matter almost instantly. He touched the floor, and the concrete started to crack. She grabbed Nana and leaped out of the way of the cracking surface, and she knew she had to avoid his pernicious powers. The man scared the young girl into a frenzy, and her eyes began to change from a soft brown into a menacing green, and a surge of energy raced through her body. Panting, she tried to run up the stairs with Nana, but the winged man grabbed her with some kind of cable that shot from his right wrist. She accidentally dropped Nana, and was pretty much powerless against the cable. The cable tightened around her wrist, and she screamed out in pain. It retracted, and caused her to lose balance, dragging her across the room. He reached down, grabbed the girl by her golden hair, and flung her across the room. She hit the far wall, and slid down on top of her head.
"I know what you are," the man said with a silver shield covering his eyes. It slid over his eyes as soon as he saw Christie's eyes change colors. It was a long silver shield that covered his entire face; it was made of special material meant to protect him from any kind of deadly radiation. He knew that the shield would protect him from the girl's powers. She was a Gorgon, and had the power to turn any creature into stone. All the people of her race had the power to do the same, but many of the Gorgons had to escape their world when King Carious invaded it nearly thirty years prior. The lower half of his face looked like shredded meat, and his teeth were coated with decay. "King Carious wants you and your father dead."
He leaped across the room, and grabbed her by the throat. She tried to gnaw at his grip with her sharp teeth, but he tossed her into the corner. When she hit the wall, her dark, swarthy skin formed striations, and her eyes glowed bright with a fluorescent color. Her golden hair turned into golden snakes, and covered her entire head. A silver, metallic film covered her entire body that gave her protection against any weapon. She leaped into the air, and her legs morphed into a giant snake tail that smacked against the winged assassin. The force of the girl's tail caused the being to lose his face shield; It flew across the room, out of reach of his grasp. Trying to cover his eyes, Christie stared at him with her penetrating looks, and he became paralyzed. Her eyes were wide opened, green, and angry. When she saw he didn't have his protected shield, she ran up to him, gazed into his face, and he turned into stone. Once he was a solid piece of granite, his awful smell dissipated and he no longer had the ability to decay the world around him. Almost immediately she turned back into her human form, fell on the ground, and scooted over to Nana-crying.
The walls were white with a picture of the President of the United States of Africa in the center of the far wall. She slid underneath the picture of the President of the United States of Africa, and rested Nana's head on her legs. She checked to make sure she was still breathing. In the background, she could hear the bombs beating against the mountains and wondered if any more of the Lords of Decay would show up for a fight. The statute of the winged assassin stood in the middle of the floor, and she watched it closely. Nana's head sat in her lap, and she tried to revive her, but she wouldn't wake up for anything. Stroking Nana's hair, she watched the statue like it had the ability to still attack her. It was her first time turning flesh into stone, but she knew all about the Lords of Decay. Her father warned her of the possibility of assassins coming to Earth to kill him, but she didn't know if she believed the warning. Gently, she placed Nana's head on the ground, and then slid her hands across the wall in order to try to stand. Nervous, she didn't feel like she had the power to stand on her own. Her legs felt tingly. The fight finally sank into her conscience, and the fear of it overwhelmed her. Walking to the other side of the room, she looked back for a moment. She looked across the room at the President's picture, and felt some comfort in knowing that Africa had a strong leader, a leader willing to stand up for the rights of all Africans. He was a light skinned man with long, wooly hair, and thick, black glasses with a camera looking device in the center of them. His glasses fed directly into the Internet, and gave him knowledge on all events around the world. The glasses were another commodity made in the southern region of Africa, the mecca for innovation in the country. He had a serious look on his face, as did most Africans in those days. Not even a smile because of the turmoil between his nation and the United States. Above the picture were the words, "The Honorable Minister Mason Branch," but he wasn't a minister in the sense of anything religious. He was once a high level intelligence officer who brought down several governments around the world using the power of information. Not only was his glasses an asset to his intelligence, but they had the conscience of Braniac inside. He exposed the Justice Corp scheme to charge countries for protection, but it didn't do anything at the end of the day because the Justice Corp owned the governing bodies. The Justice Corp made good on their promise to collect billions from countries around the world for protection, and they paid the extortion fees too. The nations like New Baili and Nana in South America didn't pay the extortion fees, and a great flood hit those nations. Some scientist claim the Justice League satellites emitted a dangerous frequency that caused it to rain nonstop; other people, however, said that it was just the work of a god, but nearly twenty thousand people died in one weekend.
The flat screen television was on and it was loud. Christie liked the television as loud as her Momma would allow. It took up the wall directly to the girl's front, and had images of warplanes bombing parts of Africa, and the people running for the mountains. The planes were from the United States of America, and behind the planes, the Justice Corp continued with overwhelming force that crushed northern Africa's food crops. Word around the cities was the Justice Corp wanted payment for Minister Mason Branch's involvement in exposing their corruption, but in any case, it was more political than anything else. The cameras caught Superman burning the crops with his heat vision, and when the fields went up in flames, he laughed at how well his powers worked. African fighter jets hit the Man of Steel with a barrage of ordnance that tore through his uniform, but didn't do anything to him. He brushed off the tattered uniform, and destroyed seven of the ten planes with a series of lasers from his eyes.
Suddenly, a figure wearing a solid black suit with the letters "BA" on the front, hit Superman in the chest, and the Man of Steel flew across the sky. Some people called the man dressed in black Bad Ass, but the Africans called him Brutha Africa. As Brutha Africa flew slowly through the air, a green beam of light cut through the blue sky, and hit the man in the chest. The force from the beam knocked him to the ground, and he didn't move. He knew John Stewart because they had fought against the Manhunters on two separate occasions, but they had a falling out over Justice Corp's greed. Christie jumped to her feet, and screamed, "Daddy!" She sat in the middle of the floor with her head down, and sobbed loudly. The camera stayed on Brutha Africa until he leaped to his feet, and flew at overwhelming speeds through the sky. Another laser strike from John's ring left the ground scorched, but Brutha Africa escaped the beam just in time. After about thirty minutes, he showed up at his home. He looked like a man beaten, and the stress of the battle showed in his face. His costume looked disheveled because it was in tatters from John Stewart's power ring. Looking at the stone, winged man, he said, "If there's one, then there's two." He turned to his daughter, and picked her up off the ground. He knew the location of his team in central Africa in a thick, uncharted jungle. He met up with several other African superheroes, including Bionic Sista who was his wife, Panther, and the Volt. They all looked like beaten warriors after defending Africa against the onslaught of American military might and the Justice Corp. They started off with a fleet of metahumans, but now the team was scattered all over different regions of Africa. Some of them were dead.
Bionic Sista sat up against a large rock with several members of her superhero coalition around her, and held Christie close to her, and tried to smile for her daughter. The little girl had donned a wig that covered her golden braids, and sat quietly while the grown ups talked. She continued to hold on to the replica of her father, and knew that her parents were in big trouble because of the way they acted towards each other. Bionic Sista wore a black headset that looked as if it had been damaged in the fighting. It barely fit on her head because it was broken during the battle between her and Wonder Girl, a new member of the Justice Corp. It set on her head lopsided, but didn't look as if it worked at all. She tried to adjust the headset, and tapped it several times to try to obtain a signal from the African Freedom Fighters, but couldn't get a signal at all. It started smoking when she tried to use it, and she pulled it off her head, and flung it to the ground.
During the battle she saw John Stewart use his power ring to tear through a fleet of Freedom Fighter's planes, but Brutha Africa slammed a small Mercedes into him, and stopped the destruction. She thought the impact of the Mercedes on John Stewart's back would have stopped him, but it knocked him out for only a moment.
"I think the Freedom Fighters are gone," she said with a soft voice. "I've used my cell and every means I know to contact our boys, but nothing…"
"If that's the case…," Brutha Africa said as he looked up at the sky. "Then all is lost." He looked up in the sky, and said, "We have many threats. Soldiers have crossed the universe to hunt me down." He grabbed Christie, and held her. "King Carious attacked my world, and I watched it decay before my very eyes."
The Panther, a large dark skinned man with no hair, stood next to a coconut tree with a green rock in his right hand. Sweat poured off his bald head as he knelt on one knee. "How many assassins do you think made it to Earth?"
"They always travel in twos," Brutha Africa said, "They have tech that circumvents some of our powers, machinery that dwarfs anything on Earth. Not even if we worked with the Justice Corp could we defeat them."
The Volt walked over to Brutha Africa, and said, "One is dead."
"If we leave for the United States of Africa, and blend in …"
"And leave Africa?" Panther asked.
"Yes. I'd rather leave Africa, then destroy the world," he said, "We'll go into hiding, change our names, and be just human."
The Panther walked over to Brutha Africa with tears in his eyes, "Then you go into hiding for the good of world, but we'll stay in the fight. We'll stay in the fight until we kill every last member of the Justice Corp."
Chapter Eighteen
(The Rise of The Gorgon)
Christie remembered the jungles of Africa like the violence had just happened because of all the killings within the last six months in Gotham. It wasn't Gotham's first mass murder and it wouldn't be its last. She watched the events unfold in utter horror. Every channel-major and minor-covered the fiasco about a wealthy city councilman killing his peers. No matter how hard she tried to keep the awful news out of her life, she couldn't. She didn't understand why humans killed humans with so much pleasure. According to her father, humans were a barbaric race-dividing each other on the basis of skin color. The news covered the deaths like a high school football game. The television reporter mentioned something about a winged superhero, and gave a description of her. She said that the vigilante was a tall, dark skinned young woman with long black hair. The reporter warned the public that the woman was wanted by the Justice Corp for violating the Corp's policy on helping people for free, which cut into the Justice Corp's profits. The television set was situated on a television stand in the far right corner of the room. Nothing more than a thin, seventy-two inch piece of glass, it looked like it was easy to break. "TV off!" She exclaimed with a grimace on her face. The television turned off almost immediately.
She sat on the edge of her bed without her wig. Her golden strands of snake hair crawled on her head. Her snake hair was a beautiful yellow, and brought out the perfect color of her dark skin. The thoughts of the Lords of Decay entered into her mind, and she wondered if they had returned back to the planet. Her father often warned her of the Lord's return to Earth in large numbers. The thought of those nasty creatures scared her. She knew their blood was toxic to everything on the planet. The last time she fought one as a child she turned it into the stone. It was her Gorgon powers that kept the monster from decaying everything it touched.
She stood in front of her elongated mirror, fixing her wig, and trying to ensure her golden braids couldn't be seen. The mirror was placed in a fancy, Victorian frame that spoke volumes of Christie's style. Sometimes in her excitement, her hair would form into golden snakes, and wiggle its way through the wig. The thought of her snakes penetrating the surface of her wig always made her nervous. It was something she couldn't let happen under any circumstance. The world knew of the Titans, but only in mythology, only in the form of an evil being like Medusa. She scoffed at the Greek pictures that presented Medusa in a negative light. She came to the planet nearly seven thousand years earlier-when the Gorgons first took flight into space. Her ship was stranded in a remote part of Egypt-where she made her home. Medusa left several secretive scrolls in a cave outside of Cairo, and Christie read them several times. It was Medusa who talked about taking certain drugs in order to lull the snakes to sleep so she could move through society undetected. Christie did the same by taking a low dose over the counter sleeping pill in order to put the snakes at rest. She pulled one of the sleeping pills out of her purse, popped it into her mouth, and swallowed it without anything to drink. It was the same routine almost every morning. The pill didn't have any affect on her, but it lulled the snakes to sleep.
She was a tall teenager, a teenager much taller than all the students in her high school. At seventeen, she had plenty of drama to deal with, like all the kids her age, but her powers-uncontrollable and dangerous-made her life much more complicated than her peers. When she read Medusa's journals, she related her experiences in life to hers. On several occasions, Medusa claimed that she had troubles dealing with the people of Egypt. She tried her best to fit in with the common people, but they were soaked in superstitions of all types. Even Medusa questioned if she'd be able to live on a planet stuck so far in the dark that light escaped them. Sometimes Christie wondered if she had peers. She felt that she understood Medusa because so many people believed in the unbelievable.
Well, the meta-humans who lived on the fringes of society could identify with her pain, especially since the government started tagging them with chips. In her spare time, she spent many hours lurking on the outskirts of town trying to understand the meta-humans. She never revealed her powers to any of them, because many of them were wicked in nature. Many of the meta-humans lived on the outskirts of Gotham, and didn't dare enter into any major city in the US. They lurked in the crevices of society, and stole whatever they could get to make life a little better. The government had a plan to chip every single meta-human in the country; but if they didn't catch the meta-powers at birth, then they usually didn't chip them. The Justice Corp often sent spies in the bowels of the meta-humans, and would kill a few to trick the population into believing they were protecting them. Christie wasn't chipped. But since she was something other than a meta-human, her powers couldn't be detected as easily. In her human form, she registered as a human; but if she changed into a Gorgon, then her blood would register as alien blood.
Gotham: a city, a large violent city, was out of control, and nobody seemed to care. The streets bled with the blood of the poor, and it wasn't done bleeding. It lived to bleed. The economy slowed to a standstill with the ongoing conflicts around the globe, and the Justice Corp only seemed to add to the chaos. She had read on the Internet that at one point in time, the Corp was a generous organization who didn't charge for saving the world. They helped the societies of the Earth out of the generosity of their hearts. Unfortunately, the world had come to depend on the Justice Corp, and took advantage of their goodwill. It got so bad at one point that the world didn't recognized when the Corp stopped an asteroid from crashing into the Pacific Ocean. The world voiced their opinion about the asteroid by saying, "It's their planet too. So, why should we thank them? They saved the planet for themselves just as much as they did for everybody else." When the economy crashed, it bankrupt the Justice Corp, and the governments of the world made a collective effort to disband the organization. Superman interrupted the President's' State of the Union Address in Twenty-Twenty-Five. He pushed the President to the ground without any effort, and Doctor Hawkins disarmed the President's bodyguards with a bolt of electricity. Superman looked directly into the camera, and gave the world an ultimatum.
"From this day forward, the countries of the world will pay a monthly fee for protection. Protection from all outside forces, including us," Superman said as he stared directly into the camera. He had a serious look on his face. Squinting, he said in a monotone voice, "If you don't pay, your nations will bleed."
It was a foggy day, a day where the dense smog crept through the turbulent city, and smothered the sight of everybody in Gotham. It seemed to spread the putrid odor of the sewers through the streets, even in the classy part of the town. The town bred corruption; it was as much a part of of the landscape as the trees, the grass, and the asphalt. It was eight o'clock in the morning, and Christie drove her sleek, red car through the city very slowly. The fog made it hard to see, even for her superior eyesight. The thick traffic near Gotham Prep was the usual, and many of the teenagers drove to school.
The thick fog made it hard for the average person to see, and traffic slowed to a crawl. Christy wore some black shades that were almost too big for her face, but that was the style of the day. "Sunglasses on a Foggy Day," a song made by some one-hit-wonder from Britain was number one on the radio, and it caused a cool look. The news media continued to lament over the deaths of many of the city officials, and it weighed heavy on the city. The sewer urchins who died from the poisonous gas barely made a blurb in the news. Nobody cared about them. Not even a little. Christie watched the city workers remove the bodies out of the sewer, and she couldn't believe so many people died. Rumors about the deaths were all over the school; and she overheard one of the teachers accuse the city council of killing the sewer people.
Christy sat in the dense traffic, and thought about some of the lessons her father taught her. She knew a war was coming, and one day she suspected the war to hit Earth, and bring destruction to the skies of America. Her father taught her well about their homeworld of Gorgona, and how King Carious invaded his world with a fleet of a billion men. The Lords of Decay, the army of Carious, roamed through the underworld, and preyed on unsuspecting planets. It was the way of the Lords. If it wasn't for Carious advanced weaponry, the Gorgons would have taken them out without a problem. Unfortunately, Carious' army overwhelmed the Gorgons, and imprisoned millions of them. Nearly sixty thousand Gorgons escaped the planet, and went to different regions of the universe with the idea that one day they would unite, and rise against the Lords of Decay, and bring them to an end. Christie wasn't full Gorgon like her father, but had all the powers of his people. Not only did she have the ability to turn flesh into stone, she had super strength and the power to control other people. When she was a child, she remembered peaceful times in the United States of Africa, at least until the Justice Corp started demanding payment for crop protection. Brutha Africa and Bionic Sista said they would be the protectors of Africa, but the Justice Corp wasn't having it. They said that any local superheros had to cease all operations because they interfered with Justice Corp's overall profits. After Brutha Africa denied Justice Corp access to the wealth of Africa, the United States attacked Africa over its increase distribution of crops onto the world market. In a matter of a few years, Africa flooded the world market with boatloads of superior crops grown with a new technology under President Mason Branch. Christie pulled out an electronic cigarette, and took a puff of it as she waited for the traffic to flow. Her long fingers grabbed the brown, electronic cigarette with grace and poise, and she took a slow swig off the pipe, and blew the vapor gently into the air.
Now after all the ruckus of the war had calmed after so many years, half of the city officials in Gotham were gunned down by a maniac, and the police still didn't have any leads to the people responsible for the dead people under the city. Every few days some radio DJ did a tribute to the men that died in the shootings, but a rumor said that all the men who died were pedophiles. It was just a rumor, and nobody made an attempt to prove it or disprove it. The sweltering, sticky heat sometimes made the memories of the war pop into her mind, and she woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. She hated Superman and the Justice Corp from the bottom of her heart, and she didn't care to participate in any organization that the Justice Corp supported. The events of the mass shooting graced the news almost everyday for the last six months, and now everybody was on edge about mass shootings. Doctor Hawkins, the President of the Justice Corp, talked about how to cull the violence in Gotham, but didn't mention anything about their horrific work in Africa. The Justice Corp painted Africa as a rogue state, and said that they had President Mason Branch on the run.
She didn't care much for the Justice Corp, and usually turned off the television or bypassed any article on the Internet with their pictures on it. Her disdain for Superman was written on her notebooks with the anti symbol written over the "S", and she despised Doctor Hawkins too. She read that Doctor Hawkins had done great things over the years, but now he was all about making money since the market crash of Twenty-Twenty-Five. Often, she had dreams of her killing Superman, but never discussed them out loud. And when it came to John Stewart, she wanted to rip off his Green Lantern ring, and force him to eat it. The Justice Corp's meddling plunged Africa back into a massive Civil War that caused over a million deaths.
She recently had her seventeenth birthday, and her powers had already kicked in at full force. It wasn't easy being a Gorgon like her father on a planet where the people condemned anybody who was different. Her father taught her well through the years on masking her eyes so she didn't accidentally turn somebody to stone. It had already happened a few times, but she also had the power to turn them back. She attended school at Gotham Prep, a school for the wealthy of the city. Nobody knew about her family, and they kept their lives private from the world around them. Brutha Africa became Baron Fisher and Bionic Sista became Mary Fisher. They were an all-American family living in a large mansion, swimming pool, and a golf course. Baron had made a fortune over the last few years in computer software for home security systems. He started a security company called Baron's Security, and it was a huge company on the eastern portion of the United States.
Baron feared that the United States would eventually find out that he wasn't from Earth, and that he came from an ancient race of super beings called Titans. He was a Gorgon who fell in love with a human, and they had a baby. When Mary worked in the mines of Africa, she became ill, and almost died after giving birth to Christie, until science intervened. A group of highly trained doctors gave her a bionic heart, lungs, and extremities that gave her superhuman speed and strength. After the African government finished rebuilding Bionic Sista, she went to work directly for the President of Africa, and helped build his elite army. She even knew that Mason Branch's glasses were more than a conduit into the Internet, but held the conscience of a computer named Brainiac. It was Brainiac that gave Mason Branch the ability to turn Africa into a vast mecca of superior crops that brought the country billions of dollars.
Gotham Prep's security gate stood nearly fifty feet high and the school looked more like an evil, Victorian era Cathedral. Each department in the school had its own building that looked like a miniature replica of the main building. The entire campus took up three city blocks. About a mile down the road was an old cave next to the bay, and Christie loved that cave. She went there almost every morning in order to sit and think and wonder about life. She could see the ships passing by as she stood in front of the cave. The area had the smell of the ocean, and she loved the smell. She wanted to live in the cave, but her parents wouldn't let her. She often told her Momma that the ocean spoke to her.
Christie didn't fit in with the other students because she was a tall young lady. She stood approximately six-foot-four inches, thin, and very dark skinned. She spoke with a soft, French accent because the portion of Africa where she was born was once ruled by the French. Her original hair was made of gold, but she kept it hidden with a black wig. Her parents taught her that if anybody knew she was an alien that they'd hunt her for that reason alone. The majority of time she wore black dresses that clung closely to her slender frame, and didn't talk much to the other students.
In her original form, the form of a dragon like creature, man's ordnance couldn't penetrate her skin; but in her human form, some of the larger caliber weapons could kill her. When her father fought the criminals of Africa as BA, he often risked his life when the criminals used tank rounds against him. But in his original form, none of those weapons had the ability to hurt him.
On the first day of school, Christie drove up in a red shiny sports car, and saw another young woman with a similar build across the way. She thought she recognized the woman at first, but quickly realized she was a new student. A lot of new students were expected at Gotham Prep since one of the major schools in the city received massive damage in the spring. She walked over to the main building, and the other tall woman walked up to her, and said, "Hi. My name is Jessica." Jessica wasn't as tall as Christie, but was approximately six foot one.
"Jessica, my name is Christie. Nice to meet you," she said with a smile. "I've seen you somewhere."
"People always say I have one of those faces," Jessica said with a smile. "You know? The kind of face that you see everywhere."
"Maybe. So much crazy in the city," Christie said, "All those dead kids and city officials. The violence in Gotham is insane. She looked at Jessica for a moment, and then said, "You're new, right?"
"Yeah," Jessica said, "My old school was damaged."
Christie and Jessica walked through the halls of the school, and they were extremely crowded with the majority of students from Jessica's old school now gracing the halls of Gotham Prep. The new students weren't of the same caliber of the kids that attended Gotham Prep on a regular basis. Eight of the students at Gotham Prep lost their fathers during the mass shooting. The majority of the kids in the school had wealthy parents who ran Gotham on some level. Since Christie's father was a very wealthy man, she fit right in with the other kids at Gotham Prep, at least moneywise.
It was a lot of noise in the hallway, but every building on campus had a ton of students inside of them. The two girls were inside the main building that housed the English classes, and they had the same Junior English Class with Mister Drake, a large man with broad shoulders who looked somewhat insane. He was a little taller than Christie, but huge like a football player. A rumor had reverberated through the school that Mister Drake was a member of the Justice Corp, but he laughed it off. He always claimed that teaching took up all his time.
When Christie entered into Mister Drake's class, she walked past Ju Na's desk, a skinny Asian Wiccan with long hair, dark eye shadow, and wearing a fluffy black dress. She sat on the front row of the classroom next to the entryway. As Christie entered the room, she gave Ju Na a blank stare for a moment, and then she remarked, "Move your eyes off me, bitch!"
Christie stopped in front of her desk, and said, "We're not going to have an issue, are we?"
Ju Na looked up at Christie, and shrugged her shoulders. She didn't say anything, but had a nasty look on her face. Ju was from a wealthy family that owned a fleet of restaurants throughout the entire city. The Chinese place on Fifth Street was owned by her family, but her uncle ran the joint. His entire family died from the gas attack in the spring, and she was still mourning his death. Christie didn't hate her fellow classmate, but didn't like her attitude. Ju Na was the kind of person that didn't stop and think about what she said before she would say it, but she didn't like Christie because of her views on the Justice Corp. A year earlier, Christie had written a paper on the reasons the Justice Corp should disband. Christie's main reason for her dislike of the Justice Corp, according to her paper, was because they acted like bullies. She used the fact that the group conned money out of other countries in exchange for protection. But from what Christie could tell, the countries really paid in order to have protection from the Justice Corp. Ju Na took exception to her paper, and said that the only way justice would prevail over the gas attack was if the Justice Corp got involved. Unfortunately, six months passed with absolutely no resolution to all the deaths.
Jessica sat down right beside Christie in the middle of the classroom, when three members of the football team pranced into the room. A tall, approximately six foot one black guy walked into the room carrying a football. Christie told Jessica that the jock was Tony Brown, and he was the quarterback of the football team. When Tony entered the room with his football, he posed for the girls in the classroom, and said in a loud voice, "All star, baby." Christie rolled her eyes, and couldn't believe how conceded he was, but the entire football team acted the same way. He raised up his right hand, and then said, "My hands are so perfect that I had them insured."