Note from the author: apologies for the delay. Our baby son was born 2 months premature back in February so life has been extremely difficult until now. Hope you enjoy this chapter :)
Accel lay awake in the dim light of early evening, and listened to the other two girls sleeping. To her left, Phoebe was giving little snores, and to her right, Bibi was breathing heavily. Accel couldn't sleep. Not that she wasn't tired – there was just something inside that meant she couldn't let go of the day that was passing. It had been a day like no other. So much had gone on. So much to think about.
What had happened at the conference? Why were there bombs? Why had the stupid humans started attacking her teachers and her friends? Well, that's a no-brainer, she thought, it's just what humans do. Why were we protecting them in the first place, anyway? It's stupid trying to be their friends when they so obviously don't want to be ours!
As hard as the teachers had tried to shield her from it and sugar-coat what was really happening, Accel knew a lot of people had died. She had heard the screams, and even seen one or two bodies. She tried to think how it had felt. It wasn't the first time she had seen death. When she was seven years old, she'd seen death, when Pyro's Brotherhood had rescued her from a bunch of human sub-creatures intent on killing her. At ten years old, death wasn't something she thought about very often, but yesterday had scared her a little at just how easily it could happen. Still, it was only humans who died, she told herself, they're going to die someday anyway. Pyro always said that. When it comes down to the fight between us and them, we're always going to win.
But then those other mutants had shown up. Accel didn't know who they were or what they wanted. It made sense that they had attacked the humans, because all mutants needed to fight to protect themselves from being hurt by the sub-creatures. But why had they started attacking her teachers and her friends? That didn't make sense at all! Why were mutants attacking other mutants? We should be sticking together, she thought, to protect ourselves from the humans! We'll only be weaker if we fight amongst ourselves first! The fight is between us and them, not us and us! Mutants should never kill other mutants – that had always been Pyro's rule.
So they'd run for it and ended up at the so-called "safe" house. Which had proved to be anything but! That was when things had really started to go crazy. Where had Vertigo gone? Why had he been so weird when he got back? How had the bad guy, Dervish, known where to find them? It was supposed to be a secret! Only people who used to be in the Brotherhood were supposed to know where it was! And they were all her friends – except maybe one or two who'd died or disappeared off the scene. Was that what it was? Had Scarab or Mole reappeared somewhere? But even they had been her friends – back on the island when she was just seven, they'd always played with her and made her laugh.
And Dervish had said he'd been targeting her specifically. Why? He'd said it was because she'd pushed that crazy cat-woman out of the window at the hotel. Well, what else was Accel supposed to have done? Stand there and let the cat-woman kill Mr Logan and Gemini? Not that she cared about the human they were supposed to have been protecting. No! Never! Accel furiously told herself that her attack on the woman had only been an effort to help out Gemini and Mr Logan in the fight. It hadn't been to protect the human. Pyro would have been livid if he'd known Accel had helped save a human.
Dervish had tried to kill her. And that was when it had happened. The anger, the rage, the burning inside. The explosive amplification of her powers. Speed, alertness and strength like she had never known before. And it had felt good, like she had been keeping all of this inside her for years and years and years, and had finally been able to let it out. It had felt good, and it had felt right, as if she was finally fighting back and striking a blow against the injustice the humans had inflicted on her through her entire life. She wanted to fight back. She wanted to hurt those who had hurt her. She wanted to scream and rage and hurt them until they couldn't hurt her any more. She wanted to unleash her anger and her newfound power on those who deserved it. Five seconds of it had been enough to completely turn the tables on Dervish.
After that, things had got weirder still. Vertigo had gone completely crazy. She still didn't really understand why. Something to do with coming back to the place where he was born. Something horrible had happened to his mum and dad. Huh, she thought, at least he had a mum and dad! I don't even know who mine are! I wasn't even given a name! Not that I would have wanted a stupid human name anyway! Accel closed her eyes against the tears that threatened to drip out, and once again furiously told herself that she didn't care. But all her friends had real names as well as human names. Phobia was Phoebe. Byblos was Kimberly or Bibi. Turtle was Thomas. Icarus was Juan-Carlos. But she was just Acceleratus, nothing more.
Well, that's the way I want it! she yelled inside her head, that's all I want to be! I'm a mutant, not a stupid human! I don't care, I don't care! She told herself she'd only shortened it to Accel because it was easier to say, not to make it a substitute for a given name.
But anyway, Vertigo had gone crazy and started attacking her. She'd had no choice but to defend herself. She'd walked into the house and he'd just started shooting a gun at her. He'd called her horrible things as well, really awful words that she refused to repeat even in her mind. What on earth was wrong with him? She'd managed to fight him off and force him out of the house, and then got out herself before the humans living there could attack her.
Except, that wasn't what had happened. That was the version of events Accel was desperately trying to convince herself had taken place, but it wasn't working. She knew it wasn't true. Her mind just couldn't accept the true version of events, what she had really done. She had saved the humans. She had fought a fellow mutant to save humans. She had risked her own life, and almost lost it, to save humans. Not humans – sub-creatures! That was what Pyro had always taught her to call them. She had fought to save sub-creatures!
And not only that, they had thanked her. They'd hugged her and given her a meal and a place to sleep. It didn't make any sense! This wasn't what Pyro had always said humans did! He'd always said it was a waste of time protecting humans and showing them friendship, because they would never respond. But these ones had! This wasn't right! This wasn't supposed to happen!
She rolled on to her back and looked up at the ceiling. The three girls were sleeping in the spare bedroom of the old couple's house. The two boys, along with the old couple's grandson, were in another room across the way. Accel suddenly realised this was the first time she had ever slept in a normal bedroom in a normal house for about three years. At the X-School, there were shared dormitories for the younger girls. On the island with the Brotherhood she'd had her own little room, though.
Accel thought back to her life on the island. True, she hadn't been there for long before the island was destroyed by the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, but it was the first time in her life she had ever been happy, and felt like she had something approaching a family. Perhaps not a normal family with a mum and dad, but at least some older brothers and sisters. They'd all helped out in caring for her and trying to raise her. At the time she hadn't understood why, but all of them had wanted to take a part in it.
Gladiator, Scarab and Mole had cleared out an old storeroom of junk, and made it into her little bedroom – the first she'd ever had. Atlas and Vertigo had collected scrap wood and rope, and built her something like an adventure playground outside the sanctuary building. Cassie had taken it upon herself to put together an education program for Accel. Each morning she would take the little girl into a quiet room and for an hour or so they would read a book together, then they'd share a big pad of paper and do writing and drawings. After a snack break, Gemini would take over and help Accel to work through some maths problems. Then Accel would follow Cassie and Gemini around while they cleaned up the place (the guys could never be bothered!) and help them out where she could.
The guys could occasionally be talked into taking a "class": Atlas would show her how to grow flowers and vegetables; Vertigo would teach her self-defence; there had even been talk of trying to persuade Recyclo to give her computer lessons. Maybe in a way all of them had wanted to help give her the happy childhood that none of them had ever had, with the acceptance and the love and the care from those around her. It was something she'd never known before. It was something she'd thought humans weren't capable of doing. That was what Pyro had always taught her.
But that wasn't what was happening right now. The old couple – Mr and Mrs Adams, they called themselves – were showing them the same kindness now. And it couldn't just be because Accel had saved them, as they had extended it to her friends as well.
OK, she thought, so maybe there are two decent humans in the world. Three if I count the little boy who lives here, because he seems to like us too. But that still leaves however many millions and billions who don't like us, and aren't worth saving. We still have to fight them, before they can destroy us. We don't have any other choice.
The war was coming, and the mutants had to fight to protect themselves. The humans couldn't be allowed to destroy them. The mutants didn't have any other choice.
That was what Pyro had always taught her.