SYOC chapter four
Emerald and Diamond Taylor, Skylark Rayden, and Sparkle, Shimmer, and Gold Velia had had it up to here with each other. Already.
Diamond and Skylark were both Era's half-siblings, herself the result of Skylark's father having an affair with her and Diamond's mother. Diamond was from some one-night stand six years before.
Sparkle was Era and Diamond's spoilt bitch of a cousin and Shimmer and Gold were her twin little brothers.
"Era, when are Mum and Vivian coming back?"
Diamond. For the thousandth time. "I don't know. All the grown-ups are gone."
A cry of pain rang through the house.
"I've had it with that brat," Era muttered. "She can go get fried."
Era marched up the stairs to the hallway.
Sparkle looked much like she always did. At 5"10 she towered over the relatively short Era, but Era had the advantage of being fairly well-liked in the newly-formed Taylor-Rayden-Velia household.
"You're out, Sparkle. Get your stuff and go find another place to live."
Shimmer and Gold's twin faces lit up with hope. Era gave them a smile and raised an eyebrow at her motionless cousin.
"Sparkle, I'd never accuse you of being a genius, but I know you speak English. Out."
Sparkle looked like Diamond when told that no, she couldn't have a new Barbie doll. The thing was, Diamond was six. Sparkle was thirteen.
"You can't do that!"
Era shrugged "Want to put it to a vote?"
Sparkle slapped Era then. Usually, a slap isn't all that painful, but it is when the slapper has the power of burning a person just by touching them, and is something of a sadist to boot, it's agonising.
That really did it for Era. She flew into the air and kicked.
Her trainer-clad food hit somewhere in the region of Sparkle's breasts.
I'm pretty sure most breast-owning readers can imagine what came next.
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Alec Kyong missed Era. She was one of his few friends and she was holed up somewhere with her siblings and cousins.
He ran his hand along his binder strap absent-mindedly. He'd heard that that Twilight girl, Twilight Darcore, had managed to stop the lightning-shooting dude, and he was a little ashamed that he hadn't gone to help her. His own power of suppressing other people's powers, the one he'd discovered just after they worked out Era could levitate, would have helped.
He should have at least tried, he knew. Still, she'd managed, hadn't she? Apparently Autumn and Cassie had him tied up in the church basement or somewhere, out of the way.
He decided to go get some air or something. No one in this town knew he was transgender except Era, so he didn't need to worry about being attacked like he had in his old town. Thank God.
Trenton was strange with only kids in it. Luckily, it was a nice place as a rule, with kids who mostly had at least a rudimentary moral compass. There had been some vandalism, yeah, and a chip pan fire that someone had known to smother but nothing awful yet. The worst people he had noticed thus far were Saoirse Mercer, Era's cousin Sparkle and Electricity Dude.
Which didn't at all mean that wouldn't change.
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It was Gareth's birthday.
His fifteenth birthday.
And he had fifteen minutes to kill before 11:30, the time he'd been born.
He spent those fifteen minutes with Skipper Johnson.
Skips, of all people. Skips, who was famous in Trenton for one thing and one thing alone: stealing a packet of cigarettes from her brother.
Well, that and being totally and utterly strange.
Skips had something about her, though, a kind of cheerful charm that only the really, really desperate noticed.
"How long have I got?" Gareth asked.
Gareth was black, tall and basically a nice guy. He got angry, yeah, and that kinda scared some people, but he was well-liked in general. His most recent claim to fame was spotting Electricity Dude.
Which probably wouldn't matter if he died in-
"Ten more minutes," said Skips.
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Rosario Leto knew a fair few things about being alone. She wasn't alone in the misfit way Skips and her twin Wynter were, more in the defensive leave-me-the-hell-alone way beloved of the complicated people of the world.
Ros grabbed her brother Topher before he put his dirty plate down in the microwave. He was only seven, and for some reason the microwave held an unimaginable fascination for him.
"Bad idea, little dude."
Christopher yelled "I'm not little!" but put his plate down on the counter. Ros ran her hand through her blonde hair "How about you go see Dinah?"
He ran outside and Ros leaned against the counter and buried her head in her hands. I'm only twelve, she thought, I can't look after Topher and Dinah forever!
She took a deep breath and started piling the dirty dishes into the dishwasher.
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Wynter was moving as fast as she could. She couldn't find Skipper, her sadistic older brother Logan had kicked her out-well, he'd almost broken her wrist, but it amounted to the same thing, and now Mr Sheridan from down the road's huge dog was chasing her.
It wasn't the best day of her life, to say the least.
She'd thrown all the pebbles she could at the dog, her power to control rock useful for once, but apparently the psycho dog had a thing about blondes.
Someone's gravel driveway came into Wynter's field of vision and she had an idea. A crazy idea, sure, but what the hell.
As she reached the drive, she swung her arms in a kind of rotation, throwing all the little pieces of gravel up into a massive wall.
It took incredible concentration to keep all the pebbles in one place, and she almost cried out with the effort, but she dropped the wall on the dog.
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He'd been right about the blonde girl. Wynter Johnson, he thought. Thirteen years old, 5"8, the fraternal twin of Skipper Johnson who everyone knew had stolen cigarettes from their brother.
Joel watched as she flung up a wall of gravel between herself and the dog he'd set on her. That had been easy. Convince an already particularly mean dog that a person was an enemy, and that person would be at their most adrenaline-filled and thus most likely to use a power they might not otherwise put on display.
Sure, the dog was dead, especially after the terrified Wynter smashed it on the head with about a thousand pieces of gravel, but never mind.
Wynter Johnson was most certainly a mutant.
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Sorry about that, guys. You were all complimentary about my updates, and then I leave you hanging for a week. I don't do update schedules, I do "Oh I should update"
Anyway.
The SYOC is now closed, I have enough characters now. Thanks! Here's a list of the characters and their creators. I'm not sure if everyone's been written in yet, but we'll see.
Twilight Darcore –RandomBlackberry
Caddisy Bayes and Alex Kyong –iristmr
Emerald Taylor, Skylark Rayden, Diamond Taylor, Sparkle Velia, Shimmer Velia and Gold Velia –Purple Zippyness (Guest)
Rosario Leto –An Anonymous Guest
Skipper Johnson, Wynter Johnson and Logan Johnson –ArcticStorm
Autumn Chase –Yonna9queen
Kingston Mars –OhParadise
Saoirse Mercer and Calum Mercer –just-add-a-dash-of-savvy
Adria Sampson –So hard to chose usernames
Gareth Holloway –scrawlx1012
Joel Trevalyen –BloobastatheDevourerofBacon
And that is it!
-threelittleclouds