A/N: SO, SOMETHING WEIRD IS STILL GOING ON WITH UPLOADING CHAPTERS AND MAKING SPECIAL FONTS, SO MY AUTHOR'S NOTE IS STILL IN ALL CAPS.
A/N: THANK YOU BUBBLEEWA. YOU REALLY INFLUENCED THIS CHAPTER. I HAD A DIFFERENT PLAN, BUT YOUR COMMENT GOT ME THINKING ANOTHER WAY. I THINK THE WAY THE STORY TURNED OUT IS ACTUALLY BETTER FOR IT.
READ. ENJOY. REVIEW.
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EARLIER THAT DAY
"Then where are you going to go? If they don't want you here, then no one is gonna want a stubborn, stupid little girl that can't control her powers to save her life. Now shut up and get in the room."
She stared at him in disbelief.
"Make me B'rnazz," she angerly yelled back.
Alex started glowing. He was angry and about to blow. He didn't care that it was his sister. But Vanessa wasn't completely defenseless. She raised her arm to shoot at Alex before he shot at her. But before they could stand off an alarm pierced the otherwise silent building. They stared each other down before they separated.
Alex couldn't believe his sister would try to challenge him like that. All he ever did was stick his neck out for her. He fumed down the hall as he made his way to the kitchen. His anger had made him hungry.
The smell of waffles, eggs, and sausage met him on his way. He knew the Team had gone out on an assignment, so who was making the food?
As he stepped in the unusually quiet kitchen, his question was clearly answered. M'gann stood behind the counter. He thought about turning around and leaving, but hadn't she proven herself to them? If she had really been trying to harm them, they could have been dead already.
He stiffly walked to the seats at the counter, unbeknownst to M'gann. When she heard his subtle noises, she turned around abruptly, landing eggs all over him and the floor.
"Sorry, sorry. I didn't mean... You startled me. Sorry."
She apologized profusely. Alex could tell her nerves were frazzled and she was on high alert. He couldn't blame her for it though. They hadn't been the easiest to work with, and all Vanessa's cracks on her showed their hostility towards her. Maybe if Vanessa kept her big, dumb mouth shut, things wouldn't be like this. If she learned to respect help then maybe they would be in better shape.
He hadn't even noticed the contortions his face was making.
He suddenly felt a slight twinge in his head.
"Are you okay?" M'gann asked, a look of concern on her face.
"Hey!" he shouted, grabbing his head, "Get outta there!"
"Sorry, I didn't know."
Alex started glowing once more.
"No, no, not now. Calm down. Calm down," he chanted to himself. He was not going to lose control. Slowly, the glow started to dim and eventually die out.
"I thought you couldn't control your powers?"
He remained silent, looking at the ground.
"Right," M'gann said dejectedly. She began picking up the remains of eggs off the floor.
Minutes went by without a word.
"We don't hate you," Alex said, shattering the silence.
She stopped cleaning.
"What?" she asked surprised.
"Well, at least I don't. It's just that, well, when we were younger, another of your kind, you know, a ... Martian, he ... he took advantage of our trust. Went into areas we kept to ourselves. Left a bad taste in our heads. Now I know you're trying to help us, but it's hard to get over something like that. It doesn't excuse our, Vanessa's behavior, but I just thought you should know."
He looked off, not wanting to meet her gaze. To his surprise, a plate was placed in front of him. He looked up. He was greeted with a slight smile from the green teenager. He felt a warm sensation throughout his things were finally looking up for him.
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VANESSA POV (FIRST PERSON)
I stormed off to the room. I couldn't believe Alex had the nerve to talk about me like that. I knew everything he said was true, but I didn't need him parading it around. In fact, I didn't need him at all.
I was completely furious, but for some reason the angrier I got, the more tired I felt. There was also this nagging feeling in the back of my head, and the whelming feeling of nausea.
I laid on the bed, making the feeling even worse. The smell of food made its way under the door, making the nausea worse. It was like all my senses were on high alert. I felt like falling asleep, but knew that's what got me into this mess. But it seemed like fighting to stayup was a worse fate than sleep itself.
As I stared at the ceiling, I could feel myself drifting, but all my will power was gone. If it hadn't been for the knock on the door, I would have lost the fight.
It was Alex. At the thought of him, my adrenaline started pumping again. I sat up to face him which was abad idea. My head immediately started throbbing, sending me back down in pain. So I did what I guess any other nine year old would do, I yelled at him laying down.
"What do you want?"
"This is still half my room."
"Well why would you want to share it with a stubborn, stupid little girl that can't control her powers to save her life?"
He inhaled deeply.
"Because she's still my sister. Look, I'm sorry I said that. I was out of line."
"You act like that will make me forgive you."
"Why must you keep grudges? You need to learn to move on and let some stuff go."
"If you let stuff go, you can't remember who your friends and enemies are. Like that Martian in the front. She thinks she can come in and protect us? She probably needs -"
"Would you cut it out?! You're acting like a ...like a..."
"Stubborn, stupid little girl that can't control her powers to save her life?"
Alex grunted out in frustration, fed up with my attitude.
"You're unbelievable. IMPOSSIBLE. You don't even know her. She's done nothing but try to help you since the minute we got here. Cut her some slack."
"What? Now you two are all buddy, buddy? She's the enemy. You know what they did to us."
"B'rnazz is the enemy. She had nothing to do with him. She probably doesn't even know him."
I had stopped listening to him ramble. He would never see it my way. Yeah, we were both tortured, but he'll never understand what I went through.
I also stopped listening because my senses had gone back on high alert. I clutched my head and my stomach and laid back on my bed again. Sleep started comforting me.
"Are you okay?" I heard Alex ask.
"What do you care?" I yelled back, aggravating my headache.
"You look pale."
"Yeah? Well you look stupid."
"Would you just let me look at you?"
"Would you just let me sleep?"
"Vanessa, you are not going to sleep. We are not having another repeat of last night." He clutched his bandaged arm.
"When did you get it wrapped?" I asked, drifting away.
"Today. Miss Martian wrapped it."
I heard him. In my heart, I wanted to rip him and her to shreds, or at the very least say something sarcastic, but my head said no. I was too tired to even nod in agreement. I felt myself falling asleep.
Suddenly I was being shaken, awakened out of my sleep.
"What?!" I yelled. I had sort of slurred the word together. I knew my waker was Alex. Why couldn't he just leave me alone?
"Wake up. You can't go to sleep. I won't let you wreck anything else."
"Why don't you go talk to your friend Martian?"
"Are you always this contrite? And why are you talking like that?"
"What are you talking about?" I hated when he used big words, especially ones I didn't know. And I guess he had caught on to my strange speech patterns.
"Vanessa, what is going on? You're acting more weird and paranoid than normal. And you look worse than you did earlier. Are you sick?"
He was right. I was feeling way worse than earlier. My head was screaming, and I was holding back something nasty. But for some reason I was increasingly tired. I didn't feel like going back and forth with Alex. I hadn't even noticed I was going back to sleep.
"Vanessa!"
I snapped awake at the sound of my name. This time Alex shot me in the leg. Why won't he just let me sleep? I was fed up with him, and I shot him back, catching him in his chest. But something felt off. It felt like I was really trying to hurt him. Like I had lost control to some other person inside me. Immediately my head and stomach started wrenching. I fell off my perch on the bed, it hurt so bad.
"Vanessa! Let me -" Alex started.
"Stay back!" I was in so much pain I didn't want him to touch me.
I didn't know what was wrong with me. First the nightmare from last night, and now this. I thought everything had turned around after that outing we had to the skate rink and buffet.
I laid doubled over on the floor, clutching my head. Alex tried to come over to see what was wrong with me, but I pushed him back.
"Stay away!"
"You can't do this by yourself. If you tell me what's wrong, I can help."
"I don't need your help. I don't want your help. All you're gonna do is sick your Martian buddy on me."
I don't even know where that came from. Why was such petty stuff coming up now?
"Why are you bringing this petty stuff up now? You're clearly in need of medical attention and your bringing up a dimwitted argument we had about the stupid Martian? I'm not entertaining this, you're coming with me Now!" He grabbed my arm.
"No!" I snapped my arm back when a sudden dizzy feeling passed over me. I nearly fell stumbling backwards.
I had lost my position in the room. As I continued to fumble back I was stopped by a wall I didn't know existed. Looking up, I saw the devil's green face staring back. Those eyes were looking into my soul, I swear. There were holes in my chest where she was looking down at me, I just know there were.
"I heard a lot of yelling and other noises from this direction. I thought I'd come back here and make sure everything was okay," Miss Martian said, a genuine look of concern plastered on her face.
I quickly moved from where I was, tripping over my feet in the process. I quickly rebounded.
"Get out. Can't you see were fine? Can we not work out our brother sister problems for ourselves?" I said, words almost incomprehensible because of the slur I was using.
"I was just doing my job," she said, a little more perturbed than I had ever heard.
"Not angry, are we?"
"Do you two need my help?"
"No we don't need your stinkin' help. I didn't and don't need his, and I definitely don't need yours." I had to grab hold to dresser to ensure my vertigo didn't take over and make me fall again.
"Will you shut up and let someone help you. You better be glad someone cares about you." I stuck my tongue out at him. He turned his attention to Miss Martian.
"She desperately needs medical help. She's been clutching her head and complaining about her walks like a drunk and speaks like a fool."
The Martian looked me up and down, scanning me.
"I can help, but she needs to go -"
"I don't need your help. Didn't you hear me or are you too dumb to comprehend what I'm saying? And as for you," I turned to face Alex, "I don't need you making my decisions. I don't need no dirty, good for nothing, two-bit green sleaze checking on me. And don't care if you and that dirty, treacherous rat are friends. I don't need the likes of her-"
"That is enough!"
Miss Martian had finally reached her breaking point.
"Vanessa, I have known ridicule all my life. When I was back on Mars, they used to treat my people badly."
"Boo hoo. Cry me a river," I interrupted.
She sighed, but continued.
"I have dealt with all your sly comments and rude gestures, but enough is enough. I've tried to be nice and friendly from the moment you got here, and all I get from you is hate."
"When you grow up like me, then talk to me."
"I know you were betrayed by my kind when you were young, but I'm not-"
"How do you know about that?! Who told you?!"
"I did." Alex stepped from behind me.
I couldn't believe he betrayed our bond so easily.
"Why?" I whimpered.
"She's only trying to HELP!"
"If she wanted to help, I should've asked Batman about the pizza."
I had lost it. I nearly passed out. I just wanted to sleep.
All of a sudden, the battle I had been trying to fight with my sickness was lost. I had tried to be tough and hold it, but my body was going to have its way. I knew something was seriously wrong with me. I had never felt this bad in my life. I got weak-kneed and fell to the head felt like a jackhammer was pounding it and my stomach was gonna split in two.
I screamed out in pain.
"Miss Martian, you gotta do something."
"No!" I managed to yell from my fetal position.
She tried to come and grab me, but I shot back at her, no matter how much better judgement said not to.
Then she tried a different approach, one that proved detrimental to not only her, but everyone else. One that sent me off my rocker on a downward spiral.
She tried reading my mind to find what was really wrong with me.
Now let me explain something. When B'rnazz went into my head all those years ago (as explained earlier), he left things in a lot worse shape than he even thought. I was no Wolverine, I mean, I could remember most memories and I still had my right mind, but he messed something up.
Now whenever he or anyone else has tried to read my mind, or control it, it's like mind gets frantic, trying to push the invader out because it's afraid of what happened last time. So now no one can control or read me 'cause my mind fights them back, or something like that. I don't know. It's kinda hard to explain, but I know I get a major headache. So when Miss Martian got the bright idea to investigate the private space between my ears, my head was ready to explode.
I let out a bloodcurdling cry. My feet and hands started shaking. I heard Alex scream something in the background, but I couldn't make out what it was. Then I heard the Martian scream, making me aware of her existence one again.
"GET OUTTA MY HEAD!" I yelled.
I heard her scream again.
Then I felt a rip in my head. Miss Martian had stopped struggling. Her eyes had returned to normal.
I looked up at her, and she looked back at me with unseeing eyes. They then rolled back in her head, and she fell backwards, landing right on her noggin.
I was on the ground in shock. The room was still spinning and my hands were still shaking.
"Miss Martian!" Alex called, running to see if she was okay. I felt an anger well up inside of me. How dare he check on this witch before he even think of his only sister. I felt the carpet under me charge. I stepped out of the way and let out explode.
Alex looked back then.
"Vanessa! Are you okay?"
This is when I cracked.
"Am I okay? Am I okay? Did you miss everything that just went on? Do I look okay to you?!"
I started shooting at him. I didn't care he was my brother, the only one who had always been there for has betrayed me for the enemy and he was going to pay.
I chased him throughout the cave using everything as a weapon and not letting anyone stop me. I think I even used Miss Martian as a weapon, causing her to end up in the main part of the cave.
Everything was destroyed in the process. The kitchen, the halls, just the cave in general. I was so infuriated it didn't bother me that this was all my fault. I just wanted to be vindicated.
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I was geared up ready to shoot Aqualad when the lights in my head came back on, but I was so weak that I just gave in to sleep.