A/N: Here's chapter 1! Hope you like it. Updates will now be weekly.
Disclaimer: I do not own KotLC.
1
Manasi
I had joined the Neverseen when I was eighteen. Back then, I thought I was helping my world, fighting for my world. When I first told my two sisters, Jexica and Simani, they were horrified. Jexica had straight blond hair and rosy cheeks, with eyes the color of the sky. She was an Empath, and had always been the shy one. After I said I had joined the Neverseen, she ran to her room and barred herself inside, refusing to see me ever again. Simani, my older sister, had curly, jet-black hair and eyes the color of the ocean. However, when I told her, they resembled a tsunami more than the sea. She actually tried to attack me, summoning a wall of water with her Hydrokinetic powers before I left the house for good.
Groups like the Neverseen had never held much appeal to me before, but I was approached by Fintan the day after my graduation from the elite levels. He told me I would be valuable to the Neverseen and asked if I would be committed enough, and being young and vain, I accepted. Their goal of disabling humankind seemed genuine enough in my mind… until I met one.
I was undercover one day in Paris, scouting out a location for our next hideout. Not watching where I was going, I ran across a busy road, nearly getting hit by a car, and losing my Obscurer in the process. It was turned off, and rolling on the road in plain sight. I was about to make another mad dash back across the street, but a young woman strolling by picked it up for me. She had long red hair and dark brown eyes, staring intently into my deep blue ones. When that strange white symbol flashed on the stoplight, she calmly walked across the street and held out the glowing orb.
"This yours?" she smiled. I took it back wordlessly. With no choice but to wash her memories, I did what I had to do and leaped away.
Back in the Lost Cities, I pondered what had happened. Making ourselves known to humans was forbidden, so I had always thought of them as some strange, alien race. I never quite looked into their faces on missions. However, this girl seemed - actually normal. Even though I just thought of her as an acquaintance, that was the first time I actually thought about falling in love. When I was younger, crushes were an unknown experience, and after joining the Neverseen, a forbidden thing of the past. Even then, I couldn't help but wonder, was it possible to find love amongst another species?
I met her on my latest mission. After my encounter with the first human, I really wanted to meet someone else. Fintan had ordered me to set explosives in a densely populated area, somewhere in the human country of India. Well, not exactly. I didn't have to actually install them, just give them to another member. Even though I was the best Telepath, I was still low on the power scale. I passed over the weapons, then started making my way back to the hideout. Again, I wasn't watching where I was going, and ended up bumping into a girl about the same age as me. And again, the Obscurer spilled from between my hands, onto the sidewalk next to a rather quiet country road I was on. This time, she caught it, her hand accidentally turning it off. She stared in awe at the dark sphere, the mechanisms inside sparking faintly, then elevated her gaze to me, in my cloak, standing there frozen in fear like a deer in headlights. I shook myself out of the daze and reached for the Obscurer, vowing to keep a better hold on it from now on.
"That's mine," I said shakily, wanting to erase the revealing memory out of her mind and leave. To my dismay, she held it higher up away from me.
"What the heck is this thing? And how in the world did you just appear out of thin air?"
"I think you're hallucinating. I've been here this whole time-" I tried to stay calm, but she cut me off.
"Yeah, I think I know what my eyes saw. What even is this thing?" She shook the Obscurer with both hands.
"Don't do that! You know what, forget you ever saw me. This whole thing is a dream, and you are talking to thin air. Now let me go in peace and give me back my Obscurer," I said desperately.
"Cool, it's called an Obscurer? What does it do? And what is up with your cloak? Are you from one of those creepy cults?" I winced, not wanting her to know how right she was. Suddenly, I had an idea. A dumb one, but it just might work.
"Hey, look over there!" I pointed to the horizon, then jerked the device out of her hand with telekinesis. Ignoring her cry of surprise, I fumbled for my pathfinder while running, then stopped when I felt a tug on my cloak. Turning around, I saw her, one hand wrapped around the edge of my cloak, the other one triumphantly holding the pathfinder up in the air.
"You're not going anywhere until you tell me who you are, what you are, and why you chose to wear this" she gestured to my cloak, then to the sky, "in such vaporizing weather. Tell me, or I'm reporting you and this thing to the police." She folded her arms around the Obscurer, giving me no choice but to do as she was told. I was tempted to lie, but the way she stared intently with her… green? Brown? Gray? I couldn't tell what color her eyes were. They seemed to shift in the light rays of sunlight as she waited for my reply.
I cringed. I did not want to get involved with the police. Those eyes were what convinced me to not wipe her memories.
"I'm from around here," I lied. Then, I made the most reckless decision I think I've ever made. "Okay, tell you what. If you promise not to report me, I'll promise tell you everything tomorrow."
Her eyes leveled with mine, her gaze like steel.
"How do I know I can trust you?"
"How do I know I can trust you?" I replied.
"Fine, meet me in that cafe down the street at-" She checked her watch. "Three pm sharp. Or I'm reporting both you and your creepy gadgets, and I have a picture." I scowled when I saw a picture of me, flashing across her screen.
"I'll be there." She held out the Obscurer, and I grabbed it before she could pull away again. Sighing, I turned and sprinted off as fast as I could into the shadows.
After I'd found a secure dark alley, I had held up my pathfinder to the sliver of light that shone through the dingy rooftops. Once I was back, I had to ask Fintan. What would happen if an elf fell in love with a human? He didn't say anything, but made his answer very clear.
Now, I paced just outside the entrance of our base, thinking about everything. I had to go to that meeting. There was no way I was going to risk revealing my existence to the police. But… afterwards. Would I really trigger those explosives? Would my mind and soul let me, now that I knew there were actual people living there, not just a nameless group of unfeeling beings? Humans had emotions, feelings, minds just like us. Could it be - that for once, I was doubting my choice to be a part of the Neverseen? Ashamed to be who I was? I refused to think about it, diverting my thoughts to the present.
Once I had leaped to the same road I had met her on, I scoured the street for the cafe she had mentioned. Spotting a shabby, rectangular, brown building directly across the street, I stuffed my Obscurer inside my pocket-I was taking absolutely no chances with holding that thing anymore-looked both ways, and jogged across the street. Feeling self-conscious, I glanced down at my simple tunic and pants, with a waist-length cape trailing behind me. I probably seemed like one of those human "super heroes". Second-guessing myself, I took off the cape and stuffed it inside my bag. I was trying to look as normal as possible, but my clothes were still barely passing for normal. Okay, deep breath. Fix this mess and get out of here, I thought, trying and failing to calm myself down. Entering the boxy brown building, I squinted my eyes to adjust from the beaming rays of sun to the dingy gray lights. Everything in here seemed to be shades of gray and brown, except for the sunlight streaming through the back window and the dull paintings on the wall. Everywhere, half-asleep people were slumped down on tables, staring down at coffee that was, like everything else, gray. I didn't understand how people could be so tired so early in the day, and I observed the room for the girl. If she wasn't here, I was going straight back. Approaching the small counter, I asked one of the waitresses,
"Um… I'm looking for someone," I said awkwardly. She never told me her name, did she? The lady looked relieved.
"You mean Vivi? Thank goodness, she's been asking me every ten minutes if you were coming or not. Well, good luck on your date!" She pointed to the far corner, where the girl, Vivi, was glaring at me, arms crossed. My head was spinning as I walked over, the entire room staring at me. Date? What the heck?
I sat down across from her, her eyes fixated on mine as I squirmed and fidgeted in my seat. The staring stopped; thank goodness.
"Is your name Vivi?" I tried.
"Vivian. My friends call me Vivi," she said, emphasizing the word 'friends' to make it clear it did not include me. "And you?"
"Um…" This was confusing. Should I tell the truth, or should I not? Play it safe, my inner voice said. "Okay, my name's… " I scoured the room again, then found something at the bottom of a painting. "Quibble Pants?" She made a face at me.
"I have a brain, you know." I put my head between my arms on the table. Sigh.
"Manasi." Finally, she smiled.
"That's more like it! I can almost believe you're from here - if not for your weirdo gadgets. So tell me now, what is that thing? That crazy glowing orb?" There was no point in lying anymore.
"It's called an Obscurer," I finally admitted. "It manipulates light and sound waves to hide a person and all sound they make."
"Oh, that's why you appeared out of nowhere-you were invisible! And what about the weird cloak?"
"As you said before, I'm not from around here. That's common where I'm from."
"So, I have to turn in a report on a scientific breakthrough. Mind if I borrow this for a little while?" She eyed me pleadingly.
"No!" I yelled, probably a little too loudly. Calm down. You're making everything worse. Just get out of here as fast as you can. "Look. I probably already told you too much. The deal was that I tell you what you want to know, and you don't report me. I told you everything."
"Not everything. Why are you not allowed to tell me? Are you part of a top-secret government agency? Some crazy cult? What are you?!" Silence. The way she looked at me was like fire. Not the uncontrollable wildfires that Fintan radiated, but a strong one, a gentle one, the kind you can find in a fireplace, the blaze that can unite or destroy a family. Time seemed to slow, and I thought about myself, my identity, the Neverseen's purpose. Our mission is simple, Fintan had said. Eradicate humankind, lock them away, for our safety as well as theirs. Now, I doubted everything I had ever done. Something about this girl, about the fact that humans were living, breathing creatures instead of a faceless number, changed me, influenced me from within.
Vivian sat there, still, stare even, waiting.
"I'm not human," I whispered. "I-I don't know what I am anymore." Even I couldn't hear the last bit. The corners of her mouth upturned in a grin.
"I knew it. I knew there was something different about you. For the record," she leaned in closer. "I believe in magic. Powers, abilities, supernatural energy, whatever you want to call it. But I believe. I always knew, since I was a little girl, that there was more to this world that meets the eye."
"Well, it's not magic. I guess it's science, what we do, but it still seems more than that."
"We? What exactly are you? I'll believe you."
"Um… I'm an elf?" She stayed still, but I could sense one strong thought radiating from her mind, almost a transmission.
Yeah, sure.
"I knew you wouldn't believe me."
"Well, a zombie or a vampire I could believe. An alien from another planet I could believe. But an elf? Really?" She paused. "Wait, how did you know that I didn't believe you? Can you read my mind?"
I blinked. "Actually, I can." Vivian gaped at me, mouth hanging open.
"Tell me everything. How and why were humans kept in the dark? Does the government know about this? And why do we think about elves the way we do? What happened? I need to know." At this point, pretty much every pore of my being was telling me to stop, turn around, and run away as fast as I could. But I didn't. Instead, I kept my calm.
"I've already told you way too much. I'm sorry, but you can't know any more or I'll have to wipe your mind - and I do not want to do that."
"Please? As a personal favor?"
"Personal favor? I don't even know you." She glared at me fiercely, and I wilted under her eye. Why was this happening? I should be able to flee easily. Normally, I was strong, and this had never been a problem before.
"Fine, I'll tell you," I admitted in defeat. "But someplace more… subdued." Vivian flashed a grin.
"I know just the place." She took out a piece of paper, scribbled something down, and tossed it to me. "I'll see you there tomorrow, same time?"
"Guess so." Thank you, finally! I trudged out as fast as I could without looking like an idiot and stumbling over my own feet.