So, before I begin, I want to give serous props to Somewhere In Time and XxNightfirexX, they have reviewed almost every chapter. I love you all!
Also, I had a guess editor, Authoress Anna, my usual editor Toph's older sister. I think she did a good job. Well, I shall stop rambling now, enjoy the chapter!
Recap: Elle was asleep on her brother's shoulder when e moved his arm. She was jolted up, stretched, and looked at what the parents were looking toward. "No freakin' way."
Chapter 10
Elle's yell woke up the others. They wanted to see what all the shouting was about. When they looked out at the bay with the sun rise, they saw one of the coolest places ever: Titans Tower.
"Wow. I never thought that I would be standing in front of this place," Mari said in awe. Her eyes started to hurt from looking at the sun without her sunglasses on.
"Do you want to go in it?" Vic asked, looking at the kids. All of them nodded, lost for words.
"Let me just get this dang keypad to come up and work. So the hidden road comes up." Vic said, struggling with something on his arm. It took a while for the kids to notice that his arm wasn't a normal looking arm, but a robotic arm. Kevin about fell over when he saw this.
Mari leaned over and whispered, "His name is Cyborg, what did you expect?" Vic kept trying until Rachel enclosed all of them in black magic. The next thing they knew, they were in a run-down place. Kori looked like she was going to be sick.
"Mom, are you okay? You don't look so good," Mari said. Mari and the others were very worried about her.
"I saw this before. I felt sick then, and I feel sick now." She looked around and smiled. "But this time is different. Then, we were all apart, and it was very scary and cold, but now we're all together."
Mari turned around to her mom and gave her a big hug. Titan started running around the big room. "'Kay guys, maybe we should start fixing this place up a little bit so none of us get electrocuted. Let's get to work!" Mari walked in, grabbed a broom, and started cleaning. She turned around and saw that the adults staring at her. "What?"
"If we add spikes to her hair, who would she remind us of?" Rachel said before starting to use her powers to pick up some of the bigger things. Kori helped Rachel out while Richard went to help Mari. Victor walked over to the computers and started working on them, while Karen flew up to clean up cobwebs from the ceiling.
All of the other teens decided to pitch in and help where needed. Joey went to help his mom and Kori, Kevin went to help his dad, and Elle grabbed a dust pan and helped sweep up. Even Titan had a job watching over Lilly.
By the end of the night, the main room, a few bedrooms, and a few bathrooms were cleaning up and almost functional. They decided that they would get the best food ever: pizza. Of course, they had to eat by candlelight because Vic hadn't gotten the electricity up yet.
Mari, Elle, Kevin, and Joey were sitting in a circle on the floor. Elle had a box of vegetarian pizza, Kevin had a box of meat-lovers' in front of him, and Joey and Mari were sharing a pepperoni pizza, and Lilly was sitting next to a candle, coloring and eating a cheese pizza. Titan was lying next to her, sleeping. All of the parents except Vic were sitting at the big table, eating pizza and talking about old times. They started to laugh even harder when Elle started chasing Kevin around the room since he had Elle's pizza box and was trying to throw it away.
"Do Vic and I really look like that?" Gar asked taking a bite of pizza. Everyone answered yes and went back to their conversations.
Vic walked over wiping his hands and said in a loud voice, " And then I said 'Let there be light!'" He clapped his hands and all of the electricity came on. Lights lit up and computers came to life. The doors went a little crazy, though. "Well, I'll work on the doors tomorrow. I think we should all follow the example of those two." he nodded toward where Lilly and Titan were asleep. The others agreed with a yawn.
Elle and Mari walked and talked all the way to Gar's old room, which they were sharing for the night, Joey and Kevin went to another open room that they had gotten clean, Rich and Kori walked to Kori's old room, Gar picked up Lilly and went with his wife to her old room, and Vic and Karen went to another room.
While everyone else was sleeping, the girls were talking. "Can I tell you another secret?" Elle asked, looking down from the top bunk she was laying in. Mari, meanwhile, was trying to clean the bed she was laying on.
"What, do you have like, a third foot, or something?"
"No." She pulled her hair so it was in a ponytail. Mari saw Elle's ears for the first time. They were long and pointed, like elf ears. And on her left ear, the cartilage was pierced. "I did actually pierce it on my own. I thought that it would be cool." Mari's jaw dropped. "You can't tell anyone. I have enough problems fitting in as it is."
"I won't," Mari said with a yawn. "I think we should get some sleep, though. I heard my dad saying something about testing our powers. And I know that that can get very tiring. Night."
"Night." They both fell asleep, or at least until Elle started to snore. Mari threw a pillow over Elle's face, and the snoring quickly died down.
The next day, Mari had to wake up Elle and get her dressed. Like Mai said, there was training that morning. Mari knew what this meant fro her: her dad telling her what she was doing wrong. She ran around, waking everyone up and telling them what they were going to do today. When she was done, she changed into her favorite workout outfit: a pair of blue sweats, a light purple tank top, and her favorite pair of white training shoes. Elle was still trying to wake up and get moving when Mari was done dressing. Mari ended up pushing her out of bed forcing her to get dressed. She also warned her that if she wanted breakfast, she was going to need to eat now, because Kevin was cooking. That caused her to run.
After a very long breakfast, Richard, Kori, Gar, Rachel, and Karen went with Mari, Elle, Joey, and Kevin to the training room. Victor had to work on the electrics.
When they got in, it was the exact same as before except for some dust and cobwebs. Each parent took a child except Kori and Richard. They each went over to a part of the gym and started testing their child's power.
"Joey," Rachel started, "I want you to imagine that weight moving, then say Azarath Metrion Zinthos." He did just that. As soon as he said that, his eyes turned white and the weight was surrounded in the black magic. He then lifted his hand up slowly and the weight lifted with it. His eyes soon turned back to normal and the weight dropped to the floor. "Well, I think that, for a first time, that was pretty good." She smiled at her son. They looked at Elle who was standing next to her father.
"Okay, let's see what you can do. I want to show you then, Ill tell you how to do it. 'Kay?" Elle nodded. Gar turned into a mouse, a cat, and a dog in turn. "Okay, just think of the size and then the animal." Elle closed her eyes, and tried to think small and a mouse. It took a little bit, but she finally turned into a mouse. She then turned into a little kitten, then a little puppy. The only thing that was weird was that all of the animals were purple. And something that only Mari noticed, Elle's personal ear piercing was still in. She turned back human and went crazy about how she could turn into animals. Everyone else laughed. She was just like Gar. Then it was Kevin's turn. Karen stopped and thought about something before leaving. She soon returned a few minutes later with a box.
"I have wanted to show this to you and your brother for years." She unlocked the box.
Mari leaned over to Elle and whispered, "He has a brother?" Mari still didn't know everything about her new friends, but she would have really liked to know if they had siblings. Of course, they didn't know about Ryan.
"Yeah. He's a freshman at a college near here, but far enough that he lives at the college," Elle whispered back. Then they heard click. They looked over at Kevin and Karen. Karen was holding two things that looked like a B.
"These are my old stingers." She held one in each hand. "There's a button on the stingers that sends bolts of electricity through it. Also, I had mechanical wings that were built in my suit's shirt that works like real wing. I can also shrink in size. I'll explain that later." She handed Kevin the stingers. "Now aim for the target right there." She pointed at a target on the other end of the room. He pointed, aimed, and electricity shot through the stingers and hit the target. "That's my boy!" She yelled, doing a happy dance. "If you want, I can get you some wings." He nodded and smiled.
"Mari, what do you think you can do? This is really cool all of us having powers and all!" Elle just rambled on and on. Mari just looked over at her parents and said a silent prayer.
"Okay, what do I have to do to get my powers working?" Mari asked looking at her mom. If she had looked at her dad, she would have seen the very stern face he was wearing.
"Well, my powers are powered by emotions. To fly, you must feel the joy of flight. To use star bolts, you need to feel righteous fury. And to use super strength, you need boundless confidence."
"Okay, I have a few problems with that. One: I hate flying, and it scares me to no end. Two: how can fury be righteous? But I can do that strength thing. Watch." She walked over to some of the weights. "Can you guys help me load up some of the bigger weights?" They helped put the weights on the bar. As soon as all of the big weights were on, Mari thought about how she could pick this up without using anything but her own hands. She then picked it up and held it over her head. She put it down, turned around, and looked at her friends with a smirk. "So, what do you think about that?" She looked around. Her dad smiled a little.
"I think that we should take a break. I mean, for the kids, they're not used to training with you." Gar said, trying not to look at Richard.
"Fine, you guys can take a break." Richard agreed looking at gar the entire time. The then adults all went to d different thing.
"So, honestly, do you guys have any ideas names?" Elle asked looking around at the others. Mari had gotten up to go to another area of the gym, where the punching bag was hanging.
"I don't know, I was thinking Shadow. Sound cool, and dark. I like it," Joey answered, putting his hands behind his head.
"I'm thinking of Buzz. I mean, it could work, since I have my mom's powers and her name is Bumble Bee, so, Buzz is like a dude version of that." Kevin said.
"I already know what I'm choosing." She looked around and saw that everyone, including Mari who was half way through stretching her arms was looking at her. "Animal. But for short, Annie."
"I don't know about me. See, I want something that represents me, but also my parents. One idea is that I can be the first female Robin." Mari answered before she started using a series of punches and kicks to hit the punching bag. "Man, it'll be so cool fighting crime and beating bad guys to a pulp." Mari sat after taking a break from the punching bag. Right as Mari was saying this, her father walked in.
"Mari, I never said I would let you be a super-hero," he said. Mari stopped dead in her tracks. "I will not let you fight villains."
"WHAT?! So you were just going to sit here, dangle all of this in front of me, and then just snatch it away from me? That isn't fair! Why won't you let me?" By this time the rest of the adult came in, including Vic. Mari saw the look on his face and knew that it meant that he didn't want to talk about it in front of other people. "Do you want talk about this out there, or do you want me to start yelling here in front of your friends? That way, you can explain to not just me but everyone else why I can't help." Mari rolled her eyes and walked out of the room. He father, following her, growled. Kori knew this was going to be bad, so she had to be there to make sure that nothing really bad happened. No more then a few seconds after they walked out the door did Joey, Elle, Kevin, Gar, and Vic put their ears up to it trying to hear what they were saying. All they could so far hear was Mari's end of the conversation.
"I'm not him! I won't get hurt! No, I can't promise that I won't get badly hurt, but that didn't stop me from learning to ride a bike or going to school. Why won't you let me do this?!"
Then they all could hear Richard, even Rachel and Karen could hear him. "Because I said so, that's why!" he shouted. Mari let out a scream and they could hear her walk away from the area. Then they heard a slam.
"Can sliding doors slam?" Elle asked, looking at the adults. Joey pushed Elle away from him and hit her on the back of the head.
"Not now you idiot. Mom, we can be super-heroes, right? 'Cause we really want to." Kevin and Elle nodded in agreement. Rachel looked at Gar, Karen, and Vic.
"Let's talk about it tomorrow. Okay, we should all get some sleep." Rachel said. Everyone nodded and went to bed. But as Joey was walking out, his mom stopped him. "Wait, there's something I want to ask you. My powers also include empathy, which mean-"
"I can tell what other people are feeling. Yeah, I know," Joey finished for his mom.
"Can you feel others emotions too?"
"Well, kind of. I can tell that there is a lot of anger coming from the roof and the hallways. I can also tell that someone is really sad." Joey looked at his mom and could tell that she felt it too.
"I just wanted to know. Good night, honey." Rachel walked out and instead of walking to her room, she went to the kitchen. As she went to put the tea bag in her mug, someone knocked at the door. She reached the door, opened it, and was not happy at who was at the door. "What are you doing here?"
Joey also didn't go back to his room; instead, he went to the roof to see who was up there.
"If you're here to yell at me some more, Dad, I feel bad enough."
Um, I don't think I'm your dad," Joey said, startling Mari. She turned around from where she was sitting and her could hear and see her crying.
"Ugh, I just want to be a hero. Why won't he let me be a hero?" she demanded.
A hero is someone that another person looks up to, like Lilly looks up to Elle," he answered.
"Like how Ryan used to look at me," Mari mumbled. Joey sat down next to Mari.
"Who's Ryan? I don't think you have ever mentioned him to us before."
"He's my little brother. He didn't come with us when we moved. My parents thought that it would be better for him to stay there with my uncle and grandfather, but, my dad is an idiot with his ideas." The two of them just sat there and shifted around. "Um, Joey?"
"Huh, oh, what?" Joey was staring at the ocean and at how beautiful she was looking.
Um, do you remember the other night, when I… um…uh…" Mari felt so weird trying to bring this up.
"Oh, uh, yeah?" Joey felt exactly the same as she was.
"I'm sorry; I know that you have a girlfriend and all. You were just acting like my boyfriend and… I'm sorry." She looked really sad. "Just, don't tell my old friends that I apologized to someone other then them. They wouldn't let me live it down." That is what caused Joey to laugh.
"Come on, Mari, it's getting late and we should be getting some sleep." They both got up and started walking toward the door.
But before either of them got the door, it opened. And out stepped a female figure. "Now where do you think you're going?"
