However, Latana worked tirelessly for her hard-earned fame. Coming from Argentina, she had a twin brother, Maxwell, who was as good-looking as her and caused girls to swoon as he achieved his dream of acting. They lived in the dirty slums of a gigantic coastal city where millions of Argentinians lived and worked. Run-down houses in drab colors of gray-blue and worn-out yellow lined the cracking asphalt roads. Gangs of loudly cackling, bloodthirsty criminals roamed the street in their bright, blood-stained clothes and bandanas with colors that signified which gang they were from, stolen machine guns in hand, eyeing their next victims. Innocent citizens would sprint and dart in all different directions, their only motive being to save themselves from a horrible fate.
Luckily, Latana and her brother were in a wonderful 5-star orphanage, despite being in one of the poorest, most war-torn cities in the entire country. The orphanage was a cozy, homely place that was obviously built and furnished with great care to detail. The inside looked like the living room of a mansion - beautiful imported French chairs in colors of ivory white and rich ebony brown, pure white rugs made of true animal skins, light wooden floors that were perfectly wiped and shiny, a diamond and bronze chandelier hanging limp from the ceiling, all beautifully furnished like a 5-star hotel.
However, the loud booms of the bombs just a few miles outside caused shaking, fear, panic.
Everyone had to be ready and they practiced multiple worst-case scenarios and how to react if caught in one of them. After the city became more crowded, more crime-ridden, and it was deemed unsafe for anyone, even adults, the Argentinian children were evacuated, as an actual civil war had erupted right in their city, the bombings and booms becoming a daily occurrence. They were evacuated all the way to New Jersey to another 5-star orphanage for particularly foreign orphans. They stayed there for 5 uneventful years.
Those years were awful and boring to the two children. Despite it being a five-star orphanage, children were screaming, yelling, kicking, and cursing in their native languages - and English if they knew some of it while they were being taught English in the orphanage. Latana and her brother, Jeremy, understood English very quickly and took up multiple other languages, learning them in the blink of an eye. This caused both jealously and unity - jealousy from girls and boys who were "slower learners", which basically meant they learned at the average speed for any human being, and unity because it allowed them to make friends with people and be able to communicate easier.
One wonderful day, a huge modeling company came to the orphanage. The name of the modeling agency was Monero International Model Management, an agency that had been founded in Bristol, England and had searched to find children from all over the world, promoting diversity in the children they found - children who spoke little English, who were from tiny islands in the Caribbean, South American countries like Peru, Australia, closer countries of Europe and states of North America, and all over Africa. They were looking for children who had outward potential - children with the beauty, charm, and grace that would have qualified them to be amazing models, dazzling and inspiring people all over the world. Of all the 150 children from all over the world in that grand New Jersey orphanage, they picked only two: Latana and her brother. The two were in the modeling business for many years with Monero and eventually, they became signed to many others.
Their years with the agency had a rocky start. Latana, for one, was quite rebellious while Jeremy, on the other hand, was shy and didn't want to be on the catwalk. Latana was quite rowdy and wild, often starting up "riots" within the little children, while older teens rolled their eyes and shook their heads at the chaos. The adults would have to contain them but Latana was witty and clever and could always get herself out of any situation - to the pure amazement of older adults even. In honesty, Jeremy was initially taken in only because he was the brother of Latana, who was the one who showed true potential despite her crazy and unruly behavior. She was the one who had the beauty and inexplicable glamour and charm of a professional while being as unruly as an untrained animal on the outside. Jeremy was just a sidekick of a sort. He was allowed to sit on the side while photographers would take pictures of Latana when she wasn't looking. Eventually, she was so out-of-control and riotous that she had to go to therapy. This was the beginning of an awful time for her.
Apparently, Latana was diagnosed with severe attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and she couldn't control herself. She was rowdy and reckless, starting fights and being aggressive towards every other child she saw, with the exception of her brother. This "therapy" didn't help in the slightest. In fact, it seemed as if the therapist never went to college or got their degree in psychology. Latana would never forget her name - Ms. Caldwell. Ms. Caldwell was an extremely authoritarian and disciplinarian. If Latana misbehaved, she was physically punished - either whipped or forced to hold something heavy in her arms until she said Latana could put it down. She never talked with Latana to ask her why she had these eruptions or understand her disorder from her point of view to work it out and give her appropriate medications. Latana hated this woman with a seething passion, a flaming anger that could not be put out by any ordinary means such as talking about her feelings or understanding the less abusive side of Ms. Caldwell. This was a powerful anger, a relentless and painful chagrin that boiled from the depths of her youthful heart and would continue to boil for the rest of her days whenever Ms. Caldwell was brought up. It also created a deep void in Latana's heart, a void filled with the fear of authoritarianism and fear that someone like Ms. Caldwell would come strolling into her life and control everything she did and monitored her every move. Because of this, Latana improved her attitude out of fear, but she also lived in the moment. She lived as if it were her last day on Earth, doing much and never stopping to look inside and introspect why she was acting like this.
When Latana was 14 and a half, she developed the X-Gene and got powers. She first found out about these powers when she was holding a pure white ceramic vase in her bare hands. The vase exploded and shattered into many pieces like heated untempered glass. Latana had no idea what happened but two more similar incidents led her to believe she was a mutant, though she had never heard of mutants before and somehow she figured that she was one of them, the most hated creatures on Earth. In fear, she didn't let anyone know about her potentially having powers - not even her brother.
A horrible and more significant accident with Latana's powers occurred when she was only 16. In a fashion show sponsored by Monero International, which was the biggest international modeling agencies of this time, Latana was a tall and elegant model strutting on the catwalk. She wore a long, flowing silver maxi dress with pure gold embroidery, and apparently, it was too long for her to walk in. She tripped on the dress and, using her hands to catch herself before she was able to fall on her stomach and get the wind knocked out of her, her hands touched the bare stage floor. This backfired, however, and the marble the stage was comprised of exploded, bursting into flames and melting upon contact with her bare hands. Miraculously, both her and her brother were in a spot where they were completely unharmed, even though Latana was directly on the stage where this happened. Many other people had also been unharmed for the most part. People in the audience yelled at them, calling them things like "freak", "weirdo", and "sicko." they hated "sicko" the most.
They were fired for this potentially lethal incident and roamed the streets for a short time before another modeling company hired them. These people were kinder than the people in the company they worked for before. With this company, Latana and her brother rose to stardom. They were placed all over magazines, and even more modeling companies flocked to them, desperate to have them wear their clothes in their fashion shows. They became multi-millionaires who were worth hundreds of millions, if not nearly billions. At the time, Latana was only 18.
However, yet another horrible accident occurred when Latana was 19. After a fashion show, Latana and her brother went to a meet-and-greet with some of their fans as well as younger models who wanted to be as wealthy and popular as them. One of their fans was a fanatic who wanted to be with Latana's brother, Jeremy. When asked if he was single, he said that he wasn't and had a girlfriend. The fanatic's face clearly twisted into an angry one and in a fit of rage, the fanatic pulled out a gun and shot at both Latana and Jeremy. Jeremy was instantly killed at point-blank range, but Latana somehow wasn't hit. Instead, she ran to the attacker and touched the gun. It blew up right in the hands of this crazy fan. Profuse blood covered what was left of the gun, and the hands of the fan were practically destroyed. Latana, out of the goodness of her heart, called a paramedic for her but didn't tell how her hands were gone.
The next day, it was reported that Jeremy Maxwell had died, but the modeling company Latana worked for covered up the real reason why Jeremy died. Instead, they said that he had died unexpectedly in his sleep. Latana was devastated, however, knowing the true intent behind the attacker. Her only friend in the entire world had died right in front of her. She tried to cheer herself up, knowing that the attacker would not be able to use her hands to harm anyone else, but it didn't work much. Celebrities who she had never heard of before from all around the world - even the Queen of England, the Princes, the princesses, the duchess and the duke - all sent their condolences to her for her brother's sudden death.
In public, however, she maintained a pleasant and upbeat physique. She continued to go to all kinds of photoshoots to be put on the covers of magazines. Aside from this, however, she was practically invisible to the public eye. When she was by herself, she would practice controlling her powers by herself in secluded areas, open space that lacked trees and anything that could potentially explode. She would practice, day by day, with small things such as bark and twigs, which would make small explosions in her hands and would not hurt her. Controlling her energy, she would channel it to be able to adjust the amount of explosive energy she transmits to the item in her hand. This was nothing short of amazing, and a professional may not even be able to fully master this technique. In a year, by the time she was 20, she mastered control of her abilities.
However, Latana continues to have personal emotional issues. In secret, she struggled with the loss of her brother. This led her to become a rather dreary individual but would party and act like nothing's wrong when she did have the chance and it was advantageous.
OOC: Well, I apologize for this taking an unusual amount of time. The next chapter will be of her strengths and "weaknesses." It's quite obvious that the strengths will greatly outweigh the weaknesses if she has any that is.
Please review if you liked this chapter, disliked it, or just want to leave some constructive criticism! I'd appreciate any constructive comments I can get for this chapter, as I'll use any advice for the upcoming ones as well.