Clara walking up steps into a building in heels, her roommate Gracie thinking it will make a better impression, Clara's poor feet.
It's one of the reasons I decided to take this job. They promised me a piece of what I lost six months ago. They also promised me a new beginning. One where I wouldn’t get stared at or pitied for what happened.
It sounds like a military veteran who suffered trauma in a war zone, yikes. A Marine who lost the ability to serve in an accident.
Ugh, the way she was treated just because she is a woman, support roles instead of a sniper, condescending nickname, sick this kind of stuff still happens. Suicide Bomber, glad she took out that terrorist. *eyes bug out* Mutant named Acid Breath, active camouflage, took her arm, with a name like that I winced when she said this.
Sure, the flesh looked real enough, but I still knew it wasn’t. The skin was synthetic, the alloy underneath a mesh of nanoweave fiber and titanium. The best money could buy.
Whoa, that is still way ahead of anything we have.
Joined a pro-Mutant organization because her little brother Jimmy manifested, then mention of Jenny being put in a special school so a changeling. *growl with rage* An ex-friend of Jenny tried to kill her, psycho. Assigned to a field office in Buffalo, which organization is Clara working for now, curious.
Pale blue eyes as a side-effect of the acid bath she received, hhm. Clara Fairchild, pretty name. Courtney Knox aka Allure, interesting look. Oh goodie, the DPA, feared it was another organization.
Clara unable to take her eyes off Allure, a pheromone that makes her irresistible, potent power.
She reminded me of a girl I used to date in high school, Tanya, who was bubbly and could dazzle people with her “wits”. She wasn’t the brightest girl but the things she could do with her…
Ah, so Clara is either bi or a lesbian, wondered about that. The way she is reacting to Martin Goodman and mention of relationships in Peru, Clara is definitely bi.
“GOODMAN,” shouted a female voice from somewhere. “Stop rubbing against the new girl’s leg and get back to work!”
There was a lot of laughter from around us.
Thank you, mystery woman. Stuck working in a cubicle after seeing action in the field, Clara had a huge adjustment to make.
I didn’t really know a lot of what was going on, but the person who recruited me told me the desk was a cover. In fact, my position in the Department of Paranormal Affairs was something that looked good on paper.
This job is just a cover, wasn't expecting that.
The Directorate! Noooo!
When they offered Jenny a full ride to Whateley, my father warned us of the dangers that kind of “offer” might entail. Dad was a pretty by-the-book Marine. He loved his country. I respected him for that, I really did. The problem with said country though was how they let organizations like the MCO and Humanity First exist in the first place. My father wasn’t a bigot, but he wasn’t about to badmouth his Red, White and Blue either.
I suspect Clara is going to regret not listening to her father on this. Kate Shepherd, why does that last name sound familiar to me?
A week of reading spreadsheets and threat assessments, are they trying to break her psychologically because that sounds like torture. And stuck here until The Directorate needs her, definitely torture. She left the Marines, understand why. Jimmy a pacifist and Buddhist, definitely took a different path. Aww, poor Jenny becoming more reserved and downright timid, wonder if the spirit she houses caused this or the shock of changing sexes.
Ah, a hug to confirm that Jimmy is still in Jenny. Tina flirting with Clara, Clara's mother is half-Asian, family reunions must be fun. Tina used a power on Clara, Tina Royce is Clara's handler sent by the Directorate, oh boy. A devisor phone that's encrypted and can't be traced, remarkable. The fact that the DPA doesn't know the Directorate is helping them should set alarms off for you, Clara.
There was something else too, something I didn’t like to share. It was almost as if I knew things. I’m not sure how else to describe it. I used to call it “going with my gut”. I could walk into a situation and know where the trouble was.
Sounds like a mutant power to me.
Getting the very same feeling from Jenny as she did when Acid Breath attacked, at least she knows Jenny is trouble. Jenny is an empath and from earlier probably a telepath, yikes. An escort mission to take someone to safety, those are never as easy as they sound. And with short notice until she has to leave, they certainly ask a lot. Rebecca Howe, MCO. Wait, that's Sterling's name, how can it be Clara's cover identity?
Having to pretend to be a part of the MCO, Clara is going to need a lot to feel clean after this. Riley Spencer, 15 years old, is who she is getting to safety. And good grief, Riley manifesting due to H1ers turning a peaceful protest into violence.
Her background told me she was the second daughter of superheroes, her father was Carson Spencer aka Tidal Wave, formerly of The Good Neighbors out of Buffalo. He was deceased. Died on duty while assisting the Coast Guard in a hurricane rescue in The Gulf. Her mother, Gloria, was retired. She left active duty when her first daughter, Summer, was born. She was known by the codename Charmcaster. They even had a small write up on Riley’s older sister, Summer. She would be a junior at Whateley Academy in a few weeks time.
A family of superheroes, I hope that Summer is able to help Riley adjust to Whateley.
*roars* The MCO planning to do that to a 15-year-old girl just because she manifested as a mutant, something she had no control over or say in. Authorized to use force, good, I hope she at least severely hurts some of these MCO scumbags involved in this. Gracie dating an artist named Raya, how sweet. Having to lie to Gracie, I hope it is all worth it. Gracie is a true friend for picking up her life to be there for Clara.
A "safe house" to keep Riley in that is in the bad part of the city like they are hoping she will be killed before they have to do it themselves. And Clara is right, why did the MCO go after Riley, why now? Why not go after a high profile mutant who has attacked people to make a point instead of a young girl who just recently manifested? What! The Directorate wants to let Riley be disappeared, using her as a pawn to track where she is taken, too huge of a risk.
Clara, don't suppress that feeling, listen to it. Agent Willows here for all that, the look she is giving Clara, this is the kind of scum I can't stand.
Her partner scoffed. “It's a lie. None of them are sweet. You just remember that Rook, and don’t turn your back to her. Ever!”
He stomped off down the hall, probably to retrieve this “evil backstabber”.
Agent Willows rolled her eyes. “A mutie killed his brother.”
And typical bigot, he damns them all for the actions of one.
This is the state of the MCO in 2016, they need to be taken down once and for all. Agent Pierce seems like the worst kind of MCO agent. And yup, Pierce calling Riley an 'it' confirms it. Losing a piece of herself, most people don't realize we store memories in all the cells of our body, losing an arm is losing a piece of yourself beyond just a body part.
Uh oh, Willows having a heated conversation on her phone, never good. Ouch, the incident with JFK airport shutdown, gives us an idea of when this is taking place at least. Nice, Riley is a fighter, glad she tore into Pierce some when they were kidnapping her. Mist, that codename can cover a lot of powers so Riley's will remain a mystery for now.
Darn, Clara has been made! Trying to manipulate them into believing it is all a misunderstanding doesn't work, rats. Karate training for that long, Pierce made a huge mistake getting closer to her. And taught Judo, Muay Tai, and Tae Kwon Do among others, dang. 5'4", I've learned from anime and other media to never understimate someone because of their size. *eyes bug out* Now that was a brutal takedown of Pierce.
Willows just saw what Clara did to Pierce and tries to lunge for the gun Clara is holding, talk about underestimating her opponent. Tried to break Clara's forearm with an elbow strike, broke her elbow on her artificial arm. And almost forgot Riley was there, heh. Riley using the zip ties on Willows, she needed to take back some control of her life and this helps.
No time to discuss why you ran away from home, Riley, time to run.
She scoffed. “All of this for one fuckig mutie. It's pointless. Especially...”
She stopped herself.
She slipped up. She was about to say something important. Something she wasn’t supposed to say.
“Especially, what?”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Kill me now. I’m a dead woman anyway. We all are.”
Just what the hell is going on? Plan to take Willows with them, normally this would work.
She laughed. “You think they’re going to let us walk out of here? You have no idea what you’ve bumbled into here. This is way above the MCO, way above anything you can possibly think of. These people, they’re going to kill me, then you, then they’re going to take the girl. We can’t win.”
Just who in the world is Willows talking about?
And Willows has snapped, thinks she is a dead woman already.
She stopped laughing. “They’re everywhere. They have their hands everywhere. I tell you, they’ll just kill you. Hell, you’re a Dead Woman Walking anyway. We both are. They don’t stop, nowhere is safe. Even if you somehow manage to get out of here, they’ll find you and kill you!”
And she is killed before she can tell Clara, darn it! A sniper and more in the area, just what have they stumbled into which has this kind of power and reach?
This is a full-on raid, Clara having to protect herself and Riley from people in black tactical gear. Having to shoot one in the foot so she can take him down, the Directorate has a lot to answer for to Clara about this whole mess. Rubber bullets, so they were sent to capture them alive, this makes this even more of a mystery now.
And two more of this scum down, definitely see why Clara was sent on this job. When police sirens stop in this kind of situation it is very bad, like the sound of no animals in a forest in a horror movie. Two more down and hopefully they can get in the SUV to flee before anyone else shows up. All this for Riley, just what is her power or their plans for her that make Riley so important?
Okay, so much for the theory they won't kill the MCO agents, Pierce killed while helpless. Ouch! No more rubber bullets from these guys, or should I say guy since only one seems still standing. Okay, Clara is a true badass. At least they get out of there without another bullet being shot at them.
Riley thinks Clara being a spy is cool, Tina is upset she put the call on speaker, good grief, priorities. Get Riley to Boston by tomorrow. Well, here comes a crazy trip because I don't think whatever organization sent those guys is through with them.
“They have an APB out for your arrest. The MCO has spun it that you’re a rogue agent who killed two of their own and kidnapped Riley.”
Wouldn't expect anything less from the MCO at this point.
“You need to find out the truth from our young friend,” said Tina in a soft whisper just in case Riley could hear. “There’s something not right here, something she isn’t telling us?”
Don't tell me Riley is another artificially induced mutant or something like that.
A little grey sedan and staying at an out of the way motel, why do I get a bad feeling something is going to happen here? And Clara is now Dinah Grant with Riley as her little sister Caroline, cover identities must be hard to keep up with sometimes. Bwahaha, Riley thinks Whateley is a stuffy boarding school, can't wait to see her reaction to it. Boy, Riley has the teenage whining down pat.
And now we see why Riley was whining abou the smell, good grief, small room, bad shape, bad smell, guess they know only desperate people stay at their place.
She wanted me to do what she wanted and never could accept me for who I really was. It wasn’t just the whole military thing either. She never liked my friends or my music or how I dressed. Let’s not even get started on who I dated.
No wonder Clara left home after graduating high school.
On the screen was a blog of some kind: MUT-A’INTS. The blogger was anonymous, but their message was pretty clear, they wanted mutants to... well, to put it politely, “disappear”. They weren’t really polite about it though. It was written in mostly journal format, each entry about the blogger and a person she referred to as a “The Stain”. It was clear The Stain was a mutant, the blogger was not, and they HATED this Stain with a passion. Scrolling through, I noticed it went back about a year or so. There were a lot of vague details but obviously no names.
Riley wrote all that before she manifested, scary.
She grunted. “A few months ago actually. Do you have any idea what it's like to be surrounded by special people and just be ordinary?”
Just be ordinary, I hate that term with a passion, everyone is unique in their own way.
“Well, I come from a superhero family. A family whose members all manifested when they were young. My parents. My aunts and uncles. My cousins and my EVER perfect sister...”
Oh, ouch, no powers in a family with powers, can see why she was venting now.
Great, she got involved with teens who are H1ers. A guy who wants them to do something for him, NEVER do such a thing without all the information. Grabbed a girl, dragged her, and then began to beat her up.
Suddenly it was like all that pent up mutant hating anger of theirs burst forth because they threw her on the ground and started to kick her. As their anger intensified, my anger toward the girl vanished.
Either they used this as an excuse to attack the girl or the guy who wanted them for this job manipulated them somehow, wonder which.
Riley can pull water from the air and formed it into a glove without knowing she did it, pretty cool except for beating others up with it part. Clara hugs Riley tight while Riley breaks down crying into Clara's shoulder, poor girl blaming herself for mistakes and not seeing how she did the right thing when it mattered most. Oh brother, thinking her mother was getting rid of her by sending her to Whateley, like she always pushes her problems on others.
So another group had Brody and his gang grab the girl at the rally, or could it be the same ones who came after Riley at the safehouse, so many questions now.
They were well funded, able to hide in the shadows, and they wanted mutants. They also never worked in the open, recruiting others to do their dirty work for them, like Riley and her friends. They didn’t much care who they hired either.
Sounds like another organization we've met before in the stories, trying to remember their name.
Why doesn't Tina want Clara driving Riley straight to New Hampshire? Could the Directorate's agenda be revealed to Clara if she went, are they hiding something else? Clara's talk with Riley has me thinking, could this mystery organization wish to use Riley as leverage against her family or a source of information on superheroes? Whateley security is many things, but rent-a-cops they are not. Well, the good ones at least.
Not only was she extremely pale, but she had blue intricate tattoos wrapped around her arms. They were made all the cooler by the fact that they were glowing.
Did those tattoos come as part of her manifesting or did they just start glowing after she manifested?
She nodded. “Well, these are runes. My mother placed them on my arms to...well...let's just say that when I manifested things got complicated...”
And question answered, wondering what the runes do.
“It's a spell,” said her disembodied voice from the thick fog. “One to help calm my mind and focus. My mother comes from a long line of Users, my grandmother was Spellweaver, her mother was as well. The ability to craft spells has been passed down for generations.”
Cool, too bad that skipped Riley and Summer.
Fog and solid water constructs, with training she is going to be a force. *chuckles* Didn't think to call herself Vapor, oh well.
As I picked up her bra, I grunted. Even a fifteen year old had bigger boobs than me. Life was very cruel sometimes.
Heh, what if Riley is an Exemplar too.
The other day I was doing laundry at home and found one of Jenny’s new bras. How is that a fourteen year old was already a C cup? It wasn’t fair. Especially because she was more asian than me now.
Oh god, don't let Clara come to Whateley, seeing some of the girls there will give her a complex.
3 creeps surrounding Riley sitting on the bed, how did they find them so fast? Mr. Graves, so we have new creeps. A deal involving Riley, extremely bad.
He laughed. “You mistake the offer. We have no intention of buying Miss Spencer. We merely wish to form a working relationship with her so we can come to some kind of mutual agreement over the issue.”
“Issue? What issue is that?”
He smiled. “Miss Spencer broke a contract with us.”
I looked at her, she was just as surprised as me.
Either foraged signature on the contract or some form of mind control where she doesn't remember signing it, in either case not legally binding.
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to decline.”
Smart girl, Riley, these guys are trying to play you.
The old towel drop distraction, glad it worked on the idiot. And brutal takedown of the idiot, and headshot to finish off his partner, Mr. Graves seriously underestimated Clara. And Mr. Graves probably called in the MCO as insurance, great. Tiny camera pin on the lapel on one of the dead bodies, darn it! Everything outside covered in fog, Riley's power is impressive.
A moment later, I felt a bit of a tingle in the back of my head.
Not unlike the ones I get when I have my gut feelings.
A second later, the fog didn’t seem so bad.
Okay, that does it, Clara has to be an unregistered and untested mutant due to the low-key nature of her power.
3 MCO agents knocked unconscious and Riley doing bad, big strain keeping up such a huge fog bank for that long. At least they get to the sedan while Riley is almost ready to pass out from the energy loss. Crap! Power armor wearer trashed the cars engine and disarmed Clara of the her pistol.
He smirked. “Mutant loving bitch!”
At this point I would break this creeps arms. Riley brings the creep to one knee with two water fist punches, only for his attack to hurt the poor girl.
*smiles big grin* Clara's arm has a 6-inch retractable blade that comes from the wrist, awesome! Slashes one of the knees only for the creep to hit Clara, Riley moving to attack but too drained for her strikes to do much, please let them both survive this. Taser on Clara, Riley knocked out, this is bad.
“Get the girl, I’m done with this,” he barked before turning to me. “Kill this bitch!”
That is murder!
There was a girl here. She was dressed in a silver crop top and skintight pants.
Now I know this girl sounds familiar. Dang, she is good, took down all those MCO agents like they were nothing. Riley's cousin Abbie is Gale Force, now that is big time.
“Your place, so soon?” I joked.
She laughed. “All the cute ones get there eventually, some before the date.”
Please say Clara and Abbie have a chance of being a couple.
The wait at the train station the most nerve-wracking after all this, Clara expecting the MCO or Grave's people to show up at the last minute and ruin everything. Yup, Clara getting one of those feelings and waiting "until the other shoe drops". Abbie is so cute flirting with Clara like this. Ah, modeling in costume, good work, and the Good Neighbors sound like a great team to be on.
Med school after college, the world needs more doctors, glad Abbie knows what she wants in life. Holding hands and at least Abbie blushing, so cute together.
“Get a room, you two,”
I forced a laugh then slowly, we pulled apart.
Damn kid.
“Hey don’t be rude,” snapped Abbie, “or I’m calling Aunt Gloria again!”
The color drained from Riley’s face at the mention of her mother.
The threat of being lectured by your mother, the one true weakness for most teens. Jenny answers the phone like that now, such a big change from who she was as Jimmy.
Of course, all of that changed after he manifested and became an Avatar host to a Chinese “god”. Her whole outlook changed. She went from this brash, arrogant teen boy to this demure, respectful and somewhat traditional teen girl. A girl who embraced her heritage fully, so much so that “Jenny” was actually a nickname for Jiaying. She even stopped using Dad’s last name, doing a complete reversal of my own situation.
Jenny is a nickname for Jianying and she is an Avatar host to a Chinese "god", didn't expect her to be hosting that kind of spirit.
Jenny was a bit of a badass. Even before she manifested, Jimmy went to the same Mixed Martial Arts classes I did. Mom wasn’t happy about that either. Once again, Dad overruled her. Besides, it was supposed to be good for him. It helped for a while. Then he started playing soccer and got a big head. After she manifested though, things changed for the better. Suddenly, she was gifted with years of combat experience, ancient martial arts from centuries of Chinese knowledge. Plus, there was that whole being able to turn her body into metal.
Okay, just which Chinese "god" is Jenny hosting, very curious now with details on her powers.
Ah, so Jenny has seen the video of what happened in New York with MMM members. And the Directorate has people in position to ride with Riley on the train, but in secret, their reach seems a lot greater just from this story than ever before. Epsilon Group almost sounds like that group of psychics from Gen 1 who were making trouble.
“I wouldn’t give it to anyone else but you. Right now though, take a few days off. The office isn’t expecting you until Monday. Have some fun, see the sights, take that cute girl out for coffee...”
Okay, starting to believe their hype about the Directorate being everywhere now. Clara sports Laura and Bianca boarding the train with their friends, good eye. Aww, that hug from Riley, glad she is off safely to Whateley.
“So...” she said, looping her arm through mine. “What does a super secret agent do after she finishes her job?”
I sighed heavily. “Takes a nap.”
Abbie laughed. “Would you settle for some coffee, instead?”
I smiled.
“I think I can manage that.”
Perfect end to the story, I hope those two become a couple.
This was a fun story to read, so many things happening and so many questions left unanswered at the end to leave us begging for more. Having Clara as the main focus character was definitely different, but great, rarely get to see where the adults who help out the teenage mutants come from. And Clara was a joy from start to finish. From learning the circumstances of how she comes to be employed at the Buffalo DPA office, to the truth of who she is really working for. Her history in the Marines, how she lost her arm, her history with her family especially her brother turned sister was wonderful.
And seeing both Clara and Riley in action, fighting to save their lives and escape each time, had the right mix of description and emotion where the scenes just flowed. I can't wait to read more stories involving Clara, Riley, and even get to see Jenny at Whateley. Plus find out just how much the Directorate can be trusted and who this Epsilon Group is.
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Note: My story comments can't nor are trying to replace reading the stories, simply my way of enjoying them and letting the authors know I enjoy them.
