User:CraftTech/Sandbox

The New Mutants


 * 089

The chaos began with an explosion.

Tonight, per usual, he had been lying on his bed, mulling over his old life, his old freedom. He missed his house, his parents, his neatly organized room with a bookshelf full of books to spend his evenings. He missed the sunlight, how its warmth seeped through the fibers of his clothes on a lazy summer day, while he was lying on the grass at the park near his house. But above all, he missed his best friend. His best friend, whom he had spent almost every single day with, ever since the first day of kindergarten. His best friend who, despite being overly energized and couldn’t stand still for height measurement, agreed to tag along to his “fucking boring activity that exists as a sorry excuse for lazy asses to tell others they have done something during the summer”, as endearingly dubbed. His best friend who, the winter before, had suddenly disappeared without a trace, and nobody had ever heard from him again. The police had many theories, from “getting lost in the wood” to “being caught by a child trafficker”, but they all led to dead ends.

Last summer, his parents, wanting to cheer him up somehow, offered to sign him up for a one-week camping trip to the old Yellowstone National Park with other kids his age. He should have refused. He should have never agreed to leave the house. But all his life he had never been to another region. His small town was in the middle of nowhere in Elysia Region, therefore the thought of going to a camping trip in the great Asphodel Region intrigued him mildly. As a result, he had agreed to go, and had spent the first two days at camp participating in mildly interesting activities. The third day, however, he had woken up restrained in a hospital bed, with a promise that none of his family would ever find him again, and a new life of constantly being prodded and experimented on. Apparently, he was one of the very few individuals who, somehow, had acquired special abilities, or as the scientists said, “are gifted”. And the scientists were to study these gifts, to see how they work, how they manifest, and how to control those who have them. Since then, he had spent 6 months in a 70 sq.ft cell, occasionally being dragged around for experimenting, and sometimes being transferred from one lab to another. Each cell were modified to nullify or contain the abilities of their respective residents, and there were traps that can be activated manually should another kid like him manage to disable all the guards. That was what he had found out during his time held captive.

Being deep in thought, he almost had a heart attack when an explosion shook his cell. But with it came a satisfying tingling sensation on the tip of his fingers. My powers, he thought with a smirk. The explosion must have damaged his cell somehow, and his powers washed over him, as if his powers had been held back by an invisible dam that had now broken. He put his hand on the wall, feeling each and every microchip in the building. Technokinesis, so they say. Basically, he could manipulate any and all electronic devices, or anything that has a chip in it, and that was how he was going to get out of here. With a snap of his fingers, he commanded all the cell doors to open, and all the security cameras to shut down, before rushing out of the room.

Outside his room, he heard distant yelling and gunshots from where he suspected to be the source of the explosion, so naturally, he headed down the opposite direction. For the first minute or two, the path he took was pretty uneventful. Most of the guards must have been drawn to whoever had caused that explosion, or encountered another powered individual. His thought was proven correct when he took the next right turn and ran into a girl, standing over 3 unconscious guards laying around the 10 ft wide hallway, as if they had just decided to bash their heads against one another until they all pass out. The girl turned to him with deep hatred in her eyes, but that quickly dropped when she realized he was in the same scrub as her. He approached her slowly as her blue eyes glued onto him cautiously. She was around his height, with beautiful ginger hair and a thin figure. He spotted a small number on her wrist, right where his number read 089. I guess it’s better to have allies, he thought before offering her his hand.

“Wanna team up?” he asked.

She kept her eyes on him for several extra seconds before raising her hand to shake his with a slight smile. They then both headed towards the now obstacle-free hallway.

“Hi, I’m Stan. Technokinetic. I guess I opened the cell doors?” Stan said, raising his voice near the end. He wasn’t sure if he should start the small talk, or would she want to separate as soon as they’re outside.

Luckily, she gave a small amusing huff, so Stan assumed it was okay to have a chat.

Beverly, her voice sounded in Stan’s head. Telepath.


 * 097

Beverly was glad to have company, especially one her age.

In the previous lab, sometimes while she was being tested, there would be a boy her age in the room as well. Not as a target for her though, since none of her powers would work on him. He was there, as the scientists had put it, to “amplify” her powers. Whenever he put his hand on her shoulder, she felt more powerful, like a new wave of energy had washed over her. She could also use her ability more smoothly, and could do things she hadn't been able to do by herself. They were never allowed to talk, so she only knew him by the number on his wrist. 042. If the number indicated the capture order of the subjects, he must have been here for a lot longer than she had.

Besides the boy she saw in the Power Room, the name she gave the room where she was forced to use her powers mostly on brain damaged targets, either to read their mind or memory, Beverly had also met a few other “psychics” in The Playground. The Playground was the room where they put psionic users like her together to see if something would happen when they interact. As far as Beverly could tell, not much could happen. Psionic users could highly resist other psionic attacks, and could also detect other psionic users targeting them. So whenever another user successfully targeted her (usually it was a girl who can create illusion - 016), she could retaliate immediately. They never hurt each other, only played some harmless pranks back and forth. They all knew who the real enemy was, and even if they weren’t friends, they were sure as hell allies. However, she did make a new friend in The Playground. A small clairvoyant named Bobby. Bobby was quiet, but friendly, and there was something about him that made Beverly feel like she could trust him immediately. They had spent a lot of time talking to each other. Not in The Playground, though, since neither of them had wanted to give those scientists the satisfaction of having something to record. One of the perks of being a clairvoyant and a telepath was, you can astral project yourself. That was like sending your consciousness away, onto another plane, while your body remained wherever you are. She and Bobby had called that plane The Void, since there were nothing in that place besides their consciousness. That power wasn’t contained by the cells they were locked in, because in a way, they weren’t pushing their powers outside of the room, but rather pushing themselves onto another dimension. They had kept it a secret, and if the guards checked the security footage, they’d just see two kids sleeping in their respective beds.

Nearly 2 months ago, she had been transferred from her previous lab, the one with The Playground, to this current lab. At first, she had been afraid she would get lonely again, since she suspected there was a range to this mutual astral projection ground. However her worry had later been dismissed when Bobby had informed her that he would be coming to her facility after a few days (bless him and his occasional future-telling visions). They had talked to each other a lot. They had told each other stories from their pasts, their hobbies, the dreams they once had, and pretty much anything to keep them from the four walls that were their reality. Sometimes, if Bobby had a premonition, he’d tell Beverly, and the two of them would try to decipher that premonition together. Bobby's premonitions were usually blurry and confusing, unless he has 042 to help him, and being held captive hadn't given you many chances to go around and see if the visions had come true, but they had tried their best to understand Bobby's powers anyway. However, today when Beverly had come to The Void to talk to Bobby, he had only appeared briefly to tell her to save her strength, and that “something is going to happen soon”, before severing the connection. Less than 5 minutes later, the explosion had come, and shortly after that, the door to her cell had opened.

Which had brought her to her current situation, running towards an unseen exit alongside Stan. Stan, whose powers apparently had allowed him to mentally map down all electric circuits and, by extension, the general paths inside the lab. When Stan had mentioned that he could try to locate the nearest exit using his "map", Beverly had let out a small chuckle, because she wouldn’t have to dig inside the guard’s mind for a map of this place. Apparently, that statement had touched a nerve because Stan had suddenly turned awkward.

“So… uhm… Beverly?” Stan started after a minute of silence or so, “I was wondering… if you are, like, always able to know what everyone else is thinking?”

“Oh, that!” Beverly laughed, “Yeah, I could, but I try not to, since it would be kind of impolite to do so”. Furthermore… she thought but didn’t say anything.

That answer, however, was enough to ease Stan’s worries, and he got back to his normal self (or whatever self he had been before that topic popped up). The next L-turn, however, made them both speechless. Scattered around the hallway were at least 20 unconscious guard, and at the end of the hallway, in front of a door that was clearly meant to be the exit, stood a brown-haired girl about Beverly’s height, facing said exit. She was… screaming at the door? Apparently, whatever her power was, she was trying (and failing) to open the door with it.

“Hey!” Stan called out to the girl after he had managed to recollect himself, which, turned out to be not a very good idea.

The brunette girl turned around, and immediately there was an invisible force slamming both Stan and Beverly to the wall. Telekinesis, how wonderful, thought Beverly.

“We’re… on… the same… side!” tried Stan, the invisible pressure obviously made it a bit difficult to talk.

After a moment of consideration (which felt a lot longer if you’re on the receiving end of a telekinetic attack), the girl released them, and they both cautiously approached her.

“We can help you with that,” said Stan, while carefully placing a hand on the exit door. After a second, the door opened.

Beverly expected the girl to run off and disappear the moment the door opens, so she was caught by surprise when the brunette just eyed them warily. She decided it wouldn’t hurt to try.

“Hi, I’m Beverly, and this is Stan. We think we'll have a better chance at escaping if we stick together. Would you like to join us?”

The girl stared at them both for an uncomfortable amount of time before giving Beverly a curt nod.

“Okay, then… what's your name?” Stan tried carefully, as if not wanting to scare away a hurt animal.

"Jean."

“Okay then, Jean,” Beverly said cheerfully, “let’s get out of this hellhole”.

Upon leaving the lab, they immediately saw the source of the explosion. About 100 ft from their exit, there was a large hole on the side of the lab, undoubtedly the result of the blast. The damage was pretty destructive, some of the watch towers on top of the lab had already collapsed. One tower was also about to collapse, the only thing that had been holding it up was…

An energy field?

Beverly realized with a gasp that there must have been someone under that tower, unable to run away.

“Guys!” Beverly cried, catching the attention of the other two. But then 3 things happened almost simultaneously.

The tower started to crumble, throwing debris down the energy shield and all around it. The energy shield flickered, and then disappeared. Something from the debris site shot up in the air and flew towards their direction like a cannonball.

It was a body.

“Jean! Quick! Can you catch that?” Beverly asked urgently, pointing at the figure.

Jean raised her hands and tried to slow the body down. Probably don’t want to abruptly stop it so she won't break anything, thought Beverly. However, despite Jean's effort, the body still slammed into both girls and knocked them back a dozen foot.

The two girls laid on the ground with the body on top of them for a while, trying to catch their breaths. After some damage assessing, making sure nothing in their bodies were broken (badly bruised, definitely), they both sat up and turn the body face-up.

It was a boy’s. He was still alive, Beverly could tell that much. No limbs in awkward shapes, so hopefully nothing was broken.

Beverly was about to suggest taking turn carrying the unconscious boy when she heard Stan’s shaken voice from behind.

“R-Richie?”


 * 092

The vision started at noon.

Bobby had had nothing to do besides mulling over his old life, something he’d been doing constantly for the last 3 months. He had contemplated trying to talk to Bev in The Void, but had decided against it. What if Bev is in the Power Room right now? What if I contacted her, and our secret got discovered by some wackos currently wiring her like a Christmas tree? They had agreed on going to The Void after dinner, because two kids sleeping after dinner was a lot less suspicious than during the day, should anyone watch the security footage. So he had sat there and thought about his life before everything had gone downhill for him. He had thought about his mom, despite having to work even on Christmas and New Year to provide for his family, had still managed to make the heartiest Christmas dinner. He had thought about his brother Sam, and his exquisite taste in music, always introducing him to the greatest songs of the generation. He had thought about his love for drawing, how he had managed to make every drawing unique, even if they had been of the same person, same view, because nothing would be the same when you drew it the second time. He had also thought about the object of (most of) his drawings: his best friend Scott. Scott, who had befriended him on the first day of kindergarten, when Bobby had been all alone and scared. Scott, who had always been there for him, helping him up, giving him the power to push through his childhood of getting picked on. Scott, whose family had moved away two years ago, bringing along the only safe haven outside his family that he had known of, leaving only a promise of staying in touch. Scott, who had kept his promises until 9 months ago, when he had abruptly disappeared without a note. Scott, whom he may or may not had recently admitted to himself of having a crush on for as long as he could remember. In Scott's last letters, he had mentioned that his twin brother had disappeared not long before, so he had probably needed time to heal. Bobby had never met Scott's twin brother, but somehow, whenever he had drawn them together, he had always imagined Scott's brother wearing coke-bottle glasses. When Bobby had heard of the news, he had started drawing them together more and more often, but he hadn't dared to send his drawings to Scott. The wound had been too fresh for that, and he had told himself, when Scott started replying again, he would gradually mention the paintings. Sadly now, he’d never know whether Scott would like it or not, since even if Scott reached out again, he wouldn’t be there to answer anymore. That thought always brought tears to his eyes.

Just as the first teardrop fell onto his hand, the vision started. His visions had always been clouded and fragmented, and this time was no different. He saw two boys holding hands, both of them in the special suit the lab had made him wear whenever they had wanted to get some data on him. He couldn’t make out their faces. Then the vision shifted to an explosion. Bobby could tell that this explosion wasn’t one they could contain in whatever room they had contained the other kids’ powers. Then it changed into Bobby and another kid running. Once again, Bobby couldn’t tell what the kid looked like, but he knew he needed the kid for whatever was coming. Finally, he saw one of the two boys from his first vision. He couldn’t explain how he knew that was the same boy, but he just knew. The boy was flying through a rain of meteorites. Just like that, the vision ended, leaving him with a dreadful feeling mixed with… excitement? He knew whatever that was about, it was going to happen real soon.

The vision returned as snippets occasionally when he blinked his eyes. Together with it, the feeling returned, stronger and stronger each time. It was so intense that, when Beverly reached out to him after dinner, he quickly shut her down after a brief warning that something was going to happen soon. Just as he closed the connection with Bev, the vision started again, not any clearer than the first. However, as he was looking at the meteorites, an explosion shook him awake, and he knew it was time to move.

As soon as the door to his cell swung open, Bobby started running. He didn’t know where he was going, but he blindly trusted his feelings. At each intersections, he chose a direction to head to without a second thought and kept running, until he ran into someone and they both tumbled onto the ground.

“Get the fuck off me you son of a bitch! I’m not afraid of using my powers on you!” shrieked a voice, and someone started squirming under Bobby's body.

The poor boy whom Bobby had tackled had fallen face first onto the ground, and had managed to fight back immediately, despite not seeing who had tackled him, kicking Bobby in the gut twice as a result.

“Hey, hey, calm down…” Bobby hastily said, got off the boy and carefully raise both hands up.

The other boy, after being free and seeing Bobby was no bigger than himself, finally stopped squirming and looked at Bobby carefully.

“Hi, I’m Bobby. What’s your name?” asked Bobby tentatively, suddenly aware that this boy was the boy he should be traveling with.

“Eddie”.

“Well, Eddie, I’m planning to get the hell out of here. Care to join?” asked Bobby with a grin, this time more confident than the last.

Eddie seemed to be having a debate against himself for a while before nodding. Bobby extended his hand and Eddie took it tentatively. They helped each other up and Bobby started running, with Eddie following closely.

“How do you know where we’re going?” asked Eddie, after Bobby had taken the fourth turn without so much as a glance.

“I don’t know. I’m just following my instincts”.

“You— what?” asked Eddie incredulously.

“Just trust me”.

“How am I supposed to trust you? I don’t even know you. As far as I can tell, you could be leading me to another maximum security cell,” yelled Eddie, though he kept following Bobby anyway. It was not like he had a better idea where they should be heading.

“Well, it’s kind of my power. I see stuff, I know things,” Bobby tried to explained, contemplating telling Eddie about his vision, but ultimately decided not to.

“Cool power,” murmured Eddie.

“What about you? You were threatening me back then, should I be afraid?” asked Bobby jokingly.

“My power is healing,” said Eddie sheepishly, “but it’s really lame, I can’t even heal myself.”

“Well, yours is still cooler than mine. My visions are all blurry and most of the time I don’t even know what they mean until everything is done,” said Bobby, and the two boys started bonding over whose power were less impressive.

Bobby and Eddie got to the explosion site and climbed out of the lab just in time for Bobby to witness the last scene in his vision.

Which only strengthened Bobby's argument that his visions sucks way more than Eddie’s inability to heal himself.

Under the collapsing watch tower, two figures were struggling to get out while the energy shield above their heads slowly crumbled. One seemed to be unconscious while the other kept trying to get them both out of the collapse zone. As a final effort, the conscious boy wrapped the other one inside his energy field and sent the unconscious boy through the falling debris.

When he looked up, his eyes caught Bobby's.

Recognition sparked across both their faces.

Bobby had barely managed a scream when the watch tower crumbled onto Scott.


 * 089: Uris, Stanley: Technokinesis (Level: Beta - Type: Espionage)


 * 097: Marsh, Beverly: Telepathy (Level: Beta - Type: Espionage)


 * 019: Grey, Jean: Telekinesis (Level: Gamma - Type: Offense)

Object Sensing: being aware of surrounding objects

Telekinesis: being able to move objects around and/or destroy objects with their mind


 * 092: Drake, Robert: Clairvoyance (Level: Beta - Type: Espionage)

Psychic Shield: increased resistance against psionic attacks

Danger Intuition: being able to sense potential or impending danger to self and/or allies

Dream Scrying: being able to see present events while dreaming

Retrocognitive Dreaming: being able to see past events while dreaming

Precognition: being able to see future events, may manifest as visions, Precognitive Dreaming, or Precognitive Artistry

Astral Projection: being able to send consciousness to another plane

Psychic Navigation: being able to find people anywhere in the world

Visual Linking: being able to share sight between different individuals

Eddie Kaspbrak - Healing


 * 074: Summers (née: Tozier), Scott: Flyrokinesis (Level: Gamma - Type: Defense)

Force-Field Generation: being able to create force-field of various shapes to defend against attacks or contain threats

Force-Field Attacks: combat integrating force-field

Levitation: being able to levitate self or target by surrounding self/target with force-field


 * 035

Hank should have exercised more.

He had been exhausting himself ever since the cell door opened. Not knowing where to go, he kept running into guards and dead ends while trying to get out of the shit hole he had been locked in since forever. At first, fighting the guards had been a walk in the park. Literally. One of the things Hank learned during his “stay” in these labs was, a gentle shove to a Kevlar could do more damage than a shotgun blast at close range, when you moved at twice the speed of sound. He only needed to walk to each guard, give them a little push, and they would all be thrown back like they had been hit on the stomach by a sledgehammer. However, he soon realized that periodically running at max speed drained him after a while. Therefore he had to change his approach, going at a significantly slower speed (which was still really fast, mind you) and using greater force.

After backtracking from the 8th dead end or something, he finally ran into a potential ally. At the end of the hallway in front of him, 5 guards were cornering a chubby boy with brown hair. Said boy were putting up some kind of energy shield to defend himself against the guards, but one of those guards had been using some kind of pulse gun to try and break the shield, and Hank could see the gun had caused a lot of damage already. Decided to be the knight in shining armor rescuing the… peasant in distress, Hank quickly dashed in and knocked the guards out. Upon realizing what had just happened, the other kid released the energy shield, and Dustin recognized a familiar face.

“Wait, aren’t you the kid that boosts our powers when they wanted to run tests on us?” asked Hank curiously, looking at the boy. He was a little below average in height. On his left wrist was the tattooed number 042.

“What? Oh, yeah, right,” replied the boy sheepishly, “and you’re the one on steroids right?”

“Hey! It’s called ‘Enhanced Conditions’, asshole!” huffed Hank exasperatedly, glaring at the kid. “Super strength, super speed, and other shit”.

“Right, sorry,” chuckled the boy, “I’m Ben, anyway”.

“Nice to officially meet you, Ben. I’m Hank,” greeted Hank warmly. Then, as if both boys came to an unspoken agreement, they walked together towards the direction Hank was going. “So what is your powers exactly? You can make energy shield as well? I always thought the powers we have have to be of the same category or some sort”.

“Oh, yeah they do. At least I haven’t seen any exceptions yet,” said Ben bashfully. “They called my ability ‘Power Manipulation’. Basically I can sense powers nearby, amplify or negate them. As an extra, I can copy the powers of someone I touch. That energy shield back then was from a kid they had run tests on earlier today”.

“Okay, then,” chuckled Hank. “Do you think you’d want to copy mine as well? We could move a lot faster with my speed, so running into dead ends won’t take as much time”.

“Oh, yeah, totally,” laughed Ben, “and I think we can avoid running into dead ends”.

“Why? Do you know the way out of here?”

“No, but if I remember correctly, I can enhance your sense with my power. Maybe you can somehow locate the exit?”

“Oh, right,” grinned Hank, “let’s do that”.

Ben touched his arm, and suddenly Hank felt like a power wave had just washed over him. He could hear distant noises from all around him, smell the scents he hadn’t noticed (not all were pleasant). He noticed, on the left hallway at the end of the corridor, a faint smell of dirt behind metal. There were a distinct dirt scent somewhere behind him as well, but that path was significantly further away (how he knew that, he had no idea), and they would run into more guards.

“Okay, I think I know where to go. Left at the end of the corridor, go straight at the next junction, then turn left again. We probably won’t run into any guards,” informed Hank. “Are you ready to run?”

“Let’s go!” replied Ben with a smile, and they both started running.

Upon reaching the door, Hank quickly “opened” it with a full force punch at max speed, and the door flew open (it literally flew away). They then proceeded to run towards the direction in which Hank smelled vehicle exhaust, because that sure meant people.

So, about 10 minutes later, Hank was running in the woods at somewhere around 50mph with Ben, in lab scrubs, while it was around freezing temperature. Not that he couldn’t run faster, but he needed to save his energy in case the town ahead won’t be the last destination for the night.

“Damn, your power is so cool!” exclaimed Hank. They had been talking about random topics to distract themselves from the chilly trip. “So aren’t you supposed to be, like super powerful or something? I bet those scientists made you use your amplifying power on every kid in the lab already. Why didn’t you just use some other powers to the guards?”

“It doesn’t work like that,” laughed Ben, shaking his head. “I can only copy one ability at a time. If I choose to copy another ability, the first one will be replaced. Plus, the borrowed powers feel wrong when I use them. Like using your non-dominant hand. It always comes out less powerful than from whoever I copied from. The kid I got the shield from would’ve been able to beat those guards. Also, the stronger the ability is, the more difficult for me to use. Not to mention, up until now I didn’t have a chance to talk to any of you guys, and each power has a different trigger. Some people can do stuff when they’re angry, others when they’re happy. It’s very frustrating using other’s powers like that”.

“Wow, when you put it like that, it does sound frustrating,” said Dustin. They finally reached the town, and Hank realized they should change their clothes, and maybe stock up on food. “New question, what is your opinion on breaking into shops and stealing clothes?”

After they had changed into new clothes (locks aren’t exactly made to endure superhuman strength), they started thinking about a place to stay and lay low. They obviously couldn’t stay inside the store they had broken in, and the idea of stealing money didn’t sit well with either of them. Not to mention the fact that two 13-year-olds going to a motel alone would raise quite a few questions. After checking the calendar inside the store, Hank came up with an idea.

“Hey, it’s the day after Christmas!” exclaimed Hank.

“So?” inquired Ben.

“So, school’s out,” explained Hank, “and we can hide in a school gym or something”.

“Surprisingly, going to school sounds like a good idea,” Ben replied in astonishment.

So, they sneaked around the town, found the local high school, broke in and hid in the school gym. Hank's last thought before he succumbed to sleep was how, 24 hours ago, he never would have thought he would breathe free air again.


 * 088

Emma would’ve never thought wisecracking was something she’d do in this lab.

After breaking out of her cell (technically she had been let out but who cares), she had almost immediately run into another kid. At first, Emma had instantly switched to her battle mode, summoning a ball of fire on her left hand and a fiery bat on her right. But upon realizing who she had run into, she had quickly extinguished her weapons. The boy she had encountered, thankfully, had been sort of an acquaintance to her. In this lab, perhaps once or twice per month, they ran tests on the kids by putting two of them inside a domed battlefield, making them fight against each other, and collecting data on the match. Refusing to cooperate always led to suffering, so they had to battle. Emma had always suspected they planned to weaponize her and the others somehow, although she couldn’t think of a situation where she, or any of the captured, would not turn on the bad men the first chance they got. This black kid in front of her had been her “opponent” for the last two matches, the final match being three days ago. He was slightly taller than her, had short black hair, and could control the earth (or at least throw big chunks of rock towards her direction). 033, as the scientists had called him.

“Well, well, well. I’m starting to think you’re stalking me,” said Emma playfully.

“Hello to you too, Girl On Fire,” chuckled the boy, “got any plans for tonight?”

“Actually, yes. I’m getting the hell out of here”.

“Sounds great! Mind if I tag along?”

“Sure, stalker. Just try not to slow me down, okay?” said Emma before heading towards a random hallway.

“I’ll try,” said the boy after catching up with Emma. “I’m Bishop, by the way. Nice to not try to hurt you”.

“I think I prefer ‘stalker’,” replied Emma after pretending to think for a moment. “I’m Emma, and likewise”.

A few minutes later, they ran into the aftermath of an encounter between half a dozen guards and probably another kid, and it was far from being pleasant. Emma instinctively grabbed onto Bishop's arm upon seeing the bodies. The corridor they had opted for was splattered in red. It looked like the guards had decided to take their guns out and shoot themselves. The whole scene churned her stomach, and she was fairly sure this would haunt her for a while. There was a bloody footprint walking away from the scene, turning right at the end of the hallway. Without saying a word to one another, they both went left.

The next encounter was, thankfully, a lot more pleasant, and a bit impressive as well. They ran into 5 guards trying to subdue another black kid. Said kid had proved to be very sufficient in his ability-integrated combat skill. One moment he was punching one guard, the next it looked like he had been sucked into a spot somewhere in the center of his torso. He disappeared with an audible pop, then expanded from another point behind another guard, kicking him. This guy is a teleporter, thought Max while watching the kid jumping from one place to another, punching and kicking the guards without getting hit once. She and Bishop were both so hypnotized by the fight, neither of them had noticed a 6th guard approaching them from behind.

“Look out!” yelled the kid, before disappearing and popping up behind them, kicking the guard in the back.

That had woken Emma from her little trance. The next moment, she had her fiery bat summoned, and started attacking the guards alongside the teleporter. Getting hit by her bat felt like getting hit by a scalding baseball bat, and flame would catch onto whatever was hit, so it was not a bad weapon, and surely was preferred to throwing fireballs or being a human flamethrower when fighting in confined space. Emma and the teleporting kid quickly knocked out the guards, while Bishop was trying his best not to get in the way of the fight. Bishop was strong, but he couldn’t conjure up earth out of thin air like she did with fire (she had to combust the air in the shape of a bat, and somehow solidify the flame), so he couldn’t be of much help in this match. After the fight, she went and extinguished the fire created by her bat.

“Wow, you guys were amazing,” exclaimed Bishop.

“Thanks,” replied the other boy with a big grin. He then offered his hand, “I’m Mike”.

“Hi Mike, I’m Emma,” returned Emma enthusiastically, “and don’t let this guy fool you. If this had happened on the field, Bishop here would’ve buried all of these guards before they could even get close”.

“I don’t doubt it,” laughed Mike warmly, patting Bishop on the back while he was stuttering for a reply, clearly embarrassed by the comment. “So, do any of you know the way out of this place?”

“Not really,” replied Emma. “We were just running around hoping—“

“Wait,” interrupted Bishop.

“What’s wrong?” asked Mike.

“I think I can sense traces of dirt around that corridor,” said Bishop, pointing at the path on the right, at the end of their hallway.

“What does that mean?” asked Emma curiously.

“Well, it’s like when you walk into your house from your garden, you bring dirt from the garden back to your house on your shoes. The dirt mostly falls off near the door. I’m sensing that kind of dirt in that direction, so—“

“—so there should be an exit that way!” exclaimed Mike. “Let’s go!”

Upon reaching the exit, they realized they had no idea how to open the door.

“I can’t control big rocks with this door in the way,” said Bishop frustratedly. “Can’t throw something big enough on it to damage it. What about you, Mike? Can you teleport us outside?”

“My power doesn’t work like that,” replied Bishop sadly. “I have to know where I’m heading, as in I must have seen the place before. And I have a maximum range as well. Can’t risk jumping to Olympia in case we turn out to be in Atlantia. We might get stuck somewhere bad.”

“I might be able to do something,” said Emma after considering the door for a while. “But you guys might want to stand back”.

As the boys took a step back, Emma closed her eyes and started raising her right hand towards the door. She started thinking about happy thoughts. She thought about the bright sun, a walk by the beach on a summer day, and hot chocolate on a rainy day. A warm feeling started to fill her veins, and she focused on channeling that warmth into the cold door in front of her. Even when her eyes were closed, she could still feel the heat, or the lack of heat around her. She could feel the two warm red silhouette behind here that were the boys, as well as the cold blue door in front of her. Right now, she was focusing on the door, trying to make its aura brighter and brighter. The door started to radiate so much heat, the boys had to take a few extra steps back cautiously. Then it started to glow brightly, and finally, started to melt.

“Emma, you can stop now,” said Mike. “I can see the outside. I can get us out”. The door had only melt a little, but a small gap was enough to have a look at the outer world.

Emma stopped and almost tumbled backwards, but managed to catch herself. Bishop and Mike both came to her side. “Wow, that was intense. I’ve never melted anything that big without help before”.

“Well, you did a good job,” said Mike. “Now do you think you need time to rest up? Because I must warn you, the first time teleporting isn’t gonna be pleasant”.

Emma gave herself a few luxurious minutes to rest, then urged Mike to get them out lest some guards find them first. And as Mike made the first jump, she realized that “not going to be pleasant” had been a huge understatement. Her prior observation about Mike being sucked into a spot wasn’t that far from the truth. She felt like she was being forced through a very tight rubber tube. Everything went black and she was pressed very hard from every direction. Emma couldn’t breathe because of some invisible iron bands tightening around her chest; her eyeballs were being forced back into her head; and her eardrums were being pushed deeper into her skull. And as suddenly as the feeling had appeared, it was gone in an instant, and fresh air filled her lungs as she took a quick gasp. Her knees gave way, and for the second time that day, Emma was trying not to throw up. On Mike’s other side, Bishop also collapsed.

“Are you guys okay?” Emma asked worriedly. “We could run on foot if you want”.

Under normal circumstances (or almost any non-life-threatening circumstances), Emma would’ve chosen any other method of transportation. But she knew they weren’t given much of a head start, and they would need to go as fast as they can, so the only logical choice would be to keep teleporting.

“We’ll be fine. Don’t worry,” Emma reassured Mike. “But they are going to start pursuing soon. We should head towards a town or somewhere we could both hide and find supplies. I can keep us warm in this weather”.

“There should be a town that way,” pointed Bishop towards a direction to their right. “The ground over there feels more polluted,” he explained.

“Okay, then,” said Mike worriedly. “Hold on, there’s still a long way to go”.

Upon reaching the town, called Hawkins as they noted, it was easy for them to get food and some new clothes, with Mike’s convenient ability. A shelter, however, was a bit more difficult to find. They considered teleporting to a balcony of an empty room in a motel, or an empty house, but the chance of being spotted were too high, and they couldn’t risk being engaged in any kind of struggles. Finally, Bishop came up with an idea.

“Do we have to stay indoor? Can’t we just stay in the forest but close enough to the vicinity of the city?” asked Bishop.

“I guess the weather is not a problem for us, but that still risks being hunted by the people in the lab,” said Emma.

“I can help with that,” replied Bishop with a grin. “Besides throwing rocks, I can also make tunnels and secret hideouts underground and stuff like that. I can make one for us to hide, and cover the entrance with a stone or something. I can set up some kind of traps so that, if someone steps on the ground near the entrance, I will be alarmed”.

“That’s brilliant!” exclaimed Mike. “Then we just need to find a place in this town that’s close to the forest, so we can flee to town if necessary”.

Mike left Emma and Bishop at the grocery store to go scouting for a place for several minutes. Then he returned and teleported them to a clearing behind Hawkins High, claiming that it was the place in town closest to the forest. Bishop began his magic, and soon after, they were all sound asleep in their temporary lair.


 * 054

They had to move sooner than Bill had expected.

About 2 months ago, Bill had broken out of the lab he had been kept in. There had been an attack on the facility. Luckily, with a harmless, unhelpful ability, he had been kept in a very low security cell. An explosion outside had created a hole on his wall, big enough for a 13-year-old to crawl through. Once he had gotten out, his Tracking Evasion had been of great use in the mountainous terrain of wherever the lab had been.

After about a week of running and hiding, Bill had run into 3 boys - the people behind the attack that had set him free, hiding in a cave nearby. Said attack had drained them, and they had been recovering since. At first they had been wary of him, afraid that he might be a spy. But gradually, they had become more friendly, especially since his ability had helped hiding the four of them from the bad guys on two occasions since their encounter. Finally, they had allowed Bill to join their group and started telling him some of the things they had learned about the people behind the labs, and about people like him. He had learned that, most of the time, if someone had powers, then at least one of their parents would also have powers. He had also learned that, the people hunting them were from a small division of a much larger organization, and said division were in charge of experimenting on children. There were other divisions in charge of running tests on grown-ups, creating technologies to counter their abilities, or training soldiers to fight them. So far, they had only been able to get the location of the labs within this “children division”. Bill and the boys had been scouting the location of one of these labs for about a week, planning for an attack.

About the boys, Bill had learned a lot about their characters, but they had been very adamant about keeping their identities a secret (despite him introducing himself almost immediately after they had met). At first, they had decided to use code names (more like nicknames) because they hadn’t trusted him, but now they simply said it would be safer in case Bill somehow got captured and interrogated by someone who could read mind. The boys said they might’ve been distant relatives, but they considered themselves best friends to keep things simple. Sparky, who had gotten the nickname by always zapping others using static discharge when they were kids, was 15 years old. Out of the 3, he was the calm one that carefully came up with a plan before doing anything. Seaweed Brain, who had more than often made childish jokes and asked silly questions that made Bill question his maturity, was 16 years old. Despite his juvenility, he was the one who usually came up with an (albeit crazy but) actually working plan when the previous plan had been thrown into chaos. And finally, Death Breath, whom Bill had made sure not to stand too close to in the morning, was 14 years old. He always had a snarky comeback to anything he found stupid (which had been most things). Sparky could control the air around him, and Seaweed Brain could control water. If they combined their powers, they could even create storms and hurricanes. That had been what had attacked Bill’s lab 2 months ago. Death Breath, who had also just broken out of that very lab on the same day as Bill, could control the shadow. He could create tendrils from shadows, create shadow portal to another dimension, and spy on the people in the labs from their own shadows. When needed, he could also use those portals to transport them to another location. Death Breath had been their entire espionage and transportation division.

So when they heard the explosion from their hideout in the forest, they sent Death Breath out to gather information. About 15 minutes later, he returned and informed them an experiment had gone wrong, and the prisoners had escaped. After a quick discussion, they all agreed to go look for any prisoners that were still struggling to get away. Each of the boys started grabbing their inventories, and Bill used his power to remove any trace of them ever being in the forest, before they all headed towards the lab. They split into pairs for maximum coverage, and Bill went with Seaweed Brain.

After about an hour of searching, shadow tendrils started wrapping around their feet (well, not his feet because Death Breath couldn’t find him, but Bill didn’t cover Seaweed Brain’s tracks), indicating the other pair had found someone. Upon meeting the others, Bill noted that they had found 3 boys: an unconscious boy that looked like he had recently been buried under a pile of rock, a small boy that was on the verge of freaking out over his motionless friend, and another small boy with his back towards Bill, one his hands placing on the unconscious boy’s head while the other on his abdomen.

“I think I’ve healed all the broken bones and the internal damages, but he still needs to rest after what he’s done,” said the boy whose face Bill hadn’t seen yet, and Bill recognized the familiarity in that voice.

“E-Eddie!” cried out Bill.

Eddie immediately turned around. “Bill! What are you doing here?”

“I w-w-was with these g-guys,” gestured Bill to his 3 companions. “We were p-p-planning to attack that lab”.

Eddie darted his eyes around. Bill had a feeling he knows who Eddie was looking for. “What about—“

“Now isn’t the t-time,” interrupted Bill. He then turned to Death Breath. “Do you th-th-think you can move u-us back to the town? And m-maybe you could find some clothes for th-them as well?” he asked.

Death Breath frowned, obviously had noticed the sudden topic change. “Okay then,” he finally said, “everybody grabs someone’s hand. It’s going to get creepy”.

Everyone quickly formed a human chain, and the shadow rose and swallowed them all. Bill had traveled via this method before, so he knew what to expect. Immediately, he was surrounded by total darkness, had a slightly cold feeling, and felt a floating sensation. He couldn’t see anything, but he could still feel his hands grabbing Eddie’s and Sparky’s hands, and he could also feel himself being gently pulled by an invisible force. There were whispers all around him, but they were too many, and too faint to hear. If Bill had to explain how he felt, he would describe it as if he was submerged in liquid darkness. He had always wondered how Death Breath could make out any kind of information in this state. After about 2 minutes, he felt the darkness pushing him to the surface, and they all emerged from the shadow under their feet. Death Breath once again dived into his own shadow and disappeared.

“This is an old warehouse in a town nearby,” explained Sparky to the two new (conscious) members. “We set this up as a temporary lair when we were planning to attacking the lab”.

“How did you find an abandoned warehouse in a foreign town?” asked the boy Bill didn’t know the name of.

“That wasn’t too difficult. Just look for old factories, harbors, or freight stations. They’re usually away from the town center. This place used to be where trains unload their shipments,” provided Sparky.

After a quick introduction to the place and to each other (Bill learned the other boy’s name was Bobby), Death Breath returned with new clothes for the 3 additions, some toiletries, sleeping bags, as well as wristbands to hide their numbers (again, to keep their identities a secret to the bad guys). Eddie looked like he was about to collapse, but Bill knew he was waiting for the opportunity to ask Bill that question.

“Y-you should get to bed soon, Eddie. You m-must have drained yourself t-trying to heal the other boy,” suggested Bill. “And if you ask th-those three boys, they’ll t-tell you this,” attempted Bill to make a joke, “‘with great power, comes great need to take a nap’”.

Eddie gave a small amusing huff before turning serious again. Once more, Bill interrupted before Eddie could say anything.

“W-we can talk t-t-tomorrow,” reassured Bill.

Eddie looked like he wanted to argue, but finally sighed in defeat. He grabbed a sleeping bag and head to the corner where they all had their sleeping bags together. “You know, Bill, it’s very unusual for a stuttering guy to interrupt someone,” joked Eddie.

Bill laughed at that. “Good night Eddie”.


 * 089

A sudden jolt on his side disrupted Stan from his sleep.

His first instinct was to smother whoever had made the sudden movement. They had had a very long night. At first, they had run through the forest, while being chased by the people from the lab. The girls had offered to help him carry Richie, but Stan had been very adamant about not needing help. There was no way he would pass his best friend, who had disappeared for a year, to another person that easily. Plus, out of the 3, he had been the least useful in combat, so it would be better to leave the girls with more mobility. When they had reached the road (and a safe distance from their captors), they had managed to hitchhike a truck to the nearest town. Hitchhiking in their state hadn’t been the simplest options, with their outfits and the fact that they were 4 kids wandering in the woods - one being unconscious, but Beverly had managed to trick the nice truck driver into seeing her as someone older wearing more reasonable clothes, and distract him long enough for Jean to break them into the (luckily spacious) container. After reaching the town, they had broken into a clothing shop and grabbed some more appropriate clothes for the weather. Well, in Stan’s opinion, technically they hadn’t broken into the store. The store had already been broken into earlier that night, and they had just walked into a shop with opened doors. Based on the two scrubs that had been left in the changing room, which looked exactly like the ones they had been wearing, his group hadn’t been the first gifted group to arrive at the town (or the shop). They had taken enough clothes for a few days, as well as several backpacks, because Stan had figured if everyone’s destination was this town, the security would be strengthened by the end of the next day. Once everyone had packed their stuff (Stan had packed one for Richie as well), they had headed to Stan’s marvelous idea of a sleeping place: Hawkins’ Grand Hotel. The plan had been simple: Stan would hack into the hotel’s system, change a free room’s status to occupied, disable the cameras, and activate the fire alarm. Once the staff had announced it was an inconsiderate prank, at about 3am, they had come into the hotel with the flow of people, and gone to the room Stan had taken earlier - a royal suite with 2 double bedrooms.

Double bedroom. The thought jolted Stan awake. Stan was sharing the bed with Richie, who had just woken up, and who was probably freaking out at that moment.

“Hey, Richie, calm down,” said Stan with his best soothing voice, “you’re free now”. He put a hand on Richie’s shoulder, and Richie jerked away at the sudden touch. But upon seeing who it was, Richie’s eyes stopped darting around.

“Stan? W-what happened? Where am I?” asked Richie confusingly. Then, as if he finally realized he was not in the lab anymore, he asked, “Is this a dream or something?”

“It’s alright. Calm down. You’re free,” repeated Stan. He didn’t want to say safe, but free was something he could promise at the moment. “We’re in a hotel. We found you outside of the lab yesterday, and carried you here”.

“Wait! You know about the lab?” asked Richie incredulously. “And your parents are here as well?”

“Well, not that ‘we’. Two other prisoners and I found you when we were breaking out”.

“Time out,” interrupted Richie once again. “You have powers too?”

“You know, it’ll be a lot easier explaining if you stop cutting me off,” chuckled Stan. At that, Richie started to calm down, and nodded for Stan to continue.

“Yes, I have powers. I can control electronic devices. Last night’s explosion kind of damaged whatever they used to disable my powers, so I hacked into their system and released us all. I ran into some of the others, and we broke out of the lab. We found you outside, unconscious, so we took you along. One of the girls we ran into, let’s say she’s very good at reading and persuading people, so we found a ride to the nearest town. Then I did a little hacking and now here we are, in a hotel’s suite. The others took the other room”.

Richie waited to see if Stan had finished before he started.

“Yeah, the explosion was our doing,” chuckled Richie. “Glad it helped everyone”.

“Our doing?” asked Stan confusingly.

“Yeah?” replied Richie, mirroring the confusing look on Stan’s face. “Scott and me?”

“Scott?” asked Stan, before a memory popped into his mind. Richie had a twin brother named Scott. Richie’s parents had gotten divorced when he was little, and his mother had gotten custody of his twin. For 2 weeks every summer, his twin would come to visit him, and they would both go on a vacation somewhere for another 2 weeks. Something the parents had agreed on. Stan used to hang out with both of them whenever the younger Tozier (Summers, since Richie’s brother had adopted the last name of his stepfather) came to visit. “Scott, as in your brother?”

The question immediately set off Richie’s panic.

“WHAT? You didn’t find him? Oh fuck what if he got captured? We need to get back there!”

“Richie, calm down,” tried Stan. Richie had jumped off the bed and Stan had to grab him to keep Richie from getting too agitated. “Maybe he got away with another group. We found you shooting towards us in a bubble. Maybe he ricocheted towards another direction”. Stan deliberately withheld the fact that Richie had been shot up from a collapsing building. That wouldn’t help Richie’s current state. “We found traces of other groups arriving before us. We can try to track them down later”.

It was obvious that Richie didn’t want to sit around doing nothing, so Stan tried again.

“Look, even if Scott has been captured, it’s better to track down the others and ask for their help before charging into the lab again. Please, if we still can’t find him by tomorrow, I’ll bring down that lab with you even if it’s the last thing I do”.

Richie was still hesitant, but he finally understood that they would need help if they wanted to attack the lab. “Okay then,” relented Richie, “but I’m not leaving my brother in that fucking lab. I’ll fight them even if I have to do it alone”.

“You won’t be alone, I promised,” sighed Stan. Promises were very sacred to Richie and his brother. “Now, last night I got you some clothes, if you want to change out of that lab suit”.

Richie looked down, finally realizing what he was wearing. Stan grabbed the backpack he got for Richie and tossed it towards him. “I’ll give you some privacy,” said Stan before leaving the room.

Outside of their room, the smell of breakfast filled the air. Beverly and Jean were sitting around the island. Bev was having a full English breakfast, while El was having waffles.

“Good morning,” greeted Beverly warmly, “Someone was being loud in there. Is your friend okay?”

“Yeah, about that,” started Stan, “my friend’s brother was also in the lab, and he was freaking out because they were together last night. So if you can, please don’t mention the collapsing building when he’s around. He’ll only be more upset if he knows”.

“Got it,” replied Beverly understandingly. Jean didn’t say anything, but based on the continuous silence they had shared in the container, Stan didn’t think she would say anything anyway.

“So, where did the breakfast come from?” asked Stan, changing the topic.

“Well, we got up an hour ago, so I decided to order room service. I’m not sure what you guys want for breakfast, so I got you French toast and scrambled eggs, and pancakes. The room service guy saw me as a very forgettable woman with nothing to gossip about”.

“Wow,” muttered Stan, before sitting down at the island and grabbing the French toast and scrambled eggs. “So are we even looking at the real you?” asked Stan jokingly.

“Good morning Staniel and my ladies!” interrupted Richie’s overly loud and cheerful Voice. “What’s a fine place like you doing in a lady like this?” winked Richie at Beverly, who only raised an amusing eyebrow back.

Wonderful, Stan thought, how most of Richie’s traits showed up within 5 seconds of his entrance. First, there was his booming voice that always immediately notified everyone in the room (and perhaps also the adjacent rooms) of his entrance. Then, there were his Voices. He had a hobby of imitating different accents, although none of those accents were any good, and whatever he was trying to do sounded more like “Richie with a flu”. His stupid nicknames, lame (and more than often crude) jokes, and flirtatious attitude also made an appearance. Although Stan could tell he was putting up a façade: his volume was a tad louder than usual, his joke was lamer than usual, and nobody’s mom had made an appearance.

“Indoor voice, Richard!” groaned Stan. Richie’s grin was more believable after that.

“The name’s Richie. Richie Tozier,” introduced Richie to the girls, making a show of tipping his hat, “nice to make your acquaintance”.

Beverly smiled at Richie, and his expression changed to extremely impressed.

“Wow!” exclaimed Richie. “That’s so cool! So, like, can you read my mind and all?”

“Well, I can,” replied Beverly verbally. “But I have better things to do than reading your undoubtedly chaotic mind”.

“Ow! Mah hart! Beverly, you wounded me!” whined Richie dramatically, grabbing his chest. Throughout the whole conversation, Jean looked like she was planning 12 different ways to murder Richie, so Stan decided to interrupt before she closed his mouth by force.

“Breakfast! Now!” commanded Stan, pulling Richie to the seat next to him, in front of the pancakes.

“Aww Stan The Man, you don’t have to take me out for me to—”

“Beep beep Richie!”

That effectively shut him up. Richie started devouring his food while Stan was relishing the silence before Richie would inevitably start talking again. Sure, he was glad Richie was gradually back to normal, but normal Richie always gave him a migraine.

The conversation started again when Richie almost finished his breakfast.

“So, Richie, what’s your power?” asked Bev. “I mean, you know about mine, and probably Stan’s as well. Jean here can move things with her mind. You flew towards us in an energy bubble yesterday, is that part of your power?”

Richie’s breath hitched, unnoticed by all but Stan. He quickly recomposed himself before answering.

“No, me lady. That be me brother Scott,” replied Richie using one of his Voices. “He can make force fields. But me lost him last night. Me trying to find him”.

Beverly’s expression clearly meant she didn’t expect to reach that topic this soon.

“Oh, I’m sorry…”

“Nah, it’s alright. I can do something cooler,” deflected Richie. “Wanna see?”

Without waiting for an answer, Richie started shimmering. Suddenly he looked like an out of focus image in which you could only make out the general shape of the object. And as abruptly as it happened, Richie — or at least the blob that used to be Richie — was suddenly in focus again. Where Richie had sat, a replica of Stan resided, with even the same outfit.

“Holy shit you’re a shapeshifter!” exclaimed Beverly.

Even Jean was amazed at Stan-Richie, enough to use her voice for the first time in his presence. “Exactly the same,” whispered Jean.

Stan-Richie turned to Stan as if considering something, before he spoke in Stan’s voice.

“Nah, I’m still the better looking one. Plus, I’m pretty sure I still have the bigger d—“

That had woken Stan from his trance. His hand quickly covered Stan-Richie’s mouth.

“There’s no way I’m letting you say that in my voice,” glared Stan. He, however, was not quick enough in realizing the gleam in Stan-Richie’s eyes.

“No! Rich— ew!” recoiled Stan as Richie licked his palm triumphantly. He quickly wiped his hand on Richie’s shirt in disgust.

“So, how does it feel to get licked by yourself?” asked Richie, still in Stan’s form.

“Fuck you, Richie!”

“Why, Stanathan,” gasped Richie, turning back to his form, “I didn’t know you have—“

“Shut! The fuck! Up!”

In the afternoon, when the get-to-know-you questions had been asked, and the transformation game had been played (Richie could turn into animals as well, but the more different their sizes were, the more difficult), Stan and Richie volunteered to go out to gather information. Or as Richie’s lengthy description: escorting Stan to the police station and waiting for him to hack the computers. There had been several reports on store break-ins, and on finding scrubs at or near the scene, so it was safe to assume that, there were a lot of gifted individuals in town, and that the people from the lab would get here very soon, if they hadn’t already.

Upon conveying the news to the whole group, they had all agreed to leave the hotel that night. The main issue was to find their next place to stay. Their group had fallen silent after not being able to think of a solution. The silence had lasted for 15 whole minutes before someone finally broke it.

“Oh my god! Richie, please stop it!” groaned Bev.

“Stop listening to my thoughts then,” replied Richie boredly.

“I wasn’t listening to your thoughts,” explained Bev tiredly. “It’s like, I’m in a room full of whispers that I can ignore, and suddenly you started screaming high-pitched. How can I not hear that?”

“Wait, so are you saying thoughts have volume too?”

“For fuck’s sake, guys, really?” exclaimed Stan.

“What? I could never tell if my thoughts were louder when I tried to yell in my head”.

“Please stop yelling in your head, Richie”.

“I know your thoughts are deafening, and I’m not even a mind reader, Richie”.

“Oh, okay, trash the Trashmouth, I get it.”

Can you distract him for 15 minutes for me? Bev’s voice echoed in Stan’s head. I really need to concentrate on something. Plus, Jean is planning her 4th way to keep his mouth shut, and that is a very intricate plan.

Stan sighed, before heading towards his bedroom. He had something he wanted to ask Richie about anyway.

“Richie, can you come with me for a sec?”

Richie looked at him questioningly, but decided to follow him.

Once they were alone, Stan got to the point.

“What happened to you? I mean last year, on the day you disappeared”.

One of the things Stan had learned over the years: when confronted with an uncomfortable topic, Richie’s defense mechanism was to make crude jokes until the question was dropped. “Well, that night Mrs. Uris said the most—“

“Cut it out, Trashmouth!” deadpanned Stan. “You know I could see right through your façade”.

Richie flinched at the outburst, but finally dropped the act.

“It was the first time my power manifested,” answered Richie, his voice barely above a whisper, his eyes casting down. “I was thinking about you. I’m not sure why. Maybe I wanted to ask you about the homework, or show you something I found, or just thought of a joke I’d tell you the day after. Then I felt myself changing. Suddenly I was taller, my hair felt different, and I was wearing your clothes. It only lasted several seconds before I changed back into myself, but he was there”. Richie gritted his teeth at the memory, his expression a mixture of hurt and anger. “Wentworth was fucking there. He saw what happened. He beat me up and locked me in my fucking room. I think he called someone. I don’t even know how he knew who to call, but around 1am, those people from the fucking lab showed up and took me away”. Richie was now shaking with anger, his eyes blinking back tears. Stan immediately pulled Richie onto his lap, trying to soothe the hurt in his voice. “Wentworth sold his fucking son out, and the entire time I was struggling against those people, he never spared me a second glance”.

The story had ended, leaving Stan with a sobbing Richie and a strong desire to hurt Wentworth Tozier. Stan stroked Richie’s back soothingly until he had calmed down. When he finally stopped sobbing, there was a knock on the door, and Richie’s face immediately lost any sign of his crying, so fast Stan believed he must have transformed into a happy version of himself.

“I have two wonderful news,” announced Beverly from the other side. Stan opened the door and welcomed Bev into the room.

“First, I contacted my friend, and he’s hiding in this town as well. He said his place is big enough for us to join him,” stated Beverly cheerfully. “And second,” cued the dramatic pause, “Richie’s brother is there”.


 * 086

Eddie’s sleep didn’t come easily.

He knew being a fugitive wouldn’t be easy. He knew more than often things would be way out of his comfort zone. But knowing things didn’t make experiencing them any easier. All night, voices in his head had kept reminding him how unsanitary an abandoned building could be, who could’ve been sitting at his sleeping place, what they could’ve done. He had also thought about the types of diseases he could’ve contracted by using the water from the pipes, despite having been assured multiple times by the water controlling guy that it was clean water. When Eddie had finally stopped thinking about germs and diseases, his mind had wandered to the abundance of questions he had about the organization that were hunting them. As much as he like would have liked to forget about the lab and the people working there, knowing the enemy was extremely necessary to avoid being captured again. Bill’s friends had assured them they would get as much information as possible, once they had rested up. Funny how Eddie had been told to sleep before getting the information he wanted, but the craving for said information had kept him awake. Well, that, and Bill’s evasiveness towards a certain topic. Based on the confused looks Bill had received when abruptly changing the topic earlier, his companions had no idea what Eddie had wanted to say. That had given Eddie some clues about where to head the conversation, so he had started planning questions to ask Bill later, as Bill had promised, and he had spent a good portion of his night sketching an outline for his upcoming confrontation.

Needless to say, when Eddie finally woke up, it was already noon. Someone (probably the shadow controlling guy) had apparently broken into a food factory and stolen enough sandwiches to feed a small army, and based on the amount of empty plastic sandwich containers, that had been their breakfast as well.

“Morning!” greeted one of Bill’s friends when he noticed Eddie had woken up. This one had blond hair and electric blue eyes. Eddie still couldn’t match their names to their faces, mostly because they weren’t actual names, but rather ridiculous nicknames, so he had been addressing them inside his head using their eye colors. Green was the water controlling guy, with his sea green eyes, and Brown was for the shadow guy with dark brown eyes. Blue was sitting at their working table with Bobby, while the others were nowhere to be found.

“I hope you don’t have any allergies,” continued Blue, “we have a wide range of sandwiches to choose from, but I’m never sure about their ingredients”.

“I used to think I have, but I don’t,” replied Eddie nonchalantly. “Where are the others?"

“They headed out to search for other mutants and to gather information,” provided Blue.

Eddie grabbed a sandwich while listening to Blue and Bobby resuming their previous conversation. Bobby had been telling stories about his old life. Eddie learned that Bobby was a shy but sweet boy, with a loving mother and an older brother. Based on the frequent mentions, Eddie also figured that Scott was Bobby's best friend, and probably was the only friend Bobby had. Eddie knew that life too well, and he hoped they could be friends after this.

About half an hour later, everyone else returned with no extra members. Eddie waited for Bill to finish his lunch before giving him the look. Bill sighed but motioned for Eddie to follow him outside.

“What happened, Bill?” asked Eddie once they were out of earshot.

“You s-s-see, we were p-p-p-planning to at-t-t-tack that l-lab, s-s-so we had b-b-been s-s-scouting the—”

“You know, I really hate to interrupt you, but that’s not what I asked and you know it,” sighed Eddie. “What happened to your family? One day you were there, and the next, it looked like you had moved away in the middle of the night without saying goodbye to anyone. And where is Georgie? I know you’d never leave the little guy willingly, so what happened?”

Eddie knew from the stuttering and the look on Bill’s face, that he was uncomfortable talking about this. Normally Eddie wouldn’t have pushed it, but he knew his best friend, and whatever Bill had been keeping to himself was hurting him, and Eddie wouldn’t just stand by and watch his friend being like that.

“I-it was the f-f-first time I s-saw Georgie’s p-p-power,” said Bill after a minute of silence. “I d-didn’t know we h-have p-powers then. G-Georgie can f-fix things. Like, i-if you br-break anyth-thing, he can r-r-recover it. I cr-cr-crashed my bike into our m-mailbox, and G-G-Georgie fixed it up. I f-f-freaked out, but Georgie w-was really excited b-because he ‘can do magic’. We w-w-went inside to t-t-tell our mom, but sh-sh-she freaked out for a-a-another reason. There were tr-tr-traf-f-f-fic cameras on the s-s-street, and she believed we h-had alarmed the b-b-bad people a-about our p-powers. Turned out our p-p-p-parents has p-p-powers too. Mom have su-su-super senses. She t-t-told me about my a-b-b-bility to avoid b-being tracked. B-By the t-time our dad got home, the bad p-p-people were already o-o-on their w-w-way to our p-p-p-place. Dad t-t-t-told us to r-r-run, leaving him b-b-behind to f-f-f-fend them o-o-o-off. He can f-f-f-fight with his p-powers, but I d-don’t know what th-that is. At about m-m-midnight, mom s-s-s-s-sensed that s-some p-p-people were a-a-a-after us, so sh-sh-she t-t-told me t-to r-r-run w-w-with G-G-Georgie w-w-while sh-sh-she l-l-lead th-th-th-them o-o-o-off our tr-tr-tr-tr-tr—”

Eddie hugged Bill, cutting him off with his stutter. Bill’s stutter always got worse whenever he was agitated, so the best Eddie could do was to calm Bill down. After a while, Bill’s breathing slowed down, so Eddie backed down, but still held Bill’s hands.

“G-Georgie and I went to the next t-town and stayed there. I f-found out that when I held Georgie’s h-hand, I could kind of borrow his power. I stole some money by b-b-breaking the vending machines to get the coins and then fixing it. We l-l-lasted for three months there by breaking into em-em-empty houses to sleep, a-and using the money for food. But one morning, I let G-Georgie sleep while I w-went to get breakfast for him. When I g-g-got back, the place was s-s-swarmed with the bad people. They g-g-got me and G-G-Georgie, and I haven’t s-s-seen him since”.

Bill’s breathing started picking up again, and before he could say anything, Eddie interrupted with a hug.

“You can’t blame yourself, Bill,” said Eddie softly. “You had kept him safe for 3 months. You’re going to find him again. I know you will”.

“I-I-I should’ve n-n-never l-l-left,” sobbed Bill. “I-I-I’m his b-b-b-big br-br-brother, and I c-c-c-couldn’t even p-p-p-p-protect h-him. Only i-i-i-if—”

“Stop it, Bill!” chided Eddie. “You are the best brother anyone could ask for, and when we find Georgie, he will tell you the same thing. We will save your brother, but you need to stop blaming yourself for it”.

Eddie stood there and hugged Bill until he calmed down again.

“Thanks, Eddie!” said Bill when Eddie finally let go. “You’re the best friend I could’ve asked for”.

“Right back atcha, Big Bill,” chuckled Eddie. They sat together in silence for a moment before someone interrupted them.

“Hey guys!” called Green. “Your friend is awake!”


 * 074

Scott didn’t think he had woken up at all.

Sure, after he had been caught, he had thought that maybe Richie had been as well, but getting a confirmation had given Scott mixed feelings. On one hand, Richie had been standing right in front of him - something he had never thought could happen again. On the other hand, being held captive and experimented on wasn’t a fate he’d wish upon his worst enemy (okay that wasn’t entirely true - he’d wish upon the people in the lab so they could get a taste of their own medicine), let alone his fucking twin brother. Not to mention, his brother had been missing for about 8 months when he had been captured, so Richie would’ve gone through 3 times the amount of tortures he’d been subjected to. But that hadn’t been the only eventful part of his day. Somehow he and Richie had managed to blow up the lab and set everyone free. They hadn’t planned to do that, though. The lab usually had some kind of technology to contain their powers, so they hadn’t thought it would be possible. They had felt so much power flowing through them, that they had needed to let out somehow. The breakout had been a surprise treat. Finally, just before being buried under a collapsed building, Scott had learned that his best friend had also been captured in the same lab that he and his brother had been in. To sum up, in the span of a day, he had found out that his missing-and-presumed-dead brother was alive, that the two people that he was closest to also had superpowers just like him, that said people had also been kept in the same place as him, he had also broken out of an impossible-to-break-out lab, and to top it off, a building had fallen on him. Things had been so surreal, Scott had thought he must have been either dreaming, or the main character of a weird sci-fi story.

Upon seeing Scott waking up, Bobby had immediately come to his side and explained everything that had happened while Scott had been unconscious. Throughout the whole conversation, Scott had almost panicked only once when Bobby told him that they couldn’t find the boy Scott had sent away (whom Will then learned, was Richie), but Bobby had reasoned, that if the people from the lab had found him, they would’ve found Will and his friend Eddie digging Mike up as well, and Mike couldn’t argue with that. Will had also told Mike the others wanted to ask him about the explosion, but would wait for Mike to have something to eat first. That had led him to where he was, at the lunch table, getting to know the others while munching on his sandwiches.

“So, Mike, Will told us you had something to do with the explosion,” started Seaweed Brain after Mike had finished his lunch.

“Yeah, my brother and I did that”.

“How did you do it?” asked Eddie. “I thought the rooms there were made to contain our powers”.

“They were,” replied Mike. “I couldn’t extend my power outside the room when I was alone. But when I was with Richie, I kind of felt this wave of power washing over me”.

“W-were you able to use his p-power when you had physical contact?” asked Bill.

“Yes,” replied Mike confusingly, “or at least I felt like I could. I saw Richie using my shield, so I probably could as well. How did you know that?”

“M-must be a si-sibling thing,” replied Bill. He made no attempt to elaborate.

“We think you guys could combine your powers into something stronger,” started Sparky. “That doesn’t always happen, but our theory is it happens to people who are somehow related to each other. For example, Seaweed Brain’s water controlling and my air controlling don’t seem to have anything in common, but when we use our powers together, we can create storms and hurricanes and tornadoes. We could even make it hail or create a thunderstorm, and neither of us can control ice or electricity. An interesting thing here, is how you are perfectly healthy after your little demonstration of power. After we combine our powers, we usually have to rest up for days before we can sit around and have a conversation like you’re having now. I guess it’s because we’re distant relatives so our powers don’t combine as easily as yours and your brother’s”.

“Well,” said Mike hesitantly, “when Richie and I held hands, something else happened as well. Like I said earlier, I felt like I could use his power, but when he used my shield, we didn’t have physical contact. Plus, I had this weird feeling that we were both thinking about the same things. Not like we both thought about a random thing, but more like I thought about one thing, he thought about another, yet somehow both thoughts appeared in both our heads. I also felt like I could see through his eyes”.

“Wow,” exclaimed Death Breath, “I already suspected you guys to be omega-level before you said that, but this is definitely omega-level stuff”.

“What’s omega-level?” asked Will. Bill and Eddie didn’t seem to understand any more than Mike or Will either.

“Okay, this is a long one,” answered Sparky tiredly.

“So, from what we’ve learned, people have had special abilities since forever. Those who claimed to have photographic memory, sharp observation, or strong intuitions and all those stuff. Sometimes people with stronger powers show up too, but talking about medieval witch trials isn’t my hobby. Somehow, within the last 30 years, something had changed and people like us appeared more often”. “There’s this super secret governmental organization that deals with people like us, called Metahuman Experimentation Division, or MED for short. The people from the lab worked for a sub-organization of MED, called MEDUSA. Stop laughing, Seaweed Brain. MED’s Underaged Subjects and Assets. They deal with children and teenagers like us. They have this classification of powers based on the Greek alphabet”. “The lowest level is delta. The powers in this class are deemed ‘unimportant’ by the scientists. The examples I mentioned were all in this class. Billy boy here is probably in this class as well”. “Next one is gamma. The ‘support’ abilities tend to be in this class. For example, Eddie is probably in this class”. “Then we have the beta-level. People in this class can fight and defend themselves. Mike is probably in this one, along with me and Seaweed Brain”. “The alpha-levels are either stronger than the beta-levels, or can also spy on others with their abilities. Will and Death Breath should be in that class”. “Finally, the omega-levels. They are a lot stronger than the alpha-levels, and MED hasn’t found an effective way to contain their powers yet. Unlucky for us, so far those omega-level abilities only show up when people combine their powers”.

“How did you learn about all that?” asked Mike, surprised about the details of the information.

“When Sparky and I broke out of our lab, we had grabbed the most useless folder,” provided Seaweed Brain exasperatedly. “The only good part in that folder was the document that mentioned the vague location of the labs. The lab you were in wasn’t even ‘Hawkins forest’. It only said ‘Hawkins’. We’d have to search through the town and forest everywhere in the vicinity to locate each lab”.

They spent the next couple of minutes going through the locations of the labs, as well as some information they had gathered. About 20 metas had escaped from Hawkins lab, and the guards were still not in the condition to start the hunt, so they should be safe for a day or two. Some of the metas had definitely made it to Hawkins, so they were not the only group in town. Sometime during the conversation, Mike noticed Will had had his eyes closed. At first, Mike had thought Will had dozed off, but then Will opened his eyes and interrupted the discussion.

“I’m talking to a friend of mine,” started Will. “She and her friends were looking for a place to hide. Are you guys fine with them coming here?” asked Will nervously.

“Of course!” “Sure!” “No problem at all!” chimed in everybody.

Will closed his eyes again, but this time everyone else stayed silent and watched him. After about 2 minutes, Will returned to them, his eyes finding Mike’s.

“Richie is there with her,” announced Will, and a huge weight Mike didn’t realize he had been carrying was lifted. “She said they’ll be joining us tonight or tomorrow”.

“Really?” asked Mike with a wide grin. Was Richie okay? Was he hurt? Where are they? He had so many other questions he wanted to ask, but he was sure Will couldn’t answer them all. “Oh my— I can’t— What— How—” Mike couldn’t even form a full sentence to express his relief. Will put a hand on his shoulder, and that calmed him down a bit.

“So, what were you guys talking about?” asked Will.

“Oh, nothing too important. These guys will fill you in later. But now I have something in mind,” said Sparky, eyes darting to Bill. “If your friends are coming here as well, maybe we can split up. The boys and I can head to another lab, while you guys can rest up and… do whatever you want? I’m not sure if you want to fight them or just want to lay low”.

“We’ll fight!” replied Eddie a little too hastily. “I mean, we got out, but there are others like us being held somewhere. If Mike and his brother hadn’t been there, we wouldn’t have gotten out yesterday. I think we should help them”.

“Sure!” chimed in Mike. “We can look around the town for other metas first, then head to the opposite direction as you guys. But I don’t think we can keep in touch with MEDUSA monitoring communication channels”.

“Maybe we won’t be able to keep in touch,” said Will, “but I can keep track of them, and we can scratch out the places they have attacked”.

“In that case, we should fill you in with some of the security procedures,” said Death Breath. “As you have known, we use nicknames to address each other. You should do that as well. At least whenever you encounter the enemy. That’ll make it harder for them to identify you, and to use weapons that specifically counter your power. The nickname shouldn’t be related to your number or your power”.

“You also should always cover the numbers on your wrists,” continued Seaweed Brain. “MEDUSA has a power index, and letting them see our numbers is the same as giving them our ID”.

“And you should go outside in groups from 2 to 4 people,” provided Sparky. “Larger groups are easier to draw attention to, and going alone is too dangerous. However, if you’re fighting, the more people you have, the more difficult for them to counter all of your abilities”.

And for the rest of the afternoon, they talked about things they need to know when fighting MEDUSA. Before they split up, Death Breath had stolen them enough sandwiches to feed a dozen people for 2 days. The 3 boys then disappeared in the shadow, leaving Mike, Will, Eddie, and Bill alone to plan their next course of action.

Notes:

Note to self: Never try to break the fourth wall again.

And yay, the nice man in a big truck made an appearance ;)

So, we finally got to Richie's power - Biomorphing: As some of you might have known from the book, adult Richie was dubbed "Man Of A Thousand Voices", and that made me think of "Man Of A Thousand Faces". That's it.

I've posted a photo of the ability classification document, in case anyone wants to see.

I'm also going to address some of the mentioned powers in this chapter, but I'm not explaining their choices, since most of them were either pre-defined in another franchise, or just were there for the sake of this fic.

The 3 "unnamed" boys: Aquakinesis (Water Manipulation), Aerokinesis (Air Manipulation), Umbrakinesis (Shadow Manipulation) The combined power of the 2 boys: Atmokinesis (Weather Manipulation) Georgie Denbrough: Physical Restoration The (mentioned) power siblings have together (Bill&Georgie and Mike&Richie): Power Replication The (currently mentioned) power the twins have together (Mike & Richie): Hive Mind While writing this chapter, I literally had to google the names for people with superpowers, since there were so many and I don't know what to choose from. I ended up using the DC term. Fun fact: Apparently, the PC term for that is "Differently Powered Individual", or DPI.

Finally, I'm going to bring in some familiar faces next chapter ;) Until then