Chapter 4: One
The perfect, refreshing smell of rain fills my nose as I walk down the darkened street of Brampton, Ontario. My heartbeat immediately begins to slow, as if this smell is some sort of cure for my anger. Earlier in the day, I had gotten into a fist-fight with a guy who was a Fire-Sector immigrant.
I reach the corner of the street where I will sleep tonight. I was thrown out of the house when I was seventeen for being gay, and (Even though it's been a year) I have yet to find a job. But that's about to change, tomorrow I set out for the army base in Toronto. I have dreamed of becoming a soldier for the Sadeerian Army, and take part in the protection of my people.
Someone comes up to me, he is taller than me and has flowy, brown hair. I look into his glowing white irises and freeze. Eyes like that mean only one thing, that he is one of the very few people who were chosen by Queen Eros, leader of the Ice Sector, to be given a piece of her power to control the ice that pulses in the ground. He smiles and hands me a 10 dollar bill. My eyes go wide.
"W-why?" Is the only word I can muster out of my mouth.
"Why not?"
Then he was gone.
I stare at the piece of paper in my hand, then at the space where the man stood, then back at the bill again. This will be enough to buy a bus ticket to Toronto. So I don't have to walk to the base after all.
I grin and slip the bill into the left pocket of my coat and lay down on my card-board bed. I close my eyes and think of what it would be like to have money again. Multiple pairs of clothes, a roof over my head at all times, three meals a day. Paradise.
I begin to fall deeper into sleep, where there is no social class or homeless people. The one place where I can truly be myself.
~
I wake before the sun rises. I don't know what time it is, nevertheless, I pack what I have and begin to make my way to the bus stop.
At the stop, stands a short woman in a long, black jacket, and the same man from yesterday. I make sure to stand away from them, as I do not look or smell pleasant.
The bus pulls into the station, it's maroon color shining in the streetlight. I wait for the other two to get on before I do.
The driver is a short, grey-haired man. He looks about in his sixties.
I hand him my ten-dollar bill.
"It's all I have," I say, then begin to walk away.
"Wait." the driver says in a raspy voice. "The ticket is only five."
He then hands me a five-dollar bill.
"Oh, right. Thanks."
I make my way to an empty seat on the left side of the bus.
The walls are clean and full of advertisements. I can't see much of them in the dark, but I can make out that there are a lot of them.
In the seat right beside me is the man from the street. He wears dark sunglasses (Probably to hide his eyes), a light blue hoodie with matching colored pants, and a black toque. He is scrolling through something on his phone.
Before I realize that I'm staring, he looks up and we meet eyes. I quickly turn away, but I can feel him still looking at me. My mind takes over my reflexes, and I look up into his eyes again. He smiles and puts out his hand. I think I'm supposed to shake it, so I do.
"Hey, I'm Xander Newman." He says in a smooth but strong voice.
"Uh, I'm Dexter."
"Just Dexter?"
"No. uh, Dexter King"
Xander grins.
"You don't talk to people all that often, do you?"
"No. I don't"
We sit in silence for a while. I have this feeling inside of me, I don't like it.
"I saw your eyes when you gave me that ten-dollar bill, uh, by the way," I say, breaking the silence.
"You did? Damnit, I always forget to cover them."
The woman from the bus stop looks up and at me. She too has sunglasses on, but I don't think she has the eyes.
"Does anyone else think that this bus is way too cold?" She yells at us.
"I'm fine with it," Xander says.
"Well, of course, you are, you're the one with the ice eyes," She says, "I was asking everyone else."
"H-how did you know? I'm wearing sunglasses."
"I can see a slimmer of light when you turn to the side,"
"So you were staring at my face?" He says, almost disgusted.
"Ew! No! I saw it in the corner of my eye when I looked out his window." She points at me.
Xander lets out a small sigh of relief.
"I'm Donna by the way," She says.
Before I can introduce myself, the bus swerves sharply to the side so hard that I fly right on top of Xander. I feel the left wheels of the bus lift off of the ground and before anyone moves, the right side slams into the ground. All of the windows shatter when they hit the ground. I fall with Xander into the wall of the bus. Pain mercilessly attacks my forearm.
"What the hell just happened!?" Donna screams.
A faint voice echoes through the bus.
"Everyone out!" It orders.
We obey and make our way to the front of the bus. I pass a young man with a broken leg, unable to get up. I quickly helped him up and out of the bus. We climb out of the emergency exits without passing any conversation. I sit him down next to the bus.
"Thank you," He says. "What's your name?"
"Dexter," I grin.
"I'm Max." He says.
Xander comes over to me and opens his mouth to say something but is cut off by a powerful voice.
"Everyone quiet!"
A tall man with short, orange hair stands in the middle of the road. He wears some kind of symbol on his shoulder. There was a circle with what looked like fire spinning around it. His eyes glow bright red, indicating that he holds the power of the fire core. Which explains why there are huge scorch marks in the tar of the road.
"What are you doing here?" A small, blonde woman yells.
"I'm here to fulfill Lady Wayne's orders." The man says, puffing out his chest a little to make him look bigger.
"Who's lady Wayne?" I whisper to Xander.
"Hestia Wayne, she's the daughter of Gerwyn Wayne. She believes that Sub-sectors should not exist because they 'make the world weak again'"
"Oh, so this shouldn't be good,"
The sun peaks over the horizon, making the sky full of color. Usually, this color would calm me down, but there is so much adrenaline running through my body, my teeth chatter against each other even though it is unusually warm outside. Given that it's the middle of January
"Anybody who is part of the S-Squad, step forward or watch these innocents die."
There was a moment of silence before Xander took a small step forward. Small clouds of mist begin to swirl around his clenched hands.
The man walks over to Xander and rips the sunglasses off of his face, revealing his glowing white eyes.
The man's face fills with hatred. He lifts his fist and strikes Xander in the face with such force, Xander falls to the ground. The clouds around his hands grow bigger. I feel a sudden chill down my spine, then I realize that the ground is coated in the cold, white mist.
Xander lifts his hands to his chest and opens his fists. A blue dagger that looks like it is made out of ice suddenly appears in his hands.
In one fell swoop, Xander slices the man's thighs with the dagger and kicks his legs to knock him down. He then stands up and holds the dagger to the man's throat.
"What is your business here?" Xander says in a threateningly calm voice.
"I told you, to fulfill Lady Wayne's orders" The man pushes his neck against the dagger so hard that blood begins to spill onto his already red uniform.
Xander pulls his dagger slightly away from his neck. A look of surprise enters his eyes
"A-and that is?" He stutters.
"To eliminate you and your disgusting fellow subhumans."
He then pulls a small vial out of his pocket and tosses it towards the line of people against the bus. It shatters next to Max's mangled leg.
In the corner of my eye, I see another man behind Xander. He holds a silver dagger in his right hand, above Xander's head, and ready to strike.
Reflexes kick in, and before I think of the consequences, my legs are caring for me towards the man with the dagger at speeds I never knew to be possible.
I ram my head into his side, pushing him off his feet. I quickly grab his right wrist to prevent him from using his dagger.
He lets out a yell of frustration and tries to slice me with his dagger, but I firmly hold his hand to the ground.
After a few seconds of failed escape attempts, the man sighs deeply and rips a small capsule out of his shirt with his teeth, and swallows it.
"May you die a worthless death" He spits.
He lets out an ugly grown before his eyes roll back into his head and his body goes limp.
I let go of the body and take a few steps away. Xander turns to me, his face pale.
"He killed himself" He points to the man with the orange hair. "Didn't even hesitate."
"He did too," I say without turning away from the body.
Xander's eyes widen.
"There was another one?" He asks.
"Yeah, he was about to kill you, so I tackled him. Then he swallowed what I think was poison."
"Y-you saved my life?" Xander's eyes widen even more.
"Uh, yeah. I guess I did." I look at the ground.
I feel something cold and wet on the back of my hand. I ignore it for a few seconds, then I hear dripping. I look at the ground and see drops of blood. I follow the drops to my hand, which is covered in the same bright red liquid. I then remember the pain I felt on the bus.
I quickly roll up my sleeve to reveal a massive piece of glass embedded deeply into the flesh of my forearm. Xander seemed to notice before anyone else.
"Oh god, that's not good." He says.
Adrenaline is a weird thing. I can't feel a thing.
At that moment, the shearing pain comes back. I yelp and grasp my arm tightly. Xander runs over to me and pulls my hand off.
"Don't, you'll make it bleed more." He says. He then puts his hand on the glass in my arm. "This is gonna hurt," He says.
He then proceeds to yank the glass out of my flesh. I let out a scream of agony. It feels as though that piece of glass had shredded my forearm off. My hand begins to shake out of control. I try to hold it still with my other hand, but I realize that they were both shaking.
My heartbeat begins to speed up, pushing more blood out of the gash in my arm.
Xander notices and runs to the flipped bus. He comes back with a first-aid kit. He takes out the gauze and proceeds to tightly wrap my arm with it.
My heartbeat continues to speed up. The shaking spreads to my knees and jaw.
"What's happening?" I ask, looking into Xander's white, glossy eyes.
"You're having an anxiety attack." He says. "You need to sit down."
I do as I'm told and sit down on the rough tar. My teeth chatter against each other uncontrollably. I instinctively hug my knees trying to warm up, but the chattering doesn't stop.
Xander stands up and pulls out his phone. He dials a number and holds it to his ear.
"Hey, we were just attacked by some Sentarians working for Hestia Wayne." There was a pause before he said. "No one is dead, no. Though some are severely injured." Another pause.
"Okay, got it."
He hangs up the phone and walks over to me.
"There's going to be a helicopter pick up in five minutes." He says, loud enough for everyone to hear.
I look into the crowd of people. Many of them are bleeding from somewhere, some of them extensively.
I find Donna in the crowd. She stands, leaning against the back of the turned over bus, blood streaming from her temple. I stand and walk over to here. Xander opens his mouth to stop me but says nothing.
"You okay?" I ask.
"Probably, I've got this horrible migraine though." She touches her temple, then brings her fingers back down, covered in blood.
"Well," She said, "That's probably why." She puts her hand down by her side without tending to the stream of blood coming out of her head.
I hear a distant chopping, and before anyone moves, a massive four-bladed hovercraft enters the horizon. It lands in the field next to the road.
A door opens at the bottom and soldiers dressed in a deep blue uniform flood from it. They run to the injured and help them onto the hovercraft.
A tall man comes over to me.
"We need to get out of here, now." He says. The fear in his voice suggests that something was not good.
I ran with him in the hovercraft. Seats line the walls of a missive room in the middle of the craft. I find Donna sitting in the back. A woman was kneeling in front of her, bandaging her head. I sit next to her without saying a word.
"What a way to start a dream," Donna says. The woman finishes bandaging her head then moves over to me and begins to replace the piece of the shirt with real bandages.
"A dream?" I say.
"Yeah, It's been my dream to be on the front lines, protecting my people from any danger," She looks down at her feet." To be a hero."
"That's probably exactly what I would've said if some asked me about my dream," I say.
Donna laughs.
"Well, it's one hell of a dream." She says
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone