quickie written this morning, the idea is an X Men type universe supervillain origin story.
“You can’t go up there alone,” Silver was on her knees, her bloody face turned up to him as she spoke, “she’ll kill you.” Experio used a piece of his sleeve to wipe blood from her eyes gently, “I know. Get everyone back, if shit goes sideways, run.” Before she could argue he was gone. Experio didn’t look back, between him and the woman bent on killing everything nearby was a mess of smoke, bodies, twisted corpses of cars but when he turned his face up a bit he could see her eyes clearly.
Scarlet Shade stood perfectly still, her face hidden under her deep hood save for those big black burning eyes, her mask glinted in the flickering light of broken streetlights and flames, she watched Experio coming, her expression unchanged. When he stopped about ten feet away, she tilted her head a little, “you’re still alive E. Good job.” He held his hands up slowly, “Scar we need to talk.”
Slowly she tipped her head back to look at the broken sky then she lowered her hood and turned her back on him to unhook her mask, he watched her drop it and walk away a few feet. She patted the pockets of a dead man, pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and stepped a bit further away before she squatted, gesturing with the cigarette as Experio watched it light itself, “come on then E. You survived this long; you can make it through a smoke break.”
Experio let out the breath he was holding and followed, she was looking at the ground between her feet, when she looked up at him, he felt his stomach clench, he hadn’t seen her face in a decade, and she was still so beautiful. Deep brown skin, big round dark brown eyes, everything about her face was soft, elliptical and spoke of the Eve gene and fertility and the future. Her plump lips curved in the smallest smile, even with a blood-spattered face when she looked at him like that his heart stuttered.
“Scar- Ranisha, you have to stop this. Look at this.” He gestured around them, and she followed his hand then offered him one of the cigarettes he’d quit decades ago but took one anyway. He squatted next to her and used the little electric lighter on his belt, “look at this. Why?” She was quiet for a long time, he felt her rocking slightly on her feet, she moved her feet a little and wrapped her arms around her legs, “why? Are you serious Hakeem? Why?”
Ranisha “Scarlet Shade” Andrews had been presumed dead since the last time he’d seen her, November 9, 1989. The team was in Berlin while the wall was coming down, things were good then weren’t they? “Ranisha-” she shook her head, “why. Do you remember November 10th 1989?” He thought about it and she waited for him to remember. “We were doing some clean up in Berlin.”
–
10 Nov 1989
“Ex, you all right?” Gastine was still laid up at base and had been put on comms, he waited for E to answer tapping his good foot. His broken one was propped up and he glared at the cast. “Yeah we’re good. Have you seen Scarlet?” Gastine grunted and wiggled upwards, he checked his logs frowning. “Not since last night. Didn’t she leave with you and the Viciratis.” Experio stopped what he was doing, “no I left with the Beck brothers to clean up that vehicle mess.”
Gsstine sat up straighter, his notes said specifically that Scarlet was supposed to be with them. “All right hold on.” Gastine clicked off that channel and went to the general channel, “all teams check in. All teams sound off, check check.” After a moment teams began checking in one by one everyone was accounted for except Scarlet. “Has anyone laid eyes on Scarlet since last night?”
Twenty minutes later teams were streaming into base from all over the city. When everyone was together their leader of the moment Ogiccait stood in front of them looking worried. “Thank you for making it, everyone, what is status Gas?” Gastine clomped into the room, his casted foot dragging, his twin sister walking behind him with his crutches. “Uh sir, nobody has been able to find Scarlet. She was supposed to leave with Experio and the Viciratis but-”
Ogiccait turned his scarred face on Ex who involuntarily shrank back a little. OGs face bore the deep claw mark scars of his clan that marked him as an adult, they were forever crimson and inflamed, the marks ran through one solid black eye, he was terrifying. “Experio, what did you see?” Experio took a breath, “uh we were together at Checkpoint six, watching the crowd at around six.”
E slowed, frowning and looking down at the ground. The memory kept slipping off of his tongue, “we were there at six, Adaranth showed up and-” the memory should have been simple and clear, at the checkpoint, Adaranth but everything else seemed plastic, strange, false. “She, we” he stopped talking and shook his head, it felt like his awareness stopped there then picked up with him and the Beck brothers fighting a set of self-duplicating triplets in a hat store.
OG nodded and motioned for him to sit. “It’s okay E. Why don’t you go with M and J, see if they can figure out what happened to your memory. Teams 1 and 2, go back to the checkpoint and look around. The rest of you spread out, keep order, keep your eyes peeled.” Everyone moved and got to work.
Scarlet was gone. The psychic brothers Viciratis couldn’t recover Ex’s memories of the night. They couldn’t even repair their own memories, it was as if she hadn’t even been there. E looked up at her and she was staring at him, holding the cigarette between her lips waiting, “I-I don’t know what happened Ranisha.”
She rose and paced a little away from him, “do you know what Deprii Lighuro is?” She looked at him over her shoulder as he shook his head. She went on, “it is what they call it when they can’t figure you out. You are Deprii Lighuro, uncontrolled, unknown, doing weird shit. That night in Berlin, they sent in a black squad and took me out in the middle of the fight at checkpoint 7.”
Hakeem butted out his smoke and stood as well frowning at her as she turned her back again, “who is they? What are you saying?” She chuckled an it sent a shiver up his spin, “I’m saying Hakeem. Ranisha died in Berlin. They killed her. Ranisha had mitochondrial Eve DNA, back then they just called it wild. They took Ranisha and tested her, cut her up, took her blood, tried to take her name. Shit I’m not barely Scarlet anymore, the only people who call me that are you and some of the other people form back then.”
Hakeem was starting to get nervous, something about the detached way she spoke, the way she moved frightened him, it wasn’t battle nerves or knowing his oponent could probably kill him with an afterthought, she was so fundamentally changed, even beyond what she’d already done. He looked around them at the miles of destruction, the bodies, the burnt-out cars, in the distance he could see his team retreating.
“Ranisha, I don’t understand what you’re saying. What does the Eve gene have to do with it?”
She flicked her smoke away and started pacing slowly, “Hakeem. I’m only going to tell you this now. The next time we see each other, you may have a different opinion. I’m saying that all of us, we’re not what they told us. I’m not what they told us then and not what they are saying now. Isn’t the word on the wire that I’m rogue right? Take down on sight. Come on, you can tell me.” Hakeem shifted uncomfortably and spoke very softly, “yeah. Everyone.”
She nodded and turned to look at him again. “I can do anything I want Hakeem. That’s what the Eve gene does in people like us. All of the mutations are in my bone marrow and when they took me, one of their experiments worked but not how they wanted. And they can’t let me go.” Hakeem took a step back, right in front of him her form was starting to blur as if he had something in his eye.
Flames boiled around her feet and crawled over her skin, the white bled out of her eyes and they turned black as bird eyes. His own eyes widened, the flames around her danced and licked at her thighs, she tipped her head back and began to rise, arms out. She looked back down at him hovering there, around them everything stopped.
The air stilled, ash suspended in firelight, somehow Hakeem felt the sure knowledge that time itself was stopped. He could hear her slow steady heartbeat, his own fast heartbeat, hear the creak of straps around her thighs, “please Ranisha let us help. We can, we can-” she smiled at him again, “we can what Hakeem? You can take me back to your base and hide me. Let Hank draw my blood? No. I’m not doing that again and no one can make me. You ask Hank.”
Too fast life came back and she was simply gone. In her place where the fire had been spreading from her feet, spreading like water was fresh, clean soil. Hakeem turned in place, eyes wide as the battlefield seemed to be melting away. Bodies and machines all crumbled to dirt, flames snuffed themselves out, smoke wafted away on an almost sweet cool breeze.
Downfield his team stopped moving and all watched in terror and awe. The mingled scents of terror and war faded to clean dirt, the most perfect natural blank canvas. Hakeem looked up, high above he could just see her as a black speck against a troubled sky. She was looking at him, he could feel it. He heard her voice in his ear as distinct as if she was standing there, “evil is in the eye of the beholder Hakeem. Tell them to call me Eve.”
With that she was gone. Hakeem Experio Ramirez fell to his knees. He started to shake, once when he was still just a tiny kid, his Meemaw who’d been the one he got his abilities from had told him while she was teaching him to manage his speed in front of people, “now baby. Being able to do things isn’t bad by itself, some folks are gonna treat you real nasty if they find out.”
They were running together, his heart wanted to smile at the memory. During their run Meemaw saw a man dragging a little girl into a cornfield and before Hakeem could ask, she ran almost full speed that way and he followed as quick as he could. By the time he caught up his little Meemaw was holding a man with his pants unbuckled by the throat over her head, “Hakeem honey make sure she’s okay.” He went to the little girl, she was so small like his sister. He got so angry he wanted to kill the man but knew better.
Meemaw shook the man like a ragdoll in one little fist then threw him on the ground. “Listen sir, I know sometimes it can be real hard to do the right thing and all but, this time I’m gonna help you out.” Hakeem held the little girl with her face in his chest while Meemaw dragged the man into the corn and beat him within an inch of his life. When she walked out Hakeem and the little girl were terrified. She smiled, checked the little girl over and kissed her cheek.
Later after they’d walked the little girl home and spoken to her mother Hakeem had been a little afraid of his Meemaw. She knew and when they got close to the house she sat down on a rock so they could be eye to eye, “remember Hakeem. Evil is in the eye of the beholder. Ask who lookin’”
Hakeem returned to his team and they managed to easily get the wounded back to base. None of them had been killed, in the med bay after Hank had seen everyone, Hakeem went to him and told him everything. Hank looked at him with his narrow yellow eyes, “it means someone fucked up.”
It only took a matter of days before officials came and took Hakeem away. They hadn’t tripped a single alarm, no one saw them get in and no one saw them get out. When Hakeem opened his eyes in bright white sterility, he understood how right she had been. The questions were easy enough at first but then they got serious. When he told them nothing, things got worse.
The last words Hakeem Experio Ramirez ever said were preserved forever in sharp digital relief.
“Call her Eve.”