12-08-2007, 04:44 AM
Hi folks!
It's amazing what you find in the backs of old email folders.... This was a story I started around 3 years ago about one of my favourite characters: Solaeria, (Kinetics/Energy blast) my very first defender.
Hope you like it.![[Image: smile.gif]](http://www.ezboard.com/intl/aenglish/images/emoticons/smile.gif)
(Hope I can finish it!)
(And pardon the formatting - the perils of copy/paste from MS-Word...)
-------------------------------------------------------
The Price of Power...
Sunlight broke through the early morning clouds, streaming across the rooftops of Paragon City and flooding into the teeming streets below. The rays of light washed the buildings and street with a golden patina, giving the city an almost pure, unspoiled appearance in the early morning hours as the city's inhabitants started to stream towards work or home.
Appearances were deceiving, however. The presence of floating, thrumming Police drones in the central square around Paragon City Hall was the first crack in the image; the furtive way that some of the early morning pedestrians kept glancing over their shoulders was the second. The third was the prowling, shadowy figures that began to move from their darkened alley niches as the city roused itself for the day.
One figure did not join the people of the city as they moved around, but instead watched from the shade under one of the trees in the park in front of City Hall. She watched the people streaming by with an uncertain expression, switching her gaze back and forth from the people to the front doors of City Hall.
She was a little taller than average, with an athletic figure that was accentuated by the form-fitting costume she was wearing. She was clad completely in white a white, low-cut bustier, white miniskirt and tights, with the finishing touches being gold elbow-length gloves, belt, high-heeled boots, and a tiara with upswept wings on either side of her head. A wealth of long brown hair cascaded down over her shoulders, past the armoured shoulder pauldrons attached to her top.
In a city that was filled with costumed superheroes, one more person in a costume didn't attract any extra or undue attention, regardless of how attractive it made her look. But if anyone had bothered to look at her, they'd have seen that she didn't quite fit in. For one thing, she didn't exude the boundless self-confidence that seemed to mark all the other heroes in Paragon City; for another, her arms were folded protectively across her chest, almost as if she was trying to hold herself together.
The costumed woman shifted restively in the shadows, indecision flitting across her face as she kept glancing back at City Hall and biting her lip as if trying to decide something. As she stood there fidgeting, people continued to walk by without a second glance. After an interminable length of time, the woman took a deep breath and started to take a step towards the City Hall.
"Cheryl?!" A woman's voice startled her, and she jumped despite herself. "Is that you? What are you doing?! Where have you been?!"
"Diana, hi," the costumed woman forced a rather sickly smile onto her face as she turned to face her questioner. Damn it, not now she didn't need this right now! "What are you doing here?"
"I'm on my way to work," Diana responded, giving her a strange look. Diana was about her height, with short blond hair, blue eyes, and was wearing a light grey windbreaker over drab green hospital scrubs. "You know, work? Where you used to go every day? Your patients haven't left, you know...they still need you."
"I...I can't go back. Not now," Cheryl hesitated for a moment. "Maybe not ever."
"What happened to you?" Diana demanded. "All we heard was that you'd been caught in some super-powered battle and wounded and were going to be off work for a while." The blond woman eyed her friend's clothes skeptically. "And why are you wearing that costume? You can't be seriously thinking you're going to register as a hero? You don't have any superpowers! I know you were angry over all the injured people from that battle last month, but you can't seriously think THIS is going to help!"
"It's complicated," Cheryl replied quietly, refusing to meet her friend's gaze. "I don't expect you to understand, but I have to do this."
"Do what? Get yourself killed?" Diana reached out and grabbed Cheryl's arm. "Come on, you're coming with me and we're going to ..."
"Let GO of me!" Cheryl's voice suddenly seemed to gain harmonic overtones as her gaze narrowed in anger, and blue light flared around her in a radiant aura. Her eyes seemed to pulse with the azure light as she jerked her arm loose from her surprised friend's grasp. "I told you I'm not going back. I can't go back too much has changed."
"Cheryl, what's happened to you?" Diana's gaze was equal parts fear and awe. "How did...? When did...?"
"Solaeria," Cheryl suddenly sounded tired. "I'm going to call myself Solaeria, okay?" She sighed and looked around. "Let's find someplace to sit down while I try and explain."
****
The doors to the Chiron Medical Center slid open with a grating, pneumatic hiss, letting a young woman drooping with weariness stagger through them out into the night. She seemed to regain some vitality at the cool touch of the light breeze blowing that evening, and she straightened up a little and glanced skywards. The night sky in this section of Paragon City was mostly an eerie blue-purple colour, thanks in large part to the force-field barriers that separated the various city sectors from each other it had been a long time since anyone had seen the stars in the sky at night.
Doctor Cheryl Masters sighed to herself as she returned her gaze to more earthbound considerations, pulling her jacket around herself a little more snugly as she started walking. It had been a long shift, almost sixteen hours of what at times had felt like futile patching of wounded people streaming in. There had been those innocent bystanders caught in a shootout between the Hellions and the Skulls, then the people rescued from the clutches of some sewer-dwelling mutants...the list went on and on. And every wounded person she treated just made Cheryl angrier.
She wanted to help them, to protect them from harm, but it was getting harder and harder to keep going day after day, week after week. The crooks and other super-powered thugs plaguing the city didn't care who they hurt in getting what they wanted, and sometimes the superheroes breaking up their operations didn't seem to be too discriminating either. Cheryl was torn between sorrowing empathy for the wounded, and rage at what had been done to them. Frustration at not being able to do anything to prevent the constant stream of wounded only compounded her emotional distress.
As she walked along fuming to herself, Cheryl suddenly realized that it was very quiet. Too quiet, in fact...and she realized suddenly that she'd made a wrong turn somewhere and was now deep in one of the parks dotting Paragon City's various sectors.
Cheryl tried to keep a tight grip on the fear that was suddenly threatening to choke her, and she felt like her heart was trying to hammer its way out of her chest. ANY of the parks in Paragon were unsafe, especially at night. She had to get away, back to where the streetlights and patrolling police drones offered at least a feeling of security. Casting a frantic glance around, she started to run towards where she thought the exit to the park was.
Green light flared around her as she ran, and she was suddenly frozen in place. Cold, bilious green mist surrounded her, swirling up from the ground around her in a circle. Hooded and cowled figures loomed in the mist, and glowing red eyes glared at her from the depths of their hooded robes. Their robes were a dark crimson almost the colour of blood and were trimmed with embroidered runes. An aura of cold vileness seemed to surround them, and it made the helpless woman's skin crawl as she recognized her assailants from the whispered rumours she'd overheard: the Circle of Thorns.
"We have found our sacrifice," one of them declared. Cheryl was suddenly screaming in the back of her mind. "Let us begin the ceremony."
The robed figures spread out around her in a circle, on the edges of the green mist that was holding her captive. In unison they raised their arms and began chanting in some strange language. Cheryl struggled to free herself from...from whatever it was that was holding her as the leader of the hooded figures began to glow with more energy. He pointed at her, gesturing in some kind of a curiously complicated pattern as the glow of the energy he was channeling brightened.
The glow had almost reached blinding brilliance when a concerted volley of blue energy bolts lanced down from the sky above them, smashing the lead cultist to the ground. More beams of energy followed, slamming into the ground and ploughing up huge clods of dirt and grass; fire roared through the air in an expanding explosion nearby. Flashes of multi-coloured spandex appeared in the darkness as the Circle cultists turned towards them, firing crossbows and pulling out swords.
Cheryl was suddenly able to move again. As she turned to start running away, a hand grabbed her ankle in an unbreakable grip. Shocked, she looked down as she tried to break free, and saw that the lead cultist had grabbed her.
Cold began to burn through her, starting at her ankle and moving up her leg to the rest of her body. The green mist around her gathered into one smoky tendril and lashed out at her just as another volley blasts of energy from her rescuers again struck the lead cultist. He stiffened and gasped something in that strange language, before slumping to the ground, unconscious.
The mist did not disappear, however it shifted to a bluish-purple colour, and shot towards her like a striking snake, enveloping her.
Everything seemed to turn bright blue.
****
"After that, I don't really remember much," Cheryl stared at the cup of cold coffee in front of her, but seeing something else entirely. "I remember screaming, and then reaching out and...and grabbing something, and then firing bolts of energy of some kind from my hands. Then I blacked out."
"Oh my God," Diana stared at her, stunned. Her own forgotten cup of coffee sat in front of her, untouched. "That's...."
"Unbelievable?" Cheryl smiled weakly. "That's what I'd have said too, but when I woke up, I was told that I'd done something to drain most of the cultists of their energy, and then used it to blast them into the middle of next week. I've already had offers from three different superhero groups to join up with them." Her smile turned into a grimace. "And the city government's already sent their hired mystics over to check me out and make sure I'm not tainted or something."
"Tainted? That's ridiculous!" Diana spluttered. "You were the one getting mugged why would you be the one tainted?!?!"
"Yeah, but it was 'dark magic' that gave me these powers, so they wanted to make sure I wasn't a Circle plant or something," She lifted a gloved hand, and for a split second, a blue glow flickered fitfully around her fingers. "They can't build magic in a lab or a workshop, so I guess they're a bit paranoid about somebody who can suddenly blow holes through things with it."
"What did they find out?" Diana looked uncomfortable at even a trace display of magic so close to her. "Did they clear you?"
"Yeah, I'm fine, they cleared me," Cheryl sighed. "I have to be careful though; they couldn't guarantee that my powers wouldn't just vanish. Magic's very unpredictable, or so they told me." She hesitated for a moment. "We also found out that my powers seem to, um..."
"Seem to what?"
"It's easier for me to use them when I'm angry at something," Cheryl shifted in her chair, looking mildly discomfited. "They couldn't say why maybe it's because I was angry and scared when I got zapped. I don't know, and they don't either."
"You mean you could lose your powers? And yet you're going to sign up as a hero and sally forth to defend the helpless?!" Diana shook her head. "Cheryl, that's crazy! You don't know..."
"That's *enough*," Cheryl's voice shifted slightly, becoming harder and more resonant as her gaze narrowed. Blue light flickered ominously in her eyes. "I know exactly what's going to happen: I'm going to be able to dish out some of what the crooks and the other creeps in the city have been handing to the people who are just trying to make a living and go about their lives."
"But you can't...."
"I can't just sit idly by and do nothing, either!" Cheryl slashed a hand through the air in a negative gesture, cutting off Diana's attempted protest. "I know it's risky, but damn it, I've got a chance to make a difference, and I'm going to use it!"
Awkward silence descended over the table for a few moments as both women stared at each other. Diana finally looked away from her friend, troubled. Around them, the rest of the people in the coffee shop continued to talk, eat, and drink, oblivious to everything around them.
"All right, I know I can't stop you," Diana finally said, her voice low, "but are you really just going to give up your job your life so you can follow this...this...fantasy? What about your patients? What about your friends?" Her voice caught, and she had to stop for a second. Tears threatened to trickle from her eyes, and she scrubbed at them with the back of a hand.
"I'm not *dying*," Cheryl rolled her eyes. "I'm just changing jobs, if you want to look at it that way. I've already made some phone calls, so my patients are going to be looked after." She leaned across the table and grasped Diana's arm. "Diana, I *have* to do this I'd be worse than a hypocrite if I don't. How many times have I said out loud what I'd do if I had the power to do it? Everyone at the hospital's heard me. Well, I've got it now, and I want no, I *NEED* - to do this. I'll never be able to live with myself if I don't at least try." Cheryl's gaze was earnest, silently imploring her friend to understand. "Look around we've got hundreds of superheroes in this city, and they're just barely keeping the lid on things. They need help and if my powers can help shift the balance in their favour, then I have to at least make the attempt." She gave her friend a weak smile. "I'll still call, you know."
"I know, I know," Diana sighed, then glanced at her friend. "Promise me you'll be careful."
"Yes, Mom, I'll be careful,"
 
It's amazing what you find in the backs of old email folders.... This was a story I started around 3 years ago about one of my favourite characters: Solaeria, (Kinetics/Energy blast) my very first defender.
Hope you like it.
(Hope I can finish it!)(And pardon the formatting - the perils of copy/paste from MS-Word...)
-------------------------------------------------------
The Price of Power...
Sunlight broke through the early morning clouds, streaming across the rooftops of Paragon City and flooding into the teeming streets below. The rays of light washed the buildings and street with a golden patina, giving the city an almost pure, unspoiled appearance in the early morning hours as the city's inhabitants started to stream towards work or home.
Appearances were deceiving, however. The presence of floating, thrumming Police drones in the central square around Paragon City Hall was the first crack in the image; the furtive way that some of the early morning pedestrians kept glancing over their shoulders was the second. The third was the prowling, shadowy figures that began to move from their darkened alley niches as the city roused itself for the day.
One figure did not join the people of the city as they moved around, but instead watched from the shade under one of the trees in the park in front of City Hall. She watched the people streaming by with an uncertain expression, switching her gaze back and forth from the people to the front doors of City Hall.
She was a little taller than average, with an athletic figure that was accentuated by the form-fitting costume she was wearing. She was clad completely in white a white, low-cut bustier, white miniskirt and tights, with the finishing touches being gold elbow-length gloves, belt, high-heeled boots, and a tiara with upswept wings on either side of her head. A wealth of long brown hair cascaded down over her shoulders, past the armoured shoulder pauldrons attached to her top.
In a city that was filled with costumed superheroes, one more person in a costume didn't attract any extra or undue attention, regardless of how attractive it made her look. But if anyone had bothered to look at her, they'd have seen that she didn't quite fit in. For one thing, she didn't exude the boundless self-confidence that seemed to mark all the other heroes in Paragon City; for another, her arms were folded protectively across her chest, almost as if she was trying to hold herself together.
The costumed woman shifted restively in the shadows, indecision flitting across her face as she kept glancing back at City Hall and biting her lip as if trying to decide something. As she stood there fidgeting, people continued to walk by without a second glance. After an interminable length of time, the woman took a deep breath and started to take a step towards the City Hall.
"Cheryl?!" A woman's voice startled her, and she jumped despite herself. "Is that you? What are you doing?! Where have you been?!"
"Diana, hi," the costumed woman forced a rather sickly smile onto her face as she turned to face her questioner. Damn it, not now she didn't need this right now! "What are you doing here?"
"I'm on my way to work," Diana responded, giving her a strange look. Diana was about her height, with short blond hair, blue eyes, and was wearing a light grey windbreaker over drab green hospital scrubs. "You know, work? Where you used to go every day? Your patients haven't left, you know...they still need you."
"I...I can't go back. Not now," Cheryl hesitated for a moment. "Maybe not ever."
"What happened to you?" Diana demanded. "All we heard was that you'd been caught in some super-powered battle and wounded and were going to be off work for a while." The blond woman eyed her friend's clothes skeptically. "And why are you wearing that costume? You can't be seriously thinking you're going to register as a hero? You don't have any superpowers! I know you were angry over all the injured people from that battle last month, but you can't seriously think THIS is going to help!"
"It's complicated," Cheryl replied quietly, refusing to meet her friend's gaze. "I don't expect you to understand, but I have to do this."
"Do what? Get yourself killed?" Diana reached out and grabbed Cheryl's arm. "Come on, you're coming with me and we're going to ..."
"Let GO of me!" Cheryl's voice suddenly seemed to gain harmonic overtones as her gaze narrowed in anger, and blue light flared around her in a radiant aura. Her eyes seemed to pulse with the azure light as she jerked her arm loose from her surprised friend's grasp. "I told you I'm not going back. I can't go back too much has changed."
"Cheryl, what's happened to you?" Diana's gaze was equal parts fear and awe. "How did...? When did...?"
"Solaeria," Cheryl suddenly sounded tired. "I'm going to call myself Solaeria, okay?" She sighed and looked around. "Let's find someplace to sit down while I try and explain."
****
The doors to the Chiron Medical Center slid open with a grating, pneumatic hiss, letting a young woman drooping with weariness stagger through them out into the night. She seemed to regain some vitality at the cool touch of the light breeze blowing that evening, and she straightened up a little and glanced skywards. The night sky in this section of Paragon City was mostly an eerie blue-purple colour, thanks in large part to the force-field barriers that separated the various city sectors from each other it had been a long time since anyone had seen the stars in the sky at night.
Doctor Cheryl Masters sighed to herself as she returned her gaze to more earthbound considerations, pulling her jacket around herself a little more snugly as she started walking. It had been a long shift, almost sixteen hours of what at times had felt like futile patching of wounded people streaming in. There had been those innocent bystanders caught in a shootout between the Hellions and the Skulls, then the people rescued from the clutches of some sewer-dwelling mutants...the list went on and on. And every wounded person she treated just made Cheryl angrier.
She wanted to help them, to protect them from harm, but it was getting harder and harder to keep going day after day, week after week. The crooks and other super-powered thugs plaguing the city didn't care who they hurt in getting what they wanted, and sometimes the superheroes breaking up their operations didn't seem to be too discriminating either. Cheryl was torn between sorrowing empathy for the wounded, and rage at what had been done to them. Frustration at not being able to do anything to prevent the constant stream of wounded only compounded her emotional distress.
As she walked along fuming to herself, Cheryl suddenly realized that it was very quiet. Too quiet, in fact...and she realized suddenly that she'd made a wrong turn somewhere and was now deep in one of the parks dotting Paragon City's various sectors.
Cheryl tried to keep a tight grip on the fear that was suddenly threatening to choke her, and she felt like her heart was trying to hammer its way out of her chest. ANY of the parks in Paragon were unsafe, especially at night. She had to get away, back to where the streetlights and patrolling police drones offered at least a feeling of security. Casting a frantic glance around, she started to run towards where she thought the exit to the park was.
Green light flared around her as she ran, and she was suddenly frozen in place. Cold, bilious green mist surrounded her, swirling up from the ground around her in a circle. Hooded and cowled figures loomed in the mist, and glowing red eyes glared at her from the depths of their hooded robes. Their robes were a dark crimson almost the colour of blood and were trimmed with embroidered runes. An aura of cold vileness seemed to surround them, and it made the helpless woman's skin crawl as she recognized her assailants from the whispered rumours she'd overheard: the Circle of Thorns.
"We have found our sacrifice," one of them declared. Cheryl was suddenly screaming in the back of her mind. "Let us begin the ceremony."
The robed figures spread out around her in a circle, on the edges of the green mist that was holding her captive. In unison they raised their arms and began chanting in some strange language. Cheryl struggled to free herself from...from whatever it was that was holding her as the leader of the hooded figures began to glow with more energy. He pointed at her, gesturing in some kind of a curiously complicated pattern as the glow of the energy he was channeling brightened.
The glow had almost reached blinding brilliance when a concerted volley of blue energy bolts lanced down from the sky above them, smashing the lead cultist to the ground. More beams of energy followed, slamming into the ground and ploughing up huge clods of dirt and grass; fire roared through the air in an expanding explosion nearby. Flashes of multi-coloured spandex appeared in the darkness as the Circle cultists turned towards them, firing crossbows and pulling out swords.
Cheryl was suddenly able to move again. As she turned to start running away, a hand grabbed her ankle in an unbreakable grip. Shocked, she looked down as she tried to break free, and saw that the lead cultist had grabbed her.
Cold began to burn through her, starting at her ankle and moving up her leg to the rest of her body. The green mist around her gathered into one smoky tendril and lashed out at her just as another volley blasts of energy from her rescuers again struck the lead cultist. He stiffened and gasped something in that strange language, before slumping to the ground, unconscious.
The mist did not disappear, however it shifted to a bluish-purple colour, and shot towards her like a striking snake, enveloping her.
Everything seemed to turn bright blue.
****
"After that, I don't really remember much," Cheryl stared at the cup of cold coffee in front of her, but seeing something else entirely. "I remember screaming, and then reaching out and...and grabbing something, and then firing bolts of energy of some kind from my hands. Then I blacked out."
"Oh my God," Diana stared at her, stunned. Her own forgotten cup of coffee sat in front of her, untouched. "That's...."
"Unbelievable?" Cheryl smiled weakly. "That's what I'd have said too, but when I woke up, I was told that I'd done something to drain most of the cultists of their energy, and then used it to blast them into the middle of next week. I've already had offers from three different superhero groups to join up with them." Her smile turned into a grimace. "And the city government's already sent their hired mystics over to check me out and make sure I'm not tainted or something."
"Tainted? That's ridiculous!" Diana spluttered. "You were the one getting mugged why would you be the one tainted?!?!"
"Yeah, but it was 'dark magic' that gave me these powers, so they wanted to make sure I wasn't a Circle plant or something," She lifted a gloved hand, and for a split second, a blue glow flickered fitfully around her fingers. "They can't build magic in a lab or a workshop, so I guess they're a bit paranoid about somebody who can suddenly blow holes through things with it."
"What did they find out?" Diana looked uncomfortable at even a trace display of magic so close to her. "Did they clear you?"
"Yeah, I'm fine, they cleared me," Cheryl sighed. "I have to be careful though; they couldn't guarantee that my powers wouldn't just vanish. Magic's very unpredictable, or so they told me." She hesitated for a moment. "We also found out that my powers seem to, um..."
"Seem to what?"
"It's easier for me to use them when I'm angry at something," Cheryl shifted in her chair, looking mildly discomfited. "They couldn't say why maybe it's because I was angry and scared when I got zapped. I don't know, and they don't either."
"You mean you could lose your powers? And yet you're going to sign up as a hero and sally forth to defend the helpless?!" Diana shook her head. "Cheryl, that's crazy! You don't know..."
"That's *enough*," Cheryl's voice shifted slightly, becoming harder and more resonant as her gaze narrowed. Blue light flickered ominously in her eyes. "I know exactly what's going to happen: I'm going to be able to dish out some of what the crooks and the other creeps in the city have been handing to the people who are just trying to make a living and go about their lives."
"But you can't...."
"I can't just sit idly by and do nothing, either!" Cheryl slashed a hand through the air in a negative gesture, cutting off Diana's attempted protest. "I know it's risky, but damn it, I've got a chance to make a difference, and I'm going to use it!"
Awkward silence descended over the table for a few moments as both women stared at each other. Diana finally looked away from her friend, troubled. Around them, the rest of the people in the coffee shop continued to talk, eat, and drink, oblivious to everything around them.
"All right, I know I can't stop you," Diana finally said, her voice low, "but are you really just going to give up your job your life so you can follow this...this...fantasy? What about your patients? What about your friends?" Her voice caught, and she had to stop for a second. Tears threatened to trickle from her eyes, and she scrubbed at them with the back of a hand.
"I'm not *dying*," Cheryl rolled her eyes. "I'm just changing jobs, if you want to look at it that way. I've already made some phone calls, so my patients are going to be looked after." She leaned across the table and grasped Diana's arm. "Diana, I *have* to do this I'd be worse than a hypocrite if I don't. How many times have I said out loud what I'd do if I had the power to do it? Everyone at the hospital's heard me. Well, I've got it now, and I want no, I *NEED* - to do this. I'll never be able to live with myself if I don't at least try." Cheryl's gaze was earnest, silently imploring her friend to understand. "Look around we've got hundreds of superheroes in this city, and they're just barely keeping the lid on things. They need help and if my powers can help shift the balance in their favour, then I have to at least make the attempt." She gave her friend a weak smile. "I'll still call, you know."
"I know, I know," Diana sighed, then glanced at her friend. "Promise me you'll be careful."
"Yes, Mom, I'll be careful,"