Heroid

(( No swinging in Paragon!

http://heroid.deviantart.com/art/No-...agon-150959256

))

((Beginning a new story. Hope you enjoy. ))


Mr. Counsel booked our tickets. I told him that I was NOT going to fly down on the same flight with Mitri, and he said that would be all right. He arranged for Mitri to fly down after Christmas and for him to stay with Dr. Phodor and his family. Ryan and I are going to stay with Mr. Counsel.

I didn’t want to get in trouble, so I spoke with Ms. Love and she called Mr. Counsel and he assured her that he’d chaperone us and that we would be just fine. It’s perfect for me. I get to spend the holidays with Ryan while at the same time getting to see some of my old friends back home. It’s going to be great.

*****************************

We got into Richmond last night (the twenty-third) after a really short flight. It was nice sitting next to my boyfriend and just having time to chat without anyone calling for us over the comm or some thug interrupting with knife or a lightning bolt. But like I said, the flight was short, and before we knew it, it was over. Mr. Counsel and his significant other, Olivia (“call me Livvy!”) Post met us at the airport. They’re great people. They have this huge two-story house with probably five bedrooms (lawyering must pay pretty good) so Ryan and I both had a room to ourselves.

What? What did you think we would do? Stay in the same room? I don’t think so. Not with Livvy around. The lady has mother-instincts like you wouldn’t believe. One time I got up to go to the potty and she was already standing in the hallway. She watched me go in and watched me come back out and go into my room. I was not going to make a detour to Ryan’s room. Nuh-uh. It never crossed my mind.

Okay, it did. It crossed my mind and the whole trip to the bathroom a midnight was just a test of my courage, but I would have chickened out anyway, even if she hadn’t been out there. And knowing Ryan, he would have made me leave anyway. After a while. Maybe. I don’t know. But I didn’t try it. I didn’t get a chance to.

But Dani would have been proud that I got up the nerve for a practice run. Sorry Ryan. Maybe next year?

((New post today. http://alternautuniverse.blogspot.com/

Comments welcome. ))

((This will catch things up with Tami.))

I just got the strangest call from Mr. Counsel. He said that Mitri and I need to come see him as soon as possible; that he urgently needed to speak with us regarding that DNA test.

What DNA test? Oh, I thought I’d told you about that.

The law firm representing Michael Sr.’s side of the family sent me a DNA testing kit with a letter demanding that I provide them with a sample. I called Mr. Counsel who sent me another of the exact same testing kit and told me to take both at once and that I should send one to them and one to him.

I don’t know why they want a DNA sample – I think it’s just a new way for them to harass me – but I did what Mr. Counsel said. I guess maybe he got the results back and wants to go over things with me.

It has me worried. I’m going to ask Mitri if there’s something he hasn’t told me. What if I’m adopted or something? But that can’t be. Otherwise why would I have been told this story about the beautiful young lab assistant who died in childbirth? Maybe Dmitri Martinov wasn’t my father. Maybe she seduced him so she could say he was? But that sounds kinda far-fetched too.

I’m probably worrying over nothing. Mr. Counsel probably just wants to have a more thorough test done so that Michael Sr.’s lawyers won’t be able to substitute a fake DNA test result.

Probably nothing...

------

I'm so depressed.

I asked Mitri about the DNA test and he told me...

I don't know if I even believe him. He's not himself anymore. He's changed. He blames it on being brought back to life and his brain having to reorganize memories because it was sort of rebooted along with the rest of him. I mean, I don't think he would lie about something like this, but...

Gosh... I don't know what to believe anymore. I'm don't like him very much. He's supposed to be my father, but he isn't -- he's... Mitri. I wish I had just left him...

No. That's wrong. I'm glad he's alive. I'm glad he's got a second chance at youth. After all he did for me, I'm glad I could to that for him.

It's just that...

I asked him. He told me. He's not my real father.

((I wish I had seen this earlier. But even so, since everyone is recommending their favorite webcomics, here's mine:

http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/index2.php

Click on the Archive and read it from the beginning. It's a really beautiful work so far. You'll get hooked. ))

((Still catching up.))

Things have reached a kinda normal place. Maybe I should call it the “new normal”.

Yesterday, Mr. Counsel, mine and Da—er… Mitri’s lawyer, told me that he had not only been fighting Michael Sr. trying to get custody of me, but also the state of Virginia trying to extradite me! They wanted to charge me with “unlawful destruction of a corpse” or something like that. When Michael Sr. had gotten back to the hospital room and there was no body lying in the bed, he assumed I had done something with it! Like nuked it or something!

Somehow, Mr. Counsel convinced the state that even if I did do what they said I did, that I was under extreme emotional distress and that the charges should be reduced and I should pay a fine. And then he took care of the fine. Besides, when he asked them exactly how they planned to handle a minor who could teleport anywhere she wanted to go, they didn’t have an answer.

He said the other stuff with Michael Sr. might take a while longer to settle, but that I shouldn’t worry. So I’m not.

And neither is Mitri, apparently. All he studies is his experiments and Dani. I just hope he’s not experimenting on Dani.

We had a talk, Mitri and I. Something happened to him when he was helping drive the demons from my dreams. He remembered he was my father. He’s not quite the same as before because he’s young and he’s thinking from a young man’s point of view. But he remembered. I think that if it wouldn’t cause some sort of little catastrophe for us to touch, he would have hugged me. He told me how much he loved me and how proud he was of how I was handling things – taking charge like I did. He also told me that I had a good man in Ryan. And, yeah, he used the word “man”.

That led to a really awkward conversation about the "s-word".

See, when I was around eleven or twelve – old enough to start looking at boys – Daddy started warning me about them. At first it was about how it wasn’t right for a girl to be alone with a boy – that people would spread gossip about them and that I should be careful of what kind of situation I found myself in with a boy because reputation is important. As I got a little older it went to how I had to be careful of myself because boys couldn’t control their hormones and an innocent kiss could lead to something not so innocent. He never made me feel like he didn’t trust me, but he always let me know that I couldn’t trust boys to behave.

Now, since he’s a boy again, he’s done a total flip-flop. Not that I can blame him, I guess. Dani’s very pretty and is um… well developed. She doesn’t look like a kid, she looks like a woman. A hot woman. So I suppose it’s normal for him to be falling victim to his own hormones. But it’s still weird.

Anyway, the outcome of that conversation left me a little confused, because basically he told me that that part of our lives are our own business – that I shouldn’t worry how intimate he and Dani are, and that what happens between Ryan and me is my business, so long as Ryan treats me well and I am happy.

Is that like giving me permission? I think I’m too young to be given permission. And isn’t there supposed to be a time after you do become active where part of the fun is trying not to get caught? Am I going to be robbed of that?

It’s a non-issue anyway. My life is way too complicated right now for me to be taking any more risks. And like I said, I think I’m too young.

I just hope Ryan agrees.

Gyah! The “new normal” is so confusing.

Speaking of Ryan, I finally told him about my demonic infestation. I thought he was going to be mad, but he wasn’t – he was hurt, which was way worse. You know how I think of him as my knight in shining armor? I found out he thinks of himself in that same way (which is soooo wonderful and sexy to the nth degree). Except this time, when I really desperately needed rescuing, I didn’t give him the chance to. Yeah. I blew it big-time.

But you know what? He forgave me. He was really glad I was all right and that Jo and company were able to help me.

I promised him it wouldn’t happen again. I won’t hide anything from him ever again. I love him and I really need him in my life right now. I think maybe I’ll need him in my life for always, but saying that out loud sounds like I’m trying to rush him into something -- which I’m not.

I’m way too young to think about marriage. I have to finish high school and then there’s college and starting a career and all that. But when I do think about getting married some day, I think about Ryan.

Don’t tell him I said that. I don’t want to scare him away.

((I finally have a price list on my devart site: http://heroid.deviantart.com/ ))

((And still catching up.))

For three nights and days I stayed awake. It wasn’t so hard the first night. I just bought Torigimi Volume 1 and watched it from curfew until dawn. It had been a while since I’d seen it, so it was sorta fun doing an all-nighter watching an old favorite anime. I cried when Ichi died, just like I did when I was twelve and watched it the first time. And in a way, I was watching it for the first time. The dvd version is the original Japanese version, without dubbing, so I had to read subtitles, which is kinda cool and less distracting than the terrible voice-overs they did for American TV. The story was basically the same, but there were some subtle differences, like Yurio had more than a girl-crush on Mariko. And there was full nudity. I was totally not expecting that.

But the second night was hard. I tried to make out like nothing was going on, but that just meant that I lied to everybody. I lied to Ryan when he asked if I was feeling okay. What was I supposed to tell him? “No, I’m avoiding sleep because I don’t want to be ravished in my sleep by monsters?” I just didn’t know how to tell him -- what to tell him -- so I kept it to myself. I also lied to Shanna and told her I was having late-night hunger pangs and she let me leave the dorms to go to the kitchen. I wound up roaming the house all night. I even found a door to the sub-basement. That place was creepy enough to keep me from even thinking about sleep for a long time. (Remind me to tell you what all I saw someday.) I skipped class the following day and went out fighting bad guys for the adrenaline rush instead.

As hard as the second night was, the third was worse. I had avoided Ryan all day, which broke my heart. It made me realize (like I should have from the start) that I needed to tell someone, even if I couldn’t bring myself to go to him with it. Plus, I knew I couldn’t fool Shanna twice (and I hate lying anyway) so I stayed in my room. I searched on the internet for stupid stuff -- watched some scary vids on You Tube, played D&D online, and I started a Second Life account.

Don’t play Second Life late, late, late at night. Especially if you’re dumb enough to answer the question, “r u a grl in rl?”

As soon as I heard people out and moving around the dorms, I took off with the intent of spending the day fighting bad guys again. I don’t remember much of the day, just bit and pieces. I know I spent some time in a cave hunting for some Circle of Thorns mage, but I didn’t find him because the cave was dark and cool and it made me sleepy to be there. I also remember getting kicked out of Perk-o-Later for asking for too many refills on coffee (I hate coffee). The only other thing I remember is being beside that big lake in Steel Canyon and thinking about how if I jumped in, the cold water would probably wake me up. Stupid.

I think that’s where Jo and Dani found me. At least I kinda remember them there. Maybe it was my imagination. I really should find out, I guess.

Anyway, I must have fallen asleep there because the next thing I know it was halfway through the next day and I woke up in my own bed, all warm and snuggly and rested. No demon dreams. No nasty nightmares. Just peaceful sleep.

And someone had laid a stuffed panda beside my pillow.

((Wait...

First I saw Xanatos popping up again. Then Sorah. Then Haet. Now Rakescar? There's a pattern here.

I know what it is -- quadruple account. They are all really some middle-aged fat guy with thinning hair who has nothing better to do than sit in front of his computer because he has no real-life friends and does all his socializing online, often pretending to be a young pretty female...

Hold on...

Heh...

Nevermind. That's me. ))

((We were holding onto it just for you. ))

((New post up! http://alternautuniverse.blogspot.co...h-charmer.html ))

((Got tired of feeling bad, so I flushed my lungs with Drano and used an old guillotine I had from when I was a kid to get rid of the stuffy sinuses. I feel much better now, except my wife is complaining that if someone comes over and sees all the blood and gore and my head in the wastebasket they're going to get grossed out. I told her would she rather they get grossed out, or have them catch the flu? ))

((I keep reading that "I am NOT a dev!!!!" thread title as "I am NOT a devil!!!" which makes me wonder what the poster did to make people think he was a devil.

But I have the flu, so I do feel like Hell. And my wife has been putting up with my grousing and whining for days, so I'm pretty sure she thinks someone stole her normally sweet-natured husband and replaced him with a nether-spawn.

Anyone else out there feel like Hell?

Or maybe you feel delightfully devilish? I wish I did.))

((Still playing catch-up.))

I’m so ashamed. I don’t know how I can ever face Ryan after this. I feel like such a bad person. It’s not like I sought this out, like I wanted it to happen. It just did. I want it undone, but I don’t know if that’s possible.

The really sad thing is, I suspected it was a setup, but in the end, that didn’t matter. I didn’t care… just didn’t…

But let me tell you about it. Maybe if I tell someone, it won’t seem so bad.

You know the thing in Paragon where every Halloween we get this “supernatural” invasion? Where creatures and monsters and things that go bump in the night run rampant through the city and we heroes have to try to keep them under control? Well, that’s what I was doing tonight… wait… I guess it was last night since it’s like four a.m. now. Anyway, that “supernatural” thing is where my problem started.

It was getting close to curfew – maybe twenty minutes before – and I had missed my evening run because of a zombie attack. (Do you know how hard it is to run down the beach when hands are coming up through the sand grabbing your ankles?) So I thought I could maybe put on my running gear, do a quick mile, and be back in time for bed.

So I thought.

I was about half a mile up from Spanky’s Boardwalk, running barefoot in the edge of the surf, and getting ready to turn around when I heard voices calling for help. The shouts were coming from the end of that long pier – you know, the one the Warriors claim as their own – so I teleported over there to see what I cold do.

At the very end of the pier, there was a fight going on. There were about fifteen Warriors fighting these three guys who were a lot smaller than them. One of the guys was staggering with an arrow in his chest.

Right away I used my powers to alter the air around the Warriors so that they couldn’t breathe. Then I hit them with a wide-angle particle beam and that’s all it took – they left.

“You guys should be careful,” I told the Warriors’ victims, “Everyone knows this pier is theirs.”

“Sorry,” one of them said, “We were just goofing off when they attacked. We didn’t know we were on their property.”

I didn’t look at him while he talked. I was too busy applying my healing powers to his wounded friend.

Arrows and things like that are tricky. You see, when I heal people, I’m really just kinda restoring them to their natural quantum state, before they were injured. If someone has some sort of foreign object in them, I have to make sure not to let it be affected by my powers also, or else after I heal someone, they will immediately be back in a precarious condition. So the best way to get rid of a projectile is to accelerate its subatomic frequency until it no longer has molecular cohesiveness. It makes things like arrows and bullets just disappear as I heal someone. It sounds more complicated than it is.

So I used this power to get rid of the arrow and the guy healed up before I even had a chance to apply my healing powers.

“You’re meta?” I said.

“Meta?” he replied. “Yes, I’ve just meta angel.” Then he smiled.

I giggled.

That’s when I took a good look at them. The moon was past half and shining and I could see them pretty well. They were young, probably a couple years older than me -- maybe even old enough to be university men. Two of them had dark hair and one of them – the arrow victim -- was blonde. All of them looked pale in the moonlight, but then, I looked pale in the moonlight. Moonlight does that to people. They were all three tall and very, very good-looking. But the thing that stands out the most now, but that I didn’t really notice at the time is this: They had black eyes. I don’t understand how I didn’t see that as soon as I met them, but they had black, shiny eyes.

“Seriously,” I said, “Do you guys have powers? And if you do, how come you didn’t defend yourselves?”

One of the dark-haired ones spoke up and said, “Our powers aren’t for fighting with.”

“No,” said the other dark-haired one, “We aren’t fighters at all.”

Okay. That sorta started the alarms in my head, but I ignored them. After all, there are plenty of people who have powers that are strictly defensive or support-only.

I thought for a moment and said, “I could escort you guys somewhere safer if you like.”

They liked. We wound up walking to an area west of the train station, where they said they shared an apartment and I stood with them while we waited for the doorman to come open up. I couldn’t just abandon them there – you know what’s been coming out of doors lately.

So we were standing there when the blonde one said, “I’d like to give you something for saving my life.”

“No need – it’s what I do,” I told him.

“But please, I only want to give you a kiss.” His voice was like melted chocolate poured over satin and somehow his hand was holding mine.

The alarms in my head were blaring now, but I found myself not caring.

“I really should go – bedtime and all that,” I said and I think – I think I tried to pull away from him.

“But you wouldn’t deprive a rescued gentleman in distress a kiss from his rescuer, would you?”

I opened my mouth to protest, but found myself closing my eyes as his mouth covered mine.

I felt… out of control… as if I had no will to stop it from happening. And really, I found myself wanting it to happen. Wanting more to happen. Wanting…

Oh gosh!

I understood what was going on and opened my eyes. I was kissing a different boy now -- one of the dark-haired ones -- and when I realized that, I blasted them, sending them sprawling to the sidewalk. They laughed at me from there.

With my senses restored I took a good look at my surroundings. This was no apartment building – it was just a warehouse! I looked at my molesters and they weren’t even handsome boys – they were… demons for want of a better word – with pointed ears and wide grinning mouths filled with sharp, pointed teeth. And they were naked.

“Incubi!” I shouted calling them what they were – incubi who this year had come along with all the other horrors! “Dirty, filthy --!”

They just laughed more, and rose from the sidewalk, floating mist-like toward me.

I blasted them again. “Stay away from me!”

“But girl,” one of them said, “you are so full of life and spirit. We cannot resist you.”

“Yes,” said another, “and having known the virgin’s kiss, the virgin is now ours.”

Eww! God, I hate Halloween!

I tried to blast them again, but they were non-corporeal now, swirling like a cloud of smoke toward me.

You belong to us. I heard one of them say, And we will be with you from now until forever – in your dreams.

I started crying when I realized the voice was inside my head.

So what can I do? I’ve really messed up. I’m staying awake now, because I will NOT go to sleep. Not with them waiting there for me. Oh gosh… I need help.

((There was a MA single mission story that went with this called "the Night Terrors". Some of Tami's Maggie's Rock sg mates ran it to rescue her. ))

((Thanks again, all of you!

And... wow, Baxter... that cake must have cost you an arm and a leg (or at least a hock). ))

((I've fallen behind with Tami posts. My apologies. These are from a little while ago, so this is catching up. ))

Ryan had a fight with Dad-- er... Mitri.

No, it wasn't like that. No punches or anything. Just mostly like... angry talk. Ryan was pretty upset about my anxiety attacks, and he knew that a huge part of my problem was the fact that Mitri had taken my adopted sister off for the weekend. (I mean – while I was dealing with lawyers and fighting for my freedom and his, he took Dani off and seduced her! Gyah! It still makes me want to scream to think about it! Am I being unreasonable?!)

So Ryan decided to confront him. I found out about it when Mitri called me and said, "I'm not your father. Your father died. You need to accept it." He said that! Just... cold like that!

I'm not sure what all was said before or after that, and I'm not sure I want to know. I just know that it was a hurtful thing for him to say to me. It's like Daddy didn't die, but he did, because Mitri is nothing like the man who used to kiss my boo boos and read "Goodnight Moon" to me.

Right after Mitri said that horrible thing, Ryan came to find me. He was all tense and looked just like after he's plowed his way through a cadre of Council soldiers. I could tell just by looking at him that he had wanted to hit Mitri, but he hadn’t. He didn’t do what he felt like doing because he knew I needed him right then. He left the fight to take care of me. That's so... manly.

When he found me, I was crying like a baby. I asked him what had happened, and without saying anything that would make me feel even worse, he told me about it: about Mitri’s complaining that I was expecting him to be someone he’s not; about how Dani would take my side one instant, and Mitri’s the next; and about how he snapped and told Mitri not to speak to me ever.

Then Ryan put his arms around me and apologized for that last part. And as hurt as I was by it all, I couldn’t help but feel better knowing that Ryan would take on anyone for me.

“You don’t have anything to apologize for,” I said, then kissed him.

I came this close to telling him that he’s adorable. But Ryan’s rugged and tough and other words that you can’t use to describe kittens. Adorable? I'll keep that one to myself.

Still, I can’t help it – I do adore him. I don’t know what I’d have done without him through all of this. He’s so constant and strong -- and tender when I need him to be.

I’ll patch things up with Dani tomorrow. And I’ll figure out what to do about Mitri too. tomorrow.

Right now, I’m going to let Ryan hold me until curfew. And if the dorm monitor doesn’t peek in, maybe a little bit longer.

((Thanks! And I did have a very fine day. ))

((Posted a little eary this week to beat the holiday traffic. Beginning a new subplot. ))

http://alternautuniverse.blogspot.co...heritance.html

((I'm posting this because I know a lot of my Virtue buds are fans of Futurama. ))

((Names -- and I just checked to see if they're available:
Say No
Fren-Z
In the Black

Just some suggestions. ))

((Didn't have much time this week for anything and almost didn't post one this week. It's a quicky, but it introduces a new character. ))