The Life of Jaradesse

So after reading multitudes of origin stories, I was inspiried to write my own *cough*Sly*cough*. I personally love writing, have written several stories, which I shove into some back file in my computer so no one will ever ever see it. I think I'm afraid of scrutiny. And yet I'm posting something here. Hmmmm...

Well anyways, before you get to the story itself, I have a couple of things to say. This is the first time I've written anything in the first person, so I hope it's not really bad. Also, sorry if theres any spelling or gramatical mistakes. I was not here during beta as well, so any liberties I take with the occurances that happened in Paragon, I would like to apologize for, but I did do a plethera of reading of the events that made Paragon City what it is today, and tried to incorporate that into my story. Some liberties just needed to be taken. And lastly, while my character is a woman, I'm not, which made writing it in the first person a bit more challenging, but I've rambled on long enough. So, I present to you:

The 1st installment

“Do you know what it’s like to wake up, and have half of your room melted?” I yelled at my shrink. “Do you know what it’s like to see the entire world in a shade of yellow? Do you? No, I didn’t think so!”
Since I had started coming to see this guy, every third day, for the last month and a half, he had told me nothing else but to calm down.
“Now, now Jaradesse,” He said, in a total unwavering voice. “Calm down.”
If I could have rolled my eyes at him, I would have. I was convinced he was really a quack.
“Here, sit, sit.” He pointed at the couch.
I glanced at it, decided to just give up, and plopped down. I started at him. Clyde Bennett, my shrink if you haven’t figured it out yet, was one of those short stocky guys, who looked like he could be hit in the head with a stick and not feel a thing. He just sat there, twiddling with a little pen all the time, exact same posture, totally upright in the antique chair. He always just sat there, nodding every now and then, and listening. Oooooh yes. Always with the listening.
“The way I see it, Jaradesse, is that you…” He started on another one of his patented, long winded speeches, which summed up could have been easily translated to “You need to calm down.” But no. He just kept on going on and on. I had listened to it too many times already. Well, while he rambles, let me tell you how I got here.

My name, if you haven’t guessed it so far, is Jaradesse, or, to those who know me in the least bit, Jara. No last name. Why? Because I don’t like it, and I don’t want my family to get dragged into any of this. As far as they know, I’m dead. Anyways, I was originally born in Berkeley, California. My parents were both teachers, both nice, but, in retrospect, naïve people. The lived in their own little world, and they were content with that. Before my, ummm… changes, I would have liked that, I think. Now, things are a bit more… complicated. But I digress, so let me get back on track. When it came time for me to go to college, I had a few choices. I wasn’t sure what exactly I wanted to do in life, but I was always interested in sciences. At the time the best choice I had for that line of work was Paragon City University.

Ah yes, good ol’ PCU. Now, I had heard that Paragon City housed a large amount of heroes, and frankly I found that rather… attractive in the city, but I didn’t realize ‘till I got here just how prominent they were in the history, and how active they were in the city. I remember the first time I saw the statue of Atlas while touring the city, the first time I saw a hero in action (even though it was on TV), the first time I saw The Statesman giving a speech… it was... exhilarating. Exciting and brand new. I knew that this was the place for me. Sometimes, I wish I hadn't been so sure.


*Stay tuned for more installments of The Life of Jaradesse*

8 out of 10

Excellent intro! I look forward to more.

And now, as promised:

The 2nd installment

My first year at PCU was rather uneventful. I started out as an undeclared major, taking just general ed classes. I was still hoping to major in some sort of science field, so, while searching for a job, I came to an opening in the Paragon City University particle accelerator lab. For those of you who don’t know what that is, let me give you a quick description. A particle accelerator is essentially a machine which takes a couple of different atoms, spins them around really fast, and smashes them together, once in a while forming a completely different element. A few new ones have been discovered by this process. Just look at your everyday periodic table of element. Yes, it is a whole lot complicated than that, and yes, I’m know there are those who can explain it much better, but I don’t think you need to know much other about what it does.

Anyways, I got a job there as a very, very low level assistant. More like a gopher. I was just running all over the lab, giving clipboards to researchers, and occasionally emptying the trash. I know, not that glamorous, but hey, a job’s a job, and I was glad to have one. The lab was where I also met a very good friend of mine (well, very good friend of mine for a short while), Rob. Rob was a very quirky guy, had some odd characteristics, but some of it matched with mine. Dry sense of humor, very sarcastic. Yeah, I guess he was a nerd, but its hard not to find someone like that in a science lab. We hung out every now and then, and no, nothing romantic happened. One thing did bother me about him though. I discovered it while eating pizza in my room, watching the news one night.

There was some story about about how some hero busted a local drug ring. Rob just started at the screen, and then shut it off.
“Hey, I was watching that!” I said.
Rob just shrugged, and went back to eating pizza.
“What?”
Rob said nothing.
I reached for the remote, but Rob pushed it away.
“I just… hate it.” Rob said in a very low voice.
“What, the news?” I asked.
“No!” Rob exploded. “The heroes! I hate them!”
I tilted my head to the side.
“Oh, and why is that?” I started at him.
“Don’t tell me they don’t bother you. They’re just… different. They’re not like you and I. They,” Rob pointed at the blank TV screen, “are different. They’re not human.”
“Dude, don’t be an ***.” I smirked at him.
Rob shrugged, got up and left. I didn’t talk to him for the next week. Eventually we returned to being friends, but there was always this weirdness.

Entering my second year of college, I was still undeclared, and still working at the lab, my role there not having changed much. Oh, yes, I was now in charge of getting coffee. That was new. And oh boy, those guys did not like it when you messed up their orders. Still, everything was going dandy. Then the Ritiki came.

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The 3rd installment

On May 22nd, sometime late afternoon, red lights appeared all over Paragon city. I was down in the laboratory at the time, filling in for an assistant who could not make it that day, and was helping prepare a run on the accelerator. Suddenly, someone came bursting through the doors.
“Everyone, come quick! You have got to see this!” he yelled.
Everyone in the lab just looked at each other.
“Oh come on, there’s all sorts of weird lights all over the place!” He continued.
I was just standing around, waiting to see what the others did. Half of them slowly got up, murmuring to each other, while the other half just sort of stood around doing nothing. I, out of plain curiosity, followed the ones going outside. When I got out the front doors, I was shocked. Every one around me were just looking up at the sky, some of them talking to each other in low voices, others just with a confused look on their faces.
“The hell…?” I heard someone say
“What in the world is that?” Someone else wondered.
“Yeah, it’s gotta be some alien invasion.” Someone said jokingly. Everyone chuckled nervously. None of us believe him at the time, naturally.

After about a half an hour of sharing conspiracy theories, ranging from the alien invasions, to government testing, to someone saying the hippies were trying to beam propaganda down to us (where that came from, I have no idea), we got word that Dr. Jackson, the head of the lab, was holding a meeting. Most of us started back down immediately, while some didn’t budge. I couldn’t say I blamed them. I headed back down though, as a fill-in for an assistant I didn’t want to make anyone mad, and into the conference room, where Dr. Jackson was already sitting with a grim look on his face.
“Please, everyone, take a seat.” He said.
After everyone sat, he looked over all of us.
“I have no idea what’s going on outside, but we must decide if we want to go on with today’s experiment. I personally would say yes, because we are already weeks behind, but I am not a total dictator, so if most of you do not feel comfortable with going on, I’ll cancel the experiment, and give you guys the day off.”
Here were about twenty of us sitting around the table. We all looked at each other, and then started arguing.
“Oh, come on, those things aren’t hurting anyone, we shouldn’t call off something as big as what we’re doing today because of some… searchlights.”
“Are you kidding me? Who knows what those things are? It could be dangerous if any of our equipment got damaged!”
“Bah, we’re a good thirty feet underground, even if something were to happen we wouldn’t have any problems. Plus, we can always shut the machine off if something goes wrong.”
This was obviously going nowhere, and Dr. Jackson realized it.
“Ok, ok, this is obviously going nowhere. I suggest we take a vote. How many of you would like to stay and run the experiment?”
Fifteen people raised their hands, including me. I wasn’t about to give my chance of doing something important around here away.
“Ok, I think we can work with this. Those of you who didn’t raise your hands can go home; I expect to see you back here tomorrow.”
Slowly the five who didn’t raise their hands got up, and started to leave.
“Good luck, guys.” One of them said as she left.

So, the experiment went ahead as planned, albeit a little late. By the time we had gotten started on warming up machines, getting all the equipment tuned right, it was nearing 7pm. It was about a half an hour later when we started up the machine. What happened next is still somewhat of a blur to me.

Explosions. Falling beams. People screaming in pain, and agony, all around me. It had all happened so fast. The machine was running, then we felt the ground shaking, and things just started blowing up.
“ABORT! ABORT!” Dr. Jackson was screaming, and then I heard him no more.
I didn’t know what to do. I was cowering in a corner, just thinking, oh god, please don’t let me die. Then a violent explosion ripped into the accelerator. I remember feeling a sharp pain in my head, and then not being able to see. I don’t know if my body was convulsing or not. I don’t know if I puked or not. That was the last I ever saw of the lab. How I survived, I don’t know.

bravo! rob died right? he's an [censored].

Ah, well we'll get to rob later on...

Anyways, I've been busy for the last week or so, but finally got the next installment done. I dunno if anyone reads or cares any more, but I'm still writin cuz I like to. Anyways, here's the next part, for those who care:

The 4th Installment

When I woke up, I was in sort of a makeshift hospital. I didn’t realize this until a bit later, because it seemed like one eye was not functioning, and the other one was blurred. I tried to speak, but nothing came out. I could help but wonder, am I dead?
“Patient number 1304 is awake, Dr. Lucas.” I heard someone say.
A few minutes later, someone came into the room and leaned over me. He took out something from his coat, and shone a light into my eye. Even though the light was very irritating, it took me about five seconds to blink.
“Ah, well looks like she is awake.” I heard him say.
He disappeared for a bit, and then was back.
“Ok, Miss, we need to get some information from you. Your name, please?” He said.
I opened my mouth, and tried to say my name, but it just felt like I was breathing out ash.
“Hmmmm….” He said. “Yes, that is to be expected. Well then. I think I’ll fill you in.”
I heard a chair being dragged, and I couldn’t see him any more.
“Well let’s see. It’s been about three weeks since the invasion.”
Invasion? What invasion? I guess he figured out that he needed to explain further somehow, because he explained.
“I am speaking, of course, about the Rikti. I don’t know if you saw the red lights from the sky, but those brought the Rikti. They came, they saw, and they damn nearly conquered. Now don’t ask me if we’ve beaten then totally, or why they even stopped attacking, because I don’t know. Now, when they attacked, they obviously hit where you were as well, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”
Flashes of things exploding came flooding through. I saw Dr. Jackson’s face, him screaming.
“Somehow, I again don’t know how, you ended up here under my care. And let me tell you, you were in baaaad shape. You had a cracked skull, and were quite within your last grasps of life. Thanks to yours truly however, we were able to fix your noggin. However, it required putting a face plate on you, which is why you cannot currently see.”
Oh thank god, so I wasn’t dead, or blind. Wait… face plating?
“It’s a rather large piece of metal, stretching over the right side of your face, from the top of your forehead down to your cheekbone. At some point we may be able to put on something better, but for now, that’s all we had to work with.”
I swear this guy could read my mind or something.
“No, I can’t read your mind.” He said, and I felt like he was grinning at me. “Anyhoo, after that, everything went pretty smoothly. It’s like your own body went and started to repair itself. Never seen it happen quite at the rate which it happened with you, but I guess there’s a first time for everything. So, I just came to tell you what is up, and that you’ll be fine, and should be up and about in the next week or so.” I heard him stand up, and I felt a pat on my knee.
“Welcome back to the world of the living.” He said, and I hear footsteps walk away from me.

And he was right. In a week, I was up and about, but barely. Walking stiff, still fumbling around, and every time I saw myself in the mirror I was surprised. The face plate was huge, and a big chunk of hair was missing. I was venturing around one day, and found myself in the lost and found, where a big black hat was sitting. I didn’t really think twice about it, and I took the hat, and pulled it down over my head. It was a near perfect fit. Like someone had left it there for me. I then went to go see how the others were doing. Most of them were John and Jane Doe’s, all in comas, and from what I had heard, not much hope was left for them. However, I did have a favorite to visit, a kind old man who seemed to have lost his memories, but was still so cheerful. This day however, he was lying in bed, looking very tired. When I came in he turned in my direction slightly, and managed to produce a small smile.
“He… hello.” Ha managed to say.
He did not have much time left, that could be said. I went to the side, pulled up a chair, and took his hand. It was the least I could do. I sat there for a while, and started thinking about how much I wished that nice people like him wouldn’t have to suffer, and how unfair it was, and how much I wished I could do something. Then all of a sudden, I felt very tired. I got up to go back to my room, and suddenly the old man straightened up.
“Well I feel much better.” He said. I guess he could see that I was stumbling around, because I remember his escorting me back to my room. I don’t know how long I slept for, but I do know that I fell asleep wondering, how could someone who seemed like he was going to die any minute, all of a sudden be up and around? Did I do something?

The day after, I decided to try something. I went into the sick ward, and just looked at the people. All in pain, all suffering. I concentrated on the unfairness of it all, and my desire to help them, and sure enough, I once again felt very weary, but on my way out, everyone seemed a lot more peaceful, and a lot healthier. Oh yes. There was something going on here.

I think I know what power she/he gained, I have it on another character, but I wont ruin it. By the way... BRAVO!! ONCORE!

heh, very nice tompos. i like the way you explained your power. im anxious for part 5!