It was a warm sunny day in the town of Sim City, the sun shone brightly down on the earth casting a warm sunny glow and everything its rays touched.
And in a house on the edge of town, four extraordinary women were lounging around in their living room, waiting for a phone call. These women were the four town super heroes;
Seera,
Olive the Great,
Shannon, and
Crow who were all waiting patiently for the next time they would be needed to once again save the town they resided in.
On this particular day though, the amount of crime was nearly nonexistent and so these four women were sitting around in their living room enjoying their time off, though they were somewhat bored.
“What should we do guys?” Olive asked as she lounged on the couch, lazily opening her eyes. “It looks like there’s nothing big going on today.”
“I don’t know,” Shannon replied, and she yawned. She was sitting on the floor with her back turned to a bright patch of sunlight that was spilling in from the window behind her. “Well…” Seera said, her eyes sparkling as the others could see an idea forming in her mind.
“What is it?” Crow asked, leaning in a little closer. Seera always came up with the most interesting ideas.
“I just realized that none of us know how any of the others got their powers, and I’ve always been rather curious.” Seera replied with a smile.
Olive and Shannon nodded their heads in agreement, but Crow just looked down at the floor. “Well then how about we each take turns telling our stories?” Shannon suggested and Olive and Seera immediately agreed.
“Is that alright with you?” Olive asked when she looked over at Crow who simply nodded her head.
Seera looked around at the three others after the suggestion of telling their back stories was given. Seera decided to be a bit more outgoing than she had been in years and said, “I’ll go first, if no one has any objections.” She waited for a minute or two and when no one objected she began,
“I was always one of the more popular kids in school. I suppose I was only really popular because I was rich. That and was smart and was nice enough to help people out. So I had some people who just wanted to be friends with the rich kid and some who liked me for who I was. Or at least I thought.
It was the pool party between tenth and eleventh grade. The last party before school started. Anyways, during the pool party it began to storm and it was a thunderstorm. Everyone was bummed.
I then wished it would suddenly stop storming and become sunny again and my wish was granted. Everyone was so happy.”
Seera took a deep breath and then continued, “I then went home and began testing to see if it was just a coincidence that what I wished for happened or if I had caused it to stop raining.
Turns out I did cause it. I made it rain, heck I even made it snow and it had been a hot day that day. The next day at school I told everybody and when they didn’t believe me, I proved it to them.
Little did I know, the school wasn’t ready for a mutant to be in their midst, rich or not. I instantly went from being one of the most popular kids in school to an outcast. I was still invited to parties and such and I still went. But I knew I was only invited to make sure the weather stayed nice. And I only went because I was too nice to say no and was too polite to not go once I agreed to go.”
“I eventually decided to hone my skills, I couldn’t really control my powers. I once almost made a blizzard on the hottest day the summer before my senior year of high school,” Seera continued on, “It took me most of my senior year to get a good grip on controlling my power, but I eventually got in control of it. Eventually the police started asking me to mask their stealth operations once I turned 18. They just told me the location and I fogged it up. I didn’t even have to go there. And one thing lead to another and here I am.”
Seera then looked around and waited to hear the next story.
“I’ll go next if that’s alright,” Olive said after she had finished listening to Seera’s story. The others looked at her, waiting expectantly for the story, and so she began.
“My story is rather an odd one,” Olive the Great began as the others leaned in closer to listen. “When I was younger I rarely left my house as my parents refused to let me drive anywhere. I lived an extremely sheltered life, I didn’t know about anything outside the walls of my house. I was homeschooled from the time I reached school age until high school. I knew nothing about the outside world and I hated it.
The only knowledge of the outside that I had was of my neighbor. He was a funny old man named Mr. Reynolds. He had thick glasses, ivory white hair, was very short. On the weekends he would pay me money for doing odd jobs around his yard or house. My parents allowed me to go over there as long as he didn’t have the news on or any newspapers lying around while I was there, and he agreed to that.
“Ever since I was a young child I dreamed of breaking free and finding out about what was around me in the world. So I saved up every single last bit of money that Mr. Reynolds gave me, even down to the pennies, in a jar that I hid in the back of my closet.
On the day that I turned 16 my parents and I got into a huge fight. I remember it clearly because it was the day that my life was going to change forever.
“’I want to leave.’ I had told them. My parents had merely laughed at me.
“’You know nothing about the world outside, you would be much better staying here where you’ll always be safe.’ My parents both gave me a stern look. ‘Besides, you aren’t legally allowed to leave until you’re 18.’ My mother had said. My father looked at her with a scathing look when he heard what she said and she quickly clamped her mouth shut.
“’Either way, you aren’t leaving.’ My father had said.”
“’Fine then,’ I had said, ‘stop me!’” I then ran into my room and grabbed the jar from the back of my closet. I had counted the money the night before and almost had $2,000 rolled up in odd bills and a large pile of coins.
“My parents were stunned when they saw me walk out with my backpack filled with my clothes and some food that I had ‘borrowed’ from the refrigerator the night before. The just stood in the living room with their mouths hanging open as I walked out the door and out into the real world.
“I traveled far and wide, never staying in the same place for more than a few days. I slept in random alley ways and sometimes took a cheap motel for the night if I felt like I needed a good’s night sleep. After a month or two though, my money was running short. I decided that I needed to do something to earn some more, but I didn’t know what.
“I was walking along the street in a town that I couldn’t remember the name of if I had tried when I saw a street fair up ahead. One of the tents seemed to be calling me somehow and I felt myself drawn to it. As I entered it I saw an old lady dressed in a brightly colored dress with long gray hair draped underneath an orange scarf that was wrapped around her head.
“’I know why you are here.’ She said to me. I didn’t reply. For some reason I felt as if she could see straight into my soul and had no need for my words.
“’You are looking for a way our of your current situation, but you have no idea what to do. I know that in your pocket you have one $100 bill and nothing else. I also know that with that money you can buy the solution to all of your problems.
“She then reached behind her and pulled out a magic lamp. It was shinier and more glowingly gold than anything I had ever seen before, and completely trusting the woman I gave her the rest of my money and walked out of her tent with my purchase, not hearing her evil cackling trailing out of the tent behind me. “I tried desperately for the rest of that night to figure out what was so special about that stupid lamp that when the morning sun began to climb higher into the sky I felt like crying. I knew I had been conned.
“I stared blankly at the lamp, watching as the sun shone brighter and brighter in its reflection. I reached down to rub some dust that I saw on the side of the lamp, and to my surprise a purple cloud of gas began puffing out from the spout.
“The puff of purple smoke slowly shaped into a man who began to speak. ‘I am here to grant you three wishes. What can I do for you, Master?’ he asked.
“I was so awestruck that without thinking, I blurted out two of my childhood wishes, ‘I wish to be able to be invisible, and to be able to fly.’
“’Your wishes are my command,’ he said, and he pointed his finger at my chest. I felt a shock of electricity course through my body as he worked his magic.
“’What else may I do for you?’ he asked me. At this point I realized that I was still broke, so I made my list wish a more practical one.
“’I wish that anytime I reach into this jar, there will be enough money for whatever I need in it.’
“’Your wish is my command,’ he said, and he pointed his finger at my jar. A big crack of lightning then appeared where the lamp had been, and in a split second, the genie and the lamp were both gone.” Olive looked around at the group of heroes around her. “And that’s how I got to be where I am.” She stated matter-of-factly and then leaned back in her chair.
“Me next,” Shannon stated, and started in on her story.
Shannon smiled cheerfully at the three girls sitting around her. She was never shy about this kind of thing, and the parts she was ashamed about were usually easy to cover up with lies. After listening to the other two stories though, she had no urge to cover up the truth.
“If we want to go so far back as to talk about our home lives, I wouldn’t say I came from a broken home, just one that was oddly formed. I never knew my father as anybody other than a biological donor to my cause. By the time I was five, I didn’t dwell on the fact that I knew nothing of him, I just didn’t care. Well, that’s what I told people.”
“From what I remember, I wasn’t born with my magic, despite being born into a very supernatural world. I figured out that something was odd in middle school when I started attending the public school near my home. Normal kids don’t have family friends who stalk the night and are one with the local flora. It was then I started wondering why I was so different compared to my family.”
“I had no magical talent, no magical abilities to name, nothing special. So, I covered it all up, I lied and made up stories to make myself seem normal to the world I decided to be a part of. Despite how outrageous they seemed coming from my mouth, people bought it.”
“It was my going away party that changed everything. I was heading off to the state university, with all intentions of devoting my life to the art world and forgetting this magical bunch of people who found me to be a freak once I got there.”
“Halfway through the party, a man showed up, clothed in black. He wore what I knew to be a warlocks’ cloak and hat. In an instant I knew who he was. My father, my biological donor, had finally arrived. A childhood prayer had been answered.”
“I ran to him and flung my arms around him, not caring about the thoughts I could see so clearly forming in people’s heads. When I touched him, I felt the difference within me. Something had changed, I had changed. For the first time in my life, I felt that power the other kids had talked about in elementary school, and I wanted my turn to show off.”
Shannon paused, casting her violet eyes away from the group in the living room.
“I’m not proud of what happened over the next four years, so I’m not going to mention it. By the time I turned 21 I had realized that my father was using me. By that time, it was too late for the redemption my soul needed, or so I thought. We had long ago destroyed the magical world I had grown up in, it was no longer a place with room for good. But, it wasn’t in the magical world I found what I needed to cleanse myself.”
“It was in the plain old mortal, non-magical world. The place I had been planning to flee to when my difference made me an outcast at home. With my heart heavy, I discovered what a simple happiness spell could do for a person, and with each little life saved from personal destruction, I felt my life lighten.”
Shannon leaned back on the floor, her story was almost done. “I still don’t consider myself a hero these days, but if that’s what the papers have been calling my deeds, if that’s how I’m received by the public, then let me be a hero.”
Once Shannon was done with her story everyone looked expectantly at Crow. She had mostly been quiet during the stories of the others due to her shy nature. Her mouth turned up into a cynical smile and her eyes lost their focus as if she was remembering something.
“My story is not a happy one,” she blatantly stated. “I wasn’t always the hero that I am now either. In fact, I didn’t even know that I had my powers for quite awhile.” Her smile faded as she began her story.
“My family life was not a good one. Happiness was not a word that you would use to describe my house. My father was abusive and would hit me or my mother whenever he was upset about anything. It didn’t matter what it was that he was upset about either, in fact most of the times it could be something as small nicking himself shaving. It didn’t matter; he would work himself up into a fury and go crazy.” She paused and looked around at the sympathetic eyes of the others and slowly continued on.
“One night my dad came home drunk and extremely angry. Neither my mom nor I knew what was wrong, but he immediately started beating up on my mother. I heard someone crying out telling him to stop and realized as he stopped and came toward me that the words had come from my own mouth. He swayed as he walked over to where I was standing and then picked me up and threw me over his shoulder.”
“He marched to my bedroom, threw me onto the floor, then slammed the door and walked out. I heard the lock on my door being shut and angry footsteps retreating back into the living room. At this point I couldn’t take it anymore. I flung a couple changes of clothes and some other things that I knew I couldn’t live without into a duffel bag. I grabbed a heavy book and threw it as hard as I could at my bedroom window, surprisingly shattering the glass with one toss. I heaved myself up and out and ran as fast as I could. “I didn’t see anything as I ran; I was too busy trying to keep my mind blank. The next thing I knew, when I looked down at my feet they were no longer touching the ground. Instead I was flying.”
“I spent the next few years living on the streets, discovering that I had more than just the power to fly. I realized I had some sort of super strength as well as being able to shape shift into a crow. I also had animal empathy which helped me more than once when I was in a jam. At first I used my powers to thieve, stealing food, money, and clothes that I would need to survive.”
“But one day when I was walking down the street, scouting out my next target, I saw a little girl inside a house, being beaten by her father. I felt the adrenaline rush through my veins and I didn’t stop to think as I flew over, smashed through the window and pulled her father away. He was so stunned he just stood there, staring. I picked the girl up and dropped her off at the nearest police station, explaining what had been going on. Then I disappeared.”
“From that moment on I decided to use my powers for good instead of evil.” Crow said nothing else as she looked down at the floor.
“I think I ruined the good mood…” Crow said with a sigh. But before the words had time to sink in, Seera jumped up and ran to turn on the radio.
“A good smustle can always cheer things up,” she said, and began smustling. Olive and Shannon quickly jumped up to join her, and even Crow’s face was graced with a smile when she too joined the group.
Although the four women had different personalities and came from different backgrounds, they all worked side by side with one another for the common good of others and through their trials and tribulations, they had become good friends as well which was the greatest reward of all.
