3: Home Again…
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-Where we left off-

“See ya kid.” Spentricus said before sending me through the portal she just made.

Holy shit! She brought me directly to the sitting room in my apartment. Wow, cool.

“What, the, FUCK!” I heard two people say at the same time.

Oh, crap.

-Now continuing-

“Where did you just come from!?!?!” Samantha screamed. In a flurry of speed she grabbed a nearby baseball bat and held it up in preparation to strike.

“Who are you? And I swear to God if you move I will go all Chuck Norris on your ass and roundhouse kick you outa here faster than Mystrix Pallas could herself!” Jack shouted as he raised his fists and got into a fighting stance.

“Woah! Woah! Woah! Wait! It’s me! It’s Alan!” I raised my hands towards them in defence.

“Alan? Ha! Do you think we’re idiots or something? Alan isn’t a short gorgeous girl. He’s a tall lanky guy!” Samantha said as she took a big step towards me and gripped the bat harder.

“Oh Jack’s, definitely an idiot for sure...” I quipped. As I cringed slightly at her comment.

Samantha showed a slight break in her resolve and smiled, but then came back to full seriousness and gripped the bat even harder.

“Okay okay! I Emerged last night! Okay! That’s why I don’t look like Alan!” I shouted out in hope that they believed me.

Samantha lowered her bat slightly and looked at me skeptically.

“Well I guess that’s possible... But! You are going to have to prove that your Alan.” Jack said as he edged closer towards me, still in a defensive position.

“How? Do you really want me to spill embarrassing secrets about you guys?” I asked, with a slight smirk on my face.

“Not really. But if you want us to believe that you are who you say you are. Then, there isn’t really a better way to prove it better than that...” Jack said as he slightly lowered his guard.

“Fine. Samantha, you had the biggest crush on Dani Potters in primary school. And you made me promise to never tell anyone.” I said teasingly.

Samantha’s whole face turned red in embarrassment.

“Really? You had a crush on that prissy, stuck up bitch?” Jack laughed out in shock.

“She was prissy on the outside! But I think she secretly was sweet on the inside...” Samantha explained to Jack as her blush grew deeper. 

She looked back towards me. “You promised that you wouldn’t tell anyone!” Samantha cried out in embarrassment.

“Oh come on! This was years ago!” I reasoned.

“Still...” Samantha said as she looked away shyly.

“And you Jack... Come here.” I said, beckoning him over with my hands.

He came over cautiously and stood awkwardly in front of me as I stretched up to him. (He was a lot taller than me now.) And whispered in his ear.

“You have had the biggest crush on Samantha since forever. But you are too shy to ever admit it.” I whispered teasingly into his ear.

Jack turned a deep crimson as I said that, and quickly backed off to the sofa to sit down.

“Okay... you’re definitely Alan. You’re the only person who knows that... and I extremely doubt that he told you. He isn’t the kind of person to do that.” Jack reasoned. “Not to mention that he never left the house so it’s highly doubtful that he would have met you. Let alone speak to you. You’re way too pretty for him. He would have just been a bundle of nerves.” Jack thought aloud.

“Gee, thanks... you truly flatter me...” I said sarcastically. Before pausing for a second. “Wait pretty?” I blurted out.

“Uh, yeah! Girl you are smokin hot! And I would totally hit that if you weren’t Alan...” Samantha stated. Staring at me with a look that both said ‘well duh!’ And ‘oh yessss...’ at the same time. “Hmm. Actually I might anyway...” She added quietly at the end.

“Actually. Now that I’m really looking at you. You kind of look a bit like your sister...” Jack said while he stared at me with... Awe?

“Oh yeah! She does look a lot like Lizzie! I see quite a lot of her Mum in there too!” Samantha said as she also stared at me. But with a mixed look of desire and fascination instead.

Snapping out of his staring session, Jack suddenly lifted his butt and scooted over to the end of the sofa and patted his hand down, indicating to me that he wanted me to sit down. I wandered over to him and unceremoniously dumped myself beside him. I saw Samantha roll her eyes in my peripheral vision before she too came over and sat down gracefully next to me. Wedging me between the two of them.

Samantha looked at me with compassion and gently grabbed my hand, guiding it onto her lap as she began to stroke it softly.

“So come on then. Tell us what happened, what happened last night? The last thing I remember was looking for you before all hell broke loose.” Samantha asked curiously.

And so I began telling them of what happened yesterday. I told them about me leaving the club. And the strange sight of a man standing in the middle of the road, and how I ‘saved’ him by tackling him out of the way of the moving truck. They gasped at that bit and congratulated me on being so brave. I told them about how I felt when I got hit by the wave of energy and how I woke up in an abandoned warehouse with the strange man. I took a deep breath before diving into the whole conversation with Spentricus. I told them what he, then she, looked like. And then I explained about how she told me that she was the God of Time. They both looked bewildered when I got to that bit. And only grew more so the further I explained, on how I absorbed her powers, and how I’m technically her child now but not really. I kind of blurted out the rest of what I could remember of the conversation from earlier. And by the end of the story, I was kind of mentally tired and both Samantha and Jack were just staring into space. The gears in their heads turning and clunking away. So much so that you could almost hear the ‘clunk’.

“These, powers then...” Samantha started gently. “You said you have powers over Lightning, Ice and Time. But what about the others?” Samantha asked. With a slight look of concern on her face.

“I have no idea...” I started before looking at my hands and sighing.” The only thing I have discovered so far are these.” I said before concentrating and flicking my hands. The talon like claws quickly popped out. Both Samantha and Jack jumped away from me slightly.

“It’s weird but ever since I accidentally brought them out earlier. It’s almost felt like that they have been always there now. And all I have to do is think about bringing them out and then ‘whoosh!’ They pop out.” I explained as I held my hands away from myself.

“Damn... those look sharp.” Jack pointed out as he inspected them from afar.

“Jesus. I can just imagine you tearing into something with those.” Samantha said with a shiver.

“So other than the super scary, super sharp claws, can you do anything else?” Jack asked me.

“As I said before, I don’t know. Spentricus told me that I could have absorbed any of her practically infinite amount of other powers. Not to mention the ‘normal’ powers that I got from becoming an Emerged.” I explained. I sighed gently, shaking my head with annoyance.

Samantha looked at me for a second before speaking up. “I hate to add to the list of things that you need to think about and figure out but...” She paused for dramatic effect. “How are you going to tell your parents?” She asked carefully.

“Oh shit my parents!” I said as I stood up suddenly. “I completely forgot about that! How the hell am I going to tell them?” I said, panic growing more in my voice. “My mum might be okay with it. And now that I think about it, Lizzie will probably be thrilled to have a little sister.” I reasoned. “But... but, my dad? My father can’t find out. He, would, flip! If he knew what happened to me. He’s bad enough most of the time. But if he found out that his only son has turned into a girl. Worse, an Emerged girl...” I shivered at that last part. My face grew white and pale at the thought of my father finding out about me.

My father was a person that I didn’t try to think about. He’s not the nicest person in the world. Let’s just say he’s an abusive, sexist, racist, male supremacist drunk. Who is very anti-emergence, and extremely powerful. And let’s leave it at that for now.

“Don’t forget about College. You also need to re-register as a girl.” Jack, unhelpfully, pointed out.

“Not to mention a new wardrobe. Because most of your clothes probably won’t fit now...” Samantha said as she gestured at my tiny feminine body.

“Honestly the thing that I’m most worried about are your eyes.” Jack said while he pointed at my face.

“My eyes?” I asked as I started to turn towards the nearby mirror.

“Yeah. It’s a bit of a giveaway that you’re Emerged.” He said worriedly.

“Oh shit...” I groaned. As I said before, we’re better than a lot of countries when it comes to the Emergences, but we still had haters, like my dad. Not to mention I would probably get a load of shit for being a tiny Emerged girl. I always feel bad for the obviously emerged people when I see them on the streets. Because of all the judgemental and occasionally hateful glares that they get. It’s a lot better when there are more people around like the club last night. But if you were by yourself? God, that’s a slightly scary thought.

“What am I gonna do about these?” I asked as I gestured to my eyes.

“Maybe sunglasses? Or...” Samantha started before she suddenly stopped.

“What?” I asked, worried at why she paused so suddenly.

“Your eyes...” Jack said. As he just stared at me.

“Huh?” I asked, before I turned back towards the nearby mirror and saw what they saw.

My eyes! The purple in them was gone! Now I had solid green eyes with little flicks of blue in them. They looked normal! Suddenly something in my head just, clicked. And I turned my eyes back to green-purple, then back again.

“Okay, that’s kinda freaky...” Jack said as he stared at me.

I just kept switching them back and forth as I smiled at them... well at least I can disguise the fact that I am emerged now...

“WHAT THE FUCK!” Samantha and Jack suddenly both shouted at the same time again.

“What? I asked, panic quickly coming back into my voice, wondering at what was wrong.

“Alan is that still you?” Samantha asked cautiously.

“Uh... yes?” I said with confusion as I looked back at the mirror again. I looked at myself. What was wrong? I look exactly the same as I did before.

“What’s wrong? I still look exactly the same!” I asked, my confusion growing.

“No you don’t... but you do? Wow this is beyond strange...” Samantha said while rubbing her eyes in confusion.

“It’s... it’s like, you still look exactly the same. But... for some reason I think that you are a different person. It’s like thinking that you are the same person is wrong somehow, like I know that it’s you. But, it’s as if I don’t want to know that it’s you... Damn... it’s actually hurting my brain thinking about this. Can you switch back? This is too confusing...” Jack explained, before turning away from me and rubbing his head.

“Uh I guess?” I tried concentrating and for my efforts I got two sighs of relief.

“Thank god! That was hard to keep straight in my head.” Samantha said, while gently massaging her temples.

“How did you do that?” Jack asked.

“I, I don’t know. I think I was thinking about how I can disguise the fact that I’m an emerged now and then you guys suddenly reacted.” I said as I thought on how I just did that, and on how to trigger it.

“Ah! You’re doing it again! Stop! Please!” Samantha cried out, almost in anguish.

“Sorry! I think it triggers whenever I think about disguising myself.” I apologised as I turned the ability off again.

“Well that’s helpful to know.” Jack said with a sigh of relief. “I think we just have to think of you as someone else when you are using that ability. Otherwise it’s like our brains are being pulled in two different directions.” He explained. Before gently shaking his head side to side. In an attempt to clear the fuzziness from his mind.

I stood there awkwardly for a moment before going back to the sofa again and sitting down. We sat there in silence for a minute before I spoke up again.

“So... uh, you guys know what happened to me. But what about you guys? What happened after I left? You guys didn’t Emerge as well did you?” I asked curiously. They looked the same but you never know.

“No, no. Neither of us Emerged, as far as we know...” Jack said. He looked relieved.

“Yeah. We’re good on that front...” Samantha quickly added before speaking again. “Anyway, what happened last night was... interesting to say the least. As I said before. I was looking for you before all hell broke loose. Jack came and told me that you were leaving. In which I was kinda hoping that I would catch you before you did and convince you to stay. I wandered around for a few minutes looking for you, and then the Third Emergence happened...” Samantha said before being cut off by Jack.

“I was at the bar when it happened. It was crazy. Like 20 or so people emerged all at once in the club. We were lucky no one got hurt. The club almost burned down though. This one guy erupted in flames and shot I think it was like lava onto the floor across the bar. Fortunately the bartender put it out with his ice powers though. And everyone who was previously emerged helped out too. They evacuated everyone and helped the newly emerged people deal with their out of control powers. It was fucking amazing. I’ve never seen anything like it before. Everyone was helping out in one way or another, like a great big team. It was beautiful.” Jack said. Excitement clear in his voice as he explained what happened.

“Emily, the Emerged blue-haired, floating girl that I was making out with, flew me outside as soon as the Emergence happened and carried me to safety. Then after one last kiss she went back to help the club evacuate. Fortunately I managed to find Jack and we quickly walked off home. It took a while but we got here eventually.” Samantha finished with a smile.

“Oh but something interesting did happen on the way home though...” Jack started.

“Oh yeah! I almost forgot about that! That was so cool!” Samantha gushed.”

“What happened?” I asked enthusiastically.

“We saw that hero Apolla duking it out with a guy that looked like a giant ape!” Jack said excitedly.

“Wait. Giant ape? Like King Kong sized or what?” I asked curiously.

“No it was more like three times the size of a normal ape. So big. But not massive.” Samantha explained.

“She kept hitting it with fire until it tired out, and then she shot a light arrow from her flaming bow at it and captured it with a rope made out of hard-light! It was so cool.” He explained.

“Wow! That does sound cool!” I exclaimed with awe.

Apolla is awesome. She popped up after the second Emergence and quickly established herself as a hero. She’s also super considerate of other people, and makes sure to keep everyone safe as often as possible. She has one of the lowest collateral damage scores out of all of the heroes in the world. Which is probably one of the main reasons why she is so popular. One time this guy got crushed by a villain that she was fighting and after the fight she took personal responsibility for it. She held a Eulogy and everything. That’s how much she cares for others.

Not to mention that she’s like, super powerful too. She has powers over fire and light. She tends to use her fire powers for offence and her light powers for defence. She can make things out of hard-light like that rope that Jack mentioned, and can even make platforms so she can run around in the air. She can also summon a golden flaming bow, in which she uses to launch powerful fire/light arrows from. But what most people take notice of, is her armour. She wears this awesome golden armour over her entire body and has this helmet that only covers the upper half of her face. Leaving her eyes, mouth and jaw free. On the top of the helmet is a kind of vertical halo that is shaped like the sun. She has flowing golden brown hair that comes out of the back of the helmet, and apparently her eyes glow like two mini suns. But unfortunately, I’ve never had the pleasure of seeing her in real life before, so I don’t 100% know if that’s true or not.

Apolla isn’t really well known outside of the UK though. She tends to stay in the UK and has only been seen a couple of times in other countries, unlike some heroes like Mystrix Pallas who works all over the world. But to us, Apolla is like a local legend. So I’m kinda sad that I missed out on seeing her in action.

“Damn. It’s a shame that I missed that... I’ve always wanted to see Apolla in real life. Oh well, maybe one day.” I said, with sadness hinting in my voice.

“Anyway, after we got home we started getting worried because you weren’t here. We tried calling you but you never picked up.” Jack said with a serious look on his face.

Samantha spoke up. “I fucking freaked out too. I thought you got lost, then I thought that you got killed by a villain or something. Then I thought that you might have Emerged into an eldritch horror or something. Eventually though Jack managed to calm me down and we decided to go to bed. And if you were still not home by 12:00 pm today then we would go looking for you.” Samantha said as she twiddled her fingers.

“Well I’m here now and I’m okay, so don’t worry...” I said reassuringly. “By the way, what time did I arrive here anyway?” I asked.

“Uh, I think it was about, 11:30? We were about to get ready to go looking for you when you popped out of that portal. Which scared the shit out of me you asshole.” Jack said as he punched my arm gently.

“Hey! It wasn’t me! It was Spentricus who opened the portal! Then she just shoved me through! It’s not my fault that she opened it up right in the sitting room. I thought it would put me outside or something...” I said defensively. Before gently returning the punch.

“Ow. That actually hurt.” Jack said as he rubbed his arm slightly.

“What? You drama queen! I barely hit you. How did that hurt?” I asked with a slight mocking tone.

“I don’t know. I saw that you did that gently, but it still hurt for some reason.” He said as he continued rubbing his arm in confusion.

“Oh... I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you...” I said. Slightly upset that I accidentally hurt one of my best friends.

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.” He said smiling at me.

We sat in silence for a few moments again before Samantha piped up.

“Alan?” Samantha asked.

“Yes? What is it?” I asked curiously.

“Again, I hate to pile more shit on your brain but... I don’t think you can go by Alan anymore...” She said carefully as she grabbed my hand and started stroking it again.

I sighed. “I know... Spentricus said that too... I just don’t have any idea what I should be called...” I said as I stared off into space in thought.

“Hmm... maybe something that’s similar to Alan? Like... Alice maybe? Or Alex? Short for Alexandra or something?” Jack suggested.

“No...” I said. As I thought some more.

“What about Ellen?” Samantha suggested.

“Ellen?” I asked as I pondered on the name. I tried sounding it out. “Elllllen. Ellannn? Ellen...” I pondered on it more.

“We could call you Elle for short?” Jack suggested.

“Elle? Ellllle... Elle... I like it. Elleelleelle... Elle. I can get behind Elle!” I exclaimed, extremely happy that we came up with a name so quickly.

“What about a middle name?” Samantha asked.

“Oh that’s easy I’ll just use Maeve.” I said shrugging her question off.

“Maeve?” She asked.

“Apparently it’s what I would have been called if I had been born a girl. I asked my mum about it once. But I didn’t really like it as a first name.” I explained.

“Oh. Well okay then! That was quick.” Samantha said happily.

Jack suddenly got up and picked up the baseball bat that Samantha wielded against me earlier and stood in front of me.

“Ahem! I do dub thee...” he said as he put the bat to my shoulders and then my head. “Lady Ellen Maeve Poolbrook of England.” He said with a big goofy smile on his face.

“Stop it you dummy!” I giggled as I swatted the bat away. I then stopped and blushed furiously as I realised what I just did.

“OMG! You just giggled! Like a proper girly giggle.” Samantha giggled at my giggle.

“Shut uuup!” I said as I covered my face in embarrassment. My blush growing deeper by the second.

“Oh my god! You’re so adorable now!” Samantha exclaimed.

“Nooo I’m noooot! Stop it!” I said while burying my face harder into my hands.

They started laughing their heads off. Unfortunately it was contagious and we all ended up laughing and giggling for ages. We eventually stopped though. And god damn! I was suddenly tired as fuck now.

“Okay, okay! That’s enough now.” I said, releasing my last laugh.

Samantha wiped the tears from her eyes before standing up. “What’s the time now Jack?” She asked as she did a brief stretch.

“Uh... half two...” He said while looking down at his watch.

“Holy shit! We’ve been here for three hours just talking? Damn. That went fast.” I asked in surprise.

“I need food. You guys want anything?” Samantha asked as she backed towards the kitchen.

“Nah. I’m not hungry yet. I’ll just wait till supper.” Jack said as he stretched on the sofa.

“I’m fine, thanks Samantha. And actually, I think that I’m just going to go to bed early. It turns out that being unconscious isn’t the same thing as sleeping... So I’m fucking exhausted.” I said as I got up and headed towards my room.

“Okay then. Sleep well Ala... sorry, Elle.” Samantha said over her shoulder as she went into the kitchen.

“Night!” I shouted as I gripped my bedroom door handle. It sticks, so you kind of have to push it hard. So I put a little bit of force into it like I usually do, only for it to break off completely in my hand. Dumbstruck I turned the handle over in my hand and opened my palm. And saw that the handle was all bent in and squashed. I bet if you took a hammer and smashed it off it would look in better shape than this. I turned back towards the living room and called out.

“Uh guys! I think I found out another power!” I said as I waved the broken handle in the air.

“Okay... good thing I just got new ones then.” Jack said as he stared at the broken piece of metal in my hand. “I’ll put the new one in tomorrow. And maybe be super gentle when you open doors and stuff from now on...” He said as he shook his head in astonishment.

I quickly went into my room and shut the door. Sighing, I quickly pulled my hoodie and jeans off. Kicking my now way too big shoes into the corner of my room. I left my t-shirt on, which looked more like a dress on me now. I took one last look at the beautiful teenage girl in the mirror before crawling into bed and falling into a deep dreamless sleep...

 

Announcement
Uh... hi. I’m currently working on like multiple chapters at once and I will be at least posting one chapter every week... hopefully. We will see. Enjoy!
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