BottledChaos

To be honest, I've been struggling to write chapter 4-1, so I tried writing from a different PoV to get another perspective on the world. It turned out to fit decently well into the story, so enjoy this short interlude for now.

“A hero...” the girl whispered whilst laying in her bed.

She’d been happy to forget the dream of being a hero, but Chris and Flare just had to become heroes themselves. What did that make of Elsie, who had gotten her powers ages ago? A stupid coward, that’s what.

She sat up on her bed and looked at the wall. She raised her middle and index finger and touched it. Her fingers crackled and shined, and a purple blob sticking to the wall came to be. She retracted her hand and looked at it. A slit appeared in the middle, before the outer layer of the blob opened, revealing an eye. The eye locked onto her face.

“I’m such a coward,” she said, looking at her own face through the proxy. 

Of course, the idea of becoming a hero wasn’t anything new to her. In fact, she used to daydream about becoming one every day as a little girl. Ironically, that dream had been crushed the same day she’d gotten her powers.

It was the crowd’s fault. In their panicked rush, someone pushed her, making her trip and fall down the stairs. She couldn’t keep running with a sprained ankle, and nobody stopped to help her. She was doomed.

It didn’t take long until a  warped creature landed on top of the stairwell. Green cat ears, tail, and a face that gave way to pure ferocity without any humanity left. The dark green fumes surrounding her body didn’t make her look any less intimidating. 

Luckily, the monster wasn’t allowed to make any further moves as a hero landed between her and the powerless girl. His red suit hugged his muscle-clad body as his massive tail with orange scales flailed behind him.

“Run!” he yelled while looking up at the monster and forming a wall using the ash pouring out of his hands.

The girl couldn’t find the strength to reply and began limping away, wincing every time her sprained ankle touched something. She didn’t even dare look behind her. If she didn’t hurry up, she would get hit by the still ongoing starstorm.

And then a green ball landed right in front of her, popping and sizzling as it ate through the floor. The girl yelped and fell back, hitting her sprained ankle, and cried in pain.

“What? Oh, crap! I didn’t know you were hurt!” the hero said as he turned around to look at her while keeping up his ash shield.

He wasted no time in running up to her, intending to pick her up and carry her to safety. But that distraction was enough for his foe to get around his shield. A portion of the fumes surrounding the monster compressed into a ball and shot out. Despite being caught off guard, the hero reacted quickly. He produced a heap of ash in his palm and tossed it. The ash combusted, engulfing the acid ball, and neutralized the threat.

“Dammit!” he cursed.

It was hopeless, he couldn’t both fight the monster and carry the girl. He needed backup, but everyone else was busy with other threats.

“Stay down for a second!” he shouted as he threw more ash in the monster’s direction. The following explosion created a smokescreen he used as cover. He picked up the girl and dashed. Only for a blob of acid to shoot out of the smoke, hitting his back. He screamed and fell along with the girl. Her screams followed soon after due to her sprained ankle getting crushed under the man’s weight.

The monster pounced out of the fog, roaring. As he saw the approaching danger, the hero hugged the girl close, intending to defend her. Luckily, he didn’t need to. Backup finally arrived.

The monster’s momentum reversed from one second to the next and she flew right back into the smoke. An armor-clad hero wielding a lance stood off to the side.

“Salamander! Are you alright?!” Rook shouted.

“I’m fine! But we need to get this girl to safety before--” His head whipped up. “--ah crap!”

The girl followed his gaze and saw the flickering lights. The starstorm was already on the ground level and the nearest shelter was still a ways away. She was going to get hit.

Salamander wrapped his body around her, hoping to block out all the stars. They couldn’t pass through hybrids and bounced off, after all. But that turned out to be a mistake. While Rook did his best to redirect the monster’s attacks, the starstorm descended and the balls of light covered everything. Elsie didn’t even see where it came from, but when she got hit, she felt it viscerally.

Purple lightning shot out of her in all directions, most of it hitting the hero who’d tried to protect her. It knocked him out and sent him spasming on the floor. Elsie screamed as she rolled on the floor. More bolts of lightning shot out, hitting even Rook and the monster.

In all of that chaos, the monster shot out an acid ball and it hit the unconscious ash hero’s arm before Rook could redirect it.

“No!” the hero captain shouted.

Elsie’s memories from then on were a blur. More heroes had arrived at some point and managed to subdue the monster. Salamander had been carted off to the hospital and Elsie had been locked up for a while to make sure her powers stabilized.

Days later, she heard the news of Salamander quitting the Neo Wardens due to severe injuries. And it was all her fault. There was no way she could become a hero anymore. Because of her, a real hero had been hurt to the point where he had to stop being one. She would have to be extremely arrogant to think she could replace someone like Salamander.

Not to mention, she was scared. She’d dreamed of valiantly fighting all sorts of dangers. But when faced with one for real, she cowered and failed to even run away. She was no hero.

Elsie frowned at the purple eye looking back at her, remembering the day she’d gotten her powers.

Of course, Lullaby had entered the scene sometime after that incident, so Salamander was probably okay nowadays, although he hadn’t made his comeback yet. But that didn’t stop Elsie from hating herself for letting it all happen in the first place, and for being a coward.

She plopped down onto her bed with a sigh as the purple eye sizzled and dissipated.

But in the end, she couldn’t help it. All the danger, getting hurt, or seeing others get hurt. It was scary to be a hero and Elsie was a coward.

“A hero...”

But even Chris had become one. The same person who never had anything to chime in when the conversation turned to heroes. True, Chris didn’t talk much in general, but he, uh, she, was always so apathetic, it was hard to believe she would become a hero so eagerly.

Elsie got out of her bed and walked to her computer. She sat down, booted it up, and in a few minutes, she was surfing the net for any mentions of Ink, Phoenix, and Team Blackbird. She stumbled upon some photos and videos of the two patrolling around the city. But then she found a forum thread talking about an incident at the bank. 

‘Super creepy, but totally saved our asses!’ said the post left by Prism’s official account.

She continued and read about the details. About the bombs, about Ink getting shot, and about Threadmaker getting her jaw broken.

Elsie froze in horror for a second. As always, she was a stupid coward. While she was safe inside her little room, Chris had gotten shot. And not just that, she’d survived and turned the fight around. Like a true hero. The same person Elsie often saw as just a background character was a hero like Salamander.

‘From zero to hero.’ That phrase popped into Elsie’s head. Was something special about Chris? Or could anyone do it? Could the coward Elsie learn to stand up and be a hero?

“Could I...?”

Elsie took a deep breath while closing her eyes. Upon opening them again, her eyes focused on that sentence Prism had written. Her brows furrowed, her fists clenched.

Elsie stood up from her computer and marched to a specific wardrobe in her room. Upon opening it, various dresses and costumes greeted her. She ruffled through them while frowning and mumbling until she stopped at one particular costume. It was a simple spandex suit. Pink with vertical white jagged lines.

“Shock… shocker? Team Blackbird… Lightning bird… Electric… Crow? Zap… goose? Shock… Dove? Shockdove… Shockdove.” Her mumbles finally arrived at a destination.

She grabbed the suit and the sewing supplies from the bottom of the wardrobe and headed back to her bed. She splayed the suit out and frowned at it, putting a fist on her chin.

“Shockdove...” she whispered.

Chris and Flare were going out tonight. And not just on a random patrol. But to join an extremely dangerous encounter between two villain groups. Elsie told them to be careful, but she couldn’t help but feel guilty. She had the power to help. She needed to help.

Elsie spun around in front of the purple eye attached to the wall to get a good look at herself. She added a half-skirt to the back of her costume, making it look like a dove tail, as well as connecting her sleeves to the torso with cloth, giving it the impression of wings. Her purple hair was tied into ponytails and she wore a purple mask, only letting her eyes and nose show.

Her pirouette finished and she faced the eye while striking a pose. One hand on her hip, with the other in the air, index and middle finger pointing at the ceiling.

“I am! Shock! Dove!” Her fingers sparked.

She felt ecstatic saying that line. Like she could truly be a hero.

With a confident smile, she turned to her room’s door and grabbed the handle. And then froze. Images of the past flashed through her mind. The monster staring down at her. Salamander’s arm getting eaten away by acid. The text saying Salamander had to quit as a hero.

Her breathing got quicker for some reason. Her vision blurred and her hand on the handle shook.

What was she even doing? Did she have a death wish? She wasn’t a hero. She was just a dumb kid dressing up and playing make-believe. She could imagine beating up bad guys all she wanted, but actually doing it? That was never going to happen.

She eventually managed to calm herself down. She got up from the floor she had crumpled onto at some point, returned to the costume wardrobe, and changed from the child’s dream Shockdove back into Elsie.

She momentarily thought about burning the costume to make sure such idiotic ideas wouldn’t cross her mind again. But it was so much work to create it and looked pretty nice too, so in the end, she ended up stashing it away instead of destroying it.

Maybe she simply wasn’t ready yet. Maybe one day she would find the courage to put it on and go fight monsters and criminals for real. Perhaps one day, the coward Elsie would cease to be and give way to the hero Shockdove. But that day was not today.