Cy/Kate
Training grounds - Underneath New Metropolis - Six hours before D-DAY.
The clash of metal against metal echoed around the large, lofty room. An older man's voice chimed against the flurry of sounds, arguably louder than everything else. "Hit Harder! Show no mercy!" He yelled, although if he yelled so his voice would be heard, or if he yelled to prove the point, Kate did not know. The smaller girl was in a battle against an older, stronger and more adverse opponent. The purpose of today's lesson would be to use intelligence to overcome an opponent of larger means. It had been drilled into her head from the moment she got there -- She had talents, and so did everybody else. What defined her from the ones who never got back up is the way she
used that talent.
Swords were never Kate's strong suit, but she would use what she was given, as she had been taught. With a battle cry, Kate ducked from her opponent's shimmering sword and lunged, plunging the silver metal straight through her sternum, and out the other side. Her opponent's sword dropped, her body falling limp, eyes closing in defeat. Before the older girl's former body fell, Kate ripped her sword from her chest as her body fell to the floor with a loud and reverberating thump.
But this would not be a sad day. Moments later, Kate's eyes watched as her opponent's body disintegrated into a million pieces, and a moment later Kate's would, too.
She opened her eyes as the man who had been shouting commands stood over her. Kate removed the blinking headset and got off of the table that was used for fights, and then shook the hand of her opponent. "Good job." For a teacher, the older man rarely issued congratulations, but Kate was one of his favorite students -- and the whole class knew it. Although, the 'training grounds' were not a classroom. It was an underground building that housed about twenty teenagers and young adults, hand-picked by their Teacher, Ajare.
"Thank you, teacher." Kate said, turning to face him. He had ging hair and wrinkles that gave off the illusion of old age, but he was anything but. She had once asked him who he was, and how he came to teach the way he did, but he did not give her the answer she wanted. Of course, she could always find out through.. other ways, but respect was the first thing he drilled into her, and it took more than a year for her to finally accept him as someone who deserved her respect.
He nodded once and turned the other way, taking a step forward and walking into the hallway. She had also learned to follow him, and that is what she did. Hands clasped in front of her, she dared a glance over at the man she had come to have a soft spot in her heart for, someone that had taught her how to get up and make a situation hers, how to create something better than herself, and to never take what she didn't deserve. "Teacher.." She started, then turned her head back. With a sigh, she began her well-rehearsed speech. "In the past four years, I've learned a lot from you. You taught me how to control my abilities.. how to make myself better. But now.. Now I think there are more things I can do. Things to help others, not just myself. I've learned a lot from you. You've taught me things I never thought I was capable of.. and I thank you for all of that. I just.."
He held a hand up, to silence her for the moment. "You're repeating things you've already said, child. In the past, that meant you had something important to say. Tell me, child."
She let out another sigh. "I just.. I heard from a friend that there's going to be a conference in Metropolis.. You know.. for auditions. For the Justice League. Before, I never thought of myself as that kind of material. But I want to be better, and I want to help others." She had heard about the Justice League even when she was still living with her father. But every time she talked about heroes, it seemed to send him on another rage road. She learned quick that talking about them would send him off.
Ajare looked at her with a stern face. "You trust me, don't you?" She nodded. "Then don't go. Only bad things can happen by aligning yourself with them. You have better things to do with your time." She was shocked. He always told her to strive to be better, to fix problems others couldn't. To hear him say those words... "But!" She was cut off quickly. "Katelyn Rain Monroe!"
She immediately quieted down. He had never used her full name before. Come to think about it, he had never called her by her name
at all, so this was new territory. Ever since the beginning, it had been 'Child'. No 'Kate', no 'Rae', heck, not even Cy, as she called herself sometimes. It was always Child, even when he was counseling her.
"You will not go, and that is final." He took a breath, then reached out to put a hand on her shoulder. "Trust me, you will understand in time." The corners of his mouth pulled up in a satisfactory response, and then he left. She pulled out her key card and scanned it over the scanner next to her door, then walked inside after a momentary beep. She walked over to her bed, sitting down on it and glancing around her room. Her room was fairly clean, a nightstand and desk occupied most of the space, and a few books stand atop her desk. Those were her studies, although she had read the books all the way through in the first few months. She had two boxes in the corner of her room. One contained robotics and electronic supplies, the other, gadgets she was working on prior to coming here. She sighed softly. She wasn't allowed to have any electronic supplies, but she had stolen the boxes back from the supply locker. Teacher knew that she had them, but instead of take them back, he let her rebel in her small ways. She would go insane if she didn't, and he knew that.
Glancing back over to the door, she thought back to the discussion they first had when she joined him.
"What do you
mean I can't use my abilities? You told me you would help train me! Teach me
how to use them, not how to turn them off!" He looked over to her with a warm and comforting expression. "Child, I promised that I would help train you. But to be trained, you have to have focus. Your ability, sadly, leads to being distracted, and if you want to excel, if you want to do things better and be better, you must first learn how to focus and become at peace with yourself. I will teach you how to use your abilities, but if you do not have focus first, you will not survive training. I will teach you, but only when you are ready."
She blinked out of her reverie and looked over to the box of electronics. For four years she had not used her abilities. For four years, she had to adjust to being
normal. Being special was all she had before, and now.. She shook her head. Four years ago, he had promised her that he would teach her. Teach her to use her abilities in time. But time had long since passed, and she was ready. She had been for a long time. She didn't know what was the hold-up, but one thing was certain; she wouldn't wait anymore.
Getting up, she walked over to her dresser and opened the top drawer. She had since made a craft of Jewelry making, and many of her tools would be perfect for the job. She pulled out her long-nosed pliers and the precision knife box, and sat back down on her bed. Zipping open the make-up bag she kept under her bed, she pulled out the mirror and situated it in a way she could see the back of her neck. It was now or never. Grabbing a shirt, she rolled it up and stuck it into her mouth, biting down on it. Opening the precision knife box, she extracted one of the knives and cleansed it with some alcohol. Holding the knife in one hand and the pliers in the other, she reached up to the back of her head and started getting to work.
Two months after she had been situated in the compound, Teacher had approached her with another man. He told her that to achieve her goals, she would need something that could put her mind at rest, and remove the complication of her powers. He explained that a simple implant would cease function of certain areas of the brain where her powers come from. First, she was opposed to the idea, but after talking with the other students, and seeing how it had helped them, she agreed to the procedure. She felt in a daze for weeks after, but she slowly recovered and moved on, leaving her powers behind.
Coming back to the present, the information she had read in her advanced science books gave her a good understanding of the veins, arteries and nerves around the back of her head. It would be enough to reverse the procedure, even though it held great risk if she did something wrong.
A half hour later and several towels later, she had located, found and removed the implant, and since stopped the bleeding. She was not a doctor, but she had a very good memory and knew a good amount about medical procedures, at least enough to avoid any irreparable harm. However, she
would need to be fixed up by an actual doctor later. Dropping the implant chip on her bed, she stared at it for a moment before something flooded her senses. Words, sounds, feelings, memories, all overpowered her to the degree in which she blacked out hard for several minutes. When she awoke, things floated in the air like a HUD, words and messages hanging in the air, lines of red, blue, and green going through the wall and coming out from all directions, most probable the way they were coming from. She hadn't seen this in years, and she hadn't realized how much she missed it until now. Just thinking of something caused it to appear, right in front of her. At the moment, it was the blueprints for the compound. Several unidentified areas she had never been to appeared, and she was confused by them, but they weren't her main goal. Her goal was the exit.
Cameras popped up in little circles around her, and it was then she realized that she was being watched. She saw herself on her bed, and also saw many other students doing activities in their rooms or sleeping. She also saw Teacher watching a feed of the students, however for the moment he was not focused on her. If she turned the cameras off, he would definitely be alerted. However... Her camera went off for a moment before it re-appeared, showing her reading one of her studies books on her bed. But, that was not what she was currently doing. She had set her feed on a loop of earlier today, before training. Standing up off of her bed, she pressed her hand against the scanner and it made a little clicking noise, before turning green and opening the door. She had overloaded the circuitry and opened the door, while locking everyone else - including teacher - in their rooms. They would not be alerted unless they tried to leave, but Teacher was the only one she was concerned about. Everyone else had curfew. Walking down the hall, her HUD-lit vision provided light in where there was none. She turned right and proceeded to the route the information and signals gave her, and suddenly she heard Teacher's voice. She gasped and pressed her back to the wall, before she realized she was picking up on a call he was making. She let out a sigh of relief, but instead of turning it off, she curiously listened in. "Ajare, long time no see. Is there something the matter?" She heard a man's voice she didn't recognize, then Teacher responding back. "Yes.. One of my students, She seems to be pulling away from me. She wants to join.. well, I think you can guess who." A chuckle was the response. "Ah, the Justice League. Should I take care of her? I can send someone out soon enough." She sucked in air. Did he mean what she thought he meant?
Take care of her certainly didn't sound good, or maybe that was because of the TV shows she had watched when she was younger. Teacher wouldn't hurt her, right?
"No, no, I have it under control. I just thought I should alert you, certainly after all the effort we've put into her."
"Yes.. I can understand. You did well by telling me. Let me know if anything progresses.." Teacher answered quickly, then ended the call. "Will do."
She didn't know who he was, or what he meant, but she was getting a bad feeling in the back of her head. She needed to go.
It took ten minutes to get to the surface, including climbing up a series of twelve stairs. She had no idea they were twelve floors below ground, but on the scale of surprises, this was near the bottom.
Taking her first breath of fresh air in four years, she arrived on the surface of New Metropolis via a subway access floor. Taking a look around, she walked up the subway stairs to the Metropolis road. Walking around the streets for a bit, she entered a Internet Cafe using her newfound abilities and sat down at a computer near the back. Logging onto an offworld bank, she entered her passcode and logged into her account. Looking at the amount of money she had stored sent her into a bit of a shock. Who knew four years of interest could amount to that kind of money. Of course, she had to have a substantial amount in there to earn enough interest, but that was when she was robbing criminal strongholds for fun. At fifteen, she felt like she could do anything, which is why she turned to bad activities. To escape reality and go a little wild. She didn't condone what she did, but she didn't think she was honestly doing wrong. Stealing from people who had already stolen wasn't wrong, was it? Besides, if she had found out where the criminals stole from, she gave it back. Most of it. She ended up hacking criminal bank accounts and stores that were actively doing bad stuff. Like doing experiments, killing innocents, funding villain sprees. She was a modern robin hood, and that's exactly what she felt like. However, now? She wouldn't do that anymore. She didn't feel it was right. But she did need money.
She deposited some money into a local bank and logged off the computer, exiting the shop and heading towards the bank. Twenty minutes later, she had a credit card and a practically invisible limit, so she could buy what she needed. First stop? Electronics store.
Cy/Kate
New Metropolis City - Three hours before D-DAY.
It was complete. It wasn't great, but for the meantime, it would do. She visited ten stores and bought supplies over two thousand dollars worth. She had visited a warehouse she had been using as her shop four years ago, and grabbed her prototype - her original design. Sure, an Exosuit required hundreds of dollars and a good design, but Kate had been practicing on this for a little over half a year. Using her abilities, she could create technology years ahead of her time, and understand it completely. Looking over the black exo-suit, she made little fixes to it and installed extra parts. It was bright silver, and several parts of the suit incorporated Nanotechnology. Fortunately, she had a dealer that exclusively dealt with tech that was incredibly hard to find. Nanotechnology and offworld metals being one of them. Her suit incorporated insulation, a shock-to-absorption ratio for nanotech, and completely water-resistant. The suit was capable of flight, but that was still experimental. There were a lot of problems and possible needs for upgrades, but it would work. After donning the suit and the helmet, she set out with a backpack full of what she needed to audition for the League.
Cy/Kate
New Metropolis City - Hall of justice - Ten minutes before D-DAY.
Showing up in her silvery exo-suit, she swung her backpack over her shoulder, pushing past the reporters and standing there, looking up at the Martian Manhunter and Wonder Woman. She gazed over at them before looking around. Where would Auditions be? That was her question.
She supposed that she could enter the hall.. but she didn't know if she could go right past the reporters and the two members of the justice league. What if something important happened? What if she needed to hear something? She didn't know, but excitement was bubbling up in her before she could contain it.
She didn't know where to go, who to meet, or what to do, but she knew one thing. This was going to be awesome.