"The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war. "
It has been but three years since the two Zodias were killed and the third was captured. For three years, there has been an uneasy silence between the worlds of the two species of human. For three years, the remaining nine disappeared into the masses of humans that went about their everyday lives, quiet and heads bent towards the ground, avoiding all attention. Until now, when there is a rush of an uncomfortable breeze that ruffles the smooth surface of the pond that is the world. The Zodias know that it is their turn to rise from hiding and fear, to establish a world of their own. The morning dawns again on the world. It is the winter of the year 2043.
Each Zodias feels a stirring within their heart, a stirring that whispers to them, commands them to find the rest of their race, the ten that remain alive upon this cursed earth, an earth where brothers do not hesitate to kill each other to survive. Where brothers would seem to much rather kill than come to an agreement. So the Zodias awaken, each in their respective "home" somewhere on the planet, miles and miles and miles away from one another. They do not know each other, have never seen each other's faces. But they will know when they come across another of their plight.
There's an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew yet. It will be cold and bitter and a good many may wither before its blast. But it's God's own wind none the less and a cleaner, better stronger land will lie in the sunshine when the storm has cleared.
The east wind is coming, and change is coming with it.
ALISTAIR MIZUGUCHI//19 AQUARIUS|| I am theWATER-BEARER. "Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent."
Somewhere in a dorm room in London, a boy shivered in his sleep, drawing the sheets closer around his body. It was warm in the room by a Londoner's standards, but from the perspective of an individual who had spent his life in Japan and Saudi Arabia and other warmer climates, his dorm was freezing. Even with the space heater Alistair had received as a present from Cassie, even with the four layers of jumpers he donned in his vain attempt at insulation. His violet-tinged hair quivered as he trembled, and he suddenly sat up in bed, grey-eyes open wide.
"Damn." He gritted his teeth and whisked the sheets around him, cocooning himself in white as he made his way blearily towards the bathroom down the hall, accompanied by the sound of his bare feet slapping against the linoleum, and the hiss of the cotton and flannel blankets dragging in the corridor. "Why the hell is it always so damnably cold here?" he grumbled, teeth chattering as he felt the cold climb through his feet and up his legs, raising goose bumps everywhere faster than he could say, "bloody 'ell."
"Ah. Morning, Alistair." A blond haired boy looked up from the sink in surprise, only to look away again when he saw that it was only his friend. The corners of his mouth twitched when he saw the his friend's thin, quivering frame bundled up in miles and miles of sheets and fabric. The entire mountain of cloth quivered along with Alistair, like some sort of a sorry-looking beast.
"Morning, James. Don't laugh."
"Here, have a pair." He tossed a knitted pair of woolen socks at the shivering boy, who clutched at them and pulled them on as fast as he could, then sighed in relief as the goose bumps started to recede. "Thanks, mate. Really appreciate it."
"Really, though. You've been here for a year, now. Haven't you gotten used to London by now?"
Alistair attempted to make a wide, arm-sweeping gesture, then decided it wasn't worth letting the cold air into his snug cocoon. He sniffed disdainfully instead. "Honestly, it's only cold in the mornings. But does it look like I've gotten used to London yet?"
"Well, no. But it's a good time to try. Come on, you big baby." James yanked away the sheets in one fell swoop, leaving Alistair standing there amongst a nest of multicolored sheets in nothing but his pajamas. Alistair hissed and cursed, attempting unsuccessfully to return to the pile of blankets that were held in place by James's foot. "You bastard."
"Ah, the monarch has shed his cocoon!" James laughed. "Come on, now. We've still to go for our morning swim. Get your stuff, and let's get a move on, alright?"
Minutes later, Alistair hurried through the hallways of the school in the direction of the athletic wing, where the school's Olympic sized swimming pool lay in wait for him. Only a few students were up and about at the time, but those who were stole glances at the slender youth in collared shirt and ironed slacks that ran through the hallways with a towel on his arm and goggles strapped to his forehead.
The swimming pool was quiet in the morning, empty and calm, the waves shimmering with the sunlight of the early sun that filtered through the clear glass roof above. Besides the sound of his footsteps echoing as he padded around the perimeter of the pool in his flip-flops, the only sound was the motor that continuously filtered and pumped gallons and gallons of chlorinated water every minute. Alistair set his stuff down on a chair, then proceeded to strip down, revealing a tanned chest, well defined abs for his thin frame, and a pair of rather form-fitting swim trunks beneath his crisp slacks.
"What the heck, mate? Those ain't underwear."
Alistair snorted in irritation, not even needing to turn around to know that James stood there in all his swimming gear. They'd had this conversation many, many times.
"It makes me happier to wear them."
"But are they comfortable?"
"They offer me emotional comfort, if that's what you mean."
"Do they, you know... cut off blood circulation."
"No. And James?"
"What?"
"Shut up and swim." Alistair strapped on his goggles with an audible snap and dove in, his face turned downwards to hide his grin as he glided through the water. The water was his real home, as it should be for a water Zodias. He flipped over, still submerged but facing upwards, gazing skyward at the clear blue sky while the water waved and fluttered, distorting the view. He sighed and stretched out his hand, trapping his air bubbles just below the surface, molding his air into one big bubble with the water, a bubble that changed shape from a dolphin to a school of fish, to a shark that prowled and swam around his waist. His hand dropped, and the bubbles disintegrated, floating indignantly towards the surface. Alistair sighed, wishing that he could show someone other than Cassie his powers. But he couldn't. Because his stupid gift had to be a curse as well. Who he was, what he was born with, it was all a curse. Being a Zodias was a damned curse, and sometimes it was great, but sometimes he'd give up his identity as the Aquarius in a blink of an eye. Not that it mattered to think such thoughts. He couldn't change who he was. And as long as that was true, he might as well enjoy the abilities he'd been given.
So he rested on the bottom of the pool, arms crossed beneath his head, an occasional bubble escaping his lungs as he watched his hair wave against the backdrop of the fluttering blue water sky.
TRISHA BLOOMINGDALE x ll x ll x ll x Capricorn || I am the Aquaiga. "Past scholars studied to improve themselves. Today's scholars study to impress others."
Trisha warmed herself up for the big competition by getting dressed in her swimsuit. Although it was preferred of her coach to wear the swim cap, Trisha felt the need to leave it be and just let her hair glide with the water today. A big swimming competition was coming soon, and it could give her a good reputation as well as a scholarship if she won. She wished one day to become a professional swimmer as a career. After all, it was the one thing she could do with her legs. The water let her glide and fly - it was her escape from her limitations. A chance to pretend that nothing was wrong with her, and that maybe one day she could walk again. Many people had recommended her to have her legs surgically removed and get prosthetic ones... but then she wouldn't be able to swim. Trisha would rather be disabled on land but free in water than the other way around. It was just her preference, and a lot of people didn't get that. They thought she was weird for not choosing land as her preference, because, well, all humans walk on land so why not? But Trisha didn't want to conform to society and just go with whatever everyone else wanted. She only had one life, so why not live it to what you want it to be?
An escort pushed Trisha into the girls locker room to help her change into her swimsuit, and then she was taken to the pool. When she arrived she saw a handsome fellow taking his shirt off as well as pants. She shut her eyes in fear he had only underwear underneath and was bound to take that off too, but when she opened her eyes back up she saw that he had his swim trunks underneath his pants the whole time. Trisha giggled a little at the silliness of the situation, but was stopped in her thoughts when her escort helped her into the water, and she instantly started to swim even without her goggles. Usually she didn't wear them - she preferred to keep her eyes open. Trisha actually had a translucent third lid that covered her whole eye when in or about to become in contact with water. It helped control the pain and pressure of the water against the bare eye, and it served as a permanent and portable pair of goggles.
ALISTAIR MIZUGUCHI//19 AQUARIUS|| I am theWATER-BEARER.
"Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent."
Splash. Something entered the water next to Alistair, and he swiveled around in the water just in time to catch sight of a girl plunge into the lane next to him, bathed in a veil of tiny iridescent bubbles. She seemed rather... young to be an Uni student, but then again, it wasn't as though he looked his age either. Due to his skinny frame, ruffled hair, and large, expressive eyes, the college sophomore looked to be just over sixteen. A high school student, he wondered. What's a high school student doing at an university swimming pool?He watched her swim, speeding past him faster than he thought possible for such a small person to move, and his eyes opened in surprise when he realized that she didn't have goggles on. His mind calculated the speeds at which she was moving through the water as he watched her brown locks drift out behind her, barely registering that she was definitely and impossibly fast.
"What the-" he mouthed underwater, and then his face curved into a smile. Wouldn't it be fun to race her? After all, swimming at Olympic speeds was nearly effortless for him, what with the powers that gave him the ability to manipulate water... the water didn't fight him, didn't push him back as it did with other people. He was already fast, but his Zodias abilities made the water push him along, carry him and part for him as he sliced through it like a sharp blade through butter. But this girl... Alistair began to doubt himself. Even he might not be able to win against this girl.
Letting the water carry him to the end of the lane, Alistair kicked off of the wall, his calf muscles flexing as they propelled him twenty feet out into the water in a mere two seconds. After swimming a couple laps with her, he realized he could just barely keep up with her. Barely. And that was with the water manipulation he was doing. He was pushing the water so hard, he was almost afraid that the surge would be visible from the surface. Wow, he thought. Her swimming is almost... Unhuman. No, not unhuman. Could she be...? No, she can't be a Zodias. It would be too much of a coincidence. The probability of me meeting another Zodias is a calculated 4 to the 209471294th power to 1. But... I did meet Cassie. He returned to the side of the pool, climbing out by hauling himself up the ladder as the water streamed off of him in rivulets. James tossed him his towel as he sat down in the chair, the former having already done his warm-up laps and was now lounging in a chair with nothing but a towel around his waist, blond hair glistening in the sunlight. Alistair glanced towards the door, just in time to see a quite a few heads dip out of view.
"You've got quite the fan club, James," Alistair muttered, gathering the towel closer around him. James grinned in response and fluttered his fingers towards the pairs of eyes watching them from outside the door. Alistair could swear that the pompous bastard mouthed hey ladies before turning his attention back to him and laughing, "Our fan club, Alistair. Anyway, how the hell do you stay down there so long? You dove in and surfaced about..." he glanced at his watch. "... 3 minutes later."
Crap. That was longer than he thought. He shrugged it off, replying, "Lung conditioning. I've been swimming since I was born." Which wasn't entirely untrue. He'd been swimming since a day after he was born. Swam before he'd crawled, walked, or ran. Well, not so much swam as propelled his tiny infant body along with little buffeting currents in the bathtub. To his relief, James raised his eyebrows but didn't question it. "Mate, seriously," he said, clasping his arm around Alistair's shoulders, much to the latter's irritation which only increased when he heard the collective sigh from just outside the door. "You've got it all, 'aven't ya? The looks, definitely the brains, and obviously the talent. You draw, you invent, and you swim like a damn Olympic. You lucky bastard."
"Yeah, whatever," Alistair replied, going back to watching the girl in the pool. A pair of crutches leaned up against the side of the wall, and a person -an escort, maybe?- stood by them, eyes on the girl as well. So she can't walk? Alistair wondered. But she swims so fast... so terribly fast. I've got to talk to this girl. But in private. "Oy, James, how about you head on back and get ready for class?" Alistair said. "I wanna do a couple more laps before heading back to the dorms..." James frowned, but nodded. Probably doesn't want to face that crowd out there alone. I sure as hell wouldn't want to. Bastard pretends to be a playboy. Sighing, Alistair tossed him a ring of keys that he'd nabbed at the start of his freshman year from an unsuspecting janitor. "The long brass one. Take the staff elevator up to the rooms."
James grinned, grabbing his stuff and standing up. "Thanks, Alistair. Really appreciate it."
"Yeah, yeah." Alistair couldn't help but smile back. "I wouldn't want to wade through a bunch of girls, either. Just make sure I get them back."
After James left, Alistair's gaze returned to the girl in the water. He sat perched on the edge of his chair, as motionless as a statue as he waited for her to leave the pool. She has to leave the pool sometime, right? he asked himself, foot tapping against the ground impatiently. He shot a look at the escort just in time to see their eyes dart away. Changing his position and crossing and uncrossing his legs, Alistair got up restlessly, strode over to the pool, and slid into the same lane as the girl. Submerging himself again, he waved at her underwater to catch her attention, chlorine stinging his eyes. "Hey," he mouthed. "I just wanna talk."
CASSIOPEIA "CASSIE" POND ll 17 Pisces || I am the Fish. <'}}}>< "Mechanized, fixed up, and ready to go! All for a price, of course."
Cassie was really glad she was a Zodias. This was the thought that ran through her mind at 6 AM in the morning, when the stupid rusting car jack failed her and a half ton of broken Honda Civic came crashing down on her head. She cursed loudly, her arms shaking with effort as she lowered the car to the ground and slid out from beneath it on her skateboard, face covered in oil. The old jalopy must have been at least ten years old, and it pissed Cassie off to see that the owner hadn't taken good care of the car at all. She stroked the rusted metal shell and crooned to it, "Don't worry, I'm just gonna take you apart and fix you up a bit before I sew you back up. Then you'll be as good as new." Fixing this old antique up would cover her costs for at least a year. No one drove cars anymore. Everyone had hovercrafts or took the Air Bullet, a train that traveled at speeds of up to Mach 1, weaving its way high above the city. Of course, in New York, some people still preferred to walk, just as they had for hundreds and hundreds of years. Some rich old fool had dropped off the car at her garage, probably after having heard about the best mechanic in the city that could fix quite literally anything. No one'd ever seen his or her face. They just called her "Fishie" and left their broken toys and hovercrafts and machines and whatnot with a wealthy sum of money by the garage door, all the while being watched by a small army of security cameras and bots, all homemade and engineered by Cassie herself to do her every bidding. Fishie could fix anything, just as long as you had the money to pay. Legality wasn't ever a problem. But she never charged extra. Only what she needed.
Cassie had been working on the car for a couple days now. She hated to admit it, but it was one of the harder and more fun jobs she'd had in a long time. Truthfully, she'd never had much practice on a car, considering that most cars were outlawed from the streets since 2020 in hopes of reducing environmental distress, but its heart of metal was just as pliable and beautiful as a hovercraft's. Now all she had to do was put the thing back together.
A couple hours later, the job was done and the car sat shining on the sidewalk in front of the garage, rolled out by one large bot and watched by a couple dozen cameras and lasers. People glanced at the car on their way past it, eyes glittering at the sight of the thing that was worth its weight in gold, but not daring to touch it. The last person who'd tried to steal Fishie's stuff was left with shortened fingers. Cassie pressed a button and leaned back in her chair, gazing at all the screens that broadcasted a live view of every inch of the property. "Hey, it's Fishie." The voice program screwed up her voice and sent it through the system, distorting it until she sounded like Darth Vader. "Pick up your car. It's done and sitting out here on the street." She pressed another button and the call ended. The clock read 7:10. School began at 8. Time to get ready.
Cassie's style was casual, comfortable, and classy. After all, she got it from Alistair, her British friend that looked like a model, thought like a computer, and swam like a damned seal. She brushed her unruly blond hair, leaving it free to float around and do whatever it wanted, and slipped on a black long-sleeved shirt with a low-cut neckline, a pair of skinny jeans that showed off her ridiculously skinny frame (wasn't her fault she didn't eat a lot: sometimes she just forgot), a warm, dark-blue hooded vest, and for the finishing touch, her signature headphones: glossy and black with plates of metal. When people asked her where she got them, Cassie'd just smile sweetly and say "Fishie owes me a favor."Ha, they don't even know the half of it, she thought smugly, smiling at the mirror. It was cold that particular morning, so she tossed on a fleece-lined jacket and grabbed her backpack, heading downstairs to her family's apartment living room.
Obviously her mother knew she was a mechanic. She approved as well, encouraging her to take on as many jobs as she could. Of course, that probably had something to do with the fact that she could barely pull in enough to feed the two of them every week whereas Cassie could easily bring in enough to feed them for months with just one job. Then again, she wasn't at home much. Salespeople traveled overseas a lot. Cassie didn't miss her, but sometimes the apartment could feel awfully lonely. But she had Alistair. He was a good friend. She'd sent him one of her first creations, a space heater, as a present, and in return, he'd given her a painting of a cyborg that took up an entire wall in her room. Best. Present. Ever.
Cold toast sat piled up on the kitchen table. Grabbing one slice and holding it in her teeth, Cassie locked the apartment door behind her and hurried towards the roof, jumped across the narrow gap to the next building, and descended the stairs. One can never be too careful, she thought, just in time to see the owner of the car deposit a bag of cash inside the garage door and drive his car away. School was pretty close, just ten blocks away, and if it weren't for the stupid education laws, she wouldn't even be there. She knew more than enough to survive in the real world. After all, her reputation as an engineer was more than enough to counter the fact that she was a kid. A kid with sweet tattoos and glittering amber eyes. But at school, she had a different reputation. She was the nice, kind girl with a winning smile and the personality of an angel. Fishie and Cassie Pond, they were both her, just split apart and belonging to different worlds.
TRISHA BLOOMINGDALE x ll x ll x ll x Capricorn || I am the Aquaiga. "Past scholars studied to improve themselves. Today's scholars study to impress others."
With swift, flowing movements, Trisha cut through the water with little to no force. gliding with the water and going in laps. The whole process was very calming and it allowed her to find a happy place of which no one else could see.
Trisha halted her swimming when she saw a boy mouth to him. The same boy that had swim trunks underneath his pants... why would he be talking to her, and want to talk to her?
"Okay." She mouthed back, rushing to the surface and then her escort helping her out of the water. She dried herself off with a towel, her hair and body soaking wet after just being previously submerged. She tied her hair into a messy bun for a second just so it wouldn't drip down her back as much. What did this guy want anyway? Trisha thought, stretching her arms out while in the wheelchair. Most people didn't really go up to her in fear they would offend her about her legs. For some reason it was hard for people to just accept the truth of someone being disabled and deal with it as if they were equals. That's all Trisha wanted anyway - a taste of normality.
Trisha didn't blame them for their lacking social skills though, as she didn't have much room to talk herself. When it came to talking to her fellow girl friends, she was terrible at conversing unless she knew them previously. Boys? Please. Trisha was terrible at even being near the opposite gender, much less talking to them. It was like speaking to a whole new species, and she didn't know a thing about their language or culture.
With a hand movement she dismissed her escort, wheeling herself to the boy.
ALISTAIR MIZUGUCHI//19 AQUARIUS|| I am theWATER-BEARER. "Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent."
Alistair... wasn't good with girls. Never had been, probably never will be. Independence was more his thing. Yeah. Independence was definitely his thing. It was hard for him to trust anyone with anything or rely on other people. Or have other people rely on him. The very thought made him shudder. So he barely ever spoke to anyone anywhere. Hell, it took James an entire semester to get Alistair to trust him.
Sure, he might have been good looking. Sure, he apparently had a fan club of his own, and sure, maybe he was the generically hot and brilliant foreign exchange student, but with all the traveling he'd been doing since he was little, he'd had little to no contact with females of his age. Well, besides Cassie. But Cassie was like family. Cassie didn't really count as a girl, especially since she was quirky high school genius Cassie Pond half the time and Fishie the mechanic the other half.
He climbed out the water behind the girl, shivering as the air chilled his wet skin. Taking a seat in the poolside chair, he wrapped the towel around his shoulders and looked closely at the girl as she was helped into her wheelchair and toweled off her dripping brown hair. To his surprise, she dismissed the escort and wheeled over to him.
"So, you wanted to talk to me....?" she said, and he looked straight at her eyes and started to stammer. An IQ of 180. Humph. Isn't doing you much good right now, is it, Alistair? his brain chided himself.
"I- uh- um- yeah. Yeah, I wanted to talk." He tried to smile and succeeded only in blushing a dark shade of pink. Shoot. "So, uh, anyway. Does the word Zodias mean anything to you?" He tapped his foot nervously and studied his knuckles. He could be risking his life right now. Who knew who this girl was? But he felt like she was a Zodias. He'd weighed the odds, calculated the consequences and came to a reasonable conclusion. It made sense that she'd be a Zodias. The abnormal talent at swimming when she sat in a wheelchair on land. Alistair had a hunch. And when he had a hunch, he was usually right.
TRISHA BLOOMINGDALE x ll x ll x ll x Capricorn || I am the Aquaiga. "Past scholars studied to improve themselves. Today's scholars study to impress others."
Trisha looked perplexed by the boy, giggling a little when he struggled with his words to speak to her. A boy that's just as shy as her? Probably not... maybe?
When the boy spoke, Trisha looked pretty confused. She had never heard of the word before, and it sounded more like zodiac. Had he said the word wrong from being nervous? Trisha thought this over, but shook her head eventually.
"...I've heard of zodiac, does that count?" She asked, tilted her head to the side in confusion. What was this guy talking about? Trisha didn't even know his name, and had never seen him before. But then again, she hadn't been in this building before since she was a high school student after all. With special permission she was able to practice here from now on for competitions, since her high school didn't have a pool of her own. It made it easier on her to practice since she only had an average pool in the backyard of her house - not nearly as large as a tournament pool.
ALISTAIR MIZUGUCHI//19 AQUARIUS|| I am theWATER-BEARER. "Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent."
Oh, crap. She's not aware of it? Alistair began to panic, and then he took a deep breath. But I've always known I was a Zodias... I don't remember being told I was one... and I remember being hunted when Project Zodiabolical was still active... was she just never found? She was never discovered? That's... that's impossible. The Virgo told me just before she got captured that the government had found all 12 of us... Another possibility popped up in his mind. Perhaps the shock had caused amnesia? It was certainly plausible... who knew? And then again, should he even take the chance of explaining it to her?
"Okay, so you never wondered why you couldn't walk but you could swim like a freaking fish?!" he asked her, a touch of disbelief in his voice, then looked down, ashamed of the way he had raised his voice. "I-I'm really sorry for shouting at you like that, I really didn't mean to," he stammered, though his voice hadn't been that loud in the first place. "I guess you don't know what Zodias are, huh. I'll tell you, then. About three years ago, the government started hunting Zodias. That's people like me and you. People with strange powers that make them almost superhuman..."
He told her about the history, about how during the war, he had teamed up with the Taurus and Scorpio and somehow obtained a folder from Project Zodiacal that revealed the fact that the Zodias were a whole new different human species altogether.
"... faster, stronger, and we have telekinesis, though none of us dared use it for fear of gathering suspicion. I'm the Aquarius, and you... You are probably the Capricorn since my friend Cassie is the Pisces." He paused in his explanation and looked at her, trying to judge her reaction. "I'm sorry, I imagine this is all rather hard to take it. But please, don't tell a soul about it. Not your parents, not your escorts, not your friends. I had a friend who was killed because his own parents betrayed him..." he trailed off, staring down at his knees. What if she doesn't believe me? It definitely sounds like one hell of a fairy tale."I swear to you, I'm not making any of this up!" He cried, looking up at her.
TRISHA BLOOMINGDALE x ll x ll x ll x Capricorn || I am the Aquaiga. "Past scholars studied to improve themselves. Today's scholars study to impress others."
"Okay, so you never wondered why you couldn't walk but you could swim like a freaking fish?" The boy said, and Trisha just shut him out after he started blabbering about fictional nonsense. Were all boys like this? What was this guys problem? She would have never thought he would have been so straightforward, weird, and rude.
"I... I think I'm going to leave now. I hope you find peace someday." Trisha said, a distressed look on her face as she started to wheel away. What was this guy even rambling about, Zodias? She had never heard the word in her life, and all of a sudden some boy at a swimming pool is talking about telekinesis and superhero powers. Oh boy was she going to tell her mom about this - it was probably the most interesting thing that happened all week. Trisha wondered why he was even like that... poor kid probably had a mental disease of some sort. The superhero powers threw her off, and the whole subject and how it was explained was weird. Some kid she had never met before just confronted her and told her that he thought she was some superhuman being. Maybe I should be flattered, maybe he was just trying to say I swim good or something. In a really, really weird way. She pondered over the thought, but shook her head.
ALISTAIR MIZUGUCHI//19 AQUARIUS|| I am theWATER-BEARER. "Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent."
"Oh, god. She thinks I'm a loony."His brain instantly lapsed into thought, trying to figure out how likely he could convince her that he was telling her the truth. "No, wait!" he cried, grabbing out for her arm instinctively. "Only one thing to do now.""Give me one moment, I swear! Look! Look at me!" He spun her wheelchair around, accidentally using more force than he needed as he drew on the powers that were unique to him, reaching out towards the pool and siphoning a small sphere of water out, letting it hover between them. "Look," he said softly, letting go of her arm as he manipulated the water into schools of fish and dolphins and sharks that swam around them. With a sigh, he collected the water into a sphere again, and tossed it back into the pool.
"Do you see now?" he asked her. "Yes, I'm positive that you have to be Capricorn. I recognize you from... Wait here, I've got something else to show you." He ran over to his stuff on the pool chair, pulling out his cell phone, and pressed a few buttons which projected a blue hologram into the air above it. An invention of his and Cassie's brains. A couple more buttons beeped as he tapped them quickly, pulling up a ghostly blue file that read Capricorn in bolded letters, was stamped with [CONFIDENTIAL], and contained a picture of Trisha's face at the top.
"It doesn't say your name, but when I stole these files from the lab, I scanned them into my holo-phone. Look. It's got to be you. It even says that you went through some sort of shock and lost your memories. That could explain everything!" he looked up at her, excited. "I knew you were a Zodias. There's so much that you've been missing out on! You probably haven't even discovered your talents yet!" His voice grew somber and quiet, and Alistair glanced around. "But look. You've got to keep this a secret. We're in hiding, and if the UN gets a hint of where we are, they'll tear the city down trying to find us. They killed two of our friends and a third locked up in that lab of theirs, doing experiments and the like." He shuddered, then looked at her.
"You believe me, right? You have to believe me! Ask anyone, I swear I'm not crazy! But don't tell anyone that you know about the Zodias... even if you aren't one, you'll be killed for knowing about them. Believe me, I... I know. I've seen it before. I remember."
