Superhero Adventures, UK Style

He sleepily ignored the gentle knocking. He couldn’t continue to ignore it however when a female voice called out his name; “Akira!”

The cry startled him. He had been already half-asleep, despite the fact that he’d only left the reception room a few minutes before where he’d been conversing with Doc’ Avery.

He sat up suddenly; too suddenly – oh, brain rush, ouch!!!  Damn, he hadn’t been prepared for anyone coming to his private quarters. Thankfully, he’d collapsed on his bed fully dressed!

He pulled the door open (a little too quickly, and had to jump back slightly as the door narrowly missing scraping his big toe) to find himself staring at Donna.

“Hi,” he said, “sorry you startled me.”

“I’ll go if its’ inconvenient, it’s just I wanted a chance to talk with you.”

‘Oh God’, thought Akira, ‘she knows.’

“You’ve been avoiding me” she continued relentlessly “and I think I know why.”

“Let’s sit down for this” and stepping back and sat on his bed, patting the cover beside him in what he hoped was a natural and friendly fashion. How she’d learnt of her grandfather’s continued existence he couldn’t guess.

Sam had probably told her!

Anyway, the question now was how much more to tell her? Would she be ready for a reunion with her grandfather, or his ghost to be exact, at such an early stage in the grief process?

Two scenarios flashed across his imagination, one in which overjoyed and thankful she threw her arms around him. Donna was pretty but despite her confidence and intelligence, she was what? 14 or 15? How should he react? Despite being older, emotionally he’d never had to cope with girls much growing up. Emotionally he was probably younger than she was! The other scenario was one in which she hurled abuse at them, him and stormed out. He really didn’t feel ready for either.

“Akira, are you alright?”

He swallowed hard, “Fine” and then corrected himself. “I’ve heard that’s an acronym for fucked up, insecure, neurotic and emotional. In that sense I’m fine.”

She laughed and nodded her head, apparently glad to be treated as an adult. This was followed by a long silence. A vacuum of silence that Akira found himself having to fill…

“Since the death of your grandfather I’ve been getting flashbacks. You may not know this,” then realised why would she know anything about him? They’d never spoken before now… What was wrong with him? Despite this mental castigation, he continued to blurt out… “But my parents died in a fire that I believe was caused by a meta-human…”

Was Lucius Cabot really a Meta? Somehow, he doubted that was the source of his powers.

He continued speaking on fast forward, “Since the day you and.. since the day I, we visited you and your grandfather I’ve lost control of one of our abilities. I used be able to read past history from people or objects at will. Now it just kind of turns itself on willy-nilly.”

He was struggling for words and this last expression caused them both to giggle nervously.

He stopped himself before he went into the ‘I was brought up in Wales, I’m a vegetarian and like long walks on the beach’ spiel, Akira reminding himself that can’t be the direction of this particular conversation…

“Where was I? Anyway, I keep getting flashbacks of your grandfathers’ death. I’m so sorry for your loss. I would have done anything to save him… to save my parents. I can actually see mother throwing me from the window, the room burning behind her; I can feel the heat, smell the burning…” For the moment, he was trapped in a past he’d been too young to remember naturally. His eyes misted over.

“Akira, please don’t get upset. I know you did everything you could to save my Grandfather. Sam told me everything, how you risked so much by teleporting in blind to try and wrest me from Dementia and then tried to save Granddad, how you managed to bring him back…”

She started to sob and Akira was about to protest that he hadn’t; that the Doc’ had returned of his own accord, but she hadn’t finished.  …”bring him back long enough to learn where I’d been taken before he… he.. Died!”

“Please don’t cry.” This was too raw… He thought again, about when he lost his parents and was almost about to again start talking about his own tragedy and the effect her grandfather’s death had had on him when he realised – just in time? – just how insensitive it would be. Comparing his tragedy with hers, so soon after her Grandfathers ‘death, would be obtuse to say the least…  He’s been about to call the murderer of his parents ‘an even greater evil than you can imagine’… Really? Worse than Dementia’s callous murder of her grandfather?

“Sorry I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately, too many memories they just take over sometimes and…”

Donna reached forward and took Akira’s hand. “It’s alright, I understand.”

Akira had never really held a girl’s hand before, at least not since he had been a very young child holding the hand of his adopted mother or one of his babysitters.

His thoughts drifted as he thought about his need for friendship, for companionship, his need to care for someone… And remembered just how young and vulnerable Donna was.

Donna spoke first, “You need someone in your life. Someone like Oliver.” She looked around for her bag then suddenly remembered it was back in her Grandfather’s, no, her house now… “Wish I had my phone so I could show you a picture of him. I suppose he’s still back at the house being looked after by Annabella – Granddad’s housekeeper? Really you should get yourself a dog too!”

Akira laughed.

Yet? He’d not thought about pets since it had been explained to him as an eight year old that personal pets of any kind weren’t allowed. But now what was to stop him? He could have the biggest, friendliest, most loyal hound he could imagine.

“Thank you” he said “for everything, for the idea, for…” What? The holding of his hand? For not having a boyfriend? He’d heard others at Skomer Vale talk about ‘jail bait’ – when the girl was…

Donna stood up, leant over and kissed him on the cheek. “Thanks again” she said and headed out the door and down the corridor. Through the open door, he watched her leave.

A few seconds later Sam poked his head round the door and turned to watch Donna heading back to the others… He looked at Akira and quietly spoke “Danger Will Robinson, Danger!  You do know she’s got a teenage crush on you don’t you?”

Sam stared after her and shook his head, “Don’t know whose childhood is more messed up; her or Bethany’s? You know Donna’s trying to sort out schooling and a safe home for her Amazons don’t you?  She’s grown up way too fast…”

He nodded at Akira, closed the door over and headed for his own room leaving Akira to lie back on his  bed and attempt to fall asleep  – a sleep he guessed would not be completely untroubled by guilt.

Donna walked into the lounge and looked at her Amazons. That had been weird. Had she read the situation right and he’d really liked her? Damn her looks – she knew she looked younger than she really was but he had to be in his twenties and she..?

Better to focus on what to do with her dream team, Avery’s Amazons. She smiled, literally her dream team; she’d been having dreams about these girls for the last several years. Premonition was what Granddad called it.

There was Ash, the youngest of the team hugging her rag doll. Lost in the Amazon as a baby, parents’ dead in an aeroplane crash – Ashley, Ash had been brought up by a Shaman of an uncontacted aboriginal tribe without any knowledge of her family until the Seminarium had found and kidnapped her. Ability to control others, make them feel pain or pleasure and move as she wanted; she’d rightly earned the girl’s nickname of Hocus Pocus.

Outrage, Judith Taylor, born in Yorvik here in England, was a meta-human with excessive strength and the power of flight – her parents had bumped her off to a meta-human institution as soon as her powers had appeared – what had she called it? The PITT; the Pryde Preparitory Institute for troubled meta-teens. Donna knew she’d hated it, had been scared of the head teacher, Ms Brandt. That was one place she would NOT be sending either herself or the others. No, she had to speak to this Bethany that Sam had been thinking about. She knew of a school that would protect them, help them grow into their powers.

She looked at the blonde haired girl sleeping on the sofa – Lillian she hadn’t expected and the removal of her parasitic personality had taken with it several years of her memories but she still had the ability of pyrokenesis and would need help controlling them. That was one she hadn’t seen but what was the point of forming her team of misfits if they didn’t welcome others who needed their protection? Expected or not she was with and part of them now.

Floating, apparently asleep but still creating objects out of thin air was the mystery wrapped in an enigma. Alien, not quite human and petite – really, not much taller than Ash – with a name she would never be able to pronounce and speaking a language unlike anything she’d ever heard was the armoured female creature she’d nicknamed Amethyst. Able to form unbreakable objects (and armour) out of the air itself, Donna had named her after her favourite purple stone.

Last was Aura, Audrey Novak, really and the only adult (if only just at 18) in the team – or was she? Wonder what age Lillian was?

Aura was kidnapped from the rock, from her home on Gibraltar having watched the Seminarium kill her only remaining parent she could create threads of luminous ectoplasm from inside herself that she could use to psychically attack, bind or defend. They could also pass through physical objects and walls.

She looked at the girls sleeping and yawned. She needed some sleep herself and Jeeves had made sure they all had some comfy sleeping bags to bed down in. She picked hers up and curled up on the plush carpet, drifting off in minutes to where Granddad waited to chat with her about where they went from here. Perhaps he’d finally tell her what this Lady Arcana nonsense was all about.