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I wouldn’t even know where to begin.
See, awhile back the world had been normal…or at least the closest we’d ever get to it, ‘specially since what happened in Empire City.
Back then it’d been me and my family, pretty normal folk just walking around town…taking in everything. See, the City has always been a great place for me and my folks, a place to go out and just explore a vast urban jungle, teeming with secrets that only the people who lived here could tell.
You might be thinking that I was one of the few who’d been there when the Ray Sphere went off, finding myself trapped in a true urban jungle, where it was literally do or die.
If only I’d been so unlucky.
It hadn’t been me, as I’d gotten very sick a few days before, making it very unlikely that I’d ever be seen near there…but my pops and brother were.
We still haven’t heard any word, and it’s slowly coming to the sixth anniversary of that date…me and ma are still holding out hope that we’d hear from them, however, despite those odds…even if our behavior afterward weren’t so stellar.
Momma had found that living so close to the city now gave her nightmares, so she’d taken me and the youngest out west, taking us to Philadelphia, where a small number of her friends had lived. But even then, it hadn’t been the right fit, and we’d found ourselves in Illinois, where we’d staked our final claim on a small house roughly thirty or so miles from Chicago.
But as always terrible things have always been known to happen and the Conduit riots in Chicago just seemed to bring that back out in full force. The problem was by this time we couldn’t move anywhere else, as Momma had been forced to go back into the workforce. As an economist, she did alright but was considered too ‘valuable’ for her bosses consider moving her.
So it’d been me and my littlest bro…out and about, taking the world by storm. Heh, if only we’d known how ironic that’d been.
My issue with people is usually because they’re idiots…which is somewhat hypocritical coming from me, considering some of the boneheaded decisions I’ve made.
But what really grinds my gears are the times when I see something and I’m unable to stop it. Usually, these are just in dreams, dreams that don’t mean nothin’ but are enjoyable none the less.
Like right now.
“I’m telling you, don’t do it.”
“You know me, noth-“
He’d broken his collarbone for that stunt, and I’d been punished for not paying him any ‘special’ attention, hadn’t even succeeded and I was given a raw deal.
But it’s never been about me…well, maybe a little bit…but now I’m just not able to deal with the shenanigans of life when I got two stubborn people living with me.
College seemed so far away at one point, but it had been approaching me…fast.
-{LINE}-
I’ve never been too sure about my place in the world...but I thi-FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Why does everything burn? Why am I in such pain!
-{LINE}-
"Hhhgggghhh...everything tastes like copper. Why does it...oh. I'm bleeding."
Painfully, I managed to get up and managed to get myself to the mirror. My hair was scorched at the tips and my fingers and to-holy shit. Looking behind myself, I saw that I'd accidently exposed myself to the fridge's frayed powerlin-the power was out, ho...
That's about when I found that I remembered way too much. I was a Conduit, an Electrokinetic, which is bad enough on its own seeing that most people still associated Conduits, especially Electrokinetics, with what McGra-oh.
...
...
...
OH!
...
...
...
Everything I've ever known is a goddamned lie.
-{LINE}-
It had only taken me a single semester to gather all my shit together and graduate from UoC as Salutatorian of my entire Class. See, when you've already completed three semesters worth of material towards completing your major-Communications-and just that material, it's remarkably easy to just power through the general classes in almost no time flat...even if the only reason someone like me even managed to do something like that was because of a brain enhancement an alternate of me-I refuse to believe that idiot of a person was supposed to be the 'real' me-getting into a deal with what's essentially a Spacegod...demon...thing...shut up!
I didn't recall everything that he'd gotten himself into-[Weellll, in actuality you do, you just doesn't want to deal with me being real]-OH FOR F^&<'$ SAKE, HE'S IN MY HEAD!
[And I heard every word...I'm gonna be very creative with you]
Oh dear God, please tell me this is all some twisted coma dream.
[Nope, sorry honey. I'm here to stay...say, it's really roomy in here]
-{LINE}-
"Hey Roomy?"
[Yeah?]
"For the first...six months you haven't said anything...not until I tal-[Thought]-smack about you. Why is that?"
[Was taking it all in, was taking it all in]
"...That doesn't answer my question."
[Sure it does]
"No it-"
[~I know a song that ge~]
"Alright, alright! I won't ask again!"
[See that you do...man, am I getting a kick out of this]
-{LINE}-
"...Why did we move across the country again?"
[I told you, Seatlle is where we need to be right now]
"I get that...but Mom is-"
[Look, you were already planning to go away-]
"Yeah but-"
[-and Seattle is the best thing to New Maraisis...and that place, despite their open arms policy towards Conduits, is just nasty with Vampires-]
"Wait...those are real!?!"
[-and that's here. Wow, you are just such a downer]
"But this is my life, why can't I-"
[Make your own decisions? You are, after all I'm just a voice in your head that you decided you needed to listen to]
"...I hate you so much right now."
[Duly Noted]
-{LINE}-
"...wait."
[Yeah?]
"You have an interdimensional storage place and it's only just now that you're telling me?"
[That's on you, [Savant] is supposed to help you remember this shit]
"..."
[Look, you have a perfectly good copy of my memories in your head, I'm surprised it's taken you even this realize that you haven't done your homework]
"..."
[Look, I get why you're not too keen to use the Electrokinesis-hard not to, with everything that's happened in your life-but my own? Come on, I don't have any powers, just Perks]
"..."
[Fine! I've also got a Pokémon PC in there with over 700 Pokémon...only six of them are currently my Companions]
"...which ones?"
[Oh, Thank God! He's Responsive!]
"...you're a Dick, you know that?"
-{LINE}-
"Hi there, my name's P-John Marcus. Some call me PJ, but you can call me John." I say to the guy I'm meeting. He seems to be fairly normal looking, for all his Rebel without a Cause look.
"Hi...not to be rude or anything, but what are you doing here John?" He says, frowning slightly at me.
"Well, I've heard that you're one of the besttaggersintownandI'mstartingupaYouTube channel...so synergy!" I'mabitnervousandthisreallydidn'thelpmycause.
"What?"/[You Bonehead]
"Sorry, I got ahead of myself, I'm a bit nervous. I'm starting up a YouTube channel and you seem like a good candidate." This time I manage to be...somewhat professional.
"...why? I know my art's good, but..." He's opened up a bit more, but is still confused at my presence.
"...look, truth is that I'm a Conduit too, and I'm getting tired of hiding who I am. My channel will be trying to show everyone that we can be normal people too."
"...what you got?" I know that he's asking about my power, seeing as he's openly curious this time.
"Electricity" I finally bring up my hand and lightning begins to run up and down my arm, before I start bringing my arm down, canceling the arcing power.
"...alright, we'll give this a shot. My name's Delsin. This her-"
-{LINE}-
Well, I could tell you about everything we accomplish in the next nine years, like me learning how to use my Electrokinesis to create dubstep music...that was a fun summer...which was also the summer that I got a kid.
...she's six and the most adorable thing, and look at her she can do fractions, I couldn't do fractions at her age and she's just lost her first tooth, oh and her name is Anna and she's got power over Electricity just like I do and-
-{LINE}-
OK, to make up for that mess I made back there, I've decided that I will tell you about that summer.
See, it started when we-me, Delsin, Eugene, and Fetch-decided that we were going to go on tour to celebrate our success...which a good chunk was because of Eugene's ability to bring video games to life, so we got mad endorsement deals from major companies who decided to cash in on our success-which did and had gone to our heads-so, we'd decided that we had enough by that time to justify a tour.
So, it had been a major success in due part because we had been blasting our news of cooperation between Duits and Norms...yeah, people weren't that creative with creating names for us...derogatory slang, not withstanding.
But there were states we...didn't get such warm welcomes, mainly more Urban cities, towards the East Coast. We'd actually had to run from Tallahassee because of how bad it was down there, though Nawlins was pretty cool with us being there.
It was actually here that I met Sandra-[His nickname for Her...and she was a total babe]-and where I'd eventually meet my own kid.
See, here's how things went down: I was hungry, [The kind of hungry only Jambalaya satisfies], and I went out into to town to find me some.
While I was there I met her...and holy shit did I ever meet her. See, it's not very romantic, running into a beauty-[The Jambalaya was a bad batch, and so he'd gotten the runs]-but I'd met her there, my...I'm sorry, what I was going to say wouldn't do her any justice, but she was Multiethnic-Cajun and just the prettiest girl I have ever the pleasure of meeting. Now she wasn't the prettiest because of her looks-[She Had Plenty to be Grateful For]-or because she was smart-[She Was Very Smart]-but because she was one of the kindest girls you'd ever meet-[She Was Just Barely Legal When They Met]-goddamn it man, she was 19!
[You were 27]
Not the point!
[I'm laying it out for them to decide, I'm ok with it]
Of course, you'd be.
[Look...]
No, my story. Shall I continue in peace?
[...]
Thank you. Now...it's a pretty normal story from there, we'd gone on a few dates and I'd been considering staying behind to live with her, no sense in making her leave with me, and that's when it happened.
You know how in your Earth, terrorists attacked Europe because of the Angry Jackasses with a Blog? Well, they attacked America this time because of us Conduits. They attacked Nawlins this time...not sure of the reasons to that actually, of how they got in or why specifically Nawlins, other than it being somehow easier to access...but I'd been forced to pull out the stops on my powers.
This had actually been the first time I'd been forced into a Combat Situation with my powers, seeing as beforehand the most I'd done with it had been healing and music. I had never used them offensively...other than to prank Eugene.
But what followed was one of the most disturbing things I've ever seen...no, it was one of the cruelest I'd ever committed. See, what they never told you about using Lightning as a weapon? It doesn't just knock you out and leave you in a somewhat ok condition like it does with a taser. No, lightning is...destructive. The people that I hit the lightning with...if they were lucky, they walked away with a neat looking scar, but if they were unlucky...dear God, the screams, the smell of charred flesh...at your own risk, google what I'm talking about.
Needless to say, that date was hastily canceled.
[It wasn't because of his Status as a Conduit either]
No...that I could have dealt with, but she'd been remarkably cool about that, since I'd let her know from the beg-second date.
[She Left Him, Because She Was Afraid]
-{LINE}-
You ask, "Then how did your daughter come into the picture?" Well...I'm sure you know how from your Health Ed/Biology classes...but needless to say, it had happened before that fateful date.
But honestly, after that had happened, I'd gone ahead and joined an EMS crew, to help assuage my guilt. If you want an idea of what that was like, I suggest you go take a look at the show Sirens on USA, if it's still on, or Netflix it if it isn't.
But I still did good work with the people on our Channel-[Orbital Drop (Over 13 Million Subscribers, WooHooh!)]-though being an EMT did take a huge chunk of my time. Funnily Enough, Fletch and Delsin had joined the Fire Dept. Eugene...well, we weren't exactly sure what he did, but I firmly believe that he'd been doing some Tournaments on the side.
But anyway, it wasn't until about two years later that I'd been informed that I had a Daughter...Anna. The circumstances of how I'd found out hadn't been exactly...pleasant, and what had happened would almost assuredly scar Anna for life.
But here we are, ten years later.
[...I'm sorry, but our time is up]
"Anna?"
"Yes Daddy?"
"I want you to know that I love you."
"What's wrong Daddy?"
"...It's been ten years since I became a Duit. It's been seven since I met your mother and five since I met you, Angel of mine."
"...you miss them Daddy?"
"Very much so. But that's not why, honey."
"Wh-Daddy why are you crying?!"
"I want you to remember me as I am. Promise me, honey?"
"Daddy, what's going on? Daddy please!"
"Honey, remember that I love you."
"DADDY!"
"I'm so, so sorry."/[I'm so, so sorry]
-{JUMP END}-