Saint Joseph School

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Elle sat in the Rikti Crash Site, just out of the DMZ looking at the downed Rikti Saucer. She'd been wandering though the mobs of the aliens which for once they could strike a critical blow and make this pain in her heart just leave her. Sadly they all failed, breaking their swords on contact or their blasts flying off in some random angle as the girl proved that the only chink in her armor was her heart behind it. She was the strongest being some had ever seen and documented but she was also the most human and fragile of them all. She'd never seen what society had become. Her life was a lie until she escaped, her powers getting her thrown out of her house, scorned by her father. Now her powers had killed things, because she couldn't control herself. She'd destroyed life because she was careless.

She sank to her knees on the roof, the Rikti smashed their swords and shot at her with their energy weapons, nothing had made a dent yet and like the rest shattered off her.

"Leave me alone..." Kirra begged.

The Rikti did not comply and attacked again. Kirra closed her eyes, her sorrow went to her balled fist and she let out a scream. The shock way blew out the buildings windows and the ensuing explosion was visible from halfway across Crey's Folly. Kirra stood on the collapsing rooftop, the crater below her was smoking, the Rikti were laid out across the land scape intact and unconscious. She never wante to kill anyone but she did because she was careless. She sank back to her knees causing the building to implode on itself with the rubble crumbling down around her. She never noticed any of it.

She wanted silence, and to be left alone. She want someone to tell her it was okay and that none of this was real and she was back at home with her father and this was just a dream. She wanted things she could never have. She could always hear herself and she knew her home was gone. Her dad was right though, her powers were ruining her life. If she didn't have them, she'd just be a normal girl, free of all these problems. This contempt herself only made her more confused. These powers seemed like a god send. She really could change the world, she could make the difference but now she was changing herself into a monster and destroying buildings and people's lives all in a matter of seconds. She never wanted to be violent, she just wanted them to comply and when they didn't, a few quick hooks and they'd fall down. Now it was all different, with things going 180 and her looking in on herself as something more horrible then the things she'd put away.

"Father..." Elle muttered underneath the rubble, "Father...l you were right." Elle whined.

"I'm sorry, I want to go back home. I want to finishing my school, I want to marry a rich man and be a good wife. I don't want to be a super hero, or a killer. I don't want any of it!" Elle cried.

The ever present tears began streaming down her cheeks again. She wanted this to be something great and it was ugly. It was beautiful and now it was gruesome. She cried with the rubble piled on her. She wanted it to be dark and silent while she cried herself to sleep. Her mind rested for once as her emotional exhaustion finally got the better of her and sent her into the darkness under the collapsed building rubble.

Elle sat on the chair outside the office of Ms. Valerie Atwood, school counselor. Elle was there because she'd asked for advice from her peers. They all pointed her to Atwood, the 'cool' psychologist. The door opened as a girl with white hair and a smug look walked out. Valerie peeked her head out around the corner.

"Elle Kirra?"

Elle got up, she was short of weak in the knees. She was scared that this woman might notify the authorities to her transgressions. She'd prayed earlier for god to forgive her, she hoped he heard it.

---

Valerie motioned for Elle to take a seat at her discretion. Elle promptly sat down, crossing her legs and looking proper, sitting straight up, face forward and eyes on Valerie. She was perplexed by this, she'd seen kids slouch and look away but Elle was attentive and serious. She took out her drawing pad and a pencil and sat it off to the side.

"Hello Elle."

"Good morning, Ms. Atwood." Elle replied.

"So how's school been going? You're new here right?" She asked, trying to get a feel for Elle's mental signal which, like the girl was peculiar as well.

"Not so well I am afraid." Elle replied, "I feel out of place among everyone."

"Please continue." Atwood motioned, hoping the signal would clear up so she could get a gist of this girl.

"I grew up with my Father raising me. He came from an aristocratic family. He taught me how to cook and clean and be proper. To respect everyone and most of all myself. I recently was transfered officially to this school though I've had several run ins with the students prior."

"Please continue." Atwood said, trying to stall.

"Up until a few weeks ago, I've been quiet with my father. I didn't tell him I had any powers. He has powers and he hates them so I was worried he'd hate me too." Elle continued, "I told him one night and he threw me out. He told me that I wasn't his daughter and that those powers would be a curse."

"Are they?" Valerie said.

She didn't get it, her pad was blank, her right hand wasn't moving an inch and so far there'd been three major things that could've been on that pad already. On top of that, she was getting a minor head ache.

"Well..." Elle said, looking down defeated, "yeah."

Valerie closed her eyes trying to get past the hit with the headache in her head. Elle was giving her static like none other, it was like a psychic block, right over her, impenetrable it seemed. Her hand remained rock steady.

"I did something horrible." Elle replied, "I committed a terrible act that I can not forgive myself for."

The static began to die down finally and that piercing headache was subsiding. Valerie looked across to her hand which was scribbling furiously. She looked back at Elle.

"I killed people. I wasn't aware of it till someone pointed it out to me. I hit them so hard I killed them." Elle said, her eyes welling up, "I committed murder."

Valerie looked across the desk at Elle, her right hand going a mile a minute, "It's okay Elle."

"I know. How could I have known? I still blame myself, I should've kept myself in check, I was so happy after I defeated Jurrasik that I didn't remember to pull my punches and I broke their necks before I realized that what I had done." Elle said, "Are my powers truly that strong? That with just letting myself go even a little bit, I could seriously harm another human being?"

Valerie furrowed her brow, "I would only assume this to be the case. I don't know how strong you are Elle, but I assume that if you were pulling your punches to make sure people didn't get hurt, I can't imagine what might've ensued had you not held back."

"That happened too." Elle said.

"Excuse me?" Valerie replied.

"After that, I left and traveled to a vancant part of the city. Rikti were everywhere and they kept trying to attack me but they could hurt me. I also just wanted to be left alone but they kept attack and trying to do something. I told them to leave me alone and they proceeded to continue so I threw a punch at them. I didn't hold back on that one but I aimed it at the ground. The building behind me, the ground and all the Aliens were blown away. I sent a crack into the ground that was too deep to measure." Elle recalled.

Valerie looked at her hand, the gorge Elle had mentioned was on the paper and it was vast, it looked like Faultline before the reconstruction with a dark figure collapsed on the side of it.

"Elle, you shouldn't be afraid of your powers but you have the right idea about it. You need to control them if anything because if what you described to me is true, then I can only assume that kind of thing can happen again." Atwood answered concerned.

"I know." Elle answered, "I still want to know how strong I really am and where my limit stands."

"I wouldn't know how you could measure that sort of strength Elle." Valerie replied, "I do hope I helped a little bit."

"Yeah, the more I talk about it, the lesser I feel terrible." Elle answered, "I'll stop back in a week Miss Atwood."

"Call me Valerie." She asked.

"Valerie." Elle answered and stood up from her chair and walked out.

---

The door closed and Valerie sat back in her chair. Her head was killing her. She knew why now. Elle's power was enormous. She was probably the largest anomaly she'd ever heard of.

"Valerie?" The speaker on the phone asked. Gemini was calling.

Valerie cleared her throat, "Yes?"

"Is Elle Kirra with you?"

"She just left." Valerie replied.

"Could you tell her to come to the office, her father is here."

"Her father?"

Bryan sat in the front of his Physics class; he was lost in his own thoughts. The majority of the class was still taking the pop quiz; it was on Inertia, Gravity and Friction. After finishing it quickly and confidently, he began doodling on a corner of his notebook.

He was thinking about his run in with Elle the other night. She was in a good mood, the first he could remember since the incident with the Devoured. Elle had hugged in tightly and playfully tossed him into the air. Her strength was incredible and, frankly, her seemingly blasé attitude about it was somewhat frightening. In response to the playful toss, he had used his own abilities and effectively made himself heavier. She had taken it as a challenge and again with very little effort tossed him quite easily.

Bryan picked up the mechanical pencil off the desktop. He quickly noted that he had weighed one hundred and thirty five pounds at Coach’s last weight training class. He also noted that currently in his powers training, he’s been able to alter the gravity of a standing object by a little over ten times the Earth’s normal gravity. Effectively making objects about ten times heavier that normal. He scribbled out a few quick equations.

“W = mg

Normal:
135lb(1 Earth) = 135lb

Altered at Max:
135lb(10.475 Earth) = 1,414.125lb”

One thousand four hundred and fourteen pounds, he thought to himself excitedly. That is the equivalent to throwing a sports car into the air with out as much as an exerted grunt.

He began run through an inventory of the things he could think of and their approximate weights and masses. Bryan also began thinking about what he knew from weight training; specifically about the maximum a person could dead lift in comparison to an unexerted lift weight. He kept scribbling notes and numbers on the quickly filling sheet.

His pencil dropped back to the wood surface with a clatter, a look of shock and dismay settled across his face as he stared out the window. “It’s impossible, she could possibly be able to lift that much weight; she would crush herself.” He mumbled to himself looking back it his estimates in disbelief.

Immediately, he was more worried than ever about her ability to responsibly handle that amount of power.