The Authors 3 Forum Darkness Complete

Kyndra POV

Mandy and I sit in silence for a few moments after Jay disappears. Our eyes meet, and I hold her gaze, still feeling that icy anger inside of me as she continues to glare. Her fists clench and unclench, and I can tell she is barely holding back from tackling me. 

"Is that really what you think of us? Of me?" I ask, my voice low and shaking with anger.

"What else would I think after what you did to me?" she growls. "You deserted me. You tossed me aside like I was a worthless piece of s***. And so did every other filthy metahuman that's had the dignity to step into my life and ruin it. And when they were done, they left me for the birds to wallow in their self-righteousness." She pauses, her gaze cold. "And if you have a problem with that, then I'm sorry, but you're going to have to step out of your self-righteousness kiddie pool to get your dignity back.

"Dignity? Self-righteousness? Are you kidding me? What are you, some sort of villain or hero giving their purpose speech? Give me a break. Maybe Darknight should've left you in the filthy car repair shop he found you in. We don't need people to bring us down, people who just make themselves and everyone around them miserable. I'm not sure what Darknight saw in you, but I'll tell him to bring you back. We've all changed, Jay and I for the better. I thought that you would have as well, but now it's clear that I was wrong." I turn to leave.

"I used to think you were my friend, but now that I've seen what become, I'm glad you left me a long time ago," Mandy replies, her face filling with disgust. "Seems I was right all along. I am just a tool, aren't I? Just a small little pawn that you can easily kill off when you're done." Her voice changes suddenly, from cold to imitating. "And I don't see any of you guys with problems as bad as mine, so you can stop being saints and f*** off.”

I give a cold, bitter laugh. "Wow, using my own words against me. Remind me again, Mandy, what's been so bad that's happened to you? Have you been diagnosed with a terminal illness? Have you accidentally done something that's made it so that you can never go back? Have you ever done anything not f****** ordinary in your life??" I spit. Anger, burning, blazing, red-hot anger flows through my body. My face twitches a little with the anger that I'm holding in. How had I ever thought that she was a good friend?

"No, because I want it to stay that way!" she snarls and leaps at me. She pushes through the bars as if they are red vines. I try to step away as she flies towards me, propelled by some sort of superstrength, but she hits me anyway, knocking me off balance. I catch myself on the wall behind me and slide my dagger out of its sheath, cursing at her as my watermark tattoos glow brighter. Mandy growls and comes after me again, swinging her fists at me with fighting skills I didn’t know she had. While I’m pleasantly surprised, her little bit of street-fighting experience has nothing on my years of training at Seraphimbia with this world’s top combat experts. I smile, duck under her fist, slide my dagger back in its sheath, and crack my knuckles, ready to kick her butt. As her next fist nears my face, I catch it with my right, grab her arm with my left, and step forward to use my body weight to throw her over me. She lands on the ground with a heavy thud. Immediately, she’s on her feet and angrier than ever. I’ve never seen her this mad before, and it’s almost amusing as I cover my anger with a blanket of ice, cooling and clearing my mind. I’m still pissed at her, I’ll just deal with it later. For now, my mind is crystal clear as I analyze the situation while ducking her flying fists.

I see an opening and shoot my foot out, catching her in the ribs. She grimaces and holds onto them as she steps back and regains her balance. I stand in a relaxed combat stance, waiting for her to attack. Instead of swinging at me, Mandy takes another approach. She charges me like a bull, coming at me in a headlong rush. I sidestep her, but her flailing arm catches me in the stomach, and I’m taken down with her. I swear at her and throw her off of me and get up, brushing the dirt off of my jeans. I bring my hand up and shoot a stream of water at her, pinning her to the wall, rendering her immobile. She is panting, but untamed fury still burns in her eyes.

“I just wanted to spend time with you,” she says. “I wanted to make sure your last six months were worth it. And what did you do? You threw me away like I was some useless piece of crap!”

“I didn’t throw you away! You know I hate pity! You know I hate having people seeing me weak! I didn’t want you to see me like that! You can’t blame me for that!! After my surgery, I tried to find you, I did everything in my power to find you, but I couldn’t find a single thing. You wanna know why? Because you were so normal. Darknight wasn’t the only one searching for you for years. And did you ever search me out? Try to find me? No. You didn’t. So don’t put this on me. If you had put away for self-pity for even just a second and cared, this wouldn’t be happening. This, all of this, is your fault.” With that, I release her from the wall, the water streaming back towards me and joining the streams flowing around my limbs again.

“If you were looking for me, you didn’t look very hard,” she mutters. 

I run a hand through my hair. “Are you kidding me? I searched and searched. I looked in every address book, hacked into all of the government documents, I couldn’t find any registered address or phone number or even email! You were so normal that I couldn’t even find you!”

“It’s called hiding in plain sight. I haven’t even moved counties since you left. I went to the normal high school, the normal college, and I have a normal job. And I want it to stay that way.”

“When I searched, you weren’t even registered. You can’t blame me for leaving you behind if you’re not willing to progress. I’m not staying behind just to placate you.”

“But you didn’t have to leave.”

“If I didn’t leave, I would have died. When I got to Seraphimbia, they found out that I had been diagnosed wrongly. I had only a month to live. So, yeah, I did have to leave. I’m not sacrificing my life so that you can spend a couple weeks with me. Would you rather have attended my funeral?”

“Given what you’ve become, yes.”

“Oh, really,” I snarl, my anger overcoming my common sense and ability to find words. Instead, I starting singing, raging wordless notes coming out of my mouth, directing her to get back in her cell. She takes a few steps, then stops, and looks at me like I have two heads, confused.

“The hell you doing?” 

Her slightly shaky voice shakes me out of my stupor. When she had stopped moving, I had been shocked out of my rage and been standing stock still, mouth slightly open.

“What? How... how? Only sirens can resist other sirens!! How?” I demand.

“What’s going on here?” a familiar voice yells, a dark figure striding down the hall towards us. Mandy’s fists clench again, and she looks even more pissed than before.

“Your fricking daughter is being a b****,” I tell him.

“You’re the one being a b****!” she yells. 

Darknight looks between us, completely baffled. “What? I thought that you guys were friends?!”

“That’s what I thought, too,” I tell him. Ignoring my comment, a fuming Mandy walks up to Darknight and punches him square in the face. Hard. I cringe as I hear the familiar cracking of his nose breaking.

Darknight swears and looks at her. “I can see what you mean,” he says to me quietly. “What is your problem?” he asks her.

“All of you!” she yells. “All of you filthy metahumans who dragged me into this and this bulls***!”

“It’s funny how you say ‘filthy metahumans’ as if you aren’t one of us,” I say coldly.

“Because I’m not.”

“Really? Because those crumpled bars suggest otherwise!” I exclaim, pointing. Darknight turns, looks, and jumps in surprise.

“What the hell?” he asks, turning to Mandy. “I didn’t know that you could access your metapowers! You certainly couldn’t during our fight.”

“You fought her?” I ask. “Really?”

“Because he wouldn’t get out of my shop!” Mandy interjects.

“Was it your shop, or the run-down dead-end dump that you came to waste your time at?” I ask her.

“There has to be normal people too, you know,”

“First of all, there doesn’t. Second of all, you are not and never will be,” I tell her.

“See?” Darknight says to Mandy. “You never will be. You already aren’t. You’re the daughter of the Eagle and the world’s most evil villain. How could you ever be normal?”

Mandy starts. “What?”

“You didn’t know who your mother was?” I say in surprise. I turn to Darknight. “Didn’t you tell her?”

“Uh... I thought that I did, I guess I missed that part. Besides, she’s my wife. Who else would I have a daughter with?” Darknight says.

“I don’t f***ing care who you think my mom is!” Mandy yells and pushes past us. “F*** all of you!” She runs up the stairs and I start after her.

“Mandy!” I call after her. She runs through a door, which almost slams on my face as I sprint after my friend. Blindingly bright sunlight hits me square in the face, and it takes a moment for my brain and cybernetics to catch up. I spot Mandy, who’s running towards the street. I chase after her, and heavy footsteps behind me indicate that Darknight is following. Mandy hits the road and starts running down the middle of it, cars swerving wildly to avoid her. As Darknight and I follow her, it’s obvious that she knows the city better than us. She slowly gains on us, and when she turns around a corner, she’s nowhere to be found when we get to the corner, which opens into a large parking lot that has no less than seven smaller alleyways branching off.

I turn to Darknight, trying to catch my breath. “Where’d she go?” I pant between ragged breaths. Darknight shrugs in reply, breathing too hard to say anything. After a few seconds, we hear loud voices coming from around one of the empty alleyways that lead off of the parking lot. Darknight and I head over there, and what we see is something that we would never have expected to.

END POV