The Ties that Bind

Introduction of a new character to the Akkadian Knights, character development for Caledonia and Captain Stumpy.

Caledonia liked working with metal.  She found it relaxing.  The physical properties of metal helped her focus her mind and energy in a way that other earthly materials failed to do.  It was predictable.  If you understood the engineering principles behind it, you knew when it would bend and when it would break.  You could mold it into nearly any shape.  Some metals, depending on their composition, were comprised of different elements, textures, and conducted energy very well.  She often wore a copper band around her wrist to help regulate her biorhythm as a result.

 

Although in her youth she had actually learned the properties of metal using her father’s forge and hammers, she had refined the art considerably since then using her powers.  Using her mastery of all earthly substances, she was extracting metal from a set of iron weights someone was throwing away, making use of something that would otherwise grace a city landfill.  As each drop of iron was pulled from the metal, it floated up into the air in front of her as if it was liquid mercury.  While she concentrated, a point would form at one end.  The shape would seem to pull itself out of the ball until there was nothing left but a nail as it floated in the air before her. 

 

“Ready.”

 

She lifted the nail up telekinetically, pointing it at a 2x4 standing erect before her and a powerful force slammed into it, nailing the wood perfectly against another board.  Caledonia smiled at Destiny and started over again.  As the next nail was completed seconds later, Destiny slammed it with another blast of telekinetic energy, forcing it into the same beam.  Between the two, the interior wall of the house they were working on was forming quite nicely.

 

Both heroines had been volunteering time to Habitat for Humanity in Evansville, Indiana, for some time now.  In their spare time, they had managed to construct 5 homes for needy families.  Given their innate powers, they could work without power tools and the process of building homes was progressing very quickly.  They were some of the few volunteers allowed to work without a supervisor present, as they were doing today.  In the absence of power tool and other people about, they were enjoying Mozart on Cal’s boom box.

 

The floor shook as a loud noise behind them distracted Caledonia for a moment and the perfect nail she was forming puffed up in the shape of a sticker-burr before falling to the ground.  The CD skipped and stopped playing.  With an annoyed look, she turned to see that Captain Stumpy had dropped three bags of concrete on the wooden floor of the house.  Shrugging his shoulders, the apologetic look on his face was too funny and Cal couldn’t help but to chuckle.  “I think that’s enough concrete, Stumpy,” she said with a smile.

 

Smiling, Destiny motioned towards the boom box and it resumed playing.

 

Behind him, a diminutive figure followed him into the room.  The house was still mostly just a frame and there were no walls yet so the look of astonishment on her face as she faced the three heroes was obvious.  All three heroes were used to it now, well, almost all three.  Cal and Destiny waved ‘hi’, smiled, and returned to work.  Stumpy slicked back his hair and trotted on over to the lovely newcomer.

 

“Hey there, what’s cookin’ gorgeous…” he said as he rested his arm up against the unfinished doorframe.  Giving him a sideways glance, the corner of her mouth went up and her brow dropped as if to say ‘yea, in your dreams’.  She entered the house.

 

“Caledonia?”  Her voice was soft, almost as if she didn’t believe her own words.

 

“Oh, well, if you swing that way…  I’ve got to get some more concrete anyway…” Stumpy mumbled but everyone seemed to be ignoring him.  He sighed and moved out of the room looking for more wood, bumping his head on the doorframe as he went.  Rubbing his temple, he walked outside.

 

Cal turned around, looking at the newcomer as she would any star struck youth.  They wanted to get all of the internal walls up before the gloomy clouds overhead let loose in the storm that all the weathermen predicted would hit later today, but there was always time to visit with an admirer.  What she heard next left her speechless…

 

“Mom, is that you?”

 

Outside…

 

Captain Stumpy picked up another dozen 2x4s and squinted up at the sky.  A single droplet of water hit his ever-present sunglasses.  Taking his glasses off, he put them in his jacket pocket and turned to return back to the house.  As he did, he glanced across the street to see a group of young men pull up in front of a small home in a bright purple ghetto cruiser with really expensive, gold spoked rims.  A rather large golden eagle adorned the hood, sticking up almost as high as the roof of the car.  Four tall, well groomed Latinos stepped out and started towards the home.  One turned at the gate and looked around.  Eying Captain Stumpy, he exposed a pistol under his leather jacket and a threatening sneer crossed his face.

 

“It would be better if you weren’t here right now, boleo…”

 

Stumpy didn’t move, but returned his gaze.  Seconds later, the crunch of wood shattering could be heard as the other three thugs kicked in the door to the house.  The scream of a lady could be heard inside.  Stumpy didn’t waste time, but dropped his wood and charged across the street.

 

The young thug wearing the leather jacket was taken aback at first.  Although he talked tough, he was inexperienced and wrestled with his piece for a moment, unable to remove it from its holster.  As he drew it, Stumpy’s hand closed around it, bending the gun in half.  His other hand covered the thug’s mouth as he let out a muffled scream of pain. 

 

Before the wanna-be passed out from pain, Stumpy whispered in his ear, “Shhh… let’s surprise your buddies, shall we?”  He tossed the young thug into the open window of his car and casually walked inside the house.

 

Back with the ladies…

 

A second time the CD skipped, apparently scratched by the jolt earlier.  Destiny motioned once again to re-start it and hit the radio button by mistake.  Not attuned to a particular station, it blared out the most annoying static as loudly as it could.  All three ladies covered their ears.

 

Across the street, at the same moment, gunshots would have been heard as another of the thugs went flying out of the house through the open front door, landing in the passenger side of the car parked out front.  Luckily for him, the window was still open.  He didn’t seem to be conscious.

 

Destiny thought she saw movement out of the corner of her eye as she found the right button to stop the annoying noise and re-start the CD player, but shrugged it off.

 

Caledonia broke the awkward silence, “Come again?”

 

“No, I’m sorry.  Let me start over.  My name is Hiley, and I think you may be my mother, or at least my grandmother.”

 

Although stunned for a moment, Cal couldn’t help but chuckle at the thought.  “I think I’d remember if I had a daughter.  I’m sorry, but you must be mistaken.  What makes you think we’re related?”

 

"I'm getting too far ahead.  Let me introduce myself, I'm Hiley Singletary, but I go by Doc most of the time."  At that, Cal's eyes lit up as if a light bulb had gone on.

 

"I've been working as a superhero for about 6 months now and have been searching for you most of that time.  Sometimes, even superheroes need medical attention. It's become my calling...to heal superheroes, with medicine and my own powers.  I was studying to become a doctor when my mutant powers developed. I discovered my affinity for medicine was due in large part to my ability to heal others supernaturally. I was adopted as a baby and knew nothing about my birth parents... so when I found out both my parents were likely mutants, I was determined to find them."

 

Hiley took a deep breath and continued, "I was finishing up my residency when I got my first clue to their identities. One clue lead to another and pretty soon, I had found my father. He had no idea that he carried mutant genes or that he had fathered a child 30 years earlier. In college, he had been too busy sowing his wild oats to get to know many of his conquests...or remember their names. He did, however, remember a "fiery redheaded local" he had met while hiking in Scotland."

 

Cal smiled at the mention of her adopted home.  

 

Hiley's eyes lit up anew as she saw it.  "So, a month later, I took a leave of absence and headed for Scotland to continue my search and that's when I found the Akkadian Knights' and you."

 

"Let me stop you there."  Cal reached up and placed her index finger on Hiley's forehead.  After a moment, she smiled.  "I know the connection now, let me explain..."

 

Across the street a tall Hispanic man came flying through the open living room window into a tall patch of bushes.  Landing behind the air conditioning unit next to the house, he too was apparently out cold.

 

None of the ladies noticed.

 

Hiley picked up a conventional hammer nearby and began helping out as Cal and Destiny resumed their rhythmic nailing.  They talked as they did, getting to know each other better by the second. 

 

Hiley was in shock. "So you're my great-great-grandmother and my what...5 or 6 times great-grandmother, too?"

 

"Actually, it's more like 11 or 12 times. It was sometime around 1558 or was it 1559. Honestly, I've forgotten. It's not that it wasn't important to me...it was... It's just been a really long time. I know that it's a lot to process."

 

"No kidding. So... what do I call you? Grams? Nana?"

 

Caledonia laughed. "I hope not. How about just Caledonia or Cal?"

 

"Caledonia it is, then," Hiley agreed.

 

"I never met your mother or father, but I'm sure we can find them in time."

 

"I think I'd like that, Caledonia."

 

Behind them, Stumpy rolled with the largest of the thugs out the front door of the house.  The thug had grown much larger and his skin had turned to a grey, stone appearance.  Apparently Stumpy wasn’t the only one with super powers… Stumpy tried to call or help, but the large man was choking his airway and he couldn’t get out enough noise to overcome the boom box. 

 

As the large Latino flopped him around like a rag doll across the street, the ladies continued to nail and laugh.  Each time Stumpy hit the pavement, another nail went in the wood covering up the noise.  Without even turning around, Destiny lifted another 2x4 and positioned it vertically to form another stud. 

 

Stumpy managed to get a hand on the large man’s belt and pulled hard.  His pants came flying off, although looking like a nondescript mountain of stone he didn’t seem to notice much.  A quick backhand sent Stumpy flying over the house into the back yard. As the large man disappeared out of sight around the house, flattening the chain link fence in the process, Cal turned around, “Where did Stumpy disappear to?”

 

“Probably saw some cute thing on the street and decided to follow her home…” Destiny said with a smirk on her face. 

 

Hiley simply chuckled.

 

Cal got up and walked out front.  An alarm went off at the end of the street as the local fire station mobilized for action.  Within seconds, a team was manning a ladder truck and it was roaring out of the station with horns blazing.  Over the noises of traffic and fire truck, she didn’t notice Stumpy stick his head around the corner of the house and call her name.  A large hand reached over, covered his head and yanked him back out of sight just as Cal looked that direction.

 

She turned to return to the house with another half dozen boards as a dog house went flying from one back yard to another, a poor Rottweiler huddled inside with its paws over its ears and a terrified look on its face.  It was followed quickly by an old, discarded porcelain sink.

 

Cal turned around, sure she’d heard something, but shrugged and returned to her work in the house.

 

Destiny looked back at her, “find him yet?”

 

“Probably goofing off somewhere nearby,” Cal said as she rolled her eyes.

 

“He’s a Knight, right?” Hiley chimed in.

 

Cal looked around again, but didn’t see anything.  “He’s still new to the team and can’t seem to hold his own yet.  Let’s finish this up and go get some coffee.”

 

“You know, I wouldn’t mind helping you on occasion if you could use me.”

 

Cal studied her for a moment.  “We lost a good friend recently who was a talented healer. We could sure use another of her caliber.  I’ll talk to Eron about it.”

 

Hiley’s face lit up in a large smile.  Cal saw a lot of family resemblance in that moment.

 

Destiny positioned all of the boards telekinetically and Cal formed a few dozen nails out of the remainder of the iron weights.  Hiley watched as Barb hammered them all into the boards at once. 

 

At the same moment, a solid haymaker landed under the stone thug’s chin, sending him flying over the house towards the Habitat Home.  Stumpy quickly jumped up after him, pounding him as he flew through the air.

 

-- BOOM --

 

The two combatants landed in the yard of the home under construction, sending up a cloud of dirt and dust everywhere.

 

All the ladies covered their faces.  Destiny was the first one to turn around as she used one hand to cover her mouth and the other to wave dust away from her face.  All three turned in time to see Stumpy stumble into the room.  His muscles were taught from the workout and his shirt had been ripped off.  He was covered in sweat stone dust.  

 

Cal spit dust out of her mouth and looked at him crossly.  “Didn’t I tell you we had enough concrete?”

 

“But…” Stumpy tried to explain, pointing back at the purple car.  

 

The car was gone.  Apparently one of them had come to and driven off. 

 

“But…”  

 

The thug behind the AC unit was gone too.

 

“But…”  He turned towards the super-powered thug and realized that he was nothing more than a pile of stone bits and dust. 

 

He stood there, mouth agape, not sure what to say.

 

Hiley walked over to the door and picked up a dark shape on the ground.  She dusted it off, turned to Stumpy, put his sunglasses on, and chuckled.  “Come on big boy, no need to show off for me.  We know you’re strong.”

 

Destiny shook her head as she passed him, dusting off her blouse.  Cal simply goosed him in the arm as she passed, like his big sister used to do.  Scratching his head, Stumpy shrugged his shoulders and followed the ladies out for coffee.

 

Two days later at the Akkadian Knights' Keep...

 

Eron and Caledonia are alone in the Keep's garden, walking back from the village.

 

“So... have you told Hiley you're not from Earth yet?”  Eron asked quietly.

 

“Not yet. I thought I'd let it sink in that I'm immortal and that she might be too, since she has so much of my DNA... Besides, genetically, I'm just as human as anyone else on the planet... and I'd say I've been here long enough to claim citizenship to just about every nation I've lived in.”

 

“How many is that, out of curiousity?” Eron asked. He'd only known Caledonia since shortly before she joined the Akkaddian Knights a little less than a year ago.

 

Cal sat back in her chair and thought for a moment. “Mmmmm... Let's see. Scotland the longest, of course. Wales for, let's see-- a little over twenty years this time and about fifteen years in the 1200s. England on and off for probably at least a hundred years. France on and off for at least another hundred. Here and there all over Africa for probably a hundred years or so. Persia, back when it was known to the world as Persia, for at least fifty years. India for the first twenty years after it became part of the British Empire and about five years just before it gained independence.” She got a far-away look in her eyes for a moment and then continued, “North America for most of the late 1700s and early 1800s... and all over South America for most of the late 1800s.”

 

Eron smiled. “Sounds like you have the soul of an adventurer.”

 

Cal nodded. “I've always called it wanderlust. I don't like staying in one place too long, so I've wandered where ever the roads...or rivers or oceans take me.”

 

“How long do you think you'll stay with us?” Eron wondered.

 

“Tired of my company already?” she joked.

 

“Never.”

 

“The short time I've been here has felt more right than any other place in a thousand years. I guess part of my wanderlust was about always looking for the others like me. I hoped they were still out there, but I didn't know when or where. When we came here, we all split up and went our seperate ways. Don't get me wrong... I was very happy with my decision to go back into Scotland's past... It was the right thing to do... but that doesn't mean I didn't miss the others.”

 

Eron knew that Caledonia had gone back in time to the days before the Romans came to Brittain, but he hadn't considered that it was a conscious decision on her part. “What was Earth like when you and the others got here?”

 

“You really don't want to know,” Cal said gravely.

 

“I do.”

 

“The Zigonians had enslaved humanity. Is that what you wanted to hear? They outnumbered us tenfold. We knew that if there was any chance whatsoever of saving humanity that we would have to go back into Earth's history far enough to really effect it. We knew we had to teach Earth's people what we knew to save them.”

 

The sun was slowly sinking in the west.  

 

Caledonia and Eron sat on lawn chairs overlooking the ever-changing maze with their backs to the Keep.  For a bit longer, they sat in silence.  

 

Caledonia finally asked, "So, is she in?"

 

Eron grinned, "She's family.  Of course she's in."

 

Cal reflected his smile.  For the first time in a very long time, she had a family again.