Fifth Avenue

Two months had seemed to come and go, Hartley and Justin had trained every day and slowly she began to learn how to control her abilities.

Hartley sat in the corner of the training room scribbling in a notebook, her body was tired from the excessive training she was on.

“What are you doing there Blue, writing me a love note?” he jokes and she rolls her eyes slightly but quickly dismisses that silliness as he sits beside her.

“No, I’m writing a journal to track my abilities, I have noticed each hair colour is linked to a different power and whatever emotion I’m feeling controls the colour of my hair” Justin gives her a confused look,

“No look, see, pink is usually embarrassed which leads to a strong wind” she explains “Yellow is happy, which power I find completely useless but basically it just makes things more green, and flowery” Hartley flips the page “a darker blue to this is sad which leads to rain, red is angry and that power is fire, grey which is fear, this one makes the ground and walls crack” Hartley closes her book “These are the only ones I know about right now” Justin looks to her with a shocked expression “What?” she asks embarrassed, placing a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

He smiles “Nothing, that’s a lot of work, I’m proud” Justin stands up and brushes some imaginary dust from his shorts “Come on then” he reaches out and pulls Hartley up “Close your eyes” he tells her and she does before feeling the normal large gust of wind. “Open” he says and she does.

Looking around she noticed she was standing in a beautiful garden at the top of a high building which was lit up my lanterns allowing her to properly appreciate the beauty at this late a time at night, the only sound to be heard was the soft hum of nearby cicadas “I found this place last week, Bullet said you used to sit atop the roof, you used it as an escape from the world so I thought you might enjoy this place” he says rubbing the back of his neck nervously.

Hartley sat down in the fake grass and lay back looking up to the star filled sky above her. Justin soon joined her and sighed gleefully as a feeling of peace passed through both teens.

“Justin” Hartley says in a whisper.

“Yeah” he replies, not moving his eyes from the sky.

“Thank you” she pauses “for everything”

Justin smiles to himself, his hand goes to reach for hers and he hesitates slightly before deciding against it and just putting it by his side “No problem” he replies sometime later. Justin turns so he’s facing Hartley and she does the same to him “how old are you?” he asks.

“Fifteen almost sixteen” she replies and he nods.

“I’m eighteen almost nineteen” he tells her, they spend the rest of the night asking non-personal questions and answering them, only falling asleep in the early hours of the morning.

Hartley awoke to the sound of an alarm and she shot up only to find herself still on the roof with Justin beside her sleeping, no alarms were ringing.

She lay back down but as she closed her eyes she was once again surrounded by the sound of an alarm.

She heard gun shots and the sound of grunting in the far distance “Well, well, well” Hartley heard the croaked voice of Reaper echo “What’s up Doc?” a flickering image appeared in front of Hartley, Doc lay crumpled on the ground bleeding horribly “Wisdom told me to tell you she’s sorry she couldn’t make it but you know how it is with all that mass destruction stuff, it takes time” he shrugs before lifting Doc by his collar “She also told me to tell you she wants the girl back” Doc spits blood on Reaper making Reaper angrily throw him into a wall.

“Give us the girl Doc and we’ll leave you alone” he growls.

Hartley opens her eyes and shakes Justin awake “Wha-Blue what’s wrong?” he asks tiredly rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“I’ll explain later, we need to go back to the base, now!” although confused Justin obeys and links his arm with her, they were teleported back to the base.

The lights were flickering and the alarm was echoing through the halls “What the-” Justin looks to Hartley with question in his eyes before he could ask anything a woman’s scream echoes through the hall and they both knew it was Bullet.

Justin teleported out of the room they were in and Hartley tried to run to the source but instead stops as she hears a crash in Doc’s office, afraid of what she might fight behind the door she pressed her ear against it ‘Tell me where she is!’ Reapers voice boomed and Hartley gulped taking a step back, she knew she wasn’t ready to fight him; she had only been in training for a few weeks.

She took a step back and takes a deep breath “You can do this” she whispers to herself before closing her eyes.

‘You know he was only being nice to you because he felt sorry for you’

’HURRY UP ‘ND GET DOWN HERE OR WE’YA GIVIN YA FOOD TO THA DOGS’

‘Bet you’re enjoying this, the fact that everyone who has ever picked on you are slowly dying off, one by one’

Hartley opens her eyes, once again her eyes shimmered with an ember colour which matched her hair and she burst through the closed door.

Reaper had Doc by the neck and Doc’s eyes go wide as he sees Hartley, as if he was pleading her to run, go anywhere but here but in Hartley’s current angered state all common sense had gone out of mind, and she charged for Reaper.

Reaper smiled and stood waiting for Hartley to run straight into his arms, but she wasn’t that dim witted, along with her extensive two months training period Bullet and Shooter hadn’t forgotten to give her a further run down on their opponents, as they said, ‘Never go running into a battle blind’.

Hartley dodged his open arms and jumped high enough that she could kick his face sending him stumbling back slightly.

Reaper snarled as he cracked his neck, his playful mood had all but disappeared “This is no time for games pet, come with me and I will leave your team peacefully, no more scratches I promise” he snarls.

Hartley gives him a rude gesture with her hand before ushering him to come towards her “Try me” she spits and he launched towards her with anger but she quickly jumped away from his sloppy attack, his scythe slicing the end of her hair sending blue locks cascading to the ground.

‘Hartley, where are you?’ Bullet asks through the mind, Hartley grunts attempting to keep her focus on the fight rather than the conversation but she knew better than to ignore Bullet.

“Doc’s office” she says as Reaper kicks her into a wall. Within seconds Justin was in the room, he looks to Hartley but she shakes her head nodding towards the bloodied and passed out Doc slumped against his desk. Justin grabs Doc’s arm was gone within a blink of an eye.

“Don’t think you’re going with him again pet” Reaper growls grabbing her hair and lifting her up “You really thought you were any match for my fighting skills?” he chuckles “I’ve been doing this since you were in diapers” Reaper leans his scythe against the wall “now boss says I can’t kill ya, but hey if you happen to get a little scratched in the midst of transport, well that’d be a sad mishap I’m sure we could live with” he says pulling a switchblade from his pocket and digging it into Hartley’s thigh making her scream out in pain.

Her hands try and move to the blade but she was unable to reach it in her current position against the wall. She smiles up to him with a smile which showed both humour and pain “What in god’s name could you be smiling about?” Reaper asks confused before Hartley shakily placed her sweaty palm against his face.

The pain she felt seemed to fade as it somehow transferred into Reaper making him drop her and stumble back clutching his thigh confused. “What have you done?” he cries like a small child who didn’t get his way.

Justin appears beside Hartley and she grabs his arm quickly, wind blew past them and Hartley saw Fifth Avenue standing behind a large tree in a park. Shooter and Bullet had Doc’s arms around their necks holding up the still unconscious Doc.

She could see that nobody was ready for this attack, Bullet and Shooter were beaten and bloody and Kit looked untouched apart from a few scratches across his body.

“Are you okay?” Justin says inspecting Hartley’s fresh stab wound on her leg, she smiled but that vanished as she noticed Justin’s face was basically covered in blood from a large gash on his forehead. She nods but Justin tears a piece of his t-shirt tying it as a tourniquet so the bleeding would slow down. “Can I have a word with you?” he asks leading Hartley to the other side of the tree.

“How did you know this was going to-”

“I didn’t know” Hartley cuts in and Justin gives her an unimpressed look.

“I saw how afraid you looked Hartley, tell me the truth”

She sighs and looks down to her now blood smeared shoes “Okay fine, I kind of dreamt it” she says unsure “I’m being serious, I woke up to the sound of an alarm but when I sat up it was gone so I went to go back to sleep” she looks to the side “then I saw the base, Doc being beat up, it just didn’t feel like a dream so I woke up and tried to wake you and then that’s all” Justin looks at her for a bit before his face softens.

“if this is true you have to tell Doc”

Hartley jumps forward and grabs Justin’s arm “No, please no” she pleads “They’ll look at me different, I’m sick of being looked at like I’m different, this is the first place I’ve ever fit in, please do not ruin this for me” Justin hesitates “I will tell him once I’ve worked out my current ability, I promise” he nods and Hartley squeaks happily kissing his cheek before running off and joining the rest of the team.

Bullet and Shooter have now laid Doc on a soft patch of grass as Kit checks him over for any broken bones “What do we do from here?” Hartley asks shifting awkwardly on her sore leg. Bullet and Shooter quickly look up to her before exchanging looks.

“I think first things first, we need to find somewhere to find somewhere to stay” Bullet says and everyone who was conscious nodded in agreement.

Justin teleports behind Bullet “What about the safe houses” he asks and Shooter shakes his head.

“No, not safe enough, if they breached out actual base then it would be easy for them to gain access to all of our safe homes, especially since they have a technopath themselves” Shooter says glancing towards Kit “We need to go somewhere nobody would expect us to go” Bullet nods and stands up whispering something into Justin’s ear which seems to cause troubles as they both begin to bicker.

Bullet hits Justin in his gut making him bend over and clutch it “Okay I win” she says giving a triumphant grin. One by one Justin teleported the team to the said destination.

She closed her eyes when it was her turn and when she opened them she noticed she was stood in front of what looked like a broken-down house. “Oh’ she heard Shooter say as he looked around.

Hartley covers her nose to shield herself from the foul smell which the house reeked of “Sorry for the smell, nobody has been in here for a very long time” Shooter says, a tad of sadness in his voice before he carefully picks up his boss walking him into the house.

Hartley begins to wonder about the house, blood starting to further stain her jeans and drip from her hand which was covering it. As her eyes wondered she was sure it used to be beautiful, but now, the floor was made of dirt, the wall paper had peeled and eaten itself to Hartley’s right she could see a fireplace which hadn’t been used in a long time and just in front of it she saw collapsed photographs now covered in dirt and grime.

She walks over and picks up one photo, it was a young boy with light brown eyes and dark blonde hair, his face was covered in chocolate as he held a melted chocolate ice-cream in his hands. Hartley smiles and places, it back onto the fireplace before picking up the next one, she wiped away the dirt and she did the picture slipped from her hands making the glass smash.

In the photo sat a happy looking family, a woman who was heavily pregnant, and her husband sitting to her side with one of his hands happily placed on her stomach while the other hand was placed on the small boy that sat in front of them. Hartley had to rub her eyes and blink three times before she finally believed what she saw.

They were much younger but it was unmistakeable, it was Bullet and Shooter.

That was the last thing she remembered before he eyes closed and she collapsed onto the floor with a rather loud thud.

“Just take the damn photo Brett, I need to pee” Hartley looks around, she noticed she was in front of the house but it was no longer destroyed instead it stood in what she believed it to be its former glory.

Bullet and Shooter sat on the stairs in front of the house in the same positions she had seen in the picture.

“it’s a timer sweetie, now smile” he laughs as the camera snaps a picture of the family. “There that wasn’t so hard, was it?” he jokes and Bullet stands up hitting him in the chest muttering something along the lines of jerk.

The little boy giggled and jumped into Shooters arms as they all walked inside.

There was a flash of white and Hartley now found herself in their bedroom, they lay in bed sleeping, a quiet crash could be heard from down the hall but they simply stir before returning to they’re peaceful slumber. Hartley walks down the hall and see’s they’re son sleeping in his race car bed, the night light beside him flickering slightly.

She heard another crash and followed the sound until she found herself in the lounge room, the sofas where ripped and all but one of the pictures had fallen onto the ground, three men were all dressed in fire red, not the best outfit for burglars, dug through drawers and aged anything they saw as valuable.

Her heart beat picked up pace, she knew they couldn’t see her as she screamed and called for them to stop but the burglars acted as if she wasn’t there.

Hartley heard a gasp and turned to see Bullet who stood in the doorway with wide eyes, her hands clasped protectively over her large stomach. Hartley could see Bullet was ready to run but one of the burglars came from behind and placed her into a choke hold. Bullet let out a scream before the burglars hit her in the back of the head causing her now limp body to fall to the floor, with a cruel chuckle the burglar gives one hard and swift kick into the stomach.

Shooter comes running out and runs straight through Hartley, he held a metal softball bat, his face was one of worry as he saw his beloved wife on the floor, blood trickling from the back of her head. “What have you done to her?!” he yells angrily “What have you” he charged into the room and to Hartley’s amazement he began to cause great damage to the burglars.

He easily took charge of the situation. “Daddy!” a small voice screamed and Shooter immediately stopped his assault, he slowly turned and saw a burglar no longer wearing his red mask, he had his son held tightly in his arms, a gun held to the side of his head.

“No” Bullet groans pulling herself up, Hartley could now see the amount of blood she had dripping from both her head and down her legs. “Please take anything you want” she sobs “Please just put my baby down” the burglar looks to both of his parents with his brown eyes, he as scared, that was obvious.

He licks his lips and then speaks with a shaky voice as his eyes dart to his two unconscious companions “P-put your weap-pon down!” he shouts to Shooter and Shooter raises his hands in surrender as he slowly places the softball bat onto the floor. His breathing started to become irregular “Are they dead?” he weeps “You killed them!” in one second of anger and fear everyone knew what was next to come.

Bullet and Shooter shot forward they’re faces showing nothing but fear, but it was too late. The burglar fired the gun and the lifeless body of their young son dropped to the ground with an overly loud thud. Bullets scream echoed throughout the house.

Another flash appeared before Hartley, Bullet and Shooter sit in the front their house and a man wearing a scarf wrapped around the bottom of his face and a hat showing only his bright green eyes “Mr and Mrs Thomas I presume?” he asks but they do not reply, their bodies trembling and Bullet still silently sobbing as she rubs her stomach. “I’m sorry for your loss” he pauses before his eyes go to her stomach “both of them” this makes Bullet cry even more and she buries her face into her husband’s shoulder. “I understand this is going to be hard for you, but once you’ve felt that you’re ready, please give me a call” he says handing over a card with his right un-gloved hand, it lightly brushes over her hand as he passes it over and all of the cuts which she had on her body noticeably disappeared.

“Doc” Harley whispers.