@Eddie DavidsonI may not be cut out for this but here is my crack at a little snippet of an origin story. What do you think? would you read a story based on her?
PREAMBLE:
Welcome to an Alternate Earth. It is not much different than our own. Many of the same places and people exist on other worlds. There is one notable exception between our world and this Earth in the Visage Universe. It is a world populated by Super-humans โ some are heroes, some are villains and some are a bit of both. This Earth is in the Visage universe โ not quite a mirror but a reasonable facsimile to our own world.
Though many of the super-humans of the Visage Universe began long ago, the first notable appearance of super-humans to the public eye first occurred during the Second World War, where heroes battled the Axis forces, as well as spies and fifth columnists within America.
Approximately twenty years before this story begins an advanced starfaring race of conquerors known as the Krellan Stellar Imperium invaded and occupied Earth. It took a combination of the Earth's Super Heroes working with "The Contingency" (Alien Rebels from within the KSI) to end their domination of Earth and send them packing after a brutal occupation.
No one knows if the KSI will return one day to finish what they started.
CHAPTER ONE
CHERRY'S STORY: West Garfield park, Chicago, May 4th, 2018.
"Girl, you are thicker than a snicker," I can still remember the day my step-dad said those fateful words to me and how angry it made me.
My name is Courtney Leroy. I am or at least was a typical teenage girl in my Senior Year at Reginald Vel Johnson High School. I never knew my biological father. My mother tells me he died during the Krellan occupation as a hero of the resistance but that his existence is classified. I was raised along with my brother Billy by my mother Barb and my grandmother.
A few years ago, my mom met Carl. I don't know what she saw in that pot-bellied, loser but she moved in with him. They were going to get married but Carl keeps stalling. He claims they are married in their mind and my mom refers to him as my "Step Dad".
I am not in any rush to see my mom tie the knot with the jerk. He is brash and perpetually unemployed. If my mother didn't work we would have no income at all and be homeless.
When my Grandmother passed away we had to move away from a relatively safe suburb of Chicago. The only place we could afford was a grungy apartment in one of the worst Ghettos of Chicago. I share a room with my dorky brother Billy. He is a sophomore and short for his age. Billy wears his chestnut hair feathered as a throw-back to the 1980s.
If he had one superpower it is being invisible to girls.
Billy is lucky that he wasn't born a ginger like me. I was an ugly baby covered in freckles. I was a string bean of knees and elbows before puberty. I must have secretly won the genetic lottery though because once puberty hit I sprouted 36 DD boobs and most of freckles went away. I am frequently told I look like a cross between Lindsay Lohan and Emma Stone. My long red hair got lighter, and everyone comments on my green eyes.
Especially my gross "Step-Dad" Carl. He is a total pervert. He loves to make comments about how my body is too small for my boobs or that my butt is finally catching up to the size of my tits. It started with awkward staring and progressed to "accidentally" touching my butt or brushing up against me. My mother doesn't condone it. She simply ignores it or calls it harmless teasing.
I don't mind as much when Billy teases me. I give him as much as he dishes out, but Carl just creeps me out.
I suppose my life changed one day thanks in part to Carl. I wouldn't thank him for my powers but they first emerged the day he "accidentally" walked into the bathroom while I was taking a shower. I was singing along to Ariane Grande and almost didn't notice him.
The walls of our crappy apartment are paper thin and even if he hadn't heard the shower running he knew someone was behind the curtain when he opened the door. I can still hear him smugly laughing "Girl, you are thicker than a snicker."
I immediately saw red when I saw the outline of his body behind the shower curtain standing there. Carl is balding but he is hairy every place else on his body. His Chicago accent is very thick and everything he says sounds like it was intended to be offensive or sexual. He was wearing his dirty wife beater tank top and sweat pants like he always does.
I remember the look of delight on his face when I first pulled the shower curtain open. He had this look of surprised delight because he was suddenly staring at my twin bazookas (as he called them) soaking wet and pointed right at him. He commented on how pokey my nipples were like he was entitled to judge my body.
I have huge, nubby strawberry-colored nipples and they were pointy and hard because our hot water is non-existent so the water was ice cold. I took a mental snapshot of the image of his grinning face at that moment that I'll never forget as long as I live. I even regretted for an instant exposing myself to him so I could confront him about peeping on me.
I had to share a room with my little brother because we could only afford a cockroach infested two-bedroom apartment. Even Billy knows to give me my privacy when I am changing and had never peeped on me (to my knowledge) when I changed. Who was this creep to look upon my nudity?
I did not consider myself a violent person. I was lucky enough to still go to my old high school in the suburbs where fights weren't a daily occurrence. I was so angry that I just wanted to slam the smirk off his perverted face.
That is exactly what I did. I did NOT expect to see Carl slam up against the wall and break the drywall. I didn't think it would really hurt him. My step-dad collapsed into a hole he just created in the wall. I stalked out of the shower after him. Carl's jaw was dislocated and he looked at me like the helpless worm that he really is.
Water was still dripping off my naked body as I picked him up by the scruff of his tank top. It shredded and the fat fuck fell to the ground without a shirt. "You have bigger tits than I do, Carl!"
"What the fuck? How did you do that? Leave, leave me alone!" Carl stuttered. My stepdad was a sadistic bully and a creep but right now he was pissing his dirty sweat pants over what I'd do to him next. I simply pointed a finger at the door and he raced out.
I took my time drying off, putting on underarm deodorant, applying my make up and getting dressed. My mom looked at me like I was a monster when I opened the bathroom door. She had heard Carl's side of the story and he made it sound like I attacked him for no reason.
"Why did you do that for, Courtney? We are going to lose our deposit on this place!" she was hugging and consoling Carl at the kitchen table. Carl was acting like a helpless baby and holding his broken jaw. He looked at me with terror in his eyes.
Billy could barely suppress a giggle. He didn't like Carl any more than I did. Carl frequently teased him for being shorter than everyone else his age and constantly berated him for a difference of opinion on sports.
"He was watching me shower, Mom!" I insisted as I put my hands on my hips angrily.
"Barb, that isn't what happened at all. I went into the bathroom to get some tampons for you like you asked. I was only in there for a second and I announced myself before I came in. She told me it was alright if it was only for a second," Carl's lies were unbelievable to anyone but my mother.
Mom took his side over mine! I was so angry.
"She must be on crack cocaine, Barb! Crystal meth, Roofies, something! You should have seen her toss me around like a rag doll!" Carl sounded like a frightened weasel.
"Roofies don't give you super strength. I would think you of all people would KNOW that Carl!" I was still grappling with understanding what I had just done. It was some feat of super strength to toss him around like a doll. I meant to pick up a chair to threaten him with it but my super strength had faded as quickly as it had appeared.
My mother grounded me for what happened. Billy joined me in our bedroom before dinner. "That was freaking awesome. I wish I could have seen it."
"Yeah, well I am glad you didn't because I was butt ass naked and soaking wet," I quipped wryly.
Billy didn't offer a wry comment back. I knew he looked at porn A LOT. I knew he had perverted thoughts but I assumed he didn't look at me that way. He asked me what had happened and I told him exactly what I just told you.
"Super strength? Maybe you are getting super powers like Dad?" he theorized. He believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that our biological father was a super hero. It helped make sense of losing someone so important to us that he had never met. I was too young to know who our father was. I once believed he was a super hero as well. I had given up on theorizing about dead heroes when Carl entered our lives.
The world was populated with super-heroes and villains but they don't intervene in the private lives of normal teenagers like me. I never thought about what I wanted to be when I grew up. I assumed I'd find a comfortable but unrewarding job as a paralegal or in the medical field. It would pay the bills and keep the lights on in an otherwise unremarkable life. I didn't expect to be the kind of person anyone would write a story about.
Billy on the other hand dreamt of one day being a super-hero like our father. He wasn't entirely altruistic about it. He wanted the power to kick the asses of his bullies and the fame and prestige that went along with it. Frankly, Billy wanted girls to fawn all over him!
"I think I was just REALLY pissed off," I shrugged.
"Sis, I saw the damage you did in the bathroom. That isn't just pissed off. That's wrecking ball level. You totaled the bathroom."
"I am taking your step-father to the Hospital. He has asked that you not come with us because he is afraid of you. There are microwave dinners in the freezer if you get hungry," My mom opened the bedroom door and announced coldly.
I rolled my eyes. I wanted to pick up the bed and throw it at her for being so stupid and taking Carl's side over mine. My mom was very loving and meant well but she couldn't see Carl's MANY obvious imperfections the way the entire rest of the world did.
"We should recreate the situation and see if you can do it again," Billy suggested enthusiastically once Carl and my mom left in an Uber.
"I am not going to get naked in the shower and let you watch," I didn't think Billy was serious when I first protested.
"Fine, wear panties in the shower or something and I'll walk in," Billy was insistent.
"I am not going to wear panties into a shower, and I don't want to toss you around the bathroom," I was more insistent this time now that I knew Billy was actually serious about conducting the experiment.
"Don't toss me around. Just grab something and see if you can lift it."
"Fine, but don't walk into the bathroom. I'll take another shower and see what happens," I picked up one of his fifteen pound dumbells. Billy was a little chubby and had chipmunk cheeks. He fancied his twin dumb-bells to be his "work out" equipment. They were a little heavy to me but I brought one into the shower and closed the door.
It felt silly to strip off and take another shower after I had already taken one only an hour earlier. I have to admit I was curious and wanted to believe I had emerging super-powers. A part of me was doing it to dispel any doubt that I really DID NOT have powers. I assumed I was the quintessential typical teenager and I didn't want the hubris of believing I was destined to be special only to have the let down of finding out I was quite ordinary.
I undressed and turned on the water. I recreated the exact circumstances prior to Carl's intrusion. The weight felt lighter in my hand but I didn't have super strength. I was quite relieved and felt a little silly for letting Billy talk me into this experiment.
I suppose I had to know for sure.
Despite my insistence that Billy NOT open the bathroom door, he did it anyway. "SURPRISE!!" he yelled as he flung the door open.
My gut reaction was to fling his dumbbell at him. I launched it through the hallway and into the apartment next door like a bullet.
Billy's face was a mixture of surprise and panic because the projectile weight had narrowly missed his head by a few inches. I could have killed him! I poked my head out of the shower.
"Mom is going to kill me!" were my first words.
This is a rough draft of a rough draft. If anyone wants to run with it, I am all in favor.