Skipper, Chapter 4.

Chapter 4, Nightmare.
"So, we're totally dating now, just so you know,"
Me and Suzy were walking home. It was around 10 and the sky was dark and full of stars. We were walking through Marshall Park again. There was a nice breeze out tonight and the air was cool but not cold.
"Uh what!?" Suzy said in surprise.
"Yeah, me and you. We're a couple now," I smiled at her, "You're okay with that right?"
"Uh, Yeah, I'm more than okay with that. But, just like that? We're a couple?" She said flustered.
"Yeah, just like that." I grabbed her hand. "So we're gonna hold hands, and maybe even later we'll make out, how's that sound?"

The next morning I awoke to something very surprising. Lance Sinclaire, another member of our graduating class. Except he was wearing some kind of stupid scuba suit and a stupid mask, but I could still tell it was him. He had one of those faces. I shot up in my bed and backed against the wall.
"Lance!? What the fuck!?" I exclaimed.
"How'd you know it was me!?" He asked in shock and minor disappointment.
"Even with that mask I can still tell it's you, what the fuck are you doing here!?"
Lance held up his finger, and then slowly I begin to feel weight getting lifted off me. Then I lifted right off the bed and floated towards the roof of my house.
"Oh shit, are you doing this? You have a power?"
"Wait, are there others," He let his finger down.
As his concentration slipped, so did I, and fell right onto my bed. It sent a shock of horrific pain right through my arm. I held in a shrill shriek. Lance, noticing my arm cast suddenly rushed over.
"Oh man, I'm sorry I didn't notice it!"
"It's fine, I'm okay," I said biting back the pain. Then I looked at him, "And yes, there are others."

Me, Suzy, Tallin, and Lance all gathered inside my kitchen. Tallin was again preparing a frying pan full to the nine with bacon bombarding him with scalding grease.
"Hey let me help you out with that," Lance said as he held out his hand.
The grease began to fly out of the pan but seemed to just immediately fall back down as if the gravity above the pan was increased. That was Lance's power. He could manipulate gravity.
"Gravity manipulation, eh?" Tallin said observing the effects, "So like a more obtuse form of telekinesis?"
"Gravity can affect more than just moving things up and down. I mean," Suzy said excitedly, "You could create black holes and condense matter into nothing," Then she leaned back, put off by a thought, "It could be devastating."
Lance laughed, "I can't quite produce black holes yet. But I can condense things."
I clapped my hands in excitement, "This is fantastic! We're already starting to assemble our super team from the books!"
Lance flipped though one of my notebooks. He wasn't good friends with Tallin or Me and didn't really even know Suzy at all. He was actually kind of a loner, but not one of those cool bad ass mysterious ones. He just didn't like people. He was a sarcastic guy but seemed to be in a surprisingly good mood today and wasn't being a little shit.
"So you saw me skip huh?" I asked him.
"Yeah on exam day. You were walking down the hall in front of me and then fucking poof, you were gone. Now at the time I was confused as shit, but then I quickly realized what was going on. You must have had powers just like me!" Lance looked at his hands. "I had only gotten mine a couple days before that,"
"So as far as we are aware, Lance is the first person to get powers, getting them at least a full day before Mika or Suzy," Tallin input from the bacon.
Why were we all getting our powers now? I can't seem to understand any of this. I tried hard to think of some reason why they came to us, or why it would be here? I thought about anything that had happened recently that would have given us powers any, strange incidents. But no meteor showers, no strange objects in the sky, no crazy 80's science goo.
"But why?" I finally asked out loud.
"Why us? why the powers? why now?" Suzy continued.
"When something good happens why do people always ask why, why can't you just be happy with what you get?" Tallin replied.
"Hey, I'm not complaining, but I'd want to know why too," Lance said. "People don't just get super powers for no reason."
Tallin dropped the spatula on the counter and took the bacon off the burner. He sighed and turned to us all leaning against the counter, his arms crossed. "Maybe in the real world people do. This isn't some movie. There doesn't need to be an explanation so the audience understands, sometimes things just happen."
"Yeah, Tallin is right," I agreed. There is no point, not for the time being anyways. "The only thing that matters right now, is finding more notebooks. The answer you want may be in them as well." I got up and walked over to the plate of bacon and slipped a strip in my mouth and chewed it on down. "And with those books we'll be able to save more lives than we do in the future."
Lance nodded his head, "Yeah, so, let's get to it."

We all piled into my mom's van which Lance was driving. Lance was one of the few people we know with a license and the only one we know with a power who has one. We were driving out of town a ways to a large beach just under lake Michigan.
I stood on the beach in the sand and stared out over the lake. I looked back at Tallin.
"Uh Tallin, I don't think this will work," I told him over my shoulder.
"What, why not?" He asked.
"Because, we don't really come to this lake that ofter so I hig-"
There it was again, that feeling at the back of my head. I guess we do come here in the future. I closed my eyes and waited to find myself somewhere else. I opened them a horrific sight.
The air was freezing and tearing at a million miles an hour. The lake was frozen solid but full of waves. Some thing was coming out of the lake but it was under a thick layer of ice as well. The shore was black ash and the entire forest was burnt to the ground. A huge spear was plunged through whatever was coming out of the ice. It's blood frozen. I dropped to my knees in the ash. I looked up. The moon was shattered and it's debris circled around it. The sky was blood red and completely clear. The stars were out but under the filter of the sky.
I ducked my head. I was desperately trying to skip back, but it wasn't working. I looked around for somewhere to go when I saw it. A paper was attached to one of the burnt trees from the old forest. I ran for the paper, struggling to move in the cold and in the wind. Falling and tripping. I forced myself up and ripped off the paper. It was a list.
Heroes.
Mikaela Ross: Time Manipulation, Skipper.
Susan Caller: Telekinesis, Flick.
Curtis Hartfield: Unbreakable, The Wall.
Unknown: Teleporter, The Jumper.
Nancy June: Fire Trail, Firescar.
Unknown: Creator, Gun Forge.
Unknown: Speed, Runner.
Unknown: Electron Control, Destroyer.
Unknown: Infinite Ammo, Armory.
Lance Sinclaire: Gravity, Farside.

Villains.
Harry Norris: Claws, Scratcher.
Unknown: Ice Storm, Hailstorm.
Clay Francis: Shadow Control, Darkness.
Unknown: Solar Ray, Allspark.
Unknown: Fire Control, Blaze.
Unknown: Genuis, Gunsmith.
Mitchell Osbourne: Wind, Gailstorm.
Unknown: Unknown, Terminus.
Evan Jones: Pain Transfer, Jericho.
Holy shit. It's a list of every single villain and hero that we know of. Most of the Villains are unknown and even some of the heroes. But still.
I grabbed the note and held it tight to my chest to try and protect it from the wind. I closed my eyes and tried to skip back. The ringing came, the feeling in the back of my head. And then the wind was no longer roaring into my ear and the air was no longer freezing. The air in fact was insanely hot. I looked up and found myself back at the beach where I had left. Sky blue, trees not burnt, sand still sand.
I rushed over and gave the paper to Tallin. But I didn't stay to hear what he had to say. I was way to hot. I turned around and dashed for the lake water. I through my shirt off and jumped in. Sweet relief.
Suzy yelled at me from the beach. "Mika! What the hell are you doing!?"
I sunk down under the warm water and just soaked it up for minute. That land was, so cold.  The wind cut like a knife. The sky. I blocked the image from my mind. All except for one.
That spear. That giant spear jutting out from some creature coming from the lake. It's blood frozen as well as it. What was it? Where did it come from? Was it one of the villains. I clawed my way back up to the the surface and breathed in the sweet summer air.
I looked back towards the shore of the lake and saw Susy standing in the water up to her knees and looking at me worried.
"Mika? Are you okay?" She asked me so concerned.
I smiled at her, "Yeah I'm fine, just needed a dip."
I made my back to the shore. "It was freezing over there," I said as I walked past her and continued towards Tallin.
"Mika," Tallin said staring at the note, "Is this what I think it is?"
I sat down on the sand beach and looked up at him, "What does it look like to you?"
"It looks like a list of all the Villains and heroes,"  Tallin scanned the note again, "But the only name I recognize on here other than Lance's is Harry's,"
"Carlston?" Lance asked from behind Suzy.
"No, Norris,"
"Harry Norris? Ugh," Suzy groaned.
I looked back at her, "What's wrong with him?"
"He's greasy and one time at a party he just wouldn't leave me alone, and he tried to kiss me and he's just a gross dude okay,"
Suzy crossed her arms and began to walk away. I looked back to Tallin. "Well we should go talk to him right?"
"Yeah, he's on the villains but we might be able to get him off it,"
"Holy shit you mean kill him!?" Lance yelled in shock.
Me and Tallin both stared at him, "No," We both said. "We can get him on our side,"
Susan walked back over to us, her arms still crossed. "Can't we just kill him,"

Me and Suzy stood outside of Harry's house. Tallin and Lance were sticking in the Van. I knocked on Harry's door, but as I did it slid open slowly. I looked at Suzy who gave me a nervous face. I slowly entered the door. Suzy grabbed my arm.
"Wait, Mikaela," Suzy said worried.
I looked at her, "Be ready."
We slowly entered Harry's house. Down the long hallway that lead to his kitchen we could see someone on the floor. A bad feeling began to rise in my gut. Then I heard it.
It was Harry, he was saying something. He was in the kitchen next to the body on the floor. We couldn't see him, but we knew he was there. I couldn't really tell what he was saying but it sounded like "Sorry."
"Ha-Harry?" I stuttered out nervously.
His voice stopped. Slowly we could here him moving.
"Who's...there?" He said slowly from inside the kitchen.
"It's Mika, and Suzy," I replied
"Mika? You're hanging out with Suzy, that's...weird," He said, he didn't sound right. There was a nervous anger in his voice. A tremble.
"What's...What's going on here?"
"She was getting on my nerves. I was just so annoyed at her. I went to smack her, but, they came out." He sounds like he was about to cry, but still there was that anger. "These damn claws. They cut her face. It's really bad. They're not gonna believe-" He stopped. There was an eerie silence over the house now.
Me and Suzy just stood there, waiting for him to say something, do something.
"You. You will sell me out," He said.
"Harry listen, we're no-"
"Shut up!" Harry came out from behind the wall. He was covered in blood and long claws stretches out from his hands. "You're gonna tell them what I did. You're gonna tell them that I killed my mom!" He was angry now, he was screaming at us. "You're gonna get me sent to jail! I don't want! I don't want to go there!" He began to walk slowly towards us.
I put out my hand towards Harry. "Listen, Harry just stay back okay."
"They're gonna see them! They're gonna lock me away! Underground! They're gonna stick me with needles and take my skin and my blood! I don't want that! I don't want to be some fucked up science experiment!" He looked down at the floor. "But," He was talking quietly now. "If I kill you, and Suzy, then how will they know it was me. Maybe, they'll think it's some animal," He looked at me and Suzy. "Yeah, you got to die,"
"Listen Harry you-"
Harry charged for me and Suzy. Suzy let out a scream and through up her hands at Harry. He was suddenly blasted back out the kitchen window, into his backyard. Suzy grabbed me and pulled. "We have to run!"
I looked at her. "No! We have to do something," I shook my arm free from her hand. "We just can't let him go. Get Lance."
"Wait, what about?"
"Don't worry, I can hold him, freeze him up or something. I did it with the wind guy."
"But,"
"Just go Suzy!"
Suzy stood for a moment and then ran out the front door to get Lance. I walked quickly towards the back door. Harry was lying in the grass in a heap. The window he flew through wasn't that big and he might have hit his head and gotten knocked out.
I stood at the doorway and stared at him. He wasn't moving, but he was breathing. Slowly, step by step, I made my way over to him.
"Harry?" I asked him hoping he was knocked out.
There was nothing. At first. "...Mika?" He began to move, slowly. His voice was shallow. "My head hurts, why does my head hurt so much?"
"I think you might have hit it," I answered him.
"Suzy. She pushed me, but she didn't touch me," He rolled onto his stomach and began to get up. "Does, she have something wrong with her too? Does her head hurt?"
"Yeah, we got powers. Just like you Harry." I explained to him. "I can do things with time, and Lance can change gravity."
Harry looked up at me from the ground. "Lance? Him too?"
"Yeah, there's more. Later, there's heroes and villains. Some are people we know and some are strangers. But they're all from here."
"This is crazy. My head." He said through pain. "This fucking hurts!" He was squirming in immense torment. "It feels like my heads ripping apart!"
"Harry listen, you need to calm down."
"You don't know!" He staggered to his feet. "It only goes, away, when I hurt things."
I began to back peddle. Shit, only when he hurts things. This is no good. I am a thing. As I began to back away from him he looked at me. "You, saw."
He charged for me. I threw up my hands and he slowed down. The ringing in my head came back and soon a pain began to rise in my brain. I could feel the pain moving from my head down into my chest. But I had to hold it. I had to keep him from moving. Where was Suzy? Suddenly Harry's body slammed against the ground.
I look over and saw Lance with his hand outstretched towards Harry. I released the time slow, and dropped to my knees.
"Mika!?" Suzy shouted as she ran over to me. "Are you okay?"
She had me in her arms. I could feel blood running down my face from my nose. But the pain was gone. But I felt exhausted. "Yeah...but...I could use a redbull,"
Suzy laughed weakly at me. "You're bleeding,"
"...and a tissue."
Tallin stumbled into the yard dry heaving. He had seen Harry's mom. I hadn't looked at her as I passed through the kitchen. I didn't have the stomach. "Tallin."
He vomited. And then stood there just staring at the ground.
"Tallin."
He looked over at me. He had a blank stare, empty. "She, her face."
"What," Lance looked over his shoulder at Tallin. "Are we gonna do about him? I can't just hold him on the ground forever here."
"We call the cops!" Suzy shouted from me.
"Yeah and tell them that we're a bunch of super powered kids and we caught wolverine here cutting up his mom and saved the day?" He looked over at Harry. "I could crush him easy."
"No," I said, still trying to catch my breath. "We're not killing him, and we're not calling the cops."
"Then what?" Lance asked.

The school was empty, more empty than on exam day. We all stood by the back doors with my mom's Van back up close. We had all donned ski masks so that in case the school camera's were still on they wouldn't see us. The whole time had frozen time on Harry so it was like he was unconscious. Surprisingly this didn't give me a huge headache, but the ring was there.
"So Suzy, you think you can get the doors open?" Lance asked as we all sat in the back with Harry in the trunk.
"I could maybe lift the hinges."
"Okay, let's do it." I said as I opened the door.
We piled out of the van. Suzy went up to the doors and began to try and lift the hinge bolts out. Lance lowered the gravity around Harry so his body floated in the air. And Tallin just kept watch in the Van. Suzy managed to get the bolts out and both doors fell hard onto the floor of the hallway. The sound of them hitting the linoleum floors echoed down the long empty hall. Tallin got out of the van and helped me push Harry's body through the air as Lance kept him floating.Suzy lifted the doors back into place and set the bolts back into their original places and followed after us.

Harry sat in the equipment room of the gym, tied to a chair. We all stood around him.  I still had the freeze on his body. The ringing was getting worse. Lance and Tallin both paced nervously around.
"What are we gonna do with him?" Lance asked Tallin. "I mean we can't let him get away with killing his mom, like he did. She didn't deserve that," His voice got shallow towards the end.
"He was scared, he didn't know what was happening," Harry replied. "I mean Mika weren't you scared the first time you skipped?"
"I...I didn't even know...I had the first time," I said slowly making sure to keep focused on Harry. The ringing kept getting louder. "But...the second...yeah,"
"And Suzy what did you think the first time you lifted something?"
"I, I was freaked out." She said. "I didn't even know what was happening, I didn't even know it was me. When I panicked the cup I was lifting fell then the pain came shooting into my head. Oh god it was so bad the first time."
I stared at Harry, this time thinking about it. It was terrifying the first time I noticed my skip, and he had something a little more unconventional than what we did. He said the pain only went away when he hurt things. Maybe that's how his power works. Maybe the claws make him go a little crazy when they're out. They've been out this whole time. I wonder if he can feel it while he's frozen like that?
"Release him," Tallin said to me.
"You...sure?"
"Yeah, he's tied up good and Lance can stop him. Do it."
I stopped the freeze on Harry and the ringing and slight pain that had begun to form into my head instead turned to exhaustion in my muscle. I staggered a bit. Suzy grabbed my arm.
But Harry just screamed. He screamed so horribly, he was in so much pain. I had to look away. He screamed for a couple seconds then stopped to catch his breath. He then noticed he was tied to the chair and began to fight to get out.
"What the fuck is this!?" He looked up to see us standing there and his voiced turned to rage. "You motherfuckers! I knew you would!" He stopped to screech in pain. "When...I get out of this chair, you're...all dead!"
"Harry you need to get rid of your claws!" Tallin said pleading with him. "They're what's hurting your head!"
"Fuck would you know!" He screamed again in pain. "Are you the fucking!" Another outcry, "Expert!?"
"Harry you have to do it, the pain won't go away till you do," I said to him trying to convince him.
"Fuck off! You...you cunt!"
Suddenly Harry's head whipped back and blood flew from his mouth. I let out a scream in surprise. Lance jumped back and Tallin rushed over to Suzy who had her hand outstretched.
"Suzy!" He grabbed her hand. "We're trying to help him!"
"Fuck him!" She yelled. "He killed his own fucking mom and now he's threatening to kill us, he's gone psychotic!"
"You bitch," Harry's voice sent my heart right into my gut. It was calm, smooth. He turned his head forward as blood streamed from his mouth. "I'm going to cut each and every one of you into a million pieces." He looked towards Suzy. The claws on his hands began to grow longer. "Starting with you, Suzy."
"Fuck you!" Suzy shouted at him.
I could see his claws growing longer.
"Harry listen, you need to get rid of those claws, make them go away! They're what's,"
"I feel fine now. Now that I know what to do." He cut Tallin off.
Suddenly Harry swiped his claws at the arm of the chair, cutting it clear with his extended claws. He then easily removed the other arm. Tallin shouted at him but I didn't hear what it was. Tallin kept Suzy's arms down and yelled. He looked at me and I just stared at Harry. He reached for me and grabbed onto my sweater. Harry was charging for us. Then Tallin looked at Lance and threw his arm towards him. He shouted. Lances hand was aimed straight for Harry then with a calm, almost careless motion, Lance moved his hand down.
Harry's legs fracture and spit. The bones shot out the sides as his tibia and fibula splintered like wood. His femurs ripped into two and compounded into each other, the bottom part shooting out the sides of his calves. His legs simply shrunk all down into a pile of shredded muscle and shatter bone. Then pelvis shot up towards his ribs, and the sides of his torso gave way. Organs spilled out onto the floor. His ribcage collided with his pelvis and both began to shatter. His left arm hit the ground. All his finger bent back and his middle split. His arm just like his legs ripped down the middle as his radius and ulna split from each other. His torso continued to compound. His pelvis on completely irradiated. His ribs were continuing to break against the floor. His spine ripped out through his back and then snapped in two. His stomach had popped open spilling the acid inside and you could hear it dissolve the other organs below it. His humerus ripped out the top of his shoulder. His head dipped forward, then like a egg that was dropped, exploded across the floor. The skull completely shredded apart and his brain scattered. His other arm, which was outstretched fell to the floor as his body was no longer a part of it. Just before his torso was pushed into itself he let out a horrifyingly high pitched screech, almost inhuman in sound and cut very short. This all happened in an instant.
I couldn't believe what I had seen. Harry was there then just in an instant he was just  a pile of flesh and bone on the ground. All except for his one arm. I had seen the expression on his face before his head was eviscerated against the floor. I had never seen that kind of look on a person's face before. It was like seeing hell itself. It was silent in the room, the only sound being the sound of his stomach acid dissolving. I could see chunks of his hair and bits of his teeth and skull. The most intact thing was the top part of his spine which sat atop the pile almost perfect.
Tallin ran over to Lance and began to scream at him and shake him. I dropped to my knees. Suzy vomited. Lance just stared at what he had done, his hand still out. A blank expression on his face. I just let myself faint then. I hoped it was a nightmare, and I would wake up.