Chapter 71

[The following chapter contains strong language. Reader caution is advised.]

Friday 24th March 2000

In the ten months (or thereabouts) I’ve known Kitty, she’s come a long way. From a withdrawn, scarred girl hiding behind the guise of Nightmare, she’s steadily found her place amongst us – as a team and as friends – and it had come to the point of her deciding to go on her first date. A decision she’d made mostly of her own accord, with only a little repeated insistence on Kendal’s part, but then that’s the beauty of friendship.

Holy crap, that might’ve been the most saccharine thing I’ve ever written… I think Zahid would punch me if he ever read that…

Kitty had gone out and bought a couple of new items of clothing earlier in the week, and come Friday, after homework and a change out of her school uniform, she was dropped off at Kevin’s house by Kendal shortly before 5pm. Then she’d be home no later than 9pm. I’m sure you can guess who laid that rule down.

It'd sound harsh to say the rest of us had a nice time without Kitty around, like we enjoyed her absence, but it was more like we had fun despite her absence. Bao had the idea to see if we preferred Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat or Tekken, so we spent most of the evening playing wild fighting games and it went about as raucously as you’d probably expect. So much so, in fact, that the time completely got away from us, until it was about 9:18pm.

“Where is that girl…?” Dakota mused aloud in that motherly way that glimmers through now and then.

“Probably making out with Kevin,” Kendal sang playfully, complete with a little sway of the head.

“Yeah, she’s that type of girl,” Zahid added, sounding amused at the idea while playing against Bao.

“Really though, we said no later than 9…”
And that was concern.

“I’m sure she’ll be back any minute,” I assured her at once. “Y’know, ‘speak of the devil’. She’ll walk in any moment now.”

“And I’m gonna turn around and see egg on your face in a minute,” Bao told me, eyes still on the game.

“You’ve gotta cut her a bit of slack, she’s only young…”
Kendal leant forward a little as the action on-screen ramped up a tad.

“Don’t say that like we’re in our 50s or something,” Dakota chuckled. “We’re young too!”

“And you’d totally be out later than your mum would want too!”

“Maybe I would, but I’m not Kitty’s mam…”

“Then you don’t have to act like it,” Kendal concluded with a quick, sincere look, right as a loud “K.O.!” erupted from the TV.
“Ah! I missed it!” she bleated in utter dismay.

“And it was a blinder, too,” Zahid smirked, glowing victoriously while Bao groaned lowly.

“I trained you too well…” he murmured like he himself was a character in the game.

“Or you’re losing your edge,” the taller of the two countered triumphantly.

Beside me, Dakota was still visibly worried, looking lost in her thoughts. I rubbed her leg a little in the hopes of comforting her, knowing it was little more than a gesture of compassion. The only thing that would relieve her was Kitty’s swift return.

Unfortunately, that didn’t come.

“Okay, look,” Kendal began come 9:30pm, “I’m not going home until Kitty gets back.”

“Maybe she’s having a really long make-out session…?” Bao offered up with a peppy kick to his voice. Kendal glared that out of him fast.

“If anything happened to her, she’ll be able to fight her way out of it.”
And despite that claim, Zahid seemed agitated, fidgety, his leg bouncing, hand moving from beneath his chin to scratching at his cheek to rubbing his furrowed brow.

“Hold that thought…” I spoke, dashing out of the room and up to the loft at fair pace. I’d hoped that I would find Kitty’s Lokon claw up there with the rest of the weapons, and fortunately, it was still sat amongst the pile. The initial sense of relief was almost immediately washed away as my mind wandered and stumbled upon the idea of her having been attacked and incapacitated before even getting the chance to summon her weapon…

I headed back down to the landing, and then to the top of the main stairs, to find the others putting on their shoes in the front hall.

“Her claw’s still here, for what it’s worth…” I informed them as I descended the stairs. “Where are we going…?”

“Kendal’s going to drive us to Kevin’s,” Dakota answered. “See if she’s there, or if his parents have heard from them if she isn’t…”

“Sounds like a plan,” I nodded, and joined them in preparing to head out.

“Hold on… someone should stay here in case she comes back,” Kendal noted. “Or if we find her and have to bring her back in the car…”

For a brief moment, I was surprised none of them had thought of that sooner, but I quickly turned that back on myself. I’d missed a blindingly obvious point.

“I’ll stay,” Bao proclaimed. “I can keep playing games to bide the time. That’s not really important so forget I said it.”

“If she shows up, call us straight away,” Dakota instructed him as we made our way to the front door.

The car journey from Dakota’s place to Kevin’s took just under ten minutes, a low buzz of tension accompanying us the whole time. The house we pulled up to was small, broadly unassuming, boasting a front garden in need of a little maintenance.

“It’s just hit me… how are we going about this?” I asked while Kendal turned the engine off. “Knock at the door and say ‘hi, we’re your son’s date’s friends – yes, we’re all older than her – no, you can definitely trust us – when was the last time you saw her?’”

“Sounds good to me.”
Dakota said only that, and got out of the car with steely determination. The rest of us followed promptly, without having to be told, simply falling in line to her action as she strode right up to the front door and knocked without the slightest pause.

Once we’d all gathered behind her, we waited a handful of seconds for the door to be answered. A figure illuminated by the hallway light was visible through the frosted panes of glass, and they opened the door to reveal a stocky, balding and (to me, most significantly) frowning man.

“What do you want at this time of night?” he demanded of us gruffly.

“I’m Kitty’s guardian,” Dakota responded. “She hasn’t come home yet and we’re worried about her.”

The man turned his head to look back inside his home.
“Kevin, get here!” he shouted out, his booming voice carrying upstairs to be answered, moments later, by a series of footsteps dashing down.

“What?” Kitty’s date asked his father brattily, sweeping his hair out of his eyes as he slowed to a stroll from the foot of the stairs and towards us.

“You said you got that girl home.”

“I did-!”

“You better not be lying to me!” the man rounded on his son; Kevin took a step back even as he kept his moody, defiant glare.

“I’m not lying!”

“Then you’re going to talk with these people and figure out why they haven’t seen her. Got it?” the father growled before stalking back into the house.

Scowling, Kevin turned to us, remaining a few steps away from the doorway.
“We stopped right outside her place, I dunno why she didn’t go in.”

“So you just walked off and left her standing there?” Dakota asked him sternly.

“I thought she’d walk inside. Am I supposed to watch her until she closes the door?”

“Generally, yeah,” Zahid grunted.

“How long ago?” our leader continued.

“I dunno, half an hour?” Kevin told her, increasingly agitated, scowl deepening. “Look, I didn’t do anything-”

“Wanna know how I know you’re lying?” Kendal cut him off. “Cos you’re the last person to see her, and if you really do like her, you would’ve come running if something happened to her between you walking away and her getting to open the front door.”

“Maybe she just didn’t want to go back. Beats me.”
Said with such a dismissive tone that I was starting to question how he really felt about Kitty. Was this really the same funny boy she’d talked about before?

“You’re lying. Tell us what happened-”

“Or what, you’re gonna shoot an arrow up my arse?”

The moment he finished speaking, his expression crumbled from anger to panic.

The four of us looked amongst ourselves in light of this apparent new revelation.

Kevin tried to slam the door shut, but Kendal threw herself against it with enough force to knock it – and him – back. As he lost his footing, Zahid swept forwards, grabbing him and dragging him outside.

“How would a snot-nosed brat know a thing about that, huh?” he quizzed him, their faces inches apart.

“Think it through! And get off me!”

Who could know we were the Painters? To my mind, nobody. Unless Kevin, like Kitty when I first met her, was a case of Lokonessence reaching out to an unrelated individual, he shouldn’t be able to notice us blasting on our Painter gear or see our faces when in action.

Who already did know? Lucy, the rest of Adam’s group, Adam and Dom although the status of both of them was unknown, Saoirse, Neil and his group, and… Melody. The leader of an apparently-ever-growing group of disillusioned – or illusioned – individuals. Any knowledge she had, they had. And she’d mentioned before that she has eyes everywhere, which included our school.

“He’s with Melody…” I voiced with more certainty than I’d anticipated.

“Hooray, at least one of you has a brain…” Kevin sneered, at which point Zahid threw him to the ground.

“What the fuck have you done with her, you scrawny little sack of shit?!” my friend roared at him, stomping his foot down on the younger boy’s chest.

“Zahid, stop it!” Dakota commanded him, attempting to pull him back. Begrudgingly, he did as told, moving his foot away. Kevin remained on the lawn, scared, eyes wide, chest rising and falling at speed.

“I didn’t want to!” he wailed. “She’s a nice girl! But Melody said I had to and she’s right! All of you have the power to change the world and you won’t help us do anything!”

Zahid very nearly lunged forward again.
“You’re not answering me-!”

“We went bowling and some of the others were waiting for us! I gave her a bracelet which stopped her from teleporting her weapon!”

“Where is she now?” Dakota asked firmly.

“The country house…”

“This is gonna sound stupid, is it still where it’s supposed to be?” I quizzed him. “Last time we went, it was like it wasn’t there…”

“It’s invisible,” he confessed. “I mean, sort of invisible. It’s like it’s not there. There’s a back entrance… if you walk for a few minutes behind where the house would be, you’ll find it. You should be able to see it.”

“We just walk in and get her back? That easy?” Kendal summarised incredulously. “Sounds like a trap to me.”

“Probably,” Kevin grumbled. “I dunno what she’s planning. But it’s the only way you’re gonna get Kitty back. I’m sorry…”

“Then sound it,” Zahid spat.

“We’re done here,” Dakota spoke, turning and heading back to the car with a brave face on. Zahid gave Kevin one last glare before following after her; Kendal and I waited a little longer to watch the boy head back inside his house. He muttered another “sorry” before shutting the door.

“I’m so sick of Melody screwing with us…” Kendal sighed, wincing in despair.

“I know…”
And that was all I managed to say before my mobile started ringing in my jacket pocket. Unless Kevin was lying to us, I knew it couldn’t be Bao reporting that Kitty was back (and unless he just went for the first contact in the phone, I couldn’t see why he would call me and not Dakota anyway). And I would be staying at Dakota’s, so it wouldn’t be my parents asking where I was.

“Are you two coming?” Dakota called over to us as I looked at my phone. It was Lucy calling; I answered.

“Hello…?” I greeted her.

“Alex, I opened the briefcase!”
Pure triumphant joy.

“That’s great…!”

“You have to come see! Right now!”

“Can it wait?” I asked her. “Kitty’s been kidnapped-”

“It’s important, I swear!” she doubled down.

“Alright, alright, quickly then, if the others let me!” I snapped, and hung up, temper flaring a little as the increasing tension and frustration got to me.

“What was that…?”
Kendal spoke quietly, like I’d turn on her if she was too loud.

“Lucy’s got the briefcase open. She wants me to go and see,” I addressed both her and Dakota and Zahid. “Apparently it’s really important.”

“Kendal, let’s drop him off at his place, get Bao and then pick Alex up again,” Dakota decided immediately.

“Got it,” Kendal nodded, rushing to the car and opening the driver’s side door.

Before pocketing my phone, I looked at the time. 9:51pm. This was going to be a long night.

…

It was well past 11pm by the time the five of us reached the property surrounding Adam’s currently-invisible country house. We’d decided to park a short distance away, and walk the rest of the way, approaching from the rear in the hopes of avoiding being spotted ahead of time…

Not that it made much difference, if we were really walking into a trap.

We confronted the darkness with the glow of our weapons and our Painter clothing, walking through the wooded plot of land as the stillness and the chilled air embraced us. It took just a few more minutes for us to come across a single, plain door leaning against a large tree.

“I’m guessing this is it…” Dakota remarked matter-of-factly, and stepped forwards, taking and turning the handle. She pushed the door and it moved inwards, through where the tree was, only instead of colliding into that, it opened up on a dimly-lit corridor.

“Magic doorway, makes sense,” Zahid observed under his breath.

“Magick with a k,” Bao jested back gently as we began heading through the doorway, down a few steps like we were entering a cellar before reaching even ground. Kendal was the last one through, and she shut the door behind herself.

“I wonder if this already existed and… well, I don’t know where it would’ve led before, unless Adam made that door himself… or if Melody made this whole thing herself somehow?” I pondered over the echoes of our footsteps.

“She has the man-power,” Kendal commented. “Or maybe this is what her white powers can do?”
A moment of consideration followed.
“Maybe we could do stuff like this…?”

“We’re the most complacent bunch of heroes the world has ever known,” Bao declared.

“I think you’re right. We suck,” I concurred.

“Could we go into this big confrontation with a little more faith in ourselves?” Dakota pleaded us.

“We’re the greatest and we’re going to rock at this…?” came Bao’s attempt at doing as requested.

“We’re capable and we’re not letting that bitch mess with us anymore,” Zahid spoke sharply.

For the remaining trek through the tunnel, little else was said. We simply steeled ourselves for what lay ahead of us.

Another silver door awaited us as we reached the tunnel’s end. Dakota took a deep breath, then another, then slowly opened the door. One of the fancy hallways of Adam’s country house lay ahead of us.

“Let’s go.”
She led us into the hallway, and almost straight into an encounter with one of Melody’s followers, a woman as tall as Zahid with a permanent sneer.

“With me,” the woman spoke coarsely. “Try anything funny and you’re toast.”

“Understood,” Dakota nodded.

The woman turned and guided us through the building… and like Melody’s previous domain, it quickly became apparent that the place was a battleground between order and chaos. The decorum of Adam’s ownership had been half-dismantled, with items askew or absent.

We reached the big front hall, where people loitered, chatted, walked about, and at the top of the initial flight of stairs, where more stairs branched left and right, Melody sat on a throne with Kitty at her feet, hands cuffed. Our friend’s eyes lit up when she saw us, though her sorrowful expression otherwise remained the same.

“Welcome, welcome,” Melody greeted us with typical superficial charm. “I’m glad you got my invitation.”

“Cut the crap, Melody,” Kendal yelled. “What do you want?”

“That’s fair, it’s very late… I want to offer you one final chance to join me,” our enemy explained. “You’ve had plenty of time to think about it. Plenty of opportunity to see how little the world thinks of people like us-”

“You’ve been saying all this for months now,” I interrupted her. “You keep giving us the chance to join you and we keep saying no. Nothing’s gonna change. We can live like normal people!”

“But you aren’t normal people,” she argued. “You can keep pretending, keep wearing the masks, but they always slip in the end. You’re lucky Russell wants to see you at all, after he recognised the real you.”
I gritted my teeth and exhaled sharply through my nose at that. She honestly wasn’t wrong.
“And yes, something is going to change, because if you refuse me this time, all bets are off. You’re in my fortress. It would be remarkably reckless to declare yourselves my enemies here, wouldn’t it?”

“We are-”
Kendal stopped no sooner than she’d began.
“We can be reckless…”

“And I can depower you with ease, if necessary,” Melody carried on, “so any gruesome deaths would be permanent. I’m sure the thought of that has crossed your mind, Kendal.”

“They have these bracelets…” Kitty uttered, barely-audible across the distance between us.

“We know, we had a chat with Kevin,” Zahid told her, clearly irritated by the mere thought of the boy.

“Bless him,” Melody chuckled. “How long did he last before he told you the truth? He was on strict instructions not to, just for fun. I’ll reward him next time I see him, though. If you don’t mind, Kitty,” she finished, stroking our friend’s head.

“Give Kitty back to us,” Dakota ordered her.

“Give me your answer,” Melody replied bluntly, and held her scythe to Kitty’s throat. “And think carefully about it.”

It surely says something about us that we all aimed our weapons at her at the same time. She laughed heartily. The others in the room advanced on us, slowly.

“You really think you’ll hit me before I kill her?” she asked us. “You’d risk her life just to defy me?”

“You’re the one putting her life at risk,” Bao pointed out to her.

“Let her go and we’ll talk,” Dakota added. “Honest to goodness, sit and talk this through. However long it takes.”

“Oh fuck, I love your curveballs…”
Melody moved her scythe, got to her feet, and began descending the stairs, leaving a shaken Kitty behind.
“Look. You’re being stubborn. You’re being hopeful. And I understand that. I used to have hope too, I think.”
She reached the ground, and took two steps forward before stopping. Our weapons all remained trained on her.
“But I see this world – I see humanity – for what it is. And I want to help you. I want us to help each other. We can stand united and make the world a better place. The six of you have the power to do anything you can imagine, and if you just put that to good use-”

“The only bad things that have happened to us because of what we are come down to you,” I reminded her.

“I didn’t make you hit yourself and run away for weeks, Alex,” she told me harshly. “Just imagine a normal girl as your girlfriend. Do you really think she’d ever look at you the same way again after that?”
Her gaze turned to Bao.
“Do you think Harriet would’ve kept up with you forever? You really wouldn’t have burnt her out sooner or later?”

“Don’t you fucking dare-!”

“I dare,” Melody smirked. “I dare save you from the pain. Injections hurt but they save you from disease. And I honestly don’t mind you hating me if it spares you the heartbreak of her leaving you of her own accord. Don’t you see? That’s what I want. I want to save us all from a world of being feared. A lifetime of wearing masks and feeling them slip off time and time again. Don’t we deserve better than that?”

“Because there’s no better remedy to that than telling everyone to fear the great big monster revolution,” Zahid glowered at her.

“Stop worrying about the normals. Let them fear us while they have the comfort to do so. My speech was a beacon, and look at us now. All across the country, gathering weapons and information, amassing power. Oh, no, wait… you don’t know any of that, do you?”
A devilish twinkle in her eye.
“I’ve been ever so busy over the past few months. All behind the scenes, of course. Preparations being made. Plans being finetuned. Don’t worry, you’ll be seeing a lot more of me soon.”

“Step 1,” Dakota said clearly.

The five of us charged up our weapons, bringing forth spheres of colour around us, surfaces shifting and swirling like the iridescent sheen of a bubble.

“Mhm,” was how Melody responded, looking thoroughly unimpressed. “I really think you should have better ideas by now…”

“Step 2, then,” Dakota told us, and we rapidly expanded our spheres, throwing Melody and all of her present lackies back. Melody slammed into the stairs while the rest were scattered to the outer edges of the hall. The spheres burst, and our combined wills sent the remaining wisps of colour to bind our enemies’ arms and legs, leaving them helpless.

Melody writhed where she lay, her scythe set aside.
“That’s more like it… you’ve actually managed to take me by surprise, well done!”

Bao hurried past her, kicking the scythe down to us on his way up to Kitty. I heard him greet her with a “sorry about Kevin and this is so wild” as I scanned the hall to make sure everybody was dealt with.

“Don’t get cocky, though…” Melody’s voice captured my attention again. I turned my head to see her rising back up, her bonds still present but stretching, warping, diluted with white.

The scythe teleported from the floor and back into her hands; she used it to slice through the colourful twine around her legs from behind.

Beyond her, Kitty rose to her feet, handcuffs broken off, and summoned her Lokon claw, quickly blasting on her Painter gear. Melody looked to see that, and chuckled.

“So you’re getting to grips with what Lokonessence can do. I still know who you are and what you can do. I can counter every move you make. If we’re making this a fight, I’ve already won.”

“Step 3!” Dakota cried out.

The big double-doors swung open abruptly.

In strolled Lucy, barely suppressing the grin on her face.

She pranced about, and performed something of a pirouette before reaching a halt with her arms spread.

“Hiiiii, Melody,” she purred giddily.

“What…?” was all our enemy could muster. I’d never seen her so taken aback.

Into Lucy’s hands manifested dual Lokon daggers, with neon orange blades shaped with curves.

She brought her right hand – the right dagger – to her chest.

“Paint Up!” she announced with relish, and unleashed a torrent of orange upon herself. Once it subsided, she stood there in her new black and orange Painter costume, grinning so brightly it could’ve blinded us.

“The briefcase…” Melody reasoned to herself, eyes locked on Lucy, scythe held back in preparation.

“Yeeeep!” my sister chirped. “Now c’mere!”

To Melody’s credit – my blood ran cold writing that – she must have anticipated that Lucy had no prior experience wielding Lokonessence in this way, and so, despite being blindsided, she met Lucy’s charge towards her with a swing of her scythe and a sharp arc of white.

In the moment, she seemingly hadn’t considered that Dakota, Kendal, Zahid and I were more than capable of covering for Lucy. We all attacked the arc together, and it was nothing by the time it would have met Lucy in their crossed trajectories.

Instead, Lucy reached Melody, daggers thrusting forward, and only just managed to block the scythe as it swung towards her.

“Even this doesn’t-” Melody started, but Lucy swept her feet out from under her and then kneed her in the stomach before she could say more.

“Shhh, it’s my debut fight as a Painter, go easy on me,” Lucy cooed brightly.

Unsurprisingly, more of Melody’s followers began emerging, both from the ground floor and upstairs. With Bao and Kitty on the stairs, the six of us were able to effortlessly hold them back, with snake-like bindings and thick walls of colour for good measure. Once my attention returned to the duel, Melody had just a little more of an upper-hand, quickly acclimatising to my sister’s fighting style. Still, Lucy was putting her training under Adam to good use.

“Come on, Lucy,” Melody hissed, “you know I’m right. Join me. Let’s tear all of this down.”

“Fuck me, you’re a broken record, aren’t you?” Lucy laughed, like this whole thing was the most fun she’d had in ages (knowing her, she probably thought it was).

“I want what’s best for people like us!”

“Nah, you’re like me, you just want to have fun!” Lucy insisted. “So here, try this out!”

She must have seen an opening, or else she was incredibly fortunate. Lucy thrust forward with her right dagger, and stabbed it deep into Melody’s chest, right where her heart was.

Understandably, Melody screamed out in unimaginable agony.

Everything else suddenly seemed to freeze. Nobody else in that hall mattered.

With a smug grin, Lucy sent a burst of orange through her dagger; it erupted from the wound, so much so that it even forced the weapon back out (with the shape of the blade, I was surprised it didn’t pull Melody’s heart out or something). Melody screamed again, and collapsed to her knees, hands to her chest, wheezing, coughing, spluttering, wailing out. Orange trickled from her mouth.

“Lucy!” Dakota yelped in shock, but my sister simply smiled at her before turning to the walled-off hordes.

“Take the hint, losers! Mess with us and you’ll regret it! We’re the Painters, yo!”

Dakota grabbed my arm.
“As we planned. And try to keep her under control.”

“Got it…” I nodded uncertainly. Dakota hurried up the stairs to Bao and Kitty, and the three of them teleported away.

“Should we take her scythe?” Lucy asked sweetly as Kendal, Zahid and I headed to her, our eyes all on the hordes.

“She’ll fucking die if she powers down, you lunatic!” Zahid scolded her; Lucy pouted at him.

“Alright, you don’t have to shout…”

“Kendal, teleport to the car, drive it where we said,” I told her.

“On it,” she saluted, before vanishing.

“Why can’t I just teleport back home?” Lucy looked to me.

“Because we don’t trust you won’t come back here again. Now, come on, let’s go before really bad things happen…”

As Zahid, Lucy and I sprinted out of the open doors, I turned to look back at Melody, clawing at the ground, still in so much pain. I almost expected her to look back, but she kept her eyes to the floor. And that image stuck with me through the rest of the night… as the three of us reached the rendezvous point with Kendal and her car, as we drove back to Dakota’s, as the seven of us reunited shortly before 1am, as Dakota and I settled down to sleep…

Things had changed, now. Not only with Kitty shaken, and Lucy suddenly one of us, but with Melody boasting a fatal wound that, it seemed, Lucy’s orange would prevent her recovering from. What difference it will make, I’m not sure. I doubt it will really impact Melody’s rebellion. If anything, it might have painted a great big target on our backs…