Original Superhero Co-Write

Here is my chapter, now... I don't really know if I did well and maybe it's kind of lengthy?

***

It was the middle of class when Beau received Naveen's thoughts from the hallway outside. His eyes widened, his stance tightener, and Hollace by his side looked at him strangely, as was usual for him.

"Beau?" he whispered over to him. "The fuck is wrong with you?"

"My mom," he felt his mouth dry and his eyes burns at the urgency in Naveen's thoughts and the grotesque picture he surely hadn't meant for him to see. "Oh, god, mom, I..."

"Mr. Ling?" Hollace stood and grasped Hollace's elbow, lifting him up. "Beau doesn't feel very well, can I take him to the nurse?"

"Of course," their teacher had always been extremely nice, and Beau hoped he won the fucking lottery.

Making their way out of class, Beau took a deep breath and controlled himself, looking solemnly at Naveen, who was waiting for him. As soon as the two were in front of each other, the elder pulled the Cajun boy into a fullfilling embrace.

"Is she okay?" damn it, he was crying again. "Please, uncle, I'm old enough, I... I can take it all."

"It was an aotnic seizure," Naveen rubbed his hand on his back, soothing the tense muscles. "She fell and got a concussion before any of us could get to her. I'm sorry, son."

"It's okay," Beau sniffled. "It's okay, really, it's... okay."

"She's resting right now," Naveen pulled away and lifted Beau's head by hos chin, making him look into his deep browns. "She needs it. Go home and take your guitar, you know she loves it."

"Uncle -"

"You're doing very well, Beau," he slapped his hand on his shoulder. "I have to go back to the shop, there's a very important client coming soon. But everyone's still at the hospital."

"Okay," he nodded, rubbing his eyes.

Naveen, quick as he came, he disappeared, and it was only then that Beau realized Hollace was still there, feeling of utter and complete impotence flying out of him.

"Hey, it's alright," he shrugged it off. "It's not the worst of what's happened."

"She," Hollace blinked twice at him, rapidly. "Beau, is your mom epileptic?"

"Yeah," he rubbed the back of his neck. "It's... kind of hard, but she's getting better, lately, believe it or not."

"That day, at the hospital," Hollace approached him, and to Beau's surprise, he grasped his arm tightly but not with a bruising grip. "Was it because your mom was there?"

"Yeah," he nodded.

There were so many spectrums of emotions coming from Hollace that Beau wasn't sure what exactly the brunet was feeling. It was as if he's taken all Lantern Rings and put them all on at once. So Beau moved his arm and gently took a grip on Hollace's hand, squeezing his fingers.

"Go back to class," he sent him a very soft smile and Hollace immediately radiated defensive behavior. "You need to catch up in this class. I'll go to the hospital and see my mom. Don't worry about it."

"I will," Hollace blurted, embarrassment burning through him. His cheeks turned the deepest shade of red and he snatched his hand away. "I will fucking worry, you dipshit! You mom was the nicest woman I've ever goddamn met and she's got a jerk of a son like you! Of course I will worry!"

Beau laughed, turned to the exit, looked back at Hollace, and patted his chest, right over his heart, nodding and finally moving away from the startled young adult.

***

Tina, Craig and Tom were leaving when Beau dismounted his motorcycle. He took off his helmet half-heartedly and stood in front of them, waiting for the veredict. Although Craig seemed fine, Tina seemed shaken. Tom was relieved, he could feel it deep inside.

"She's alright," Craig nodded at him, the buff man giving him a gentle gaze. "She'll be alright, kiddo, she's just taking a bit of a nap."

"For once, the bill is covered, too!" Tom grinned.

"That's good," Beau sighed in relief. He was wondering how much he'd have to work to make up for the expenses. 

"I was the closest to her," Tina's dark cheeks were stained with tear tracks. She rubbed at her nose. "I didn't react fast enough, Beau, I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault," he found his hand rubbing away the tears. She was twenty-six but he stood a good head taller than her. She was so tiny. "You guys go back to the diner. I'll stay for a while."

"Go to sleep at your own damn house, kid," Craig glared at him. "Don't overworry like you always do."

"D'accord," he smiled weakly.

Entering the hospital, he got the room number fast and walked through the hallways with a knot in his throat. He knew she was fine, had felt it was only the truth, but he hated when this happened and his mother ended up weak and frail and more dead than alive. 

Knocking on the door, he opened it only to find his mother sleeping and Dr. Kizer checking up on her. Beau sighed in relief at the doctor and trudged towards the bed, ignoring the professional until his hand was firmly against his mother's. He quickly set the guitar case next to the auxiliar table.

"She's alright!" the good doctor grinned at him, and when he looked at her he suddenly realized something.

"You're Annie's mom," he shut his eyes. "God, why didn't I see this sooner? You two look a lot alike."

"Oh, you flatter me," she laughed, although the tinge of sadness would not dissipate from her. Of course she wore a hex bag, Annie had probably asked Naveen to make a bracelet or something for her entire family. Remy had done so, too. "She's here, with the children, if you want to see her."

"No!" he immediately recoiled as Dr. Kizer frowned. "I... I want to be with ma right now."

"I see," she looked at the guitar and nodded, grabbing all her utensils. "Well, all she needs is rest. She's been talen care of and in a few days she'll be as healthy as a rose."

"Thank you, doctor," he tiredly sat by his mother's legs.

As the other mother left the room, Beau stared at his own. The thoughts from the people inside the hospital faded once he began to delve into his own, reminding himself that his ma was the strongest woman in the world - stronger than Esther, who left her world to be free. Stronger than Annie, who could raise and control the undead. Stronger than his sister, who had the courage to tell them her boyfriend had used his fist on her. Stronger than anyone else who had their daughter be killed, ignored by the police, had their husbanda leaving them and their son developing psychic powers.

Beau cried for a while, like he was doing so often lately. He hadn't felt this useless in his life. He didn't save people, but kill them. He couldn't get good grades unless he cheated with his powers. Drama was becoming a task more than something he enjoyed lately. He could barely sleep, or eat, or do anything without being reminded that, wherever he went, there was always something bad waiting for him and the people who surrounded him.

He picked the guitar - why not? - and began to play Flake, by Jack Johnson, because his mother had always loved that song and he was very okay with singing that one at the moment. His fingers were bleeding from the pressure he put on them by the end of the song, and Beau lifted them to his face and squeezed until more blood oozed out.

"You twat! Don't do that, you'll bleed out!"

Beau jumped, the guitar falling on the bed as Annie hurriedly grabbed some cotton and dissenfectant, sitting beside him to clean up the wounds angrily.

"I thought you were with the kids," he mumbled incoherently.

"My mom talked to me," her eyes turned softer. "I... didn't know your mom had epilepsy."

"No, I didn't," he watched her work, fascinated with how she could heal him this fast. "Nobody asked. I don't like to talk about it."

"We've known each other for a few months now," she sighed, placing little band aids on the cuts. They had Adventure Time characters on them. Beau had again the urge to cry. "That qualifies us as friends, doesn't it? And you helped me out when... well, when my sister was pulled into the conversation."

"You felt sad," he shrugged, then looked at his ma, laying limp on the hospital bed. "You would've done the same."

"I don't know about that," she laughed a little. "What were you playing?"

"Jack Johnson," he placed his hands on his lap. "She likes him a lot."

There was silence, and Beau thought about Annie playing the piano for the sick kids with a smile and the most beautiful look in her eyes that he had ever seen. Then he was reminded of Alice and looked at Annie a for a moment he pictured himself with a nice girl, once again, but this time someone like Annie.

Beau really needed to stop crushing on too assertive girls.

Damn, he thought to himself, running a hand through his hair, I don't have time for this shit.

But Annie really was strong, wasn't she? A sister with Leukemia, the rising of the undead, the fact that she could float as if she were Storm T'Challa and the fiery red of her hair. What the fuck was he gonna do with a crush like this one?

"Want to.. uh, play with me?" she felt embarrassed, but Beau smiled and nodded one last time before picking his guitar, kissing his ma's forehead, and following Annie into the children's ward.

They weren't very enthusiastic about him until he began to play Frozen's Let It Go and Annie followed him with the piano. They made a bunch of Disney songs and when Beau's fongers couldn't take anymore, Annie kept playing and Beau took the boys' attention to telling them which Lantern they would be, taking different. Colored pens to draw each symbol on their hands. 

Annie still looked beautiful when he arrived home and cried himself to sleep.

"Maybe that could teach you to shut the fuck up," Hollace said, tying thick cloth around a super they had just defeated who had the power to emit a highly destructive sonic scream. She had already shattered all the windows of the nearby skyscraper and even made Remy's ears bleed.

The screamer had a partner in crime who had the ability to control plants, which had absolutely no effect on Remy since all he had to do was ignite his whole body, so he was very easy to defeat. They tied the two of them to a tree and placed a ring of fire around it in case any of them woke up and got free and sent an alert to Officer Langley.

They had established a system where Langley would send an alert to them on their phones of any suspicious activity and they'd send one back once the supers had been detained and was ready to be arrested by the local police. That was the first time they had to do that and it seemed to work well.

"C'mon, let's go," Annie said, looking up at the sky where a news helicopter was hovering. They ran towards a grey van that Hollace and Beau picked up the other day so they could get to places of crime a lot faster than the subway or any of their individual cars. It was supposedly abandoned but Remy was a little skeptical. They quickly climbed in and Beau, who was at the wheel, sped off towards Naveen's shop.

When they arrived, they had all already changed back into their normal clothes. They placed a little divider in the back of the van for the girls to change behind. They did it as a precaution in case Beau's reckless driving got them pulled over and they would be caught. Remy, who had the most trouble making the switch between normal clothes to costume to normal clothes again, had finally mastered how to do it in under thirty seconds. But he did envy Hollace's super speed and being able to do it in less than one.

They entered Naveen's shop and Maya was already there. Her and Naveen were watching the news and she looked at them excitedly and screeched, "Look!"

On the TV screen was the scene they had just left. They could see officers arresting the supers and the headline read, "The Undertakers at it again!"

"The Undertakers?" Remy furrowed his eyebrows.

The lady on the screen said, "A vigilante group called The Undertakers has saved the day again! The Rockefeller Center was under attack by two individuals whose names have been withheld and the group that saved the day on Halloween, if you remember, detained them and left them for authorities to arrest..."

"Who the hell named us The Undertakers?" Hollace asked, looking around.

"Me!" Maya yelled. She was on her laptop and she pointed at it. "I called you guys that on my blog and I dunno how they saw it, but they did! Look, my blog is getting more and more viewers every time I refresh!"

"You have a blog?" Hollace snorted.

"Yes, Hollace, I mentioned it like thirty times. Do none of you read it?" Maya asked, looking at them with sad eyes.

"I read it," Beau said, shooting her a wink. Maya batted her eyelashes at him and Remy rolled his eyes. He made his way over to Maya and took her laptop from her. The rest of the group focused their attention on him as he read,

"For those of you wondering who the hell that group of people were that saved, well, the world from those crazies on Halloween, let me tell you something...These are the bravest people you'll ever meet. I mean, who simply walks into a fight without knowing their own true potential? These five individuals were probably making their way over to a Halloween party or something and then BAM! their lives changed forever, as did mine and yours. Can we finally stop tip-toeing around the idea of superheroes? I'm sure not going to because I saw the video and that was no Photoshop. You saw the video, you saw the electrical currents shooting out of a girl, you saw the blur of a man running at (literally) a mile a minute. You saw them: Inferno, Ouija, Intérieur, White Lightning, and Live Wire. Or as I like to call them, The Undertakers..."

Remy looked at Maya, as did the rest of them, and there was a silence. It wasn't a stunned, I-can't-believe-you-did-that silence, it was more of a silence that was needed for them to take it all in. They'd only fought crime a few times already but it didn't seem real until that moment. The news was talking about it, they had a name. It was the most absurd situation but Remy was so used to it by now that he was actually feeling a little excited.

Maya looked around with a slightly scared look on her face as she couldn't really read the look on everyone's faces.

"Holy shit," Hollace said. He grabbed the laptop and looked at it. "It has over a million views!"

"You guys are popular," Maya shrugged. "Look at the comments," she said. "See? 'Inferno sounds like he's hot...no pun intended.'" Remy beamed and shrugged his shoulders like he knew that already. "'Ouija is a boss ass bitch' and 'Can Live Wire come electrocute my physics teacher so I don't have to take tomorrows exam?'"

"I will not!" Esther exclaimed, affronted.

"Wait, what's this comment? 'I wouldn't mind getting in between Intérieur and White Lightning, if you know what I mean...'" Hollace looked up with an amused expression on his face. Maya's face turned bright red.

"Uh, yeah, that was me. I just wanted comments so I thought I'd start it off!" She gave Remy an innocent smile, who looked absolutely shocked.

"With that?" he exclaimed.

Maya let out a nervous chuckle.

"Uncle, you haven't said anything since we came back," Beau said, turning to Naveen. Remy almost forgot he was there. He was unusually quiet but he was tinkering with what looked like a pink rock and he looked up.

"It was going to happen eventually," Naveen said, straightening up and smiling at the six of them. "I knew it would the minute you all arrived in my shop, scared shitless about your powers." There was a collective chuckle. "And now that you've all excelled, you have used it to help the people and now the people have seen what you can do. The response is better than I thought. I'm proud of you all. Now, who's hungry? There's a buffet in the restaurant..."

While everyone smiled and momentarily felt cool and important, Hollace groaned, "Thank God, I'm fucking starving..."



At school the next day, everyone was talking about The Undertakers. In Remy's cell biology class, when he walked in to take the final, he almost had a heart attack because he heard, "Okay, but Inferno can manipulate fire! That's, like, the best fucking power!"

He couldn't help but grin at that.

Most of the comments were like that, but some were along the lines of, "You really believe that shit? C'mon, this isn't a fucking Marvel movie..." Remy believed he would've been a part of that group a few months ago when he was just a normal person.

Unfortunately, they couldn't bask in the glory for too long because it was finals week and everyone was stressing. Every professor gave them long, tentative study guides for their classes and Remy wanted to just throw all of them away and go to sleep. His major, Biological Sciences, was kind of a boring one. He enjoyed it because he was good at it, but he didn't really know what he wanted to do with it.

Remy met up with Annie and Hollace at the library after his final was over. Annie was reading a very large textbook and Hollace was on his laptop.

"Hey guys," he said, sitting down at the table.

"Hey, Rem, how are you?" Annie said, looking up at him and giving him a smile. Ever since the day Annie brought back his parents, their relationship had changed. They were texting every day, whenever they'd meet at school or at training, they would sit together or train together, they would even call each other sometimes to talk about that night's episode of Law and Order: SVU. It was like an unspoken bond had formed between them.

He smiled back and said, "I'm great, how're you?"

"I'm going alright," she replied, still smiling when she focused her attention back on her textbook.

"Dude, look, we're trending on Twitter," Hollace said, turning his laptop around. He was right, on the list was The Undertakers four spaces down. "How cool is that!"

Remy chuckled. He pulled out his laptop and tried working on his lab report, which was due at midnight, but he was too distracted. Annie's hair was emitting the scent of strawberries and he couldn't help but suddenly resist the urge to run his fingers through them.

Wait, what? he thought to himself.

"Well, I gotta hit it. See you guys later," Hollace said, packing up his stuff and then leaving.

"Later," Remy called after him. Annie gave him a half-hearted wave.

He watched Annie as she furrowed her eyebrows and stared intently at her textbook of what looked like physical chemistry. Her eyes weren't moving and Remy raised an eyebrow, amused.

"Are you trying to burn a hole through it, 'cause I can do that for you," he said, grinning.

Annie looked up and laughed.

"I just can't focus on this any longer. My final is in two days and I'm seriously considering summoning the ghost of Svante Arrhenius to take this final for me..." Remy looked at her, confused, and she immediately said, "He's, like, the father of physical chemistry."

"Dude," Remy said, his eyes widening.

"No," Annie said, pointing. "That's cheating."

"Can you summon the ghost of whatever scientist is the father of plant physiology to write this lab report for me?" he asked, innocently. Annie gave him a look but they laughed. "See, this shit is just so useless to me," he continued. "I mean, plant physiology is definitely useless, but my other classes...it's like, I should aim to be a doctor or something but I don't really want to..."

"Why'd you choose Biological Sciences as your major anyway?" Annie asked, closing her textbook and leaning forward. The strawberry scent was stronger...

Remy shrugged. "My parents did stuff in the biology and microbiology fields so I figured, why not? But they both worked in research labs and that's not something I want to do either."

"There's a billion things you can do in your life and not just related to your major," Annie said, as-a-matter-of-factly. "You can be a businessman, you can be a lawyer, you can be a chef!"

Remy laughed. "I know, I just don't want my aunt to have wasted $50,000 a year and then have me give up."

"Hey, wait, I've got an idea," Annie said, straightening up and looking at Remy excitedly. "You could totally be a fireman. I mean, your power makes you literally immune to the harmful effects of fire, you can manipulate it, it's the perfect career!"

Remy raised his eyebrows. That actually wasn't a bad idea. Annie had a smug look on her face and he grinned.

"I know, I know, you don't need to thank me," she said, shrugging and waving him off. "But I do need to head out because I have way too much to study and you're distracting me," she glared at him.

"Sorry, but I'm irresistible."

Annie laughed and pulled him into a hug. He wrapped his arms tightly around her and for a moment, he didn't want to let go. When they did, she waved goodbye and he couldn't get the scent of strawberries out of his mind.