Chapter 6-Nyx

Nyx stood, tense and silent, as she watched the battle between the Guardians and Society of Darkness unfold. A small hand grasped her gloved one. Nyx looked down to see a little girl staring up at her, worry in her eyes. She was thirteen or so, all freckles and brown hair.

“Emma,” Nyx breathed, smiling. It had been so long since she’d seen her. The girl, turning to watch the battle, did not respond, though her hand remained in Nyx’s.

I’m watching her, Nyx recalled, I’m supposed to protect her.

A sinking feeling came over her, a dread of what would happen next.

An explosion ripped through the streets. The force slammed Nyx against a wall, knocking the wind out of her. She got up slowly, gasping in pain, and looked around, searching for-

“Emma!” Nyx ran to the limp form of the young girl slumped against the wall. She grabbed her shoulders, shaking her. The girl’s neck was twisted at an awkward angle. Blood stained her mouth. 

“NO!” Nyx screamed, shaking the girl’s fragile form in vain. She couldn’t be gone. She couldn’t--

“Emma! EMMA!” Nyx sobbed. 

A crowd of Guardians had formed, watching as Nyx cradled the girl’s lifeless body. Slowly, Nyx rose up, her back to her audience. 

June broke the silence. “Nyx…”

Nyx spun on her heals, shocking Telegirl into silence with the look she gave her. It was a look of pure anger, of hatred. The moment passed; June tried again. “Nyx… I… we…,” she said, gesturing vaguely at the assembled metahumans. Shadow was there, with Lazerman behind her. Slayer too, breathing heavily. And Matthew, looking as though he had lost a war; he was there. They didn’t save her. None of them had saved her.

Looking at Matthew’s destroyed face, Nyx found her voice.

“Go away!” She was angry, angrier than ever. They didn’t save her, they’d killed her, they’d killed her. “Leave me alone!”  She turned and ran, sobbing, and did not look back.

~

When Nyx awoke, she found herself lying against the dashboard of her car in some strip mall parking lot. A glance at the car’s clock confirmed her suspicions of the time, though she groaned to see it. 2AM.

She chose to start driving again rather than seek more sleep. Her nightmare had troubled her. The dream itself was familiar and reoccurring, but she hadn’t had it in years. The fact that it came back to her the night her powers had returned was no coincidence, she was sure.

Emma. A little metahuman, barely twelve when she came to the Guardians. Her activation, and subsequent ostracization by family and friends, as was so common in metahuman cases, had led her to them. Her powers were unique, involving the manipulation of electricity, and she was dead smart too. Nyx had helped train her to use her abilities safely, as she was prone to dangerous, uncontrollable outbursts of power. The two had become fast friends despite the eight year age gap. Perhaps it was being outcasts that drew them together, or perhaps it was the mutual quality of frightening, half-controlled powers.

Nyx never learned who or what had set off the explosion that killed Emma more than a decade ago. All that Nyx knew for sure was that she was supposed to protect her while the child observed the battle, and she had failed.

It was likely an accident, to be truthful. It was likely that the girl was just another piece of collateral damage in a war of superhumans, that her death was no one’s fault and at the same time, everyone’s. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that Emma was just another statistic in the damage tolls of superhuman battles, no, it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t, and something had to change. If the world was too fragile for over-industrialization or nuclear warfare, then it was too fragile for superheroes and their supervillains.

Nyx chuckled without humor. That moment, that single death--that had started this whole mess she found herself in now. If only she had died in the blast instead.

~

Luke was done crying. He focused his efforts instead on sifting through his new memories, trying to see how far back they went. From the time he was eighteen months old to now, his memories were clear, sharp, perfectly remembered. The first six months of his life had disappeared. The memories in between were fuzzy, but they were there.

He remembered his first birthday. His mother had given him a cupcake and blown out his candle for him. He remembered a time before that, his mother rocking him to sleep in her arms, singing a lullaby. He remembered her speaking to him telepathically and reading his thoughts for a response, real conversations taking place in their minds before he could speak. Luke knew he was smart, a genius, really. His father--no, Anthony--had taught him computer science at 5, advanced mathematics at 6, astrophysics at 7. He was fluent in six languages and proficient in three others. He’d been engineering, inventing and creating, as soon as his small hands could work the tools, and he was a prodigy with computers. But now he saw himself as a baby, learning to read at one year old, picture books at first, and then real ones. He devoured them as fast as his grubby hands could turn the pages. He remembered his frustration at six, seven, eight months, at being able to understand English but being unable to replicate the words with his undeveloped vocal cords. When he finally spoke, it was in full sentences with a maturity  expected from a five year old. By the time he actually was five, he could have been fifteen, now, at eleven, he seemed twenty or even thirty, but for a slight remaining immaturity that was impossible, at his age, to circumvent entirely. 

The early memories were comforting. He was warm and happy within his mother’s arms. But the later ones, when he was three and four and five, those ones were scary. He remembered a prison filled with a thousand people, people who feared him and did whatever he said. A three year old child, and these people bowed to him without ever meeting his eye. Though it wasn’t him they feared, not exactly. It was his mother. She had done terrible things to them, things he could not fully understand then. She was in charge, the warden of the prison, and the little toddler Luke the second in command. As he sifted through the memories, he realized something else--these people were all superhumans. He recognized the faces of famous superheroes and villains. With delight, he realized he knew many of their secret identities; his mother had told him.

He was not sure what to think of his mother. He loved her dearly, but she looked like the villain. Luke remembered her telling him that what she was doing was saving the world. She had never lied to him, he thought. So he trusted that she was right. She was the hero, and Anthony and all the others were villains for stopping her. However it had happened. All he could tell was that one day he had been at the compound, and the next he had been at Infinity Tower with no memories at all. Anthony and Elizabeth had called themselves his parents, and called their daughter Lilly his sister. Lies, lies, lies, everything was a lie. How could these not be the bad guys? They were the villains in the story.

Not his mother. Not Nyx.

“Luke!” came a voice from outside the door. “What’s going on? What’s wrong?” 

For a moment, Luke was angry at hearing her voice. It faded, though. Lilly was as much a victim as him. She didn’t know the truth, she was innocent, ignorant. They’d taken her memories too, to protect her or to deceive him, he did not know. He shivered as he remembered her in a different way, not as his sister but as his slave, as his bullied plaything. It was better she did not learn the truth. He still loved her, Luke realized, and he wanted her to continue loving him. 

“What’s wrong, Luke?” Her voice conveyed a genuine concern.

“You know how our first five years are a blank? Disappeared, erased?”

A pause, and then the nearly inaudible reply: “Yes.”

“Well I’ve remembered. Mom and Dad are lying to us, they’re lying to you and me both. I’ve remembered everything and I wish I hadn’t. It’s not--” He felt his throat closing up as he struggled for words. “I don’t like it. It’s not--”

He burst into fresh tears. “Just leave me alone, Lilly,” he said through his sobs. “Go away. I don’t want you to be hurt. You’re the only innocent left.”

“Luke--”

“Just go away!”

“Luke, I love you forever and always. Remember that.” She turned and ran. He heard her footsteps growing farther and farther away. 

When he was sure no one was listening, he whispered to himself, “I will.”