The Freaks: Chapter 6 - Explanations

Explanations to how the Freaks got their powers, part of the plot, etc...

Chapter 6

Explanations

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

James

 

 

 

 

 

Isaac sat in the cockpit flying the aircraft. I was left alone with all these strange people. These Freaks. Then I remembered, I was one of them.

 

And I wanted answers.

 

Peter was continuously exploding into mist and travelling around the interior, reforming in any spot he chose. Mike kept to himself, juggling fireballs, and Angel sat as far away from us all as possible, seemingly asleep.

 

I couldn't quite figure her out, Angel. Quiet, I knew. But I figured there was more to her. I didn't know what exactly. But before I went trying to figure the others out, I wanted to learn about myself.

 

Hector was speaking with Damion and Elina. I turned to face them and joined in on their conversation.

 

"-very evil man he is," Hector was saying.

 

"Woah," I interrupted, "Who are we talking about?" They turned to face me.

 

"Professor Uklaime Berrand," Hector said. "Weren't you listening?"

 

"No, sorry."

 

"Then pay attention now. I will not repeat myself." I nodded, waited for him to continue. Hector was a tan man with dark hair and a stubble of facial hair. HIs muscular build showed beneath his tattered muscle shirt. Several scars ran down the length of his arms, obviously signs of plenty of combat.

 

"Professor Uklaime Berrand," Hector began, "is one of the greatest minds on the planet. He is a Freak like us. Only his intentions are not good."

 

"And our intentions are good?" interrupted Mike. HIs fireballs extinguished at once. "What exactly are our intentions? Run away and play hide-and-seek with the world?" Hector glared at Mike, clearly annoyed.

 

"No intentions are still far greater than bad ones." Mike laughed and slouched back into his seat, playing with his fire once again.

 

Hector sighed and shook his head, continuing: "Anyways, Professor Berrand is a very radical religious man. He even believes, or so I've heard, that he is...," Hector glanced up at Mike, as if waiting for him to have a comment on what he was about to say, "...the Messiah himself."

 

"The Professor believes he is Jesus?" Damion asked bluntly. Damion still had a bit of sand scattered in his bush of black hair. His chocolate covered skin had been scraped and bruised.

 

Then the voice we all knew would come came: "Leave it up to religion to ruin everything," Mike said. A stream of fire blew from the tip of Mike's index finger and slithered around like a snake. He seemed a professional at his abilities. And here I was with no recollection of my powers whatsoever.

 

"Religion is not the problem," Hector said. "It is only when a demented person like the Professor grows attached to that religion."

 

After he slurped a good while from his soda and burped, his cheeks inflating, Peter said: "Like that one guy...what was his name?...Olama...Illama...oh!...Osama bin Laden?" Hector closed his eyes, sighed, and slowly nodded his head.

 

"Yes, Peter," Hector said. "Like Osama bin Laden." Hector reopened his eyes and gave us the slightest hint of a smile. "Anyways, Professor Berrand believes he can save humanity by showing them true evil. By teaching them what fear really is."

 

"And how exactly is that supposed to work?" Elina asked.

 

I looked at her. It was the first time I actually got to see her without trying to be killed. She was, as I said earlier, extremely beautiful. It seemed, however, she wasn't the type of girl who would take too much crap before she went off on someone. I ,for one, would not try to piss her off. Her blond hair stuck in several different directions. A bit of grime was stuck to her forehead and cheeks. Nonetheless, she was still beautiful.

 

She caught me staring at her. I glanced away, hoping it wasn't too obvious.

 

"Just like a parent punishes a child to teach the kid a lesson, the Professor will punish the world in the same manner. By killing, he will save double the amount of lives. Or so he believes, atleast."

 

"Muslim?" Mike asked ignorantly. His snake of fire slithered towards Peter's feet. The fire striked and scorched Peter's ankle, who let out a yelp in surprise and pain.

 

"Christian," Hector said, ignoring the whole situation with Mike and Peter. Mike nodded, as if he had figured that all along. He drew his fiery snake back into his finger and gave Peter a wink. Peter stuck out his tongue, which was probably the bravest thing he's ever done in his life.

 

Hector stared at Mike a little longer. "But that doesn't mean all Christians are bad, Mike. Or is your name Michael?" Hector smiled.

Mike glanced at him, clearly irritated. He kept quiet, however.

 

I thought I'd speak up. "So, how did we get our powers?"

 

"Professor Berrand gave them to us," Hector said. "It's quite a long story actually. Maybe-"

 

"I can wait." Hector considered this, sighed, leaned back in his seat, and nodded.

 

"Very well then," he said. "Professor Berrand, like all of us here, has a disease. A rare, non-contagious disease."

 

"We have a disease?" Elina asked, stunned. She studied Hector with curious eyes that danced back and forth.

 

Hector nodded. "Yes. I just said that, I believe." He looked up to the ceiling and mumbled beneath his breath. "It can go unnoticed for years," Hector continued. "However, when you reach the age of Professor Berrand - say, fifty - it begins to take its effect. It slowly begins to kill you. A slow, horrible death. The experts could never find a cure nor find where it originated from."

 

"AIDS," Mike said. Hector ignored him. Elina rolled her eyes.

 

"There was, however, a cure. No one in the whole world could figure it out...except for the Professor." Mike and Peter were listening at this point. I supposed they had been informed about all the stuff Hector just told us about before, but Hector was saying something now they had never heard. Peter quit drinking his Coke for a second, letting out a slight burp, and Mike even quit playing with his fire. All eyes on Hector, except for Angel, who had her back facing us.

 

"The cure was called Vioxin. Professor Berrand tested it on himself first, mainly because he could find no one else with the disease in the beginning. Now, however, he has a whole laboratory dedicated into tracking down individuals carrying the disease."

 

"Anyways, the cure worked, but it had its side-effects. It didn't eliminate the disease, but instead it transformed it. Transformed our very DNA. That is how we became these superhumans."

 

"So what they did to us back at the lab," Damion said, "was curing us? They were giving us this...Vioxin?"

 

I had no idea what he was talking about. What lab?

 

"Yes," Hector said. "Our lifespan has been extended by several years."

 

"Wait...what? What did they do to us?" I asked, still feeling stupid, but I no longer cared.

 

"Our lifespan has been exten-"

 

"No. About what Damion said. What did they do to us? What lab?" Hector nodded, remembering I had no memory.

 

In case you didn't know, not being able to remember anything about who you are sucks.

 

"We were all kidnapped by the Professor's radical followers," said Hector. "Yes, even I was kidnapped. I could have taken them if they had not ambushed me when I least expected it. Anyways, they took us to his lab. I don't know the exact location. There, we were transformed. Cured. Given Vioxin."

 

"They had the same beliefs as Uklaime, his followers did. They believed the only way to save humanity was to teach it a lesson. That is why we were created."

 

"What do you mean?" Elina asked. Peter, to my left, crumbled his soda can and exploded once more. It was beginning to get annoying. I'd much rather listen to his nonstop jabbering. He was oddly quiet, however. Hector must have taught him a lesson about speaking when he was talking.

 

"We were created to destroy the world," Hector said nonchalantly. "Professor Berrand figured out that Vioxin gave all of the disease-carriers powerful abilities. He figured he could use us in his mission to teach humanity a lesson. So he had his team of scientists, some of the most brilliant minds in the world, build a machine that could brain-wash its victim."

 

"Brain-wash?" I asked.

 

"Yes. It is what they were doing to you when Damion and Elina saved you from it."

 

"Saved him?" Mike said. "He can't remember a damn thing." I looked at him instinctively. He glared at me with the fire in his palm dancing across his black eyes as he grinned.

 

"Yes, but the alternative was being unconsciously evil," said Hector.

 

"Unconsciously evil?" I asked, looking away from Mike, still very much confused.

 

"Yes," Hector continued. "Brain-washing is unknown to the outside world. Which means no one knows of the machine other than the Freaks and the people who created it. And, also, the warlords who bought them from the Professor."

 

"Why would they buy them?" I interrupted. I was sorry I did after Hector glared at me. I decided to let him finish.

 

"Brain-washing machines make their victims believe that their life's purpose is to carry out the Professor's mission: destroying the world to eventually save it. Every brain-washed Freak is classified as a slave to Professor Berrand. They do as he says when he says it."

 

"The machine does not erase the victims memory, but alters their mind set. Everything they believed in and lived for was changed. Good people would be transformed into pure evil beings. They had no control over their minds. Which is why I used the term 'unconsciously evil.'"

 

I was too scared to speak, so I nodded instead. Hector didn't need metal skin to be intimidating.

 

"So the whole purpose of a brain-washing machine," Damion said, "is to make its victim work for the Professor's cause? To make its victim want to destroy everything in its path?"

 

"Pretty much," Hector said, as if that answered all of our questions. "In James' case, however, the interruption of saving him caused him to lose his memory."

 

There was a bit of a silence as we all took this information in. I ran through it all in my mind, hoping for some sort of clue to my past:

 

I have a disease.

 

I was kidnapped by followers of the Professor.

 

The Professor believes in saving the world through destruction.

 

I was cured/transformed by Vioxin, which the Professor invented.

 

Vioxin mutated my DNA.

 

I was given powers by this.

 

Then there was nothing after I was brain-washed by my warlord.

Saved by Elina and Damion.

 

"How did we get to our warlords?" I asked suddenly, just coming up with that question. "Why do the warlords want us? Are they followers, too?"

 

"The Professor sold you," Hector said. "It is how he made his money. Selling Freaks and brain-washing machines. The little crowns that drain our powers, too. He invented that. The warlords are followers, yes, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of them had been brain-washed into the Professor's cause. Professor Berrand also sold these...monsters." I could see the confusion on everyone's face.

 

"What monsters?" Mike asked, clearly intrigued by the term "monsters."

 

"The ones that lurk in little kids' closets," the mist slithering across the floor said. The fog spiraled and formed into Peter, who was smiling stupidly. "Boo!" he said right beside my ear.

 

"D****e," Mike mumbled. Hector ignored it all, but he was clearly annoyed.

 

"Yes...Michael...monsters," Hector said with a purposely annoying emphasis on "Michael." Mike raised the corner of his mouth in disgust, but yet he still waited on an answer.

 

"Vioxin transforms us into Freaks because of the disease we all carry. Or carried, I should say. But the Professor was curious as to what would happen when the drug was given to someone without the disease. The result was a monster. Haven't you seen them on the news?"

 

Damion and Elina nodded. It was clear this was the first time Mike had heard about it. Not surprising. I couldn't picture Mike actually watching the news.

 

Of course I didn't know about them.

 

"Those things are humans?" Elina asked.

 

"Use to be," Hector said. "Not anymore. The Professor sells them to the warlords so they can release them into cities. They cannot be brain-washed but once released, hell is unleashed."

 

Another silence. Monsters. Real life monsters. I almost wanted to laugh.

 

"Hey!" Peter blurted out spontaneously. "Do we get superhero costumes and names? I want to be...'Mist!'"

 

"'Mist?'" Mike said through a laugh. Peter ignored it, or either he didn't understand it was meant to be an insult.

 

"Yeah. Mist," Peter repeated. "You can be...'The Flame.'" Peter said pointing at Mike. Mike looked down at the red mark on Peter's ankle he had just given him as if it gave him an idea.

 

"I prefer 'Scorch,'" Mike said smiling. Peter shrugged as if he didn't really care what Mike's "code name" was.

 

"Um," said Damion, "I'm not asking for superhero costumes, but do you have some spare clothes?" He pulled at his clothing, the same Elina and I were both wearing. They were torn and dirty. Even when they were clean they were uncomfortable and way out of style. We looked like escapees from prison.

 

Hector tapped his finger against his chin and yelled out: "Isaac!" His outburst startled us all.

 

"What?" Isaac called back from the cockpit.

 

"Spare clothes for the kids?"

 

"One second!" A few seconds later - (Isaac must have opened it from the cockpit) - one of the walls slid open and a set of full body armor outfits were suspended in the air. They seemed to be made of a mix of leather and metal. All black except for the lines running down the length of the arms and legs. Each outfit had different color lines. Blue, red, yellow, green, purple, ex cetera.

 

"That armor is bullet-proof, fire-proof, and pretty much whatever else you can think of proof!" Isaac called out to us.

 

"Why haven't I gotten one yet?" Peter said, gazing at the outfits amazingly.

 

"You never asked!" was Isaac's response.

 

"Why would we need armor?" Mike asked. "We recover quickly anyways."

 

"The pain can slow us down, however," Isaac said. "If our bodies use energy to recover from wounds then we don't have that much energy left to put into our powers. The more pain we receive, the less damage our abilities are. Too much pain and you could end up temporarily with a complete loss of power. The outfits help protect you from pain."

 

"Um," Elina started as she looked at her dirty hands and clothing, "What about a bath?"

 

"Isaac!" Hector called out again.

 

"Jesus, Hector, I'm not that far away from you! No need for screaming. What do you want?"

 

"The girl wants a bath. And they do need one." He sniffed and curled his face up in disgust.

 

"There's a sink and soap in the back," Isaac called out. "That's the best we have."

 

"A sink?!" Elina said.

 

Hector nodded. "Sit in it. Works for me." Hopefully the man was joking. He grinned. Thank God, he was joking.

 

Elina looked at him as if disgusted, grabbed the outfit with purple lining, and headed to the room in the back. She opened the metal door and stepped into what was most likely a very small bathroom.

 

"Girls and their bathing," Hector said shaking his head. "Why must they always bathe, eh?" I looked at him hesitantly and then at Damion, hoping for some help. How would I respond to that?

 

Fortunately, Peter -ergh, Mist-, who was staring at the armored costumes with his jaw dropped and eyes wide, exclaimed with his arms outstretched: "I call the yellow one!"

Author's Note

I know this was boring but I had to get some of the explanations of everything out of the way. God bless your soul if you read the entire chapter! haha.

Reviews

[halflives]

OMIGIBBS. THIS WAS AMAZING. I loooove all the characters, every second of it. This story is brilliant. Reading on~

[~Lizzy♬]

It wasn't boring at all. I actually enjoyed the chapter. This chapter was very informational and I thought some parts in the sidelines were hilarious. You have a very well progressed plot here. I liked how you stayed in one person's POV the whole chapter. :)

~Lizzy~