A Normie's Evolution

With renewed energy, Glen ran into the nearby clump of bushes and towards the soldiers. He knew exactly what to do. Some of the soldiers noticed this and aimed their weapons at him and began shooting at the moving target but in time, he reached a soldier wielding a sword and fought the blade out of his hands and then used it to fight the other guards.

Meanwhile, Star completely made her way out of Zini's subconscious. In that startling process, the soldiers aimed their guns at her. Consequently, the IE Zini wore to hide her identity disintegrated in an electrical display of power during her transformation. Her purplish brown skin shone in the red moonlight, and her gray hair looked an ethereal reddish silver under the cool rays. She stood taller now than normal. Her arms were long, and her razor sharp nails poked out of her fingers. Her jaw stood out of her face stronger. The lady's eyes were sharp and piercing like beams and silver in color as her hair. With every breath she took, her chest pumped out and in. Uncontrollable rage consumed her while hot breath streamed from her nostrils.

"Fire!" The warden of the camp commanded in a loud voice. He was behind the few dozen rows of soldiers before Star. The shooting at began. The bullets and shotgun shells bounced off her skin. Star smirked as she thought of how futile their efforts were at trying to kill her. Without hesitation, she leaped into the first line of soldiers. With inhumane speed, she got to them in a short time and cleared them off their feet along with their weapons.

All the while, Glen fought his way through the swordsmen that came at him toward the prison doors. But they were too much. The soldiers overpowered him. He'd forgotten that these guards were Anomalies. Some had a unique power set that became his undoing. With telekinesis, he was thrown into the trees nearby. Two bullets were shot into his leg to keep him down after he hit the base of the tree. Getting back to where Star fought, some soldiers threw themselves at the raging dragon and aimed to overpower her, but she flung them off of her. A good number of them thought it would be a bright idea to dog pile her in a blitz attempt.

While under the pile of Anomalies trying to restrain her, a low growl was heard. Raising her head and screaming to the moon, Star let out a guttural roar into a high-pitched scream. Suddenly, a hail of bright energy blades that looked like knives, fell from the sky, killing every soldier it touched. All soldiers that dog-piled her were now dead with a blade of energy through their backs. Star blasted the carcasses off her with telekinetic energy. For a moment, everything fell silent but within seconds, the prison doors opened, and the soldiers wheeled out a large weapon that looked like a cannon. Already loaded, it was aimed at Star and fired after the men sounded a war cry.

Glen screamed in disdain as the giant artillery shell flew at Star. From where he laid, a few steps behind the girl, he rolled away to avoid the large atomic ball of death. The shell went through Zini's body and into the forest behind her. Glen's jaw dropped as he watched the girl heave and fall to the ground on her back. Silence enveloped the camp. The only sounds that were heard were Star's heavy breathing and the cannon's echo. Glen's eyes were wide with apprehension and fear at what might happen now. Guilt began to set into his mind before he heard the strangest thing.

The sea roared louder, and the clouds covered the sky. Its waves seemed to flow into the forests towards the campsite. The soldiers looked shocked and focused on the forest as Star looked down at the gaping hole in her body. Glen watched as the opening closed within seconds and her body becoming rigid. Roaring with anger, Star slammed the ground with clenched fists. As a reaction, her enemies and their artillery seemed to jump into the air before they were flung furiously to the ground. Upon hitting it, the men were killed by the artillery piece's explosion, cascading into igniting its stockpile nearby. At this, Star fell to the ground again, weakened by the burst of power she just displayed. Zini was in control once again. There was nothing now but dead soldiers all around them and locked prison doors between them and the prisoners.

"Glen!" Zini heard a small voice call from within the locked building and an answer from an injured Glen.

"Kita!"

Zini was too tired out to move and see where the voice came from or check how Glen was doing. Star had worn her out. So, she laid there and thought to herself.

So, what if Star hadn't fully developed? Would she always use these powers she never even knew she had just to fight back knowing it could drain her? Even in a vulnerable state, they couldn't be killed, or so it seemed. What was more concerning was the possibility of never always being in control of her own body. The body she once despised.

Despised?

Where was that feeling? Where did it go? Zini realized that just as she couldn't believe what she had and how powerful she could become-the potential and thought of the latter was intoxicating! Zini's body was too unbelievable to be hated now. She raised her hands and looked at them. They were normal now. They were void of the any damage she suffered during this battle. With Zini's Image Emulator now destroyed, her dragon-like skin was exposed for all to see. The girl's normal purple scales with a hint of brown skin were vivid. Her fingers were back to normal with dust. Blood from her deceased enemies coated them.

"The prisoners! All of them! Kill them all! Release the gas and shoot all who try to escape it! Make sure they are all dead!"

Her telepathic mind screamed at her. Everything was so loud. Her mind fixated on the repeated threat-it was the warden's voice. Somehow he fled to somewhere deeper inside the camp after seeing he was fighting a loosing battle.

Instantly, Zini stood up and closed her eyes. The warden had just ordered the death of all the prisoners, and she was going to stop it from happening! Zini felt Star begin to take over and before she could stop her or say anything, Star was now in control. Without moving a muscle, Star looked towards the prison building containing all the prisoners and remaining soldiers and connected her mind to all of them. She saw the guards through the eyes of terrified humans through a window. That's when it happened.

The remaining guards and soldiers, including the warden, inside the locked building, screamed out in pain as they felt a horrifying clench of a murderous power in their heads. All of them fell dead with their last expressions on their faces. Star slipped back to her place in Zini's mind and let her take control once more as she opened her eyes. She collapsed on the ground but kept her eyes fixated on Glen. He struggled to get back up and walk towards the prison doors. From where he was, Glen crawled his way to the entrance. Once there, he propped himself up with a sword taken from a fallen soldier. Using that same sword, he proceeded to pry it open and after he did, released all the humans inside.

Zini watched as Glen stood aside near the entrance and looked for his friends among the people that flocked outside. They were happy to be free from their imprisonment. On seeing the girl he never failed to think about for the past two months of his escape, Glen grabbed Mackie with one arm and hugged her tight. He cried into her neck, his other arm around Kita, the one who had shouted his name from the window. Zini watched as the people ran out of the building with their eyes trained on her weak body on the ground. With her telekinesis, she moved the bodies of their dead captors and cleared a path for them, their focus on her never distracted.

"We've never seen a being like her before!" Was the main thought in their minds.

An elderly woman ran bravely from the crowd with the voice of an elderly man calling after her. "Maude! No."

The woman fell a few feet near Zini on her knees and proceeded to thank her over and over with tears streaming down her face. From the look she had on her face, Zini felt exactly what the woman felt. She had truly saved them from years of torment at the hands of her father's men. All Zini could decide was being eager to help the others that were enslaved in the camps all over the Ancient Isles. After the elderly woman's show of gratitude and her husband taking her away, her attention turned to Glen, his friend, Mackie, and her sister, Kita, still huddled together in a hug. He hugged them tight like he never wanted to let them go.

Zini felt weird that he spent a lot of time holding them, especially Mackie, whom he held tighter. Did Zini like Glen? All those days with him and she possibly couldn't like him. But...she did.

Overall, she was happy that he could reunite with his friends. Although she could read Glen's mind and feel the one emotion flow through him toward Mackie mostly, she could not feel the same from Mackie about him. He loved Mackie but sadly, she didn't reciprocate. She only thought of him as a friend, nothing more, nothing less. Kita was engaged to a guy named Andrew Rayne II who is from a city called Destiny.

Continuing to read their minds, Zini found that Mackie and Kita are princesses of the Nexus Royal Family in Dragora. Kita met her future husband on the battlefield when Destiny, the Dragoran's first city built, and Dragora, their second one completed, combined their forces to fight the Anomaly. This maneuver came months after the Anomalies started to commit mass genocide on the humans. 

The Nexus and the Dragorans also decided to move both Royal Families together in Dragora. Doing so would fortify their chances of success against a common foe. This move was made a few years before Mackie's birth. Both races believed the humans too had a right to live on the planet just as much as they all did. This stance set Don and Crystal at odds with the Nexus Royal Family and Destiny's elders, the head of which is Andrew Rayne I, AKA: Grandmaster Reign.

Suddenly, Zini's attention was taken away by the urgent words of Mackie's younger sister, Kita. "Glen. Glen. There's another camp!"

Another camp?

Zini hung on her every word. They were far away but of course, Zini could hear them in Kita's mind.

"There's another camp. Some girl named Maryna is there. They say she's the daughter of the ones who started the first insurrection in Caprice. The camp's near London. I overheard one of the guards say it to the warden." she said with tears coming to her eyes.

Maryna? Where had Zini heard that name before?

No. She hadn't heard it anywhere. Star, on the other hand, knew that name quite well. 

"Do you remember her?" Star asked.

"No, I don't." Zini replied.

Instantly, Star began to bring up images and scenes of a black-haired girl in them. In these scenes, Zini saw herself smiling with this Anomaly girl.

Smiling? How could she be? She had a tumultuous childhood. Who was this Maryna?

It didn't take long before all the memories that her mother removed returned. These memories were safely tucked in the recesses of Star's mind. Though Crystal meant to erase Zini's memories of Caprice, she could not, however, do the same to Star.

"How?" Zini wondered.

"Simple. My mind is much stronger than yours!" Star arrogantly replied as she continued to share Zini's memories of Maryna with her.

Zini remembered Maryna as her best friend and the only friend she ever had growing up. She felt peace just thinking of her and Zini remembered just how she found true happiness in her company. Star too felt that same peace when she thought of Maryna. At the thought of Maryna being in trouble in another camp, Star's rage slowly began to build up again. Zini could feel her take over.