The Mighty Normie

Zini held Maryna's hand while they trailed behind the group after they got off the boat. Ahead of them was Glen, Mackie, and Kita. Suddenly, there was a frightening movement from bushes. The four of them stood perplexed without moving an inch. They keenly anticipated what this sound held within it. Zini found that she was no more herself. Star reasserted itself on her.

"Their reinforcements arrived." Star growled as she let go of Maryna's hand.

Before Star took over, Zini scanned the men's minds and found out that word about the destruction caused by Zini and the others got out. The men saw that all their fellow soldiers in the camp were killed, and the enslaved humans and Nexus were gone. Hence, they decided to find out those behind this occurrence. On sighting Zini from afar, they concluded it must be her and made way toward her.

"I will finish them off!" Star said to Zini.

While the troops approached, Kita and Mackie held each other tightly as they were gripped with fear. Maryna and Glen weren't gripped with that same feeling of fear. Maryna grinned widely as Star turned towards the enemy garrison. She well knew of the great power Zini possessed Maryna was the first one to know about Star outside the family. Surprisingly to her back then, Zini's alter ego remained nameless. Even so, the two refused to acknowledge the monster created by Zini's dysfunctional environment. Zini may have not had any unique power set as a child, but Star was a different being altogether. Maryna strongly believed that while Zini didn't develop any powers at the Age of Discovery, Star did. Empaths were just as rare as Telepaths were but Telekinetics weren't. Telekinetics were widely famed for their exploits in construction projects. The Telebuilders were a group of Anomalies who made a living using their telekinetic powers in the workplace. The Telebuilders constructed one of Caprice's first skyscrapers, Skill Tower. In its day, the Skill Tower stood as the tallest among all buildings in Caprice. Unlike the Telepaths, Empaths and Telekinetics weren't hunted to extinction. Most Empaths joined a group widely known as the Psycho Collective. It consisted of Psychiatrists and Psychologists. 

Maryna knew Zini possessed Telekinetic powers after a life threatening incident the two were in presented itself when they were mid teens. Those who sought to harm Zini and Maryna because they were different resulted in them being kidnapped. The captors cared not about the Queen's wrath. In a spectacular but fear inspiring display of power, Zini created a cave in of the hideout the two were held in. Maryna believed they too would die in the cave collapse when it began. Amazingly, Zini's telekinesis prevented the two from being crushed via a telekinetic shield protecting them both. Falling boulders in the attack crushed the kidnappers. Zini then used that same telekinetic power to excavate the rocks blocking their way out of the cave. This was one of the first and only times Zini used this power at that age. 

When asked about it back then why Zini couldn't use that power regularly, Zini replied, "I don't remember using it."

Maryna thought Zini was lying until she observed the many times Zini would be shy in one moment then full of rage in another when provoked. The fights she got into as a teen mostly resulted in the injury of the bullies. The Zini she knew would run if she saw trouble come her way. The Zini that faced those bullies head on acted and talked different, like she welcomed chaos instead of avoiding it. Then Maryna knew that this was Star, not Zini, in control of their body. 

"She still fights the same as she did those many years ago." Maryna smirked as Star flung herself into the group of soldiers approaching them. Her friends stood transfixed at this scenery, wondering what would happen next. Glen believed that taking on that many was more than they faced in the camp. He made a movement to help Zini but Maryna stopped him.

"She's won against more than this before." Maryna assured him then added in a jovial tone, "Just enjoy the show!"

 Hearing those words set Glen at ease as he decided to watch how Zini and her alter ego would go about handling the dozen or so fully armed to the teeth soldiers. One of the soldiers, on reaching a few feet from Zini, took a shot at her but to his dismay, the bullet ricocheted off her. She kept charging. The remaining soldiers trailing behind him were terrified at this incidence.

Some of them were so shocked, they realized that this was no ordinary being. Others soon recognized her as the exiled princess of King and Queen Anomaly. She was a Normie when she was a kid but her power went against the "Once a Normie, always a Normie" philosophy.

They also knew that given the right catalyst, a fearsome power would emerge and the once shy, insecure Normie turned into a raging dragon. Before long, the soldiers realized their mistake by attacking her as they were faced with death incarnate. No Anomaly garrison who came across the Legendary Stardust Dragon came back home alive. At this, most of them dropped their weapons and took to their heels. The remaining ones were the foolish souls who believed they had a chance at defeating her. All of them surrounded her and poised to strike all at once.

Star formed a barrier of pulsating energy around her.

"Boom!" Star cackled with an evil grin. The energy field expanded from her body and engulfed her aggressors. The soldiers disintegrated in a twinkling of an eye.

After this grand display of power, Star looked exhausted and dropped to her knees. She fell on her hands, holding herself up but breathing heavily. Maryna rushed to her side to help her up. Star looked up at Maryna and stared at her. Maryna stared back for a few moments before offering her hand to her. She had a big smile on her face. Star smirked then grabbed the middle of Maryna's arm to pull herself up off the ground.

"Had your fill with them, huh, Star?" Maryna rhetorically stated.

"You were always quite the spectator." Star answered with an emotionless tone.

Star caught a glimpse of Maryna smiling back at her. Star shook her head and chuckled as they kept walking toward Desiny.

Maryna patiently walked beside her on the path to the cit. Kita and her sister Mackie watched the scene, thinking some damage might have been done to Zini. After a while, Star left hold of Zini after they rejoined the group. As she regained control of herself, Zini looked round for a bit, worried about the other soldiers. She suspected there were more of them lying in ambush.

"They won't be following us if they're smart." Star said to Zini telepathically. 

"Good." Zini exhaled in relief.

Zini suggested they should first go to her place in Mamnue and stay there for some time. They all agreed, though Kita and her sister Mackie wanted to visit Destiny, where Andrew II was. This decision was primarily Kita's decision as she missed her beloved from the moment her and her sister were first captured by the Anomaly. She thought about him all the time. The group headed further west and found a large boat. They sailed towards the shore of Mamnue and got to the cabin. By this time, it was already dark.

"Wow, so an Anomaly in her exploits became a great carpenter!" Maryna said jovially upon seeing the cabin Zini made herself.

Zini smiled and narrated how she managed to build the cabin by tracing how the humans build theirs. While Kita and Mackie were exhausted, they fell fast asleep in another room. Zini, Maryna and Glen sat outside the cabin till late night. They discussed their encounters and exploits so far in saving the enslaved humans from the Anomalies. Zini told them she doesn't wish to continue with the raids. Though she is passionate about saving the enslaved humans, she does not want to under any circumstance come across her parents. If caught by her mother, she may get banished to a completely dispersed place where she will have no chance of interacting with anyone again.

Suddenly, Zini got the strange feeling that they were being watched. She let each of her friends know telepathically of her suspicion. This brought back a short but painful memory of when she first met Glen.

"Don't let them know we know they're there." she instructed.

Zini went back inside but went out the back door. She tiptoed past a sleeping Kita and Mackie and out through the back door.

"One followed us to this island." Star deducted.

"We'll make sure they don't make it back alive." Zini said with determination.

They both knew that if the soldier reported back to Caprice, they'd return with an army with possibly her mother as its captain. Zini at first refused to believe this until she was in eyesight range of the intruder from behind. She mentally probed him for answers and found her suspicions to be correct.

Where did this guy come from? He was one of the soldiers who fled during that last battle. While they left, he tactically trailed behind them. Taking a boat and in the cover of the darkness, he stalked them all the way to Mamnue. Zini wanted to finish him off right then and there, but Star had other plans.

Zini stood and watched him without any reaction from the top of a cliff, overseeing where he parked his boat. She watched as he sailed in freight until he was well far offshore. Then Zini lifted her arm with her palm to the sky. She made a claw jester with her hand. The soldier thought he escaped without them noticing and heaved a sigh of relief. Suddenly, he was met with a deep shock as a 20-foot tidal wave approached him from the deep sea. She flicked her clawed hand toward her chest. The wave engulfed him and kept going till it abated on Mamnue's shores. The soldier screamed in fear at the top of his lungs as the wave came at him with blazing speed. The force of it killed him upon collision. Pieces of the boat floated to shore, but the body was lost at sea.

Zini looked on this with satisfaction after dropping her arm to its side and returned to the cabin. In reaching Maryna and Glen, before they inquired anything about her actions, she gave them account of what just happened. This terrified Glen and Maryna, but Zini assured them that they would be safe. Maryna gave narrations of how she was tortured during her enslavement. She told them how the Queen came occasionally to survey them, and how she constantly asked her of the whereabouts of Zini. Again, Zini apologized for leaving her friend Maryna all alone in Caprice. She felt guilty for all that Maryna went through. Maryna assured her it was no fault of hers and that all was well until her parents opposed the King and Queen.

"For years my dad visited my mom in jail but never told me why she was there in the first place." Maryna said. There was a sense of despair in her voice. "She spent many years incarcerated on false murder charges."

"Your mother was trying to incite a revolution." Zini had a haunch about all the rumors about the famed 'Mary the Liberator'. She knew the Lawrence family were all rebels and garnered a large following.

Don tried to frame Mary for the death of one of his lead scientists on a project known as "The Beast". Soldiers arrested Mary and had her detained for years. The truth of the matter was that the events surrounding their death were mysterious. The the project was a secret military experiment and Maryna was going to expose it as a violation of Anomaly rights as decreed by Caprice's King and Queen. Conspiracy theorists believed dissenters of the current Anomaly regime were captured and used for cruel experiments. Mary rose to fame after exposing a lesser known project to the public. In a matter of weeks, Caprice's first opposition to the Anomaly Regime began. Just when Don thought he had a handle on the rebellion after her capture, Mary's followers broke her out of jail a few years later. She remained hidden for a few years. Their tactics always gave Don and his men a hard time. Star, though, relished at feeling his frustration at the mention of Mary and her 'Lawrenites'. Don ruled Caprice with an iron fist but Mary's power over the people turned that ironclad into clay. Sadly, Mary was captured a second time. This was shortly after Zini's exile.

Maryna nodded, agreeing with Zini. She began to cry after remembering the day she met her mother in prison several years ago. She never saw her mom again after her jailbreak but knew it be for the better because Don and Crystal were watching their family. Their men even harassed Maryna because of her association with Zini.

"The last time I saw my mom was after they brought me her. It was at her request." Maryna lost her composure and cried profusely. "Then they forced me to watch her execution hours later."

At hearing this, Zini became furious, but Maryna assured her that she knew it was bound to happen. Though Mrs. Lawrence was dead, the rebellion continued. She sparked a revolution inside Caprice that couldn't be undone, no matter how many people go missing by Royal Decree (like Zini was) or by assassination. Furthermore, the Queen couldn't kill, or mind control every dissenter. Sooner or later Caprice will turn on its upper class and that will be the end of its monarchy.

After a while Zini and the others retreated inside for the night to catch some sleep.