CHAPTER 1 – Tale of the lost bird

Every other day. Always feeling like a repeated day. Just with small variations here and there.

Even when there was a fucking dome surrounding half the city, making it have a cold weather, which in-turn affected many things.

People yet remained… chill about it.

Not even the pandemic was given prominence to, seeing that people barely wore their masks, ever.

Evidently it was frustrating to stay this way for too long.

If I could, I would go into the dome myself, to that pillar thing we could barely see. But the problem was, the surrounding premises were 'sealed-off'. Just like many other places, where pandemic had hit bad, with critical cases.

Recently I heard the elderly man speaking about it sadly, on the phone to someone. Maybe his daughter or some.

It had been an eternity since I saw the beautiful-face-behind-the-mask lady. Even the ex-sportsman guy was seen three times in this month already.

The body-builder guy on the other hand, sat right next to me, while watching some girl group performance on his phone, with earphones on.

The bus today, I had got directly from my closest stop, and the body-builder guy was already in it, with a vacant seat beside him, where I was sitting now.

At the usual stop of the old man, even he got on the bus. Luckily enough, he got a seat, not too far from mine.

My heart starts to throb hard, as I see the ex-sportsman get on the bus, not too many stops after.

This must have been a co-incidence. Surely must be. I calm my paranoia, only for my ears to start ringing, not too long after, when the rear glass of the bus cracked open, and a literal person fell out of it.

Not just anyone but the beautiful-face-behind-the-mask lady. She had worn a orange temporary mask on her face, with a kind of tight leather suit on her, which had tattered a little and had torn around her shoulders and thighs.

I get up, being alert of the situation. I turn to the broken glass and catch sight of something gliding towards the beautiful-face-behind-the-mask lady. I grab it as it almost zooms past me, and pin it down to the bus floor.

"What is happening in the back?" the bus conductor asks in Kannada, screaming, while the creature in my grasp, squeals the answer.

The bus takes a hard turn just then, and I roll away, as the creature slips from my grasp. I hurt my head to a horizontal pole, but thanks to my reflex of having my hands in between, I hurt myself less on the head, but my arm hurts like hell.

As I look at the creature, I realise that the bus had gotten darker. And the creature squeals, like some eagle or a hawk, and I realise it's resemblance to those said birds. Except, it didn't seem to have wings, or the feathers. It was peeled off of its feathers or something.

A cord could be seen behind the bird, which twined out towards the broken glass of the bus, where now some wing-shaped fleshy… stuff, was covering the crack.

The bird's wingless-body, moves itself and tries to pin it's beak into me and I get dragged behind, and I could swear that I heard a slush sound as the beak hit the floor.

The person who had dragged me, kicks the bird sideways. It is none other than the beautiful-face-behind-the-mask lady. She points to the wing-like thingy at the crack, and seemingly talks to the bird.

"Give it back!"

The bird bounces back and forth and claws towards the lady, and she barely flinches and just holds the bird's tiny face.

Next second, the remaining glass crumbles and the wing smashes inside, pushing the beautiful-face-behind-the-mask lady and scaring everyone, making everyone to bend and protect themselves.

The beautiful-face-behind-the-mask lady was thrown to where the first seat is, and the bird had griped it's body at the poles present by the door.

It squeals at the nearest passenger, and before I could move, it pounces and digs into the screaming passenger. I run to it and try to take it off, and see that, besides the passenger getting torn apart, was the ex-sportsman, frozen, and covered in blood.

He gets up screaming, pushes me sideways, and kicks the bird-thingy to the door. He lifts both his hands, crossed, and slashes it downwards. The floor cracks, in the shape of whatever he did. The cracks spread out to the top part of the column section, which I and the bird were in. And this piece of the bus, starting from the door, starts getting separated.

Now, I may not be that good at science, but I'M, and not many need science to tell them about basic inertia. I realise myself moving backwards, into the crack, and try to grab onto something, anything.

Time slows, I realize so many things in an instant, and find it all overwhelming. I could easily survive the fall. But the scenario in my mind is that, I fall, the gap isn't big enough for me to get through, inertia works again to crush the dismantled floor into me. I die.

But at this moment, something touches my back, something very soft, something cold and warm, and this thing pushes me to grip something else, whatever it is that my hand reaches to.

I turn my head and see two figures, right through the crack, standing outside the bus, on the road. A little child and a woman, supporting this little girl. The little child, in their little, stuffy, pink-ish raincoat, had their hand pointing to my side, and this hand had the same pink colour aura around it.

The next moment, the bus section ACTUALLY tore apart, and the body-builder seemingly attempts to use this moment to shine.

While the previous moment was slow as… slime. This moment went on in a millisecond, and the section just stood there on the road, sliding only slightly forward. The other part of the bus comes to a halt, after a little ahead time.

I scan my surroundings and realize that the bird is not where it was before. It ran and ran towards the two figures I had seen earlier. I hear shrieks from ahead of the bird.

While I couldn't see the kid and possibly their mother, I saw something, someone, in the air, and past the bird. They had their arm pointed to the bird, and lightning shot out of their gauntlet arm, to the bird.

The bird fell and so did the armoured-figure, right in between, possibly.

I race to the scene and before me, the beautiful-face-behind-the-mask lady reaches here. I scan behind the bird, and find the armoured-figure patting on the child's head, who now up-close seemed like a girl in her tens.

The beautiful-face-behind-the-mask lady bent to the bird and shot her hand into the bird's wings, making a slush sound. I find the wing reducing lightly, and the bird makes a low shriek sound.

"Fuck you too," I hear the beautiful-face-behind-the-mask lady say.

The armoured-figure seems to finish talking with the mother and her daughter and walks towards us. I see the mother covering her child, with fear in her eyes.

The bird, having broken out of its sudden paralysis, elongates it's claw and slashes at the beautiful-face-behind-the-mask lady's face. The orange mask glides down to the ground, and I finally take a look at the face I most wanted to see, all this time.

'Never meet your heroes', is a oh-so-popular saying. Honestly, never meet anyone and fulfil your curiosities, ever.

The beautiful-face-behind-the-mask lady, had her lower half skull shown outside, and I swear I could just scream within myself and explode my head.

She smashes her booted-leg into the bird's supposed-gut.

"Killing monsters is MY job," the armoured… lady, says, as she reaches closer.

She unsheathes her sword and installs the blade into the head of the bird. I hear squelching again, and flesh getting spread over, yet no sign of blood. Yet, I turn my head away, almost puking out.

I see the body-builder guy, followed, probably unfaithfully, by the ex-sportsman guy.

"We need to go. They…" he says. "To fuck us they are coming," he says in Kannada.

"Excuse me?" the armoured-lady asks. Even the… skull-behind-the-mask lady, looked confused.

"T-the news. Superheroes are being hunted," the ex-sportsman says, and looks towards the ground below the armoured-lady. "Those creatures… are being sent by… some Saturn Organisation."

I hear the armoured-lady sigh out loud. "Told you, you, you…"

"About time," the skull-face-behind-the-mask lady says, rather seeming pleased.

"Powered-individuals, am I right?" the armoured-lady asks, scanning each one of us, then looks at the kid and her mother, standing at a distance. "Mother… sorry, but your daughter needs to be and be with heroes now."

"I… don't, under, stand," the mother says.

"Communication gap. Nice. Very nice," the armoured-lady says.

With ever so little attempt of explanation and understanding, everyone gets into the mini-van of the stranger, the armoured-lady.

The two ladies, who seem to be acquainted somehow, sit at the front, with the armoured-lady at the driver seat. In the back, with two set of vertical bench-like-long-seats, the mother and the daughter sit opposite to us three guys, with the mother continuously attempting to completely cover her daughter.

"Some of you don't know English properly. And both of us don't know… well, YOUR languages," the armoured-lady spoke.

"I get nervous… and forget. I know, English, enough," the mother put out words.

"English… okay, speak," the body-builder says.

The armoured lady lets out a sigh.

"Just kidding, relax. I was just staying true to the mother tongue, nothing else. I know enough English," the body-builder laughs.

"Wow, you are such a… bad… bad boy. Ahhh, I can't even curse you," the armoured-lady sighs.

"Are you a witch?" the little girl finally spoke. "You stop spelled the monster bird back there too."

"I'm no witch honey, really. Just a… warrior of sorts."

"But I am," the skull-face-behind-the-mask lady says. "A witch."

"Just a phase of a song," the armoured-lady says. "I'm Scelestha. I guess this one will just go by W.I.T.C.H., evidently."

"You could always call me the other name," Witch says.

"No, let's stick to that," Scelestha sighs.

"I'm Psyand then," the little girl who could make a psychic hand, and had protected me a while ago, says.

"Aw… that's just cute, darling," Scelestha says.

"Rustizen," the ex-sportsman says.

"That name you apologized to earlier, while speaking to the sky? So we all are going with made up names? Didn't at ALL seem obvious," the body-builder scoffs.

"You want anyone here to turn villain and find you? Then go ahead man," Scelestha says.

"Wrap."

"Excuse me?"

"That'll be my name, just get with it," Wrap says.

"I-I'm okay with being called Psyand's mother," Psyand's mother says.

The car fills with silence, waiting for my reply.

"Are you… probably mute? Or just have no idea of what we are saying?" Scelestha asks.

"I actually… don't have powers."