[h1][b][i][color=ff9a4f][center]Mayra Pavon[/center][/color][/i][/b][/h1][center][img]https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/f5bce557-f4e5-4b4a-a1bd-6ed80373e66c.jpg[/img][/center][center][/center][hr][center][color=ff9a4f][b]Location[/b][/color]: The Sonoran Desert [color=ff9a4f][b]4 years ago[/b][/color] [/center] [hr] The early morning sun beat down on the rocks and reflected off the sky. It wasn’t anything Mayra didn’t know well enough already. It was warm, it was always warm here. Dad was busy doing something in Phoenix, so she convinced him to let her get home herself. That meant taking sandstone and turning it into a small platform that she used to soar over the desert until she found the house. It was hard to find, but anyone who lived with any form of nature in the backyard learned how to navigate quickly. A steep cliff that overlooked a field of verbenas was the sign that it was close. Then, one only had to walk under the cliff and turn left. And their house was there, build into the rock like a nuclear bunker. Even though [i]many[/i] people lived in this desert, dad seemed to like it for some reason. She wasn’t used to flying over things like that, but Mayra gave it maybe an hour before he got here. That meant if they could get out and away from him [i]quick[/i] then maybe they’d be fine. Mayra’s hands flew over a keypad, putting in a 12-character code that was, apparently, mathematically impossible to crack in less than an hour. The sandy-brown walls shuddered, and a door slid open. Mayra booked it inside, down a narrow corridor barely wide enough for two people. Her heart was beating faster the further she walked, until Mayra found the stairs. This house was always so damn weird to get around in, compared to other places that dad would take her when he was on trips. Up a flight of stairs, and then she found another hallway. The halls were lit by fluorescent lights, motion activated so no one had to flip a switch. She passed three doors that she had never opened before, and wound up at the living room. It was a big, spacious place that had all the markers of a modern, egotistically rich house. Floor-to ceiling windows holographically modified to be one-way, with fake rock on the outside. Stark white floors, stark white ceilings, and no walls between it and a kitchen that could’ve been at least the same size. "¿Ya estás en casa?" [i]You're already home?[/i] Her [url=https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/3d54fab4-4e2c-40e8-b9cd-17d9e96bc5ad.jpg]mom[/url] was sitting there at the kitchen table. Mayra looked a lot more like her than dad. Practically identical, without the earrings. Though, mom didn't have the same thing going on with [i]her[/i] hair that Mayra did. Her head was bowed low, and she was staring into a glass of something, probably water. Mayra was trembling a little. She hurried over to her. [color=ff9a4f]"Hey- Feeling good or bad?"[/color] She asked. Her mom's head twisted slowly, facing Mayra but barely tilting upwards. She didn't answer. [color=ff9a4f]"¿Puedes moverte hoy?"[/color] [i]Can you move around today?[/i] [color=ff9a4f]If you can, we've got to go."[/color] Mom sometimes didn't get either language fully, it was easier to talk to her in both. She was more familiar with Spanish, but it still jogged her thoughts more to hear English. Her mom nodded, and she immediately started to stand. Mayra took her hand. [color=ff9a4f]"Tenemos que irnos antes de que regrese."[/color] Her voice hitched [i]We need to leave before he's back.[/i] "Hm?" Her head tilted, and she finally looked at Mayra. "...You're scared?" Yeah, she was. So very, very scared. This was the perfect time to slip out from under him, take mom and find [i]something[/i] other than this. Mayra wasn't really sure what they'd do, given the way mom was, but [i]fuck.[/i] She'd been to enough places that she could find something, probably. Maybe she could fake a passport like dad did, or just stay in the country long enough for him to leave first. And here she was, fumbling already. [color=ff9a4f]"Dad- He's- It's-"[/color] There was a lump in her throat. Her mom stared blankly. [color=ff9a4f]"Did he ever tell you what he does for money?"[/color] She shook her head. [color=ff9a4f]"He's... Evil. He's bad, he hurts people, and he has superpowers like me."[/color] He always told her not to say that. That got something out of her face. A confused expression. "I don't understand." [color=ff9a4f]"¡Es un supervillano!"[/color] She shouted, without meaning to. [color=ff9a4f]"¡Estoy tratando de alejarnos de él! Lo explicaré más tarde"[/color] [i]He's a supervillain. I'm trying to get us away from him! I'll explain later.[/i] It felt bad, yelling at her. But they had to [i]move.[/i] "...Okay. What does he-" She searched for the words. "Is he strong like you?" [color=ff9a4f]"No- We need to leave. What do you need to bring? I'll get it. Just get ready and I'll-"[/color] She cupped Mayra's hands in her own. "Where are we going?" Mayra didn't know either, but the touch helped calm her down. [color=ff9a4f]"Later, okay? If we go now, we can figure that out after we're out of the desert-"[/color] A snapping sound cut her off. Her mom's hands tightened around hers, twitching suddenly. Mayra looked up at them and saw dark blood coming down her face, with a gaping hole where her left eye was just moments ago. She fell backwards, not quite limp, but gently convulsing on the ground. Mayra screamed instead of turning around. She bent down and tried to do [i]something.[/i] But she smelled smoke. It was coming from behind her. [hr] [center][img]https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/d2df58c7-fb3e-4866-b9b1-be6842233e2a.jpg[/img][/center] [color=ff9a4f][i]He's dead.[/i][/color] The sun was going down, and Mayra was following it wherever it would land. The wind ripped past her, making it feel about ten degrees colder than it really was. The Sonoran Desert was a warm place, dotted with one cactus species after another, palms and sparse grass and more everywhere she went. She soared over the rocks and mounds of sandy soil on a stone platform, trying her best to focus on moving forward. She clothes were stained with blood, and caked in rock dust. She sunk the house under the spire of stone it was built into. Mayra barely got out herself, and that was hours ago. She had crossed into a different region of the desert, since it was big enough to have several. [color=ff9a4f][i]I killed him. It's done. If I was faster, she'd still be alive. I'm sorry, mom.[/i][/color] She felt tired, she felt angry, she felt ready to break down and sob like a baby. But she couldn't. If she stopped, she'd probably stay there in the sand and wait for a mountain lion to come by and test its luck. He said something to her, and Mayra barely heard it over the blood rushing into her ears. Before she knew it, she had wheeled around on him and shattered the foundation of the house. Then, the ceiling came crashing down like the sky had been broken by a hammer. It didn't matter anymore, she may as well have just flown off and not returned. Mom would've lived, then. Mayra tried to shield her from the rocks, thinking that maybe, [i]maybe[/i] that bullet hadn't gone past her eye socket. Maybe it didn't make it into her brain. But her body had stopped moving, she didn't even react when Mayra had lifted her up. She was already dead when she hit the floor, and she didn't even realize what was happening. She was replaying it over and over in her head. [i]Bang. Bang. Bang.[/i] That sound, the gun going off. It was quiet enough that it didn't blow her eardrums out, but it wasn't quiet enough to be [i]quiet.[/i] Why didn't she hear the door opening? It was louder. Why hadn't she been eyeing the fucking door? Why didn't Mayra just grab mom and haul her out without explaining? It was her fault. The only person in her life she actually cared about, her own fucking [i]mother.[/i] Dead. The thought of that wouldn't let her go. Wouldn't let her think of anything else. So the rock she rode on clipped something, dipping low enough due to her lack of concentration. It was like a motorcycle hitting a pothole and flipping wheels-over-seat. Mayra went flying off ahead, and the rock tumbled down into a pit somewhere. She banged her head against a cactus and rolled into cold sand. And then she stopped to really think. The sand caked itself against her clothes, it mingled with the blood that somehow wasn't dry yet. She heard the clattering of stone against stone, somewhere off in the distance. Her back against the ground, the sun going down, Mayra was still enough to take things in. Dad shot her mom, now she was an orphan. No more going overseas, no more "business trips" to shady places. No more scared attempts to hide herself from dad at home. No more taking care of mom when she couldn't move around. Mayra sat up on the ground. She looked around and didn’t hear any animals coming closer. No scorpions getting testy, just a cactus sheared in half by her hair and the stars overhead. She brought her knees up to her chest and screamed into them. The sand around her lifted into the air, like gravity had just been shut off somehow. A sandstorm whipped up and around her, spiraling up like a tornado. It lasted ten minutes, and then she balled the sand up into another rock to fly on. She had to keep moving and do something. [color=ff9a4f][i]Keep the momentum going. Don’t stop for too long.[/i][/color] If she could get to the Colorado River, she could stop and clean the blood and sand off. And if she could do that, then people wouldn’t gawk at her so much. That was her first plan. Mayra didn’t know what her second plan would be. [hr] [center][youtube]https://youtu.be/oEcYnaAwN1Q?si=pye5fdjWZ5VzGXcW[/youtube][/center] Three days had passed. On the first, she had found some food in the desert before she left, in the form of agave plants that she'd torn to pieces. On the second, she broke into a gas station to make up for the lack of it when she ran out. The cameras were the first to go, just for good measure. On third, she slept under a bridge stretching over the Colorado River. Today, she grabbed a rock and made her way here. She stared out at the sun coming up. She sat on top of a two-story building made of brick, watching cars and people pass by. None of them paid attention to her, they were too busy. Los Angeles, California. It was so loud, here. Most cities were, because of the cars and clamor of foot traffic. It smelled like any other city, too. Smog, oil, the oily, early-morning street food being sold down below that smelled like carnitas. Over the last few days, she had made a plan. She wasn’t Mayra anymore. It was a thing her dad told her about, sometimes. Most people didn’t question someone’s name and just took it for what it was. So if anyone asked, she’d call herself Leah. It didn’t feel right to call herself that. Mayra was a name her mom gave her. But her mom wasn’t around to protest. So Leah made the decision to come to a big city, where there would be so many people that she was just one face in a crowd. Who would remember her if something happened here? Probably no one. But there was more to it than that. She noticed fliers about a school. One for people with superpowers. The Avengers had a hand in it, Leah knew that much. Dad always takes about how easy it would have been to get rid of them. Mutants went there, like her. It didn’t matter much to her that she was a mutant, that was never an identity that she cared one way or the other about, but they couldn’t really blame a mutant for coming from a fucked up background, could they? They wouldn’t push it too hard if she didn’t answer many questions. Right? One of the fliers Leah grabbed said they’d be opening up “auditions” today. Meaning anyone could sign up and land a place there. It was one of those schools people lived at. All she had to do was show them she could handle her powers, and they’d let her sleep in a bed. She had other schemes in mind, but that was a start. Leah wanted to grow her hair out, just in case one of dad's criminal friends went looking for her. It was also just nice in theory, since no one could touch it and not get hurt, especially in this big of a city. She leaned back and rested flat against the roof. Leah was tired, in a way she wasn't used to feeling. Did she [i]want[/i] to be a hero? Sort of, but not to save lives. It was a better life than what was set out for here. But she felt more interested in hurting bad people than protecting the good ones. [i][color=ff9a4f]People like him. I'm better than him. I'll do it. [/color][/i] It would be a few more hours before Margaret Carter opened up and started taking names. She jumped down into an alleyway and walked out into the streets. Her clothes were mostly free of bloodstains, and she used her powers to get the sand and dust out of them. Leah Jordan bought a carnita at the truck with stolen cash, and went for a walk down the street. It was going to be a long, long day.