Syaoran was confused.
This was usually the case when dealing with adults, but these adults seemed more confusing than those he usually consorted with.
The rainbow faded as the shield vanished. Ashe brought Melissa a coffee and then Melissa started talking about Star City. To be completely honest, Sai had tuned them out at that point. Large, soft violet eyes peered around the room.
Sai had grown up in a tower apartment, but not like that. Glass walls with panoramic views of the city – over the city to be precise – as the Stark Tower dominated the surrounding cityscape.
The boy’s hands had grabbed hold of the front of the t-shirt that he wore, tugging and twisting the fabric idly as the child’s mind tried to work through a doubt that seemed to be rising up from within him.
Ashe was a criminal. And the guy from the elevator was the Joker? Taking a second look at the four-armed alien, a question started to form in the boy’s mind.
Were they all here because they’d done something bad?The implication caused his heart to sink. Was that why his mum had been so eager to send him off like that?
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L O N D O N24 hours earlierThe tranquility of the school grounds was broken as the doors opened, releasing a horde of children clad in the same uniform out into the yard for a welcome respite between classes.
They were all between eleven and thirteen. Clad in a black jumper that had red piping, reflecting the colors of the logo embroidered on the chest. Some had their sleeves rolled back. Some girls wore skirts, others favored trousers. Some were light skinned, others dark, and quite a number of shades in between but they all looked like typical kids in a British school. No matter what qualities defined them, no one child seemed out of place.
Except one.
As he came out of the school, he might have looked ordinary enough. The sleeves of the white dress shirt worn beneath the jumper were rolled back on his arms. The bare skin caught the sunlight and almost seemed to shine. The golden complexion distinct from the other children. A black feather was stuck on the shoulder of the jumper he wore, having fallen from the shaggy plumage that framed the child’s head.
As he looked up, the violet irises – like his skin color – belied something that wasn’t human. The lines around his eyes gave him an appearance like guyliner, though the edges wrapped both above the eye onto the brow as well as down over the cheek. To the members of the extraterrestrial Shi’ar race, these marks told a story of genetic lineage.
To humanity, they told a different story.
Almost as soon as the boy had appeared, the ruckus began. From the other side of the black iron fence that marked the school ground, people littered around, pointing and jeering. Some held signs that read Isaiah 13:5 or 2 Corinthians 11:14.
They were a familiar sight. His entourage. When he’d been in the lower grades, the protestors had been positioned outside of that school. When he’d transferred to St. John the Evangelist Academy for Year 7, the protests had picked up and moved with him.
Pulling out a pair of noise canceling headphones, the feather-headed child flicked the switch on the side and immediately the chanting of the crowd was replaced by Greta Van Fleet. Another black feather fell away from the boy’s head, as he started to bop his head in time with the guitar rift resonating in his head.
Soft purple eyes scanned the yard, the boy walking toward where a group of boys was motioning him over. The trio were kicking around a football. Two even played on the school team. Syaoran didn’t, of course. He knew there were different opinions about kids with powers doing sports, but he didn’t want to hurt anyone. And when he got excited, he also got careless.
As he walked toward the three, the Shi’ar boy reached up to pull the headphones down so that they hung around his neck...
A few of his feathers bristled visibly. They were known as the pin feathers. The Shi’ar had an expression about them that closely mirrored the human phrase about hair standing up on the neck, but Syaoran couldn’t have said just what had caused it in that moment.
A girl’s squeal caused the boy to turn his head, which is when the blur of motion coming at him from the right caught his attention. Syaoran snapped a hand up, but was off balance and what was happening hadn’t yet sunk in.
He reached for the arm that was coming at him, realizing a moment too late that there was a knife.
To those watching, it might have appeared like Syaoran were Superman. A shimmer of light the only slight detail of the barrier that deflected the blade from stabbing the boy.
A moment later the knife fell to the ground. A shriek of pain pierced the air, stunning all of the children into silence as a pit formed in Syaoran’s stomach.
He’d only meant to grab the man’s arm.
The boy felt the bones beneath the skin shatter at his touch. The sound echoing in the boy’s ears as the man’s hand seemed to go limp, dropping the blade as the scream cut through the air...
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“Ghaaaaa!”Mister Stark’s outburst snapped the boy back to the conversation in the room. His plumage seems to bounce slightly as the child’s head popped up, scanning the room as the adults started talking again. He got as far as Melissa mentioning Green Arrow before his attention wandered away again.
“Hi, this is my first AA meeting,” the one Ashe had referred to as the Joker remarked, with a snort-laugh that caught the boy’s attention, even if the joke itself didn’t land.
Tilting his head to one side, the boy’s expression belied his confusion as he asked,
“What’s AA?” If it had something to do with their meeting, then should he know this? He should probably know this.
Then again, if Mister Stark was Iron Man, and if this really was some kind of superhero camp, then it might be Avengers Academy.
It was probably Avengers Academy. Now he felt dumb for asking.
If Sai were lost for most of the talk, Michael – or rather, Viral – had the boy’s rapt attention.
“You’re an alien, too?” the boy uttered brightly. Hiro’s fanclub had officially disbanded. The Order of Viral Fanboys, Local 101, had formed in its place. For however long Sai’s attention span lasted this round. Cementing this momentous occasion, the British born Shi’ar gave an approving murmur that declared Michael/Viral
“Cool.”Chie was the next to go, after which the woman pointed at him and said,
“What about you kid?”“Huh?” The large, violet eyes swept up to glance at Chie. Or Shuriken. Or was it Jordan? Because wasn’t that also a given name?
“Oh, uh, I’m Sai,” the boy answered, giving the shortened version of his given name.
“My mum’s from a planet called Chandilar,” he added, glancing over at Michael before he looked around the room with a shrug and said,
“She’s the hero. I just go to school mostly.”“Who’s your mom?” Chie asked, prompting the boy to look over at her.
“Maybe our parents knew each other.”“Cerise,” the boy supplied. Was that her code name? Did his mum have a code name? Really, it was just her name. Back to the topic at hand, the boy added,
“She’s with Excalibur.”
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