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The salty smell from the nearby sea filled the sidewalks that lined several specialty shops thanks to the gentle cool breeze of the ocean. Sunlight danced on and off the pavement as the fluffy white clouds rolled in off of the ocean shore, a precursor to the summer rain that was to come later that evening. There was even a scroungy-looking beggar man playing a set of drums and asking for cash in a small pavilion of benches and shrubbery. The smooth rhythmic beats he produced seemed to complement the mumbling of people, the hum of the engines, and the tweeting of the birds in the rustling branches of the trees.
This calm and peaceful Tuesday afternoon seemed to be just one of those days that people would normally soak in to relax, but, at a small bistro within the strip of shops sat a woman with fair cream skin, dark auburn hair placed into a tight French braid and piercing blue eyes. She appeared to be in her early thirties, and dressed in somewhat provocative business attire: a jet black blazer and short black miniskirt, black leather stilettos, and a white dress shirt with the buttons undone to reveal a rather deep-plunging neck line that nearly reached her navel. The way she was tapping her recently manicured French Tipped nails and how she was propping herself on her table with the arm holding her white Blackberry, everyone in the immediate vicinity could tell that this woman was currently too pissed off to be soaking up this relaxing day.
“No, you listen! I don’t care what you have to do, that package must be at my office by this evening! It’s contents are far too valuable to be held up by something as frivolous as Customs.” she shouted to the man on the other end of the phone, not caring about the gazes from people around here who’s curiosity were peeked by the shouting. There was some rather meek mumbling from the speaker of the phone, as the man was apparently trying all he could to satisfy the demands of the woman, but, from the annoyed look on her face, she didn’t care. “Listen, I don’t care what their procedures are, just get it, or start looking for another job!” She then in one smooth motion, she removed the phone from her ear, pressed the end call button, and let the phone drop into her open purse that was below it, as she turned her head to look aimlessly off in another direction while she steamed over the red tape she had just encountered.
“Umm… ma’am?” a voice interrupted her though.
“What?!” she barked as she snapped her head around to see a young, Hispanic male with spiky brownish red hair, dressed in black shoes and slacks, and a white dress shirt with a few stains from spilled drinks and food. She really didn’t pay that much attention to his appearance: he was just one of the bistro’s waiters, and right now, she was not in the mood to care about what the young man looked like.
The young man was obviously uncomfortable, and really didn’t want to deal with this angry, and slightly scary, woman. He cleared his throat a bit and finally mustered up enough courage to ask his question. “Um… what… what can I get for you to drink, ma’am?”
“Whiskey, straight up.”
“I’m sorry ma’am, we…”
“I said, ‘whiskey, straight up’. Or do you not understand English or something?”
The young man obviously heard her, but if he took offence to it or not the woman couldn’t tell as all he did was pause for one moment and continued on what he was saying before she cut him off. “…we don’t serve hard liquor here. All we have are wines, ma’am.” He then held out a list of wines for the woman to view.
All she did was swat the list out of his hands as she stood up, grabbed her purse, and stormed off. “Your food probably sucks anyway.”
As she stomped down the street, trying to find another place to eat, a ringing sound came from her purse. She pulled it out and on the caller ID, all it said was ‘Office’. “Who the hell is calling me from my office?” she muttered to herself before she answered. “Who in the hell calling me from my desk!?” A much deeper and more forceful voice from the other end came through the speaker, and what it was saying was obviously upsetting the woman. “Don’t you DARE ‘Catherine’ me, you Son of a Bitch! I can threaten to fire my employees for any damn reason I choose to, and, considering how important that package is, I…” She suddenly stopped in the middle of her stride and yelling as a chilling shiver went down her spine. She slowly turned her head as fear overcame her entire body. There was something dark, something pure evil nearby. For a moment, the world became silent as Catherine’s eyes stopped at the bistro she had just been sitting at only a minute ago. It now was a good 300 feet away, but at this moment, she wished she was 300 miles away.
Fifteen miles away, on the 70th floor of an office building, a muscular man of Hawaiian decent, dressed in a black business suit with light blue accents stared out the glass wall that overlooked western Angel Grove. He too could feel the pressure Catherine was feeling at that very moment, and he focused his gaze to the area, as he began shouting into the phone. “Catherine! CATHERINE! What’s there! Tell me, damn it!” For a moment, there was just pure and perfect silence on the other end, but as fast as the serenity came, it was replaced even faster with the sound of chaos.
“CATHERINE!” the man shouted, before he swiftly threw down the phone and ran out of the office. He didn’t have to wait to notice the pillar of black smoke that was beginning to rise off near the shoreline to know what had just happened.
***
“See how families are coping with the loss of…”
“…the wake of the shore-side terrorist attack…”
“Tonight, hear about the miraculous survival of one…”
“…the official death toll of the attack was 21...”
“Una semana después del bombardeo, las familias de las v*ctimas han empezado a construir monumentos en memoria de seres..”
“… there was one man found at ground zero of the blast…”
“…from the bombing five days ago..”
“…one man…”
“…a local college student…”
“…and, at the hear of it all, one male waiter miraculously….”
“…without a scratch…”
“…with no visible injuries…”
“…he was taken to the hospital, and kept overnight…”
“…in the middle of it all, one young man…”
“…unscathed…”
“His name is not being released to the press at this time.”
*click*
Right now, news wasn’t what Angel needed right now. In the past 48 hours, he had dealt with enough of it for more than a lifetime. All he wanted was to watch his Saturday morning cartoons, but because of what happened Tuesday, that wasn’t going to happen today. As he lounged on his laid-out futon bed in his Batman underwear and stirred the now-soggy Fruit Loops with his spoon, he tried to think of something, anything that would take his mind off of the events from Tuesday.
Unfortunately, for Angel, he had no such luck to do so.
He just sighed in defeat, finished off his cereal, got up and sluggishly made his way to the only other real room of his apartment, the bathroom. He started running the water to let the temperature rise from freezing cold to a soothing hot. As the water ran behind him, he turned his gaze towards the mirror above the sink, and began staring at himself. There wasn’t one scratch, one bruise, one burn mark on his smooth skin. Not one of his brown hairs were scorched or missing. He didn’t have a stitch one on him. The only thing that Angel could honestly say that was off about himself was the look on his face: one of confusion and fear. Ever since the night beforehand when he was released from the hospital without any recollection of what had happened Tuesday up until most of Friday, he kept finding himself wondering if it was all real.
“What’s happened to me? Did I really survive that blast? Or is it all a dream?” he said to himself as he stared into the mirror. Angel, gaze didn’t leave the mirror until the steam from the shower fogged over the mirror. The dazed young man then returned his train of thought to taking his shower.
***
Nearly an hour after he had gone into the bathroom to take a shower, Angel emerged with wet hair and a towel around his waist. After making his way to his dresser and grabbing a pair of Spider Man boxers, a pair of denim shorts, and a red shirt with ‘¡Viva México!’ written in black. After getting dressed, Angel went over to his “back-up” cell phone, considering the hospital never gave his back yesterday, he had to go out and buy a temporary one. It wasn’t the fanciest thing, but it was a working phone, and that’s all Angel needed. He scrolled through the phone book and was trying to think of someone to call, but, most of the people he wanted to talk to he couldn’t: they had been at work on the same shift as Angel had been.
Angel just dropped his phone, grabbed his keys, and then walked out of his apartment. Maybe a walk is all I need, he thought to himself as he locked his door. Yeah, that’s it. A walk; fresh air. That will help me.
Barely ten feet out of his door, though, Angel saw vivid reminders of the bombing all around him: flags hung by balcony doors, crosses, newspaper stands with headlines.
“Damn it! Can’t I just get away from this for two minutes?” Angel shouted before he just started to run, and run fast. The scenery around him began to blur, and the noise of people and cars that surrounded him faded into nothingness.
Maybe if I run fast enough, I’ll leave it all behind me, all these questions, all these unknown memories, all this sorrow?
Angel couldn’t honestly say for sure how long or how far he ran, but the next thing he realized, he was sitting on a park bench, unsure of how long as well, in a part of Angel Grove he wasn’t too familiar with. It looked like a decent neighborhood, wherever it was, though: the cement sidewalk looked brand-new, there was no trash littered about the ground, and a the surrounding businesses didn’t look shady at all. As he was taking deep breaths, he couldn’t help but realize his mind not bombarded with 20-million questions, and a smile formed on his face. He leaned back and outstretched his arms across the back of the bench, with a content look upon his face, blissfully unaware of the woman sitting beside him.
“If you like that hand, I suggest you don’t try to cop a feel”
The young woman’s gentle-yet-serious voice snapped Angel right back to reality, and he quickly jumped up out of his seat, slightly embarrassed. He then looked at the person the voice came from. She looked to be around his age, 19-20-ish, and her long jet-black hair was parted to one side and gently rested on her back. Her dark, chocolate-hue skin contrasted sharply against the yellow tank top and white skirt she wore. But, the thing Angel noticed the most about her was her rich brown eyes: they were strong and commanding, but, the way she looked with them at Angel, they also seem somewhat concerned as well.
“I’m sorry” Angel apologized as he shrugged up and began rubbing the side of his head, somewhat embarrassed.
“Don’t worry about it, Angel. You’ve got a lot on your mind and I was just really teasing you.” She said as she casually stood up to look him eye-to-eye.
“Well, that’s a…” Angel stopped mid-sentence, wearing a stunned look on his face “Wait! How did you know my name!?”
She just smiled at Angel. “Well, you can thank my boss for that. She gave me a picture of you with your name and address, and told me to find you. I went you your apartment around noon and you weren’t there, so I started driving around looking for you, and took me almost 3 hours to do. I’ve been sitting here for about another hour while you just stared off into space.”
“Wait!? It’s almost four o’clock?” Angel asked, dumbfounded.
“Yeah, and, if you don’t come with me quickly, I’m going to get my ass chewed out by my boss. Patience is not her best virtue.” She paused for a moment and placed her hand on her chin, as if she was thinking about something. “Hell, in fact I don’t think she even knows the definition of the word.”
Angel was hesitant of this strange young woman. Everything she said, and the way she said it sounded like it was the truth, but just to go with her because she said so? And what did this woman’s boss want with Angel anyways? He then spoke up. “Why should I? What can you do or say to convince me to come with you?
The young black woman walked right up to Angel’s face and leaned in close to his ear. In a low whisper came out of her mouth, and Angel’s eyes got wider. She then pulled back with a large smile on her face, knowing her words had peeked his interests. She then started making her way to a black Toyota Avalon, and motioned Angel to follow. She was already starting the car when Angel sat into the passenger seat. She turned her head to face him. “By the way, the name’s Jacqueline, but everyone just calls me Jacqui.”
***
‘How about finding out how you survived that blast five days ago?’
These words kept bouncing back and forth from the sides of Angel’s skull as he rode with Jacqui in her car. And, considering it was near 5 o’clock in the afternoon on a Friday, he had a long time to let it brood in his head. He had tried to ask the female driver several times what was going on, but before he even got a word out of his mouth, she told him that he had to wait. After about the third time getting shot down before he even asked, he finally gave up and began fidgeting about his seat like a first grader bored of class.
Finally, after nearly an extra hour tacked on to a 20 minute trip due to the heavy traffic, Angel and Jacqui pulled into a parking garage in the middle of downtown Angel Grove. As the exited the car, Jacqui turned to Angel again. “Okay, follow me.”
The two made their way out of the garage, and, after about a block of walking, had finally reached their destination. As Angel leaned his head back, he became slightly dizzy just by looking at the sheer height of the building. His eyes quickly moved back down and fell upon the sign above the door he was standing in front of.
“Southern California Recreational Tech Co.” Angel found himself reading the words out loud.
“Ah, good old SCRTC.” Jacqui said, as the two twelve foot glass doors parted open for her as she made her way forward.
Angel was right on her heels, and totally confused. “Scratch?”
Jacqui chuckled. “It’s a little nickname the employees here have given the company.” She then pointed to the floor in front of them, giving Angel the reason why people made the nickname.
In the heart of the two-story lobby were three large, near-identical claw marks done in black marble slates with white marble trimming. The custom floor design spanned about 25 feet from end to end, and was near impossible not to notice. Angel’s gaze fixated on the flooring for some reason.
Jacqui turned around and shook his shoulder. “Hey, you can look at the floor later. Your answers are waiting upstairs.”
Angel snapped out of it and the two were back on the move. Jacqui led him towards a wall lined with 7 elevators. Six of them looked like the standard glass elevators you would find in a high-end office building, but, the one in the center was different than the rest. While it was glass too, this one was smaller, with about room for maybe five, six people tops, and was round unlike the more standard rectangular ones to either side. But, the thing that set it apart from the others the most was the gold paint applied to the metal frame. Jacqui pulled out a card key and inserted it into a slot where the button to call the elevator would normally be. Angel followed her cautiously into the elevator, and, as he looked around, he noticed that there was only two floor buttons on the elevator’s panel: 1 and 74.
“Welcome to the Express Elevator from Hell.” Jacqui quipped. “Please keep your hands and feet in the ride at all times, cause we about go up 73 floors in less than a minute.” She pressed the 74 button and before Angel could say a word, it felt as if gravity had gotten ten times greater, and pulled Angel down to the ground on his butt, while Jacqui just stood there, woo-hooing in enjoyment from the rush of the ride.
When the two reached the 74th floor, Angel crawled out of the elevator and over to a nearby plant to chunk up what little food was left in his stomach, while Jacqui came out laughing, partly from the rush and partly from Angel nausea. “Yeah… that happens your first few times on this bad boy, but, after a while, you get use to it.” She then walked up beside Angel and made sure he was actually okay. He gave her a thumbs-up and struggled to get up, as he was still a bit dazed from the elevator. After he finally got his barring straight, Jacqui led him down the hallway, through three pairs of clear glass doors, all the way to a pair of foggy glass doors with the same claw pattern from the lobby etched into each pane of glass.
“Well, this is it. Behind this door are all the answers to the questions you seek.” Jacqui said as she moved out of the way between Angel and the doors.
“Um… you’re not coming in with me?” Angel asked, as he began to loose some of his nerve.
“Do I have ‘STUPID’ written on my forehead or something!?” the young woman responded in an offened tone as she waved her finger in the air. “That crazy bitch is gonna be fuming pissed at me cause it took me nearly six hours to get you here. I’m sorry, but, from here on, you’re on your own, muchacho.” She then quickly turned around and walked through the doors the two had just came through. Angel went to follow her, but before he could even turn around, she was already closing the doors, and by the time he reached the doors, Jacqui had already locked them and was motioning Angel to go forward.
Resigning to his situation, Angel finally succumbed to Jacqui’s order to go forward. As he reached out a hand to the door before him, it cracked open slightly. A startled Angel reeled his hand back quickly, but after hearing a rapping on the glass behind him and seeing Jacqui shoot him a dirty look, he reached back out to the door in front of him. The door didn’t move forward again until his hand was firmly on the handle and he pushed it into the room before him. As Angel scanned the room before him, he was slightly relieved and disappointed: the way Jacqui had painted her boss, he was half expecting hellfire and brimstone. Instead, he was greeted by a large circular office with cascading steps into a small pit in the center where two black leather couches and a glass coffee table with assorted papers laid sprawled about its surface. There were a few plants scattered about near the walls of the room, and very large and very odd paintings lining the walls. On the opposite side of the room, on large section of the wall was actually panes of glass, giving a breathtaking view of the sunset washing over west Angel Grove and the Pacific. Angel, still being a bit on edge, slowly made his way down into the pit of the room past the table, and over to the window. As he stared out at the scene before him, he let the beauty of it all take all of his being away. If he hadn’t been so fixated on the sunset, he might have had noticed the woman sitting in the large chair beside him.
“About damn time Jacqui got you here.” The sharp tone of the woman’s voice snapped Angel away from the sunset, as he turned around to the woman in the chair.
“So, you’re her boss? First off, who are you.?” Angel demanded.
The woman was obviously irritated by the command, but she complied. “My name is Catherine Bianchi, and I’m the CEO of SCRTC, and you, my dear Angel, are a very special person.”
Angel went right up to her, leaned over, and pointed to himself. “You know what’s wrong with me?”
“There’s nothing ‘wrong’ with you at all.” Catherine responded as she rolled back in her seat a little and stood up and began pacing about the room. “You have a special ability very few people in this world are able to tap into.”
“So… I’m like a mutant? Like an X-Man or something?” Angel began rapidly looking and feeling over his body, praying to himself that he wasn’t growing scaly skin.
“Ugh!” Catherine grunted in disgust. “What is it with people these days ALWAYS comparing EVERYTHING to comic books and movies and video games? Goddamn kids!”
Angel quickly hushed for a moment, then asked “So, if I’m not an X-Man, what am I?”
The irritated woman rolled her eyes before she responded to the young man. “Through each and every person and every other living thing in this world runs a special kind of energy that, thousands of years ago, dedicated warriors in a remote area of China were able to tap into. They found out that this energy could enhance certain aspects of the human body: increased speed, inhuman senses, lightning reflex, and…” she paused for just a brief moment “…even increased durability of the human body.” Those last words locked Angel’s attention, and he remained silent and fixated on Catherine. “Those original warriors soon began training with the energy, and as they gained more mastery of it, they began noticing something: the energy began taking a semi-tangible form. At first they were just blurs, but, over time, the auras sharpened into the forms of animals. Each warrior seemed to display a unique form of their aura, and, eventually began developing unique fighting styles that reflected their beast aura.”
As Catherine was speaking, Angel was trying his best to absorb all the information, but he was becoming frustrated with her long, drawn-out story. “Are you trying to tell me I’ve got one of these ‘beast auras’ in me?”
“Yes” Catherine responded, rather harshly as she was irritated for being interrupted. “You should consider yourself fortunate: very few people actually have the ability to focus the energy.”
“I don’t believe you.” Angel said bluntly. “You expect me to believe some sort of hocus-pocus energy protected me from a bomb?” He waved his arms about in the air to emphasize his point.
“That wasn’t a bomb.” Her voice was cold, but not harsh. It was full of fear in fact. “That was concentrated burst of Rinki, a dark spirit energy. Your spirit energy protected you from the blunt of the blast, while your naturally enhanced endurance saved your ass from the rest of it.”
Angel’s face shifted into a look of hurt. “I get dragged all the way to downtown because I was told someone had an answer for me, an all I get is some BS about energy and spirit beast and dark ‘renty’ burst. Screw that! I’m going home, turning on Cartoon Network, ordering up some pizzas and emo-ing out. Get screwed, you crazy woman.” He then began to storm out of Catherine’s office.
“Well, I was hoping it wouldn’t have to come to this, but…” Catherine said as she crouched down and brought up to beside her head, looking as if they were grasping an invisible orb. An orange aura of energy began to flare up from around her body, and the light filled the room, stopping Angel in his tracks. As he turned around, her hands thrusted forward and the orange aura launched off her body and took the form of a large Leopard. It growled loudly as it lunged forward, knocking plants and one of the couches down as it made it’s way to Angel.
Angel quickly shut his eyes tight and pulled his arms up to shield himself, but right when he expected to be mauled by the spirit Leopard, but with the roar of a second large cat filled the room, Angel peeked open one of his eyes. Covering his entire body was a red blazing aura similar to the one Catherine had just had. He moved his arms away from his face and was stunned at the sight before him: Catherine’s spirit Leopard was pinned to the ground by the massive aura of a large red Tiger that took up about a quarter of the office. Flickers of the red aura traveled between both Angel and the Tiger. On the other side of the room, Catherine stood, equally dumbfounded as Angel, for the sheer size of Angel’s spirit beast.
“Impressive” Jacqui clapped slowly as her voice broke the silence of the room. Her words caught both Angel’s and Catherine’s attention, and when they turned to look at her, both of their spirit beasts faded from sight.
“Damn lucky, that’s all.” Catherine remarked about Angel with a sneer. Beneath her bruised pride though, she was rather stunned by how strong Angel’s energy was, even though he lacked any training.
Angel quickly fell to his knees. After bearing witness first-hand to this ability he never knew he had, he didn’t know what to say. He knew now what Catherine had told him was true, but now that his survival had been explained, it left many more questions in it’s place. But, for the first time in five days, Angel broke into laughter.
“Great, you broke him, Catherine.” Jacqui said in jest as she rushed over to Angel’s side. She reached her hand out to him to help him off the ground. “Well, now that we gave you answers, I guess it’s time to start the training.” When a confused look came across Angel’s face, Jacqui turned around and looked at Catherine. “You didn’t tell him about the training?”
Catherine shot the young black woman a dirty look with her icy blue eyes that would of killed a person of lesser resolve. “Well, I didn’t exactly have the time to do that before he started storming off.”
“Um… what training?” Angel asked, now confused once again. “I thought I was just here to get some answers.”
Catherine laughed. “Yeah… we just give you answers for free?” her face went from sarcastic to serious business mode in the blink of an eye. “I don’t think so. I’ve spent way too much money on making the media, the police, and the feds think it was a bomb, as well as keeping your name out of the media. As far as you are concerned, your ass belongs to SCRTC now.”
Angel went to start to protest, but Jacqui cut in. “Oh, it’s not that bad, Angel. You get a penthouse apartment on the floor above, a nice cushy cover job that pays well with full benefits, use of the company’s cars and jets and whatnot. All that you have to do in return is sign your life away and spend 12 hours a day, 7 days a week going through grueling training designed to help you control your spirit beast. Plus, Catherine mainly stays here in her offices and doesn’t go to the upper floors that often, and, until your basic training is finished, you don’t have to run errands for her.”
Catherine was becoming irritated by Jacqui blabbing on and finally cut in. “Well, as right as she is, it’s not like you have any other choice. Well, you do, but I don’t think you want to be hounded by they media, and when you tell them HOW you survived, you get thrown into the loony bin. Your best bet is to sign the contract and never speak a word about what happens on this floor and everything above it to anyone else.”
Angel just stood there for a moment before he just sighed. Jacqui smiled as she walked over to Catherine’s desk and picked up a clip board with some papers on it, and a pen. “Sign and date where the X’s are, and then I’ll show you to your new apartment.”
Angel was confused. “Hey, how did you know I was about to ask for the contract? Hell, as a matter of fact, you seemed to know a lot of things I’m about to ask before I ask them.”
Jacqui just laughed as she handed Angel the contract. “Well, I can read emotions, feelings. I can almost always predict someone’s next action or decision, if they’re lying or not. It works two-ways though: I can let other people can feel my intent. Like earlier today, you felt that I was honest because I was letting you into my emotions. If I would have been lying, you would have been able to tell I was.”
Angel laughed, though why, he wasn’t sure. Maybe it was because how nice Jacqui was to him right now, or maybe because he was sure he was going nuts and everything was a dream. Either way, as he finished signing the last signature line, he held out the clip board, which Catherine promptly snatched from his hands.
“Jacqueline will show you to your new room. By tomorrow morning, your personal effects from your apartment should be here, and your cardkey to access the restricted areas of the building will be ready. I suggest you get a good night’s sleep, because tomorrow, after a brief orientation, your training begins.” Catherine said as she made her way to her desk and began to typing on her computer, most likely to request the cardkey and the movers. “If you have any other questions, go ask someone other than me.” She then promptly began waving for the two other occupants of the room to leave her be.
Jacqui led Angel out of the two frosted glass doors, back down the hallway, to the area where the elevators were. Angel’s eyes were fixated on the gold elevator. “We’re not going on that thing again, are we? Cause I’d rather take the stairs.”
Jacqui just laughed. “We are, but we aren’t going down, we’re going, so it’s not bad at all.”
“But, there’s only two floor buttons in there” Angel said, remembering from earlier.
Jacqui walked inside and pulled out her cardkey again and inserted it into a slot above the floor buttons that Angel hadn’t noticed before. Suddenly a panel slit open revealing buttons 75 through 78. Jacqui pressed 75, and the elevator moved smoothly upward, as she just chuckled.
When they reached the floor above, she lead Angel down the rather short hallway in front of the elevator where there were three doors. She turned to the door directly to her left. “This is your new place.” She opened the door to reveal a spacious apartment, with white walls, a large living area furnished in a similar fashion to Catherine’s office, though there was a 42” plasma screen TV mounted to the wall nearby the entrance of the room. In one corner, there was a sleek modern looking kitchen done in stainless steel and black marble. On the kitchen’s bar was a remote and a key ring. Jacqui picked up the keys and tossed them over to Angel. “These are keys to this apartment and one of the company cars. You can find it by the parking spot, which should be on that little white tag.” She then pointed to a nearby door. “Inside there is where the magic WON’T be happening. No one from the outside is allowed on this floor, and inter-office relationships are frowned down upon. It’s kinda a damn shame though. King-sized bed with 2000-thread count Egyptian Cotton sheets, and that bathroom with that walk-in glass shower… I could SO put those things to good use, if you know what I mean.”
Angel’s eyes once again went over to the remote on the bar. “What does that do?”
Jacqui smiled as she grabbed it and held it up. “Each one of these buttons activates something. Dims lights…” she pressed the dimmer button and the lights of the room faded a bit, and with another press they became brighter again. “…the fire place…” with another press, a section of the wall below the TV opened up and a metallic fire place emerged and promptly lit. “…and there are some other things, it’s all labeled. But, the best of them all is this…” When she pressed the button near the bottom of the remote, a low but loud hum filled the room. Angel’s attention quickly turned to the slightly curved wall of the apartment, as it slowly began to rise up into the ceiling, revealing a wall of glass and the city of Angel Grove below. With the twilight edging out into the Pacific, and the lights of homes and buildings now coming into their full brightness.
Jacqui put the remote back on the bar and made her way out of the apartment. “Well, if you need anything, I’m right across the hall. Feel free to knock anytime.” With that, she closed the door and left Angel to himself.
As he went over everything that had happened to him that day, Angel couldn’t help but smile. He had started out the day in depression from the confusion of his traumatic memory loss, and now he was in an apartment at the top of the world. Sure, he also found out that he could manipulate energy into the form of a large red tiger and he was practically invulnerable, but, those weren’t as pressing issues to him. As he stripped back down to his Spider-man boxers, crawled into bed, and began slipping into sleep, he had no idea how much his life was about to drastically change in the next few days.
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