A Beast with a Smile
Chapter 22 (Scarlett): Ghosts of a Shadow

Hanzo’s barn was filled to brink with animals that weren’t supposed to be caged. Elephants the size of tennis balls stomped around an oasis that was within a cage fit for a class pet. Giraffes, lions, tigers, and bears of all types were also there. All of these massive creatures locked away in cages meant for their prey.

“How are they real?” I managed to choke out.

Hanzo stood in the corner holding the wolf pup like a handbag in his arms. He pet her ears, then held his hand on top on the pup’s head. The pup began to gain a visible aura around her whole body. It started at her head and worked its way down, shrinking every part of her one size smaller, as if she shrunk in the wash. The pup shrunk to the size of a mouse and yapped in a newly high-pitched howl.

Hanzo placed her in a frozen cage with ice and snow covering the landscape. The second jumped in excitement as its head contacted the miniature snow drifts. She jumped into a large pile of snow and rolled in it, making a wolf angel. More howls from the opposite end of the cage excited her back to her feet. She ran off towards the new noise.

I swear when I looked at Hanzo he had the beginning of a smile on his face. The man was around my age: he wore his black hair in a bun tightened to the back of his head. He wore a tight black robe, not the same kind that a dad would wear on a Sunday morning, but a robe of honor and class.

“It’s a kimono,” he said, noticing my stare.

I quickly turned away and tried to look at something invisible within the room. Elly was fixated on a cage in the corner of the room. Her squeals of joy could have been heard from Jupiter as she danced like a wild monkey in front of the cage.

Hanzo walked into view and placed his hand on her shoulder, “You have to be more careful with him next time. He’s not a pet, he’s a weapon.”

Elly opened the cage and snatched the little fur ball from his straw haven. She pressed her nose against his and gave him a kiss on the forehead. I’d never seen a bunny so happy to be held, but to be fair, I’d never seen a gigantic bunny until the other night. I shouldn’t be surprised at anything anymore.

“I’ll never leave him again. I promise Hanzo. If I wasn’t dead, I would’ve ridden him off into the sunset like always.”

Hanzo glared at Elly with distrustful and irritable eyes. The bunny, on the other hand, attempted to jump with joy, leaping out of Elly’s hand’s, bouncing around her with his golden collar jingling with every bounce. I barely recognized Tiny in his miniature form; the last time we met he was big enough to tear down half of the city square with just his leaps.

“I’m sorry we left him behind. I didn’t think he would’ve fit in the minivan,” I admitted.

Elly spun around grinning and met my eyes.

“You brought me back from the dead. I owe you an apology for dying, but you seemed to handle yourself better than I ever could’ve imagined.”

I smiled back, and she attempted to catch her bugs bunny who was still prancing around her feet in excitement. She snapped to attention like a ghost had just smacked her back. I began to walk towards her when I saw Archy, who was still standing in the doorway do the same thing.

“What’s going…”

“Hello, Scarlett,” a sweet, loving voice of a child answered.

The voice came from no one in the room, but from my thoughts themselves.

“Who are you?” I demanded outload.

“My name is OBSVR, but you can call me Observer. I’m this station’s artificial intelligence.”

Both Archy and Elly were looking at me with awaiting eyes.

“How is he talking to me?” I asked them both.

“It’s called a telecom. We have someone who can speak into the thoughts of others. He uses his abilities to serve as a form of radio for the whole base. It takes a few times to get used to,” Elly clarified.

Archy was scratching his ears, trying to get the voice out like water trapped in his lobes.

“You’ll never get used to the initial shock that someone else is speaking in your thoughts,” Archy bickered, still trying to free imaginary water.

“Anyway, now that you’re all here, Mother wants me to tell you that the next major lightning storm is in… oh Archy you’re going to love this one, Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado. Get to the landing pad ASAP...Oh and Elly is mission leader. What she says goes,” the boy’s voice glitched in and out every once in a while, almost like a stutter.

“Roger that,” two voices, neither Elly or Archy, approved.

One sounded like the girl from the hallway and the other was new. The other voice was deep, but gentle.

“Be there in five… ok, here,” Velicity blurted.

“We will be there in one minute exactly. Tell the pilots to get the engines warm. We leave thirty seconds after arrival. Woodrow, I expect you there before we arrive,” Elly barked.

Her personality changed with her new role. She seemed much more mature than the fourteen-year-old that saved my life in the hospital.

“Elly, you know I hate it,” Archy said, pouting in the corner.

Elly caught her bunny with one hand and gave him to Hanzo. She walked up to Archy and touched his shoulder. I got closer just to see what was going on.

“Relax, Archy. We are just going to sprint to the landing pad. It’s not too far away.”

She waved her other hand behind her back, signaling me closer. I followed her commands and stepped within arm’s reach.

“Elly, I’m not screwing around. Don’t do it.”

Elly spun around and touched my chest. I glanced at her face in time to see her massive grin and winking eye before a flash of blue light faded my world to black.

Everything in my body tensed up and shot forward out of a cannon. I began to see spots of blue in my eternal darkness. I couldn’t feel the ground: when I kicked I felt nothing but air. I remembered the first time I met my yellow savior and how she escaped my reality with a lightning strike and traveling through the power lines.

This must be what Archy meant. Sitting here blind as a bat, only seeing flashes of our surroundings and only feeling the contents of our stomach soaring along with our bodies.

A flash of yellow wiped away the darkness and the barn. We now stood on a square platform next to a hovercraft of some sort. It looked like a box with four small ovens as engines. The back of it was open with a ramp that lead into the crew cabin.

Velicity was already seated one of the furthest seats near the cockpit. She waved eagerly at us, jumping up and down in her seat. Elly walked up the ramp and sat down in the seat closest to the exit and buckled in. Archy followed in close pursuit with smoke bellowing out of his ears. He muttered curses as he strapped himself in. A boy with light brown hair down to his shoulders stood next to me.

“She’s a beaut, isn’t she?” the boy asked me.

He held a bag of dried fruits in his arms and would repeatedly pull a few out and toss them in his mouth. He was tall and carried himself with pride. He didn’t look much older fourteen, sixteen at the latest.

“I’m Woodrow. You must be the invisible Scarlett,” he confirmed, holding out his right hand.

“Yes, that is me and I think it’s the invincible Scarlett.”

He smiled with a blush, walked onto the carrier and took a seat next to Velicity. I started my ascent up the ramp when out of the corner of my eye I saw the wretched face of the man of glass. He still wore his armor of mirrors, with one side still shattered. He was leaned up against a wall giving me googly eyes. He blew a kiss, then disappeared on the wall. I wasn’t sure if it was sweet or creepy, either way it was a little strange.

I attempted to ignore it and not overthink anything as I plopped down in a seat next to Elly. The ship began to shake as the engines burst with hot flames. The ramp slowly closed as we flew away from the landing pad; through the open door in the cockpit I could see the exit of the nothing but blue skies and small puffy clouds that never grew closer.

The ship began to gain speed like we were a comet on a runway. We punched through the blue sky into a frozen wasteland. The sky was never truly blue, and the weather was never perfectly warm; it was a ruse from the cold, icy winds of a frozen hell that lives outside of the lies.

I sat back in my seat thinking Another home where everything perfect is only a manufactured reality. Now I understand why the power is so important. No power means no heat, no perfect sky, and no defense from the blizzard and other dangers that wait outside.

I could feel the speed of the wind as we split the sky with burning engines. The ground changed from the pure white of the ice to green pastures and fields of wheat. In less than twenty minutes we had traveled across half the planet. Elly unbuckled and stood up, wobbling as she walked towards the cockpit. She said a few inaudible words to the pilots who nodded in response. She turned around with a smirk of mischief planted so deep on her face that it will sprout a smug tree in July.

She looked at me and tapped her head, “Everyone hear me?” she asked on the telecom, looking around, meeting everyone’s faces.

The rest of the crew nodded in response.

“Ok, good. Ace and Gertrude said that landing the ship isn’t an option. Atom has a lot of contacts in the military and an unknown ship flying around Norad will be a flare for his goons to come pick us up.”

Archy’s face began to brighten, I swear his eyes twinkled when he asked, “Hot drop?”

Elly met his eyes and confirmed his wishes with a nod. Archy sat in his seat grinning like a madman.

“What’s a hot drop?” I tried to ask out loud, but the ship was too loud they couldn’t hear me.

I screamed it at the top of my lungs, but the sound was the equivalent to a mouse fart. I finally got the attention of Velicity by waving my hands back and forth like I was doing the wave. Her image flickered then disappeared, only to reappear in the seat next to me strapped in and excited.

“Hi there,” she said with unlimited excitement.

“Hi. Um, how do I talk to you with my thoughts?”

“Oh, it’s easy watch,” she made a facial expression similar to a constipation push.

“Hi there...”

“That doesn’t really show me anything,” I said, trying to be polite.

“Scarlett, think about who you want to talk to then say what you want to say, just in your head,” Archy explained.

I thought about Elly and the other members of the cabin, but Scavenger was the only name that stuck. He was the only one that I wanted to talk to. If he only knew how much I missed him.

I pushed the thought aside and focused on my companions.

“Hello,” I attempted to say.

All of their faces lit up with joy, like I had taken my first steps.

“It takes a little bit to get used to. Don’t worry. We all struggled at first.”

“Scarlett!?” a familiar voice asked.

The voice pulled the tears from eyes and the heart from my chest. It was his voice, I thought about him and he heard me. The others must have not heard him, because they looked at me with confused and empathetic expressions.

“Scarlett, if that’s you, then you must have found the others. I don’t have a lot of time. You need to save Elizabeth. She’s in Utah. She’s only five and Atom will use her.”

“Scavenger, I have so many questions. Where are you? How do we rescue you? Why only talk to me?” I staggered, trying not to accidentally send him my overthinking.

“I’ve been trying for months. I’ve never gotten anyone to respond, but you.”

“Scavenger, what are they going to do to Elizabeth?”

“They’re going to use her powers to try and take over the world. Just get her before it’s too late,” he pleaded.

My heart was racing so fast, I was sure it would’ve popped out and bounced around the ship like Tiny did around Elly.

“Scavenger, I…I... had a memory about you killing people.”

I felt his sorrow in my gut.

“I’ve made bad decisions and I will live with the regret for the rest of my life,” he said with a voice thick with tears.

“I have to go before they catch me.”

“Wait, how do I replace you?” I said with desperation.

“If you’ve started having your flashbacks, then they will lead you to me, but the rescue will be pointless if you don’t save Elizabeth. I have to go. I love you,” he said as pressure lifted off of my shoulders.

“I love you too,” I spoke out loud.

I realized that the entire time I was talking to Scavenger I was staring into the distance, completely lost in my mind. When I regained my attention, Velicity stood in front of me, waving her hand back and forth in front of my eyes.

“Hello, anybody home?” she questioned, pretending to knock on my forehead.

The whole team was crowded around me. I noticed that all of them wore their armor now.

“We weren’t sure if the telecom fried your brains. Are you alright?” Archy asked.

“Almost looked like you were under Atom’s mind control. I wasn’t sure it was going to be you that came back or a zombie serving the devil,” Woodrow pointed out.

“I was talking to Scavenger. He answered when I said ‘Hello’ on the telecom.”

They all looked at each other with awkward and painful expressions.

“Yep, deep fried her brains,” Velicity said, now standing on the seat next to me acting, like she could see in my head.

“We have been trying to contact him for months and you managed to do it on your first try? I think OBSVR needs to replace a new job,” Archy laughed.

“I can still hear you,” OBSVR responded.

Elly looked like she took the news the hardest.

Her face turned a sickly green as she rotated around with one hand planted on the wall, “It can’t be him. We would’ve been able to talk to him or see that his mind is accessible.”

I chuckled a little bit at the idea of head reception areas, like how cell phones work.

“It’s probably a trap, if anything at all,” Woodrow added.

“How do we even know it was actually Scavenger and not just one of Atom’s sick jokes?” Elly asked.

“I heard him!” a new voice answered, entering the fray, “He said Atom had my sister in Utah and that she was going to destroy the world.”

A large cardboard box plummeted to the earth from the carry-on overhead compartment. Packing peanuts and a miniature warrior exploded out of the box.

He wore a black metal chest piece with black and white zebra stripes; he also included a paper mache helmet in the shape of a wolf. The boy bearing the outfit was around five years old and had deep, dark grey eyes and dark brown hair that was cut neatly into a fauxhawk.

He thrusted his white crayon colored wooden sword in the air and guarded with his colored wooden shield. He looked brave and proud for a child his age.

“CLARK!” Elly screamed.

The boy’s face froze with fear. He turned around very slowly to not excite the angry bear. Elly stood inches in front of his face, her face steaming red as wine and as irritated as a scratched rash.

“I thought I told you to stop being a stowaway on missions!” Elly screamed again.

The boy’s eyes began to drip, and his lips quivered, “I’m sorry. I just want to be like you guys and save the day.”

His sword hit the ground and he covered his eyes, trying to hide his sorrow. I unhooked myself from the seat and tried to comfort the child warrior. I brought him in close, making sure he had no room to escape my hug.

His wet embrace freed the air from my lungs; he dug his head deep inside the crevice of my chest and squeezed as tight as he could. I pulled off his fragile helmet and placed it on the seat next to me and sat him down in the next available seat. His tears still fell as the boogers clung to my pajamas.

I had never glanced at the clothes that I was wearing; I’d forgotten about my pajamas being ruined by the dragon’s breath, but here they were perfectly stitched and sewn together like the tragedy had never happened. I assumed it was the work of Archy.

I could be the first person in the history of top-secret missions to ever do it in unicorn pjs.

“You are Clark, right?” I asked.

He nodded, wiping away a mix of tears and boogers.

“I like your suit. Did you make it yourself?”

He nodded again with the hint of a smile.

“Don’t tell them, but I think it looks cooler on you,” I whispered.

“Hey,” Archy attempted to rival, but was punched in the shoulder by Elly.

The boy smiled and wiped away the last of his tears, “I tried to make it like Scavenger’s. He saved me and my sister once when he brought us back to the nursery in the giant tower. I tried to save him when we got out, but all I did was get my sister caught. I made this suit to help you guys, so we can go save the day. Now that we know where she is, we can go get her.”

A silence had consumed the room: all of them seemed to have frozen in fear.

“Is it true, Scarlett? What he’s talking about?” Elly said. playing everything over in her head.

“Yes. Scavenger answered me on the telecom. He told me that they had Elizabeth in Utah.”

“We’ve tried contacting him every day since the escape. How did you get through on your first try?” Archy asked, looking sick to his stomach.

“I’ve been hearing him for months,” Clark answered putting his helmet back on.

Elly spun around and looked at him with eyes wider than the Grand Canyon.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Elly mustered in a controlled scream.

Clark tensed. I could sense his emotions being riled up. I placed my hand gently on Elly’s shoulder and looked her in the eyes with only an intent for care. Her eyes were adrift with a blue hue of black storm clouds and blue lightning bolts. She was getting emotional, she must’ve been close with Scavenger and losing him must’ve hurt her as much as it hurt me. She spun around and walked back up towards the pilots to hide her electric tears.

“I’m sorry. I thought I was just imagining the voice. I didn’t know how to talk back to him, so I didn’t think you guys would want to know.”

He stood up from his chair and walked over to his sword, which bounced with the turbulence.

He picked it up then went on one knee behind Elly, “Here, take my sword and strike me down.”

He laid the sword flat on both hands and raised it up towards Elly. She turned around and saw the boy trying to make amends for his sins. She wiped away her tears, which sparkled with flashes of lightning bolts on her armor and took the wooden sword from the disgraced knight.

She tapped each shoulder and repeated, “I knight thee, Sir Clarkith. You will serve as the protector of the Universe and let no man, woman, or evil monster harm it.”

He stood and took the sword, thrashing it through the evil air. Velicity clapped at a super speed; her hands were silver blurs. Woodrow and Archy both grinned ear to ear and I felt a warm burning sensation in my chest that I hadn’t felt in years.

Is it love? I thought to myself.

Clark turned, and his face queued my next memory. Scavenger’s black armor was a living shadow as it walked toward me. His wolf hilted sword was drawn as he walked toward me. The shadow passed through me and I flipped around to see where he went. His shield was hung on the back of his armor and he walked towards an enemy who carried a hostage: me.

The man wore a dark grey suit that was much bulkier and misshapen than the other’s suits. His arm matched the same robotic skin as the one Tyler was freed from the last time we met.

I walked towards where the memory had frozen still. The grey man’s hand floated over a red button on the wall. When I touched the button, the memory began to play again. I could hear only the wind and the beating heart of my capture. He walked backwards towards the opening ramp as Scavenger followed in pursuit. I was entranced, following Scavenger’s exact footsteps in perfect sync.

“You don’t have to do this,” Scavenger pleaded.

The grey man laughed. His helmet muffled it and made it sound cackled and dispersed, like he was talking through an oxygen mask.

“Oh, Scavenger. It’s about time that you felt what you’ve made me feel,” he said, laughing and jumping off of the ramp.

The shadow of Scavenger jumped in pursuit with me close behind in another timeline.

The shadow dissipated into storm clouds and air, but I was still solid and falling to an unknown fate, finally free from my trance.