A New Home: Chapter 2.11 (Luciana)

Class 4 Living Room Chaos

Lucy came into the house, Mr. Kibbles was bouncing with excitement. “House!” He rushed on ahead, sniffing everything and everyone, Lucy following and apologizing. When he came into the living room there was a tall gray furry paramorph figure standing there inspecting books from a shelf.

Mr. K went to sniff them, “What’s that?” He signed to Lucy.

“I don’t know,” Luciana answered vocally, “Hi?”

The strange-looking being cocked her head, “what don’t know?” She said with an unplaceable accent.

“Sorry, my dog wanted to know what you are, are you a mutant paramorph?” Luciana asked, “Sorry, don’t mean to be rude or anything.”

“Son’ma is Ver. Not srom Ears.” Son’ma stared at Mr. Kibble, looking confused, “Sat is dog?”

“He’s a special kind of dog.” Luciana asked. “What’s a Ver?”

“Not human. Srom Ver planet.”

“More aliens?” A tall tan Latino with a black leather collar around his neck walked in. He made a little bit of a face at Son’ma but it quickly went back to an easy, cocky smile. 

“What’s this about aliens?” A tall plant girl came in next, 

Luciana looks at her wide-eyed, “Woah, you’re like a salad.”

The Salad-girl gave her a look. 

“Salad?” Son’ma asks confused, “Is type os human? Or alien?”

“I’m a mutant,” Plant-girl said, “a paramorph.”

Son’ma nodded as if she understood.

Mr. K loudly breathed with excitement, coming to greet everyone in turn. 

“What’s with your dog?” The Latino boy asked Lucy.

“I mutantized him,” Luciana shrugs, “Oh, does anyone want cupcakes? I made them myself!” Lucy opened a bag and took out some uniced cupcakes “I got some icing too, but figured it’d get all squashed up.”

“Ooo I’ll take one,” the Latino boy held out his hand, 

Son’ma looks at them curiously, “what is a cupcake? Sood? Does not look eat-able to Son’ma.”

“It’s a small cake? It’s sweet?” Luciana said. Did they not have cupcakes on Ver? If so, what a shame! 

“Can’t eat cake anymore,” Thea said, “They do look nice.”

The alien took one of the cupcakes and touched it to a long, strange dangling appendage under her arms. “Not good sor Ver eating.”

“What do you eat?” Luciana asked.

“I like your dangly things,” Thea said sitting down, “You’re very pretty.”

“Meat!” Son’ma answered, baring her sharp carnivore teeth, “Tae.” Son’ma said, wiggling her tae and pointing at the appendages, “Sank you.” she then said to Thea.

“So does that mean you’re from space?” Luciana asked. She gave one to the boy along with an icing tube, and took one for herself.

“Yes and no.” Son’ma answers, “oser space.”

Another person stepped into the living room. He was pink head to toe with axolotl gills on the side of his head and dragging an axolotl tail that peaked out of the knee-length floral skirt he wore.

“Oser space?” Lucy asks. She saw the newcomer, “Hi, woah, you’re pink! Do you want a cupcake?”

Son’ma frowns, “oser space aaaa…. oser… dimension space?” She said the word dimension somewhat haltingly

“Ooh, parallel dimension?” Luciana says, “That’s cool.”

“Papa says I shouldn’t eat sugary foods.” the pink axolotl kid said.

“Well, your dad isn’t here so a cupcake won’t hurt anything.” The Latino boy said, taking a bite of his own cupcake.

The Axolotl boy shook his head, “I’ve got to listen to Papa even when he’s not here.”

The Latino boy frowned, “what’s your name, kid?”

The axolotl boy stared at Mr. Kibbles, “I’m Gabriel.” He answered not taking his eyes of Mr. Kibbles

“I’m Luciana, but everyone calls me Lucy,” Mr. Kibbles let out a soft bark, “I was getting to you, this is Mr. Kibbles, he’s the world’s best service dog.”

The plant girl spoke up next, “I’m Thea Winters, I know Winter/plant, it’s ironic or something.”

“Mitch Garcia.” the latino boy introduced himself, “These cupcakes are pretty good!” Mitch said, finishing one-off

“Son’ma is Son’ma.”

“Thanks, I bake a lot, and Mr. K is the perfect assistant,” Lucy said. “He even helps make his biscuit,” She took one out of a small bag with a biscuit print and gave it to him. Mr K. eating the biscuit happily.

“The dog helped make these?” Mitch made a face, “how good is he at washing his paws?”

“Very good,” Lucy said, she took a second dog biscuit and bit into it. “Anyone wants one?” 

Thea paused, looking at her. “What, did you just eat a dog biscuit?” 

“What? They’re beef and peanut butter.” Lucy laughed.

Mitch laughed, “I’ll pass,” 

Son’ma looks at the dog biscuit, “meat?”

Lucy offers one, “kinda? try it?”

Son’ma took it with her hand, the tae wrapping around it at the same time, after a moment she tossed it in her mouth whole and chewed, “good.”

“We’ve got approval!” Lucy smiled, “If you want more just ask.”

“They’re my biscuits!” Mr. K protested.

“Puppy you can share.”

“So what makes an alien wanna be an Earth superhero…. especially an alien that doesn’t have a bunch of their kind running around here?” Mitch asked Son’ma

“Son’ma’s likes humans.” 

“I’ve never even heard of Ver,” Lucy said. She knew a lot of aliens; Itharii, Gimelians, Venusians, Shivats, Tzari, or Chts, but never had she heard of a ver. 

“Not come to sis Ears.”

“Ears? Oh Earth?”

“Well Son’ma did say they were from another dimension, are there lots of Ver there?”

Son’ma nodded, “Ver have ears.”

“Are you okay?” Thea said, seeing Gabriel had gone quiet.

“I’m fine!” Gabriel smiled, “Why do you ask?”

“You’ve just gone quiet,” she said, “just making sure.”

Gabriel’s eyes were wide and innocent, “I’m not supposed to talk.”

“Who said that?” Thea demanded.

“Papa. He says I shouldn’t speak until spoken to.”

Thea’s foliage wilted at the words, “Well, he’s not here, and here you can speak as much as you want.”

Gabriel frowned, his brow furrowing, “… I don’t know….”

Mitch patted Gabriel on the back, “relax a little, do what you wanna do.”

“Yeah, we’re here to have fun!” Lucy said with a smile, “I personally plan to Vlog my superhero journey!”

“Vlog?” Son’ma asked and Gabriel looked equally confused.

“It’s a video journal kind of thing,” she explains, “I do a lot of Youtube stuff.”

They both continued to look at her with complete confusion.

“You make a video about stuff in your life?” She tries to explain. 

“People see?” Son’ma asked.

“Wait, of course you don’t know what Youtube is,” she said, taking her phone. “It’s like a place where people put videos and music,” she puts on a pop song, her phone is quite loud.

Son’ma looks at Lucy’s phone, “How much videos?”

“More than you could ever watch,” Lucy answered, she clicked on something else; a movie trailer, “you can watch trailers, music videos, life blogs, documentaries, just about anything you can think of, well I guess you can’t watch naughty stuff.”

Mitch laughed, “I’m sure you could find some if you looked hard enough.”

Son’ma frowned, “Sree?” She asked.

“Sree?” Luciana blinked.

“No money?”

“You don’t need money, just the internet,” Luciana said, passing her the phone.

Son’ma’s eyes, well one pair of them it looked like she might have a second set that was closed, sparkled as she clicked around on Youtube, “humans are creative.”

“I guess we are,” Luciana says. Mr. Kibble signed at Lucy, asking to tell them about his art. “Yes, puppy you’re a great artist too.”

“Artist puppy?” Thea asked, “I’d like to see that.”

“Even dog can be artist?” Son’ma asked, “amazing.”

“Mr. K is special,” Lucy shrugged.

Mitch reached out to pet Mr. Kibbles’s head, “Show us some of your art buddy?”

Lucy asked for her phone back, and then quickly flipped to her Instagram, showing some pictures of Mr. Kibble’s art, it was all rather childish, but she dared any naysayer to have their dogs do better. “Such an artist, the canine Picasso.” she teased. Mr. K, meanwhile, looked very proud.

“Very talented!” Mitch praised, scratching Mr. Kibbles behind the ears.

Mr. Kibbles gratefully accepted the scratches, looking as smug as a dog can. 

Lucy’s phone buzzed with an alarm, reminding her to take her meds. “Aw man, have you seen the time?” she said, “Should unpack.”

Mitch checks his phone, “shit you’re right. See you guys tomorrow!”

“Bye!” Luciana said, grabbing her bags. 

The others filtered out with goodbyes, Gabriel was the last to leave, zoning out a bit in the middle of the living room before finally heading upstairs.

Arrival: Chapter 1.16 (Gabriel)

Gabriel hated cars. He had to sit too far forward with his tail bent at an awkward angle because the base was too thick. And the person who was always driving the cars Gabriel was in didn’t help.

Hatred was a feeling that was very new to Gabriel. Papa never gave him the option of hating anything. But now he was separated from Papa and it was all the fault of that woman and her friends.

That woman opened her mouth and spoke up, “We’re almost there, Gabriel.” Gabriel looked up from staring down at his tail that was laying across his pale pink thighs and his white floral skirt. He glanced at Dana behind the wheel, who quickly turned her head back to the road when Gabriel looked up. Then he looked out the window at the huge and wide open gates and the dozens of red brick buildings beyond them.

Dana drove in through the gates just as various buses pulled out. She parked in one empty spot amongst many and glanced at her watch, “Shit. We’re a bit late.” She opened the car door and looked back at Gabriel, one foot out of the door, “Wait here for a second, okay?”

Gabriel didn’t respond. He stopped responding to her at all when he learned she was keeping him away from Papa. Dana got out of the car and walked off. Once she was gone, Gabriel opened the door and climbed out, moving his tail to work out the stiffness. He thought of walking off at that moment but he had no idea how far this “Ravenhold Academy” was from his home. 

Dana returned a few minutes later, her long, wavy brown hair now pulled up in a bun and some papers in her hands. “We missed the opening speech but I got your information, I can help you get to your dorm.” She popped open the trunk, setting Gabriel’s suitcase down on the ground and slinging his other bag over her shoulder. “Follow me.” She started for one of the buildings past the main one, occasionally looking down at the paper or glancing back to make sure Gabriel was still there.

And Gabriel followed her, his pink axolotl tail dragging along the grass as the two of them cut through campus. Dana finally stopped. She pointed at a building that a few teens were filtering into. It was two stories tall with five numbered doors, there were clear seams in the walls between the large numbered section, each section looked as big as his home with Papa. “Those are the 1st year dorms. You’re in class 4 so go in door 4, okay?”  She set his bags down in front of him.

She took a step towards him and Gabriel backed away. She sighed, her eyebrows knitting together. “I just want to take your collar off.”

With a stubborn pout to his lip, Gabriel stepped forward and lifted his chin to let her remove his power suppressing collar. The second it left his skin the annoying buzzing in his head ceased and he unconsciously untensed.

“Also, here,” Dana reached into her pocket and pulled out a cellphone, “my number is in there if you ever need me. But you don’t need to call if you don’t want to,” she said, pressing it into his hand.

“I won’t need you,” Gabriel declared, turning on his heel towards the dorm building. Dana didn’t stop him as he took his bags and marched into the dorm. With her out of his sight completely, his anger started to melt away. Papa would come get him soon so he would just do his best to stay happy until then. 

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Profile: Gabriel Hsiang

Personal Data

Name: Gabriel Hsiang
Gender: Cisgender male
Pronouns: He/him
Age: 13
Birthday: December 31st
Ethnicity: Chinese/White
Nationality: American
Species: Chimera (Axolotl)
Sexuality: Questioning

Family: Sold to the Syndicate as a baby by extended family after his parents died. “Adopted” by high ranking Syndicate member Elias Hsiang.

Strengths: Innocent. Soft-hearted. Cute. Hard to injure or capture.
Weaknesses: Naive. Too trusting. Stubborn. Low combat ability.

Appearance and Style: Gabriel’s skin and hair are entirely pink. His hair is wavy and somewhat thick. His eyes are black. He has webbing between his fingers and toes and a large axolotl tail that drags on the ground behind him. He has the feathery gills of an axolotl on the sides of his face, in front of his ears. He tends to wear soft pastels and loose, knee length skirts. He likes childish clunky accessories and cutesy cartoon bandaids. Rather than a Syndicate ‘S’ he has the initials ‘EH’ branded on his sternum.

Superhero Data

Supranym: ???
Status: Alive. Active

Metahuman Type: Mutant, Chimera
Abilities: Can phase through solid objects. Can breathe underwater.

Ravenhold Data

Acceptance to Ravenhold: Special Circumstance

Class: Four
Power Category: Miscellaneous
Roommate: Tommy

Backstory

All Gabriel has ever known is his Papa and the apartment they lived in. Everything he read or watched, everything he ate, when he slept, when he woke up, every aspect of his life was carefully controlled by his Papa. And to Elias Hsiang, Gabriel was a son, a pet, a slave, a decoration. Gabriel would spend hours or days in a large aquarium as if he were an exotic fish. Under the care of Elias, Gabriel suffered physical, mental, and sexual abuse.

One day, only a few months before the beginning of the story the home Elias kept Gabriel in was found and raided by police who hoped to catch this major Syndicate member but unfortunately only found Gabriel. After speaking with Gabriel and understanding his situation, the authorities realized he was an innocent, abused child. But when they attempted to take him away from the apartment, Gabriel freaked out and tried to fight against him. When his meager strength proved to be no match in his panic, fear, and desperation Gabriel awakened his mutant powers and literally slipped through their hands. They had to use knockout gas and a power inhibitor collar to catch him and bring him out of there.

They brought him to a therapist and social worker named Dana Fern who specialized in helping Syndicate chimeras. She was unsure of how to deal with Gabriel’s deeply rooted, twisted world-view, especially when he made no effort to communicate with her. She also faced the threat of Elias or the Syndicate coming after and attempting to retrieve him. She knew she could not protect him and neither could a normal family or mental health care facility. The only options were the Chimera Asylum or Ravenhold Academy. When offered the choice, Gabriel chose Ravenhold Academy.

Misc Information

  • Gabriel doesn’t know much about heroes and doesn’t have much of a desire to become one
  • Gabriel likes to color and paint
  • Gabriel actually misses his tank and often wishes to be underwater in the dark when he is stressed out or sad
  • Gabriel wears skirts not just because he likes them but also because pants would need to be almost entirely split down the whole butt to fit his tail
  • Gabriel’s feet are a little wide so he doesn’t like wearing shoes