WHOA

'm intrigued!!! I'm already drawn into the story just from reading that small section!!  

New Part!

Chapter 1

Nico's feet pounded against the rough concrete ground, on the run from screwing up Institute wiring with her fire breath.  She was laughing as she went, simply because the Institute seemed so worried about their wiring that they only sent three guards after her.  She ducked as she heard a gunshot, and only then realized how serious this would be.  

She cursed at the guards, then flew up and around them, shoving them into the grimy, busy street before zipping into the nearest alley and to the ground.  She hid in the corner, pulling her hood over her head.  She couldn't let the guards see the bright orange hair that would give her away.

She heard a rustle from the trashed area across from her on the other side of the alley, and froze stiff.  She wasn't sure if it was the shadows messing with her head or if there was actually a silhouette facing her, looking back at her.  She hardly dared to breathe as the guards barged into the alley, shouting the name she gave up five years ago.

She didn't know how long she was sitting there, but eventually the guards gave up, believing that she flew off while they weren't looking.  After all, there were only three of them, and they could only look so many places at once.  Nico didn't once take her eyes off the shadow she thought she saw less than five yards from her stiff navy-blue clad body.  

Just as she was about to stand up and fly off onto the roof of a far-away building, someone grabbed her by the hood of her jumpsuit and pulled it off her head.  She twisted, spitting curses in her unknown attacker's face and pulling herself to her feet.  She couldn't see the person attacking her, but knew roughly where their face would be.  She punched them across the face, tearing the fabric locked in their hand out of their grasp.  She prepared to fly away, but her attacker wrapped their arm around her neck, with obvious muscle that Nico herself was lacking.  She murmured a curse under her breath as her attacker threw her to the ground, halfway out of the alleyway she was hiding in.  Her hood flopped off her orange hair, revealing herself to passerby on the street who had probably heard of her on television.  She ignored the surprised whispers and gasps she heard, and pulled herself to her feet and got into a fighting position.  

That's when she first saw her attacker's face.  He was handsome, and only a couple years older than her, which surprised her.  He had short blonde hair and piercing eyes like ice.  He looked worn, as if he had been outside the walls for a couple years.  His frame was muscular, as Nico suspected, but she didn't have time to inspect the rest of him.  She, quite literally, flew at him, uppercutting his jaw.  He caught her with his opposite arm, catching her off-guard and throwing her to the ground again.

Nico tried to struggle to her feet, but the boy placed a single foot on her chest and pushed her to the ground again.  She resisted the urge to spit fire into his face, but decided against it.  He was a pretty boy, and he had just beat her in a fight in her own game.  

He leaned down, and said in her face, "You can't keep winning."

"Great," Nico said sarcastically, squeezing herself out from under him and flying up.  She kicked his face against the wall.  He recovered quickly, grabbing her foot and tossing her at the ground again.  Nico caught herself this time, and flew at him headfirst.  

The boy grabbed her by the shoulders, and slammed her against the wall.  Nico reeled, caught off-guard by her opponent's seemingly endless stamina.  At this, the boy punched her so hard in the nose, Nico's head went back against the wall and everything went black.

~~~

Nico blinked.  Her head, namely her nose and the back of her head were pounding.  She could hear talking in the background, but she didn't recognize the voices.  They didn't speak with an air of arrogance like the scientists, and didn't talk with the more proper grammar like the receptionists at the institute buildings.  They sounded unique, each of them not one bit like the others.  Nico decided she would listen in on the voices instead of letting them know she was awake.

"What are we going to do with her?" One voice asked, sort of tinny and accented.

"I dunno, kill her?"  Another replied, this one sounding more feminine, but still with a tomboyish tinge.

"Thorne!"  Yet another voice scolded, presumably at the second voice.  "She's the most infamous criminal in the city, we can't just kill her!"

"What do you mean, we can't?  The world doesn't actually, like, care about what happens to criminals," The tomboyish voice argued.  

"Calm down, Thorne, Mecina," This fourth voice sounded like an authoritative person, maybe the leader of this group.  "I fought her.  I know her strengths and weaknesses.  We could --"

"I won't allow you to finish that sentence!" The tomboy girl cried.  "We are NOT letting her join us!"

"I'm the leader here, we're not killing her."

"We could just . . . release her," a very shy, very quiet voice added. 

"Uhm, no, we're not doing that," The third voice grumbled.  "She'll report us."

"You really think the most famous criminal in the city is going to come to a police station to report six lesser known criminals?"

At that point, Nico decided she would surprise them.  Without a second thought, she said, "I'm not gonna report you.  I'm not gonna let you kill me.  I'd rather spit fire on myself.  I will, on the other hand," Nico stopped to hold up her finger, "allow you to convince me to join you."  She grinned as she listened to the six voices be confused.

"How...long have you been listening in on us?" The voice of the leader, presumably the blonde boy she had been fighting earlier, asked.  

"Since British boy asked what you're gonna do with me," Nico replied nonchalantly, sitting up.  "So, introduce yourselves and tell me why I should join you."  She looked around and tried to match the voices with the people's appearances.  

She already knew the voice of the blonde boy she had fought.  He was wearing a tight black tank top and jeans.  

There was a girl with green eyes and long black hair.  She was tall and had pale skin.  She was wearing all black, a black hoodie-shirt and ripped jeans.  She had combat boots.  Nico assumed this was the voice of the tomboy girl.

The tinny-sounding British voice probably belonged to a boy wearing a blue paperboy cap and a green shirt under a blue jacket.  He wore khaki pants and red chucks.  He had blonde hair and greenish-blue eyes.

There was a darker-skinned girl with curly black hair.  She was wearing a pale-blue nightgown with small light pink bows.  Her eyes were shy and hazel, and Nico couldn't place her voice.

The final person had blonde hair and brown eyes.  Her hair was short and she was wearing a shirt striped magenta and white and a short plaid skirt.

The blonde boy spoke first.  "I'm Zayn.  You are an escapee from IUMH, correct?"

Nico nodded, not really knowing what to expect from answering.  

"Cool.  I am too.  We all are.  We escaped on different terms and found our way to each other mostly on accident.  There are more experiments there too.  My power is healing anyone's outward injuries except myself.  It's a pain sometimes."

"I'm Thorne," The black-haired girl said, in the same voice that Nico had guessed.  "My power is that I can make people lose consciousness on command.  It's a really weird power but I guess it works."

"I'm Mecina," The blonde girl wearing the striped shirt said, with a dramatic flair that Nico didn't appreciate.  She rolled her eyes as Mecina continued.  "My power is that I can make people have outward pain on command as long as I'm touching them.  Wanna try?"

Nico scoffed and refused.  Mecina rolled her eyes.  "Please?"

"Don't say that to the most famous criminal in the city," Zayn said.  "She'll spit fire on you."

"Uh, I'd rather not, actually.  It burns my lungs more each time I do it."

"Aw," Mecina whined.  She turned to the other two people, the boy in the paperboy hat and the girl with dark skin.  "Introduce yourselves!"

The boy spoke first.  "I'm Farlan.  Pleased to meet your aquaintance.  Here's my power."  Farlan disappeared, much to Nico's surprise, just to appear right behind her, giggling.  "Teleportation."

Nico whipped around, her hand following into his face.  "Don't try me.  I said convince me, not show me."

Farlan teleported back to where he had been before with a disgusted look.  "You'd think you'd be a bit more kind to us."

"You'd think you'd know best not to mess with the most well-known criminal in the city," Nico snarled.  She couldn't help but notice how the rest of the group reacted, all getting into attacking positions except for one.  

The dark-skinned girl looked scared.  Of Nico?  Probably.  She had, after all, just punched Farlan in the face and yelled at them.  Nico pointed at her, curious.  "What's her name?"

The way the entire group reacted to that was . . . weird.  Thorne and Mecina looked at each other.  Zayn glanced at the girl.  Farlan glared at Nico angrily while no one was looking.  The girl flushed and looked away.  

Nico crossed her arms as they did this.  "You all got connected brain waves too or something?  I can't hear a word any of you are saying."

Zayn spat at the ground, and came forward towards Nico, cracking his knuckles.  "You need to shut your trap about my family.  I'm older than you, you know that?  We're six, and you're one.  Who's to say we can't beat you to a pulp and leave you out to get caught by the institute?"

Nico glared up at him, not intimidated by him.  "I've seen scarier scientists," she scowled.  "I wouldn't mind getting beat to a pulp by you, it's already happened once in the last while, and I can just get back to what I was doing before.  Working alone, messing with the institute, burning up as many people as I need to.  Simple.  If I get caught I'll escape again.  Just like I did when I was eleven."

Zayn punched her across the face again, but this time, Nico was ready.  She cracked her neck, starting the fight.  "You son of a gun."  Her foot rose up and kicked him in a rather vulnerable spot, then she flew upward and pressed her other foot into the chest of Farlan.  He teleported up and behind her, then threw her to the ground.  She got up, barely phased by the attack.  "Well look what I've started."

Thorne went next, slamming Nico against the wall with strength that Nico didn't expect.  She lifted Nico off the ground a few centimeters before saying, "Look.  I don't want you to join us.  This is the exact reason why.  Look at what you're doing.  This is the second fight we've had in the past day with you.  You want to join us?  Stop this madness right now.  You understand me?"  She dropped Nico, and waited for her answer.

Nico landed on the ground with an oomph, and replied with her answer before even a couple seconds had passed.  "Alright.  I'll stop picking fights with you.  If you tell me two things."  The group looked at each other, waiting for what Nico would say.  "I need to know her name," Nico pointed at the girl who had been the source of the problem.  "And her power."

The girl shrugged and looked at the ground.  She sighed, saying something too quietly for Nico to hear. 

"What was that?" Nico asked, trying not to sound sarcastic the way she usually did.

She sighed, and repeated herself.  "I-I'm Cara.  My skin is unbreakable."

Nico stood up, satisfied.  "Alright.  You all should know me.  I'm Nico.  Three songs, two powers.  Fire-breathing and levitation.  Nice to meet all of you."

"What a change in personality," Mecina, the blonde girl muttered.  "Just a minute ago you were attacking us."

"That tends to happen when you're on guard still.  I blame Zayn for starting a fight with me however long ago it was that he fought me."  Nico's sarcasm was back.  She wasn't sure who there appreciated it.

"So, how do we start?"