"Vagan Angels ~ Chapter 1" by Marie ´Jadeanite´ Westbrook

      Lead sighed as he heard someone call his name. Treading water he drew himself deeper into the shadows, wanting as much time as he could get. He knew that he would have to go up eventually but he also knew that he would have a little time before they got G to make him get out of the water. No one else dared to come in to get him, and he preferred being in the water to standing on land; in the water he could go any direction and not have to worry about gravity slamming him into the ground if a flip messed up and he landed upside down.

      The voice called again, more threatening this time. Lead pushed himself from the bottom of the clear watered pond and marveled the bluish green world he was in. The people above the surface of it couldn’t see him through the lily pads and plants that laid thickly over the part of the pond that he was in. They made it darker but added to the beauty of it all.

      As he stopped the voice called again, this time a deeper voice also called. Kicking he propelled himself nearer to the clear side of the pond and glanced up to see who was there.

      On the bank were the two people that had “raised” him and a strange lady. The lady he knew glared at the water then said something to the strange lady.

      The other lady shrugged and watched the water carefully. She was exasperated and trying very hard not to let it show, not with Lead but with the adults. As far as she was concerned anything that was wrong with the children was the fault of the adults and the adults had said nothing about Lead the whole afternoon but tell her how horrible he was. She had to admit that he probably was staying out on propose, but that wasn’t enough to warrant the complaints of the adults. It didn’t help that the child they did seem to like made her nervous. The whole thing bothered her and everyone else who was helping to find out what the adults had done. As far as they could find, none of the children had parents, dead or alive, and what that meant she wasn’t sure she wanted to find out. It didn’t help that nearly half of the adults originally working with the children had “disappeared”.

      From what they’d found, there were two groups of children, one three years after the other. Both consisted of five boys and five girls but other than that were eternally different. Even their “powers” were different, according to the adults in charge of them, she still hadn’t quite figured out what they meant by powers.

      What she didn’t know was that the first group was what they had hoped it would be, all of the subjects were larger than was normal and looked alike. They also acted alike except for one of the boys, who had been altered to be the leader and was. They took orders immediately and completed them efficiently, and seemed to have a lot more power than the others.

      The second group would have been the same if something had not gone on the night that they had started three years after the first group; whatever it was had almost reversed the intensions of the project. The children were all small and more built for speed and maneuvering than real combat. They looked completely different from each other and thought even differently. Instead of merely accepting the consonants that they were called they insisted on giving their selves names that the adults considered childish. They had never used power when they thought someone was looking, and even then it was in pitifully small amounts compared to the older ones.

      The only similarity between the children of the two groups was their power over electricity. According to the first group no one could touch the second unless they wanted to be killed and all of the adults had believed them, mainly because that was what had happened to the missing scientists before the first group had gotten control of their powers. The second group refused to learn how to control theirs from the first, so it was assumed that they were untouchable, and no one wanted to test it to find out.

      But still there were some people who would have liked the second group better. They were more real than the others and had a sort of honesty that told anyone who cared to look for it that they would never willingly hurt anyone. When they had been two years old the children they had been separated into ten separate places, one of the first and second group in each place, the first group hadn’t seemed concerned but it had taken seven hours of pleading, cajoling, yelling, threatening, and promises to get the younger children apart from each other.

      Though the strange lady didn’t know it she was about to keep one of those promises for the scientists; one that had recently had Lead wondering if he should just give up on the adults and solve it himself.

      Lead watched as they left the lake and started towards the house. He knew that he would have to get there before they made G come to get him so he slipped out of the water and into the concealing trees on the other side of the pond. Running silently towards the back of the house he swung up onto the wall and climbed up to his room. He dried himself with his magic and sat down on the cot, staring up at the ceiling and wishing that he had his galaxy; Trai had all of them because she was the only one able to hide them with her magic without the first group sensing it.

      He was the one who was supposed to have been the leader of the second group though they didn’t know if it had turned out correct. The golden brown hair, eye, and skinned boy was quiet and often looked as if he was off in a different world. He, like the rest of the second group, rarely followed orders that he was given and never if he didn’t like them.

      The front door opened and he tried not to laugh and give himself away as he heard them get G out of his room and tell him to get Lead out of the pond. If he had wanted to he could have spared the older boy the effort by choosing to appear before G was already in the lake but as it was he waited until he heard the tell tale splash of G diving into the pond before he opened the door and walked out to the living room.

      Immediately one of the adults that had raised him demanded, “Where have you been!?”

      Lead looked at him strangely, “In my room.”

      The man’s face grew red and he exclaimed, “We checked there a few minutes ago!”

      “I wasn’t aware that I was confined to my room.” Lead said, trying not to laugh. “Don’t you think it is possible that I could have been in some other part of the house?”

      The lady he knew cut in, “You’re usually in that pond so we assumed that was where you were. This is Rita Ginese, she came to talk to you and G, and he should be back here in a second.”

      Lead perched on the arm of a couch as G entered, giving Lead a mean look in the process. Lead just looked bored. The the other two left to do something and Rita concentrated on Lead first.

      “Why do you go into the pond?” She asked,

      “Because I like going in there,” Lead said after a pause.

      “Aren’t you worried that you’ll let out some power and hurt something?”

      “Not particularly,” He answered, noting to himself that she didn’t know anything about him at all, he would never have endangered an animal and neither would have any of the others from the second group.

      Rita frowned at this and would have said something if she hadn’t been interrupted by the return of the two people, who had a file which they handed to her.

      “So what is this all about?” G asked, though he knew exactly what it was about, he had been taunting Lead by hinting at it and refusing to tell him for a week.

      Rita smiled, wondering if maybe she shouldn’t doubt the reports of the second group of children being a mistake after all, G had been polite to her all afternoon whereas Lead gave nothing. “I believe that you remember the other eighteen of you?” she waited for both of their nods then continued, “We have decided that you should be responsible enough to be able to stay with each other again then we are going to attempt to put you in school, you won’t be having classes with the other children for obvious reasons but you should be able to meet with them.”

      Lead grinned softly and G followed suit though he really didn’t care. Still smiling G asked, “When are you taking us?”

      “Right now.”



      When he woke up the next day Lead was in a room with five beds. His friends were in the other four. Something told him that he should be more surprised, or be jumping up to greet them, but instinct told him that all of them were exhausted so her lay there and listened, trying to find out who was who. Slowly he identified each of them, as well as the girls in the room beyond and tried to imagine them as his age. On his right was Gen, blond haired, green eyed and smarter than any grown up, though he took care not to let it show much. Beyond Gen was Tal. Looking almost completely black except for his eyes, which were light brown when they were open, Tal could make or fix almost anything. Opposite Lead was Protec, who had dark brown hair, pale skin and blue eyes. Protec was the one who had become the most upset when they had been separated, he cared about every little thing and was the healer of the group. Lead doubted any of them had changed in anything except size and knowledge since he last saw them.

      Next to Protec was the absolute strangest of them, even if you only went on looks. Eagle had thick hair that was literally dark red, and his eyes were a mixture of yellow red and orange all swirled around and slitted. His name was for no reason except that all of his senses were better than an eagle’s sight. He could see better than any eagle, he could hear better also and everything else to do with sensing anything. But Eagle’s senses went beyond what ordinary senses were, he could tell what shade of a color something across a field was without looking and say what species and age anything was, that was only what they had figured out. Lead was almost positive that he hadn’t changed.

      Lead guessed without looking through the partition that at least two girls were already up. Rolling over, he closed his eyes and promised himself that he would get up in a minute, right before his guess was half confirmed by Begi. Shoving open a partition, she tossed a bucket of icey water into the room and yelled “Time to get up sleepyheads!” Begi had green eyes and chocolate colored skin and hair; she always had energy and was rarely in a bad mood, she was the one who was the best with animals out of them.

      There was a muffled yell from the other room as Lead and the other boys got up, wondering how Begi could manage to hit all five beds at once, and he recognized Fi’s voice. Fi also had dark hair but hers was streaked blond and her eyes were black, her skin would have been pale but she spent so much time practicing fighting and combat skills that she was fairly tan. There was rarely a time that Fi didn’t have a temper, Lead knew she hadn’t changed any more than Begi had.

      As they heard her kick something Tal rolled his eyes and yelled “Just don’t kill anything while your at it Fi!” and tugged at the partition, opening it the rest of the way to combine the rooms.

      Fi glared at him,”haven’t you ever learned to knock?” she asked.

      Tal shrugged and sat on the floor. “Begi’d already opened it part of the way.”

      Fi snorted as one of the other girls launched from the doorway, landing on the floor beside Fi and grinning at her. Lead couldn’t help but notice that, except for Jateth, none of them seem surprised at all to see the others. It was like they were waking after a week of not seeing each other, not ten years.

      Inwardly shaking his head he sat down beside Tal, noticing that they’d have to rearrange the beds if they wanted more room in the middle. He knew that none of them had any intention of using the barrier between the rooms. There was no reason for it and it took up space. As the rest of the boys sat down, closing the circle they’d automatically made on the floor. They all looked at each other, each of them wondering if they had to act like they knew they were expected to or if they could skip it. It wasn’t that they weren’t ecstatic to see each other again, it was that they didn’t seem to be capable of making a huge fuss over something that was going their way; if they were separated again no one would ever hear the end of it, but being put back together seemed… normal.

      The first one who said anything was Trai, “Did you figure out anything?” Immediately Lead knew that she hadn’t changed a bit.

      Trai was nearly a strange as Eagle, she had orange-red hair and her pale skin was splattered with freckles, no one knew what color her eyes were because they, like her skin and hair, seemed to glow with a golden orange light. She was the mysterious one, always seeming to know different things about powers to do with them and not to do with them. She was also the most difficult for the adults to deal with.

      “Of course they found out a little! They aren’t stupid you know” Jateth put in, “But I bet that you found out more than any of us, you’re good with this sort of stuff.” Jateth was the patient one of them, always wanting to wait just in case a better solution aroused but willing to go ahead if there didn’t seem another likely conclusion. The blond haired, blue-eyed girl had a way of blending in where no one could see her.

      The last of them stayed quiet and watched the others, and none of them bothered her. They all knew that she was storing everything that had changed about them in her memory so she’d never forget. Descri had mixed dirty blond and brown hair with brown eyes and was the one who could explain anything so it made sense; she had a way of painting pictures in a person’s mind. And like any real artist, had an eye for any detail and could often see differences that even Eagle overlooked.

      Lead glanced at Trai, “Do you have the galaxies?”

      Trai nodded and slipped a round ball of silver threaded around a black cord and said something softly to it. The cord started to shine with dots of light that soon overtook the black so that the whole cord was whitish gold-orange and the silver glowed then separated into ten discs. Each of the discs rose into the air with a piece of the cord.

      The pieces held their magic, though they would never have told anyone else. They called them galaxies because they were basically small replicas of ten different galaxies and the children could change them so that they could see anywhere from the whole galaxy to one of the asteroids. When they had been separated they had given them to Trai for safekeeping and had vowed never to tell anyone about them. No matter how much they thought they could trust them.

      The door started to open and they slid the galaxies over their heads and hid them. A man entered as they twisted to see who it was, they had been sitting in a circle.

      The man frowned and asked, “Why aren’t you using the chairs?”

      “We want to sit on the floor,” Eagle told him while reading the nametag that was hidden beneath his jacket flap, “Why does it matter?”

      “I was just wondering,” he told them, “We’ve decided to send the older group to the school but not you, the only reason being that they don’t run the risk of accidentally hurting someone.”

      They exchanged an amused look as he continued, “We’ve decided to keep you here and see if you are able to control your powers, the older group has told us that your powers are different than theirs and probably more dangerous. I and some other scientists are going to be keeping an eye on you in the mean time. If you’d like to know who we are just ask.”

      “Don’t worry about us asking about that we’ll just ask Eagle.” Jateth informed him.

      “And how will he know?”

      “Figure it out.”

      He looked confused, “Who’s Eagle?”

      “You should know that”

      Looking at his clipboard he studied it for a second then said, “There’s nothing here of that name, much less something that says he was told who we were”

      “And you expected?”

      Making a quick guess on who they meant, the man turned to Eagle and said, “And how do you expect to know who we are?”

      “Figure it out.”

      He frowned and said, “Then what’s my name?”

      Eagle shrugged, looking bored, “Dave Andres”

      Dave looked slightly astonished and said, “How did you figure that out?”

      “Figure it out.”

      He sighed and gave it up, saying, “You are to be allowed outside and to go into the surrounding woods but there are surveillance cameras along the border so I wouldn’t advise attempting to go out of them, you have to be back by dark.”

      Dave left the room and Lead glanced at the others. “Feel like a little exploring?”

      The others nodded and followed him outside. Once they were within the safety of the woods Eagle whispered, “The border isn’t very big and the cameras are about every hundred yards so we should be able to sneak by if we keep to the shadows, lets go one at a time and I’ll direct you.”

      Gen frowned, “Won’t there be different devices to sense movement or heat attached to them?”

      “Not that I can find, there are some big trees here so we should be able to sneak past. Trai, do you think you can stop glowing?”

      Trai shook her head, “I have another way to get across though so you all go and I’ll meet up with you.”

      They all watched as Eagle slid behind some trees and started sliding from tree to tree. Once he was across he motioned Descri to follow and called instructions quietly. “Freeze and go a little more behind the tree! Now go to the one a little ahead and to the right of you, no not that one!! The other one! That’s it just make sure not to let your hair peek out…”

      After that he had Descri tell them where to step and they all got across without being seen. Making their way farther away from the cameras they decided to stop and wait for Trai at a small lake.

      Eagle was the only one who was looking upward so he was the first to see her. Trai had grown herself wings that by all human standards shouldn’t have worked. They were a shining orangish gold that you could see right through because they weren’t made out of any actual substance, they were pure magic and electricity. Each feather was more colored on the outside then faded until the inside was almost completely clear.

      As she landed the others started to grin, only Trai would have thought of using their power for that use.

      Trai folded her wings and told them, “It took a little getting used to but you should be able to try it now and at least get the wings, just think that you want them to start right between your shoulder blades and make the bones first then add the feathers. Make sure you take it from your galaxy.”

      A second later each of them had orangish golden light arching from their backs into different patterns. They knew a bit about bird wings and tried to combine the advantages from all of those that they could remember to their wings, it took awhile with a lot of help from Trai who also modified hers a little. They spent nearly the whole day trying different sorts of wings to find ones that felt right, they kept on making them disappear and putting them back again so they could get used to it.

      By the time they had to head back they had done hardly any exploring and had eaten nothing that day at the house though they had found various things in the woods.

      Luckily they made it back before dark so even though they were fairly dirty all the adults said was to go wash up and much to their amusement one of the adults even commented that at least they followed the rules they were given.

      In reality it was hard for them to follow any of the rules. Most of them, like not going out of the building at night and checking in with Dave before they went out, they had to follow because the adults would know if they didn’t. But there were many, like not leaving the border and telling the adults anything that they discovered about their powers, that they didn’t follow even once.

      Dave always made things difficult in the morning by asking them question after question about their powers, most of which they wouldn’t have answered even if they had known how. The ones they had to answer they would twist around the truth for. They had never lied and didn’t think they were capable of starting to. The first group always lied so much that even the children didn’t always know if they were telling the truth or lying and they didn’t want to be like them. Most of what the adults knew about them was lies the first group had told them.



      Every day they would get out of the boundaries as soon as they could. Once they got their wings right they had Trai show them how to fly. It was harder than they thought it would be and even Trai couldn’t fly very well. They wanted to try launching from the ground but Trai told them that they needed to climb up somewhere and fall down to get some air into their wings before they could do that. They had finally managed to get into the air, but they had never figured out how to fly correctly or even close to it without labored strokes that wore them out very quickly.

      Lead laughed as Fi tried to fly in a straight line, he was perched on an overhang of rock and had no intention of leaving it. Eagle tried to maneuver towards him, doing better than most of the others because he could sense how actual birds used their wings and tried to apply it to his.

      “There has to be an easier way to use these,” Descri said as she landed on the ledge, nearly knocking Lead off in the process. After she was settled the others tried to make their way towards them. Taking a little less time than usual to get there.

      “Well, at least we haven’t given up just because we can’t get this right at all.” Protec told them, settling down like the others to make sure he didn’t fall off.

      “Just because we can’t do something doesn’t make us wimps.” Fi grumbled, “Could you imagine the other group trying to fly?”

      Tal laughed, “What do you mean trying to fly? They’d have given up the first time they thought they looked silly attempting to get off the ground. Which means that they never would have left the ground in the first place.”

      Trai grinned as she remembered how long it had taken them to learn to take off. It had taken her even more time to learn how to put enough upward force with her body to help her wings lift her into the air. It was easier with wind but they had decided to learn without it just in case they ever needed to use that talent on a windless day.

      “If we aren’t going to fly we should at least explore;” Begi told them, “preferably explore in an upward direction.”

      “Don’t dematerialize your wings though,” Gen warned them, “If we fall we’ll want to be able to catch ourselves.”

      Lead rolled his eyes, “Yeah even we should be able to do that, I think we can anyways…”

      “Let’s go already!” Begi called to them from above where she had started to climb. The others started after them and didn’t have too much trouble scaling the cliff; it was almost completely vertical but had various rocks sticking out and ledges.

      When they caught up with Begi the found her looking at another part of the cliff where they could now see was a partially concealed cave. “I didn’t know there were caves here,” She said slowly, “Everyone has always said that these cliffs were solid.”

      Jateth shrugged, “Then they didn’t know much more about them than we do, did they? Want to climb to it?”

      Fi answered for them, starting to climb without a word and the others followed. When they got to the cave they wondered how even the humans could have missed it. It was large enough for a house to fit in and was obviously not made by any creature.

      While the others wandered around the cave entrance, Lead stayed on the ledge, trying to see if there was a way for the bushes in front of it to cover the whole thing. After a minute the others joined him.

      “Somehow it doesn’t feel right to be in here,” Trai said, “I feel like I’m at someone’s house and they aren’t home.”

      Descri looked thoughtful, “We probably are at someone’s home, you know, but these bushes have got to cover the entrance some way.”
      Lead shook his head, “They probably do, but if something wants to keep the cave hidden it’s none of our business how they do.”

      Eagle nodded, “It’s almost dark anyways so lets go.” Looking up he decided to say nothing about the shape that he felt watching them.