Shards of a Shattered Glass

A blue Corolla sped through an intersection running a red light and narrowly avoiding a head on collision with another vehicle.  It was driving thirty above the speed limit, but that didn't matter. There would be no escape for the passengers of the vehicle.  Shard's entire attention was on the car, focusing on the entirety of the silicone inside.  Engine gaskets, airbags, hydraulics, anything that her power even slightly touched was being manipulated. At this range she only had macro control of silicone, but that was more than enough to cause the car to swerve and crash into a nearby lamp post.  The doors flew open and three men spilled out, each with a small side arm, searching for the source of their misfortune.   The fourth man would be inside the car, desperately trying to get his cell phone to work.  It wouldn't though. Shard had seen to that when she warped the silicon chip until it was no longer usable.

Carefully Shard landed on a nearby building, far enough from the men that they wouldn't immediately notice her, but close enough that she still retained enough minute control over her powers.  She took a deep breath and focused...
Cracks webbed across the car windows and then shattered sending daggers of glass into the hands and faces of the men with gun. They screamed.  Two dropped their guns in pain while the third fired blindly into the night air, his aim was far off enough that Shard needn't worry about getting hit by a stray bullet.  But just to be sure... the glass embedded in their body began to twist and even from Shard's position she could hear the screams of pain.

"Violence is never the answer,"  Her cousin Vang had once said to her while wiping a bloody nose after having been pummeled by at least four different boys. Even when they were children Vang had always been large, smaller boys saw fighting him as a way to prove their masculinity. However the ever gentle Vang had refused to fight anyone and thus was constantly nursing bruises and black eyes.  He was one of the only members of her relatives that Jade could actually stand let alone liked. And now he was gone. Missing.

The wind whipped around Shard as she flew through the air and landed near the backseat of the Corolla.  The three men attempted to react to her arrival but the shards in embedded in their body began to turn violently and the three fell into the ground in agony.  Shard's attention was solely focused on the man in the backseat who had been trying to work his cell phone. Upon seeing her, he attempted to go for his gun, but two daggers of glass shot off from Shard's costume and speared the man's hands into the cushions of the vehicle.  A spear of glass formed in front of him and pointed straight at the "301" tattoo that was showing through his tanktop.  Shard shouted over his screams, the gunshots and the screaming would definitely draw attention so her window was short.

"Where the fuck is Vang?" She asked, her voice ice cold.

"Violence is never the answer..." The voice echoed at the back of her head.

Shard reached into the vehicle through the broken window and grabbed a handful of the man's hair. She slammed his head into the side door with each word,"Where!The! Fuck! Is! Vang!" She screamed again, letting her emotions take over as she unleashed all of her pent up frustration at not being able to find her missing cousin.

Through bloodied lips the man managed to cough out the words, "I don't know..." And Shard screamed.

The extreme disturbance caused by the pursuit did not go unnoticed by the city authorities. Only a few blocks away, the sirens of police cars signaled their presence, their arrival mere minutes away.

While many a folk in the area quickly ran for cover and hid inside the nearest shelter, taking chance photos with their phones from afar, a lady on the roof of a teaching hospital witnessed the chase cut through the streets.

Shauna Masters was retired in name only, but trouble seemed to find a way into her neighborhoods. The metahuman doing the attack seemed to have complete control over the situation, while her enemies... or victims... were being splattered all over the streets, being inflicted with terrible suffering.

Sighing, she activates the gravity belt she wore. Still dressed in her doctor's coat, wearing her dress glasses and carrying a stethoscope, she freefalls towards the scene, slowing her descent by manipulating the gravity drive. Being one of those "been there done that" type of hero, she tries and talk the emotional teen meta from doing something she might regret. Or worse, enjoy.

"Whoa there. I think they had enough. Take a deep breath, tell me what's wrong." She maintains eye contact with Shard, but keeping a fair distance, remaining floating a few feet off the street.

To make things more confused, Shard's mobile phone started to ring...

we're no strangers to love, you know the rules and so do I
a full commitment is what i'm thinking of
you wouldn't get this from any other guy
i just wanna tell you what I'm feelin
gonna make you understand

Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down
never gonna run around and desert you...
never gonna let you cry, never gonna say goodbye
never gonna tell a lie, and hurt you...

It was cousin Vang.

"Hey I like that song..." The wounded thug groaned.

There was no surprise in the girl's face when she heard the voice of a woman that she assumed to be a metahuman judging from the angle at which the voice was coming.  Shard's powers told her that the woman was wearing a pair of glasses and though the belt that the woman wore might be tricky, Shard had never heard of a piece of equipment that did not contain some silicon.

Shatter the glasses on her face... fuck up her tech. Probably buy myself ten... twenty minutes head start?

Shard slowly rose her eyes to meet that of the metahuman's and then paused... she was certain that she had seen this woman on the TV before. Maybe a younger version?

"Laser Ladette?" She asked, realizing that she recognized the woman from an old documentary about famous metahuman families... family... Vang. "I'm sorry," Shard whispered, "I'll turn myself in after I find my c- my friend." And that was when her phone began to ring with a ringtone that she did not remember assigning.

Vang.

In her haste to answer the phone she almost forgot to remove the glass covering her gloves. After the fifth ring, Shard managed to rip her gloves onto the ground and answer her smart device.

"Vang?! Vang? Hello? Who the fuck is this?!" Her voice was one of raw emotions. Jade had told herself long ago that she would forswear her family and live life independently... at least that's what she wanted herself to believe.

The young lady managed to piece together Shauna's identity fairly quickly. She whistled in agreement. "...What gave it away?" She asked, though she was sure it was the eyes. Her glasses reduced how brilliant they were; almost sparkling without the lens, like brilliant emerald portals to a dimension of laser ass kicking.

Shauna took a closer look at what implements Shard used to slowly torture the men. glass shards. They didn't stand a chance.

"I probably should turn you in, but you must have your reasons, and I'd like to hear it over coffee, not lacerations. Hmmm. Telekinesis? or maybe Glass manipulation? Or, silicates?" She took a guess to Shard's powers, based on what was around and her own experiences.

"I knew a guy once, who liked to use glass to skin victims alive-" Rick Astley decided to interrupt Shauna's anecdote, and let Shard take the call.

"...Ayyy... Jade... Jade, is that you... I just... just woke up at a clinic... rescued me... where... where are you, kiddo?" The voice on the other side asked her.

The connection was shaky at best, Vang must be in a location that blocked his signal. There was a clinking of glass as her power manipulated some of her glass helmet to block her left ear as she pressed her phone closer to her right.

"Vang? Vang? Hello? What clinic? Who rescued you? Where are you?"

She looked up at Laser Ladette, not answering the questions that had been asked of her, but her eyes were pleading.  She had been looking for her cousin for the better part of a week now and she was so tired, both emotionally and physically.

The glass shards around the broken vehicle slowly lifted into the air and surrounded Shard, hovering in suspended animation between Laser Ladette and herself. Without another word, Shard lifted herself into the air. The glass formed into an arrow pointing up, but aside from that Shard did not speak, not wanting to talk over her cousin in case he said anything important.

"The clinic gave me a clean bill of health, and the police been notified. I think I can be home in 20 minutes. They even offered me a lift. They're pretty cool, Jade. Wanna meet up there? I'll grab some Pho on the way." Vang said.

The fuck?

"Yeah alright, that sounds cool. I'll meet you at your place. I'll see you soon." Shard tried not to let any suspicion creep into her voice but she felt that this entire thing was a bit... off.  She finally hung up the phone after saying her goodbyes to her cousin and then descended towards Laser Ladette.

"I don't understand," Shard said as the wailing of the sirens got closer, "my cousin... he's been missing for the better part of a week. Or at least I've been looking for him that long. I- I swear I looked everywhere, I called up hospitals looking for any John Does. I've hunted down gang members that could've jumped him," She gestured at the four unconscious men as if to indicate why she had gone to such extremes.

"All of that, and I couldn't find him. But now... he calls me acting like he's fine.  And how does he know that I am specifically looking for him?" Shard knew that this was too much to tell a stranger, but at this point she just needed someone to talk to, someone she can vent her frustrations to. "I think-no, I know something's wrong. But I don't know what. I'm so lost..." The girl's voice begins to break as she continues talking, the stress of the past week had been too much for her. Sure she's been in life or death situations before, but having her family thrown into the mix was just too much for her. "What do I do?"

Shauna simply stood there and listened to Shard's thought process, letting her sort out her thoughts and emotions. She could feel that the young hero valued her family members, and pushed her to acting as she did. Understandable.

Shard was being extremely anxious over her cousin disappearing, then suddenly showing up from out of nowhere to call her. Shauna didn't know whether to chalk it up to overprotective paranoia or maybe this really was strange. And then there was this clinic Vang talked about. "Sometimes the most unlikely things turn out to be true. Still, you're right to wonder. Maybe he saw your name in recent contacts?"

The police cars were now at the corner and Shauna beckons Shard to follow her into the parking lot, so they wouldn't be held up. Once they got to Shauna's gray Prius she invites Shard in. "Let's go for some Pho, kiddo." Shauna opens the gps and lets Shard point the way.

The Prius was gone before the police could arrive at the scene. They found the four gangbangers unconscious from the loss of blood but thanks to the work of the EMT the four were quickly stabilized. Though law enforcement was well aware that this was more than likely a metahuman attack, they decided to chalk it up to drunk driving due to the amount of paperwork that a metahuman attack called for.

In Laser Ladete's car, Shard numbly inputted the location into the gps. Vang hadn't said which Pho shop he was going to but Shard was pretty sure that he would stop by the one nearest his house. She had been there multiple times in the past with his family. They arrived shortly and Shard scanned the parking lot, looking for any police car.

"Let me go in," Shard said to the older metahuman as she ripped off pieces of her glass armor with her power. Without the telekinetic force holding them together the items came undone easily. Underneath all of her glass she merely wore a black hoodie, and thus was ready to meet her cousin within a minute.

With a deep breath, the girl stepped out of the car and sent her glass hovering above the restaurant where there was no light to reflect. A handful of shards sat within the prius where she would use them if she needed Ladette's help.

Jade opened the door and looked around for her cousin.

With their location set,Shauna drove for them, not saying a word. She turned on the radio to keep her new companion calm. A familiar chorus of voices sang a familiar song.

Is this the real life
Is this just fantasy
Caught in a landslide
No escape from reality
Open your eyes
Look up to the skies and see
I'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy
Because I'm easy come, easy go
A little high, little low
Anyway the wind blows, doesn't really matter to me, to me...

They arrive at the designated parking for the block, and Shauna follows behind, outta sight. She didn't need line of sight- she could see through the buildings and track Shard's progress.

Shauna spied the Pho shop, seeing two people emerge. One was a young Asian-American, lean, wearing jeans and a shirt. This must be Jade's cousin. He was accompanied by a taller, slimmer man, wearing glasses and a black ensemble that almost resembles a cossack. When he spoke, it seemed Vang was listening intently, like a preacher.

Vang would notice Jade when she got close enough. "Oh hey Jade! Great to see you. This is doctor Manning. He runs the new clinic that helped me out. He even offered me a lift."

"A pleasure to meet you Jade. I'm relieved that a relative of Vang's was in town." He echoed Vang's sentiment, as they stood right beside the doctor's car, a Infiniti G35 Vaydor...!



"Pretty hands on for a clinic physician." Shauna muttered to herself, never having seen this doctor before, while eyeing the car with envy.

Perhaps the past few days had just put her on edge but now Jade felt that something was amiss.  She approached the doctor and her cousin normally but maintained enough of a distance that she could send up her glass shards to protect against any incoming attacks. As a precaution she moved some of her glass from to the underbelly of some of the parked cars, taking care to keep them out of the line of sight.

"Vang, you've been gone for a week," Jade pointed out. "Everyone was worried sick, I was worried. Did you even call Auntie? Wh- Why were you even at a clinic?" She stopped herself before she could go on further. There were many more questions that she wanted to ask, but now was not the time. Instead she turned to the doctor and eyed him.

"So you work at the clinic? Where exactly is this clinic? Why didn't you call any of us when you found my cousin? In fact... how is he paying for any of the treatments?" She was aware that she sounded paranoid now, but she also realized that she didn't care. Jade chalked her newfound courage to stress and the fact that she just nearly bled out four gangbangers earlier that night.

"...I... just woke up like, this morning cuz. It's been all a blur. Some men took me... but there was a metahuman...I escaped and... the next thing I knew, doctor Manning was treating my injuries." Vang explained to the best of his memories, giving Shard an amazing yet plausible story.

"Please understand, we had no means of identifying mister Vang until he awoke. We notified the police but without identification it was difficult to reach next of kin..." The rich doctor said.

"...The Convergys medical group is a special philanthropic branch of a multi-national corporation. Due to Vang's condition, payment won't be an issue... however, he did opt to volunteer... to try some of our new supplement regimens. Convergys only wants to help." He continued, speaking in that smooth, preacher-like tone.

"Yeah, Convergys is pretty cool. I thought all corporations were bad, but, after meeting Dr. Manning, I think they're not all rotten. You should give it a shot, Cuz." Vang said, in an all too cheerful tone for someone who just got out of critical care.

The urge to slap her cousin was a hard one to resist. She would wait until they were alone before she would tell him how stupid taking pills from mysterious organizations was.

"Ah, well sorry for being an ass," Jade finally replied while sticking her hands into her sweater pocket.  "But, if you don't mind, I'd like to take Vang home now."   Jade cast a look back towards where she'd last seen Laser Ladette and the superheroine's Prius.  "You see I Ubered here and you know how that goes... plus I'm sure Auntie would want to see Vang right away. You know how Asian moms are," She finished with a chuckle.

Jade reached out and grabbed her bigger cousin by the crook of the arm, "If you have some type of card," She says to the Doctor as she begins to try and make Vang walk away with her, "I would love to have it in case we need another physician."

"Of course, of course. Don't forget your pho." The black dressed doctor said, while giving Jade one of those high tech holographic business cards and a very... sincere smile.

"Well then guess I'll see you around, Doc." Vang said cheerily to the slender man, carrying the bowls of pho with him towards the parking lot.

Vang didn't seem to mind going from the doctor's Infiniti to Shauna's Prius. Infact he was impeccably polite and friendly to the other doctor once Shauna was introduced. "Wow, a doctor too huh? Don't you guys earn like, a ton already? haha." He quipped, settling into the backseat and holding the Pho. Vang also pointed out on the gps where they lived.

Shauna began driving and making small talk about the clinic as well, to which Vang answered quite enthusiastically. Then she asked personal questions about family and Jade, and all his answers were spot on, Jade able to validate it.

"So Vang... The clinic puts a chip in you. You know about that?" Shauna then goes into something very specific.

He holds up his hand where a small scar was made."Oh yeah, the chip's to monitor my vital signs."

"Huh. Neat." Shauna had nothing to say about that, but at the red light near Vang's place, she discreetly typed something out on her mobile for Jade's eyes only.

"Vang has a second chip in his brain." "Here we are, home sweet home." She said, as they arrive at Vang's family's place, acting completely normal.

The correct answers had relieved Jade's suspicions somewhat. However upon seeing the message written out by Laser Ladette (Jade made a note to ask the superheroine about her updated identity) the girl frowned. Of course this was too good to be true, but then again what had she expected?

"Let me pay the driver and then I'll meet up with you," Jade called to her cousin as he stepped out of the car. She made a show of pulling out her wallet but spoke in a low tone so that he might not hear her.

"Is there any chance that I can destroy the chip without hurting him?" As she asked this question she places her number underneath a one dollar bill along with the doctor's calling card and hands it to the older hero. "And will you do me a favor and check up on this doctor for me? I know it's a lot to ask in one sitting... especially for someone you just met. But... I have no one else to turn to."