This is not the end, this is not the beginning
Just a voice like a riot rocking every revision
But you listen to the tone and the violent rhythm
Though the words sound steady something empty's within them.

…

Waiting for the end to come, wishing I has strength to stand…[/center][/color]

The three apocalyptic years slowed down and came to a near-halt just before the wake-up. It was as if someone had taken their thumb and dragged their hand over the last few days leading up to the destruction of what had once been New York City. The visions came in flashes, vague flickers of occurrences that only offered glimpses of the child’s journey. He had taken sleeves from the red-haired Amazon and, in a display of foolishness, ran for the Amazon fortress, intent upon proving himself by stealing from the most powerful force in the apocalyptic world. He donned the redhead’s face and, using her face, was able to waltz through the front gates, and beeline for a storeroom.

This is not what I had planned. It’s out of my control…

He was in a supply room packed to the gills with things that would be appreciated by his fellow Ferals, should Chase snatch them. The disguise was exchanged for Aurions’ form—his arms were bigger, it’d be easier to carry more things in them. Just then, an Amazon intervened. The goods were dropped, the shapeshifter bolted, but the alarm had been sounded—women that were more animals that were less like ladies and more like monsters barreled after the intruder. Varying forms were shuffled through in attempt to shake them, but regardless of the face he wore, Chase bore the visage of an outsider

The Amazons restrained him roughly, spat interrogations at him, threatened him, yet Chase was unyielding. He was alone, the child avowed, no one would come for him, nobody cared for him, and no one would care if he was dead or alive. The child spoke with uncanny conviction, his eyes unwavering. The Amazons struck the back of his head, so forcefully that the world was plunged into darkness, and Chase was left at their mercy.

Flying at the speed of light
Thoughts were spinning in my head
So many things were left unsaid
It's hard to let you go

The unconscious, unshifted form of the pre-teen was dragged to a cell and tossed unfeelingly in, his body hitting the hard-packed floor with a lifeless thud. He remained like that—limp and unmoving, spare the steady rise and fall of breath.

In the cool darkness of Chase's mind, the child wondered if he was dead or not-- both had their perks. Would he see his mother again, or would he live to see another day? What sight would greet his eyes when they were no longer too heavy to open?

The world tilted into focus, and time slowed once more. His limbs ached, his head pounded, and the room was dim. Chase groaned. Time around him slowed as he weakly tried to prop himself up on his arms. His eyes strained and tried to focus, and dry lips parted painfully. He wheezed as he inhaled, and then exhaled.

“I’m alive…” Chase rasped. The effort of speaking made him fall into a fit of coughs, and he adjusted his weight, rubbing his face, forcing back relieved tears. Sure, he was alive, but with his bleary eyes he could discern the bars of a makeshift prison. For now, he was alive—but for how long? And until when? Until the Amazons grew tired of him? And what quality of life was the life of a prisoner.

Chase tried to stand, but his legs trembled so ferociously with the effort, that he reserved himself to sitting, at least for now. The twelve-year-old attempted to blink the stars from his eyes, and looked around as if he were blind.

“Hello?” Chase called-out. His voice still croaked as one’s voice did when first awoke, so he tried another, weak call, “Someone? Anyone?”

His eyes were a glassy, anxious black, though tints of relief swirled within his gaze. Tendrils of two-tone hair fell into his eyes, and the fine tendrils that composed his skin flexing without taking-on a new form.


Lyrical interjections-- those that are, and those that have yet to come-- are courtesy of Linkin Park, borrowed from the song "Waiting for the End to Come"

Miles was crying.

They were quiet sobs. Tears were rolling down his face while he clutched the bars of the bone cage with both hands. He was thinking of his family, who were most likely dead, his friends at the town of whom he knew nothing, whether they were alive or dead, his unfortunate situation and the demeaning way the Amazons treated their personal slave. He tried to amplify that frustration and pain, tried to make it hurt as much as possible... and it still wasn't working.

Having a mutation that triggers when you're shocked with anguish and sorrow really sucks. You can't just turn it on and off like you're flipping a switch, but he had to try. He had no clue if it would actually work, since he'd never tried it before, but the logic behind it was simple.

They were in a bone cage. Bones come from dead creatures. He could revive dead creatures and turn them into slaves. Could he revive an entire bone prison? There was no meat in these bones, was his mutation powerful enough to heal that? Would he be able to order the bones to move without meat? The bones had been sculpted by Isabel, how much of the cage was dead bone and how much her creation? He had no clue what would happen if he turned into his dark mode, but turning into it was the first step he needed to do and it wasn't working! Maybe the fact that he was hoping it would work made him feel too happy inside, and that hope was making it very hard to feel real anguish, at least in the levels he needed.

The boy lying on the ground next to him shifted and Miles immediately wiped his own eyes clean with his arms. At first, he thought this was the ultimate torture the mad women were forcing on him. He was NOT going to eat a dead kid, no matter how hungry he went, but it was soon obvious that the kid was alive and just another prisoner. The amazons could have built another cage, but Miles had proven to be so useless as a mutant or escapee prospect that why bother? They just ditched the kid with him.

They had brought him in rough shape and Miles didn't know what he had done for the girls to incarcerate him. As soon as they left, the young necromancer gave the kid a look over, remembering the days back before the apocalypse when he was interested in medicine. He was unconscious but breathing steadily at least, yet his looks were a tad... off. His skin had thin strips instead of being smooth and he had some kind of weird dye job in his hair, which was an impressive feat in today's post-apocalyptic world. Miles flipped open one of his eyelids to check on his pupils and... yup, definitely a mutant.

Now that he was waking up, though, Miles let go of the bars and sat on the ground, studying the boy as he woke. He mumbled, he coughed, he tried to stand and failed but when he managed to sit, his back was turned towards Miles.

>>“Hello? Someone? Anyone?” he said in a dry voice and Miles had no water to give him. The kid's skin behaved in strange fashion now that he was awake and the young mutant tapped him on the shoulder from behind, to let his presence be known.

"Hey" he said as a greeting. He was wearing a tattered jacket, t-shirt and pants, all of them with multiple cuts and slashes from the day Maxine's dog attacked him. He was clean though. The women were insistent on him not stinking to high heaven.

"If they brought you to be a slave as well, then I welcome you to hell."

The child rubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand, finally managing to brush the stars away. His head throbbed, but the rest of his body also pounded. He looked around dizzily, blinking a few times as he stared at the vertical bars before him. Bars… They weren’t like the bars one would imagine for a prison, but rather, they were white, and pale, some of them tilting at odd, faint angles.

It was only after a spell of staring that Chase realized that these, much like the rest of the fortress, were crafted of bone. Someone tapped Chase on the shoulder, and the child startled, scrambling away from the touch. He hadn’t expected someone to answer, nor had he expected someone to reach-out and touch him. He calmed slightly when this “someone” turned out to be another boy. Another boy meant not-an-Amazon.

>> "Hey."

“Hi,” Chase managed. He cleared his throat—it was still dry, his voice was stubbornly raspy, but he’d do his best to answer back. The boy before him was a good deal older than he was, and also taller—which, considering Chase’s short stature, wasn’t too difficult of a feat. He was clean, too. His clothes were a wreck, though… also not too uncommon, but the gashes weren’t your usual wear-and-tear.

>> "If they brought you to be a slave as well, then I welcome you to hell."

“I don’t know what I’m going to be,” the child murmured, “Possibly dead. They caught me sneaking around, looking for goods. Trying to steal something.”

Chase didn’t even remember specifics on what he was trying to steal… something marked as Amazonian so that he could show it to the Ferals, earn some form of respect for his achievement... it didn’t matter what it was, only if Chase could brag about it later. So much for that bright idea.

“I’m Chase,” Chase introduced himself, “My hero name is Doppelganger.”

His voice was steadily returning to him, though words still rasped from his mouth.

The kid wasn't expecting a tap on the shoulder, probably thinking he had the entire cell for himself. He had no clue what the Amazons had planned for him (Miles knew that feeling all too well) but he suspected they'd kill him, for trying to steal from them.

"Stealing? That's... big, so yeah, possibly dead" he replied, but then regretted it. What kind of answer was that to give a kid? Then again, why fill him up with false hopes? Miles had been captured in a raid and so far he had been humiliated to the point he felt he scrubbed their floors with his own ego and that was all for getting uppity with their queen... and maybe for the gyrating hips fiasco as well, but still, stealing was pretty big. If they suddenly decided the kid couldn't pull his weight, he'd likely be toast.

"Actually, I'm not sure what they'll do to you. I tried to understand what they wanted from me, but you know... they're all women. So they're impossible to understand" he added, just to give the kid a little peace of mind. The last thing he needed was a crying child in his cell and wouldn't that be ironic? Miles needed to cry himself into triggering his mutation and couldn't, while the kid could likely do it and it'd be of no use whatsoever to them.

His name was Chase and his hero name was Doppelganger. That's right. His hero name. Doppelganger.

"I'm Miles" he said. "Pro tip? You shouldn't use a hero name that just blurts out what you can do to your enemies. I mean sure, you see it in comics and movies, but it's tactically silly" he said as he accomodated himself on the floor and gestured with his hands trying to explain himself. "I mean, if you walk over to a bunch of bad guys and go: I'm doppelganger!, then they're likely to go: Watch it! We got us a shifter over here! and then the element of surprise is gone. Because I bet that's what you can do, isn't it? Can you change shape?"

It was rather odd that of all the topics Miles could have chosen to talk about, he'd latch to such a useless one, but it had been quite a while since he had been able to just... chat with someone and not get insulted or threatened with castration. Besides, he preferred to stray the kid's mind away from the worries of getting killed soon, so any topic would do.

"Me, I'm also a mutant but my abilities are a tad more... complicated and hidden. See that dog over there?" he pointed to a smaller bone cage outside of theirs. There was a medium sized mutt in it with creepy, glowing red eyes and black skin, lying still on the floor. "He's mine and totally under my control, but if I went out to fight crime, I wouldn't go out as Dog Master Man or anything like that. I'd probably use a name that throws my enemies off, like..."

Miles drew a blank and paused. A name like what?

"The Overzealous Penguin" he said, as the words popped into his head. "Or The Black Enchilada! It would totally throw them off."

The young mutant actually imagined himself jumping on the roof of a car, punching through it with his fists and then pulling out a mafioso type criminal from the hem of his shirt. The mafioso would go all Who... Who are you!? and then Miles would go all I'm the Black Enchiladaaa!!

"Or maybe something scarier. I just thought those up off the top of my head" he corrected himself.

Once he'd gotten that off his chest, he veered their conversation to something more useful.

"Where do you come from, Chase? You're certainly not from the Town or I would have remembered you and I've explored it's surroundings a fair bit. It's not common seeing a kid your age making it out in the wasteland without any kind of help."

Chase sat with his legs crossed loosely before him and his hands casually placed in his lap. When Miles acknowledged the soundness in Chase's logic, the twelve-year-old ran a hand through his hair, and breathed a faint, acknowledging huff. It was true, the outlook was grim, but the consequences were not a thing that the twelve-year-old had taken into consideration. In retrospect, he was regretting his actions. It wasn't his fault though, he thought to himself petulantly, if Sledge had let Chase be useful in the best fashion he knew how, if he hadn't messed-up with Aurion, he wouldn't have run off to prove himself.

Miles revised his statement, reassuring him the best way that he was able.

"Guess you're right," the preteen murmured, cracking a half-smile. Why they'd kept him around rather than killing the boy on-the-spot was beyond him. But Chase wasn't complaining. Introductions gave way to a small lecture on choice in hero names, and the boy leaned forward, his elbows resting upon his knees, as he listened.

"I dunno if I'd introduce myself to the bad guys, though," Chase murmured. In fact, when the Amazons had grabbed a hold of him and interrogated the child, he'd impishly retorted that he was "Nobody." His eyes glimmered with dull humor, and Chase expanded upon this explanation, "I told the Amazons I was 'Nobody'. But yeah, I change shape."

He was a plucky tween in every sense of the word. Giving sass to women who could easily kill him, and were probably going to. He had glimmers of intelligence only in hindsight.

"I was with a group," Chase explained, digging for the proper words to explain said group, "We moved a lot. And most of the group members were... wild. Not quite human. I was sort-of the baby of the group. Fell-in with them just after the explosion, after Mom died. I dunno, the group's kinda like a family, sorta. We take take care of each other."

It wasn't a real family, but it was better than roughing it alone. Chase was truly too weak to be independent.

"What about you?"

The kid had guts. That much Miles had to admit. Oh, and maybe some common sense too. Introducing yourself to the bad guys was a really stupid idea.

His mind flashbacked to a porch on a farm during the Amazon raid. Queen Maxine was sitting in a rocking chair, asking him his name while he pointed at her with a rifle...

Haxton. Miles Haxton!

Geez, even a twelve year old had known better.

Chase admitted to being a shapeshifter and being part of a nomadic group. There were hundreds of those, some were small, others were more like a horde. Some were bandits, others scavengers, traders, survivors or even entertainers and then there were the nastier groups. Murderers, cannibals and what have you. Miles doubted a kid would fit in the latter category, so he tacked him in the 'survivor' one, which pretty much fit for everybody.

"Me? I come from..." he paused as the memories caused him pain. "Virginia Beach."

It was difficult to forget his real family and his place of birth, specially since he had been thinking of them minutes ago. The chances of any of them surviving were infinitesimal, with the Beach having naval bases nearby and being a prime target for a nuke. The only thing he had of them, the last pieces of evidence that proved they had existed were buried in his stash which only his dogs could track and find using an old shoe. A picture of his sister, a watch from his father, a keychain from his grandfather and a necklace he made for his mother. There was also an ID badge, which represented himself, and what was the reason he had all of those things buried in a box?

It was a symbolic grave. The day he died, no one would come after the box and it would be like the Haxtons had all been buried together.

There was a sad smile in his face as his eyes focused on the ground.

"That was before. After, I ended up in the Town"

There was no need to explain what happened between 'before' and 'after'. Everybody knew.

"Being from a nomad group, I don't know if you've heard of it. It's where Central Park used to be. They're my new family now."

And indeed they were. Jorge was like the father figure, who set up the farms and gathered humans and mutants together to work in unison and defend the town. He could also clean the water from the lake, and pretty much everyone's survival was on his shoulders. Then there was Gina. She might be just one year older than him but she was like an older sister for everyone. She cared for everybody and he wouldn't be surprised if he managed to catch a glimpse of her silhouette flying overhead, but his cage had a roof and the chances of her seeing him were minimal. Then there were the Abyssi, Aedus, Zelek... older brothers all of them. Would that make Markus the grandpa of this family of misfits?

"If I ever manage to get out of here, that's where I'm headed. I bet they'd have space for a new kid brother too. You wouldn't know if anyone from your group is looking for you?"

"Virginia Beach?" Chase murmured in confusion. What kind of group name was that? Chase's brow buckled as he silently wondered what this was. Miles hastily clarified that that was where he was from beforehand, and he now resided with a group known as "the Town". Chase hadn't heard of that, either. He only knew of threats. Only knew the Amazons. He didn't know of friends or allies as well. He only knew who he was meant to avoid.

Chase listened as Miles explained where they were, and how that group was his new family.

"My group is my new family, too," Chase agreed, smiling faintly. It was kind-of a given that relatives would be dead. Forget his blood relatives, his adoptive family... at least Gemma... was also long gone. Jorge was so ambiguous, it was just logical to presume the same.

Miles stated that, if he got out, that was where he would be going, and the focus then swung back towards Chase. Would anyone go searching for him. His lips rolled together again, as if the child was tasting the answer upon his lips.

"They wouldn't know where to start," Chase murmured truthfully, "I kinda... kinda left without saying anything." He'd spare Miles the details of how he'd essentially thrown a temper tantrum and left all in a huff because of matters that seemed so trivial now, "I mean, they'd look for me if they knew where to look, but they wouldn't know where to look. And they move so much..."

It was true. They never samed in the same location for more than a period of four days. Stationary lifestyles led to easier attacks, and there was more security in constant relocation. Neither would know where to find the other.

"Last place they'd look is here... I mean, who'd be stupid enough to try stealing from the Amazons?"

A tweleve year old boy throwing a tantrum, that's who, Chase thought deprecatingly. He gave serious thought to the notion of returning to the town with Miles, but his brow furrowed. There was security in being on-the-move, and vulnerability in sitting still. The idea of being sedentary unnerved him.

"Is it safe?" the child inquired, "The town? Is it big?"

Big? Define big.

New York was big and it's skyscrapers were big and cities were big. Nowadays, everything was small, a huddle of people grouped together, dumping materials into a hodgepodge that resembled a wall, living among the rubble and ruins of old, weathered buildings. Tents and camps set all over the place, barbed wire with a million holes people could sneak through, a creaky guard tower and if old Mr. Meyers wasn't drunk, then a guard in it as well. Farms spread in an area too big for them to cover where raids happened frequently, bandits hiding in the shadows and corners of the roads, hoping to get their claws on stragglers or caravans coming from Haven or traders returning from Celeste's bunker. It wasn't big. It wasn't even safe, but it was all they had.

"Not really" he answered truthfully "... but then again, what is?"

Life in the wasteland was not for the weak or the lazy and even less for the loners. If there was one thing the town had was people, working together to protect each other and survive. There were always eyes watching your back or your sides or even your top. There were mutants who used their talents to fight, to protect or to work hard and so far, they had managed to pull through.

"There are people though, lots of them, so you do feel safe" he said. "Some are armed and decent with their weapons and some are mutants and quite powerful ones. I'm not the powerful sort as you can probably tell from my current situation, but I had my uses in the town. In fact, I could probably use my dogs to track your group, but then again, we'd likely die before we found them. You just don't go into the wasteland looking for people willy-nilly."

He paused for a minute, considering their options. Everything they were talking about involved their freedom and the boy probably had his days numbered. It was cruel. It was cruel to give the kid hope of living in the town when they couldn't even get out of a stupid cage. His mind, which had previously been thinking of way to kickstart his mutation somehow, was now working up ideas for their combined powers to work together to get them out of this mess.

Miles leaned forward and whispered to the child, hoping there were no amazons with enhanced hearing in the bunch. He knew for sure there weren't any telepaths, otherwise his dirty thoughts would have probably gotten him killed.

"Can you turn into a snake and slither out of these bars?"

>> "Not really... but then again, what is?"

Chase frowned. When Miles had mentioned a town, the child envisioned an area with refurbished buildings, with the potential for a normal life. Chase envisioned his Elysium. Last time that he’d done this, he’d run away from home only to wind-up with a new family. It had been so simple, so convenient. Now was not as easy. Now, he could not run away—or rather, he could never stop running, because there was nowhere to run to. He could only keep on the move. Disheartened, Chase dropped his gaze towards the hard-packed dirt floor, curling and uncurling his toes.

Miles must have perceived the disappointment on the child’s face, for he spoke up hastily. There were people, and plenty of them. People who could help defend him, if he went with. If not, Miles volunteered to help Chase find his group. If they could.

“They’ve probably left and relocated by now,” Chase mumbled, his words slightly, huskily strung together. The twelve-year-old shrugged his shoulder, “You’re right, it’d be impossible to find them.”

>> "Can you turn into a snake and slither out of these bars?"

“No animals,” the boy grunted, finally managing to get to his feet, “Only people. Humans, mutants… but no snakes. Not even if I’m a mutant who can turn into a snake.”

Chase clenched his fists and stared at the bars. He had an idea, but… it might not work. The tendrils of the shapeshiter’s flesh began to writhe and expand, stretching outward and slowly transitioning to a familiar, reptilian form. Soon, a duplicate of Aurion stood before the older boy, tilting a toothless smirk towards Miles.

“See if I can break these…” the doppelganger murmured. He shuffled closer to the bars, then closed his hands around them, tugging. They bent but didn’t show signs of snapping. Aurion’s duplicate stepped back, frowning grimly. He then struck the bars with his fists, but they only wobbled tauntingly, humming at the force with which they’d been struck.

The shapeshifter sighed, reverting to his natural form and folding his arms.

“Tougher than they look…”

The adolescent sat down sulkily, looking towards Miles. This would obviously take some more work to get out of there than the child thought.

“You think I could come back with you…?” Chase inquired, looking towards his cohort, “I know I won’t find my pack out there. I’ve been looking for my dad for three years, still haven’t found him… my best bet would probably be with your town…”

The kid not only couldn't but wouldn't turn into a snake despite, you know... HAVING HIS LIFE ON THE LINE! Being locked in a bone cage while the amazons were thinking up ways to kill you was not the best moment to go and let your phobias get the best of you, but hey, if he couldn't do it, Miles was not going to press the issue on a moot point. Chase did try something else out though.

It was... well, strange, seeing how the kid's skin and it's myriad of tiny strips and tentacles pretty much tucked his own clothes within and started to cover him and grow into something else. Something MUCH bigger and stronger than a child, greener as well. His tendrils turned to scales, his buttocks started to sprout a large tail, his eyes turned yellow, his head grew bone armor while his jaw protruded forward and grew fangs and before Miles own jaw could reach the floor, Aurion stood where the boy used to be.

He had met Aurion back in his Sanctuary days and Miles knew how beastly strong the green mutant could be. Miles grinned and almost clapped in merriment as he saw the giant lizard double trying his hands at breaking the puny, brittle cage.

"Yes! Come on! You can do it!" he cheered, trying to put some emotion into it and pretending he was helping somehow. He also tried to keep his voice down, since the amazons weren't deaf, but despite the fake lizard's effort, the bars still stood, bent but unbroken. He couldn't tell if the gap was large enough for the both of them to pull through, so he kept on cheering until the boy gave up and turned himself back into a child. The bars were too strong or Fake Aurion just wasn't mad enough.

>> “You think I could come back with you…?”

Miles looked at Chase, then at the unbroken bars, then back at Chase. Hopefully the kid realized there was a major obstacle to 'coming back with him' before getting their hopes up.

>>“I know I won’t find my pack out there. I’ve been looking for my dad for three years, still haven’t found him… my best bet would probably be with your town…”

The young mutant went a little somber after being told this. How could he explain it to the kid?

They survived the apocalypse. Nuclear warfare and all that. The entire world was in ruins and millions upon millions of people had died. There were bandits, murderers and all sorts of scum roaming the land in this post-apocalyptic nightmare. People died of the stupidest causes, diseases that had easy cures for back in the day could kill you in a snap, food and water was scarce, people moved and traveled to find a better place to live and millions of families were broken beyond repair.

And the kid was hopeful of finding his father alive in the Town? What were the odds of that? The man surviving nukes, chaos, bandits, war, disease, hunger and thirst and somehow, miraculously, bumping with his son at the town? Face facts, kid, the odds are against you. He's a goner. Miles didn't have the stomach to tell him that, though. If they made it to the town, he'd probably just dump Chase on Jorge's lap and have him break the bad news to the child, because Miles just didn't have the heart for it.

"I... I... Yes! Yes, he may be there in fact!" he lied, thinking that giving Chase hope was better than crushing it. Miles figured an enthusiastic, motivated Aurion doppleganger could muster up the strength they both needed to bust out of the place, while a crying child would accomplish just the opposite. "I think I heard about this... this guy, asking around for his kid, and... and... and he said his kid was a mutant and he was asking if anyone had seen him, so who knows? Maybe he is your dad! What's your last name, by the way?" he asked, ready to jump out of joy and to tell him the guy had exactly the same last name Chase mentioned, whatever it was.