Fic: Gathering (Original)
Title: Gathering
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Everyone! Kara and Kraita Kartroni, Cristal and Keith Sullivan, TJ and Rachel Caltra.
Summary: How did everyone meet? They all had their specific reasons. This is a set of six drabble-ish pieces relating to how the group was created.
Universe: Starshadow Chronicles
Prompt: For challenge_the, "All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and desire." - Aristotle.
Note: (Insert standard fiction claimer here)
Nature.
Cristal had been working with computers since she was three years old, or so her mother would say. It started with minor computer games, and Cristal had been curious, like any other typical toddler. Until it wasn't typical anymore.
By the age of five, Cristal knew how to work every program that the typical home comupter came with, and even some it didn't. From there, it was taking apart and putting the computer back together. By the age of seven, she had began to build computers nearly from scratch. At the age of ten, she started what would come to be her "baby", right in the little-known basement of the house, only accessible from her room. Her mother fully encouraged this, and bought her the parts she would need to get started.
At the age of seventeen, Cristal had finished her baby, and through her recently acquired hacking abilities, came to know a world that was so entirely different from her own, she was shocked that something could exist to begin with. Programming her own software, Cristal became a master of finding out information of this new world within her own at the age of eighteen. If only her mother knew...
Passion and Desire.
Keith transferred to Trinity High as a Junior, same year as Cristal. His record would say that he was a eighteen-year-old honors student, but that was far from the truth.
Keith was the last in a line of healers, the Calstrae, who were able to manipulate the life energies within a person to relieve an ailment. His parents had died a long time ago, and he had been living on his own ever since. He doesn't remember how many times he has had to repeat his final two years of high school to keep a cover, but it was a long time.
As cliche as it sounds, love at first sight was the only way to describe what he had felt upon seeing Cristal for the first time. Her chestnut hair falling in waves down to her shoulders and dark brown eyes had captivated him. The second day he had been at the school is when she talked to him. She wanted to be friends with him, the new kid. Keith hoped it would lead to something more.
Eventually it did. Keith had asked Cristal out a month after meeting her, she accepted, and they had been together ever since, a total of a year and a half. Cristal saw him for who he was thanks to her technology, and they lived together for the most part, Cristal having more than enough room in her basement, which Keith had remodeled to include two more rooms for his research and creations.
Reason.
Tristan Jones Caltra (you called him TJ or you died...or wished you were dead anyway) was always the pugnacious one at school. The typical bully, he had a reputation for being the tough kid who always initiated the fights after school on the back lawn, not caring whether or not he got in trouble for beating the crap out of someone.
One day, his fiery temper had pissed off the wrong person. TJ had ended up in the middle of a gang fight and paid for it, dearly. He had a broken arm, at least a broken rib, and could barely stand. There was a black fuzz in the edge of his vision and he tried to fight it off without avail. He couldn't go home and he couldn't go to the hospital. His mother and sister would freak out. He remembered that the geeky computer girl lived somewhere around here. She could pass well enough as his sister, so he knocked on a door hoping it was actually her house.
When TJ woke up, he knew he wasn't in a hospital, but he wasn't home, or dead, either. There was one kid a little older than him busying himself with something by his bed, and Geek Girl was standing to his right with her back to him. The two seemed to be arguing, but their voices sounded far away, barely there.
The girl, Cristal, had saved him from humiliation and death, along with her boyfriend Keith. Since then, they had a strange relationship, though no one was any the wiser at school.
Chance.
The Kartroni family had adopted Kara when she was fifteen years old. Before then, Kara had witnessed a massacre, and had dealt with some serious problems of her own. The authorities had found her, pale, shaking, and covered in blood and dirt at age nine, after she had escaped the forest separating her former home from the rest of the world.
Kara had been in the hospital for a good month, and seeing a psychiatrist well after that. Since age eleven, she had been in the orphanage, knowing that she wouldn't be getting out of there until she was eighteen. The Kartronis had surprised her, saying they needed a sister figure close to their own son's age. So then she left the place she called a hell and came to live where the family called home. She transferred into Trinity High as a sophomore, meeting Cristal and managing to piss off TJ on her first day.
Cristal had come to her a week later, wanting Kara to come over to her place and check something out. That's when she had learned that the Starshadow, the sword her brother had left for her when he died, contained a large amount of power and legends about it have traced back millenia. Cristal needed information, Kara knew where to look, they became a group of four once Kara allowed TJ to see and make use of his pyrokinetic abilities.
Habit.
Kara's charge was Kraita. As long as she looked after the twelve-year-old, she could do basically whatever she wanted, within reason of course. Early on, Kraita had been a small part of the group, and Cristal kept him company. So it was only a matter of time before little Krae became a full-time member of the small meetings everyone held in Cristal's basement.
As a matter of fact, it was only a year before Kraita was the only one in the small circle of friends not in high school, and he was useful in his own ways. Cristal had built him his own computer, and he started on his own research. Cristal had found out about his unique talents as soon as she figured out that he had made a complete replica of her files on his small system.
Keith eventually started to see strange vials within his lab. He didn't know what they contained, but when he figured out what they were--replicas of his beginning elixirs, he started noticing that Kraita wasn't what he had seemed.
Cristal ran a few programs, did a bit of research, and compared a few notes before breaking the news to Kara that her little brother was an unconscious telepath. Kraita didn't know it, but he was picking up on others' thoughts and started creating stuff based on how they knew how to do it. Kraita became an important person to bring along after all.
Compulsion.
Rachel was mad at her brother a lot. Where was TJ going all the time? Why couldn't she come with him? What was he doing? Because of him, she hadn't been to the archery range in months, and personally, she was tired of it. So one day, she decided to follow him.
Rachel was about thirteen, and already close to being her brother's shadow. There were only a few times when he could actually shake her off and those were the times when their mother got angry at him for not watching his sister. So, when he turned onto a suburban street, she was following close behind, surprised to see that there wasn't a big scary gang waiting for him. Making sure to keep at least a half a block behind him, she hid behind a tree as he walked up the path of one house and just opened the door.
Rachel began to think, Is this all because of a new girlfriend? It was definitely a possibility, but she couldn't imagine that any girl would actually want to go out with him. She walked up the path of the same house her brother had entered and knocked on the door to be polite, but no one answered. She knocked again, louder this time, but still no one came to the door. She couldn't hear any loud music, so she thought they were being rude. Her knuckles were hurting from knocking so hard, so she just opened the door, like her brother had, and hoped no one yelled at her.
The house was completely silent. She heard nothing, which was impossible, because with her brother here, the only outcome was lots of noise.
"Hello?" she called, still at the door. She heard nothing at all so she stepped inside and looked around. Hearing a door open nearby, she twisted, knowing that she was caught. The two people who saw her were TJ and another girl nearly as tall as him with black hair.
"Who's this?" the girl asked.
"Rachel! What are you doing here? Go home," her brother yelled.
"Don't bother Tristan, let her stay. Kraita's in the basement, and they look about the same age. We don't have time to lead her home."
"Kara, you're kidding. Fine, come here Rachel," he said, and Rachel ran to his side. They figured out her archery talents, and she became the last member of the little haphazard group of friends.
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Everyone! Kara and Kraita Kartroni, Cristal and Keith Sullivan, TJ and Rachel Caltra.
Summary: How did everyone meet? They all had their specific reasons. This is a set of six drabble-ish pieces relating to how the group was created.
Universe: Starshadow Chronicles
Prompt: For challenge_the, "All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and desire." - Aristotle.
Note: (Insert standard fiction claimer here)
Nature.
Cristal had been working with computers since she was three years old, or so her mother would say. It started with minor computer games, and Cristal had been curious, like any other typical toddler. Until it wasn't typical anymore.
By the age of five, Cristal knew how to work every program that the typical home comupter came with, and even some it didn't. From there, it was taking apart and putting the computer back together. By the age of seven, she had began to build computers nearly from scratch. At the age of ten, she started what would come to be her "baby", right in the little-known basement of the house, only accessible from her room. Her mother fully encouraged this, and bought her the parts she would need to get started.
At the age of seventeen, Cristal had finished her baby, and through her recently acquired hacking abilities, came to know a world that was so entirely different from her own, she was shocked that something could exist to begin with. Programming her own software, Cristal became a master of finding out information of this new world within her own at the age of eighteen. If only her mother knew...
Passion and Desire.
Keith transferred to Trinity High as a Junior, same year as Cristal. His record would say that he was a eighteen-year-old honors student, but that was far from the truth.
Keith was the last in a line of healers, the Calstrae, who were able to manipulate the life energies within a person to relieve an ailment. His parents had died a long time ago, and he had been living on his own ever since. He doesn't remember how many times he has had to repeat his final two years of high school to keep a cover, but it was a long time.
As cliche as it sounds, love at first sight was the only way to describe what he had felt upon seeing Cristal for the first time. Her chestnut hair falling in waves down to her shoulders and dark brown eyes had captivated him. The second day he had been at the school is when she talked to him. She wanted to be friends with him, the new kid. Keith hoped it would lead to something more.
Eventually it did. Keith had asked Cristal out a month after meeting her, she accepted, and they had been together ever since, a total of a year and a half. Cristal saw him for who he was thanks to her technology, and they lived together for the most part, Cristal having more than enough room in her basement, which Keith had remodeled to include two more rooms for his research and creations.
Reason.
Tristan Jones Caltra (you called him TJ or you died...or wished you were dead anyway) was always the pugnacious one at school. The typical bully, he had a reputation for being the tough kid who always initiated the fights after school on the back lawn, not caring whether or not he got in trouble for beating the crap out of someone.
One day, his fiery temper had pissed off the wrong person. TJ had ended up in the middle of a gang fight and paid for it, dearly. He had a broken arm, at least a broken rib, and could barely stand. There was a black fuzz in the edge of his vision and he tried to fight it off without avail. He couldn't go home and he couldn't go to the hospital. His mother and sister would freak out. He remembered that the geeky computer girl lived somewhere around here. She could pass well enough as his sister, so he knocked on a door hoping it was actually her house.
When TJ woke up, he knew he wasn't in a hospital, but he wasn't home, or dead, either. There was one kid a little older than him busying himself with something by his bed, and Geek Girl was standing to his right with her back to him. The two seemed to be arguing, but their voices sounded far away, barely there.
The girl, Cristal, had saved him from humiliation and death, along with her boyfriend Keith. Since then, they had a strange relationship, though no one was any the wiser at school.
Chance.
The Kartroni family had adopted Kara when she was fifteen years old. Before then, Kara had witnessed a massacre, and had dealt with some serious problems of her own. The authorities had found her, pale, shaking, and covered in blood and dirt at age nine, after she had escaped the forest separating her former home from the rest of the world.
Kara had been in the hospital for a good month, and seeing a psychiatrist well after that. Since age eleven, she had been in the orphanage, knowing that she wouldn't be getting out of there until she was eighteen. The Kartronis had surprised her, saying they needed a sister figure close to their own son's age. So then she left the place she called a hell and came to live where the family called home. She transferred into Trinity High as a sophomore, meeting Cristal and managing to piss off TJ on her first day.
Cristal had come to her a week later, wanting Kara to come over to her place and check something out. That's when she had learned that the Starshadow, the sword her brother had left for her when he died, contained a large amount of power and legends about it have traced back millenia. Cristal needed information, Kara knew where to look, they became a group of four once Kara allowed TJ to see and make use of his pyrokinetic abilities.
Habit.
Kara's charge was Kraita. As long as she looked after the twelve-year-old, she could do basically whatever she wanted, within reason of course. Early on, Kraita had been a small part of the group, and Cristal kept him company. So it was only a matter of time before little Krae became a full-time member of the small meetings everyone held in Cristal's basement.
As a matter of fact, it was only a year before Kraita was the only one in the small circle of friends not in high school, and he was useful in his own ways. Cristal had built him his own computer, and he started on his own research. Cristal had found out about his unique talents as soon as she figured out that he had made a complete replica of her files on his small system.
Keith eventually started to see strange vials within his lab. He didn't know what they contained, but when he figured out what they were--replicas of his beginning elixirs, he started noticing that Kraita wasn't what he had seemed.
Cristal ran a few programs, did a bit of research, and compared a few notes before breaking the news to Kara that her little brother was an unconscious telepath. Kraita didn't know it, but he was picking up on others' thoughts and started creating stuff based on how they knew how to do it. Kraita became an important person to bring along after all.
Compulsion.
Rachel was mad at her brother a lot. Where was TJ going all the time? Why couldn't she come with him? What was he doing? Because of him, she hadn't been to the archery range in months, and personally, she was tired of it. So one day, she decided to follow him.
Rachel was about thirteen, and already close to being her brother's shadow. There were only a few times when he could actually shake her off and those were the times when their mother got angry at him for not watching his sister. So, when he turned onto a suburban street, she was following close behind, surprised to see that there wasn't a big scary gang waiting for him. Making sure to keep at least a half a block behind him, she hid behind a tree as he walked up the path of one house and just opened the door.
Rachel began to think, Is this all because of a new girlfriend? It was definitely a possibility, but she couldn't imagine that any girl would actually want to go out with him. She walked up the path of the same house her brother had entered and knocked on the door to be polite, but no one answered. She knocked again, louder this time, but still no one came to the door. She couldn't hear any loud music, so she thought they were being rude. Her knuckles were hurting from knocking so hard, so she just opened the door, like her brother had, and hoped no one yelled at her.
The house was completely silent. She heard nothing, which was impossible, because with her brother here, the only outcome was lots of noise.
"Hello?" she called, still at the door. She heard nothing at all so she stepped inside and looked around. Hearing a door open nearby, she twisted, knowing that she was caught. The two people who saw her were TJ and another girl nearly as tall as him with black hair.
"Who's this?" the girl asked.
"Rachel! What are you doing here? Go home," her brother yelled.
"Don't bother Tristan, let her stay. Kraita's in the basement, and they look about the same age. We don't have time to lead her home."
"Kara, you're kidding. Fine, come here Rachel," he said, and Rachel ran to his side. They figured out her archery talents, and she became the last member of the little haphazard group of friends.