Charm Prequel - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The lower levels of the station smelled like rotten eggs and ass, the heat of the inner core making it worse. Flickering lights with blue tints showed men and women in cells, looking starved, beaten, and on the point of death. Regulars were simply chained or locked up, but the supers—men and women with powers of varying tiers of badassery—were held in special cages of glass with gasses pumped in to keep them too weak to use their powers, or in some cases their mouths were covered to stop them from being able to speak, or their hands either held in metal casings or chopped off. 

All of it was much more barbaric than many above ever thought possible. Not all were rogues like me. Some were prisoners of war, if you could ever call what we did “war.” Mostly we stayed out of the way of superheroes or villains, not wanting anything to do with either side. We steered clear, taking easy targets and surviving by stealing small shipments or making runs on fringe planets, but never enough to earn the attention of the Citadel. 

Most of our prisoners were from enemy guilds, those who would get in our way. Occasionally we’d make a move against Space Pirates, which were groups much like our own but had sided with the villains and refused to follow guild rules. We weren’t evil, but survivors. Those sons of bitches were straight up vile, with their songs about raping and pillaging. 

So anytime we saw them as easy targets, you can bet your ass we took them out, killing many, taking others prisoner for future bargaining chips or to gather whatever intel we could on their operations. 

And now I was no better off than many of them, it’d seem. 

Two of the jailer’s servants had taken me from the goons at the entrance, since the goons were too important to deal with this hell hole. The servants were like rats, lanky with long noses and beady eyes like Amand, but they were here for a very important purpose, so were chosen specially. Form what I heard, the jailers had a special ability to walk through walls, to be able to let attacks go right through them, and to even be able to reach into someone’s mind and cause unspeakable pain, but the type that was all mental. You’d feel like you just died, but your body would be unaffected, ready for more of the same pain whenever they deemed it necessary. 

We referred to their type as wraiths. 

The wraiths seemed unsure what to think about me. I wasn’t fighting, or even pissed to be down here. My guess was that they usually had to apply the pain, force their new arrivals on, but I was eager. The sooner I was thrown into the shit, the sooner I’d find my way off this station. 

“A secretive one, we have here,” one of the wraiths said to the other, guiding me into a descending ramp that opened up to an area below that stunk even worse. “One to keep our eyes on.” 

“Ah, but she won’t be here long,” the other replied. 

I grinned and nodded, knowing how right they were—but not for the reasons they thought. 

The smile didn’t last long though, as the pain was still racking my body. I had to hold my hand up to my nose to breath into it and try to mask the smell. I’d only once smelled a rotting corpse before, but the memory of that smell came back strong at the moment. 

“Enjoy your time in the swamp,” the first said, eyeing me with skepticism. “Your new friends will likely hurt you in ways you’ve never experienced and will never understand. We will not come to your aid, so… it’s really up to you if you want to waste time calling for help.”

“Thanks,” I said, and seeing that he was gesturing for me to go down the ramp, proceeded. 

It was dark, so I let out a small breath of my charm. It’s where I got my name, or at least, my recent name. Charm, they called me, because my breaths worked like a drug when I focused, a drug that could cause a sense of euphoria. The breath came out white like a warm breath on a cool day, filling me with a sense of calm euphoria. 

My sister, Malina, had always tried to get me to make the breaths do more than this, but so far I’d only managed two types of breath, or charm—white and black. White breaths did the euphoric thing. Black was great for right before a good fight, robbery, or party, as they caused anyone who breathed them, and me when I made it happen, to be super energetic and hyper. Not good for a place like this, because it would result in insane amounts of paranoia, as I’d learned from a less than enjoyable experience when trying to break free from a space pirate ship once. 

Malina thought that I should be able to change them up, get breaths to make people straight-up die and whatnot, but no luck so far. 

Walking down the ramp, the calming effect of my breath was exactly what I needed. It even caused the smell to go away, or caused me to be able to ignore the smell. Even the darkness didn’t bother me as much, and soon my eyes had adjusted to be able to see the areas of uneven floor covered in liquid, some risen platforms and half-floors where other prisoners lurked, waiting to see the new arrival. 

One of them was waiting at the base of the ramp, squatting, almost curled up in a little ball. She looked up at me, or at least I assumed it was a she with the long hair and skinny frame. Hard to tell, really. Either way, her hand reached out to touch me, then froze as my tail swooshed back and forth. 

“It’s her,” the figure said, taking a slithering step away. 

“The fuck do we care?” a man said, stepping out from my right and walking right through the liquid. “We own this place.”

“Own it?” I asked, glancing around to see other figures emerging, or my eyes better adjusting to see that they’d been there the whole time. “What a sad, pitiful existence.”

“Looks like we have a shit-eater for a new arrival,” a woman from the left said, sloshing forward. She was larger than the man. “Let’s see how much of it she can stomach before puking her guts out, shall we?” 

“Fucking try it,” I replied, at least mentally ready for this. I was calm, but the moment the first one started to come at me—the large lady—I puffed out a hint of black charm, feeling the hyperness take over, and ran to meet her. 

I leaped through the air, slamming into her with both feet so that she fell backwards into the muck. My momentum took me to the next one, already coming at me, so I rolled into him in a tackle that left him face down in the nastiness. Not only was I strong, but faster than most supers and pretty much all normies. Since the other supers here were villains or members of the guild who’d betrayed us, they were likely to be subdued elsewhere, or their powers blocked in other ways, a fact that gave me confidence. Whatever these bullies tried to throw at me, it was likely something I could handle. 

Three more came at me, but I grinned and waited, hoping to avoid getting any of the stench on me if possible. 

The first swung a fist and I dodged but hit the backside of his forearm to send the fist into his buddy, laughing. The charm made me a bit over the top sometimes, so I was having a blast. A good kick in the next one’s midsection doubled him over, then a knee left his nose flattened and blood spilling forth. 

“Fucking fox bitch,” the first man said, recovering for another punch. 

Well fuck that. Sure, I had some resemblance to a fox, but I was a super with mutations, just like many other supers, except for mine happened to make me resemble a fox. Sure, it was damn rare, and the closest I had met was wolf shifters and some with horns like deer or demons, but calling me a fox was about the most stupid move anyone could make. 

In this man’s case, with my black charm already in effect and the stench and everything else getting to me, I wasn’t in the mood for being nice or turning the other cheek. Well, thinking about cheeks, I let my fox-like claws extend to show him exactly how foxy I could be. I clawed at the left side of his face, then the other, so that he had lines of blood on both sides. Next I dodged as he charged, catching him with a knee in his side and then dropping him to the ground where I caught him with a good kick to the side that sent him a few feet over to trip a woman who was charging into the fight. 

The man groaned in pain as I turned to his other buddy and said, “Call me a fox, I fucking dare you.” 

He glanced over to his fallen friend, the other who was staggering back with his busted nose, and took off running. 

“Cowardice piece of shit,” the woman behind me called after me, recovering and sizing me up. “And who the hell are you?” 

“My friend,” a raspy, barely audible voice said from the off to my left, or what would’ve been the opposite side of the area I’d entered from. Judging by the way he spoke, it was Silencer.

The woman froze at the voice, turned, and then backed off too. Others were backing off, while a few stood their ground, now on guard. 

“You’re supposed to be locked up,” the woman said. 

“And yet, here I am.” Silencer was close enough to be visible, though he was still a silhouette. “Charm needed a welcoming committee, or so I thought. Seems she can take care of herself.” 

“I can,” I replied, eyeing the few who remained, daring them to test me. “And didn’t get a drop of this slime shit on me.” 

He chuckled in his raspy way. A friend of my sister, we’d actually not interacted much other than the few thieving missions we’d shared, and the one time I’d walked in on him going down on my sister—talk about awkward. She’d been the type to have multiple guys always doing everything for her, which wasn’t my style. 

In fact, I realized standing there thinking about it, maybe her ways with men had been one reason I had pretty much avoided all that stuff so far. Huh… I had to blame my ponderings on the charm, because otherwise standing there in darkness, surrounded by dangerous villains and rancid swampy shit-water, wasn’t exactly the type of situation that conjures up such thoughts. 

“This way,” Silencer said, motioning me to follow. 

I started to, and when I was close enough I saw he’d changed. In the past he’d always been this …

but the woman behind was coming with us. 

“This doesn’t concern you,” Silencer said, halting.

“Way I see it,” she replied. “This is Charm, sister of Malina. She’s not the type to end up here, though, telling me you’re up to something. I want in.”

“I don’t know,” I blurted out, already not liking the idea of her coming along, even though I didn’t fully know the plan. All I knew was to get in here, and he’d do the rest. 

Silencer considered her, then glanced my way. “Charm, this is Maps.”

“No shit?” I said, suddenly seeing this woman in a whole new way. 

The lady nodded, then spread her hands out in front of her, moving them apart so that light appeared, forming a map that I assumed was our current area of the station’s prison. “Useful in most situations requiring our unique skills.”

“And we can trust you?” I asked, skeptical. Turning to Silencer, I added, “What’s she in here for?” 

“She’s a pirate,” Silencer replied. “And no, you can’t trust any pirates.”

“True,” Maps interjected. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t use me in… whatever this is.” 

“We most definitely can,” Silencer admitted, and motioned her along, too. 

“Just like that?” I asked. 

He grunted and nodded, and Maps gave me a victorious sneer. This bitch needed to be slapped, but I’d give her a chance if Silencer said so. For now, this was his mission after all. He’d be the one with an escape plan. 

We moved through more darkness, past corpses and more cells. It was almost too much to believe, that this all existed beneath the levels of the station we lived on, but we’d all heard the stories. They made it so as a scare tactic, for our enemies and us. 

Finally, we reached a small side passage with a slight green glow to it. Silencer stood, staring at me. Waiting. 

“Ah, I have something for you,” I said, and took the bracelet from where I’d hidden it in case they tried to search me—yeah, my ass crack, but I’d worn two pairs of panties so I could hide it in between the two. Overkill? Stupid? Shut up. 

He eyed it with skepticism, then took it with his thumb and forefinger. “I thought you might.”

“What’s the significance?” 

“Our escape.” He analyzed the necklace, then flicked one of three black stones on it. The necklace was simple silver, with those black stones and one red. When he looked up at me, his eyes sparkled with excitement. “Ready?” 

“This is really going to get us out of here?” I asked, skeptical. Then again, I trusted him, or at least wanted this bad enough that I convinced myself to trust him. He wanted to find my sister as much as I did, I imagined. 

“Watch and learn, princess.” He glanced at Maps, sighed, and said, “What’s funny is, I was considering going to ask you along at any rate. But thing is, we don’t really need you.”

“I thought—”

Before she could get the words out, he had that black stone out of the necklace and had slammed it against her forehead, a strange power emerging from his hand in the form of gold tendrils of light, tendrils that froze her in place, her expression like a silent scream. The tendrils moved into her, then pulled back out, entering the stone, and when he was done she collapsed, unconscious. 

“Fuck,” I said, staring with confusion. 

“We needed her powers, not her,” he replied with a wink, and then turned to me holding that necklace. 

When he reached for me, I thought he was going to do the same he’d done to her, but instead he slid the bracelet on and winked as it seemed to meld with his skin. A second later he was grabbing my hand and pulling me with him, right for the wall. 

I started to protest, even pulling back, but then we were through, passing into a dimly lit red room, one where another man and woman waited. 

“These two, we will need,” Silencer said with a nod toward them. One quick glance was all I needed to recognize them. On the left was a petite lady, younger than me even, with a metallic look to her eyes and, sometimes, her skin. She was called Ice, even though she had no ice powers—it kind of worked with the way she manipulated metal like someone with ice powers could manipulate ice. Okay, it didn’t make a lot of sense, but supers got to pick their own super names, so whatever. The man was tall and built like a god, a super we’d come to refer to as Trance because of his ability to manipulate the mind. I’d always thought we had a shared-connection based on that, or would have a connection if we’d ever gotten to know each other. Apparently, we were about to get that opportunity.

It took me a second to process what had happened. Silencer had gotten his name because he had a way of silencing others in a move that left them as he’d left Maps. However, there’d always been more to it, a secret part of his powers that many didn’t know about. I’d always had my suspicions, though, and they’d been confirmed in that moment. Even more so when he spread his hands out exactly as Maps had done, and that same map appeared in the light that formed in the air. 

He must’ve taken her power, as he’d done to a wraith, which is why he’d been able to walk us through a wall. 

Holy Oram, was I excited to see what else he’d be able to pull off with that bracelet of his. 

   f/< <