overbox | For Izzy

For Izzy

Rafael sat alone in his room, listening to a mildly distorted voice on a tape recorder. It wasn't quite as messy in here as it had been before Elena had come to town and started yelling at him about keeping things organized, but right now it could have been on fire and he barely would have noticed.

"-as a tyrant, there's nothing I wouldn't do to keep you safe. That is all."

The tap ended. Rafael hit the rewind button and listened to the recording again.

"This message is for my son, Rafael, when he is of an age to hear it..."

He wasn't sure how many times he had listened to it. His father's voice, speaking directly to a son who had never known him. A monster's voice, who had irreversibly taken the world down a darker path. A dead man's voice, speaking from beyond the grave without any awareness.

The tape ended. Rafael his rewind again.

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Izzy stood silently outside of Rafael's room. She could hear the old recording playing over a few times. His pain wasn't something that Izzy could truly understand, just like Whisper's, but she couldn't sit idly by while her teammate was emotionally reeling.

As the recording comes to a close, Izzy knocks on the door. "Rafael? It's Izzy, I um..." She stumbles for the words to say. Why didn't she ever try to think before speaking?

"Well, I was worried about you being alone and I wanted to see if there was anything I could do to, um.. to help. I mean I don't really know what I could do..."

As she carelessly spilled her thoughts, she trailed off into mumbles, almost like Whisper.

Edited 2017-01-31 06:43 (UTC)

Rafael heard Izzy without any trouble, but her words took a while for his brain to process. His brain was too busy going in pointless circles right now to accomplish much else.

Eventually, it did sink in that Izzy was talking to him. It had ALMOST been long enough for Izzy to probably assume he hadn't heard her and either shuffle away or ask again louder when the door opened in front of her.

Rafael bit his lip, then stood aside in case she wanted to come in. The recording finished playing in the background.

"Oh!" Izzy gasped for a moment, not entirely expecting the door to open. She took a half step inside, staying right in front of the door frame. Her eyes darted around the room, from the tiny mess in the corner, to the slightly ajar closet door on the other side of the room, then settled on the old cassette player.

"You've been listening to it a few times. I could hear it repeating outside......" A pause. "Ms Vasquez told me about what the Valor Corps was like when they were founded. She spoke fondly of your fa-" She stopped, realizing that she was about to use a probably poor choice of words.

"Of Elemental. She said that he cared probably more than most of the rest of the Valor Corps. It made me doubt a lot of what I've been told, you know? Maybe he wasn't the monster that everyone said he was."

Izzy stared to the side as she spoke, averting her gaze from Rafael. It was tough to look him in the face at that moment. She bit her lip nervously, a habit that had developed recently.

"She never liked to talk about him with me." The reason's why were more obvious to him NOW, but when he was younger it had been very frustrating. As was the fact that she had apparently opened up about him so easily with Izzy.

He caught himself before he started getting angry about that or blaming it on Izzy. That wasn't fair to her. Instead he wandered back over to the bed and sat on the edge of it, running his hands down his face. He needed to drag himself out of this funk he was in.

"Can I ask you something kinda personal?"

Izzy took a step forward, answering almost too quickly.

"Sure, you can ask me anything!"

That was Izzy for you. Leap before you look if it's a friend asking it.

"What kind of life did you have before you came here? To Earth."

Izzy froze. She froze for a good moment. Her life before Earth was something that she hadn't talked about to anyone else. Ever. It was... She took another step forward and closed the door behind her. This time she had to gather her thoughts.

"Before I came to Earth... I was an Outsider. I simply did as was my role, but I didn't fit in."

Her voice was cold, distant, and rather unlike Izzy.

"The Outsiders..."

Unbidden, from somewhere deep in the back of his mind that he didn't even know existed, images filled his mind. Star charts showing the location of the Outsider's homeworld. What their ships looked like. Their attitudes towards the other races of the galaxy...It was all fragmented and hard to make sense of, and he had no idea where it was coming from, but the knowledge was undeniably something more than just an overactive imagination.

"Stoic watchers and guardians. They didn't like anything or anyone being out of place or not fitting in, did they?"

"That's right. My race are the preservers of Cosmic Order in the universe. We remain outside politics, outside war... outside help. It's why we became known as Outsiders. I spent what would be considered Terran millennia watching, observing, bearing witness to events in galaxies near and far...

And then I saw something strange on Earth. I saw individuals who would put themselves at risk in order to save those who should be culled. I saw Heroes who protected innocent people, who stopped those who would destroy your planet, who bonded together to stand for something greater than themselves. Some of them were not even proper Earthlings, but they still risked life and limb for their sense of justice, and it lit a fire inside of me. A fire that I had thought long extinguished."

She spoke with warmth and fondness about the heroes who had inspired her. She didn't name anyone but it was clear that the original Valor Corps had been among them, at least up to a certain point.

But at that moment, warmth turned to shock and a little fear. She had been too wrapped up in her story to catch it before. Now Izzy looked at her teammate icily.

"But I've never spoken about my race before, so Rafael, how did you know that?"

Edited 2017-02-01 10:05 (UTC)

"Huh? How did I..."

Rafael paused. How did he know that? He couldn't remember where the information had come from. It had just shown up, almost like someone had whispered it in his ear. A chill went down his spine.

"I...don't know. It was just there, in my mind."

Izzy continued to stare at him. She was clearly unnerved by his knowledge of her race, but she was hoping that small bit was all that he knew.

"I see... It must be part of your abilities, then."

Her expression softened and she looked downward, suddenly understanding a little better. He was raised as a human. The only way he could learn about his half-alien powers was by experimenting on his own. There was no one to guide him in the ways of his species.

"Rafael, may I ask what your life before the Valor Corps was like? I know you were raised by Ms Vasquez for a time, but... Well it's okay if you don't want to answer too."

"You mean with Mom? We moved around a lot. I didn't get to meet a lot of other kids, I guess because we were fugitives, but I didn't know that."

He shrugged, helplessly. "I dunno, man. It seemed normal at the time."

"I heard someone say 'normal is a relative term,' once. I've witnessed countless societies where almost anything could be considered normal. I guess for you, 'normal' was moving from place to place with your mother... You share your mother with your sister. Or half-sister? Miss Lucita. Have you gone to talk to her yet?"

Izzy posed the question, speaking without thinking again. The question had been sitting in the back of her mind ever since she had come back with them, though. Especially since Lucita had asked about her brother... or half-brother. Earthling family structure was still a little confusing.

"Yeah we talked stuff out. A bit."

He hesitated, sorting through alien memories that were frustratingly random and incomplete. He could look up at the night sky and point out which star was Izzy's home, but he couldn't tell you its name. "I...don't know if Outsiders even have families, but they're complicated. Even when you don't have my messed up relatives."

"The idea of a family isn't something that exists among my species. To know your progenitor is unheard of. We don't have parents or siblings or a unit, we are simply all Outsiders who serve a purpose."

The way Izzy spoke made her seem almost more alien. She had been standing opposite Rafael but now she moved to face away from him.

"Ashlyn lost her both parents, Lori's father is a villain, Whisper was abused by her father, Ford lost his brother, and you never knew your family outside the short time spent with your mother. I know that you all have a lot of sorrow from those moments, but I cannot fully understand it."

She gave a have smile and chuckle that was filled with regret. "You see why we're called Outsiders now?"

"Sometimes I don't think humans fully understand it either."

Despite everything about today being super messed up, Rafael couldn't help but smile a little bit. "But...there's more than one kind of family, you know."

"Hm? Do you mean half family? Like you and Miss Lucita?"

Izzy was sort of genuinely puzzled, as the concept of another kind of family was something that she hadn't heard of before.

"What? No. Well, yes but that's not what I meant. I mean...God this is going to sound corny."

He struggled to regain his train of thought.

"I mean, when you've got a group of people that you live with and work with and that have each other's backs no matter what. That's also a kind of family."

Izzy's expression was blank for a moment before she understood what he meant. Her cheeks flushed a little and a smile spread across her face.

"In that case, I guess I do have a family after all."

Just saying it induced a strange surge of warm emotions. Nature dictated that she was not family with the others that she called her team, but humanity said otherwise. This is what made humans so special, to willingly go against nature and overcome. Izzy wiped a welling tear in her eye and laughed, this time sincerely.

"I have a great family, that I'll always cherish more than anything."

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