A Broken Home (Kusanagi #1)

February 25th, 2006

Kary sits on her bed at home listening to music. It'd nearly been a year since her father's death. Her mom had been a complete train wreck lately as the anniversary approached. Her little brother had nearly stopped speaking to her. When the White Event happened and Jonathon hadn't got powers he cried for weeks. The only thing that managed to console him was their Uncle Blaine moving back home.

---

March 2005

A year ago that peace all vanished. Uncle Blaine had to travel overseas for work. Doing the week he was gone, an intruder entered their house with the intent to rob it, Kary's father confronted the man with the intent to convince him to leave. Unknown to her father, the intruder was a meta and killed her father in retaliation before leaving. Despite wielding power, Kary's father had rarely used them. Dying before he could reveal the truth to his daughter, Kary awoke the next morning in agonizing pain with the worst headache she had ever had. Her latent powers had awoken and without someone proper to guide her in using them, she had to acclimated to her 6th sense alone.

On the 3rd day, the screaming had mostly quieted but the pain was still ever present. Kary's mother had briefly explained what happened to the girl before drinking herself into an alcoholic stupor. Her little brother and once best friend locked himself in his room and refused to speak to Kary out of shear jealously.

On the 4th day her uncle came back to the revelation his brother in law was dead and his niece had powers. Blaine managed to get enough info from his sister to learn the truth. Angered that the parents kept the knowledge from Kary until it was too late, Blaine decided to take matters unto his own hands. Knocking on the girl's door he was met by nothing but crying and sobs. Kary flung the door open and ran into his arms in a fit of tears.

"I don't know what to do! I can't make the pain go away."

Blaine pulls the girl in and rubs her head. "I know kiddo, I heard from your mother what happened. I'm here to help."

He lets Kary go and walks her over to her bed. "You can feel everything around you, can't you?"

Kary look over at him and nods.

Blaine sighs and rubs his temples. "Sensory overload. You're feeling too much at once and hurts. Your father should have told you a long time ago but I guess you can never plan for something like this. I'm having trouble believing it myself. My brother in law was like me this whole time and my own sister never told me about her husband."

Kary stares at him but no words come out.

"Kary, have you heard of telekinesis?"

Despite Kary's nod, Blaine decides an explanation is in order. He lifts the lamp on her bedside up and quickly returns it into place.

"I'm sorry I never told you before, but this was the reason I moved back to Austin 4 years ago. I wanted to protect you guys. I just want to say I know what you're going through. However I will make sure you will not go it alone like I did. Get some sleep, I'll be back tomorrow and I will make sure the pain goes away."

Kary wipes away the tears and nods. Blaine sits with her till she falls asleep, the pain in her head subsiding.

---

The next morning, Blaine returns. He takes Kary out to a large empty field.

"This should make things easier. The pain is a lot less here right?"

Kary nods. "Yes, I don't sense everything going on around. It's all clear."

Blaine turns around. "Good, now I'm going to make sure you learn to focus and get use to the 6th sense you have. Now tell me how many fingers I'm holding up."

Kary closes her eyes and focuses. "Uh, three, maybe four. It's really cloudy."

"Good, it was three."

Kary smiles before getting a look of confusion. "Uncle Blaine, how do you know how to help me?"

A wide grin appears on his face. "You do the same as I just did."

Kary holds up her hands and Blaine quickly answers. "Four on the left, three on the right."

He turns around and walks over to her. "I have a similar sense for telling where things are around me. So I'm going to make sure you get the hang of this."

Kary starts to cry out of shear joy at the thought of the pain going away. The duo spends the rest of the day and a few more practicing out in the field. But the end of the week, Kary is able to take a walk through downtown Austin with almost no pain.

The next day comes around and Blaine shows up once more with a metal box in his hand.

"One more thing Kary. I have to leave town for work tomorrow, but I feel comfortable leaving, knowing you have control of your new gift. However there one thing I want you to have. I looked over your father's will and saw that he left a safety deposit box to you. I think he knew about me somehow because I had access and inside there was a note addressed to me saying 'If you see this, I'm gone. Please teach her well Blaine.' Inside the box was this."

Blaine hands the box to Kary and a paper along with it. "He calls it the Chain Spear. He used it a long time ago and says it's yours now. He left you instructions on how to operate it but that you have to teach yourself. One more thing."

Blaine pulls out a mask and hands it to Kary. "Kary, whatever path you walk now is up to you. Whether you simply wish to learn to harness your powers and live a normal life, or if you wish to go out and save the world, I will support you 100%. If you wish to go for option 2, use this. Every hero needs to keep her identity secret."

Kary takes the mask and metal box then hugs him. "I will, and I already know my path. I found Dad's library last night and discovered a lot. I am going to walk to path he wanted me to follow. I will make him proud. And I'll make you proud too."

Blaine gives her a pat on the head and takes off.

---

Present Day

Kary flashes back to reality and laughs at herself for reminiscing like that. She since learned his "business trips were really mission of some kind. She'd only seen her uncle once in the last year but had gotten plenty of letters and phone calls from him asking how she was doing. She was happy, he was supposed to stop by for the first time in about 7 months to say hi and she had so much to show him and even more to tell him. Stories of her adventures and how much she'd learned to do with her powers. She got giddy even thinking about it.

Jumping off her bed and walking to her bathroom, she twirls her hair and stares herself in the mirror.

"I'd never thought I'd say this, but I think it'd time for a change." She grabs the box of hair dye on her the counter and chucks it in the bin. The door bell rings and Kary takes off toward the front door. As she gets close, her smile turns to one of fear. What she senses beyond the door is not good. She flings the door open and sees her uncle in a pool of blood on the front porch. Her brother runs up behind her.

"Kary, is uncle Blaine here....oh my god."

Kary picks her uncle and carries him inside. "Jonathon, come with me, but don't tell mom what you're see."

Flipping a special switch on the wall, an offshoot of the main hallway opens up and descends. Kary carries Blaine down and steps him a table before proceeding to rummaging through cabinets at a blinding pace.

"4 stabs wounds, a collapsed lung, 4 broken ribs and a separated shoulder. He's in bad shape."

She begins to grab materials and throw them at Jonathon.

"Kary, what is this place?"

"Dad's workshop and study. I found it a few weeks after the incident."

Kary's finishes grabbing her supplies and gets to work.

"Good, no fragments in the stab wounds. This is going be messy. What? That's odd, his wounds clotted on their own. That makes this easier."

Kary takes a container of super glue and closes all the wounds. She begins to sense for more broken bones when the worst happens.

"No no no!"

Blaine's heart begins to fail and his breathing stops completely. Kary starts pumping down rapidly on his chest, which soon becomes full on punching tries to get his heart to restart. The table cracks under the force.

"Uh Kary, how strong are you?"

"Shut up Jonathon, save it for later!"

As her uncle lays dying in front if her, the once timid girl shows no tears, her heart resolved to never cry again.

"Okay, I'll try that even, if it I can't control it yet."

Kary places her hand over Blaine's heart and starts focusing her power through it. Both her hand and Blaine's chest begin to heat up, but it seems to have some effect. As Kary works, a crash is heard from upstairs.

"Oh shit I was paying attention. 5 men, heavily armed, all guns, none seem to be metas. What the hell did you do to piss somebody?"

Kary uses her free hand to throw her phone to Jonathon. "Who did this to uncle Blaine is now upstairs looking for him. We're safe for now, but we're going to need help since neither me nor him can fight as is. I need you to search through that and call Jaunt. Have him send whoever is available here right now.

Jonathon runs into another room to make the call. Kary continues to focus on restarting his heart for the next few minutes while her friends deal with the threat upstairs.

Kary builds up power in her hand before releasing it all at once. "This is all or nothing right now."

Kary releases one last burst into Blaine's heart. The table collapses under the pressure, Blaine hits the ground hard and coughs out a massive chunk of clotted blood. He opens his eyes and continues to cough up blood. All he sees is his blood stained niece hugging him.

"Oh thank god, you're alive." Kary breaks down into tears and starts sobbing. "Thank god."

Blaine winces as he can't fully suppress this. "Thanks a lot Kary, but can you tone down the death grip a little? Ribs are still broken."

Jonathon walks back into the room, followed by Anthony.

"Hey Kary, don't know what this is all about, but those 5 guys are talking a nice long slumber upstairs. Anything else you need?"

Kary shakes her head. "Anthony I could hug right now, but I'm a little bloody."

Anthony laughs. "I'll take a rain check, but you owe me one hug." He puts his fingers to his head and disappears.

Kary stands up and turns back to Blaine. "What should we do now?"

Blaine groans as he manages to pull himself up with is power. "For now, nothing. I'm in no shape to fight and I already know who those guys are. I got sloppy."

Kary washes her face and hands off then turns back to Blaine. "What do you mean? I want to know everything."

"There's a boy I look after. His name is Ethan and he has a very dangerous power. Both your chain spear and my Electro Blade were made by the same blacksmith. He also made Ethan. His skills were so refined and practiced he managed to breathe life into a weapon and gave it human form. This blacksmith also made thousands of other weapons that wield great power. Ethan's job is to hunt these weapons down and destroy them, yet since he is still only a kid, he does not know that yet. Some faction has discovered this and is hunting him down. Luckily I've hidden him and his family well and they don't know what he looks like. However, they managed to track me down. They did everything right. Threatened the boy, threatened you two, managed to exhaust a portion of my power and nullified another. I can't believe I let myself get so sloppy. Anyways, I'm going to take those guys and find out a few things from them. After I heal up, I'll be back in a few days to bring you with me for help. And one more thing Kary, what you did back there. That was impressive. You've come a long way in the past year. "

Kary smiles. "Woah, that was an info dump. Though I think I got the gist of it. Check this out."

Kary a pen out of her pocket and starts levitating it in her palm. "I think I've figured out what my gift truly is. I control waves and frequency."

Blaine stares in shock. "You grasped that all in one year? I'm impressed. Now I'm glad I didn't tell you day 1. I think learning on your own is what drove you to grow this much. Now, I've got to get going going."

Blaine floats out of the room and takes the men away. Kary turns to her brother. "Jonathon, about what just happened here..."

Her brother has tears in his eyes and runs off.

"Jonathon!" Kary tries to stop him but collapses from the shear exhaustion of over using her powers. After resting a few minutes she cleans up the workshop and surveys the damage upstairs.

"Well, I'm not going to be able to hide this from mom." Kary continues upstairs and looks at the mirror. Hey hair is disheveled, her eyes are red, and her clothes are completely ruined. She completely forgot to change out of her mission clothes when she got home.

"Great, now I need new stuff for missions."

---

March 3rd, 2006

Kary's hair dye has completely washed out and she has new clothes. The text from Blaine comes out one in the morning.

'1 hour, Lake Travis North side.'

Kary throws on her hood and mask then jumps out the window, taking off into the night. When she arrives at the lake, she's greeted by a fearsome mask.

"Well, that's ugly."

Blaine turns around and gives her a quiet gesture. "Quiet, we're on a mission now. Keep you're voice down, code names only. I'm not sure how your team does it, but right now, you're following my rules. If you call me anything other than Impact, we will have a problem. What's yours on your team?"

"Uh, uh.." 'Crap, I've never thought about a code name before.' Kary thinks for a few seconds before getting an idea. "Resonance."

Blaine nods. "Good choice. I like it. Let's move out."

The duo makes their way toward a large house near the mouth where the river meets the lake. Blaine stops.

"They have the 143rd sword in there. The detection blade. They will know we are coming, just not were from. So we have the element of surprise, but could be walking into an ambush. Luckily we'll both know. We'll enter together, and stay together. Do not split up if we can avoid it. I'm not in top shape, so I actually need your help."

Blaine unsheathes a blue blade from his side and it crackles to life. Kary stares at it as they advance on the house.

"What's that?"

"Sword 5. The Electro Blade. A sword that absorbs and releases electrical energy. I fought some asshole named Jackson a few months back. He would have killed me if not for this thing. I've never seen an electrical meta of his caliber before. But that's another story. Get ready, the house is just up there."

Kary gets her spear ready and follows close behind Blaine. As they approached the house, Blaine flies up to the roof and Kary floats up behind. "Nice trick kid. I'm looking forward to what else you got up your sleeve."

Blaine ribs the roof apart with TK and jumps in. "Knock knock."

4 men are in the room, they barely last 3 seconds. Blaine sliced two into tiny pieces and crushes another throat with a glance. Kary disarms hers and knocks him out. She turns around in shock.

"What....What are you doing?"

"Finishing what they started."

"No I can't do this." Kary jumps back out the hole and takes off across the lake.

"Damn it girl." Blaine starts to press on into the house but his ribs give him a problem and he senses something powerful below. "I guess I won't be finding any leads in this house."

Blaine flies out and begins to concentrate. The house soon begins to crumble under sheer telekinetic force. The crushed ball of wood, concrete and bodies is thrown into the lake and left to sink. Blaine turns to find Kary, but she's already out of his range. "Damn that girl is fast."

Blaine starts to head back to the house to explain.

---

By the time he gets back it's nearly 6 am. He walks up to Kary's room and prepares to knock.

"Come on in." Sounds out before he knocks. Blaine walks in and takes a seat.

"You were expecting me?

"No, I just couldn't get to sleep and sensed you coming." The girl looks up at him, her eyes red from crying.

"Why did you kill those men?"

Blaine sighs and stands up. He picks up Kary's new mask and eyes it. "Namazu huh? Japanese God of earthquakes. You always had a flair for the dramatic Kary."

Kary stares at him, eyes not wavering. "Don't change the subject."

Blaine laughs and sits back down. "Fine fine. When I first gave you that spear and mask. I told you I'd support you in which ever path you took. And I will. However I want to warn you. I've walked your path before. It is a long path, riddled with hardships. The bad guys don't play by the same rules as you. They won't spare you. They don't turn you over to the cops. They. Will. Kill. You. I want to make that perfectly clear."

Kary starts to speak up but Blaine quiets her.

"Let me finish. You put the enemy down and they get up. I put them down and they stay down. If you wish to take the path of a hero, I will support you all the way, but you need to think long and hard if it's worth it. I'll give you some time to make your choice."

Blaine stands up and walks out before Kary can respond. The girl has no words for what just transpired. She throws her blankets over herself and goes to bed, lamenting the choice to go out in the first place.