Burning Slow

Panic at the amusement park. Oh wait, change of plans.

"Why don't you kids go out tomorrow? The weather forecast said that it would be sunny tomorrow and you have been training non-stop." Greyson suggested, walking in the living room after the teens just arrived from another grueling training session. The only one who was smiling was Alex 'cause he was the one dictating them what to do.

"A break from training, why not?" Kenneth groaned, shrugging his shoulders to prove his point but he only managed to make a teeny shrug, barely noticeable, before his face scrunched up in pain.

"I'm really feeling like going to the amusement park though. Even with our aching bodies." Nick's voice was muffled 'cause his face was pressed to a pillow as he laid on his stomach on the sofa.

"Why not?" Ember backed him up.

"Ugh, more guys to be in my line of sight?" The familiar look of disgust on Astraea's face revealed itself again.

"Oh, c'mon it'll be fun!" Grace hyped, looking like a five year old. "Besides, we'll have so much fun, you won't even notice the guys."

"So amusement park tomorrow?" Greyson asked to confirm.

Alex looked at all his trainees. Since Astraea was the only one disagreeing to the idea, he nodded at Greyson.

"Alright then. Now everyone please proceed to the dining room, dinner is ready." He announced in a phony English accent, making the kids laugh. "After dinner, you guys can then take a shower then get to bed for your fun exciting day tomorrow." Greyson sounded like a toddler, he was almost bouncing on his toes but everybody knew that he wouldn't join them. He'd stay in the house and clean like he always did since Liz died, only leaving the house for major events.

*****

"Why don't we ride the non-exhilarating rides first?" Jacob suggested. Everybody in the group nodded and they all walked through the entrance of the park, instantly turning heads their way.

"Alright here's the plan, guys." They gathered in a circle, literally still at the entrance of the park.

"Three of us pair up with the three ladies over here," Nick pointed to them, "and-"

"Why is that?" Astraea cut him off, crossing her arms.

"Nick huffed. "-and for cutting me off, you are coming with me. Nathan you're with Grace, Rocco with Ember, the twins together, and finally Kenneth and Alex." He finished as he draped his arm on Astraea's shoulders.

"Why the hell am I stuck with you?" She harshly removed his arm from her shoulders.

"Stop complaining, woman." He groaned, placing his arm back on her shoulders. "This is to make up for your shitty behavior when we first met. And the rest of the couples aren't complaining, see?" He gestured his free arm to the others. "Blushing but not complaining. Just like you should be. You got the blushing down but you should work on the not complaining part."

"I am not blushing!"

"What did we say about the not complaining?" Astraea crossed her arms, frowning.

"Alright, that's better. Music to my ears, love. Let's hit the rides!" They all cheered, Nick and Astraea leading the way.

"Are we really that attractive? Sheesh, we've already turned all the heads in here and we've only been in for a couple minutes." James complained, noticing all the ogles that they were getting.

"There's actually an explanation for that." Everybody stopped in their tracks upon hearing Alex.

"Ugh, here we go again." Nathan groaned.

"You know what he's talking about?"

"You don't know?"

"Would I be asking if I did?"

"Sorry, Em." He scratched the back of his neck. "I'll let Alex and all his glory explain this." He added air quotations around the words his glory.

"Yeah, so while you were in the wombs of your mommies, you're powers are already swirling inside of you, yeah?" Everyone muttered out a 'sure' or a 'probably' or something else along those lines. "So you're powers helped sculp your Greek God or Goddess looks and along with that, you guys unknowingly release pheromones that make you a thousand times more appealing to normal humans."

"Normal humans? So we're not humans?" Kenneth questioned.

"I'm saying you're not normal." Alex rolled his eyes. "And with your looks compared to us 'mere mortals', some of us are actually lucky to have looks close to yours, such as moi." And cue the eye roll of Nathan and Astraea and Kenneth and basically everyone in the whole group except James who only heard Greek God, pheromones and appealing.

"Greek God? That actually sounds awesome." James voice out his thoughts. "I'm going to have to make Mason call me Greek God from now on."

"If he calls you that, he's going to have to call me that too."

"Nuh-uh. You're just my brother, I'm his boyfriend so shut up." And then, everybody audibly gasped.

"You have a boyfriend?" Ember asked. "I'm actually not surprised."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Alright guys, drop the fake surprised act." Grace instructed, making everyone chuckle. "Jacob told us a week ago, the first day we started training."

"You guys are cool with it?"

"Yeah, dude. Why? Should we not be cool about this?" Nick rhetorically asked.

"Well our town is pretty weird and I'm just used to having teenagers such as yourselves calling me a freak and all." he was looking at the ground, playing with the hem of his shirt while his brother had a hand on his shoulder.

"Change of plans then." Rocco announced. "Nick? Everybody in on this?"

"I'm definitely in. Time to put all that training to good use." Kenneth rubbed his hands together, a smirk forming on his lips. "And here I thought I was the only one who was itching to put the plan in motion."

"Do what?"

"Oh, just hold on to your twin." Nick smirked.

"Wait!" Astraea interrupted.

"What is it now?"

"Are we seriously going to teleport here?" She crossed her arms, placing her weight on one leg.

"To the bathroom area, guys. Come on." Ember and Rocco started to lead the way.

"Are we good now?" Nick narrowed his eyes at Astraea who then rolled her eyes as she nodded. "Alright, grab on everybody."

"Yo, where are we going?" James panicked.

"Don't worry this'll be fun."

And whoosh they went.

Nick opened his eyes to see all of his friends, sprawled on the hardwood floors, currently a groaning mess. All except for Grace.

"Why does it feel worse this time around?" Astraea groaned. "I was able to stomach it the first time." She added.

"f**k the word worse, this is the absolute worst. Am I bleeding?" Ember replied. "f**k, I think I am."

"Guys, you remember the phrase it gets worse before it gets better? That phrase applies perfectly to our mode of transportation which is me." Nick grinned.

"Now I'm suddenly itching to painfully wipe that stupid grin off your stupid face." Kenneth tried to stand up only to fail pathetically.

"Alright, let me just heal you guys." A light blue glow surrounded Grace's hands.

Nick stopped her from taking a step forward by blocking her with his arm. "We should let them live through this. I mean, we do want them to get used to this." He reasoned innocently.

"f**k you, dude." Jacob groaned.

Grace stood on her tippy toes, her lips aligned with Nick's ear. "Ember's bleeding." She whispered.

"Alright, heal her and my girl over there too." He agreed, winking at a groaning Astraea who didn't even have enough strength to curse at him or something.

After Grace healed the two ladies, they were now sitting on the beds of whoever owned them, staring at the still groaning boys.

"Is it really that bad?" Grace asked, itching to heal her friends but now there were three who were stopping her from being the healer.

"Oh you have no idea." Ember answered, rubbing her stomach. "I can't believe you made me bleed again." She slapped Nick on his shoulder.

"Ow!" He exclaimed. And everyone knew that it was painful by the loud resonating slap sound that they heard. Fortunately for him, the boys were too deep in pain to tease him.

"I think you broke my shoulder." He cried.

"I'm going to have to get a new shirt again." She frowned, completely ignoring Nick.

"You can borrow one from one of the twins, this is their home after all."

"Should we tend to that, Ember?" Grace asked, getting ready to fix Ember's wound.

"Maybe later."

"Yeah, so how long is this supposed to last?" Astraea gestured to the boys.

"About ten minutes."

The girls' eyes widened at this. "Ten minutes?!" They exclaimed.

"Yeah. This is just the second time, right?" The ladies nodded. "At this point, your bodies are recognizing the awesome sensation of teleportation and your brain starts to recognize this as something that will probably happen frequently- which it will- so it makes all the needed adjustments to cope with your cells being ripped apart and materialized together again, so your body wouldn't have to go through the same pain over and over again.

"I remember the second time I teleported. It hurt like fuck." He shuddered, reliving the memory.

"Anyways, I think you've noticed that it wasn't just your stomach that was hurting this time." Astraea and Ember nodded. "The more painful part was in the stomach that's for sure because for some reason, the large intestine is the hardest to reconstruct.

"But after this, by the third travel that we do, which would be later today, it should hurt less than the first time that you guys teleported."

And Nick's explanation lasted a whole five minutes with all his hand gestures and dramatizations. Now, they'll just have to wait for another five minutes before the pain that the boys are feeling fades away.

After a couple moping moments of the two unaffected and the two who were healed, they saw Kenneth attempting to stand up again while the rest were still wimps and refusing to get up.

"It's not as," he let out a muffled groan, "not as bad now." He finished, clutching his stomach.

Astraea stretched before walking over to the boys.

"Oy, Kenneth's fine now. Stand up." She ordered, kicking them lightly.

"Just because Kenneth's fine, doesn't mean we have to be." Alex responded.

"Stop being babies." Ember droned, playing with her hair as she laid on one of the two beds in the room.

"I distinctly remember... remember you gripping onto my arm, painfully I might add... Fuck... I might add, as you were experiencing the same amount of pain as us before Grace healed you two." Rocco groaned as he also attempted to stand up.

"Correction." The girl held up her finger. "I was experiencing twice the amount of pain you all were as you can see from my bloodied shirt. Oh! Speaking of, ey twins." She called.

"Yes?" The two groaned also now attempting to stand up.

"I need a shirt."

"James has tons of shirts but... But you can grab anything you want in any of the closets." Jacob told her.

Ember nodded, walking to the four closets, contemplating which she wants to open.

"Nathan, Alex, I'm going to have to agree with Astraea and Ember here." Grace sighed. "Can you two stand up so we can get started?" She offered her hands to them.

"Fine." The two grumbled, grabbing Grace's hand as they struggled to stand.

"Get started on what though?" James asked.

"Did anybody pack a spare gauze?" Ember walked back to the group, exposing the blood drenched gauze just below her sports bra.

At the sight of her in just her sports bra and skirt made Rocco all flustered. It also made Kenneth flustered but that's just because of zero experience with girls unlike Rocco 'cause you know, he's got a crush on her. But yeah.

"Of all the times that we've seen you bleed this past week, blood isn't such an issue for us anymore." James nodded, agreeing with his twin.

"I'm actually quite surprised that you're not squeezed out of blood. You probably already exceeded the five liter blood supply in your body like twice last week."

"What can I say? I'm awesome." Adding emphasis by flipping her hair back making everyone laugh.

"I think I have some gauze here." Astraea spoke, reaching into one of her portals. "Ugh, where is it?" She opened the portal wider, half her body in it, everybody hearing cluttering sounds.

"This is probably how Mary Poppin's got all her s**t inside her bag." Nick whispered to Rocco who nodded.

"Found it! Here." She handed Grace the gauze.

"Ember, hey!" Grace snapped her fingers in front of Ember's face who was staring at her bloody shirt the whole time with a frown on her face.

"Oh, sorry." Ember blinked. She laid down on one of the beds and Grace worked her magic on her, literally.

"You guys wouldn't mind if I bloodied this up too, would you?" She asked, adding emphasis on if.

"Not at all." The two answered at the same time.

"Anyways, going back. What are we getting started on?" James asked his previous question again.

"There's going to be a party later tonight and I'm sure that all of them are going to be there." Nathan announced making James groan out loud.

"Who's ready for some violence, my young trainees?" Alex smirked, cracking his knuckles.

"We are!" They all roared, except James who was sulking in a corner, his questions left unanswered.

*****

"More freaks, huh." A scrawny teenage boy greeted them once he saw James in the group.

All of them were annoyed at the flashing lights and the awful music blasting from everywhere in the house. It's basically a miracle that they heard the boy.

Ember quickly tied half her hair up and the far too large shirt right below the gauze, exposing her toned abs. To add a little more touch, she folded her skirt up a bit until it covered just enough of her butt. And nobody saw this as she was standing between all the tall boys.

She cut between the scrawny boy and Nathan- who was staring down at the boy- as she was twirling a piece of her hair.

"Well hello there, buttercup." The boy seductively called, placing a hand on Ember's exposed lower back and it took everything in her not to shiver at the feeling of disgust she felt at his touch. "What are you doing hanging out with freaks, sweetheart?" Ember internally grimaced at the smell of his breath and the stupid nicknames.

"I'd much rather hang out with you though." Ember replied, her voice heavily laced with seduction. She cupped her left hand on his right cheek, her other hand hanging loosely on her side.

Rocco was just about to pull her away from the boy but Jacob and Kenneth blocked his path.

"Stick to the plan." Jacob told him under his breath. Rocco huffed in defeat, tapping his foot against the floor, his eye twitching at the sight.

"Why the hell are we here?" James whisper-yelled at his friends, feeling his palms start to get sweaty.

"It's just a little violence, James." Alex answered with a smirk.

"I just found out that someone in the group of freaks-" everybody turned their heads to Ember as she stared deeply into the eyes of the boy- "isn't normal. Can you tell me which one of them is that?"

At this point, everybody in the house was already staring at the group. Most were forcing themselves to hate the gorgeous "freaks" while some were openly ogling and drooling over them "superior ones."

"None other than James Caddel, darling." James obviously stiffened at this and some of the boys' friends were laughing without shame, their laughter echoing throughout the house.

"Oh? Why is that?"

"He just isn't normal." The boy snarled, looking past Ember, his eyes narrowed at James who felt oddly small even though he was significantly taller than the boy.

"Well, guess what?" Ember pulled the boy's face closer to hers.

"What?" The boy smirked, his eyes fluttering close.

"James Caddel?" The boy replied with a hum. "He's practically my brother!" Ember harshly pulled away, kneeing him where the sun doesn't shine and punching his jaw with her right hand making him fall to the ground, a groaning mess.

Ember straddled the boy, raining punches on him. The boy couldn't even fight back, his punches barely fazing Ember.

Nobody expected this though. This wasn't part of the plan. The plan was to hit 'em once and leave with everybody's jaws on the floor.

Rocco was the first to act, pushing through Jacob and Kenneth.

"Little flame, hey, that's enough." He lifted her away from the boy who was already bruised and battered.

Ember was seething in anger, glaring at the boy.

"Plan in motion." Alex nudged Jacob.

In a second, the lights were out, screams echoing in the house. Words made from fire formed on top of the group, spelling out 'Yup, we're freaks.'

The lights were back on and everyone saw the smirks plastered on the gorgeous faces of the "freaks." Again, except James who was crying tears of joy.

"Nobody will mess with my brother ever again, alright?! Or else you'd have to deal with us freaks." Jacob growled, his voice being heard in the whole house.

And with that, they disappeared into thin air, leaving everyone's jaws on the floor.

All according to plan.