Two of a Kind- Chapter 1

Somewhere along the west coast, the peace of mid-day was shattered like so much fine china by a scream, not unlike bloody murder.

Ashley Camus looked up from her book, directing her glance at her sister, who was furiously throwing things out of the boxes that many of their shared possessions were still held within. "Elly, I'm not sure that th' screamin's appropriate fer just losin' yer socks. Ya got another pair right ove' there." A moment later, she had to avoid an inbound shoe. Her sister Elliot Camus (Older by three minutes, thank you very much) glared for a moment, and continued overturning boxes. "This ain't about th' socks, y' eedjit. 's about my stuff. Y'know, th' stuff you're always messin' with!"

Ashley, or Ash for short, rolled her eyes, marked her page and rolled off the bed. "Didja check the drawers?" "Yes I checked th' drawers!" "Closet?" "I checked th' bloody closet!" Ash shook her head in irritation. "Th' yellin' really isn't helpin' anyone." And again, she found herself dodging a shoe; the first's opposite member. "Jes' shut up an' help me find 'em!" Elly screamed.

By the time they were done, Elly had over turned every box that wasn't unpacked, still with no success. Ash had taken it upon herself to check among the things already unpacked. A moment later, she held a bundle to her sister, a smug grin on her face. "Oooh yeah, y' sure gave th' drawers a good look over for yer precious socks."  Elly snatched her socks, sat heavily on her bed, and began to pull them on. "I bet y' put 'em there on purpose jus' t' make me look like an arse." Ash slumped back onto her own bed, picking up her book again. "Yeah, 'cos you really need my help fer that."

Elly slipped into her boots, and laced them up quickly. "Shut yer hole already. I'm headin' into town, tell Jack I'll be home when I damn well feel like it. An' clean up th' damn room, it's a bloody mess."

Ashley only hoped that Elliot saw the single finger she had thrown up as her sister slammed the door shut.

---

Hours later, Elliot walked through the twilight of the farmlands, spitting every so often as she went. Not for any particular reason; she just hated this place. America was an ugly country, with ugly cities and ugly farms around it. Why had her mum seen fit to send them to live with their cousins? Because of the war? What a stupid reason.

She continued to trudge, cursing the distance of the bus stop to her cousin's farm house. She still had a good mile to walk, but such was the price of going to the city to try and find some sort of social outlet. She had gone and prettied herself up today, too. She had her combat boots, lucky mismatched green and red striped socks, black jean shorts with the studds and chains, and her best tank top. She wasn't part of the 'punk' crowd, she just liked the way it looked on her. And in her opinion, for an Irish lass of 15, she carried the look well.

"Dumb ol' yanks'. She muttered as she walked, the land around her growing ever darker. "Ain't got no idea of th' world outsida their own." She sneered, remembering one boy in the crowd she tried to join in the mall, asking if she wanted 'another shrimp on the barbie'. What a tool.

She shook it off, continuing her walk. Dodging the occasional car, she glanced skyward...Same old stupid sky. Same old stupid stars. ...Except that big, green one that seemed to be coming closer...and closer...

The land around her was bathed in a green light, as the star continued its decent. She watched, backing up without really realizing it, and falling into a ditch in the process. The star split in two, one landing much further down on the path...And one maybe two hundred yards away, in some crotchety old farmer's field.

The chance was too good to pass up, space aliens or zombie plagues be damned.

She dropped her book bag and dashed into the field. She was greeted by the smell of burning crops, and had to dodge the occasional fire. All in all, though...It was smaller than it looked. Much smaller.  There was a short groove cut into the ground where the space-rock had come down, and a two foot hole where it now laid to rest, glowing a soft green.

She smiled to herself, kneeling- And eventually laid flat on her front- To reach down to it. The air here smelled heavily of ozone, and the hairs on her arm were standing on end...But she had it in hand.

Pulling it out, she sat up, cupping it in her hands. Despite the summer heat, she could tell it was radiating a pleasant warmth. And just holding it...It was like the butterflies in her stomach evolved into some sort of monkey-like creatures, and were doing circus tricks. Just imagine the price she could fetch for this on E-Bay!

She stood, intending to make her way back to the road before any crotchety old shot-gun wielding Yank redneck came about to check on the source of the fires. In doing so, however, her treasure began to crack, and crumble away. Just great, she thought. A million euro chunk of space rock the size of a baseball, reduced to dust.

She looked at the glowing green dust on her hands, and dusted it off on her pants, muttering a few choice words while heading back to the road. Still...She couldn't shake the butterflies in her stomach. Or the weird feeling she was beginning to get in her body. She stopped a good distance from the road- And a fair deal away from the landing sight- To take a breather.

That's when she noticed that something was definitely wrong.

The green dust she had wiped on her pants...Had turned a deep red. And was spreading. And spreading quickly.

She choked back a scream as the red overtook her jeans, and began spreading down her legs. As it did, she found her clothes becoming..Tighter. Quite form fitting, in fact. And it took on a rubbery shine that was..Oddly pleasing. As the red patches consumed her legs and overtook her calves, she noticed it turned black. And was also making it's way up.

It continued up her belly, crawling over her shirt, and leaving black 'underpants'...Not unlike a super hero's costume. The substance found it's way onto her arms, which she found herself flexing, and continued up her neck...And still, she could not bring herself to panic. It creeped up all sides of her face, ending just a little onto her chin in the front, and crawling up over her ears, forming small lumps there, and then branching out over her face. Her vision was momentarily obscured by the rubbery substance covering her eyes, then turning transparent. Finally, something snaked from the small of her back, looping around her waist- A golden, metallic construct of a belt, with a decently sized E serving as the buckle.

It took her a moment to get her bearings, but when she did, Elliot couldn't help but grin like a lunatic. She knew perfectly well how she looked, and she couldn't have been happier with the final result. Her boots remained intact, though now changed to their red, rubbery substance, they still gave her a bit of height and carried substantial heft in and of themselves. Red leggings, black underpants, red top, flared black gloves, black mask, all with the same rubbery look and feel.

She grinned to herself, putting her hands on her hips. "Yeah, I can work wit' this."

-----

Ashley really did enjoy it when her sister went to town. Between that, her cousin working all night and sleeping all day (Not that she had any idea what Cousin Jack actually did), and his wife away on business, it made the little farm house a quiet little place to read. She sighed to herself, flipping the page and getting the porch swing a little more momentum, savoring the chance to bury herself in a good book. Sophie Daniels was, after all, one of her favorite novelists these days.

As she reached for another sip of her iced tea, however, her quiet was shattered. First there was a loud airborn roaring, like the jets at the airport they had flown in to. Then an earth-shattering kaboom, or close enough to it. Whatever it was, it caused the house to shake, throwing her right out of the swing, and tossing her iced tea onto the floor.

She got up, checking herself, then her book. "What the heck was that?" She put her book down, not even bothering to mark the page (She'd find it again later), and stepped down off the porch, intent to looking around. The thought had occurred to her to get a flashlight, but there was still plenty of twilight for her to see what had just happened.

It took a few minutes of walking, and she wasn't technically on her cousin's property anymore, but she found it. Scattered around were a few smoldering fires from the dry summer grass that had lit. It appeared to her as if something had fallen out of the sky...Some glowing chunk of rock. Looking at it made her feel giddy, this was something that belonged in a museum, and she had found it herself.

She grabbed it up, thinking little about the fact that this chunk of mineral had caused the land around her to smolder. She held it in hand, sitting on her knees and basking in it's soft glow. And a thought came to her- This rock wouldn't survive another ten minutes, let alone a trip to a museum. And something else had worked it's way into her head, now that she had the stone in hand. Something she couldn't ever truly explain.

She grinned, and crushed it in her fist.

-----

Before she had realized it, Elly had spent the last half hour posing, and looking over how she looked in her new garment. She noticed that it made her appear more muscular than she really was. Granted, not like a body builder or anything, but for a girl her age, it made her look...Fit. And she definitely felt stronger to reflect it. The mask seemed to be improving her night vision, too. Despite the fact that it was fully dark and she was in the middle of nowhere, she could see just fine. And once she had something to listen to, she found the lumps over her ears helped her there, too.

She turned quickly when she heard two men speaking quietly to one another, and squatted low, trying to get a look. She turned her focus towards the landing sight where she found the rock, and noticed two men. The first was a very tall, very slim African American man with one of those odd hairstyles from the 70s, like their hair tried to explode. The other was of average height, and balding. Both wore black suits, with ties. She figured they'd probably have to be pretty hot on a night like tonight, and noticed that despite being almost fully covered by her new suit, she was actually quite comfortable. But she put that out of her mind, and focused her attention on them.

"HQ says that it was first sighted a couple days ago." The tall man said. "They thought we'd have another couple of days to calculate the landing, but it seems like it sped up over time." The average man grunted, and pulled out a small beeping device, sweeping it around the area. "It was definitely here...Was, at least."  Afro-man nodded back, taking a surveying glance around. "That means someone got to it before us. Do you think it was..?"

The average man held a finger up to his partner, and looked in Elly's direction. She began to back away; fairly sure she was found out. It was when both men worked out their flash lights that she decided it was time to get going. She stood as one of the beams caught her, and started moving as fast as she could back towards the road...Faster than she remembered she could.

"There! There they are!" The average man yelled. She heard a horrible, familiar sound, the sound of guns clicking. Her blood ran cold as she became aware they were going to shoot at her for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But all she could do was continue to run, hoping that their aim was hampered by the deep darkness that had surrounded them.

She heard two pops..Weaker than she remembered them, but still gunshots none the less. She held her breath and hoped...

..But it was too much to hope for. She felt too sharp pains in her back, and very strange all over.  Time slowed down as she tried to cope with the fact that she had been shot. Two lumps formed on her front side, one up near her chest, the other on the side of her stomach. She studied them for a moment in her slow-time universe...And then time caught up with her.

She let her breath out all at once, caught completely off guard by what happened. Other than a momentary pain, and those lumps forming on her, then bouncing right back...She was completely fine. The bullets bounced right off. She slowed without meaning to, trying to figure herself out. "Watch it, it's a Reactor!" The tall man's shouts brought her back to reality. She glanced over her shoulder at them, and began running again. But she needed to go faster.

She ran, and felt that funny feeling again. Her legs began to move faster, stretching out and covering more ground. But she didn't have time to think about it; she was only moving about forty miles an hour, and she was pretty sure a bullet would be able to catch her.

She reached the road where she left it, one of her arms lashing out and scooping up her book bag some 15 feet away. She whipped it onto her back, and turned to be running with the road itself. She furrowed her brow, and dove forward into a hand spring, throwing herself up into a flip and shaping her body into an awkwardly shaped ball. She landed on her backside, and bounced off into the night.

This was the coolest thing that had ever happened to her.

----

Ash didn't take nearly as long posing as her sister did.

After the substance had covered her and gone, she found her clothes had changed, and although it was...Something of a statement, it wasn't terribly bad. Blue leotard over white leggings, white gloves and blue boots, along with a black mask and a very short cape. None of that interested her much, though. What did was the sudden recollection of things she had read and forgotten years ago, and a vague understanding of what had happened to her.

It would get noisy there soon. She was sure of it. She crouched down low, and tensed every muscle in her body. She sprang up, releasing the tension, and shot herself well up into the air.

Granted, her new abilities didn't include flight, but she could certainly wing it some. She stretched her body out, flattening it like a sheet, and began to drift down slowly to give herself some time to think. She could see them, below her. A convoy of cars, and one large truck, heading for the field her stone landed in. They'd be disappointed when they didn't find anything, but it would have deteriorated by then anyway. Moreover, she couldn't let herself be found. She wasn't entirely sure why, but she couldn't.

If nothing else, Ash had been given a gift, or even several depending on how one saw it. She had to be careful, though. She couldn't let anyone know about it. Not even Elliot...Who would probably just make fun of her for turning into some rubber bodied...Thing. She would do what good she could...But she certainly didn't want to get caught up in their affairs. She sighed, angling herself towards her current home, and began to drop faster. It was going to be a long night, and she had a lot of thinking to do...And a book to finish.

----

The men who had shot at Elliot stood in perfect silence beside the sleek black car that had just pulled up. They were in for a reaming, they were sure of it. The door slowly opened, and the man who both would knew would probably be the death of them stepped out.

Agent Ezekiel "Don't Call Me Zeke" Matthers was a seasoned veteran to this sort of thing by now. He had hunted God only knew how many Reactors, and bested many more in various forms of single combat. He was the best. Agent Matthers stood five feet, eleven inches tall. His hair was neatly combed and well taken care of, black with a streak of white that some said was simply his hair losing color, others said it was the scars of a fight with an Omega level Reactor. He ran a hand along his face, feeling his stubble while he spoke on his cell phone.

"Yes. Yes. One reactor, at least. No sir. No sir. Two pieces, neither obtained. ..Yes sir. Yes sir. My apologies, Director. I'll have a full report in an hour and the reactor by sundown tomorrow. Yes sir. Yes, sir. Thank you sir." With that, Agent Matthers folded his phone and replaced it in his pocket, sighing. He glanced at the two like a man glances at a dog who hasn't learned to stay off the sofa yet. "So, what do you have to say for yourselves?"

The tall man opened his mouth, and almost got a word out before Matthers silenced him. "Nothing. You have nothing. And you will continue to have nothing until we find that Reactor, and what ever's left of that meteorite. The Director has given you twenty-four hours, gentlemen." He continued, pulling back his sleeve to check his watch. "I'm giving you twelve."

Both men nodded, and hurried away. Matthers leaned against his car, taking in the hot night air. This one was going to be a big one; he could feel it.

----

It was nearly midnight by the time Elly had managed to get inside of the house, although she had gotten home about an hour before hand. It had taken some doing to figure out how to get her new costume to revert to her normal clothes (And vice-versa), and a little experimentation to make sure she still had her new superpowers when unsuited (She did, but they were drastically weaker). Still, she did her best to look casual as she returned to the twin's shared room. Ash was still there, still reading the same book from the looks of it. Elly slumped down on her bed, exhausted and already half asleep. "Y'moved th' entire time I've been gone, ya dosser?"

Ash looked up from her book for a moment, mildly irritated by the distraction from her thoughts. "Yeah. I rolled over a couple o' times. ..Anythin' interestin' happen t'night?" She asked, returning to her book.

Elliot paused from pulling off her boots for a moment, before slowly, carefully responding. "..Nae..How 'bout you?"

Ash grinned to herself, putting up her book for the night. "Nae. Nothin' 'round 'ere, either."

Both laid back in their beds, reaching in unison to click off their lights.

"If only she knew."