Feeling Hollow But Heartfelt

Spectre peeks around the corner and sighs audibly when she sees the training room is empty. She steps through the doorway and her usual purple outfit has been replaced with an all white one. She walks over to the simulator and begins twisting the knobs.

Click click click click click.

As she walks away the camera pans down to show three knobs; one labelled “Enemies: 3”, the second labelled “Difficulty: Elite”, and the third one labelled “Duration: Failure”.

She takes a deep breath and quickly steps through the door, dropping her sai in the same motion. With practiced steps she begins jabbing and circling the three holograms that appear before her, dodging their weapons and ripping at their clothes with her weapon's sharpened blades.

Amber sits on her bed, arms behind her head and legs up as she watches something on her TV, a pile of Sailor Moon anime DVDs stacked next to the TV. She finishes an episode before picking up the remote and turning the TV off. She signs. She sits up and gets off of the bed, stretching her arms.

“Nothing still hasn’t come up. This new year has been very quiet so far. I should take that as a good thing but... I don’t know. It just feels weird not fighting crime for once.” She paused for a moment. “Maybe I should do some training. I need to practice just in case.” She gets up from her bed and starts making her way towards the training room.

Spectre keeps striking at the villains before her, sweat pooling on her face. Her arms and legs are nicked in too many places to count and her movements have slowed considerably, she jabs forward and pauses for moment to pant as the hologram fades away... And then, the other two are upon her: she spins around, lost in the heat of battle as a replacement figure is slowly generated.

Amber continues making her way towards the training room. She seemed to be intensely thinking about something. “I haven’t seen Spectre in a while. I hope she’s doing ok. She’s been awfully quiet recently.” She thought to herself as she finally arrived at the training room. She stood in front of the training room door and slowly starts to open it.

"Kiyah!" Spectre leaps forward, dematerializing another hologram. She lands on her feet and runs at another one; a flurry of jabs from her sai quickly backs it into a corner. She steadies herself as she aims for the kill, but the other enforcer strikes her in the back. She stumbles back and leans on the wall to steady herself. She finds herself surrounded as she looks up, eyes darting between the 3 villains.

Amber walks into the room and as soon as she looks around the room, she sees Spectre. Her eyes widened in shock. “Spectre?! What are you doing?!”

Spectre continues sizing up her opponents, ignoring Amber’s exclamation, she crouches and pulls her arms in.

Amber stands there in shock, her eyes still widened. She stares at Spectre, suddenly realising the outfit she is wearing. The outfit she was wearing wasn’t her normal outfit. It was Hollow’s. She starts to look scared. “Spectre....?” She calls out, with slight fear in her voice.

Spectre turns at the noise, she flashes a thumbs up at Amber. "You're coming to train too?" She calls out, before ducking out of the way of an enforcerer's blade.

Amber just looks at her. “What....? No! I mean... I was but...what are you doing wearing THAT?!” She points to Spectre’s outfit.

Spectre grins beneath her mask. "It's uh... sleek don't you think?" The last word is punctuated with a loud thrust forward and a short spurt of blood from the hologram before her.

“No! No it is not! Do you have any idea what you’re wearing?! That’s Hollow’s outfit! I thought you got rid of it!” Amber exclaimed in confusion.

“Well I mean, it fits well. And it looks pretty nice. And it motivates me to work harder". Again she punctuates the sentence with a strike, this one through a hologram's chest. It crumples to the ground wheezing pitifully before disappearing.

“Spectre! Stop fighting and talk to me!” Amber yelled at her. “It doesn’t matter if it looks good or fits nicely on you. I’m asking WHY you have it! Don’t you remember what Freya Winters did to you?!”

"I can't stop fighting silly, the simulation is still on and I'll get hurt!" She stumbles forward right into one of the enforcers' blades as if to highlight the danger.

Amber signs and walks over to the knobs and turns off all the dials, turning the simulation off.

Spectre collapses to her knees immediately, panting heavily. "So. What's. Up?" She eventually chokes out.

“What’s up? Seriously? What’s up?! You have no idea what I’m trying to say here don’t you?” Amber stated to her.

"I uh... really don't..."

“Well if you were listening to me then maybe you would know! I will ask again. Why are you wearing that outfit?!”

"I thought I could use a change in color..." She kinda trails off. "Why is it such a big deal to you anyway?"

“Again you didn’t hear me the first time! That’s Hollow’s outfit! Why are you wearing it?! Why would you wear something that someone forced you to wear when they were trying to turn you into a mindless soldier?!”

"I mean it works right? And it fits me so it'd be a shame to toss.. And the material on it is great right!" She looks away quickly, avoiding Amber’s gaze.

“Spectre.....what’s going on? Is there something you’re not telling me?” Amber asked her.

"Nope! Everything's just peachy! Some people get captured by GREY and get experimented on and come out the other side with superpowers. And others end up like me 'I got experimented on by GREY and all I got is this lousy costume'. But hey, it's not like you'd know anything about that. It's not like any of you Big Team folk would... I don't know if even Super Crisp gets that… I could barely even take on 3 enemies in there. But people like you? Like Challenge? Like Lav? Hesperus? Parrot? Anyone else? You could set it to 20 and just.. win against that".

She looks wistfully at the dials. "And I have to push myself to fight more than one..."

“Are you serious?! Are you saying that you want to be experimented on by GREY just so you could get superpowers?! Is that seriously what you want?!” Amber exclaimed.

"Of course I don't WANT it! But since I got experimented on anyway... the least they could do was give me real powers, right?"

“Then why are you constantly going on about how great everyone is because they have powers?! Not every superhero in the world has powers! Super Crisp lost his powers and he’s one of the greatest superheroes ever! You don’t need powers to become a great hero!”

"Super Crisp had powers when he was a great hero! He was one of the greatest heroes of all time BECAUSE he had powers! He stopped a meteor from destroying the world! Meanwhile, I stopped... you from having a training session. At least Hollow did things you know? Maybe she didn't do GOOD things. But she COULD do things. Which is more than I can say for myself." She turns to go, tucking her sai under her arms.

“No! Don’t you dare say that Spectre! Hollow was a monster. A mindless soldier that obeyed every order she was given. That’s not who you are! You’re a hero, not a monster. Why would you want to be something that destroys and kills, not save people?!”

"Because maybe Hollow could do that! Because Spectre can't destroy, kill or save ANYONE. Because no matter what I try to do, I just pretend. At the end of the day I'm just Johnny Smith." He unwraps his face. "Because maybe learning to be more like Hollow is the only way for me to actually be a hero. Because Spectre has done what? Nothing. Because I just want to help, to contribute, to be useful. And you know? Maybe even if I can't do good, at least Hollow can do something.”

“No! Don’t you fucking dare! Don’t you dare say that! Hollow is a monster! But you’re not! You’re not meant to kill anyone! It doesn’t matter if you don’t have powers. Anyone can be a great hero if they tried hard enough. So don’t you dare say to me that you’re useless!” Amber walked over to Johnny and grabbed his shoulder.

"Amber you don't get it do you? You have your powers and you use them without a care. You don't ever have to prove you're a real hero because nobody asks that question." He tries to wriggle out of her grasp. "Let go of me!" He cries out.

“No! Of course I understand! I’m your girlfriend after all! You just don’t understand what I’m trying to say!” Amber keeps holding on tightly. “Johnny! Stop! Please!”

He spins around and instinctively drops the sai into his hands. "I said get off!" He cries out as he strikes at her arm. As he sees the sai rip her skin and draw blood, he drops the sai in shock. Wordlessly, he turns and starts running.

Amber falls to the floor, gripping her bleeding arm. Blood drips onto the floor, pouring out of her ripped arm. She cries out in pain. “Johnny! Where are you going?! Johnny!!!” She tries to stand up but she falls back down, her arm feeling numb.

With a yawn, Gwen comes out of the bathroom. Still in her pajamas late in the day, making full use of that permission slip Cyclone had promised to skip school, and a head full of bed hair. She set one step and immediately ducked backwards into the bathroom door as Johnny ran past her through the hallway. "Woah, watch it--Spectre?!"

She stared down the hallway after Johnny, then heard faint yelling coming from the other end, where he had come from. "Oh dear, has the ReSpect ship hit an iceberg?"

Gwen walked towards the training room, following the sound, pointy ear perking up and peeking through her hair. She sticks her hands through the door first and waves before entering. "Hey, Amber, sorry it's ju--" and then she sees the blood. "Oh FUCK, Amber, FUCK, what happened?!" She calls out as she runs towards her and falls down on her knees beside her, reaching out to put her hands on the wound.

Amber looks up at Gwen, tears running down her cheeks. “Gwen! Johnny, he.....he hurt me! We were arguing and he....he..” She looks down at her arm, still bleeding from the wound. “I can’t feel my arm....”

Oh shit oh shit oh shit shit SHIT. Gwen's mind was racing. Teammates had gotten hurt in fights before, but not as badly as this. Amber looked several shades paler than normal. She took the edge of her shirt and tore it, ripping off a long piece, and wrapping it around Amber’s arm and tying it up. "You're gonna be okay, Amber! You're gonna be okay! Let's get you out of here and to... shit, I don't know first aid! JOHNNY!"

Gwen took a deep breath. "JOHNNY YOU BETTER BE GETTING A MED KIT! Okay Amber, c'mon, c'mon..." She dialed 911 and put it on speaker phone, before lifting Amber up and carrying her bridal-style. "Keep pressure on the wound. C'mon Amber, you're gonna be okay. JOHNNY!"

Amber gripped her arm after Gwen had tied up the wound. She was still crying from what had happened. “I can’t believe..... Johnny he.....why?” Clearly she was still in shock from what happened.

In this tense situation, Gwen's senses tuned out the rest of the world. She carried Amber as she walked as fast as possible towards the exit of the base. She thanked the gods that they at least had reception down here due to a great communication network and that she got through to a 911 operator. She gave a nearby address and told them that her sister had had an accident and had fallen on something sharp. The operator said they would stay on the phone until help would arrive. She yelled for Johnny a few more times. When they got to the elevator shaft, she put her phone in her pocket and summoned Nimue to transform, intending to fly up the elevator shaft.

Amber looked up at Gwen, tears drying on her face. She had remained silent the entire time, just quietly crying as she continued holding pressure on her wound. Then she spoke. “Sis.......don’t leave me alone....please...”

Putting Amber down for a moment so she could transform, Gwen shakes her head. "I'm not going to leave you, Amber. I'll stay with you for as long as I can."

The next hour flies by as Gwen busts open the elevator door, flies Amber up and out of the warehouse and waves down the ambulance when it arrives. Amber is put on a stretcher and Gwen sits opposite of the EMT taking care of her, holding Amber’s good hand while wearing gloves she received from the EMT. She talks to the EMT and ends up saying that she herself is on the Big Team, that she'll make sure the medical bills will get paid no matter how. The wound is deep and has pierced some vital blood vessels. At the hospital, Amber is carted off for surgery. Gwen drops down on a bench outside in the hallway and buries her face in her hands for a few minutes, before reaching for her phone and dialing Spectre's phone number to get her to come over.

Johnny's phone rings once, twice, thrice. Eventually he tentatively answers. "H-hello?"

Gwen takes a deep breath. "Spectre, this is Gwen. I don't know what happened, but I need you to come meet me right now. Can you do that?"

"Where are you?"

"I'm at the hospital. Amber's in the OR. First floor."

"Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck" He hangs up.

Gwen sighs and lowers her hand. After a few moments, she texts Johnny the hospital's name and address.

"ill keep u up2date if anything changes"

Eventually, Johnny walks through the doors and scans the room, locking eyes with Gwen as he heads over. "So uh... I really screwed that one up huh?"

Gwen lifts her head from her hands and looks at Johnny. She pats the spot on the bench beside her. "Come here," she says. "I'm not going to downplay your fuckup, but I'm not blaming you... yet. Tell me what happened."

"So uh... I stabbed Amber." He looks down and ahead as he says that.

"And why did you do that, Johnny?"

He brings his hands up to his face. "Mmmumm ummm" He mumbles into them. "I'm sorry..." He finally says as he puts his hands down.

"Hey," Gwen slides closer to Johnny and puts an arm around him. "Hey, hey now... talk to me. I know you would never hurt Amber on purpose. She's going to be okay, she's being taken care of. You don't have to apologize to me, I'm not blaming you. You can talk to her when she's out of the OR. But please, tell me... what's going on with you?"

"I just... wanna be cool like you, like her, like... everyone. And every time I try I just end up hurting people, Amber more than most" He buries his head in hands and heaves. "H-how bad is she?"

Gwen rubs Johnny's arm softly. "She's... I don't know how bad it is. She'll make it, but I don't know how long it will take to recover full use of her arm."

She shook her head. "Look Johnny. Is... is this about you not being super powerful? You do know that most of the team is like that, right? Heck, I'm honestly surprised that with everything we've done that I haven't ended up in the hospital multiple times. You are cool. Everybody has a different way to be cool. You're a lot smarter than I am, and only one of us on this bench could ever sneak into a GREY facility and get out without being spotted. I think me tripping that alarm yesterday proves that."

"Yeah but literally ANYONE could do that! You just gotta get lucky, like I do... I thought I could do the cool bomb disposal thing, but every time I've tried I've just made it worse. And Hollow? I mean GREY gave you super cool powers, and a sweet sword and wings and stuff, but all I got was a white costume and these stupid sai that hurt Redstreak... I just... I wanna be like you, doing the impossible! Flying! Retrocognition! Shooting exploding lasers from my fingertips! Instead I just, get to pretend to be like you folks for a bit, then I gotta go back to being boring ole Johnny. Redstreak just... She means so much to me... and I love her... and I just hurt her because I'm trying to be someone I'm not... At the end of the day, I'm not Hollow, I'm not Spectre I'm just... Johnny" He stands up. "Can you let me know when she's out? I can't be here right now..."

When Johnny said GREY gave her 'super cool powers', Gwen's grip tightened on him, but he seemed to not notice before he slipped out to try and leave.

"Hold up there, you fucking gremlin," Gwen said in an icy tone as she shot up and reached for him to grab a fistful of Johnny's clothes to keep him from leaving.

"How dare you insinuate that GREY ever did a good thing for me. What GREY gave me wasn't powers. My sword, my retrocognition? Nothing to do with 'em. All they gave me was a shit ton of abuse and a fear of needles. I lost my family as a result of what they did. Do you have ANY idea how fucking LUCKY you are? Heck, to top it all off, you get to go home at the end of the day and leave it all behind! You don't have kids at school ostracizing you because you got caught on camera running into a burning building and destroying vehicles in fights with GREY. You don't have journalists comparing you to your father and speculating what it will take for you to become a criminal like him. My sword? Yeah, Nimue gives me powers, but she talks to me a lot too. A lot of it is supportive, but a lot of it is chiding and controlling. My retrocognition? Every time I want to use it on someone, I have to assess whether it's worth it. Whether I want to experience the same pain that another person has. When you asked me to use it on you months ago, I had to convince myself it was for the greater good, that I could bear the pain of whatever they had done to you. That I could relive my OWN pain all over again. Hollow is not you. Hollow is what GREY wants you to be. A mindless puppet good only for fighting. How the fuck is that a good thing? Spectre at least can do more than fight. Spectre can lead a team. Spectre can hop across snowmobiles racing up the side of a mountain. Spectre has friends and allies that care about her and rely on her. Johnny has a girlfriend who cares about him. And," with a sharp breath, Gwen lets go of the boy.

"And Johnny can comfort his girlfriend after she's had surgery. Because he's a good and kind boy who acknowledges his fuckups and tries to do better."

"I... I'm sorry Gwen... I didn't mean to imply that, and I guess you're right, I guess it is up to me to do better." He sits down but avoids eye contact. "The outfit does look pretty cool though, right?"

Gwen sits down again next to Johnny and gives him a glaring side-eye, before leaning back against the wall and looking ahead. "You look cool," she muttered. She didn't want to admit that the outfit looked cool and make it seem like dressing like Hollow seemed like a good idea to her.

After half an hour had gone by, both Gwen and Johnny were told that Amber was out of surgery. The doctor led them to the room where Amber was. As soon as they stepped in, Amber was there lying in a hospital bed wearing a hospital gown. Attached next to her were wires connected to a heart monitor, constantly beeping. Amber’s chest rose up and down slowly as she slept. On the chest of draws next to the bed was a pile of Amber’s clothes, all cleaned and neatly folded.

Gwen sits down on one side of the bed and reaches for Amber’s hand, then stops before she touches it, and withdraws her hand again, remembering what happened last time. She reaches inside the pocket of her sweatpants and pulls out the gloves she got from the EMT in the ambulance, puts them on, and then grabs Amber’s hand.

Johnny walks in and glances at Amber, his own chest rising and falling in time with hers. He walks over to the injured side and softly strokes her cheek. "I'm sorry" He whispers.

Amber groans a little in her sleep as Johnny strokes her cheek. Her grip tightens on Gwen’s hand as that happens.

Gwen squeezes Amber’s hand gently, sucks in a breath, and looks at Johnny.

Johnny kneels down and leans into Amber’s face. "Listen, I'm sorry about what happened. I'm sorry I hurt you. I'm sorry I tried to be like Hollow. I'm sorry that I'm screwing up all the time. I just really need you to be OK right now..." A tear rolls down his face.

Amber groans a bit more and her eyes open. She looks at Johnny. “Johnny......?” She lifts up her injured arm to touch Johnny’s cheek where the tear was. “You’re crying....”

Gwen smiles a little, her expression understanding. She lets go of Amber’s hand. “I’ll let you two talk.” She says, standing up and leaving the room.

Johnny leans down and grips Amber. "I'm glad you're ok" He chokes out.

Amber looks at Johnny holding his cheek. “Am I....” She looks around. “In the hospital?”

"Yeah... yeah you are, they said you'd be ok, probably a bit of pain for now, but ok. Amber, I don't know what I can do to make up for this..."

Amber slowly sits up, wincing a little due to her arm. She pauses for a moment and looks back at him. “Johnny......”

"Yes?"

“Why......are you so desperate to become something else? Why can’t you just appreciate what you have...? I do so much for you.....but....after all that, I just get hurt in the end....”

"I'm sorry Amber, I'm sorry... I just... I want to be cool, I want to be like you folks. I want to be a hero, and what kind of a hero doesn't have powers? I'm sorry that I hurt you, and I understand what this means for us. I love you, but... You're right, I just end up hurting you." He turns to leave. "Goodbye Amber"

Amber looks shocked. “Wait!”

Johnny stops and turns around. “Yeah?"

Amber looked nervous. “Johnny..... I... I understand what you mean. I....know how you feel. I have powers but...... I’m not like the others either. I’m just....an experiment... A freak created by GREY... There are times where I feel like I don’t belong... So I understand exactly how you feel! I know you always screw up, but I screw up too! I’ve made mistakes just like you! I love you and I.....” Amber starts to cry. “I just want you to be happy! I don’t like seeing you like this! It hurts me to see you suffer. I just want to do everything I can for you! Because I love you, no matter who or what you are! So please....don’t leave me! I want to follow you wherever you go!”

"I love you too Amber-" He pauses and thinks. "I love you too, and I want to be by your side if you'll have me. I can't promise that you won't get hurt, and I can't promise that it won't be my fault. But I can promise to try, to try to protect you, to try and keep you happy and safe, to try and be a hero like you." Tentatively, he kisses her.

Amber slowly closes her eyes and leans in as Johnny kisses her. The beeping on the monitor went higher as they kissed.

Johnny pulls back after a while and sits down next to her. "Did they say how long you'd be here?"

The beeping on the heart monitor speeds up a little before eventually slowing down. “I.... I don’t know. Maybe a couple days? Weeks?” She sighs. “I don’t want to be alone here....” She looks up at him. “Could you stay with me?”

He hesitates for a moment before answering. "...It's the least I could do Amber."

She smiles. “Thank you.” She gently lays her head on Johnny and closes her eyes. “I love you.”

"I love you too" He replies as he tightens his arms around her.

The scene fades away as Amber and Johnny cuddle with each other in the hospital bed, as Gwen walks away from the room bearing a smile on her face.