Steampunk CTs

Natalia

Really?! Out of anyone that wished to cross paths with me, it had to be him? Even when succumbed by my Eternal Night, at the mercy of my all-encompassing darkness, his light shines all the brighter! Is this your idea of a sick joke, Dr. Archon?! He’s my complete counter!

Regardless of my Eternal Night’s overwhelming power, my opponent has a light stemata that he uses to counter any shadows that get near him. From what I gathered, he can make weapons out of light, manipulate artificial light, and worst of all, counter me with the swipe of his hand. He wore a white coat that covered his entire body, was a couple inches below my height, and golden blonde hair. Entire hives of my hands of darkness tried to latch onto him, but like a fearless dancer, he flawlessly dodged each one of them and in a wave of yellow light, dissipated my entire offense. All with childlike wonder in his eyes.

“Wow! I’m so amazed with all of your progress! You’ve come so far, big sis!”

Yes…this fearsome opponent of mine is my own little brother…now that I think about it, the Doctor mentioned something fishy a while ago.

===

Back on the Elizabeth, I was doing my usual routine of asking the Doctor for different stuff.

“A ray gun for me, my assistant!”

Complete silence from him.

“Or maybe a different world under my control! That gives me an advantage during a battle. A domain I could expand at any time!”

Even more silence as he continued his work.

“Okay fine! You talked me to a world-dividing blade! I expect it by next week!”

“You know…you have gotten quite the reputation because of the last cross zone finals. They’re calling you ‘The Rookie Crusher’ because of how many trainees you took out of commission.”

To be fair, here’s how I see it: if they can’t even properly run away from me, then they deserve to fail! Sure, the pass rate was in the single digits last year, but there’s only so much space on the Elizabeth anyway!

“A necessary sacrifice to vet the heroes of tomorrow!”

“I see…I suppose only time will tell whether or not you will receive divine retribution riiiight? Kehehe.” He chortled, as if he knew something I didn’t at that moment.

And he did…

===

I didn’t know you could play such elaborate schemes, you old fart! You might just match me in villainy at this rate!

“This Eternal Night of yours is an impressive feat, big sis. It’s a shame that our matchup isn’t that fair. Even someone as mundane as me can counter it! See?” He revealed his stemata to be a simple flashlight with blue light that allowed him to spin and counter all of my moves. He raised this same flashlight in the air and created a blade so massive, it pierced through the dome of my eternal night. Once he pierced it, he brought it down with such force, that the entire dome severed in half and dissipated. I thought the blade of light was going to hit me, but it just passed through me. He must’ve only made the tip of the blade hard. That means he even has control of manipulating the hardness of his light? It took me forever to figure out how to pull that off with my darknesss.

Once the entire thing was destroyed, he let out a large exhale. This was my prodigy brother. The one who despite owning a stemata that produced light…

Casted a shadow over my life since the day of my birth.

But the darkness I’ve thrown myself in is a shadow that is blacker than black. I have something…but it could do some major damage if not countered. I haven’t even gotten complete control of it. It could swallow up the whole world if it’s not dealt with correctly.

But if anyone can handle it, it’s my baby brother!

===

I remember it as one of my very first memories. When I viewed the world around me as a pastel palette of blues and pinks. One day, my world gained a new color.

“Say hi, Natalia! It’s your little brother! His name is Remie—WHAT DO YOU HAVE IN YOUR HAND?!”

“A KNIFE!!!” I proudly said as I swung it around like a sword, getting dangerously close to my little brother.

After that fiasco, they sat me down and explained who this new member of the house was. He was my flesh and blood. My baby brother. And as his big sister, I was supposed to shield him from the dangers of this world and help raise him.

Somehow though, he ended up being a guideline on how to raise me.

“Natalia! Look at me when I'm talking to you!”

I looked up from the floor of the principal's office to see my father's frustrated expression. In the chair behind the desk was the principal himself, and sitting next to him was a boy I assaulted during class.

“I just want to know why you did it. Why did you attack him?” My father was speaking in that voice he uses when he's growing irritated by a situation.

“He was bullying somebody! Pushing them around! I'm not just gonna stand by and let—”

“And what did I tell you about playing superhero?! You always take things too far! God, you never listen to me! Why can’t you be more like your brother—” My father stopped himself in his tracks, but it was too late. I was already seeing a whole world of red.

“You wanna know why? Because I know none of you would do anything! Theo’s father is friend’s with the king and Principal Jacobs is too scared to do something about it—”

“NATALIA BEGNOLL THAT’S ENOUGH!” my father slammed his fist against the wall and I immediately sealed my lips. I’ve said enough. Neither of these adults denied any of the things I said. From that point forward, my world became muted. Good people could get in trouble for doing good things, and bad guys could get away with whatever they wanted if they knew the right people.

So why not be one of the bad guys?

“Yo Nattie! We’re heading to the corner store after school. You’ll be there, right?”

“Hell yeah. Just don’t make it boring.”

I became Nattie in high school. I dyed my blonde hair a jet black, put more eyeliner on, got ear piercings as well as one for my nose, and put black contacts in. Sometimes my new friends did things a bit less desirable, but I loved the aesthetic of our crew.

One of my friends, Todd, was sort of the leader of our group. If anyone got hurt, he beat their attacker’s ass. If anyone was too far out of line, he put them back in place. And if there was anyone he didn’t like, he let them know and kept a close eye on them.

“Want a smoke?” He revealed a pack of cigarettes and pushed one out of the cartridge my way.

“Sure thing.” I took it and Todd lit it for me before walking off. As soon as he was out of sight, I threw it away. One thing about my new friends…is that I have to do a lot of pretending…

When I finally got over to the corner store, I had a blast with everyone. We ate tons of food, we played games, and had tons of laughs.

“Hey Nattie, come over here real quick.” Todd called me over to an alleyway. When I came over, I peered into the darkness to find three men putting black masks on. At their feet was a duffel bag that had bats and knives in it. Don’t tell me…these guys were planning on robbing the store? No…you wouldn’t need all of this firepower for one guy at a corner store.

“Ah, shit!”

“Todd came through!”

“It’s gonna be a fun razing.”

From behind, the rest of the group saw the items and walked past me to get their own weapons.

“Razing…?”

“Yeah, you’re a bit of a newer member, so you wouldn’t know. We play this game once a month where we raze a property to the ground! Every piece of property and the person that owns it! It really gets your blood pumping, Nattie!”

“Those attacks in the paper…that was you guys?”

“Sure was! Come on! Follow me, I’ll pick something out for you. Though, there might not be that much stuff now.” He motioned me to follow him and turned his back to me. And as he did, I realized something…

I hated this…

I hated being a bad guy too…

So many things became apparent to me at that moment. I like the aesthetic of the bad guy—the evil laugh, the gang-like activity, the relation to darkness and words like Ragnorok or evil eye. However, I also like the heroism of helping those in need. Seeing someone say thank you to me with a smile on their face warms my heart to its core.

That’s just who I am. A complete, utter, contradiction of a person.

And I love myself for realizing it.

Before I realized it, I was running to knock Todd out.

And Todd was turning to shoot me in the stomach.

Bam!

With one bullet, all of my momentum was halted to an immediate stop. I dropped to the floor and tried to get up, but was brought back down with the heel of Todd’s boot.

“You’re the only person who I broke my rule for, Natalia. I couldn’t put my finger on if you were one of us or not. And now I get why: you were confused. But now you’ve found yourself, right? Congrats, Natalia. Don’t worry about your body. We’ll probably dump it somewhere—”

“Na…talia?”

I heard a weak voice from the entrance of the alley. When everyone including me looked over, we saw the silhouette of a frail boy. Although, I quickly noticed the Holy White keychain that was missing a leg. It was none other than my little brother who found me in this dangerous situation.