章 7: [7 - A lack of faith]
Powder was extremely disappointed.
The small girl strutted over to a nearby crate and sat down on it, kicking her feet dejectedly.
They had both searched high and low, scouring the entire marketplace and its surrounding area.
Callian was nowhere to be found.
The two of them had left The Last Drop barely seconds apart from him and yet he had somehow managed to disappear into thin air, leaving no trace behind for them to follow.
Nobody had even seen him exit the bar.
Violet walked over, patting Powder on the head gently, attempting to console her disheartened figure. "Cheer up, it isn't all that bad."
"I wanted to show him Bloomer." Muttered the little girl, brushing Vi's comforting hand away from her hair and pulling the childish-looking grenade out of her pouch, caressing its rough surface thoughtlessly.
"He'll come back." Said Vi, still trying to cheer her sister up, although slightly hurt by the fact her hand was brushed away in such an uncaring and dismissive manner.
Powder had accepted Callian's hand without making a fuss, despite only knowing him for a few days; somehow looking even happier with the attention he had given her.
That used to be her. What had changed between them in such short a time? *
"I-I know, but I was looking forward to showing him it. It's because of him that I'm not just another burden anymore."
"Powder.." Murmured Vi unhappily, finally understanding why her sister looked so pleased whenever she saw the man. "You weren't a burden, ever." **
"Yes." She snapped back angrily, her innocent expression twisting into one of an uncomfortable self-loathing. "Yes I was. And don't even try to deny it. Every Job I went on went wrong somehow. Mylo was right. I just slowed the rest of you down. I was a Jinx."
Vi hesitated, the minor action being all the confirmation Powder needed.
"Yeah, I thought so." She said darkly, the light grip on her creation tightening obsessively until her hands shook from the strain.
"Well. Not anymore. Thanks to him I know exactly where I was going wrong. Now my bombs will never ever fail again.
That declaration left an awkward silence hanging between them.
"Never ever fail again huh?" Said Vi, cautiously trying to lighten the depressive mood. "You sure about that?" She asked evenly, a sliver of provocation contained within her quiet inquiry.
Powder's competitive side flared up as she rose to her sister's challenge. "Wanna bet?" The little girl grinned, her face lighting up as she hefted the smoke grenade loftily with one hand.
Vi nodded, pushing her childish feelings of jealousy aside and focusing on what she should be doing. Supporting her sister.
The pink-haired girl gave a silent prayer that Powder's newest gadget would actually work as intended, because she didn't want to find out what the girl's reaction would be to another failure, especially after looking so confident about its success.
The blue-haired girl hopped off the crate she had been sitting on, scampering towards the centre of the alley and crouching down to the dirty pavement below.
She grabbed the top half of the spherical object and twisted it left; the hand-drawn, cartoonish eyes on top sliding away from the ever-smiling mouth etched onto the bottom.
A series of audible clicking sounds emanating from the machine the further it turned, making Powder tremble with excitement and anticipation.
Powder let go of the grenade, running back to Vi and hiding behind her arm, glancing hopefully at the now ticking time bomb lying in the middle of the street.
As Bloomer's eyes slid closer and closer to its mouth, Vi conceded that doing this test run in the middle of the street may not have been a good idea.
She backed away, pulling Powder with her, not at all content with their meagre distance away from the makeshift explosive.
As Bloomer's eyes snapped back into place, both sisters waited with bated breath as they stalled, waiting for the device to activate.
It didn't.
Vi's heart sank. This was going to utterly shatter Powder's newfound confidence in herself.
The girl looked to her right, only to find a completely impassive expression covering her younger sister's face.
She might not have liked Powder's new independence; and yeah, she might have wanted the quiet, overly reliant sister back instead, but what of it?
It was the dynamic they had lived with all of their lives and Vi wasn't at all comfortable with that changing, she recognised that now.
The teen was being selfish and she knew it.
God she felt guilty about it now, especially considering how the test had gone exactly how she thought it would.
Ending in failure.
From the beginning, Vi had no hope that her younger sister's machine would work, subconsciously predicting it would fall short of their expectations.
She glanced at back the expressionless Powder, before walking towards Bloomer who was still lying on the ground, motionless.
The girl bent down to pick it up, the beginning of an apology forming on her tongue, knowing deep down that she had no hope of uplifting her sister's broken spirit.
"Powder, I'm sorr-"
The explosive dinged loudly as the teen's hand made contact with it before it blew up in her face; a bright pink cloud of sparkling dust forcefully billowing outwards every direction, soaring straight past the teen and covering the entire street in a neon-colored smog.
Vi coughed wretchedly, trying desperately to wipe the wave of minuscule pink granules out of her teary eyes.
Her head exploded with a sudden pain, and she clutched her head sharply; gasping for fresh air, only to inhale more of the pink smoke surrounding her.
As Powder's childish laughter hit her ears, Vi felt her perception of the world begin to corrupt; another scene taking precedence over what she was currently seeing.
An older, more disturbing peal of laughter echoed around the disturbed teenager, blending perfectly behind Powder's own childish ones, growing louder and more unhinged by the second.
The pink-haired girl was frozen in place, utterly terrified by what was hearing. It was like an instinctual fear had reawakened inside of her, clouding her mind and judgement.
The laughter was uncannily familiar, almost as if she had heard it before.
The world shivered unpleasantly.
—
* Up until this point, Powder had felt heavily inadequate, failing at every turn to create something useful to her or her friends. This made the girl develop an instinctual lack of self-confidence, which was slowly dispelled after proving to herself that she could accomplish something on her own.
This caused Powder to feel as if she wasn't someone that needed coddling and protection anymore; now wanting to be acknowledged as an equal by the other people in her life instead of continuing on being coddled and treated like a child.
This explains her irritancy at being treated in such a way by Violet.
Hopefully.
** So far the only mature figure in her life that ever showed any faith in her was Callian. Vander was there sure, but he never saw any potential in Powder's creations other than being children's toys.
Vi did at the beginning and slowly lost faith the more her inventions didn't work. Callian on the other hand did nothing substantial to help her, instead expecting Powder to figure it out on her own.
The little girl misunderstood his whimsical action as faith in her unpolished abilities, making her grow attached to the first person who had consistently shown faith in her as a person.
—
(Total word count: 1261)
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