Stealth Mission (an OC story)

Asmat had been trying to clear her mind so she could focus on praying, but the other women’s cries…they were too much for her to bear.

She had really hoped that she would be able to pray today. In the situation she was in, prayer was the only thing she had left. If she were to let go of praying, of her faith, she knew that she might as well give up on her life.

She turned to the loudest source of crying, a girl of fourteen years named Brook, and awkwardly waved her arms in an attempt to get her attention.

“Hey. Hey.” Brook hiccuped at the sound of Asmat’s voice. The tiny, freckled blonde had made a habit of following the older, more mature Arab woman around. Originally Asmat had found it a bit annoying, but if she was this child’s saving grace in this situation, she wouldn’t deny that hope to her.

“It’s going be okay,” Asmat said in a hushed voice, not even believing her own words. She was still not entirely sure what had happened to her. She had been walking home from a friend’s house, something she had done many times before, when two men came out of nowhere. She felt something cover her mouth and nose, and as she screamed, she got a whiff of something sweet. Then she fell unconscious. She also had a faint memory of waking up, dizzy and only able to recognize the sound of a moving car, but then she went under once more.

She and Brook had apparently been kidnapped around the same time, as they both lived in Berkshire. Asmat had heard the poor girl scream when she first woke up, clearly confused but aware of what situation she might be in.

It wasn’t too long after that that the two realized what they and the girls around them were part of: human trafficking. Specifically, the sex trade.

Asmat unconsciously tugged at where her hijab would be resting. She felt strange without it, but after what had caused it to be ripped off…she didn't think she could even look at it again.

Brook looked up at Asmat with sad, wide eyes. She had heard of sex trafficking, but it was always this different, foreign concept to her, away from the UK. It was one of many paranoid reasons why her father hated her being out late, but for it to actually happen…

“You’ll get home. I promise,” Asmat said, knowing she had just told this child a lie. But what else could she do to soothe her?

The blonde girl lifted an arm to wipe away her tears. “…How?”

Asmat opened her mouth to let another lie slip, but her eyes were drawn to a sudden presence in the doorway.

There was a young woman, possibly only a few years younger than Asmat, shivering and looking around. She was tall and beautiful, with dark hair falling past her shoulders and pretty blue eyes moving quickly to see where she was. Asmat sighed sadly at the thought of another woman being captured. It was strange, though, how she hadn’t been thrown in by one of the men. Their kidnappers always opened the door themselves and dragged the victim in.

It didn’t take long for the woman and Asmat to lock eyes. The mysterious young lady took a timid step forward, and when Asmat smiled at her, she took a few bolder steps to stand by the sitting two.

“W-W-W-Where am I?” The dark-haired woman stuttered.

Asmat glanced at Brook and then back at the woman. “You’re in…a very bad place. …What’s your name?”

The woman blinked at the question, as if she didn’t expect it to be asked. She then said, in a low voice, “Callie. And ‘bad place’? Wh-What do you mean?”

Once again, the older woman glanced down at Brook, afraid of scaring her, but Callie deserved to know. “We’ve been kidnapped for the…the…”

Callie frowned as Asmat fell silent. “I-I…we haven’t been…how do you know?”

Asmat shook her head. “Things have happened to us here. Just a week ago, there were fifteen of us, but whoever’s running this must be good at spreading his business without getting caught. And for us that don’t get sold…” Asmat could feel Brook move herself against her to form a false sense of security. “…the kidnappers like to…‘test their products,’ let’s say.”

The brunette’s eyes wandered around the room to count the other women. “There—there were five more of you? Where did they go?”

Asmat shrugged, though it was rigid. “Don’t know. Someone comes in and looks around and when they want one of us, they pay and the girl’s never seen again. Just last week a man came in and bought three girls, maybe seventeen. From what I heard, two of the girls were from Russia or somewhere else that speaks Russian. Then this one woman came in the day after and bought this one girl…this one fifteen. And then there was another man who bought a kid as a wife—”

“He took Hanna…” Brook suddenly said. “She was so little…she shouldn’t have gone…” She held back tears, remembering how quickly she had befriended the girl.

Asmat held Brook closer to her, then continued. “Brook and I—I’m Asmat, by the way—have been here for two weeks. I think the kidnappers used chloroform on me, but some of the others said they were offered job opportunities.”

Asmat and Callie spoke for a while, and slowly, Callie’s stutter disappeared as she listened intently to what Asmat had to say. She sat on her knees as if she was listening to a folktale, and Asmat couldn’t help but wonder if Callie had already distanced herself from this situation.

After some time, three men, all tall and threatening in appearance, walked into the room. Once Asmat spotted them, she went silent. She recognized two of them as the musclebound men that guarded the room and led her and the newer women to this room, but not the third. The third man was better dressed than anyone else there, and he scanned the room of women like a hungry predator. The other two also scanned the room, though not nearly as intensely.

Both of them did, however, linger on Callie. Asmat noticed how they glanced at each other in some silent conversation, but then they seemed to lose interest.

The “customer” grinned at the sight of Brook, who was still pressing herself into Asmat’s side. Once she noticed how the man was looking at her, her entire body froze, and for a second, Asmat wondered if she had stopped breathing.

Her look of panic did nothing to stop the man’s advancement towards her, seeming to enjoy the the fear visibly increasing on the young girl’s face.

It took all of Asmat’s willpower to not slap the man’s hand away as he reached down, took Brook by the chin, and forced her to meet his eyes. Brook bit her tongue to keep herself from screaming, trying to keep as much of her fear hidden away as she could.

“I rather enjoy blondes,” the man said, examining the poor girl. He turned to the guards, not taking his hand off of Brook. “How much for this one?”

One of the guards examined Brook before quickly saying, “￡3,000.”

The price didn’t seem to bother the man. If anything, he looked like he expected it. “Three thousand, eh? Say, would your boss mind if I tried her out before making a decision?”

Brook’s heart dropped, and all the blood rushed to her feet. Was he…was he…?

The guard appeared to think about it, and then shrugged nonchalantly. The man grinned before pulling on Brook’s arm, trying to pull her up.

Brook, horrified and in shock, didn’t think to retaliate, only looking at her friend. “A-Asmat?”

At that moment, Asmat panicked. “No. No!” she shouted, taking a hold of the blonde’s other arm and using her weight to prevent any further movement. The man wasn’t impressed by her actions, however, and simply pulled harder on Brook’s arm.

Asmat replied by swearing, something she rarely did. “You son of a bitch! Let go of her!” she shouted as she yanked down harder on Brook’s arm, using her other arm to wrap it around the young girl’s waist.

This didn’t settle nearly as well with the man, who replied by taking his other hand and striking the woman in order to make her let go. Brook suddenly lost all restraint and shrieked as Asmat, dazed, lost her grip and allowed her to fall into the arms of this…monster.

“Okay, that’s it,” Callie muttered, the fearful tone of her voice completely gone. “I’m not just gonna sit here and let this happen.”

Asmat turned to her in surprise and watched as the brunette stood up and looked the man directly in the eye. “Let her go,” she commanded.

It didn’t faze the man, who only looked the slightest bit irritated. “Your boss doesn’t know how to tame his goods, does he?” he asked the guards. He then turned all his focus on Callie. “You want me to take you home too, girl?”

“Are you deaf? I told you to let the kid go, prick,” Callie said, appearing to not even notice what the man had said.

At that, the man turned red and balled his fist. “Why, you—!” He took a swing.

It never connected, as Callie blocked the hit with her forearm. “Change of plans,” she muttered, seemingly to no one in particular. She then used her other hand to knock the man back with the heel of her palm, a move Asmat had only ever seen in action movies.

The sudden momentum caused the man to let go of Brook, and Callie said, “Brook, get away from him.”

Brook obeyed, scrambling to get away from the man, who now looked even more annoyed. “You brat! You think you can get away with this?”

At that moment, Callie felt something go under her armpits. It was one of the other men, trying to keep her in place with his arms.

It didn’t last long, however, as her arm still remained mobile as she elbowed him right in the gut and proceeded to step on his foot. Not satisfied, Callie brought her hand up to hit him in the face. There was a strange CRACK, and Asmat realized that Callie had succeeded in breaking the man’s nose.

The muscular man howled in pain, letting go of Callie to hold his nose. His partner tried his luck, getting to the point and taking out a snub-nose revolver.

Callie didn’t take kindly to this, and instead of keeping herself away from the handgun, she threw herself right at the guard, closing the ten-foot gap in a second and grabbing him by the wrist. The shot missed its mark, but the bullet did manage to graze one of Callie’s legs.

She hissed in pain, but didn’t withdraw from her plan of attack, using her weight to slam down on the hand the gun was in. The guard reacted by head-butting Callie, and she recoiled, shaken by the sudden blow.

Her head tilted back, and in that instant Asmat saw something completely out of the ordinary. Callie’s blue eyes were no longer present, her irises suddenly a bright white.

“Huh,” was Callie’s response to the hit, and she kicked the man, her entire leg extending in front of her to put in a solid kick to the chest. The man hit a wall.

Callie was the slightest bit dizzy from the head-butting, and she looked like she was trying to regain composure, the white eyes fading back to blue, then white again, then blue. Finally, Callie appeared tired of the effort, and she faced Asmat.

Surrounding one of her white eyes, her skin looked like it had been chipped away, as if it was nothing more than a layer of paint. Asmat could make out a darker skin tone underneath the light skin she originally had. “I’m getting you and everyone else outta here, okay?” Her voice was no longer very feminine, sounding a lot more androgynous and nothing like the voice Asmat had heard before.

A bit more of her skin appeared to chip away, and then there was a bright light surrounding her.

Once the light dissipated, Callie was no longer there. In her place was a…boy? It was hard to tell the sex of the individual. They were shorter than Callie was, and they wore an oversized, thick red jacket that went past their rear, along with black leggings that faded to white. Their short hair was the color of rust, and on top of their head there was a pair of headphones, though the person lowered them so they only rested around their neck. Their nose and mouth couldn’t be seen, as they were covered by a black mask. Most interestingly of all, their irises were split down the middle, with one side being black and the other white, and their pupils followed the same pattern.

The person didn’t give Asmat much time to gawk, as they took the surprise of everyone to their advantage and before anyone could even react, they had one of the guards in a headlock, their arm pressed against his neck. The man struggled to get out of the person’s grip, but they refused to let go. The other guard took out his own gun and aimed it, but the person that used to be Callie used the guard they held captive as a shield until he fell unconscious. That guard then took aim again, but he suddenly felt a weight on his back as someone leapt at him to throw him to the ground.

It was Asmat, who had gotten over her surprise and refused to let her savior go down without a fight. He started to get up, but Asmat quickly put one of her feet on his neck, not quite putting all her weight down on it.

“This. Is. What. You. Get,” she snarled as the man lost air and also fell unconscious.

The mysterious person smiled behind their mask. “Nice,” they said. Asmat looked at them warily, not that the person could blame her. “My real name’s Kalais, by the way, but you can call me Kal.”

Instead of responding, Asmat looked around the room. The buyer had tried to exit the room in all the chaos, but apparently the other women didn’t give him that chance, putting themselves in front of the door while the guards were distracted.

Kal looked at the other women for a second, then turned back to Asmat. “So, um, as you can guess, I was kinda sent here to get you all out.”

Asmat stared at Kal for a couple seconds, then finally said, “…Who are you?”

Kal laughed. “Just a person trying to make the world a better place. I have a friend who’s always looking out for stuff like this to stop it, and when she heard about this she asked me to break into this place and learn as much as I could, but…” S/he unapologetically kicked one of the unconscious guards. “I’m kinda like her. Get really impulsive if I see something wrong. Actually, she’s the one that’s gonna come and get us. I think she also called the SWAT—wait, what’s the British SWAT team…? SCO19? Yeah, they’re probably on the way, too.”

One of the other girls, maybe eighteen, walked over. She spoke in what Kal gathered was Mandarin, and while she couldn’t make out much, she recognized a very familiar name.

“Wacky Jacky? You’ve heard of her? Yes, I know Wacky Jacky!” Kal said, excited. The girl smiled and nodded, a sudden light in her eyes.

“Wacky…Jacky?” Asmat was very confused. Kal turned back to her.

“Wacky’s the friend I was talking about,” s/he explained. “She’s kinda got a reputation. Normal people don’t really know what she looks like, but they do know she can pull off some really amazing things.” S/he laughed. “I guess using my powers kinda gave it away to her that I’m with Wacky. Or maybe she thinks I am Wacky. Her last mission was in China, so it makes sense that she’d have heard of her.”

Asmat took all this in. A couple of weeks ago, she was just a normal woman whose biggest concern for her safety involved someone shooting her a dirty look for being a Muslim. Now she was being saved from human trafficking by a superpowered being who apparently worked alongside someone who could be called a superhero? It was kind of hard to believe.

But true to Kal’s word, she, Brook, and the others walked down the hall while Kal stayed behind to keep an eye on the three men; they didn’t have to wait very long before they heard the sound of a helicopter. The doors at the front of the building had been locked, but they were forced open by people in armored gear. They froze at the sight of the girls, who then proceeded to try to talk all at once.

“Hey, hey, hey! One at a time!” A loud, confident voice said, with just enough authority behind it to shut everyone up despite the joking nature of the tone. The armed officers parted at the sound of the voice, as if they were expecting that to happen. Maybe they were.

The women suddenly faced a young woman that looked to be the same age as their savior. She also had auburn hair, but that was where the similarities ended between her and Kal. Her skin was a bit tanner, and her eyes were red, with large, white irises that should have made the grin she was giving them threatening, but it was actually reassuring. On her right hand was a ring, a glowing red orb. She held herself in a way that you’d expect world leaders to, but her mannerisms suggested she wasn’t above getting physical to get what she wanted. Asmat knew immediately that this had to be Wacky Jacky.

“That’s better,” Wacky said in response to the silence. “Okay, so, you go first.” Wacky pointed to the Chinese girl that had tried to speak to Kal earlier. She blinked in surprise, then awkwardly started talking in her native language. Asmat wondered if she had been a tourist or was captured from China and taken here.

Without skipping a beat, Wacky started asking the girl questions in Mandarin. After that, she and the girl were able to have a conversation and get the whole story.

“…‘lost sight of my family. I don’t know this country very well, so I tried to find someone to help…’” Another voice that Asmat hadn’t noticed before suddenly reached her ears, and she turned to see a boy. Despite his eyes being normal, his hair was not. It was the color of salmon, and his bangs were tinted orange. He was also extremely pale despite the sun’s rays. He was talking to a policeman, though his words were strange to Asmat. Why was he giving a statement?

“‘…was led down an alleyway by the arm. I knew that something was wrong, but I wasn’t sure what. I rarely hear of these things back home…’”

Was he…translating what the girl was saying? Wacky looked like she could do that on her own, but as Asmat watched, Wacky took a second to glance at the boy as the girl continued to speak, and after that, he continued to translate.

Was he…reading Wacky’s mind and translating that way? Asmat had already witnessed a shapeshifter, so she wasn’t quite able to deny the possibility.

Wacky spoke to each of them, one by one, and eventually she got to Asmat.

“So,” the adventurous teen said. “Kal told me that you were kind of a badass in there.”

Asmat was about to ask Wacky how Kal could have told her, but she looked at the pink-haired boy and she just knew that her guess was correct.
***
Five days passed, and preparations for most of the women’s returns home were underway. Some of the girls had made statements that revealed how they had been sold to the sex trade, so preparations for them had to be made. The women were staying under the watch and care of Wacky’s friends in a house that she apparently owned.

…And Wacky herself had set out on a mission to find and rescue those who had already been sold, but that story is too long and too violent to tell here.

Asmat looked around. Most of the people there were police officers, but a few of them—a tall purple-haired woman, a lavender-haired male that was apparently the woman’s twin, and the pink-haired boy from earlier—were clearly friends of Kal and Wacky. They weren’t normal, but considering what they had done, Asmat wasn’t sure that was a bad thing. The telepathic male, who claimed his name was Double M but Asmat wasn’t sure she believed him, had even gotten her a scarf to use as a hijab after overhearing her mention the one she lost.

“Who are you people?” she asked Kal after s/he finished speaking to Brook, who had just gotten off the phone with her parents for the twentieth time. She had already given her statement, so before the end of the day, she was going home. Kal smiled.

“Didn’t I tell you? Just a bunch of kids who like to help people.”

Asmat wanted to look frustrated, but she was so relieved that she was rescued she couldn’t even try. “No, I mean…you and the others clearly have abilities, and you go on these adventures, but I’ve never heard of you. Not even rumors. How's that possible?”

Kal glanced at her friends before answering Asmat with a smile. “Let’s just say this: people believe what they want to believe. But that doesn’t really matter right now. We came to help you, and you can go home, back to your life.”

“But I don’t think anything can go back to normal after all this.” The dark-skinned woman shook her head. “Kidnappings…human trafficking…magic… How can I just…continue living a normal life after all this?”

Kal’s smile didn’t falter, but hir eyes filled with some distant emotion. “I know a thing or two about being ripped away from your normal life. The powers were always there, but this whole thing I’m doing right now? I’ve only been doing it for a few years now. Only been living with Wacky and the rest of the gang for about a year longer. I was terrified when I moved in with them, and even more terrified when Wacky took me on a mission for the first time. We ended up fighting the yakuza. It was wild.” Despite the mask, Asmat could tell that Kal was grinning.

“And among all the crazy, you know what this life became?”

“What?”

“Normal.”

Asmat froze at the word. She moved her eyes away from Kal’s, unsure what to think.

“Listen, don’t be afraid to see a therapist about this. I have one, and I was pretty annoyed about seeing him the first couple months, but it works. And when it comes to magic, well, I’m not really the religious type, agnostic really, but I’m guessing you are, right?” S/he asked, nodding to the scarf.

“Y-Yes.”

“Well, aren’t supernatural things kind of what a religion’s built off of?”

Asmat didn’t have a response to that. Yes, her beliefs mostly revolved around virtues and a way to live, but magic was part of what she believed as well. “…I…”

“You don’t need to answer that,” Kal reassured her. “Just don’t think this is something you have to process alone, okay?”

The tall woman stared at the intersex individual once more, then slowly smiled and nodded. “Okay. Thank you.” What exactly she was thanking Kal for, she didn’t know. Maybe for everything?

Regardless, Kal smiled back. “You’re welcome.”