Holly Jolly part 1
Luna sat on the couch listening to the boys plan. "We'll just tell our parents we have AV Club after school. That'll give us at least a few hours for Operation Mirkwood."
"You seriously think the weirdos know where Will is?"
"Just trust me on this, okay?"
Luna tuned out their voices as she looked over to El who sat on the couch with Mike's super-com. El had to know bringing the boys to this monster was a bad idea. They had to come up with some sort of plan.
"You're going to take out the Demogorgon with a slingshot," she heard Dustin tease as she listened back in on their conversation.
"First of all, it's a wrist rocket. And second of all, the Demogorgon's not real. It's made up. But if there is something out there, I'm gonna shoot it in the eye . . . and blind it."
Luna snorted. It was a horrible plan, thought up on the spot. The type of plan Marcy and Luna would try to do before Jamie stopped then and made them concoct a better one.
"How do you know the Demogorgon even has eyes?" she questioned remembering the floweresqe face of the beast.
"Well then it'll be even easier to kill because it won't be able to see us."
"But it will still be able to hear and smell us. You know sometimes losing one sense can enhance the others."
Lucas glared at her and turned away while Mike turned to Dustin asking about his supplies.
Dustin opened up his bag, shaking out the contents and Luna watched in amusement as chips and candy fell out. "Well, alrightly. So, we've got, Nutty Bars, Bazzoka, Pez, Smarties, Pringles, Nina Wafers, apple, banana, and trail mix.
"Seriously," Lucas said with a deadpan expression.
"We need energy for our travels. For stamina. And besides, why do we even need weapons anyway? We have them?"
Luna clenched her fist. Though she knew Dustin didn't mean anything bad she couldn't help but be reminded of the lab workers calling her a weapon to be used.
"She shut one door and the other hasn't even done anything!"
"With her mind. Are you kidding me? That's insane! Imagine all the other cool stuff she could do." Dustin walked over to some blankets and tossed them aside bringing out some toy. "I bet that she could make this fly."
He brought it over to Eleven and held it in front of her. "Hey. Hey. Okay, concentrate, okay." He let go and it clattered to the ground. Not deterred he picked it up again. "Okay, one more time. Okay, use your powers, okay?"
Luna sat up straighter with a small smirk as he dropped the toy. They already knew about Eleven's powers, there was no use keeping hers a secret. She subtly flicked a finger causing a strand of water to form, wrap around the toy, and fling it across the room.
The boys all turned to her in unison. Lucas with a frown, Mike an indifferent expression, and Dustin a wide smile. "Holy shit, that was insane. Do it again."
"What was that? Where did the water come from?" Mike asked.
"Hydrokinesis. Th psychic ability to manipulate or control water. The water came from the air around us, and-" she turned to Dustin still staring at her in awe. "I'd honestly rather not."
Before they could reply Mike's mom called and he told us where to meet them before running upstairs leaving Luna with a smile on her face. It had been far to long since she'd interacted with people.
~~~~~
Luna walked up the stairs of Mike's house. There was no way she was going to be cooped up down there all day and El could fend for herself.
She walked around the living room examining the area before heading into the bathroom. She turned on the faucet closing her eyes as the noise brought back a memory.
At 6 years old Luna had been seated in a chair while Brenner had one of the lab workers pour water into a glass.
"Thirteen." She looked up at Brenner at the use of her number. "We're going to do something a little different today. I want you to evaporate the water."
The last couple months Luna has been working on dissolving solid ice into liquid water. Now apparently they were moving on to the next step.
Luna felt for the molecules of the water, focused on them heating up, moving apart. She opened her eyes and the glass of water was empty. She wiped the blood from her nose and looked up at Brenner.
"Very good Thirteen. I think you're ready."
Every instinct in her body wanted to tell that her name was Luna but that was a battle she had fought and lost too many times. "Ready for what?"
He didn't respond, simply signaled for the glass to be taken away and a different guard came in with another glass, this one full of blood.
Luna backed away. The blood didn't scare her, not really. Blood had been a constant companion in her life ever since she could remember.
But what he wanted her to do with the blood. That certainly scared her.
"Your ability allowed you to control water but you can do more than that. You can control all liquids, blood included." He nodded towards the glass. "Move it."
Knowing the consequences she reached out her hand, focusing in on the blood. She instantly recoiled. The blood did not respond to her the way water did. The water was a gentle caress, the blood a bullet to the chest.
Luna tried to push through, she really did but god did it hurt. The blood swirled slightly. Her body felt weak and she started shaking. She put her hand down and vomited all over the floor.
Luna tore herself from the memory and forced herself to move, turning the faucet off. It did no good to dwell on the past.
After that day Brenner had kept pushing her to work on her hemokinesis but Luna was scared. Eventually she agreed on the condition he would wait until Marissa was five to start doing tests. But she hadn't been able to manage it. And she had abandoned them all.
After leaving the lab she learned why the hemokinesis harmed her so much.
Her body required an excessive amount of water to properly function, about 200 ounces, far more than she ever been given access to in the lab. There were downsides to all powers after all.
Now she could use her hemokinesis with far less pain. It was still a demanding power, one she used far less than her hydrokinesis but it could be invaluable. She wished she had known about the water earlier, so she hadn't had to abandon her friends but the older she got the less she thought it would change anything.
Brenner had always been too demanding on her, especially when it came to her hemokinesis. She knew that if she had stayed there eventually she would have died.