Heroes for Hire - The Early Years

Chapter 1

Sharion Hunter

Age:  14



As she laid there, inside that blissful moment right before you are woken up, Sharion Hunter was in heaven.  But like all good things, this had to come to an end, and in this case, that end was named Andrew.

"Shar!!!  Wake up!  Mom says you will be late if you do not wake up right now!" yelled Andrew from the bedroom door.

Understandably, Sharion was a mite perturbed at being robbed of paradise.

"Andrew, if you do not shut up and go away, I will eat you," grumbled Sharion from her blanket cocoon.

"Mom!  Shar is threatening to eat me again!"

"Sharion Hunter, you had better get out of bed this instant!  And stop being mean to your brother!"

Sighing in defeat, Sharion crawled out of bed. She knew better than to question Samantha Hunter, her mother and resident dictator.  She quickly got dressed and raced downstairs to the kitchen, making sure to punch Andrew on her way.

"Hey!  Mom!  Shar punched me!" tattled Andrew.

"Cry baby," retorted Sharion, sticking her tongue out in an obvious act of superior maturity.

"Stop both of you, can't we go one morning without all of this fuss."  Mother dearest was quickly loosing her patience.  Ever since she had gotten pregnant with her fifth child, she was much easier to annoy.

Sensing this, Sharion quickly shifted tracks.  There were far more important things to deal with than her annoying younger brother:  today was her first day at high school.  In fact, today was her first day in public school period.  Sharion had been kind of home schooled her whole life.  She was going to have to deal problems she has not had to face in years.  Sharion put on her most sincere smile.

"So Mom, what would it take for you to home school for my high school years?"

Samantha sighed, she knew this was coming.  She was well aware that Sharion did not want to start school.  She also knew that Sharion had to deal with this, life would never let her just run from every situation that made her uncomfortable.  So as much as it pained her, she had to send her daughter into the lion's den.

"Honey, we have talked about this, you have to go to public school.  Everyone is too busy to continue your education in a meaningful way, especially me now that I am pregnant.  Now eat your eggs."

"But Mom, you know they are going to make fun of me.  They always do!"

"Now now, what would your father say to do if anyone bothered you?"

"Well, he would say kick their as...butts, and if anyone has a problem with that, tell them to come talk to him and he will kick their butts too."

"Sigh, yes, yes he would wouldn't he.  OK, what would Mr. Quiles say to do?"  Samantha loved her husband, but she was going to have to have a talk to him about teaching the kids at least one alternative to violence.

"He would say that the greater strength is achieved by redirecting the negative energy back onto them as positive energy."

"Now that is a much better way to deal with things, lets go with Mr. Quiles' method."  She could always count on Christian to be the more level headed of the two of them.

"Speaking of Dad, where is he?"

"Unfortunately he got called away early this morning, and will not be back for a few weeks."  Samantha could see the disappointment in her daughter's eyes at the news.  "But do not worry, Ryan will be here in a few minutes to take you to school."

"Ryan?  Does that mean Mr. Quiles is still here too," excitement creeping back into Sharion's voice.

"Of course dear, you know your lessons start back up tomorrow."  Samantha was relieved that her daughter was happy about something at least.

"Hello?  You there Sam?"

"Ah, there is Ryan now, hurry up and finish eating, then grab your things for school.  We are in the kitchen Ryan, come on in!"

Sharion wolfed down her eggs, and hurried off to grab her bag.  When she returned she was greeted by a giant of a man.  At six and a half feet tall and about three hundred and fifty pounds, Ryan looked very uncomfortable in the Hunters' kitchen.

"Well well, look who is all ready for the old rat race," said Ryan, a goofy grin strangely not out of place on him.  "You all set?"

"Yeah, I guess so.  See you later Mom!"

"Have a great day,"  Samantha called out to her daughter.  "I love you!"

"I love you too," came the disembodied reply.



*********



As she arrived at school, Sharion pulled up the hood of the coat she had worn to hopefully make herself less obvious.  She had tried to convince Ryan to take her with him to work, but even he knew to never cross Sam.  And so there Sharion was:  trying to fade into the crowd as she made her way to homeroom.  Luckily she had already met with her teachers last week and had a tour of the school and where her classes would be, or today would have been overwhelming.

Once she reached the classroom, she found an empty seat and shrunk into it, trying to be invisible. She knew it would not last, the teacher was going to introduce her to the class as soon as homeroom started.  And start it did, far too soon for Sharion's taste.

Her homeroom teacher was a middle aged man that went by Mr. Cooper.  He was nice enough, but as he called Sharion up to the front of the class, he might as well have been a demonic presence for all the kind thoughts that she was thinking about him at that moment.

"OK everyone, I know it is unusual to introduce a student in front of everyone on the first day of class, but this is a special case.  Everyone, this is Sharion Hunter.  Sharion, please take your hood off so everyone can see you."

She knew he meant nothing by those words, but to Sharion, they bit deep.  She was all too aware of how well they would be able to see her when she took off the hood.  And as the hood fell away, the gasps and exclamations confirmed her deepest fears.  You see, Sharion was not human.  Her fiery red hair matched her red irises, and contrasted strongly with her ash grey skin.  Even though her hair was a couple inches past her shoulders, they could not hide her long pointed ears.  Then to top it all off, her nervous smile only made her much larger (at least much larger than the average human) canines that much more obvious.

While non-humans, or aliens if you are so inclined, were not unheard of this far into human space, it was definitely odd to have one show up at your neighborhood public high school.  To their credit, the children were quick to get over their shock and quickly moved to hushed whispers.

"Any questions for Sharion," asked Mr. Cooper, blissfully unaware of how much Sharion did not want to even be there, let alone answer questions.

"What are you," came the first one.

"Now Jason, that is in appropriate.  Apologize now, or you will be headed to the principal's office."

"Well, I mean what species .. or race .. or however you ask the question.  I am sorry, though," added Jason at the end, not wanting to end up on the wrong side of public school justice.

"The proper term is race, and Sharion here does not belong to any known race, as far as her parents know."

"Her parents do not know?"

"Unknown race, how is that even possible?"

"Why is she here if we do not know what she is?"

"Is she a lab rat?"

"Does she have alien diseases?"

"She's a freak!"

The questions were coming quickly and they were devolving to insults just as fast.  Even Mr. Cooper could see the effect they were having on Sharion, and he had to put a stop to it.

"Everyone needs to stop right now.  I will not tolerate this prejudice in my classroom!"

Bbbbbbrrrrrrriiiiiiiiinnnnnnnngggggg.

The bell saved all parties, and as the students rushed out of homeroom Sharion made her escape.

"We will be talking about this tomorrow," called Mr. Cooper as his class quickly became a ghost town.

The rest of the day was more of the same torture for Sharion:  get called up to the front of the class, get introduced, have students bombard her with questions, teacher tries to regain order, rinse and repeat.  The only problem with the other classes, was that since they were much longer than homeroom, this meant that Sharion had to endure the stares much longer.  She wished she could answer their questions, maybe they would leave her alone, though she knew that was a futile wish.  Even if she did know half of what they asked, she was the flavor of the moment and all she could do was wait it out.

Well, the rest of the day was almost the same. In her final class she realized that one of her classmates was staring at her some how more intently than the others.