Skyscrapers Are Destined to Fall

Part Four: Twigs On Trees Grow Into Branches

Authors notes: Yo!  nice to see you guys again! Hope you like our little nonbinary bean!

   Twig wasn't going to let Robyn go home. They didn't trust her alone, and her family always made it worse. It didn't matter whose house she was at, they all made it a living hell. She always came back with horrible stories of things said to her, constant working, bottles thrown, slurred words. She didn't need that right now. So Twig kept her home with them. Their parents didn't mind. They enjoyed her company and knew about her living situation. Robyn slept soundly on the couch in the basement of the house. Her feathers gleamed in the blue light of the stolen glowing weapon. Twig continued to work on it, Experimenting on multiple reactions to elements, light, and how it worked. They worked, blowing fire onto it with a small welding torch. Watching it absorb the heat. It began to glow brighter and brighter. Becoming more threatening by the second, heating the air around it. Sparking, crackling and-

BOOM!

    Twig laid sprawled out on the floor. Robyn had been knocked off of the couch and everything glass in that room had been shattered. Robyn slowly peeled herself from the wall and stumbled over to Twig. "T-Twig?" She stuttered with wide eyes. "Twig?! No response. " TWIG!" She screamed. They gasped for air and hugged the now crying Robyn. "Shhhhh. Rin, I'm okay. Look, it was just a shock. I'm ok." Robyn sobbed into their shoulder. Squeezing them tighter and wrapping her soft black wings around them. "No more experiments." She choked. "You know you scare me when you do that." Because of Twig's power, they have an excessive amount of electricity in their body. So when they get an electric shock that is over 100 volts it causes them to get an overload to the brain and pass out. Sometimes it's for seconds, sometimes it's for hours. Robyn never wanted them to get too overloaded to where they would never wake up again. Every single time it scared her. She never wanted to be responsible for another person's death again. Twig wrapped their arms tighter around Robyn, holding her close. "I know.." They whispered. Stroking her hair, they steadied her breathing to prevent an unneeded anxiety attack. "It's okay..." They soothed. They stroked through the thick curls on Robyn's head. "It's going to be alright. Go back to sleep and I'll stop messing with the device, ok?" It was already too late. Robyn had started snoring softly in their arms.

   Twig carried her back to the turned over couch. They flipped it over back onto its side and set her down gently. They stroked her hair and went up the two flights of stairs to their room on the second floor. Her torn suit sat on the floor of their room. Twig sighed and picked it up. This was going to be a long night.

    In the morning Robyn woke in the basement of Twigs house. Her suit laid out on the workbench chair stitched up and modified to have her wings stick out of the back. A new cloak came along with a note from Twig telling her they were going to be at school and to stay home. Robyn didn't want to stay home because her parents were already worried sick about her. Her phone was blown up by texts from her mom and dad. They asked her where she was, which they should've known from the little life 360 app. Her dad didn't like Twig because of their sexuality and pronouns but her mom didn't mind them. Her mom was concerned about the new villain, and to stay at Twig's house. She wanted her to be safe there and not in the rich district homes.

    Her mother was a very successful woman who made a good amount of money. Her stepdad was also in the same business and owned part of the company. Rich districts were mostly targeted by villains because the people there are wusses and you can easily mug someone or cause mass damage. The lower district only had gangs and muggings. Nobody really did anything big there, and Twig lived in a middle class house even though their parents were very wealthy. They had smart parents, and they realized if they were in a middle class house they were safer than a high district. Of course she didn't know that she was the one who stole a high tech weapon.

  For now, Robyn did school online and waited for Twig to return.

Twig never came home.