Before The Storm

Before The Storm is a collection of stories describing what happens to various characters before the setting of The Tomorrow People. Each story is about three to four chapters long.

Naria:
Naria raced through the halls of the ruined Tetra Nui security building, some of the gangsters fired potshots at her, to no avail. They all missed. Naria looked over the events in her mind again, recalling the last few days as she ran...

She had finally escaped from her master, the Vortixx Cyst. She'd been born in his penthouse, and she was born just so he could have her. A trophy. Something to say, "I can break the law and get away with it". She didn't know the law. Naria never had to do work, she just had to live. Cyst didn't really care what she did, as long as she was always with him when guests were there, and as long she stayed looking the same every day, Cyst left her be. She had no real way to talk to people, all the servants stayed out of her way, there was no Tetranet terminal, no vid screens, she didn't have a omnitool. It was torture. That didn't even include the things Cyst forced her to do, or the abuse he put her through. A shiver of fear and pain quickly passed through her body as she thought about it.

She never even thought about escaping until one of his accursed parties, when a tall thin red Vortixx had slipped her a piece of parchment when Cyst wasn't looking. She had pretened nothing had happened, until Cyst had finished his usual treatment of her when all the guests had left, and was asleep. She had hidden the note earlier in the matress. The note just told her that the apartment doors would be unlocked when Cyst left for a buisness trip the next day, and that she should dispose of the note in a way so that nobody knew she had the note in the first place. So she ate it. Conisidering how little she normally got for food, it felt good having at least something in her stomach. Even if it was paper. The next day, Cyst was indeed gone, buisness trip or not, all the servants were gone too. When Naria tried the front door to the penthouse, it was unlocked. The note was right, so Naria guessed that the red Vortixx had tried to help her. She had to remember to thank her the next time Naria saw her.

Now Naria was a little bit scared, the biggest obstacle to leaving was around her neck. A collar, not only having "I belong to Cyst..." on it, it made electronic sounds, and that could mean anything to her. If she took a step forward, was there some invisible wall that her collar would activate? Naria had seen it once, on a Tetranet termninal Cyst had accidently left on a table. The Vortixx was running from a group of armed Matoran, and had run into one. The invisible wall flashed white once the Vortixx had ran into it, and he was thrown back towards the Matoran. She didn't see the rest of the vid, Cyst had come back into the room then, and had punished her for it. Another time, she had held some sort of electronic thing, and had been hurt by it. It felt awful, and Naria was in no hurry to feel the pain again.

Stay and continue her life of abuse and pain at the hands of Cyst? Or go outside, to a world of unknown? Naria nodded, and took a step forward, expecting to be launched back any second... and she passed through the doorway with ease. Again, Naria had to wonder what her collar was for. She couldn't take it off, it had words written on it that told people that she belonged to Cyst, and it made electronic sounds. Not even to the world below, and already a mystery. Naria strode over to twin door. Solid, no windows on them, and a single button on the right-hand side. Pressing the button, Naria had jumped back, surprised at the sudden whirling of the lift system as it arrived at the top level. When the doors opened, there was a smaller room, like the cleaning rooms back in the penthouse behind her. Warily, Naria stepped into the lfit, looking at the large number of buttons on the back side of the door. Not fully understanding what they ment, Naria pressed the one on the bottom, and clutched the railing on the walls as the lift descended. When it arrived at the basement levels, Naria was surprised to see several Vortixx awaiting her. And some Matoran too.

"She's the one!" A Vortixx had called out, and his compatriots had rushed forward at Naria. Franticly, Naria tried to get the doors to close, or the room to go back up again, but to no avail. On of the Matoran stabbed her in the thigh with something, making her sleepy... Very sleepy... Naria didn't really remember what happened next. She woke up later in some sort of metal crate, and a Vortixx had opened the crate again, and stabbed her with something again, making her fall asleep. When she woke up the third time, she was in some dark room, lying on a makeshift bed. She had quickly checked to see if anything had been done to herself while she slept. No cuts, bruises, her collar and everything was still on. Her thigh however, and two twin red dots of red on them, where she had been stabbed. Several Vortixx came in later, followed by a blue Matoran. They asked her who she was, where she came from, so on. She didn't reply, she was too busy stuffing herself the the farthest corner of the room, away from them. While they didn't seemed threatening, one was loud and rude sounding, and all had various weapons on them. Guns she'd seen guards carry, sticks that more than often she had felt the blows of. She didn't trust them.

When the yelling and shooting started, Naria had tried to hope they weren't coming for her. When the door had been blown off, and she saw trashy-looking beings run past, hollering and shooting at anything that had moved, Naria had stayed as still as possible, waiting for them to leave, then she ran. Which led her to her current predicament above. A series of explosions had happened in the building, and while Naria didn't know it, the building was weakened, and about to go down. Naria thought out her options. The attacking strangers could be anywhere in the building, going up didn't help her, neither did going down. Stay in place. Naria had just crawled beneath a desk, when shooting erupted again. A bullet punctured the desk right by her, and she screamed. She scrambled out of the desk, and started running. This time, she went down, going down, down, down...

Eventually she was in the sub-levels of the police building. Nobody had followed her. Breathing a sigh of relief, Naria was about to sit down with the floor caved in beneath her, the structurally weakened sub-levels crumbled into the tunnels. Naria heard water, and let out a brief scream as she hit the water of the sewers. Getting pulled along in the waste, she eventually started to sink. Losing counsciousness from lack of air, Naria could have sword she felt someone, or something grab her as she was swept along the current. When thinking was too much for her, she closed her eyes, and everything faded to black...