Fifth Avenue - The Replacements

Hartley rubs her eyes and blinks but he doesn’t disappear, he remains where we stood with the same arrogant smirk on his face. “But, but I-I killed you, I mean I saw you get shot” she yells and steps forward reaching out to touch him.

To her amazement her hand meets the rough material of his dark hoodie “You’re not a hallucination?” she asks again and he steps back from her touch, the look of disgust flashing over his face.

“Of course, I’m real sweetheart,” he mocks “what’s wrong Hartley, going a little nutso?” Justin laughs before his head twitches. Justin’s eyes begin to grow red.

“How does it feel Hartley, all that guilt your holing inside of you, all those live you’ve destroyed, how does a monster like you sleep at night?” it was Justin whos mouth was moving but it wasn’t Justin’s voice, it was to childish for that.

Justin’s hand grip onto Hartley’s arm tightly “Ow” Hartley cries “Justin you’re hurting me, please stop” he tilts his head in slight confusion.

His face turns back to one with anger “How does it feel to be the bad guy for once?” Justin presses down so tightly her left arm snapped like a twig making her scream in agony.

He throws her into a cabinet and as he stalks forward the sink bursts causing high pressured water to spray into his face “What the...?” Justin steps back covering his face.

Hartley holds her left arm to her chest and winces before turning to the doorway. Trixie stood there with a face of concentration as her hands moved from the sink to Justin “Y-you’re one of them” she says coldly.

Justin teleports to behind Trixie driving a knife into her waist “Call your dog’s girl” he sneers into her ear.

“Anytime now would be amazing guys” Trixie speaks out loud and within seconds the windows in the kitchen shatter, three people stepped through the broken remains of the windows. “You’re outnumbered, give up” Trixie spoke through gritted teeth.

Justin laughs coldly before his eyes go to Hartley “I’ll see you soon Blue” Justin winks and he was gone. Trixie stumbles forward slightly clutching her bleeding wound.

Hartley looks to Trixie not bothering to control her emotions as her hair changed from blue to red. She looks to the three people who had smashed through her windows, the walls surrounding them began to groan.

The flirt from her work stood with his hands in his pockets smiling, the woman who stood beside him was the red headed woman from the street and standing just behind them was the quiet guy who was helping the flirt out of the bar.

“Hartley, I-” Trixie starts but Hartley raises her hand stopping her from continuing.

Wincing as she rises Hartley looks between everyone in her home “Get Doc” she says angrily her eyes flickering red telling them not to argue.

The flirt nods and picks up his phone before pulling it away “He says he’s coming in now” everyone nods and Doc walks through the doorway.

“Look Hartley before you get mad” Hartley cuts him off by punching him in the nose so hard that everyone in the room flinches at the cracking sound it made “Okay I probably deserved that one” he groans cracking his nose back into place and healing it.

Doc steps forward ad Hartley backs away from him “Just let me heal your arm and I will explain everything” she shook her head.

“Just talk” she answers stubbornly “Please I would love to know why you’ve been having me watched for the past two years, who are they, why the hell was I attacked by my dead- by Justin” Doc looks down slightly ashamed.

He clears his throat “I tried to warn you” Doc says slowly “but you just wouldn’t listen to me” the three people and Trixie step forward “these are The Replacements” the flirt steps forward “this is Flicker, his ability is to make it appear as if there are multiple copies of himself” as to demonstrate Flicker closes his eyes and soon four versions of him appeared around the room although the real him was flickering “he’s still getting used to his power” Doc explained.

Flicker returns to being the only one of him in the room and he steps back allowing the red head to step forward “This is Flutter” Doc introduces. Flutter drops the trench coat from her back and she stretches out her arms, two huge blue butterfly wings sprout from her back. She opens her eyes and reveals to glowing blue orbs “Her wings are the only abnormality we know her to have at this point” Flutter blinks and her eyes return to a normal blue “She can fly higher than some planes but the problem with it is her wings are as fragile as a normal butterflies wings would be and they don’t go away meaning she has to cover them with a jacket” she leans down and pulls her wings as close to her back as she could before pulling the coat on and over them before taking a step back.

“The one wearing all black is Whisper” the quiet guy steps forward raising his head, his skin and hair was as white as snow but his eyes looked almost completely black. He gave her a small smile but it looked emotionless “Whisper has the ability to plant ideas into people’s heads simply by whispering it into their ears, it can’t exactly be show cased here as it could turn deadly, fast” Whisper stepped back nodding slightly.

Trixie stepped forward giving Hartley a small smile “You know Trixie, we call her Trix and her ability is to cause mischief or make things go wrong, I placed her into your life when Justin’s body disappeared from our morgue when he began to pop up around the world, I knew it was just a matter of time before he went after you, Hartley you must understand this was for your best interest” he tried to insist but Hartley shook her head angrily.

“Why didn’t you tell me he was back?” she demands weakly.

Doc steps forward and looks down onto Hartley “I called and called, I even tried to drop in and tell you but each time you ignored me, blocked me, pushed me away!” now he was angry “people have been dying while you sit idly by playing dress ups pretending to be normal when you are so much more” when he was done he took a deep breath calming himself down.

Hartley gulps, she knew he was right, it was her fault, but still she felt anger boil inside of her. Her hair slowly began to turn dark red and her eyes flickered a matching colour.

The room began to grow humid and everyone shuffled uncomfortably “Listen Hartley” Doc says stepping forward in attempt to calm her but in her anger Hartley grabbed his arm with her good hand and twisted it so he was kneeling in front of her “I’m sorry” he whispers.

Hartley sniffled and closed her eyes to stop herself from crying “I-I can’t, I can’t do this again” she stutters before dropping his arm and running from her apartment clutching her still broken arm.

It was still early in the morning, the sun sitting just over the trees providing a bright light over the town. Hartley shivers as the breeze nips at her bare arms, her work uniform not providing much warmth.

Not having to look back Hartley could sense someone walking closely behind her, she turns a corner into a slightly more deserted street before turning around only to find behind her empty.

Someone taps her shoulder and she turns again to see a familiar pink haired girl smiling at her “Hiya Hartley, ya miss us?” Candii asks swinging back and forwards, a devilish smile playing on her slightly matured face.

“Us?” Hartley choked as something metal presses against her throat, a male chuckle erupts from behind her which Candii soon joined.

“You can thank your boyfriend, he led us straight towards you” Reaper whispered into her ear “we’ve been looking for you Hartley, for a very, very long time” a small shiver runs down Hartley’s back as he spoke.

Reaper lowers the blade from her throat and Hartley kicks back hitting him in the shin, she quickly snatches the blade from his hand and puts it against Candii’s throat “and why have you been looking for me?” she asks in a seemingly calm tone, Reaper snarls and goes to step forward but Hartley presses the knife down slightly harder.

“I have had enough games today Reaper” Hartley says now more annoyed “now tell me, why have you been looking for me?” he looks from the blade to Hartley.

With the slight fear in his face Hartley notices how human Reaper looked, his skin almost looked like skin, his left hand was half covered in flesh and he seemed to have more colour in his cheeks.

He finally speaks as a small amount of blood trickled down Candii’s neck “Fine, okay fine!” he growls “we need you to get our boss back” Hartley’s eyes flicker red, “We need Wisdom back” Candii sucks in and moves her arm to grab Hartley’s broken one making her scream and drop the blade, before she can pick it up again Reaper has his left hand by her shoulder.

“Move and you will regret it pet” he says quickly and Hartley nods gripping her throbbing arm “Don’t worry we aren’t going to hurt you just yet, just wanted to give you and your lackies a little bit of warning, make sure to say hi to the ole boss for me would ya?” he chuckles.

Candii lifted a broken piece of wood and smashed it down onto her head, Hartley dropped to the unconscious and Reaper and Candii leave hand in hand leaving Hartley unconscious on the side of the road.