The sound of her parents arguing was so loud that Cassie could hear it even from her bedroom on the second floor of the house. Then again, the quality of her family's house wasn't the best in the neighborhood.
This was just an ordinary Wednesday. Cassie, a freshman of the local high school, came back home after a day of boring studying. She was happy to find some peace, but that peace didn't last forever. More specifically, it came to an end when her father came home, and the family of three got together for dinner.
It didn't take too long for Cassie's mother, a stay-at-home housewife, to bring up the topic of the troubling financial status of the family. That complaint quickly turned ugly as Cassie's mother started calling her husband useless, and it wasn't long before the bread-earner of the house found his patience stretched thin and his voice on the rise.
Cassie's father had a bright future ahead of him...at least such was the case when he married Cassie's mother. At that time, the man was making his way through law school with flying grades. At this trajectory, it wouldn't be long until he joined a big law firm and started making millions a year. Oh, if only that was the case...
It didn't take Cassie's father too long to realize making money as a lawyer required so much more than just knowing the law. It also requires the ability to bend it. To manipulate it to suit his own cause and the cause of the ones handing him his paychecks. But the man was traditional. Stubborn. He had a respect for rules and laws that turned out to be more detrimental than helpful to his career, and over a decade after graduating law school, the man still found himself to be no more than just another district attorney in the city of Chicago.
The pay was decent, but for a family of three, this just wasn't enough.
As her parents started pointing fingers and placing blames, Cassie quietly grabbed onto her plate, which still had half a slice of pizza left, and walked up the stairs. She stepped into her bedroom and shut the door, hoping the wooden barrier could keep the furious voices out.
It couldn't.
The slice of pizza disappeared quickly. Didn't really bother with washing her hands, Cassie stood up and walked to the window. The view outside was decent. Random street lamps could be easily spotted under the dark sky. As her eyes scanned across the peaceful neighborhood, she felt an odd sense of peace. That was when her gaze landed on a mysterious source of light.
Wait...what was that. A flashlight? A drone? And...why was it flying toward her?
Almost before Cassie could think or do anything, the light source flew across the sky and crashed into the window. It was odd because Cassie didn't hear the sound of glass shattering. All she knew was one moment the light source was outside the house, and the next moment, it hit her right in the chest and merged itself in her body.
"What the…" The young woman stumbled back. For a split second, she thought it was a bullet or something and that she might have been shot, but as she ran her hand across her chest over her t-shirt, she realized she wasn't in pain or anything. Equally disturbing was the fact that there wasn't any sight of that light source.
If it wasn't for the fact that Cassie had never smoked or drank anything, she might've considered herself high. Still, even now, a part of her wondered if she was just hallucinating. Just as she was about to turn around and leave the room, something terrifying happened.
A layer of solid started to form across her body over her black t-shirt. It started off at her chest and made its way across her entire body. Cassie let out a small, surprised cry as she reached out and tried to stop whatever this was with her hands. For a moment, her mind was filled with images of xenomorphs or whatever aliens that might be doing this. Maybe this was a cocoon to trap her so they could eat her?
Her attempts were ultimately futile. The layer growing over her body easily overcame her fingers and wrapped itself across her entire body. Finally, both her hands and her face were covered as well. Unlike the biological horrors that Cassie expected, it was something metallic that was pressing against her skin. Something cold and stoic.
Cassie should've screamed for her parents, but this thought simply didn't come across her mind at the moment. Instead, with her now-gloved fingers, she opened the room's door and made her way into the bathroom just steps away from her bedroom. There, with the help of the bathroom mirror, she was finally able to see what was going on.
The figure Cassie saw inside the bathroom mirror was unlike anything she had ever seen. Cassie's entire body was covered by some sort of silver armor. Lines of sharp reverse spikes were located along the armor's arms, looking so dangerous that they could tear open skin and flesh alike on contact. Her hands were protected by a pair of leather gloves, which didn't quite explain the metallic feeling she discovered with her limbs.
Finally, as she moved her gaze up, Cassie finally saw what was covering her face. A fully enclosed helmet, with the same silver pattern as the rest of the armor. Not a single piece of the helmet looked like it was transparent, but Cassie could see things as well as if she didn't have the helmet on.
That was perhaps the least surprising thing of the day.
Overall, this armor kind of reminded Cassie of Tony Stark's Iron Man suits, but she couldn't find any weapons or thrusters.
With her still shaking hands, Cassie raised her armored right hand and tried to touch her face. The metal fingers brushed against her metal helmet.
"Ok...stay calm." The young woman slowly opened her mouth and said to herself. The voice that she heard was clearly altered. It was still feminine, but it was mechanical, as if it belonged to a robot. At least Cassie couldn't recognize her own voice anymore with the armor on.
And then, the question became whether or not she could take this armor off. If she couldn't, well...things would get really awkward for her.
"Ok...retract? Disarm? I hope this can understand what I'm saying…"
Just as she was worried about how to clean this up, Cassie suddenly felt something in her head. It was truly a weird feeling. It was as if...as if she suddenly remembered something that she never knew before. As if she suddenly gained access to memories she never had. For a few minutes, Cassie stood there in front of the mirror, frozen as she tried to process what she just received. Finally, she had a brief understanding of what was going on.
This armor came from a faction that called itself the Enforcers of Order. Strangely, the memories never explained why it sent out the armor or why Cassie was the one that received it. All they told Cassie was what this armor was now capable of. What she was now capable of.
The armor had its own set of attributes. To start things off, it was nearly impenetrable, being able to dissipate almost any type of energy directed its way, whether it was kinetic energy or thermal energy. In other words, this layer of silver was nearly impenetrable. At the same time, the armor was perfectly psionic-aligned, capable of expanding the psionic powers of its wearer exponentially.
Speaking of psionic powers…
Cassie turned to the side. Inside the helmet, the pupils of her eyes lit up in a silver light. It took her a few moments, but soon, the bar of toothpaste lying on the counter started lifting off into the air. No one was holding it up. The bar was just floating by itself.
Telekinesis. It was just one of the entire bundle of psionic powers Cassie received just now. It was joined by things like telepathy, mind control, and memory manipulation, just to name a few.
Of course, as of now, Cassie's powers were at their early stages. She had three power levels. She could use her powers without having any outward signs, but that would render her a lot weaker than normal. If she acted to the full extent of her capabilities, her eyes would light up. Once Cassie was in the silver armor, her powers would be amplified even more significantly than before.
Right now, even at the third stage, Cassie could only lift or move a few smaller objects. According to the memories she got, her powers would grow the more she wore the armor. The limits should be...endless.
"How interesting...oh I sound so funny!" Cassie said to herself, noticed her mechanical sound was still there, and proceeded to issue a command in her head. Disarm.
Immediately, the silver armor retreated from her body and disappeared into thin air. As Cassie stared at herself in the mirror, now back to normal, for a brief second she almost thought nothing happened. Except that wasn't true.
A lot of things had occurred, and Cassie was anything but the girl she was an hour ago.