"Are you hurt?" a boy asked.
She looked up from where she sat, hands wiping her tears away. A boy was looking down at her, but something was immediately, jarringly odd about him despite her sadness.
Instead of the t-shirt and jeans everyone wore, the boy who seemed to be her age wore an oversized yellow helmet with a flashlight and bright yellow overall pants over a white t-shirt. To top off this oddity, an oversized pickaxe was slung over his shoulder.
She stared, dumbfounded.
He looked at her, his exasperation clear. "I asked, are you hurt?" he repeated.
She shook her head.
"Then what's wrong?" he asked. He asked a lot of questions.
"...My new family doesn't like me."
He raised an eyebrow. "Don't families normally adopt you if they like you?"
"They don't like me."
"A very weird conundrum."
"Conundaram?" she repeated.
"It means a confusing problem."
"Why do you use big words like adults?"
"Because I am one."
"No, you're not."
"Am too."
"Are not."
"Am too."
"Are not."
"...I work."
"So?"
"I live by myself."
"...Okay."
"..."
"..."
"Do you want to come and see where I live?"
She looked at him funnily. "Why?"
"Because you're sad and don't like your new family. You can come live with me if you don't tell anyone where I live."
She frowned. "Fine. I'll see where you live."
He grinned stupidly. "Okay!" His pickaxe vanished. She gaped.
"Y-You're a cape!"
"Am not."
"You have powers!"
He glanced around, then turned back to her. "You're not supposed to say that out loud. Trouble comes if you do."
She fidgeted. "Sorry."
"It's alright. But I'm not a cape."
"But powers…?" she whispered, utterly confused.
He just shrugged. "I don't wear masks. It's stupid."
She gasped.
He turned and walked away. She hesitated for only a second before jumping up and running after him.
She couldn't keep her jaw from dropping upon entering the boy's "domain." He led her through this portal, and they came to a rocky tunnel. There was another portal on the other side, and when they went through the second portal, she came to a weird but fun place!
It was a cave, but it was so large and wide. There were apple trees growing and grass and flowers and -!
And a skeleton inside a cage?
She stared at the skeleton before turning back to the boy.
"You're a cape." It was not a question but a statement, because who else but a cape would imprison a skeleton.
The skeleton stared at her with a blank stare as equally devastating as the boy's own blank stare; they weren't effective on her at all.
After staring at her for few moments, he shrugged and continued deeper into the cave of glowing stones, greenery and waterfalls. As she followed him, the brightly lit and humongous cavern changed into a narrower corridor, lit up not by the glowing stones she saw in the cavern but torches that gave off light and heat but no smoke. The rocky walls gave away to large stone bricks and wooden doors. All of the doors were bigger and taller than her.
Then he led her to another door at the end of the corridor. It was a wooden door, too, but there was something different about it. For one, it was far more worn out than the other doors.
He opened it… and she saw other kids. Only one among them was older than her and the rest of the kids.
"Welcome to my home," he said as he led her inside. "If you want to stay here, then these kids will be your family. Introductions, everyone!"
After that, it was a whirlwind of talking and shouting and giggling and laughing. She played games with them, ate meals that tasted good, and slept soundly.
She found a new home and liked this place more than the other home.
💎💎💎💎💎💎⛏️⛏️⛏️
Amelia Lavere woke up, and wondered why she had that dream of all dreams. It was the first time she came to the Underground Orphanage, as the "orphanage director" liked to call it.
"Amy, get up! It's time to eat!"
She grumbled as she pushed off the bedsheets slowly and stumbled out of her dark room. She opened the door and let the light of the common room blast her in the face. She squinted as she walked out of her room.
And the annoying voice of the "director" grated on her ear again.
"Amy, go back in there and get dressed up. You know that I don't like my boys and girls eating in pajamas."
She opened her eyes a bit more and stared at the "director," the same boy now a teenage boy who ran the entire orphanage with little help from anyone else.
He was a five foot eleven giant (not really, he was a fifteen year old boy, but it was the thought that counted because compared to him, she was tiny with her five foot three). He still wore yellow overalls, though these were bigger, much baggier, and a bit darker compared to the overalls he wore when she first met him. His short hair looked more like a helmet than hair because of how evenly he cut it. It wasn't exactly a bowl cut, though.
Overall, he looked dorky in those overalls and weird bowling ball hairstyle, but everyone in the orphanage knew better than to underestimate those overalls. He could tank rifle fire with those overalls, which made no sense and thus made him a cape, a title he still refused to take up.
As he demanded, because that's what it was, she went back into her room and came back out of it in her usual attire of blue t-shirt, sunset red knee-skirt, and black hoodie.
He saw her outfit, nodded in approval, and slid a plate filled with food in front of her from the center of the common room's kitchen table, which was kind of like a bartender's counter but filled with food ingredients and not alcohols.
Around the table were other orphans. Most of them were older teenagers like herself and him.
There was Cindy Marlene, the oldest of everyone at the tender age of seventeen. She wasn't a cape like him or her, but was an explorer. She roamed the tunnels that he made with two others and "audited" to make sure that there was nothing going wrong with the tunnels.
An example of something going wrong would be a spot where torches hadn't been placed and thus was dark.
And dark tunnels spawned monsters.
Amy grimaced as she remembered fighting a zombie by herself. She had gone out to just take some time for herself when something scratched her in the back hard. She had turned around and saw a zombie. She lashed out with her power and killed it by causing it to seize all of its cellular functions.
It … had been harrowing because it was her first lone encounter with monsters.
On the other hand …
She looked at him as she ate another spoonful of scrambled eggs that he made.
Tyler was a weird person. He didn't talk like any of the kids but more like an adult. He set out and created this place by himself at the age of six. He fought nightmarish creatures on a daily basis to get them what they needed. He was why other kids like Cindy tried to make themselves useful. Unlike other orphanages that some of the kids here had been to, Tyler's Underground Orphanage felt very much like a family, even for the outliers. Everyone took part in its activities, whether it was harvesting, fishing, or any of the other mundane things they wouldn't do elsewhere. They learned about each other and … it was safe here.
Amy actually talked to Cindy about what she was going to do once she became eighteen. Since Tyler was adamant about everyone getting their education, most of the older kids were ready to take the GED once they turned 18. Cindy said that she would take the GED, but it was only to prove that Tyler's work with her hadn't been wasted. She would stay at the Orphanage and help with its upkeep just like she did now.
She wondered what she was going to do. With her power, she could set up a clinic or something like that, work at a hospital or even the PRT.
"Done," she said as she pushed the plate back to Tyler just as someone else entered the common room. It was Zoey, a eight year old girl Tyler picked up from the streets a year ago. She had settled in fine into the Underground Orphanage despite her initial passive aggressive attitude. Zoey quickly ran up and sat next to Amy.
Amy smiled.
Despite her own questions about her future, the fact that her status now as a member of the Underground Orphanage was secure. She was also one of the five capes of the Underground Orphanages, known to the rest of the city above as "Tunnel Kids."
Amy still remembered that fight vividly.
"Hey Amy, Amy!" Zoey called. "Are you going to be working with plants again?"
"Yes," she said. "I think I want to make plant dogs this time."
Zoey squealed and hugged her.
Before all of the cape business, Amy had been wary about using her powers. It made her so different from others and yet made her that much closer to Tyler.
But that before the capes of the city above decided to intrude into Tyler's tunnels.
That was before she had to create abominations just to keep others alive and hold the fort when Tyler was out to whittle down E88 on the surface.
Now, she relied on her powers. She used them daily, improving everything she saw as necessary. If an orphan had eyesight issues, then she would fix it. If someone had early cancer, then she would fix it. If another abomination needed to be created to keep the Orphanage and its orphans safe, then she would create one on the spot.
And she did happily, because as Tyler said, everyone in the Orphanage was family.
"Hey, hey. Can you make me a husky? I always wanted a husky!" Zoey giggled.
Amy shrugged. "I don't see why not, but you know how most of my things turn out to be."
Zoey frowned. "Eww. You mean they explode?"
She facepalmed. "No. I meant that they're going to be red."
"Eh. Tyler's red when he comes back from the portal. I don't mind."
Amy winced. Tyler was only red because he was on the other side of the portal in a place he called the "Nether," slaughtering monsters there by the hundreds each day to pick up meager amounts of gold nuggets they dropped upon death, so that he could sell those to provide the Orphanage with things they couldn't get on their own.
"I certainly don't mind," Tyler said from his place at the kitchen, making more scrambled egg even as his free hand pushed a plate of baked potato, scrambled eggs, two strips of bacon, and peas to Zoey. Zoey took it eagerly, frowning a little at the peas, and then started to eat. "Give them bioluminescent lights, and they can patrols the mines, too."
Amy blinked as she thought about that.
"Right. I haven't thought about that," she muttered.
Tyler, despite how well he meant in everything he did, couldn't be more focused about the things he saw as necessary. Everything about him was focused on keeping the other orphans happy and healthy. It was why he made giant underground farms, spending hundreds of hours by himself, hauling literal hills worth of stone out. He made aquariums and underground lakes so that they could fish and grow fish for food. He provided them with library's worth of books, mostly educational and some entertainment.
He went and fought til he was in literal tatters in the Nether for scraps of gold nuggets to sell because one of the orphans said they wanted a exclusive Legend figurine. Nobody asked him for anything after that, too afraid to see him die. Even so, he went out everyday and fought, coming back with a bag full of gold nuggets and red from head to toe in the blood of the monsters he killed.
He didn't seem to realize that the kids just wanted him to be around.
He always had to do something, and his thought process seemed to be perpetually stuck there.
Tyler stopped, and then whistled.
There was a thud and then one of the doors opened. Joseph, a sleepy teen, yawned. He looked at Tyler. "Yes?" he asked.
If she was the older sister most of the kids came to, then Joseph was the one who took after Tyler the most. Joseph certainly didn't spare anything less than his best in trying to do so after Tyler rescued him from the clutches of the Merchants.
"Cook for the kids. I need to check up on the surface," he said as he pulled his apron off.
Amy sighed as did some of the other teenagers who were in one mind with her on this issue.
Tyler never ever stopped moving around and doing things for the benefit of the orphanage. They wished he would stick around more.
Joseph grimaced. He too thought the same as Amy, but couldn't turn down Tyler's requests for shit.
"Okay," he said as he walked up to the kitchen and took over. The other kids, not teenagers, looked down at that. It didn't matter that Joseph was a better cook; they wanted Tyler to cook for them.
Tyler gave everyone who was in the common room a head rub before he headed over to the armory.