Chapter Text
It all started with a simple misunderstanding.
When Camila de la Cruz left Dominican Republic and immigrated to the United States, she had yet to meet another person who was as into Cosmic Frontier as she was, so when she spotted a blue and yellow suitcase with the iconic logo emblazoned on it on the baggage carousel, she did not even think to check the tag before taking it with her.
Just as she was about to exit the airport and take her first official step in Los Angeles, California, she was suddenly cut off by a couple blocking her path. The man looked apologetic while the woman looked angry, but communication was difficult because, while all three of them spoke perfect English, they also all had pretty thick accents, and the strange woman’s elevated voice was not helping the situation.
It was only after Camila noticed that the man also had a blue and yellow Cosmic Frontier suitcase with him that she started putting two and two together and realized what had just happened: she had accidentally taken his luggage while he was holding hers.
After the man got the woman to calm down, Camila was able to explain herself and managed to convince her that it was an honest mistake rather than an attempted theft, just as the man had theorized. They started talking after that and she came to learn that the married couple were also immigrants, having just moved from Thailand to the United States, and their names were Bee and Oum Boonchuy.
It was a story they would all laugh about for years to come, because she became pretty good friends with the pair after that – a rather rocky start to a rock solid friendship, but Camila had bore witness to even odder things in her life. They exchanged contact info (and suitcases as well) before going their separate ways.
Camila and Bee were both happy to have found a friend who was interested the same kind of nerdy stuff as they were – Oum was supportive of her husband’s interests despite not really being too interested in them herself, but she also had plenty of common interests with their newfound Dominican friend that were unrelated to science fiction.
The Boonchuys had a passion for food and dreamed of opening their very own Thai restaurant while Camila attended the local community college in hopes of one day becoming a veterinarian, something she wanted to be since she was a little girl.
Money was tight and Camila was struggling to find a job, so at some point she found herself selling energy drinks for a pyramid scheme, but thankfully Oum managed to talk some sense into her before she got in too deep. That was yet another story they would laugh about years down the line.
Their little immigrant friendship triangle morphed into a square when Bee met another Cosmic Frontier fan at a local comic book store: his name was Manuel Noceda, though he insisted they called him Manny instead. He was American born and raised, but his parents were both Puerto Rican immigrants.
Manny and Camila fell in love pretty much at first sight, but didn’t confess their feelings for each other until much later down the line after one of the group’s many Cosmic Frontier TV adaptation binge-watching parties.
They eventually got married, Camila changed her last name from de la Cruz to Noceda, and not long after that the newlywed couple had their first daughter, Lucia Noceda. The Boonchuys, her godparents, absolutely adored the little girl and were planning on having a child of their own at some point, but they wanted to be more financially stable first.
Lucia was still a baby when the Nocedas moved away; Manny got a job offer out of state, and while he was interested in the position, he wasn’t too sure about uprooting his family to pursue his career. It was Camila who convinced him that it would be better for the family in the long run, since the salary being offered was higher than his current one, so they would be able to afford little Lucia better opportunities in life.
The Boonchuys were sad to see them go, but they still contacted each other every once in a while to keep their friends updated on what was going on in their lives.
Camila gave birth to her second daughter, Luz Noceda, a couple of years later, while the Boonchuys had their only daughter Anne the year after that, after finally opening their very own restaurant, Thai Go.
Things were going great for both families. Everything was as close to perfect as they imagined they could possibly get.
But then Manny fell deathly ill.
The Nocedas had to move away yet again, that time to Gravesfield, Connecticut, in order to live closer to a hospital that was better equipped to treat Manny’s illness, but by then it was already too late; the illness had already progressed beyond the point where it could be treated, and Manuel Noceda passed away in a hospital bed.
Lucia and Luz were sixteen and eleven years old respectively when that happened. Both girls loved their parents, but it was no secret that Luz was pretty much attached to their mother while Lucia spent a lot more time with their father.
Both were devastated by their loss, but Lucia took it the hardest; the once popular, outgoing, cheerful and energetic captain of the school baseball team became a depressed shut-in who left her room pretty much just to eat and go to school, and even that was an uphill battle at first – she didn’t go to school for almost two whole months, and Camila had to bring food to her room for the first few weeks, just to make sure her daughter would eat anything.
Lucia didn’t want to talk to her old friends anymore, she lost her passion for sports, she pushed away everyone that tried to approach her until they eventually stopped trying, and in the end she became a miserable loner.
By the time she graduated high school, Lucia had no friends left and no idea what to do with her life.
Camila didn’t know what could be done to help her eldest daughter, but she concluded that some breathing space and a change of scenery might at least do her some good, so she contacted the Boonchuys, who were already up-to-date on what the Nocedas had been going through for the past few years, and explained her idea to them.
They were more than willing to host their goddaughter for as long as she needed.
When Camila offered Lucia the option to take a gap year and spend some time away from home to focus on finding herself and healing, it didn’t take much deliberation on her daughter’s part before she accepted it.
The eldest Noceda sister packed her bags, said goodbye to her family, got on a plane and flew all the way back to L.A. for the first time in nearly two decades.
The first thing the Boonchuys noticed upon meeting her in person for the first time after over a decade was that, while Lucia looked so much like Manny in the pictures they would send them while she was still growing up, in the present she looked almost like a carbon copy of Camila back when they first met her – except, of course, for the hair, which was much longer, and that she kept tied into a messy bun and tucked under a maroon-colored beanie, with the exception of her bangs and long face-framing strands.
Lucia had ebony stud earrings on both ears, just like her sister, and wore a green army jacket that she refused to take off, regardless of place or temperature, unless it was laundry day or when Mrs. Boonchuy invited her to join her in her daily workout routines, since those really worked up a sweat.
Their only daughter, Anne Boonchuy, was overjoyed to have an older sibling figure living under their roof and pretty much became Lucia’s shadow when she wasn’t at school, hanging out with her best friends Sasha Waybright and Marcy Wu, or when Lucia was working at the family restaurant, something the teen herself had requested when she started feeling like a freeloader – she was living in their house and eating their food without offering anything substantial in return, after all, and felt bad about it.
Lucia regained her passion for baseball when she discovered a group of young locals that would play for fun every once in a while and ended up joining them. She wouldn’t go as far as to call them “friends”, but she appreciated their company, even if she had yet to memorize a single one of their names.
They would often just sit around and chill after a game, sometimes drinking beer, sometimes smoking weed. Lucia was nineteen years old, a legal adult by everyone’s standards, but not old enough to legally consume either of those substances. Neither were some of the others present, however, but the members of the group that were twenty-one and older were willing to give them a pass, a pass that was also offered to her as well, and one that Lucia gratefully accepted.
She never went as far as getting drunk or high, though; always calling it quits while she was just feeling a little buzzed.
Camila’s suggestion had partially worked – while Lucia had yet to fully recover from her father’s death, she was feeling a lot less miserable and a lot livelier than she had felt at any point in the past three years.
Lucia even thought that she would soon be able to call her mom and tell her that she was ready to go back.
And that was when it happened:
Lucia was given the day off.
The Boonchuys didn’t open the restaurant that day because it was Anne’s thirteenth birthday and they were going to throw her a party in order to celebrate. Lucia wanted to stay and help, but the couple wanted her to go out and have fun on her day off, so they reached a compromise: she would help the couple procure party supplies, then leave the baking and decorations for them to take care of.
She also took the time to talk them out of hiring a party clown – other than Anne herself, she was the person in that house that had most recently been thirteen years old, so she knew that Anne and her friends had already reached the age where they no longer found things like party clowns appealing.
With that sorted, Lucia grabbed her bag, her baseball bat (bought with the money she earned working at Thai Go so she would no longer have to borrow someone else’s) and exited the house, going straight to the usual field where she played with the locals.
The competition was fierce, but by the end her team had managed to win more matches than they lost.
After playing for a few hours, they were all pretty exhausted and called it quits. That was when the cooler somebody brought was opened and beer cans were tossed to the players who decided to stick around for the “after-party”.
Most of the people there enjoyed talking about trivial stuff with the others, but Lucia didn’t really have anything she wanted to discuss with them and would mostly just lie on the grass and watch the clouds in silence. She found it relaxing.
Lucia took a hit of the joint that was being passed around when it reached her, and that was when she realized the sky looked significantly darker than it was just a few moments prior.
“Oye.” She called after exhaling a small cloud of smoke, grabbing the attention of the nearest person whose name she was almost certain started with the letter J, though she couldn’t quite remember what it was. Jonas? Jeremy? “What time is it?”
Lucia had left her phone in her backpack, which was located a few yards away from her spot, meaning she would have to move in order to reach it, but she didn’t feel like getting up just yet. J-dude reached into the pocket of his grass-stained white shorts and pulled out his own mobile.
“Six-thirty.” He replied.
“Mierda.” She moaned before reluctantly getting up. “I gotta go. I’m late for the party.”
“Party, eh?” A girl who was resting her head on the lap of presumably her boyfriend spoke. “Mind if I tag along? I don’t feel like going home sober tonight.”
“Then you definitely don’t want to tag along; my host family is throwing a birthday party for their kid – a small thing, just for close friends and family. She turned thirteen today.”
“Ugh! Nevermind, then. Pass me another beer, love?”
“Sure thing, babe.” The man whose lap her head was occupying replied as he reached into the cooler next to them and retrieved a new beverage.
“Wish her a happy birthday on our behalf.” J-dude said as Lucia slung her backpack over her shoulder. “And wish her good luck, too; age thirteen is when the craziest shit starts happening in life.”
“Sure thing.” She replied. “Hasta luego Jake, everybody. Thank you for the cerveza.”
“It’s Jack, actually.”
She was right about the first letter, at least.
By the time Lucia realized she never passed the joint before leaving, she had already crossed the street. She didn’t feel like turning back, so she decided to save it for later in case something stressful happened at the party – a likely outcome, mostly due to one of the names on the guest list.
Lucia wasn’t required to attend the party, but she felt obligated nonetheless; Anne liked her a lot and would feel sad if her “host sister” skipped out on her birthday party. And truth be told, Lucia also liked Anne.
When the two first met, the older girl felt pretty neutral about the younger girl; Anne didn’t make a great first impression, but she didn’t make a bad one either. As the days passed, she started to sort of dislike Anne because she was loud, nosy, clingy, and had no respect for her privacy, constantly barging into Mrs. Boonchuy’s former workout room she had generously converted into a guest room just for her.
But the more time she spent in the house, the more she got to know the little Thai girl, and she soon realized that Anne was a sweet, kind and bright young kid with inhuman levels of energy to spare. Lucia was a lot like Anne when she was around that age, too.
Her friend Marcy Wu she liked pretty much from the start, primarily for the fact that she was basically “Luz 2.0”; Lucia loved her little sister more than anything else in the whole world, even if she hadn’t done much to show that love in the past few years, and having someone who was so much like her around made Lucia feel like she hadn’t left home at all, but in a good way.
And then there was Sasha Waybright.
Lucia did not like Sasha Waybright. At all.
Marcy and Anne were oblivious to it, but she saw right through Sasha’s mind games. How could she not? She’d had to deal with people like Sasha throughout all of her school life, and Lucia could smell a manipulative control freak from a mile away.
On more than one occasion Lucia attempted to persuade the other two into doing activities that did not involve the blonde, but that goal was pretty much unattainable; the trio had been friends since kindergarten, and their shared history ensured that they would never want to leave one of the three out of their plans.
There is no simple way to convince people to distance themselves from the rotten apple of the bunch because it’s easy to ignore red flags from someone you consider a good friend.
Her phone started ringing while Lucia was lost in her thoughts. According to the ID on screen, Mr. Boonchuy was the one calling her.
“Hi, padrino.” She greeted after answering the call.
“Lucia, it’s me.” A feminine voice that most certainly did not belong to Mr. Boonchuy spoke.
“Oh, hello, madrina.” Had she misread the caller ID? Maybe she had a little more beer and weed than intended and it was messing with her eyesight.
“Where are you right now?” Shit, was she mad at her for being late to the party?
“Lo siento, madrina, I lost track of time. I’m on my way back now.”
“What? Oh, no, that’s not what I meant, Lucia, it’s Anne. She’s not home yet. She’s not answering my calls, she’s not even reading my texts!”
“Did something happen?”
“I thought so at first, but then I checked the tracking app on my phone, and guess what? She just left a thrift store and is not even coming this way. Can you go after her and bring her home, please?”
Ok so she hadn’t read the caller ID wrong – Mrs. Boonchuy had called Lucia from her husband’s cellphone because hers was currently busy being used to track Anne’s location.
“I’m at Los Feliz Boulevard, I think. I just walked past SpendCo.”
“Oh, you’re very close, then. Stay on the line and I’ll guide you to her.”
“Sure thing, madrina.”
“Keep heading down Loz Feliz Boulevard, then turn right and head up Perlita Avenue. Right before a car wash.”
“On it!”
“I just don’t understand why she would do this.” Her godmother sounded equal parts worried and exasperated. “Has she finally reached her rebellious phase? I thought we would still have another year or two to prepare.”
“There’s no way, I know for a fact that Anne was looking forward to this party.”
“Then why?”
“I think— Hang on, there’s a fork on the road, which way do I go?”
“Let me check… Just keep following Perlita Avenue until the end and you’ll reach Chevy Chase Drive. Anne is almost dead ahead. If you double time it, you might just get there ahead of her.”
Lucia wanted to double time it, she really did, but she was still exhausted from playing baseball all afternoon; her legs didn’t feel like speeding up, so she kept going without changing her pace.
“Oye madrina, you know I’m not a fan of gossiping, but I think I know what’s going on with Anne.”
“What is it? ”
“It’s that friend of hers, Sasha. Anne and Marcy, they—”
“Wait, there she goes! She’s walking past the Perlita Avenue entrance right now. Do you see her?”
“I’m not there yet, sorry.”
“That’s ok, Lucia. Now, you were saying…?”
“Anne and Marcy. They can never say no to Sasha, and she’s not shy about taking advantage of that either; if she wants them to do something they don’t want to do, she’ll insist until they say yes. I know it isn’t my place to say this, but you really need to have a talk with Anne about Sasha.”
“Oh, you bet I will!”
“Okay, I’m at Chevy Chase Drive. Where to now?”
“Go right. They’re almost at the park at the end of the block. Wait, no, they’re going into the park.”
Sure enough, Lucia spotted three figures in the distance walking into said park – Anne and, without a doubt, Marcy and Sasha. If she picked up the pace, she would catch up to them in just a moment.
“I see them. No te preocupes, madrina, one way or another I’m bringing Anne home.”
“Thank you, Lucia. I know I can always count on you.”
With that said, she ended the call and pocketed her phone. When Lucia reached the park she spotted Anne sitting on a wooden bench, flanked by Sasha and Marcy. From where Lucia was standing, it appeared that Anne was holding a small treasure chest-shaped box.
Just as she was about to open the lid, Lucia snatched the box from her hands, startling the trio who immediately looked up at the person responsible.
“Well, well, well.” Lucia said with a disapproving look in her eyes. “And what do we have here? A trio of little delinquents who are not where they are supposed to be.”
“Oh, uh… Hi, Lucia.” Anne greeted halfheartedly while Marcy waved at her. Sasha just furrowed her brow.
“Isn’t there a birthday party the three of you should be attending right now?”
“It’s Anne’s birthday, she can celebrate it any way she wants.” Sasha spoke with a glare, crossing her arms defiantly.
“Oh, she can, can she? So what you’re saying is that this was her idea, not yours? You didn’t influence her decision in any way? Are you sure about that, chica?”
“Yes, I am! Now give that back, it’s her birthday gift!”
Sasha tried to snatch the box back, but Lucia raised her hand until it was out of Sasha’s reach.
“I’ll give it back when she’s home. Where you all should have been an hour ago.”
“Then I’ll just have to take it back!” Sasha then jumped on Lucia, trying to climb on the older girl to reach the box.
“Oye! Get off me, Ricitos de Oro!”
“Yuck, you stink of weed!”
Anne and Marcy locked eyes with each other, none of them too sure what they were supposed to do.
Nobody could tell for sure how it happened, but at some point during the struggle the lid of the box was opened by accident and an explosion of multicolored light shone from within it.
After the sudden and mysterious glow subsided, all of the girls who were previously there had mysteriously vanished, along with the box.