What Happened in The Dalles

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

 

Oh, now you step in! All it took was a sparking kiss with a sparking Epic who happens to be another sparking woman in the middle of a sparking command center! 

 

Arsenal's face, as Shiny disappeared, was a mask of fury. Shards of the plastic fan he'd broken lay scattered across the floor. A metal one spun in its place, the blades whipping by too quickly for Autumn to make them out; though if she could have, she knew they would be sharp enough to double as weapons. 

 

But she was gone. 

 

Off to aid Deathwish against yet another threat. 

 

And Arsenal looked ready to strangle her. 

 

Autumn knew that now was the time for an apology, according to him. Nearly every moment of every day was. Give him an apology, and he'd give you some peace. For a minute or two. Until another mistake caught his eye. Nonetheless, he expected one now. For leading an unscreened Epic into a command center—which she could have teleported into without her, but Arsenal would dismiss that as beside the point—and kissing her in front of him. 

 

But Shiny was gone, the shock of being dragged around and cuddled against her will leaving with her and anger rising in its place. 

 

Arsenal's eyes narrowed, and he gave one of his patented eye-twitches. Apology, Glass, that eye-twitch said. Now.

 

Instead, she narrowed her own eyes. "I took her into a command center. I radioed you about her powers. She could've blown me up for not giving her what she wanted. And it took kissing her in front of you to make you say enough was enough?" 

[Comatose he/him]

 

Taylor ambled through the streets aimlessly, listening in vain for the sound of Brandon's voice, while sniffing for the smell of his deodorant.  The smell of smoke hung heavy in the air, negating any chance she might have had of finding Brandon by scent, but still she tried, hoping desperately to find him.  
 
How do I even know he wants to be found?  Taylor knew it was unusual for humans to fall for epics, especially ones like her who could do particularly nasty things when displeased.  But why shouldn't Brandon have fallen for her?  She was Taylor Swift, after all, which meant she was pretty much perfect.  Even if Brandon was gay, surely even gay men would make an exception for a pop goddess like herself.  
 
"Cause we're young and we're reckless," Taylor caught the sound of the familiar lyrics, being sung quietly, from over a black away.  "'We'll take this way too far. It'll leave you breathless, or with a nasty scar..."  Was that what was happening to her and Brandon?  Had they taken their romance farther than they should have?  One thing was certain, if he was thinking of leaving her now that they had reached The Dalles, it would be him who was left scarred and breathless.  She would see to it.  

 

Unable to resist the spell of her own lyrics, Taylor moved forward towards where she had heard the sound of someone singing.  As she grew close, the she noticed the area around her begin to shift in colour, becoming decidedly greener.  Could it be that a fellow epic was appreciating her music?  She passed the young man in question, who was know letting his music play out loud, just as a new song began.  As the familiar guitar riff and the beginning of her hit, "I knew you were Trouble," echoed through the street, Taylor found herself unable to resist.  

Once upon a time
A few mistakes ago

 

Once her fan had passed, Taylor transformed, shedding her ugliness in an instant, reforming into the perfection that was herself.  

 

I was in your sights
You got me alone
You found me
You found me
You found me...

 

"Ee-ee-ee-ee."  Taylor joined in, adding the beauty of her live voice to the song.  "I guess you didn't care, and I guess I liked that.  And when I fell hard, you took a step back, without me..."

[Voidus]

Still blushing furiously MV barely heard Backtracks next words, something about getting picked on and orange cards?

His next sentence she heard though.

"That's enough about me. What about you? Got any family, besides the sister you lost?"

A building destroyed, a screaming boy, his legs crushed by wreckage. Two sets of blank unseeing eyes staring upwards at her, accusing her. Another set of eyes, still moving glaring at her with a hatred only matched by her own, her powers weakening.

Backtrack stopped, immediately backtracking, trying to reassure her about Impact, telling her that she wasn't lost.

The blush had drained completely leaving her face ashen. Opening her mouth to say something, anything to change the subject she felt a slight twinge, her hands leaped to her face as she scanned herself quickly, finding nothing amiss. Which could mean only one thing.

"Allison" She whispered.

 

Impact had never experienced being stabbed before. She'd particularly never felt what being having damage from a sword travelling at over 100 miles an hour redirected at her after she flew into someone.

Note to self. She thought glibly as she lost height. Getting stabbed hurts. Avoid if at all possible.

She suspected it was even worse than an ordinary stab wound in that the sword wasn't helping keep the blood in. The sword was in the other guys hand. The annoying guy who was still hovering above her as she fell, seemingly trying to get a look up her skirt. The really really annoying guy who's been literally flying circles around her until she ran into him.

She pulled her skin back together, keeping it closed off. She tried to do the same for her insides but she'd never paid much attention in biology class, what if she accidentally moved an organ somewhere it wasn't supposed to be?

Well stopping the bleeding would have to suffice for now.

Arresting her momentum before she hit the ground Impact hovered just above ground level.

This is not going to last long. Need to finish this quickly. Find a doctor.

 

Stuck with sudden inspiration, Impact realized what she'd need to do. It was only during this chase that she'd realized just how quickly she could move. She needed to stop off at Portland and pay a visit to an old friend. She knew doctors in Portland too, if she could just finish this guy off, kill him somehow or trap him long enough to escape. She could simply run but something within her screamed that she couldn't let herself be bested.

Ok, you can do this. Just think. Analyse. He can't redirect all damage and he can only reflect damage back to the attacked. He has better agility but you're faster.

A grim smile spread across her face as Impact had an idea.

Barely a minute later she soared back into the air after him, carrying something around her shoulders like this slowed her down but she was still fast enough to catch up.

"Let's see how you deal with this then shall we?" She said as she threw her weapon at the Epic.

Her 'weapon' screamed as he flew through the air, a citizen of the Dalles she'd pulled from his house. He likely already had several broken bones from the flight and several more from being thrown but since he was over a hundred meters in the air and flying towards one of the Dalles' Epics that was probably the least of his worries.

Deathwish himself had given her the idea when she crashed into him. Intentions obviously hadn't mattered, she hadn't intended to stab him but it was her body so the damage got returned to her. So if she threw another body at him...

"Can't reflect the damage back to me if it's a person that hits you can you?"

Edited May 6, 2015 by Voidus

[Kobold King he/him]

  

 

 

With Shiny Sparkle gone, Arsenal cast a glower in Autumn's direction. She was standing there looking both bewildered and angry, no doubt because her newest sin had left the building. Nonetheless, at some deep forgotten level she was a professional, and so he waited for her to realize just how badly she'd failed her city.

 

Instead, the woman had the gall to narrow her eyes back at him. "I took her into a command center," she proclaimed furiously. "I radioed you about her powers. She could've blown me up for not giving her what she wanted. And it took kissing her in front of you to make you say enough was enough?" Glass was intense when she wanted to be. Which did nothing to help her position in this case.

 

Arsenal crushed an empty can that had suddenly appeared in his hand. "You're going to blame me, Glass?" he growled softly. "You're one of the city's most trusted operatives, sad as that is. I've seen you scold Epics who could kill you in a heartbeat before. Calamity, you're doing it right now! If you'd glared at her with half the attitude you're giving me right now, you could have put an end to her behavior at any time. So don't try to blame me when clearly you were having the time of your--"

 

His tirade was abruptly cut off by the raging of radio static, followed by a voice coming through the radio.

 

"Weeks to Arsenal. Repeat, Arvin Weeks calling Arsenal. Requesting permission to enter The Dalles airspace in an unidentified transport vehicle. Please respond."

 

Weeks? How long had he been gone for? And he had the nerve to interrupt everything and demand sudden clearance when he didn't even bother to say what kind of vehicle he was using?

 

More radio signals blasted in from other corners of the city.

 

"--to Arsenal. There's a dragon coming in--"

 

Oh Calamity no.

 

Arsenal gripped his radio so tightly he almost broke it, snapping "You're not landing until you explain what the sparks is going on--"

 

"Vondra to Weeks. You have clearance. Make your way to the command center. Over and out."

 

Arsenal frowned, looking up from the radio. Standing in the doorway was the commander of this city, radio in hand and Redlight by his side.

 

 

 

 

 

"Sir," Arsenal said stiffly, "Weeks'll have to wait. The city's in too much unrest for us to--"

 

"I get the feeling a dragon on our side will a do a lot to quell that unrest," Vondra cut in, in a tone that indicated he'd accept no argument.

 

"Fine," Arsenal growled, not convinced. Eyes darting around the room, he quickly settled on the next order of business that he felt should be brought to the commander's attention. "Glass has violated every security regulation in the--"

 

"I'll hear it from her," Vondra said smoothly, briefly looking over the combat map laid out over the table. His eyes noticeably drifted towards the new ceiling fan of the broken remains of the old one, but he said nothing.

 

"Sir," Arsenal blurted, throwing his hands in the air out of frustration. "I have to be able to report the situation to you--"

 

"I don't want your report right now, Daniel," Vondra said softly. "I want Reader secured, the new arrivals screened, and every hostile Epic either killed or run out of my city. And I want you to orchestrate it all. Understood?"

 

Arsenal stood in helpless frustration for a moment, but finally gave a curt nod. "Understood," he replied stiffly, and then walked out of the room.

 

With the disgruntled chaplain taken care of, Vondra directed his attentions on Autumn Glass. She looked angry. She often looked frustrated when forced to deal with Arsenal, but today she was livid. Her face was red as her hair, and her eyes alone would probably be flashing fire in a dark room. Was it Reader? One of the new Epics?

 

Taking a seat in one of the swiveling chairs Arsenal tended to leave around the base, Vondra locked eyes with the counselor and folded his hands together.

 

"Do you need anything before you brief me on what's been happening? A glass of coke? Another firmly worded letter to Reader?"

 

 

 

 

 

 

Taking one final look at the girl's flashing legs as she fell out of view, Deathwish zoomed back into the city intent on finishing the fight with the others.

 

If the others die as quickly as she did, this'll be over before midnight, he thought with a grin. I'll take care of them and hit the bar for a beer...

 

And then he heard screaming.

 

With a puzzled look he turned in mid-air, just in time to see a balding middle-aged man come hurtling through the air towards him. Deathwish turned sharply upwards, accelerating upwards and stopping to get a look at what was going on.

 

By the terrified scream as the man went hurtling back towards the ground, this guy wasn't another Epic. Then who...

 

Rising dramatically into the air was the blonde girl, her shirt splattered with blood but a tight smile on her face.

 

"Can't reflect the damage back to me if it's a person that hits you can you?" In one hand was another terrified guy, whom she also sent careening towards him.

 

Deathwish gave a smile of his own. He'd always wanted to try this. Instead of dodging the body as she'd anticipate, he speeded to ninety miles an hour and swung his sword hard through the screaming projectile.

 

Shock went up his arms and blood splattered across his face. The man continued his arcing flight downwards... now no longer screaming. And also in two separate halves.

 

"Oh dear," Deathwish grinned, wiping some of the blood off his cheek, raising to eye level with the girl. "Look what you made me do. A helpless citizen of The Dalles, killed by my sword in the heat of my frenzy. I hope you realize that there's nothing I can't justify doing to you if I play the 'heartbroken fury' card."

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

He hoped maybe he was overreacting. That maybe she'd understand his goof-up and would shrug it off.

 

Instead, MV stopped dramatically, her face going pale. "Allison," she whispered, tears quivering in her eyes.

 

Oh, now you've done it, Backtrack thought furiously. You've got a date for the first time since kindergarten and you made her cry.

 

He awkwardly stepped up to her and patted her shoulder. "Uh, there there," he assured her. "I didn't mean... look, I'm sure she's perfectly fine... she's a tough girl, just like her sister..."

 

There was the distant sound of a man screaming, and the sound of a loud and squishy crash somewhere nearby. Briefly two figures could be seen zooming overhead, too fast and far away to be made out.

 

"Eep," Backtrack squeaked. "I'm sure Allison's fine, but we need to find her before she gets in the way of fighting Epics. Also, we should probably get going before we get in the way of fighting Epics."

Edited July 12, 2015 by Kobold King

[Voidus]

The first person Impact threw sailed by the Epic, succeeding in drawing his attention as she threw the second. Rather than dodging the Epic sped towards her makeshift projectile, cleaving it clean in two with his sword.

Well he didn't just let it hit him so he's got to at least suspect it might be able to work.

"I hope you realize that there's nothing I can't justify doing to you if I play the 'heartbroken fury' card." The Epic's voice cut through the swirling air currents between them.

"I'm sure you're authorized to do use lethal force." She replied scathingly. "Though why you'd need authorization or justification is beyond me. I gave up needing to justify things the day I took the name Impact, the day I got my abilities. If anyone wants to hold me accountable now then let them. Generally I'd just use a car or building to crush them with but of course sleazebags like you always need special attention don't they? Maybe if you're lucky the next one I throw will be a girl so you can try to perv on her before she smashes into you."

 

Impact pulled out her final surprise, one of the rabid squirrels that had invaded the town with the pandas.

Let's see how he copes with animals shall we?

Hurling the squealing rodent at him Impact shot herself to one side at the same time, if she could stay out of his sight long enough to close the distance between them she might be able to get a hold of him, then she could see if drowning worked any better than a sword to the stomach.
 

MV emitted a watery laugh as Backtrack patted her shoulder.

Backtrack was comforting her.

Well you've sunk right down the pathericness scale haven't you? Now even he feels sorry for you.

"I'm sure Allison's fine, but we need to find her before she gets in the way of fighting Epics. Also, we should probably get going before we get in the way of fighting Epics." Backtrack squeaked out as a crunch sounded nearby.

 

Shaking her head, MV wiped the tears from her face. Courage returning to her as she looked at Backtracks quivering form.

"You're uh... really not much of an Epic sometimes you know?" She said with a laugh. "You know that we're Epics right?"

 

Patting his shoulder right back she smiled up at him.

"So don't you worry, I'll protect you from all the mean ones."

Edited May 6, 2015 by Voidus

[Kobold King he/him]

 

 

 

Whether it was something he'd said or not, MV seemed to recover herself. She brushed away her tears and smiled hesitantly.

 

At least she's happy, Backtrack thought with some satisfaction. 

 

"You're uh... really not much of an Epic sometimes you know?" she said with a small laugh. "You know that we're Epics right?"

 

Oh, of course. She's happy because my patheticness is hilarious.

 

Even so, he couldn't help but smile as she patted his shoulder and beamed up at him. ""So don't you worry, I'll protect you from all the mean ones."

 

"Thanks," he said, starting to walk again. "And... you're right. I'm not really much of an Epic. All I can really do is... well, you know."

 

Walking along the dimly lit street, an idea suddenly occurred to him. He opened up the past, searching across millions of years for just the right scene. It didn't take him long to find it. Hundreds of millions of years ago, back when most of Oregon was covered in a vast ocean. When the land was barren and the seas swam with all kinds of weird fishies.

 

His confidence coming back to him, he took MV by the hand and Showed her what he saw.

 

To their eyes a whole new scene glistened to life, interposed smoothly with the street they walked on. Their eyes still saw the dimly lit, ruined street... but like a ghost around it was the ancient sea. They seemed to walk along the ocean floor, feet sinking through spectral sand as the dappled sunlight danced around them. Every now and then a weird armored fish would plow through the water, and flat-bodied crab-things stirred up the sand as they filtered through it.

 

"Other Epics can punch things," Backtrack said softly. "And most of them don't have to be scared of anything. But I'm the only one who can see things like this."

 

He paused to think for a moment as some sort of enormous sea scorpion flew over their heads and rushed along the currents. "Actually, Lightwards could probably resurrect a bunch of these fish if he wanted. And an illusionist could probably make it look like you're in the ocean. It's still pretty cool though, right?"

 

 

 

 

 

The winds were loud and sharp as high as they were. Deathwish half expected his words to fall on literally deaf ears. But somewhat disappointingly, the chick with the flying skirt started shouting over the air currents.

 

Disappointing because women were way more enjoyable when they didn't talk much.

 

"I'm sure you're authorized to do use lethal force!" the girl shouted. ""Though why you'd need authorization or justification is beyond me. I gave up needing to justify things the day I took the name Impact, the day I got my abilities..."

 

Deathwish only half-listened, instead flipping himself upside down to stare at her legs some more. That turned out to be a mistake, as she pulled from behind her what looked like a squirming grey ball and threw it at him.

 

What the...?

 

He started to fly away but the fuzzball glided upwards and latched onto his pants leg, revealing itself to be a raving mutated squirrel with gnashing teeth. Deathwish kicked at it, but the motion only opened the cuff of his pants. The squirrel ran up his leg, biting and clawing all the way.

 

His skin was ripped open and sutured shut again over and over all up his leg, the squirrel not slowed in the slightest by the redirected bites undoubtedly opening over its body. Deathwish contorted and twisted in the air, trying the shake the scampering beast loose. He was still doing his aerial dance when he noticed Impact hurtling towards him.

 

Oh, storm this.

 

Without warning he bolted at top speed, not into open air but into one of The Dalles' taller buildings, an armory if he remembered correctly. He crashed straight through a skylight on the roof, his skin cut a hundred times over by the broken glass, and dropped downwards on a straight path that smashed him through all five floors on the way down.

 

By the time he hit the bottom he was a broken, twisted pile of projecting bones, with an almost comical spray of blood emitting from his distorted knee. His body slowly pulled itself together, though as a self-inflicted wound there was nothing to redirect the wounds too. On the bright side, the squirrel was similarly annihilated by the impact, and he was able to pull its remains easily from a now-prominent hole in his jeans.

 

Slowly he rose to his feet at the bottom of the chill dark building, leaning against one of Arsenal's stored tanks as he planned his next move. There were plenty of guns on the upper floors--maybe he could arm himself with something useful up there before getting out of here. The last thing he needed was to try facing this chick in confined quarters.

 

His eyes flickered upwards through the straight line of holes he'd left in the building's floors. Through the shattered skylight at the top of the building, a girl's shape stopped in an ominous hover.

 

Oh, sparks.

Edited July 12, 2015 by Kobold King

[Voidus]

Backtrack was holding her hand. Her brain was still whirling from the emotional rollercoaster she'd been on during the day, and then he grabbed her sparking hand. Shutting her eyes and trying to prevent the traitorous blush from taking over she scolded herself for being so silly.

Oh god, don't.... just keep your mouth shut ok? If you open your mouth you'll say something stupid and he'll think you're some little girl who's never even held hands with a guy before.

Opening her eyes again they were met with a wondrous scene. Overlayed over the streets of the Dalles there was an image of a sea floor, but one unlike MV had ever seen or heard about. And she'd even sat through some of those boring old documentaries Allison had stolen that time.

"Actually, Lightwards could probably resurrect a bunch of these fish if he wanted. And an illusionist could probably make it look like you're in the ocean. It's still pretty cool though, right?" Backtrack said, continuing his explanation softly in his joking way.

MV smiled at him once more. Grabbing him with both arms as they walked together on the prehistoric ocean floor.

"Very cool." She said seriously. "And very beautiful."

She watched a pair of ancient fish circling one another, seemingly dancing together. A million year old romance played out before her, a scene seen by no one else in the world.

"You're definitely not the strongest Epic in Oregon Backtrack but you do know how to treat a girl." She remembered back to the creepy guy with weird glasses she'd met only that day.

"Well sometimes you do anyway." She amended.

 

Impact followed through the broken glass into the building, moving cautiously so she didn't accidentally stab herself again she hovered down to the bottom floor.

I think I'm getting the hang of this flying thing, I'll definitely need to invest in some different clothes though. 

Her quarry had vanished when she'd appeared, taking advantage of the moments distraction as her eyes adjusted to the different levels of light. No doubt finding a weapon or laying a trap of some kind. Probably both.

Grimacing Impact touched her stomach. It wasn't bleeding but it still sparking hurt. She was beginning to feel a tingling in her feet too, possibly just a result of the flying but it could be that they weren't getting enough blood or something.

Need to finish this and find that doctor.

Rather than walk around them, Impact simply blasted the tanks out of her way. They didn't fly nearly as well as cars and trees had but enough that she could move past them.

A quick glimpse of movement from the corner of her eye revealed the Epic. Right in the path of on of the tanks she'd thrown.

Sparks!

Accelerating instantly to high speeds she managed to push it away, hurling it through a wall into the street outside where it crushed a nearby house. Whirling around, she glared at the Epic and his creepy smile.

Great, I'm trying to kill him but I also have to save him. If only there were some water here I might be able to drown the slontze.

A flashlight announced the presence of a soldier just moments before a barrage of fire headed towards her.

Duh. Tanks means this is a military building, military means soldiers. Keep focused before you kill yourself!

The bullets bounced off harmlessly enough though and the appearance of soldiers gave her something to use against her opponent.

Streaking across the building she grabbed a hold of her would-be murderer.

"Hey. Sorry, need your help for a second." She said before hurling him after the Epic.

He'd disappeared again.

"Ugh. I don't have time for this!" She yelled, her voice echoing from the buildings walls as she grabbed another soldier. "Come out already!"

Looking down at her captive she realized it was a woman. And she had a radio.

"Fine then. Have it your way." She said before picking the woman up and flying back out through the open skylight.

Dropping the woman on the roof of the building, Impact knelt next to her and placed her hand gently on the soldiers thigh.

"I bet you don't like that flying perv anymore than I do, so how about you tell me his name, and what this building is called and I let you go?"

The soldier spat in Impacts face.

Sighing, she sent a pulse into her leg, instantly shattering the bone and shredding her leg muscle. Then she placed her hand on the other leg.

The woman look down for a second, pain not even registering for a moment. Then she screamed. Loudly.

"Remembered yet?" Impact asked in her best bored-Epic voice.

"D-Deathwish. His name is Deathwish. And this is the old-mill armory. Please just let me go."

Smiling, Impact grabbed the soldier once more.  Rising up she lifted them over the skylight.

"As promised I'm letting you go." Impact said, dropping the woman to her death.

Pulling the radio she'd grabbed up to her mouth she descended back into the building, speaking loudly enough for Deathwish to hear, wherever he was hiding.

"Help!" She called in her best panicked voice. "It's Deathwish, he's at the old mill armory and he's killing all of the-"

Cutting herself off with her most convincing scream she crushed the radio.

"Well that's going to take some explaining." She said with a grin.

[Kobold King he/him]

  

 

 

MV... actually seemed to be enjoying herself. Her eyes flitted with wonder at all the extinct fishies that swam near, and she even held onto him with both arms as they walked. 

 

"Very cool," she said softly. "And very beautiful."

 

Backtrack felt his pride grow three sizes in his chest. She thinks I'm cool! Even without my glasses!

 

A couple of age-old fish drifted by them, courting each other in a ritual no human had been around to see. There was something empowering about the thought.

 

"You're definitely not the strongest Epic in Oregon, Backtrack," MV said, smiling dreamily, "but you do know how to treat a girl."

 

Her face grew thoughtful, as if remembering something. "Well sometimes you do, anyway."

 

Backtrack frowned slightly. What was she talking about?

 

Oh.

 

His entrance to Portland. Overflowing with pride and confidence. Putting arms around girls he'd just met and calling a High Epic by his human name. He'd made a fool of himself. He'd made mistakes. A lot of mistakes. 

 

And MV remembered them.

 

Without his willing it to do so, the ocean around them began flickering. Like someone flipping a light switch on and off, the scene around them kept turning from a dark street back to the ocean and back to the street again. The fish seemed to move in jerking, erratic movements, like a video trying to stream without good Wi-Fi.

 

Backtrack chuckled awkwardly. "Uh, just a couple of technical difficulties. No big deal."

 

He switched to another 'tab,' looking for where he'd been keeping up with Impact.

 

Sparks.

 

His powers going on the fritz made him lose track of her. He desperately flipped through the past few hours scanning for her unique past-thoughts, growing more confused by the second.

 

"Uh," he began awkwardly. "I'm a little mixed up, actually. Your sister either flew downtown, where we're heading... or she flew that way into a big building. I'm... having a hard time telling."

 

He gave gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile, while cursing Calamity in his head. If you had to give me the weakest powers in the country, couldn't you at least have made them harder to turn off?

 

 

 

 

 

The girl immediately began descending into the building,  the building's dim and flickering fluorescent lights illuminating her descent. She swooped down to the bottom level, landing amid a line of tanks to begin her search.

 

She didn't see me right away, Deathwish thought cautiously, slowly circling the closest tank. Just need to wait till she's distracted and I can hightail it out of here.

 

Once they were outside again, it'd just be a matter of time before he wore her down. He'd seen her touch her wound, implying that she didn't have accelerated healing or anything else inconvenient. He just needed to poke enough holes in her, and eventually...

 

Suddenly tanks started flying. Further along the lines several tanks began lifting up and throwing themselves across the building, colliding with other tanks and filling the armory with the sound of their crashing. Striding among them, a little down the line from Deathwish himself, was Impact. She walked smoothly across the floor, sending the tanks careening out of her way with slight strokes of her fingers. Without paying attention, she sent a tank roaring through the air and straight for Deathwish's face.

 

Sparks!

 

...Wait, I want her to hit me. Funny how having a tank thrown at you could make you think like a vanilla.

 

Disappointingly, the chick seemed to realize her mistake at the last minute, flying through the air and blasting the tank through one of the building walls and out onto the street. She swiveled in the air and faced him with a furious expression.

 

Though he smiled out of habit, the only thought in Deathwish's head was 'Sparks!' If she could throw tanks with a single finger, he might not have a chance if she managed to touch him. If she slammed him around just enough to break bones...

 

Before Impact could resume her attack, a set of guards appeared at the other end of the room, immediately raising machine guns and blasting clips into the intruding teenager. Deathwish took his opportunity to accelerate upwards through the holes in the floors, catching only a glimpse of bullets ricocheting off the chick's body as he left.

 

He soared directly for the skylight, determined to break through and get back out into the open, but he was forced to swerve onto another floor as Impact went hurtling upwards with a terrified soldier in hand. He fumbled and rolled into a weapon shelf, cursing as he pulled himself to his feet.

 

 

The downside was that he was still trapped in the building with a girl who could throw tanks with a touch and could probably give him a lethal concussion if she caught him. The upside was that if you were going to be trapped in a building with a killer, an armory was a pretty good place to do it. He loaded a pair of pistols and put them on his belt, though neither of them would do him much good.

 

The sound of a tortured woman screaming from the roof told him that he didn't have much time. Sucks to be you, G. I. Jane, but better you than me, he thought with a dry smirk.

 

His eyes flitted to another shelf, labeled "Fragmentation Grenades" in one of the dry fonts Arsenal favored. Those made shrapnel, right? If he could lob one at her and get her to propel the pieces into his body...

 

His thought was interrupted by the girl herself, whose voice was suddenly echoing through one of the near floors and crackling through his radio.

 

"Help!" From the way she was crying, you'd think she was a human teenage girl being chased at night by a flying man with a machete.  "It's Deathwish, he's at the old mill armory and he's killing all of the-"

 

She finished her false alarm by giving a fake scream, as if suddenly killed in the middle of sending a warning. The radio went silent.

 

And then crackled to life again as soldiers attempted to verify what was going on, panic sounding in their voices.

 

For the first time in a couple of years, Deathwish felt a little of that panic.

 

She... she just... did she...?

 

Vondra already didn't trust him. Which wouldn't matter, but the guy had his sparking weakness. Even if he tried setting the matter straight with his own radio, there'd be an array of trucks here in minutes, blaring their sirens across the city.

 

Sirens blaring...

 

This needed to end, and fast. 

 

Fear driving his motions, Deathwish took a belt of grenades and soared through the whole in the ceiling, rising to Impact's level and positioning himself across the room from her. She eyed him with a cocky grin, still shaking radio fragments from her hand. Slowly but purposefully, she floated across the room towards him.

 

Deathwish eyed her not with his contempt and lust from before, but with steadily kindling rage.

 

"Lady," he complained grimly, "You're trouble."

 

He yanked the pin of a grenade behind his back, and with a tight smile, tossed it casually across the room to the still-grinning girl.

 

It bounced and rolled across the floor, stopping just by her foot. She took a step back, looking at the small green capsule in momentary befuddlement.

 

With not a moment's delay Deathwish accelerated into her, just as the deafening burst of the grenade shook through the armory.

Edited July 12, 2015 by Kobold King

[Voidus]

So she's either in the direction we're going or somewhere completely different?

MV stifled a sigh. It wasn't Backtrack's fault. She didn't imagine it was easy tracking someone moving at a bazillion miles through the air hours after they'd been there even with Epic powers to aid.

The reminder of why she was walking down the streets at night with Backtrack sobered her, the disconnect between how she'd been feeling moments ago and how she should be feel given that her sister was missing was jarring.

"Is there any way to find out? Maybe we could-"

Again, a slight jarring feeling.

"Something bad's happened to her, she's... I can just tell that something's happened." She stammered out.

If I could only see her I'd know what to do.

"You seemed like you were sure before, let's just keep going this way until we can find something else." She said, taking Backtracks hand and practically dragging him down the darkening street.

Impact watched the projectile Deathwish had thrown back at her. Was it the squirrel she'd hit him with? It was too small wasn't it?

Just before it hit her she realized it was not a living thing. A split second later she realized what it was.

Grenade? Oh god, not good, not good not gooooooood!

As the grenade rolled to a stop near her foot she tried to run, forgetting for a moment that she could fly. The grenade exploded, fragments of metal spraying through the air, followed by a concussive blast.

She'd continued to redirect anything that touched her, saving her life as fragments of metal bounced harmlessly off her skin. The heat from the blast was also largely deflected. The shockwave she deflected too, realizing a moment later that she hadn't deflected all of it.

A burning in her throat told her that since she still needed to breathe explosions were best stayed away from. But it was her ears. Her ears!

Screaming as blood ran down the side of her face she clasped them in agony, the blast had ruptured both eardrums, a high pitched ringing was all she could hear.

Oh god. Ok, no time to deal with this slontze.

Finding the skylight Impact shot towards it with her full speed, narrowly avoiding Deathwish who it seemed had tried to get himself caught in the blast, probably hoping to be able to reflect some of the damage back to her.

As soon as she was airborne she could tell something was off, her flying ability was still new and difficult to control but now it was even worse. She felt the world spinning, shifting from side to side as she tried to keep up.

I am so going to kill him. For now.

Holding herself still long enough for the world to stop spinning she oriented herself then closed her eyes and shot off at full speed.

Towards Portland.

===============================================================

 

Landing was more a matter of falling in the least painful way she could manage than the graceful touching down she'd managed earlier. 

She limped through the streets, hair wet from her rapid journey through a cloud in the middle of the night, blood dripping down her face, staining her shirt.

She felt weak, not just from the blood loss and organ damage either, her flight was slowed and it was all she could do to keep herself from bleeding out. A touch of fear tinged her rage filled mind but she pushed both thoughts aside. Hammering on a door in northern Milwaukie. 

A short scuffle later and the door opened, revealing a balding man with bleary eyes holding a rifle, flanked by a younger man who seemed to be shielding a woman.

"Please. Help. Epics." She wheezed out, collapsing against the doorframe before the middleaged man caught her.

"Allison?" he asked "Allison Pierce? Oh god, what happened? Quick someone fetch the emergency supplies, Jeremy find someone who still has a car and bring it here right now, she needs to get into the clinic as soon as possible. Hang on love, we'll take care of you now. Jeremy! Stop staring and get the car!"

A pair of angry, accusing eyes briefly caught Impacts before the owner darted off.

Edited May 7, 2015 by Voidus

[Kobold King he/him]

 

 

You found me

You found me

You found me

 

Glamour bobbed his head with the music--but paused when the next few lines starting echoing themselves. It was like Taylor singing the lyrics twice and recording herself over them. But he'd listened to this track before and there wasn't any kind of remixing like that going on. So why...?

 

He was suddenly aware that the second voice wasn't playing from the iPod at all. He cast a suddenly frightened glance over his shoulder... and dropped his iPod.

 

Cute face. Blonde hair flowing down to the shoulders. A stylish outfit that almost but not quite showed her belly button. Standing beside him--right where that other woman had been--was the artist behind some of his favorite pop songs. 

 

"Taylor... Swift," he stammered, staring in blank shock. "You... how..."

 

He barely even noticed that he'd smashed his iPod, instead pulling one of his dozen extras from his pants pocket and starting a soft instrumental version of 'Blank Space.'

 

Then, he started laughing. "O-Ok," he chortled nervously. "I get it. I've actually gone insane, right? I've just been hallucinating all day. That... that would actually explain a lot. So are you my repressed anxiety or something? My conscience, maybe?"

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

Backtrack winced as MV closed her eyes, letting go of her hand and taking a step back. Here it comes. I messed up, she's gonna get mad, I'm gonna take a sudden trip through the nearest wall...

 

Instead, his sort-of-girlfriend-who-could-kill-him-in-a-heartbeat only shuddered once again, opening her eyes looking once again on the brink of tears.

 

"Something bad's happened to her," she stammered, looking panicked. "She's... I can just tell that something's happened."

 

Um... ooookay, Backtrack thought, blinking in confusion. Are they psychic or something? Would it be rude to ask?

 

Before he could respond, she had his hand again, gripping tightly as she pulled him down the street in the direction they'd been going in.

 

"You seemed like you were sure before," she said determinedly. "Let's just keep going this way until we can find something else."

 

"Sounds good to me," Backtrack managed to stammer. His powers coming back to him, he managed to isolate Impact in the past again. As before, she appeared as the spectral shadow of a girl, hurtling through the  dark sky like a Barbie doll thrown by an enraged toddler. Not for the first time, he suspected that her flight ended with a sudden splat against the pavement, though he didn't have the nerve to tell her sister that.

 

And then she stopped.

 

Her past-shadow stopped in mid-air, pausing at the height of her flight for a moment as if she were taking her bearings. Then she sunk out of sight, dipping under the cityscape somewhere downtown.

 

Backtrack managed to resist MV's efforts to pull him down the street, instead managing to stop and face the direction she'd landed in.

 

"She landed," he informed her, smiling a bit. "She had a rough flight, but she managed to land. She's only a dozen or two blocks away. She's probably looking for you right now!"

 

 

 

 

 

Deathwish smacked the side of his head a couple of times as his eardrums filled, stopping the ringing and filling his ears with the sound of an agonized scream.

 

It wasn't as good as hearing her explode into a million squishy pieces, but it still brought a genuine smile back to his face. He quickly pulled himself out of the pile of guns he'd been blasted into and and flew a few feet into the air.

 

Impact knelt on the fort floor, voice wrenched in a rasping, drawn-out scream as streams of blood boiled down her face. She clutched at her ears as if for dear life, momentarily too adrift in her own sea of pain to pay attention to her surroundings.

 

Deathwish pulled a pistol from his belt, fixing its sights right between the chick's clenched eyes.

 

"You're cute when you're in undescribable agony, but I think it's time to cut this date short," he drawled quietly. "Hope you've got your affairs in order..."

 

Before he could pull the trigger, the girl blindly rocketed up through the skylight, sending him flying into a wall with the wall of air that was suddenly surrounding her once more.

 

Oh no you don't, he thought furiously, throwing his gun across the room and taking off again. No one calls the sirens on me and just flies away.

 

He soared into the dark night sky, singling out her steadily shrinking body. She was headed towards Portland, and fast, but if he stayed on her tail he could be right on top of her when she landed. He began pushing through the air after her.

 

I'm gonna make those ears feel like papercuts, he fumed savagely. I'm gonna make you beg me to kill you. I'm gonna take a knife to you in ways you couldn't even imagine, little girl...

 

Vaguely, his ears picked up the sound of an ambulance siren from far down below him.

 

I'm gonna leave pieces of you scattered from here to Corvallis! I'm gonna...

 

...wait. Ambulance siren?

 

It took a police siren to cancel the full strength of his powers, but any siren could knock him from the sky and put a layer of torment into his normally painless healing. His vision instantly went blurry, Impact disappearing completely into the gloom. He lost control of his body, plowing forwards from the force of his momentum but with no volition of his own. A scream echoed from his lips as found himself hurtling inexorably to the hard streets below.

 

"STORM YOU, YOU CONNIVING LITTLE--"

 

 

Smack.

 

 

===============================================================

 

 

Undescribable agony.

 

Deathwish rolled over slowly, wanting to scream but not having a throat to do so. Tears rushing to his eyes, he managed to reach a hand to his neck and pushed a broken bone fragment back into his body. At a snail's pace, his throat stitched itself back together, forming an untorn set of vocal chords as the rest of his body healed. He took a deep breath into his one unpunctured lung.

 

"STOOOORMS," he wailed miserably. "Storms storms storms storms stoorms. This--storms--why--storms--you miserable slontzes--"

 

His swearing was interrupted by a steel-tipped boot into his rib. The force of the kick made him roll over twice, every broken bone piercing in protest as he howled in pain once again. Blinking through the wall of tears that clouded his vision, he managed to get his eyes open to gaze upon his attacker.

 

Standing over him with gun in hand was Arsenal, his face contorted into pure, incandescent rage.

 

Arsenal had two types of rages. The first was the tantrum of a grumpy old man, the butt of constant jokes from the likes of Edgerunner or the more venturous Guards.

 

What was etched across his face was now was something else entirely. Standing here in the dark, his face lit only by the flashing red light of an ambulance, he looked exactly like what he was. An Epic who had been defied, weapon drawn and ready to dish out retribution.

 

"I received a report," the officer growled icily, "that you were engaged in the slaughter of Guards in my armory. Explain yourself, now, or I will fill this street with squad cars and terminate you here and now."

 

Deathwish groaned, trying to pull himself to his feet. Arsenal's boot connected with his side again, knocking him back to the ground. His body was mostly together by this point, but still hurting like hellfire.

 

"I was framed," he managed to rasp out, not meeting the other man's eyes. "That witch with Frequency's gang. She killed a Guard and took his radio. Put out a false alarm. Ask the survivors and they'll tell you everything."

 

He winced as a gunshot exploded through the air--but rather than spraying his skull all over the pavement, it apparently blew out the ambulance's sirens, as the sound died at once and the lights died with a flicker.

 

The pain died away across his body, his last cuts and bruises fading away without a twinge. He let out a deep sigh of relief, pleased to note that he had the use of both lungs again. No longer racked with agony, he pulled himself to his feet and glared at the old man in front of him.

 

"You couldn't just use my radio?" he snapped incredulously. "You had to throw me out of the storming sky in the middle of a chase? What the sparks is wrong with--hey!"

 

As he was ranting, a pair of handcuffs materialized out of thin air, clipping around his right wrist and a streetlight in a second.

 

"I'll have a squad retrieve you and bring you back to HQ," Arsenal informed him, ignoring the look of incredulous outrage on his face. "You will wait here until their arrival, and will comply with their every demand en route to your destination. If you fail to do so, I will fill this city with enough sirens to make this city shine as bright as Calamity, and teams will be deployed to terminate you within minutes. Do you understand?"

 

Deathwish stared unbelieving for a moment, before rattling his cuffed hand against his post furiously. "You think you can just do this?" he demanded in a shout. "I'm an Epic, you slontze! I could have a whole city bowing to me before--hey! Don't walk away when I'm talking to you! You can't just leave me cuffed to a storming streetlight!"

 

"Arsenal to Game," the other Epic droned over him through his radio. "I will arrive at your clinic momentarily. Inform the new arrivals to be at their best behavior."

 

With that, Arsenal clambered into his ambulance and started its engine. "I'd advise you not to let any of those words reach the commander," he said, casting a glare at Deathwish. "You may believe that you are worthy of some kind of respect, but in this city you're nothing but a common criminal."

 

"What the storms did you just say to me? I'm--"

 

"A common crook," Arsenal finished. His eyes still flashed dangerously, but he seemed satisfied with the description. Swinging the door of his noiseless ambulance shut, he began driving down the darkened streets in the direction of the clinic.

 

Deathwish stood incredulous for a minute more, feeling like the delinquent teenager that used to sell bags of pot in Lincoln City. The useless little slontze who couldn't even pull off a booze sale without sirens blaring and hauling him back to a youth detention center. The common crook.

 

"I'm not just a crook," he growled to himself. "Not any more." He raised his voice, and repeated himself louder across the empty street.

 

"Do you hear me!  I am an Epic! I'm a sparking, storming god! I AM NOT JUST A CROOK!"

Edited July 12, 2015 by Kobold King

[mail-mi he/him]

 

Brandon took a moment to respond. He's preparing to lie to me, Reader inferred. Calamity! Where's a sparking pistol when you need one? "Taylor is... well she's Taylor Swift, like, the pop star, so she's pretty amazing."  

 

No lies yet... Reader thought, mulling over his words. 

 

"She's got a lot of... well resources, right? I know it's wrong to deceive her about, you know, the whole gay thing, but really, it's a dog eat dog world out there, and every man for himself, right? A guys gotta eat, and I figured my chances would be better with Taylor Swift on my side than without her." He shrugged, and Reader could tell his anxiety was peaking, and he smiled.

 

Brandon continued: "You probably know as much about her as I do. I mean, she's not exactly easy to get close to. She's never told me what her mission is, only that she's looking for someone. A human, not an epic. When we heard about The Dalles, we thought it might be a good place to look. We were separated though, and I don't know where she is now." 

 

As far as Reader could tell--which was pretty far--there were no lies. It seemed like Reader was going to have to get most of his information from the woman herself. 

 

"Can I go now?" Brandon asked after a moment's pause. "I really need to use the bathroom. It's kind of been a long day..." 

 

Reader thought for a moment. "Yes, you may go to the bathroom. However, you are not leaving this facility. As soon as I'm done with her," he thrust his thumb at Elsa, "you're taking me to see Taylor." And then I can be done for the day, Reader thought longingly. "If you try to leave, your guards are commanded to shoot you immediately." As Brandon widened his eyes, Reader glared at the guard standing near him. "And if they don't, I swear that every single one of their dirty secrets will be spilled to the entirety of the City guard." 

 

Turning away before either Brandon or the guard could respond, Reader walked over to Elsa, holding up his pants, and remembering his smarting nose. I should really have Game look at that. "Elsa, come here," he commanded. The girl in the blue dress stood up solemnly and started walking towards him, and--

 

Whoa.

 

A flood of information poured out of Elsa. Arendell...Disneyland...Hans...child Epic...fantasy....Walt Disney...Frozen...

 

Reader almost stepped back at all the information, his jaw dropping. "What..." he started. "What is happening down in Disneyland? What did they do to you?!" 

[Comatose he/him]

"Taylor... Swift," he stammered, staring in blank shock. "You... how..."

Taylor smiled warmly at her newest fan, basking in his awe and admiration.  This was how she really deserved to be treated, not some feigned love from a closet case like Brandon.  Who needed romantic relationships when one had true fans to be worshiped by?  Brandon might know all of her lyrics by heart, but he had overcome his awe of her some time ago, no matter how much he tried to pretend he hadn't.  How long had it been since she had been recognized by a stranger?  It felt magnificent, like she was finally coming home to what she was entitled to.  If only Olivia Benson and Meredith could be there to see it.  

Then, he started laughing. "O-Ok," he chortled nervously. "I get it. I've actually gone insane, right? I've just been hallucinating all day. That... that would actually explain a lot. So are you my repressed anxiety or something? My conscience, maybe?"

 

The admission was startling, but not all together unexpected.  After all, before Calamity meeting Taylor Swift had been the wildest dream of millions of fans.  She could hardly blame this one for thinking she must be a figment of his evidently active imagination.  

 

"No, it's not your conscience," she said, with an awkward chortle that managed to be the cutest thing since Olivia Benson.  "But don't worry, I get that a lot.  Well, not like, a lot any more, you know, with the whole, world devolving into chaos thing.  But some people still remember, like you, so that's cool.  But yeah, anyways, it really is me, Taylor Swift."  Taylor gave the fortunate man a flash of her pearly whites.  "I hope I didn't startle you too badly, I just heard you singing my music, and couldn't resist coming over to check it out.  It's been a while since I've been able to stalk one of my own fans, and its been a lot harder since the internet went down, so I couldn't resist.  I'd be happy to sign something if you wanted.  What's your name?"
 

 

Brandon sighed as Reader left before he got a chance to reply.  It was a shame he wouldn't be leaving any time soon, but Reader's threat of instant death left him with little choice.  Probably best to use the washroom as planned (he really did have to go), and then wait till Reader was done bothering the others before telling him again that he had no idea where Taylor was, or how he was supposed to lead anyone to her.  

 

Maybe he'll leave me with a guard instead.  Reader was an epic after all, even if he acted more like a slontze.  Baby-sitting newcomers would be a waste of time for someone with an ability as valuable as his was.  Surely a human guard would be much more reasonable when Brandon explained.  The lack of an ability to tell when he was lying would certainly help anyways.  Perhaps he really would get out of all this in one piece.  

[Aonar he/him]

Part three of six of a collaboration between Mailliw and I.

 

 

Emma shrugged on the trench coat and took his hand, and then was off and moving. Caught off guard, Ethan stole as much of her kinetic energy as he could without bringing her to a standstill, trying to keep her from injuring herself. It was enough to get him moving, but he could feel them slowing; they were going to come crashing back to the ground again. Emma kept increasing her velocity, however, and eventually they leveled out.

 

Despite the looming heat of the fires in the back of his mind, Ethan almost managed to forget the convoy, letting out a whoop of joy. Flying like this was amazing. He looked across at Emma, grinning. The company was pretty good too.

 

As they approached the convoy however, his smile fell. Nothing moved. There was almost no life to his senses, only fire and destruction. Ethan dropped Emma’s hand, heedless of her shock, allowing gravity to reassert itself. Plunging towards the ground, he broke his fall by reapplying his kinetic energy to a nearby tree. Wood groaned and branches snapped, but he touched down lightly.

 

Smoke still hung heavy in the air, nauseating as it mixed with the sharp tang of blood. Nothing moved in the immediate vicinity; all he could sense were a few fires still burning, and Emma above, coming in for a landing.

 

He started walking, not bothering to wait for her; the grass crunching under his feet as it was coated with a fine layer of frost. The first corpses came into view. Sentries, dismembered and disemboweled by some creature with terrible strength.

 

The caravan proper appeared, tents burning, blood and tufts of white and black fur everywhere. Several bodies lay scattered about, some ursine, but most human. Far too few. Where are the rest? Did they escape?

 

A panda stood with its back to him, holding what looked like a chunk of someone’s arm in one paw, while rummaging through the contents of one of the unburned tents with the other. Frostfire’s expression hardened into an unfeeling mask, belaying the rage burning within. He stepped forwards, his senses sharpening. The world blossomed into a strange portrait of subtle pastels in his mind’s eye, everything rendered in blurred streaks of light.

 

His hand reached out and touched on of the nearby tents. It went dark on Frostfire’s internal map, fire extinguished as the fabric stiffened and cracked with ice. An impossible wind picked up and a faint mist covered the ground at his feet, even as the air around him darkened. The ursine began to back away, confusion almost comical upon its bestial features. It didn’t get far.

 

One step, and the leg that had moved was incinerated, muscle and bone alike turning to ash over the space of an instant. It went down with a surprisingly human scream, and Frostfire couldn’t help the smile of grim satisfaction that spread over his face.

 

 

Edgerunner felt the wind rush by and the comforting weight of Ethan's hand. Flying was much more enjoyable with handsome company. He let out a whoop. Emma laughed and let out a whoop of her own. She had begun to take flying for granted, but she forgot what it was like the first time around. Sparks, it was fun. Ethan grinned at her and she was genuinely enjoying herself. It was rare that she did that these days. 

Edgerunner frowned as they neared the camp. Fire and the smell of smoke and bodies filled the air. Ethan let go. Edgerunner looked down in a panic to see him land gently on his feet. A tree cracked and fell, but Ethan was alright. Edgerunner slowed herself and was about to land, when Ethan walked away. She kept flying for just a bit longer and headed for the camp as well. 

She landed softly behind Ethan as he froze a tent and then burned a panda's leg. Emma had unconsciously drawn one of her knives and had been about to plunge it into the bear. Realizing what she was doing, she put the knife back. Emma looked around for the first time and saw bodies, human and panda, strewn across the camp. She felt her stomach rising in her throat, but managed to keep the bile down. She had already thrown up this morning at the sight of Quicksilver's job; no need to do it again. 

"Ethan, what are you doing?" She asked as she saw his grim, angry face. She gently held his elbow. His mouth was drawn in a deep frown and his eyebrows were gathered together. Ty had looked like this before. She had always suffered after. But Ethan was different, right?

Edited May 14, 2015 by Aonar Faileas

[Mailliw73 he/him]

Ethan turned towards Emma, then turned away. He replied testily, “Helping,” still looking at the charred camp.

Ethan was not in a good mood. Emma was worried. He closed his eyes and she felt trickles of fear fill her chest. Ty had closed his eyes before he got angry. Emma still feared closing her own eyes for long. Good things never happened when she closed her eyes.

Frostfire noted Emma landing behind him. She stood out to his perceptions, sharply defined and glowing like fire. Epics were always easy to pick out. She walked up to him and put a hand on his arm. “Ethan, what are you doing?”

He turned towards her, catching a little flicker of fear on her face; almost like recognition. Ethan could feel his anger start to fade almost immediately. Frostfire turned away. He didn’t want to calm down, didn’t want to look at things clearly. Rage lent him strength, and he would need everything he could get.

“Helping,” he snapped, still pointedly looking away. I failed these people once. It’s not going to happen again.

Frowning in concentration, he closed his eyes, questing out with his senses. The world sharpened further still, currents in the air; faint patches of heat becoming visible. Frostfire could see Emma’s breath as a faint glow against the background. Shifting his focus further out, towards the edge of the clearing, he started searching. Broken branches, disturbances in the air, anything that would tell him where the pandas came from.

There. Trampled underbrush, and a slight swirl of air, warmed just fractionally by the passage of several large beasts.

Opening his eyes again, he started walking, every step causing the ground to crack and heave with frost. Frostfire directed a few words to Emma, still looking away. “These beasts slaughtered people under my protection. It’s my duty to avenge them, and I’m not stopping until every last one of those ursine slontzes are dead. You can come with, or stay behind. Just don’t get in my way.”

 

Ethan's eyes snapped open and Emma drew a sharp breath, steeling herself for a hit. But it never came. Ethan walked away, determined to do something. Frost spread every step he took.

“These beasts slaughtered people under my protection. It’s my duty to avenge them, and I’m not stopping until every last one of those ursine slontzes are dead. You can come with, or stay behind. Just don’t get in my way.” Ethan seemed like an entirely different person now. He was angry and vengeful.

Emma jogged a bit to catch up. "I'm coming with you Ethan, but wait. You can't go and kill all the pandas; they'll overwhelm you. They have armies of every kind of animal you can imagine. You're strong, but not perfect."

She pleaded, "Let's go back to the Dalles and get a drink. We can have a nice meal and a good place to sleep." She flushed. "I mean, you'll have a good place to sleep and so will I. Separate places." She continued to blush at her faux pas. "Please, Ethan. Let's go back. We can worry about the pandas later when we have the city's resources to back us up."

Emma hoped this worked. This new, angry Ethan was not one she wanted to be with. She didn't want to fight any more. Not today. She had killed enough pandas for a lifetime.

Edited May 15, 2015 by Mailliw73

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

 

Having sent a disgruntled Arsenal away, Vondra took a seat. Autumn knew that was her permission to do likewise, but she couldn't stop pacing. "Do you need anything before you brief me on what's been happening? A glass of coke? Another firmly worded letter to Reader?"

 

"Two pounds of aspirin," she said before she could stop herself, "a restraining order, and something on an official-looking piece of paper with that fancy letterhead reminding Arsenal that not everyone can make sparking nukes out of thin air, so maybe he should take teleporting a strange Epic into a command center as a cry for help!" 

 

Vondra chuckled. "I'll see that you get that aspirin, and I'll have a word with Daniel. I'll need more context for that restraining order, though." 

 

Context. Autumn's cheeks flamed all over again, and she sank heavily into a swivel chair. "New Epic. Shiny Sparkle. I….” She heaved a sigh. “I wouldn’t have done what I did if I knew it’d go that far.”

 

She didn’t look at the eyebrows she knew would be raised. She didn’t even sit. She stood and paced the floor, sharing everything that happened from Shiny Sparkle’s arrival to the present time. Every detail she recalled was related as honestly as she could; even if she was inclined to lie, which she was not she knew the truth would surface eventually. Besides, Vondra’s appreciation for honesty was well known. A detail that cast her in an unflattering light, shared openly, would help her case more than a stretched truth that made her look better. Autumn told him everything that had happened, resisting the urge to rant.

 

Mostly.

 

“So then,” she finished, “after I’ve been cuddled and fondled all over town, I have her port us here, hoping Arsenal would break things up.” She pounded her fist against the back of a swivel chair. “I wasn’t thinking clearly. She had us in free fall, flirting the entire time! Seriously, we’re about to splatter all over the pavement, and she’s talking about how cute I am when I’m angry! And Arsenal still doesn’t get it until I kiss her in front of him!”

 

She paused in the silence that followed, reliving it. There had to have been something else she could have done. Grabbed a chair and forced Shiny away like a cartoon lion tamer or something. Anything.

 

“I screwed up,” she finished. Even to her own ears, her voice sounded deflated. Tired. “I should’ve done something more, anything…but I wasn’t thinking. She caught—“

 

Just then, a voice shrieked over the radio. "Help!" She called in her best panicked voice. "It's Deathwish, he's at the old mill armory and he's killing all of the—“

 

There was a scream, and the radio fell silent. 

[Kobold King he/him]

 

 

 

It took every ounce of his willpower to not interrupt Autumn's rant with one of his own. Instead, Vondra had to settle for locking his jaw through her entire diatribe.

 

Foreign Epics were throughout his city, taking advantage of the furry invasion to cause chaos. That wasn't surprising. As long as they'd been contained before getting the chance to harm the city's citizens, it was nothing to get worked up over. Only handled with cool, collected tactics.

 

It was the Epic who named herself Shiny Sparkle that had him grinding his teeth and trying to manually lower his blood pressure. He'd never met her, but he could imagine her. A tall, proud woman in outlandish garb, a chilled smile on her lips and a cold analysis in her eyes. Possibly masking her arrogance with some sort of sickly geniality, but nonetheless hiding the same twisted desires as any other of her kin.

 

This one's twisted desires brought her to The Dalles in a time of strife, where she molested the only woman he could trust and now ran amok in his city, causing who knew what kind of harm. Glass might have violated security protocols, but he couldn't hold her accountable for her outrage--not when his own first impulse was to personally seek this creature out and shoot her between the eyes.

 

Autumn Glass gradually finished her story, leaving the office silent save for Rhonda typing up the new Epic profiles on the office laptop.

 

“I screwed up,” the counselor finished wretchedly. “I should’ve done something more, anything…but I wasn’t thinking. She caught—“

 

Vondra had his mouth open to reassure her.

 

And then the radio began bursting out a panicked voice.

 

"Help! It's Deathwish, he's at the old mill armory and he's killing all of the—“

 

The voice of a terrified young woman cut off with a flare of static, and the transmission was no more.

 

Suddenly all of his anger from before seemed to vanish. There was a difference between anger and real anger. The icy determination, the cold hard knowledge that you were going to kill a man.

 

Thinking of Edgar Hawk now, nothing but that cold real anger filled his mind.

 

"He's finally done it!" he exploded, bolting upright from his chair and storming across the room. "That man's been waiting for his opportunity to run wild again. He shouldn't have been allowed loose at all today--storms, I should have had him shot the day he arrived--"

 

He clipped an extra gun to his belt, striding away from his desk without a look back. "Glass, we'll need to postpone the rest of this. Rhonda, follow me, we're heading back to the heli--"

 

In mid stride he felt himself freeze solid, every ounce of his body suddenly motionless in the air. Not even his hair blew from the ceiling fan as he stood suspended with one foot off the ground, his mouth wide open and his back to the two women in the room.

 

"Apologies, commander," the Epic called Redlight said flatly. "But for once, we really must insist you listen to counsel before attempting to personally smite down our enemies."

 

Rhonda's voice grew slightly softer, but still as frosty as it always was as she spoke to the other woman. "Ms. Glass, as our town counselor would you please provide a touch of that counsel? He'll listen to you."

Edited July 12, 2015 by Kobold King

[Voidus]

"She landed," Backtrack said, a slight smile marking his fortuitous words "She had a rough flight, but she managed to land. She's only a dozen or two blocks away. She's probably looking for you right now!"

Gazing in the same direction as Backtrack, MV nodded. She adopted the stoic expression of her sister, keeping her own emotions hidden as best she could.

"We'll find out what happened. We will find you Allison." She whispered.

Letting Backtrack lead, though not letting go of him, the two made their way towards her. A dull rumbling rose to meet them, seemingly from the exact place they were walking to.

Exchanging a worried look, MV hastened her pace.

"Whatever happens just keep following her, I'll keep you safe. I promise." She said, voice somehow remaining steady despite that little voice in her head telling her she sounded stupid again.

A flash of light lit the buildings as something incredibly bright appeared for an instant nearby.

Was that lightning?

 

Hearing Arsenal's message made Lucy stand up straighter. If Arsenal was coming he'd be looking for someone to blame for everything that had happened. Despite her age the surly Epic had never let Lucy off easy, holding her to the same standards he applied to everyone else.

Well everyone except Reader I suppose. She mused. How those two are still in the same city is a mystery beyond even Calamity.

Watching the bedraggled Reader continue his questioning prompted a smile from Lucy.

Well however much trouble I get into, at least he'll have it worse. Losing his guards, getting kidnapped, punched by some unknown new Epic, losing his pants. Oh this is going to be interesting all right.

Continuing to distract herself, Lucy began to mentally organize her report. She'd report to Arsenal, then asked to be dismissed to see Autumn. Partially because she was worried about her but mostly because she needed to talk. And the only person she could really talk to was Autumn Glass.
 

[Aonar he/him]

Part Five of Six of a collaboration between Mailliw and I. 

 

Emma covered the ground between them, almost breaking out into a run. "I'm coming with you Ethan, but wait. You can't go and kill all the pandas; they'll overwhelm you. They have armies of every kind of animal you can imagine."

 

Frostfire snorted. Overwhelm him? It wouldn't matter how many beasts there were. They would all die just as easily. It would just take a little longer. 

 

"You're strong, but not perfect." He stopped, still determinedly facing away. No one ever said I was, Emma. 'Perfect' couldn't be further from the truth.

 

She continued speaking, an anxious urgency in her voice, almost pleading. "Let's go back to the Dalles and get a drink. We can have a nice meal and a good place to sleep." Ethan's mind briefly stopped working. What?! He turned back towards her, blinking uncomprehendingly. She wants to... I've only just met her... she is rather pretty...

 

"I mean, you'll have a good place to sleep and so will I. Separate places." Oh. He shook his head, trying to clear it. Mind out of the gutter, Ethan. More important things to be thinking about. Emma was blushing furiously, thinking of what she'd implied. Sparks, she looks cute like that... Get out and stay out, Ethan.

 

"Please, Ethan. Let's go back. We can worry about the pandas later when we have the city's resources to back us up." No. Not everyone was killed outright. I won't have them weighing on my conscience too. Ethan found the anger that had driven him fading fast, however; a flame starving from lack of fuel. He sighed, slumping as he tried to order his thoughts.

 

"I can't. There are still survivors. Failing again... failing them again..." He trailed off, unsure of where he was going. "I've already been down that road too many times. Things need to change."

 

 

Ethan seemed to be shocked out of his drive for vengeance from her accidentally awkward phrase. It wasn't what she had planned but it seemed to be starting to work. 

The fight was draining out of Ethan as she spoke. He stopped and seemed to shrink a couple inches, morphing back from an Epic to a regular guy. 

"I can't. There are still survivors. Failing again... failing them again...I've already been down that road too many times. Things need to change," he said. 

"Yes, they do. But will it be worth your soul?" Emma asked. "The more you use your powers, the crueler you are. If you have to destroy a huge army of animals, you'll end up so evil, you'll probably kill all those survivors." Emma said, getting a bit quieter. She knew what it was like. The drive to use the power and the rage that followed. Her biggest regrets in life were from that day. The day she became an Epic. The day she took matters with Ty into her own hands. The day Evey died. Ty had deserved it, but Evelyn sure hadn't. 

"Trust me, Ethan. Please don't do it. Mayor Vondra can help. If he knows there's survivors, he'll send soldiers and helicopters with us. We'll save them. Please don't go." Emma shed a tear. A tear for Evelyn.

 

 

“Yes, they do. But will it be worth your soul?” Any soul for mine is a fair trade. My soul doesn’t seem to be worth much, nowadays. But Ethan said nothing, so Emma kept right on. “The more you use your powers, the crueler you are. If you have to destroy a huge army of animals, you’ll end up so evil you’ll probably kill all those survivors.”

 

She had quieted as she spoke, seeming to remember some experience of her own. So what? What does it really matter? If I’m going to fail them either way, why not make the effort? He knew on some level that Emma was right, that pursuing this would just make things worse, but it felt so wrong. He’d been so helpless before, unable do anything, incapable of protecting anyone. Not even Hailey…  Now that he was an Epic, it was his responsibility – no, his duty – to protect those around him.

 

Emma was still speaking, although her words registered only superficially to Ethan, his mind elsewhere. “Trust me, Ethan. Please don’t do it. Mayor Vondra can help. If he knows there’s survivors, he’ll send soldiers and helicopters with us. We’ll save them. Please don’t go.”

 

What about those people in the clinic, Ethan? What about Emma? She was there too. You were about to kill them, kill them all, kill her, just because of one slontze and an impolitic comment. Is that what you call protecting? You need to step back. You’re too angry. You’re being driven to do things you never would, and you can’t even rationalize it.

 

A single tear rolled down Emma’s face, and something in Ethan broke. Maybe he couldn’t save everyone, but there was someone he could help, and she was right in front of him. He stepped forwards and hugged her. He expected it to be awkward, but somehow it wasn’t.

 

“Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere.” 

Edited May 15, 2015 by Aonar Faileas

[Mailliw73 he/him]

Part six of Frostfire/Edgerunner's collaboration post.

 

A tear for Evelyn. Sparks, how Emma missed her sister. She had always been the one she trusted, the one she went to when she needed help. The only one who knew anything about Ty's darkness. But she was gone now, gone because of Emma. 

Ethan wrapped his arms around her in a warm hug. She smiled faintly and wiped away her tear. 

“Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere," he said. That was what she needed. Someone to stay. Ty had never said he'd stay. He'd threatened to leave a couple times, but had been sweet at first. Emma hoped Ethan wasn't like that too. He obviously had a dark side, but he was able to keep it in check. For now. 

She whispered, "Thank you." She stepped back out of his embrace, cutting it a bit short, and wiped her eyes, shaking off the sadness and regret. "We better get back now. If they took hostages, they're keeping them for some purpose. We'll talk to Vondra, but for now, I could just use a drink and some sleep. It's been a long day."

Before, on her stressful days, her mother would make her a mug of hot chocolate and they'd sit and laugh over some silly rom-com with Evelyn. Emma missed those days. The days before Ty slowly stole her away from her family. When she began keeping more than she told her parents. Slowly, her connection with her parents faded and only Evey had remained. When Evey died, Emma cut all contact with her parents and moved to the apartment the Cuty Guard had provided. 

Her mother no longer made hot chocolate for her and now Emma had nothing to return to except a small room and maybe a small drink at the Springfield. But it was better than nothing. And Ethan's company would make for a better time than most.

 

 

"Thank you." The words were quiet enough Ethan wasn't quite sure he'd actually heard them. Emma broke off the hug after a moment, wiping her eyes. "We better get back now. If they took hostages, they're keeping them for some purpose. We'll talk to Vondra, but for now, I could just use a drink and some sleep. It's been a long day."

 

It was obvious that something was still eating at her, even though she tried to put on a brave face. Sparks. There's a lot of history there, somewhere. And it's not a happy one, I don't think.

 

"Sounds like a plan," Ethan said, smiling faintly. He turned back towards the camp for a moment, surveying the destruction, and making a silent promise, an echo of one he'd made years ago. I'll make this right. Consequences be dammed, I won't let you down.

 

He looked back at Emma and did his best to smile again. "So, -" Ethan was about to suggest they fly back, but something about that felt wrong. "What do you think of walking? Something tells me that using our powers more isn't the best idea, after the day we've had."

 

 

After a final glance at the smoldering remains of the camp, Ethan turned back towards Emma. A faint smile rested on his mouth. 

"What do you think of walking? Something tells me that using our powers more isn't the best idea, after the day we've had." Ethan said. Emma smiled. 

"That sounds perfect. I could use a nice sunset walk tonight." She turned back to the city and walked side by side with Ethan, the sunset gently lighting their path.

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

 

"Ms. Glass, as our town counselor would you please provide a touch of that counsel? He'll listen to you."

 

Autumn's eye twitched slightly. Great. Another Epic telling me what to do. 

 

Well, at least this one isn't saying "Kiss me." 

 

​She looked from Redlight, lips pursed in the direction of the Commander, frozen with his foot in midair, the fan's breeze unable to touch him. The voice that delivered the warning rang in her ears. 

 

​"I…that voice. The one on the radio. It sounded ​familiar…." 

 

Autumn ran through a mental list of female voices she knew well. Scribbler and Edgerunner were dismissed immediately. Shiny Sparkle's was still fresh in her mind, and hers was out as well. She didn't know many soldiers at the Old Mill Armory well, so those voices couldn't possibly ring any bells, but it had to be someone there, someone she'd heard….

 

"The twins," she said at last. "It sounded like one of them. I—I can't be sure, but it did sound like them." 

 

Redlight's lips became a firm, thin line, as if to say Good job, Glass. Now he'll head for the Armory the second I let him go. You just made me freeze the Commander forever. I hope you'll enjoy pouring broth down his throat for the rest of his life, because— 

 

"She—Redlight—she's right." Autumn drew a breath. "You just bought us a cease-fire. There's a cult at one end of town and Deathwish doing something at the armory. I'm not saying he's gone off the deep end, and I'm not saying he hasn't. And I'm not saying we shouldn't send someone to take him into custody….but I am saying you're not that someone. 

 

"We're under siege, Commander. We could very well be at war. Again. And if we're at war, we need you running strategy, not at the front lines. I know you want to see this Deathwish thing taken care of, but Heaven forbid that sleazeball is the one to take you out." She managed to quirk her lips up in a small smile. "You deserve a better ending than that." 

[Seonid he/him]

Lightning flashed above Ranger's head, impacting directly on Guardian's forcefield, and again, from a slightly different angle. Aiming fro the tree that time. Not long before they start hitting other trees in the area. Cursing, he threw the shattered fragments of his rifle to the ground and reached for his bow. Apparently the shattering Epic could reach out over range. Well, he had some tricks that would only get worse if he shattered them.

 

From his quiver, hanging from a branch, he pulled out one of his special arrows. Designed to exacting specifications, it was filled with a pressurized vial of poison gas, designed to shatter on a sufficiently hard impact - like being shot from a longbow - but to remain sealed under any less exacting conditions. He fitted it to his bowstring, and turned his attention to the battle again. Unbidden, equations came to his mind. Force is mass times acceleration. 70 pounds of tension in the bowstring. Mass of the arrow...

 

Releasing his mind, he aimed a a spot just in between the shattering Epic and the one that had thrown the lightning, and fired.

 

Quickly, he dropped the bow to the ground, knocking his quivers to follow. Hopefully, the shattering Epic couldn't break things that were out of his line of sight. "Guardian, time to get us out of here!"

[Mailliw73 he/him]

Blitz's lightning wasn't having an effect. Frequency told Canis to run for the Epics behind the force field when an explosion behind him knocked him over. His back flared in pain. An arrow from the sniper Epic hit the ground some feet away and began emitting gas. "Canis!"

The speed Epic had only made it a few yards away before the explosion hit, but that had been enough for him to stay on his feet. He picked up Frequency and ran him off to the side of the road, in a small ditch. Terra carried herself over on a pile of dirt and Canis brought Blitz over. Terra covered them with a small wall of dirt. Frequency's throat burned from whatever gas had been in that arrow. Blitz had some trouble breathing, but would be alright in a little bit. Terra had the worst injuries. The normally stately woman was clutching her leg and gasping out sobs. The explosion had thrown her down hard, breaking her leg.

"We can't stay here. We're in danger all together. Canis, scout the area and see how many Epics see behind that forcefield." The speed Epic mock saluted and sped off. "Terra, I know it hurts, but you need to move us." She nodded grimly. First, using some tightly packed dirt, she set her leg. Then she carried the three Epics in a small dirt shell to the top of a building. She surrounded most of the edges with a dirt wall. She left the one facing the battlefield open, but with tendrils of dirt rising up.

"Blitz, you watch the skies. Any flying Epics come, shoot them down. Terra, watch our front for attacks." Canis ran back.

"Freq, the morons are gone. They ported away," Canis reported. Frequency went to the edge of the building to see if any new attackers came.

[Mckeedee123 he/him]

A few hours earlier...

 

You saw a lot of things when you spent your life bounding across the forests of an anarchic wasteland. You saw armies of undead caribou marching to sate their unquenchable bloodlust. You saw megalithic christmas-light monuments dedicated to the vampire-hunting prowess of Abraham Lincoln. You saw craters of transfersated jelly doughnuts marking the sites where godlike Epics had battled to the death. 

 

But nothing could have prepared Orange Crush for the sight of The Dalles that evening. Flying pigs squealed on the outskirts of town, providing air support to the bloodthirsty pandas retreating though the wreckage of burnt homes and shops. Vanillas ran, screaming, from packs of razor-clawed squirrels. A massive spire of ice was being grown in the center of the city, and he swore he could see bright, sparkly explosions on the far side of town.

 

The chaos... It was beautiful.

 

Crush let his force field raise him higher in the air, examining the town. There was green, flecks of blue, lots of grey, and more than enough red, but not a drop of orange. Good. He'd be instantly recognizable out here. Crush imagined the scores of adoring fans flocking to meet their hero, once he'd made his mark here.

 

He edged himself forwards, hovering over a pack of pandas retreating through the woods. Were there people there? Maybe he'd finally get some groupies this time. He certainly deserved it. Man, I love myself. No Epic could compare with the awesome, unbridled, coolness of Orange Crush. He'd matched his look to the color of his force fields: a blatant, eyebreaking orange. He wore an orange jacket over an orange T-shirt with orange swimming trunks and a pair of shiny orange sunglasses to boot. His hair was dyed- orange, and his Ipod contained no songs that did not contain the word "orange" in the title (did he mention that its case was orange?) Crush knew how to stick with a motif.

 

He stopped a few hundred feet above the pack, and, savoring the coolness of his next move, dissipated the force field, letting himself plummet towards the earth. The wind whipped at his thin clothing. Just before he hit the ground, he set up a bright orange force field below his feet- this time with its back end facing him.

 

Orange Crush was no ordinary force field Epic. Sure, the "front end" of his fields were composed of an ultra-thin, nearly unbreakable material, but the "back end" was a 2-inch thick layer of something he had dubbed "Orange Matter." It absorbed kinetic energy. Objects that hit it, even at high speeds, were almost never hurt.

 

So while the force field crushed the two pandas he'd fallen on into splatters of gore, Crush barely even felt the impact. He grinned to see the wide-eyed, horrified, expressions of the five remaining pandas, then got to work. Crush couldn't have more than one force field up at a time, and he couldn't change the shape of his fields after he cast them, but he could move them. He created a wedge-shaped force field pointed away from his chest, then pushed it forward to cleave through a panda's neck. The poor, cuddly, bear didn't stand a chance.

 

He set up a large force field to shield him from the two panda archers, drawing their bows, and ran at them. Larger fields were difficult to push with his mind, but a quirk of his fields was that they were set up, and moved, relative to his position. As he moved, the field moved with him, pinning the archer pandas against a rock wall and disorienting them just in time for Crush to jump-kick a panda in the head, mind-cleave the other one, then grab the first one's wooden sword and stab it through the heart.

 

He quickly checked if people were watching. Oh, how he hoped people were watching. He sighed, seeing that the only beings in his field of vision were the other two panda samurai. They saluted him by tapping their swords to their foreheads and charged.

 

Crush couldn't cast fields farther than 10 feet away from him, so he waited for the pandas to approach. Just before they hit his range, he cast a new field, just where they were about to step. This one had the back end facing upwards. As the pandas stepped on it, the rebounding force didn't give them enough lift to run, and they fell over. Crush dissipated the field, jumped, and created a new one just below his feet. This one rocketed him towards the sprawling pandas. Crush used the back end of another, larger, force field to absorb his momentum, then made short work of the pandas with his new sword.

 

Crush sniffed, noticing all of the blood that had stained his perfectly orange clothes.

 

Yes, sir. This town was a keeper. Crush could have a lot of fun here. He left the pandas' bodies where they lay and flew off to find some people to impress.

Edited June 3, 2015 by Mckeedee123

[Edgedancer he/him]

Just barely Shiny Sparkle could see a mound of earth disappearing behind a corner, almost immediately followed by a blur as the last of the four Epics disappeared behind a corner.

 

Seems like she would have to win a game of cat and mouse against the four Epics first. Playing cat with Autumn would be much more entertaining, stretching on her lap, getting petted-

 

Focus, doing the job Autumn gave you first, flirting all the remaining time.

 

Now what do they have? Frequency himself of course, the speed Epic that just carried those knocked over by the explosion away and given the mound- tendrils of earth raised out of the ground, in front of a house not far away from the hole she blew into the street- definitely an earth Epic.

 

Those just made my search and destroy a whole lot easier.

 

More parts of the street erupted into concrete and wonderful colors, as Shiny Sparkle willed it. Using the other explosions as distractions Shiny Sparkle teleported into a house that gave her a better viewpoint on her target.

 

She could see the open edge of the roof. A woman was staring right back at Shiny Sparkle, having picked her out from all the different explosions and the chaos of color dancing in the air. Somehow.

 

Lady gets to see her death coming.

 

The other Epic screamed towards her allies and the tendrils and earth walls surrounding them formed into a ramp, the dirt washing over her fast, pulling her along

 

A flash of red ripped out of the roof, pulling fragments of red roof tiles with it, drilling into the dirt that flooded between the woman and the roof.

 

Under the ringing in her ears after the explosion Shiny Sparkle barely heard a soft crunch. The earth Epic laid limp between two layers of dirt, blood slowly running out of her body and down the half-finished ramp. Too fast.

 

Amateur.

 

As the ramp began to crumble with its creator death another blur crossed it and speed of in the distance. At least one survivor and there’s a good chance he took Frequency with him. But he only carried one at a time when clearing from the explosion.

 

Shiny Sparkle exploded the reminder of the roof. Score two.

 

It would probably be best to wait and see if the speed Epic returns. Then she could go and report to Autumn. Killing two Epics and getting two more to retreat makes for a pretty good result. She could already feel Autumn’s hand caressing her hair in praise.

 

A small giggle escaped her lips, while she was on her watch out.

[Mckeedee123 he/him]

Also a few hours earlier...

 

Most Epics would be more than happy to torture, slaughter, or enslave any group of vanillas that they happened to notice wandering around in the wilderness, so Crush wasn't too surprised to find that the convoy had already been destroyed by the time he landed there.

 

He caught himself on the back end of a force field and absentmindedly decapitated the two pandas that charged at him. The field was dotted with corpses. Most were human, but Crush noted a few that bore the furry, black-and-white hides of panda warriors. Survivors of the battle, all of which looked to be pandas, poked through the wreckage. Apparently, it was worth the danger to lag behind their army's retreat in search of metal items, which were being gathered in the center. They're looking for weapons-grade metals, He guessed, Attacking with wooden swords and bamboo spears couldn't have been very effective.

 

Crush hopped on a force field and floated silently to the camp's center, using blades of orange light to kill any pandas that noticed him. Ten, eleven, twelve... I wonder what the world record is for "number of pandas slaughtered in a single day." He arrived at the pile and began poking through it, searching for better weaponry. A sharp-ended piece of rebar caught his eye, and as pulled it out a roar sounded behind him. An entire platoon of pandas, enraged at finding their decapitated comrades, were nocking arrows at him. Others crawled out of tents, edging forward with spears held in perfect battle stances.

 

Crush just laughed and rocketed into the air. There was no need to fight these pandas today. He threw his wooden sword at them as he disappeared over the forest, looking for refugees.

 

A line of figures appeared beneath him. Pandas? A few. The rest looked to be captured humans with bags over their heads. Finally! Crush took a few moments to decide on an appropriate catch phrase, then grinned and fell to the ground, crushing another panda into a blot of gore. 

 

"It's good that the World Wildlife Fund was destroyed during The Collapse, because I don't even want to know what they'd have to say about this."

 

He burst into action. Crush, stab, block, decapitate... crush, stab, block, decapitate... He threw a few stumbles in there, too. By the time Crush had finished turning the platoon into a pile of assorted panda appendages, he had counted over 20 kills. He sighed, realizing that the prisoners hadn't been able to witness the spectacle, then pulled the bags off of their heads, one by one. They blinked, surprised.

 

"Seriously, if any of you guys were donors or anything, I'm sorry. Pandas are cute and all, but when they start taking up arms and overrunning townships, some of us can't just stand by for the sake of Conservationism." A woman looked at him suspiciously, and he flashed another smile. "My name's Crush. Orange Crush. I'm basically the most powerful Epic in Oregon, so you can grovel or bow if you want to. Doesn't matter to me."

 

An old man piped up in the back of the group. "We will die before we bow to another Epic ruler. We've suffered enough at the hands of your kind." Crush sighed, gesturing placatively. "Hey, it's cool, man. I don't, like, need the attention, or the power, or anything. I'm basically a sparking superhero, alright? And I just came to this town to get groupies."

 

Lots of raised eyebrows, Crush noted. "Groupies, you know? Fanboys, fangirls, admirers, devotees, hangers-on, um... papparazi... all that jazz. The point is this:" Crush paused for a moment. "I need a heroic entrance, and you need protection on your way back to town. I'm feeling some synergy between us, how about you?"

 

He pointed in the direction of the town. "So let's get to it, before I get bored and just let those pandas claw your faces off."

______________________________________________________

 

Back to the present...

 

As the group reached the outskirts of town, a cacaphony of sirens broke out. Ambulances? Crush thought, Does the town have an Omnipotence Epic that saw us approach? Sure, the refugees were a little worse for wear, and Crush had managed, in his various slaughters, to get his orange clothes pretty bloodstained, but it was hardly cause for-

 

A faint gunshot. The sirens stopped. Alright, forget these civilians, he thought, it's about time I figure out what in Calamity is going on in this town.

Edited May 23, 2015 by Mckeedee123