Wild Flower At Comic Con
Author's Notes
Okay, this is my Ultra-Mary-Sue chapter of the Wild Flower saga. Yeah, it's way meta and self-indulgent.
However, I think if you read to the end, you'll see that not everything is as it seems. Includes an appearance by Quicksilver, but it's mostly OC's in here.
Quick catch-up:
Carly is a Hydra agent, born into that world, trained from an early age, and now she's come into her true power—control of Nature and all living things. However, her power has serious costs: use it too much and it destroys what she alters. Secondly, the use of her power is slowly turning her into what she uses her power on: a plant. Driven by Hydra to use her full powers, she winds up killing her boyfriend and destroying a good portion of Virginia. Now, she's back in the clutches of Hydra…
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Chapter One
The TV chattered mindlessly. Carly gazed into the LED glow of hi-def pixels. She slumped on her cot, deep in the hole of some Hydra base, down in her cinder-block room. Or cell. 'Legends of Cosplay' played on the tube, people traipsing around as their favorite real and imagined supers. She sipped her cheap beer and then used the bottle's mouth to push weeds off her face.
It had been almost two years since Carly Richards, aka Wild Flower, had destroyed the Virginia countryside, killing her almost-boyfriend Lance Conrad. Two years of isolation from her friends, her mom, her former life. Everything that Lance had feared had come true: Carly was essentially a prisoner, poked and prodded for "science," forced to demonstrate and even use her special skills for the world's rich and desperate, all to further the 'Cause.'
Just the other day, some oil baron wanted to intimidate his workers by destroying their village. The next week it was some nerdy zillionaire who wanted to impress a girl with a magical garden. Carly didn't care. She only had one rule: no deaths, not even "accidental" or "collateral." She had the power of Death Itself, to suck the life out of living organisms, yet it was some other part of her doing these things. A monster lived inside her, an evil that bided its time until Carly became too weak to hold it back.
Contestants on the TV show chatted about materials, about how terrible and cheaty their competitors were, about how many times they'd been groped or insulted at cons like it was No Big Deal.
Over the last few months, Carly replayed Lance's death in her mind. She'd written a long letter to his dad, the Governor, explaining how much she loved Lance and how it was a terrible accident, that she couldn't control her powers, but it was a lie. She'd been selfish. She'd been cocky. The Governor answered pretty plainly: if you really want your conscience settled, come face the charges. Right. She would be found guilty and locked away forever. Maybe even executed, if that was possible. Still, she had to make this right, had to dedicate her power for good.
Except…Hydra.
Yeah.
Some contestant droned on about locally-sourced, organic costuming. Carly picked up a handful of vegetation that sprouted from her body. Didn't get more locally-sourced than this.
Her powers had altered Carly into a freak, like some forest nymph. Her hair was now leaves and vines and moss, her skin dark green and somewhat barky in spots. Clothing wouldn't fit so she didn't bother since her vegetation covered anything interesting.
All she had now was loneliness and the TV. She never got to do anything fun, even on missions, since her freak-face attracted too much attention. Always enter and exit through side doors, eat in private dining rooms, sightsee via limo with blackened windows. She never got to go to a simple dance or party, couldn't meet a boy if her life depended on it. Not that anyone would look at her twice. So, she did her workouts, her missions, but now, at 18, she couldn't stand to see the walls of her virtual prison for one more second.
She sighed, slurped the rest of her beer, lay down on her cot, and watched the parade of contestants pretend to be X-Men or Avengers or Guardians or Ponies.
Carly bolted upright. One of the contestants had chosen to cosplay as—as Wild Flower, a really poor imitation of Carly, barely green, almost no vegetation, and wrapped with the remnants of her X-Men uniform, sort of a sexy, glorified version.
Was this a thing? Was Wild Flower a persona that people cosplayed?
Carly grabbed her laptop and flipped it open, and googled "Wild Flower." There it was! Cosplayers, fanfic, wikias. All the details of her life, videos, even parodies.
Carly drank it all in, even commented on a few using the alias Num1WildFlower using an untraceable server. Some forums were fun and flattering, some were super insulting, and she even got into a flame war arguing whether Wild Flower was a good girl in a bad situation or a bad girl trying to get away with things. Internet consensus put her square on the Evil side.
Evil?
Honestly, she didn't even know anymore. She'd spent her whole life dreaming of doing evil deeds, pouring ruination down upon mankind, but once she'd experienced the cost…
Yet, girls wanted to dress up like her. Why? The mirror reflected Princess Fiona from Shrek except a lot more green, like someone took Fiona and wrapped her in ivy. Maybe if the world just saw who Carly was, just a girl with dreams and hopes and a curse, they'd understand.
An ad glowed on the side of one of the forums, advertising a cosplay completion at a nearby convention center. Prizes and celebrity judges and fanfare.
Tonight.
Carly's finger hovered over the link. A smile curved her green lips. Imagine if the real Wild Flower showed up. She'd have to sneak out of a paranoidly secure facility, create some alibis so the authorities wouldn't suspect anything, but she could do it.
Maybe.
She secure-texted Larry, her only true confidant. Larry had become a Marine Lieutenant, off on some assignment on some ship or barracks or who knows.
"All I need is a cover. Please, please say you'll help me. I miss being around people so much. LL"
"Fine," he replied. "Instructions coming."
The texts arrived. Two fake "emergency" missions, while she was on the real one. While everyone was confused about which mission she was actually on, she'd be at the con. Classic Hydra Blundering.
Carly raced to suit up, cramming all her vegetation into an outfit. It crawled back out her neck and cuffs, refusing to stay confined. She snuck through vents and pipes, forced some plants to rip a hole in the security fence, jumped in a waiting limo Larry had arranged, and headed to the hotel. The moment she arrived, her eyes went wide…everyone was in costume. X-Men, Avengers, and just about every fandom under the sun paraded by. A flash of green stepped close—a Wild Flower cosplayer! Carly jumped back in the limo, stripped off her clothes, stuffed them in her bag, and zipped back out. She ran to catch up to her double who was now in the hotel registration line.
"Hey," she said to the girl. "I thought I was going to be the only one."
The girl turned around, took one look at Carly, and gasped. "OMG, that's gorgeous!"
"This? It's just some weeds I threw on. I love your outfit. Way more accurate." The short girl had on green makeup and a torn X-man uniform, likely made of cheap costume material. Probably based on some videos shot of Carly leaving the Virginia devastation, when she first turned green and still had what was left of that suit on.
The girl's gaze devoured Carly. "Oh, you got uh—" her eyes stopped at Carly's chest. Carly looked down.
"Oh, oops. Thought I had that covered." She adjusted her weeds. "Better?"
"Yeah. You don't want to get in trouble. So are you a pro?"
"Pro?"
"You know, professional cosplayer. Compete for prizes?"
Carly shook her head to a rustle of leaves. "No, this is my first time. How do you think I did?"
The girl studied her. "Well, I'm worried that maybe you overdid it. Sort of like 'what if Wild Flower let herself go?' Judges might like it, but it's not strictly canon."
Carly was about to launch into tirade about how hard it was to live cooped up, how the damn weeds did nothing but grow, but then laughed. "Yeah. I'm more Ent than Wild Flower. Maybe I'm a crossover. Oh well. What about you? Are you entering?"
The girl shook her head. "Nah. Not in this outfit. It's just store-bought."
"Wait—they sell my stuff—I mean Wild Flower stuff in stores?" Where the heck was her cut? But yeah, that 'torn' X-Men uniform was just flimsy polyester with Velcro strips. "Listen—I have a ton of extra Wild Flower gear in my bag. I'm probably her biggest fan/groupie. The competition isn't for a few hours, I bet we could get you super spiffy.
The girl eyed her. "Seriously? Like what?"
Carly leaned close. "I have an authentic X-Men uniform, torn just right. Highly illegal, at least according to the guy who sold it. May even be hers. What do you say?"
"Are you sure?" The girl's face lit up.
"Yeah. It's not really working for me anymore. So how should we meet up?"
"Just hit me at MyWildFlower."
"Okay. I'm Num1WildFlower."
"Kewl. Nice meeting you, Wild Flower."
"You too, Wild Flower."
Carly's heart swelled. It felt great to help a fellow enthusiast.
After finishing registration and putting her bag in her room, Carly explored the exhibition floor, filled with hundreds of comics vendors. She was stopped every few feet for a selfie with someone. She bought a few things, and then found a group of Wild Flowers standing in the hallway.
They waved her over and she joined in. They all looked so awesome, from a couple little kids to some maybe grandmas, all with their green skin and flower-laden hair. All eyes fell on Carly.
"Whoa. A naked Wild Flower. Awesome." A boy dressed like Cyclops approached. "Where's the party at, babe? Need someone to trim that hedge?"
"How'd you like to be down to zero eyes?" she replied.
"Hey, didn't mean nothing." His eyes seemed focused on her lower regions. Carly's weeds seemed to tense, her power gathering. She forced it to calm. "You are super hot." He stepped closer. "What say we find a quiet area where I can run through your jungle?"
Carly's fists closed, power circling in her gut. "What did you say?"
The boy closed in and placed a hand on her boob. "I meant, we gonna do this or what?"
Carly couldn't do anything except fight to keep her power bottled up, otherwise the boy's spleen would explode from the inside. "Leave me alone. Please. You don't know what you're doing."
What? Did she just beg a boy for mercy?
He pressed closer. "Come on, let's go to my room. I've always wanted to do a Wild Flower. Let's go wild."
Power raged. So many things she could do to physically hurt him, maim him, destroy him. But she'd never take that risk again, not unless someone's life was at stake.
"Get away from me or I'm calling security."
The boy huffed and smiled. He squeezed her breast and looked around. The other Wild Flowers surrounded him. He shoved her, stepped away, and pointed at her. "We ain't done." He turned and walked away.
Carly released a huge breath and wrapped her arms around her shoulders. The other Wild Flowers surrounded her.
"What a jerk." "You okay?" "These cons suck." "You want us to report him?" "Don't let that jackass ruin the con for you."
Carly shook her head. "I'm fine. I just didn't want to use my Wild Flower power on him, you know?"
The girls smiled.
A little girl in a Wild Flower costume sidled up to her as Carly grabbed her bags of goodies. The kid tugged on Carly's vines.
"Yes?" Carly knelt down.
The girl eyed her mom, and then spoke in Carly's ear.
"I know you're the real Wild Flower. I know it because the real Wild Flower is good."
Carly glanced up at the mom, then whispered back, "the real Wild Flower has done some very bad things but is very sorry for them. She wants to be good very badly." She noticed the kid had a flower pinned in her hair. She plucked it out. "Ssh. Don't tell anyone about this. It will be our secret." She grew the one flower into two, between her knees where only the kid could see it happen. She then placed it back on the kid's head. "Have a nice convention!"
The mom led the kid away, eyeing Carly suspiciously as she left.
"So what do you want to do now?" asked one of the Wild Flowers to the group. "Who wants to photobomb the X-Men meetup? Show them they can't defeat us?"
"Yeah, let's go. You coming?"
Carly shook her head. "I meeting someone in a few." Carly waved as they took off. Sighing, she returned back to her room. The contest was only a couple hours away. She tweeted her new friend from registration. Turned out their rooms were on the same floor. Carly grabbed her gear and knocked on the door. MyWildFlower let her in.
Carly had grabbed the competition entry forms and waved them the MyWildFlower. "You excited?"
The girl looked down. "Sort of. How am I supposed to compete?"
"Well first, let's make you ravishing." MyWildFlower wasn't bad-looking, just kinda short and a bit chunky with one of those tiny noses that disappeared into her face. "Come on, it'll be great." Carly went to work applying shades of green to her skin.
One of the side effects of the whole escapade in Virginia was that Carly was now bigger. Permanently, it seemed. She'd gotten to be a hundred feet tall, and once it wore off, she'd come back down to size, but not all the way. She was now six feet tall and about forty pounds heavier. Again, Princess Fiona. A freak. MyWildFlower was maybe five feet in heels.
"I wish I had a wig like yours," she said, eyeing Carly's crown of flowers.
Carly touched her head. "Don't. It's heavy and scratchy and took forever. I think yours will work fine."
They finished, and MyWildFlower looked great. Except, when she sat down, her costume ripped. Then she started crying.
"Whoa, hold on. I told you I had an outfit." Carly rummaged through her gear bag and procured the tattered pieces of her X-Men outfit. "This here is an actual X-Men outfit, made to look exactly like the one the real Wild Flower wore. It doesn't fit me. Wish I'd known that when I bought it." Except—it was the real outfit Carly had worn when destroying half of Virginia, ripped in half so it was little more than a halter top and waist wrap, the X-Men logo hanging over the belly. She helped MyWildFlower into it.
"There, you look awesome!"
The girl blushed. "Nah."
"If the real Wild Flower was here, she's be really proud of you."
The girl eyed her. "Ya. If the real Wild Flower was here, she'd probably try to kill anyone who was playing her."
"What? No, she's not like that. She'd be flattered. I don't think she's mean like that."
MyWildFlower shook her head. "No disrespect, but you don't know what you're talking about. I know, I looked you up online. Saw a bunch of comments defending her. But come on, Num1, she's like, so beyond us. She doesn't care about people, just her own gain. Why do you think I like her? She doesn't give a crap about what other people think. She doesn't need anyone's approval."
Carly looked down. She deserved that. A kindness here and there didn't make up for what she really was—a villain, a murderer, an agent of an evil organization. "Yeah, well, I think she wants to be a better person."
"If Wild Flower was a better person, full of love and hope and crap like that, we wouldn't love her as much, would we?"
Carly smiled. "We love her despite her flaws."
"No, we love her because of her flaws. We want her to be bad. That's her thing. She destroys everything she touches. She's more Black Widow than Black Widow."
It was so true. "Well, then, we can't disappoint her, then. We've got to get out there and destroy the competition."
They turned their attention to the entry forms. "Wait," said MyWF. "We need a blurb for the announcer to read. We do a 20-second strut while they talk."
Carly looked it over. It was a quick description of materials, the character, and whatever else you could squeeze into twenty seconds. "Looks like we can do a gimmick. Ooh, I have an idea. All we need is bouquet of flowers and a vase. I read about this online. We can rig it up so it makes it look like the flowers are growing. That would be awesome for you."
"What about for you? Why are you doing all this for me?"
Carly looked at the girl, now green and wearing Wild Flower's emblem of resistance and independence in the torn outfit. "Oh, I've got plenty of tricks. I just don't know anyone here and I thought it would be great to have a friend in the competition. And you know…it's Wild Flower!"
"Yeah. Well, kewl. I'll do that."
"Let's meet up in line then, okay?"
"Sure."
"I gotta run, fix a couple things myself."
"Need help?"
"Nah, just eyes and stuff. And some itches. Cosplay's a bitch."
"LOL. K, see you later."
Carly returned to her room, the harassment by Cyclops almost forgotten. She had this idea that after the con, she'd send the girl a message saying that Carly really was Wild Flower and it was the real uniform. Maybe they could stay friends. Would be nice to have one real friend.
Carly wandered back to the exhibition floor, looking to catch up with the Wild Flowers. In the back escalator, she overheard some kids dressed as some Rambo types talking.
"What a bunch of fags. What the F are they doing here? Fags and [bad word] in our convention? I f-ing hate this."
"What do you want to do?"
"Let's dump trash on them."
Carly looked to who the idiots were complaining about. A group of costumed dudes on roller skates stood together, except their outfits were super-minimal, thongs and halter tops instead of the usual tights and contoured tops. Carly laughed at the sight. It was so cute.
Power surged again, begging to be let loose against the bigots. She could make their guts explode, make their hair grown inward, make their teeth fall out. But not here. She'd be exposed, jailed, shot. The feeling of that man's hand on her chest lingered, the shame, the intimidation. But if she let even a fraction of her power loose, where would it end? She could destroy the entire convention.
Carly couldn't just stand there as they gathered trash from bins. She couldn't just let more cosplayers get intimidated. She ran in front of them and held out her hands. "Don't do it."
They laughed and snickered, three decent-sized men. "Oh my god, will you look at this bitch? What are you going to do, freak?"
