Chapter four

The Blue Caterpillar and Miss Militia

Miss Militia nodded and made affirmative noises and the com link in her ear buzzed, a signal through relays had managed to reach her communicator, a signal that detailed just how screwed up the situation was, apparently Taylor Heberts personality fragments were slowly turning more aggressive.

At first, the reported fragments were peaceful, but they have slowly become more and more violent, the fragments so far were trying to force a fight, but it sounded like they were slowly becoming more resistant to the idea of rejoining Taylors personality as a whole. Militia idly wondered why as she emerged into a clearing and was taken aback by the sight that lay before her.

A grassy clearing that was dominated by a cluster of mushrooms of various sizes

Resting on a medium sized mushroom, the size of a small truck, was a Taylor dressed in a blue, almost armored dress, with panels of a blue chitin somehow appearing out of the fabric at a regular interval lending an overall insectile appearance.

A light, almost electric blue hair fell to her where one hand combed slim fingers through her hair, while the other hand cradled a white pipe with gold inlay, its tip weaving a lackadaisical pattern through the air.

The blue haired Taylor paused her motions and turned to look at Miss Militia, her dark grey eyes sparkling with interest, she placed the tip of her pipe against in her lips and made a come hither gesture with her now free hand.

"Come out, come out Miss Militia. I know you're there."

The middle Eastern hero stepped out the concealing foliage and noticed something odd about this Taylor's legs, they seemed almost, withered, and yet were still whole, smooth, and with a decent musculature that terminated in bare feet, tipped with blue painted nails. This Taylor idly nodded at Miss Militia as she continued puffing on her pipe, grey smoke slipping from its tip and out her nose, and twining up to slowly fad away in the air.

"Hello Miss Militia. I am the Blue Caterpillar, call me Blue."

Militia nodded cautiously, her ever present weapon shifting forms in a a flare of green light from a small pistol, to an semi-automatic, to a wicked looking rifle, and back again.

Blue looked at the hero, taking in her scratched and torn clothing, her warm brown eyes, and the rather serious looking gun the heroes fingers were tapping out a drum beat upon. Blue hummed in amusement.

"Hmmm, you seem to be rather stressed, might I ask why?"

Miss Militia held back a scoff at the inane question.

"You and the other facets of Taylors power are holding prisoners, most of which had nothing to do with her trigger, I am also facing an opponent with unknown powers, and if the indications of the others are any basis of which to decide what my confrontation with you will be like, then you will most likely be a more intense fight then the last few were for the others."

Blue smiled sadly and nodded.

"Correct. The facets of Taylors personality are rather divided, myself included, on whether not `we should rejoin the whole. Some wish whole heartedly to rejoin, to endure, and to assist the original with their powers. Others desire to remain free, and to protect her body, never letting her wake and never letting anyone else force our Alice to face such a rather cruel reality. And then there is one, one that wishes to remain living, not for Alice, not for others, but not even for themselves, but for nothing other then to cause destruction."

"And which one are you?"

Blue took in one long, pleasure filled inhale from her pipe, before blowing out a single smoke ring that floated out and towards Miss Militia.

"I… I am undecided. The issue is that while I do not which for my darling Alice to be harmed, in any way, and yet at the same time I do not want her to be forced to sleep for eternity."

There was a pause as Blue breathed out another elegant smoke ring.

"Do you know what my power is?"

Militia, slightly taken aback by the sudden change in topic shook her head.

"I do not."

"My powers are, well, I suppose you could call them prophetic. They are a combination up an almost supernatural understanding of human behavior, and a view of the future paths of actions."

"So why aren't you decided already? Shouldn't you know whats going to happen?"

Blue shook her head.

"My power is less specific then you think. Take flipping a coin. What do you think happens when you flip a coin?"

Miss Militia shook her head slightly.

"I'd imagine you get head or tails."

Blue smiled ruefully.

"You'd think that wouldn't you? But no, Instead of heads or tails, I get heads, tails, side. I get location, how far it bounces, how many times it bounces. Hell I get wether or not it gets stuck in a crack in the wall. I get hundreds, if not thousands of options, even for such a simple option such as that. But with my thinker power, I am capable of combing through the options in moments, and then selecting the most likely, however, I'm still left with a huge amount of possibilities. Many of which are just as likely as any other."

Miss Militia leaned back in consideration. That was a fair drawback, and It led Miss Militia to wonder why there weren't more powers to see the future like this one. Militia refocused as Blue continued speaking.

"So, in other words, since there are two main branches of life open to Taylor after the conclusion of are either good, or terrible. And so I organized this to test you, and how you will treat Taylor, in essence to get a better hold on your personalities and how they'll interact with, and treat the original."

Militia only really cottoned onto the what part of that statement.

The Test. Blue had even said it with a capital letter. Militia slid her gun up slowly and cocked the trigger.

"What do you mean tests?"

The smile that came over Blues face was saddened, and yet eager.

"Just this."

And then Blue breathed, sending out billows of smoke that wrapped around Militia that entangled and grasped at the hero, choking her, just before Miss Militia lost conciseness, she heard Blue speak.

"I forgot to mention the last bit of my power, the smoke that I exude is a powerful drug that essentially forces you to relive your worst nightmare, over and over, and over. Have a fun trip!"

Blue sighed as Militia finally succumbed.

"I hope for Alice's sake that this works…"

Hours later…

With a scream Hannah jumped up her powers shifting and forming into an old, broken down Kalashnikov that was trained unerringly on Blues reclining form, who upon seeing the hero awake merely smiled genially.

"So, your awake. Are you still sane? After all, If I'm correct you just suffered through at least a dozen repeats of your trigger event."

Hannah pointed the barrel at Blue and breathed out harshly from between clenched lips.

"Why… In GODS name… Did you do that?"

Blue shrugged as she took in another breath of smoke from her pipe.

"I told you. A test. Now. Do you intend to kill me? You have to if you need to get the hostages back."

Hannah couldn't hold back a snarl as the barrel twitched. The smirk on the face of the girl who had just forced her to relive the worst moment of her life.

Repeatedly.

And had the gall to smile about it.

The automatic rifle bucked as it spat out a spray of bullets the buried themselves into Blues form.

And as the mushroom filled glade dissolved around the hero, revealing a number of unconscious students and staff, Miss Militia breathed in deeply, and then mentally shrugged.

Blue had said that she would have to kill her in order to release the hostages. That was absolutely why she had shot the teen.

Absolutely.

And in one corner of the room, a set of lambent yellow eyes, floating over a terrifyingly wide smile floated, pleased with the progress of the so called heroes, slowly faded away like the morning mist.