A Tail of a Cloak

(by Kitty S. Lillian)

Vista chewed on her eraser, staring at the social studies reading assignment. Her ability to shorten the pages did not help. She'd tried, over and over. Why couldn't everything be as fun as math? As fun as using its power to twist the cosmos to her will, to make an empty Cloak ride herd on the perps of Brockton Bay? What more can I do with Cloak, she wondered.

"Missy, do you have any interest in keeping this?"

Vista-no, she was at her dad's house for once, Missy when out of costume- looked up to see her father holding a bug collection she'd done in sixth grade. "Lemme see." She reached across the room, shortening the distance as was her wont.

"Okay, but if you don't want it anymore, just put it in the trash, okay, kiddo?"
She took the case. A housefly, a spider ["not an insect", read the red ink], a mayfly, a dragonfly, a cockroach, and a mealworm lay within, transfixed. She didn't think the old thing would be of any point.

She pulsed her power for detecting life in the surrounding area, and realized she could compress the dead shells unhindered…and, therefore, expand them. Perhaps I'll use them for something else.

"This is a stickup! Get on the ground, hands on your head! …c'mon, hurry it up, what're you lookin' at?"

"Cape. Er, Cloak."

The vic was shaking, face pale, pointing at something behind the thug, then put his hands on his head, kneeling down, hoping not to get shot immediately prior to rescue, nor faint.

Behind the perp was a cloak, slowly floating down from above. What had the vic unsettled, and now the perp as well, was the giant dragonfly abdomen dangling out the bottom of the cloak.

Bang! Bang, bang! barked the gun. The bullets described decelerating curlicues in the air. The ganger emptied the rest of the magazine at Cloak, trying to hit the possibly-exposed flesh. The bullets vanished to parts unknown. He then threw the gun, and it hit him in the small of the back.

"Why do they always do that?" mused the diminutive, formerly-empty garment-guised heroine.

He turned to run, and turned, and found he couldn't look away from Cloak. She was there, no matter where he turned. He curled up on the ground and sobbed.

His rescue complete, the vic spoke up. "Er, Cloak?"

"Yes?"

Having decided that it would be more likely polite than rude, he continued, "You've got something… hanging out, there." He indicated the dragonfly bits with a finger that would not stop shaking.

"Oh. Thanks, I thought it was a little drafty, today." Cloak re-tucked the spatial fold that had been magnifying and displaying the insect's lifeless body into the manifold folds of her costume-construct, making the anatomical curiosity vanish, before dealing with the more-boring procedures of calling in for a pickup for yet another fool she'd cleaned off the streets.

At the mouth of the alley, someone uploaded a video, and titled it, "The Tail of the Confrontation"…