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The End of the Circus: A Tale of the Yizibajohei
Magic in Miami Omake: Nightmare At The Matinee
by Regina Magia
Miami, the Olympia Theatre on East Flagler Street, Thanksgiving Day in 2012, two hours after supper (Tōkyō time: Labour Thanksgiving Day, two hours after breakfast)...
"Okay, who's taking the big guys and who's getting Nick?"
While part of the Sunshine League was busy at that time inside a church out on the Big Cypress Reservation to the northwest of the Sunshine State's largest city, the other half of the group were now outside the inner doors to one of Miami's historical theatre venues. They were here thanks to Tim Hoskins' tracking down the location of a fellow schoolmate, Nicholas Muybridge, supposedly yet another of Mitchell Hanewal's supposedly many victims from Caleb High School.
Unfortunately, they — Tim and his friends were currently accompanied by a platoon's worth of the local Parahuman Response Team based in the Magic City — had yet to rescue the said sophomore basketball player, now on the main stage at least ten yards from their position. The reason why was quite glaringly simple: Two large rock-like golems with searchlights mounted where their heads would be located were now prowling about inside even if they had yet to notice the armed troops beyond the doors.
"You're the FISS," Stan Loughlin quipped, giving the other man a knowing look. "'Sides, my past-selves didn't do much physical fighting." Here, the Puppet Player spread out his hands. "I don't have any toys powerful enough to take those things on."
"We're pretty much stuck too, Glacier," the PRT platoon commander, 1st Lieutenant John Drake, warned. "We try anything with containment foam or projectile weapons, the theatre'll get wrecked and the Mayor'll go ape right into the Governor's office."
"What's Mister Muybridge's life signs look like, Murphy?" the platoon's senior NCO, Sergeant First Class Dale Phillips, demanded of the team's technical wizard.
Specialist Cale Murphy shook his head. Even if people like him were more than grateful to all the parahuman tinkers and metahuman polymaths and technokinetics across the United States and Canada when it came to equipping the PRTs of the several states and commonwealths with the right gear, it sometimes revealed things no sane person wanted to see. "Victim's seriously dehydrated and he hasn't had anything decent to eat in a couple of days, Sarge," the parahuman defence specialist/"cavalry trooper" warned, gazing up from the tricorder he used to scan inside; unlike several states, Florida formally commissioned its PRT as the 2nd (Special) Squadron, 153rd "Darkhorse" Cavalry Regiment. "Looks to me this wand-waving SOB wants to keep him alive enough to power one of the bastard's slaves, like what our DMLE pals in Tallahassee think."
"Damned death cheater," Gavin Williams snarled. "Wants to spread the 'love'...!"
Rueful chuckles escaped the others. "Well, no one's interested in that sort of 'love', Cale," Tim mused before gazing at his friend. "Care to start the fight scene, Carillon?"
Everyone tensed as the Warning Bell of the East pointed at the doors. "Taeim letam...!"
A blast of pure sound escaped his lips to slam open the inner doors leading to the main lobby, causing both golems to jolt before the sonic wave made them shriek in pain. As the platoon of PRT men spilled inwards, splitting into two fire teams to support their metahuman friends, Tim and Gavin moved to directly confront the lumbering brutes while the Puppet Player sprinted into the main theatre chamber, with both 1LT Drake and S1C Phillips covering his backside.
"NICK!" the magical matter manipulator screamed out as all three careened onto the stage.
That caused the shivering African-American basketball player's eyes to snap open. "Huh...?!" he rasped. "'Zat you, English...?"
His eyes went wide on seeing the traditional martial arts gi-like uniform the West Sussaxon cruise director's son was wearing before jolting as Phillips drew out a hypodermic device filled with a general stimulant solution to punch into his arms. "Easy, kid! We got ya! Everything's going to be fine," the veteran of the second Persian Gulf War hissed while Nicholas gazed at him, then his platoon leader before turning back to look again at his schoolmate. "Don't worry about those..."
A shrieking noise burst through the doorways into the lobby, accompanied by the sound of something very big falling onto the floor. "Holy fuck...!" Nicholas breathed out as Stan moved to sit him up just as SPC Murphy and the medic assigned to this job, Master Sergeant Penny Winkler, raced down to assist. "When the fuck did you get GIFTED, English?!"
Stan laughed as MSG Winkler slid onto the stage, sliding over to begin a proper triage while Murphy levelled a C25 particle rifle — a Specialized Warfare Regiment of Canada in-house design resembling the famous FN FAL battle rifle, though it fired a hyper-dense particle-photon energy projectile — at the doors leading to the lobby. "'Bout three years ago, mate," the Puppet Master answered as he drew out a model ostrich, mentally enlarging it into something that could carry his schoolmate out piggyback while serving as a stretcher for the medic. "One of my friends from back home's Gifted, too. She goes to..."
The PRT personnel in hearing range all loudly coughed, making Hermione Granger's old elementary school classmate jerk before he flustered on realizing his gaffe. "I'll tell you later..." he then muttered.
By then, Phillips had used a pulse burner rod to snap the last of the heavy chain locks that had tied down their ultimate target's prisoner to the floor via ankle chains. "All off!" he called out.
Stan teamed with the platoon leader and senior NCO to lift Nicholas onto the ostrich's back, allowing him to slump against the creature's long neck while Winkler moved to walk beside her patient outside the building and into a waiting evacuation vehicle for a short trip to the Select Specialty Hospital on the west side of the Miami Memorial Metropolitan Expressway. By then, the other golem had been dropped into a heap on the lobby floor thanks to its "head" being blasted by Gavin's acoustokinesis.
Seeing both his "jailers" now effectively dead on the floor making like icicles dripping off a glacier, Nicholas whistled, shaking his head. "Damn! Any chance I can get Gifted too, English?"
The normal people in the lobby laughed as the Freezing Wall and the Warning Bell came over to join them. "Shouldn't be too hard," said Tim, brushing his hands off on his pant legs. "But let's let the master sergeant make sure you're fully healthy first."
"Agreed," MSG Winkler declared. "Coyote doesn't allow people to be Gifted unless they're mentally ready for that sort of thing."
The others ruefully nodded...
To Be Continued...
WRITER'S NOTES
As noted in the narrative, this short occurs at the same time as the second Magic in Miami omake, Holy Warriors.
This short was completed after concepts from Worm were incorporated into the background lore of the overall series. In the universe of The End of the Circus, Tariko Katabarbe's "casting drive" provoked the need to create a legal distinction between "metahumans" (mesonium-powered superhumans) and "parahumans" (other superhumans like those touched by Entity-produced shards as seen in Worm) in the United States. This, any person enhanced by mesonium effectively would fall under the responsibility of the federal government through the United States Joint Specialized Warfare Command (JSWC, said normally as jay-swick) while others (beyond magicals) are managed by state/commonwealth-managed Parahuman Response Teams (PRTs) and accompanying Protectorate groups. However, despite this clear divide, the lack of field-capable JSWC support assets means that local PRTs often get into the action whenever groups like the Sunshine Troupe go active.
The 153rd "Darkhorse" Cavalry Regiment (153 CAV) was first established in 2007 when its personnel were re-flagged and converted from a battalion of the 124th Infantry Regiment (124 IN), one of Florida's longest-lived National Guard units, which can effectively trace its ancestry to the American Civil War. Because of this, the Darkhorse inherited their parent battalion's lineage and battle credits, dating all the way back to the Spanish-American War of 1898. The Darkhorse Cavalry have one squadron (battalion) currently active, based mostly in the Florida Panhandle; squadron headquarters is in Panama City.
