A/N:
Hey guys! I updated one day early because I've been wanting to hear your guys' thoughts on it for a long time. I'm glad I took this long to upload it, though, because I've already got the next chapter written out and I'm working on the fifth one as you'll read this. As before, count on it being roughly two weeks till the next update. Hopefully I'll have the sixth nearly finished by then.
Also, thank you so much to those who've followed/favorited/reviewed! Your support means bunches to me. A special thanks to Dakaath for giving me the lowdown on Clockblocker's powers.
Xyfa: That's an interesting thought! I never related Taylor to the Simurgh, but I can see it now. Both leave a path of destruction in their wake, however intentional it may be. As for the firepower, I've always thought both could be far more destructive if they tried. Taylor wouldn't because of her morals (how she wouldn't use lethal bugs on most criminals). The Simurgh gives off a mystery that wasn't solved even at the end, and it makes you wonder just what her intentions were. Anyways, I'm glad you liked it! Here's to hoping this chapter lives up to the others.
"C-8 Blockman deceased, Grain down, Feathered Thorn deceased, Skillet deceased-"
I sprung to my feet and finished the last of the distance to Miss Militia and the Wards. "She's gone," I said, breathless. "Teleported."
Miss Militia was already speaking into her armband but Clockblocker swore. "Shit. Are you fucking kidding me right now?"
I had to agree. If she could teleport, what was really stopping her from going to Brockton Bay right now as predicted? Then I heard the sound of an explosion a mile away and knew that she had engaged another team of capes.
"-Twist deceased, Erasi deceased, Chevalier down-"
So what was the Simurgh here for? It was my running theory that Endbringers had more of a reason for appearing then just targeting chaotic, despair-laden cities.
What kept her here? Or who? I added belatedly.
It looked like the others had gotten onto the same train of thought. Miss Militia shifted her body so as not to have her back against me. It didn't go unnoticed.
Across the street, Gully and the red boy were climbing out of the storefront, the former sporting an ugly gash across her forehead that oozed blood at a steady rate. She walked fine though, rubbing away the blood when it reached her eyes with hardly a blink.
"Orders from above. We're pulling out," Miss Militia said, lowering her arm. Her hand rested on the machinegun that materialized at her side. "There's too much risk with our group if the Simurgh gets her hands on us."
It wasn't hard to guess which of us she meant, but the others could pose a definite problem as well. Clockblocker could pull something akin to what Gray Boy did if he found a way around the drawbacks, though his power would be more merciful considering the person wouldn't stay aware in their frozen state. Miss Militia could mass-murder hundreds, thousands with the right artillery in the right place.
And I hadn't covered what Vista could do.
A part of me wanted to point that out if only to show that I wasn't the only one we had to worry about, but it would defeat the purpose. The point was to stay calm, not start a fight.
The armbands continued the read-off of deceased and downed capes. No word from Tattletale.
My bugs sensed a flurry whip up before Vista distorted the street to get us back to the ship without waiting for the order. The sounds of the fight boomed across the sky, and the crazy thought of splitting from the group to provide some sort of backup passed my mind. I threw the thought out before I could begin to process it.
I've made questionable choices before, had some not-so-great ideas, but I tried not to go out of my way to be stupid.
As soon as we crossed through the distortion, Dragon landed next to the ship and raised a hand: Stop.
We did. Miss Militia blinked, "What's going on?"
Dragon jerked a finger towards the way we came and pulled up a display on her armor. It was a photo of a flock of sheep in a meadow. The photo changed to a promotion shot for some Las Vegas team. I only knew that because of their flashy costumes.
Why not use the armbands? I wondered.
Dragon switched back to the sheep then to the capes, flickering back to back with an intensity that was thick despite the lack of speech. It wasn't hard to figure out the meaning.
Sheep were herded. We were capes.
The sound of the fight increased tenfold, and I felt as much as heard dozens of capes enter my range. Buildings were toppled, a wave of snow came crashing through another street to push the capes forward. I felt a portion of my swarm be vaporized along with an entire team that got caught up in the blast.
We were being pressed together by the Simurgh.
"Vista!" Miss Militia beckoned, and the young cape rushed to the front once more. Buildings and streets were torn out of our way as we were transported halfway across the city. There was the clap of thunder.
I wasn't sure what happened, but the next thing I knew I was sprawled on the ground fifteen feet away from Kid Win, a deep burn aching across my chest.
My bugs were a sensory mess. I felt a good ten capes be roasted by something akin to a flamethrower, another three ripped in half by another of the Simurgh's artillery. The remains of a foot landed with a plop beside me and I knew that Vista's distortion had been interrupted. We were in the middle of a crowded, uneven battleground.
The wind knocked out of me, it took the better part of a second to gather my bearings.
Chevalier stormed his way to the front lines like a knight of old, slashing his cannon blade against an arc of fire pellets that shot out from the Simurgh. He canceled half of them, the other half deflecting aimlessly into a molten pot hole. Behind him fought Defiant.
The Simurgh hardly went out of her way to protect the tinker tech around her as it was blown up and sawed to pieces by Chevalier and Defiant's joint efforts. She dodged to the side when one blow came too close to her body, but other than firing off the odd shot, she let her artillery be creamed.
They're expendable, I realized, and a sense of hopelessness washed over me. If the guns that were destroying our defenses easily held no worth to her, what about the one that did? Alexandria flew into the fray with a busted street lamp held like a lance and managed to nick another of the Simurgh's tech before getting a face full of fire. From the waxy texture of half her face, I could safely say the heat was par to Sundancer's.
The light gun came into existence beside the Simurgh and erupted off a few quick bursts. While a laser had the ability to pierce straight through, this thing worked like a scanner. Some might call it a slow process if they were aiming for the core, but here it was unfortunately effective. Capes were collapsing all around me, some with their flesh partially stripped away, others gunned down by the surviving artillery.
The Simurgh deftly turned in the air to avoid a hyper-beam of Eidolon's. I caught the edge of her face as she called laptops, flat screens and other tech to fold over her like a cocoon against the capes' fire. Her eyes were dead. A dead man's eyes were empty, a shell without anything inside. But at least they gave the impression that something used to be there.
The Simurgh lacked that. Artificial was the word that came to mind.
Snow flushed out from her and compiled into the size of a freight train, swatting Eidolon to the ground. Two of our strongest fighters taken down like flies in the wind.
Need to get out of direct fire. My mask was more than skewed on my face and it felt strange, like a layer had been peeled away. I struggled to my feet, ignoring the steady burn across my chest until I felt it accompanied by a breeze.
I looked down.
The front of my costume was gone. I didn't know if my theory was actually correct or if I had really come that close to being incinerated, but it looked like someone had taken scissors and carefully cut the front from the back. It didn't explain why my mask was still intact if my front armor was zapped out of existence, but I wasn't about to sit down and theorize. The back of my costume had stuck to me up until that point, and it peeled off like a second skin to land gently on the torn concrete.
Fuck.
At least I still had clothes. A quick check ensured that my bike leggings had survived, Dinah's notes tucked in the waistband, and I felt a rush of gratitude that I hadn't given them up after Burnscar melted my first pair to my legs.
My undershirt gave the idea of modesty, but up close I could see it was mostly in threads from where I had skid across the ground. My scars peeked through the low cut, the tips of them curving out like pointed teeth. The exposed skin was scraped raw.
Fuck.
I grabbed what remained of my costume and ran till I reached an area that didn't immediately have death raining upon it. After enough deliberation, I set the spiders from the swarm that had resided in my armor on it to spilt the silk into parts. I wrapped two pieces around my feet for some improvised shoes.
The rest I used to haphazardly tie my armor panels and utility compartment on, holding them in place with some added spider silk that I had drifting upon me from the fliers. It wasn't perfect, and I felt just as exposed as when my identity was blown-
Chest stripped, back flayed.
- but it was the best I could do.
I squashed the urge to cover my scars as I hurried across the battleground, sending my bugs out to map my surroundings. I set more spiders to create cords of silk while I dodged stray fire.
My arm band was nonexistent, and for a moment I had to wonder at my horrible luck with them. Two out of three destroyed before the fight began, and the one that worked had been designed to work against me. The scream in my mind rose and I grit my teeth, pushing my beaten legs to cover as much distance as possible.
That was when the world exploded.
The laser gun flickered into existence once more and targeted the block over, emitting a light so intense that even turned away, eyes shut on instinct, I could still see the neighborhood. I was knocked to the ground by a barrel of wind, and for a dizzying moment I felt like I had been stuck in a blender with a disco ball. My body was battered and covered in burning ashes. Blotches of technicolor flickered on my vision.
I cracked my eyes open. I almost thought I was blind again, but gradually the scene dribbled into place like a runny canvas over the sketch of the original neighborhood that still sat on my eyes.
There were only ruins left. This wasn't just one block decimated but two, three… Almost a mile stretched before me leading towards the beach, blackened soot where there used to be buildings and people.
What the hell?
The capes around me, the survivors, were deathly silent. Our armbands didn't list off the dead.
The Simurgh still hovered in her place, the laser gun vanished.
A dozen voices broke out at once, all shouting different orders, requests for help and other incoherent words. I didn't know who was left, my swarm just about obliterated from that last shot, but I gathered together the bugs I could to enhance my voice.
"Scatter! She's getting ready for another shot!" I screamed, trying to heed my own instructions. My legs and arms were glorified noodles, but I managed to scramble to my feet as the few capes that heard me ran for their lives.
This was too much death. Way too much. Behemoth was supposed to be the "hero killer", not her. It was becoming increasingly apparent that the Simurgh wasn't looking for a fight. She wanted a massacre.
Dragon dropped from the skies and shot off numerous rockets in defense as I turned my attention to the field. Gully was supporting the side of a building that had split from the seams, several wounded capes beneath the rubble. I spotted the red boy hoisting them out three at a time.
Chevalier dug himself out of a pile of rubble and sprung forward with a thrust of his cannon blade as a busted up Defiant peeled off to the side and followed up with a spray of liquid.
Legend and Eidolon completed the formation behind the Simurgh, combining a single beam that hit her solid in the back.
I saw the laser gun appear. What happened after was the combination of the perfect chances.
Just as the Simurgh directed her attention towards Eidolon who held an impressive target on her back, Dragon floated to the side and her stance created a small window of opportunity between her waist and left arm. Her body blocked that of a legless boy who lay not far from where the line of soot began. His guts were splayed out, half his arm mangled beyond comprehension, but with one last ounce of strength he directed a finger towards the Simurgh.
A splash of blue lightning danced from his fingertip. There was no way of telling if it were actually pointed at the laser gun, but it hit Dragon's armor and tunneled through the space she created just as the delicate gun shifted around the Simurgh. Dragon dropped from the sky, jet pack sputtering before she was able to gather her balance and direct herself safely to the ground.
The Simurgh's laser gun was smoldering. She vanished from sight just as Alexandria rejoined the fight. I didn't allow myself to celebrate. We may have crushed the immediate worry, but the Endbringer was still in the city. I spotted a truckload of snow fall from the sky several blocks away.
I reached out with my swarm, feeling for the capes that were left. Vista and Clockblocker, a third person that I couldn't make out in between them on the ground. My bugs traced over the remains of a scarf. Miss Militia.
The blood drained out of my face. We were on opposite sides, but she was one of the good ones. When I wasn't dressing up like Alexandria as a kid, it was Miss Militia who I begged my mom for posters of. I wasn't embarrassed to say I admired her, respected her.
My arrival did nothing to shake Clockblocker's concentration as he knelt over her unconscious body. A rag had been placed over her lower face to preserve her identity. Her skin was covered in cuts deep and shallow where her clothes had been burned away, but it was the wound on her head that worried me.
She could count her blessings that it wasn't at the back of her head where the medulla was, but head injuries were a tricky business. A sizable bump had already formed on her forehead. The skin was scraped away, revealing a patch of blood that was welling over. Charred matter flecked on her face and it took me a while to recognize it for the gunk that was supposed to keep our heads safe and Simurgh-free.
"I don't want to hurry you, but I do at the same time," I said.
"We need to evacuate." Clockblocker said. "To point out the obvious, she needs medical attention." My bugs caught the almost imperceptible tremor of his voice. Vista stood by, jaw set. Everybody had their own way to cope.
I eyed the bruising that was still blooming on Miss Militia's skin. "Did you move her neck?" I asked.
Though I couldn't see his face, looks reserved for sheer idiots had a way of translating across mediums. I grimaced. Dumb question, yes, but I knew enough first aid that moving someone with a head injury like that was usually a bad idea, especially if they weren't awake.
"To the best of my ability, no," came his answer after he let me feel the silence.
I nodded approvingly. "That's good."
I handed him the cords of silk my spiders had already weaved and he accepted them without comment, beginning the arduous task of wrapping up her arms, face and neck.
With that being done, I wasn't sure what else we could do. The area was decorated with mostly the dead, and there were the telltale signs of the battle raging on not far from where we hid. We needed to get moving before the Simurgh could enact whatever she had planned.
Kid Win joined us not long after Clockblocker had finished the last of the wrappings. He didn't spare me more than a glance, but I saw his eyes trail down to where my scars peeked out.
I hunched over as he looked away.
A burst of orange lit up our spot in the alley. I knew without turning that it was too late to dodge, but my muscles tightened and my meager swarm condensed to provide a curtain. Vista started to move but fell to her knees, screaming just as a slab of metal was thrown into the fireball's path.
Kid Win stumbled over in his armor to where Vista was crumbled on the ground. Not a few feet away laid what remained of the metal and I started towards it, stopping only for a trashcan lid that was leaned against the wall. I tossed it into the molten puddle for the off-chance that it would work.
A face materialized.
Weld opened his mouth, a shallow divot with lips. Feed me. I quickly scanned the alley for more metal. I never appreciated how much trash could be found in the streets until I got my powers. Trash brought bugs, but there was an added bonus now: lots of trash was metal.
I never really thought about it until I thought about it. Cans, pipes, screws and springs. The gross needles that I avoided. Everything short of the dumpster at the end of the alley was thrown into the slowly-forming Weld. It was surreal how he rose from his puddle, almost like a showgirl from her oversized cake. I knew that he was nigh-invincible. He could shape his sections of his body into weapons, and I saw firsthand how his defense held up against Mannequin and Crawler. Nevertheless, I was surprised he was alive.
Another explosion set everyone into action.
Kid Win supported Vista with one arm and helped Clockblocker carry Miss Militia with the other. It was careful work, serious as a surgical procedure for even the slightest movement could cause ramifications if her injuries were as bad as they looked.
At least we were moving now, though it would be slow-going. The way Kid Win was moving struck me as odd. It seemed forced, hardly like the smooth gait he usually had from the times I had seen him fight. Vista was hunched over, one hand clutching her head while the other clung to Kid Win. Something with the attack had messed her up.
I looked behind us where Weld moved carefully, his "skin" dripping off him in small drops. He looked like the Swamp Monster from the old films, with the added bonus of his more private areas being indiscriminate blobs that moved with the rest of the molten tide.
This wasn't going to work. Where was the rest of our team? My bugs scoured the area as unnaturally cold snow began to fall at a steady rate. Gully and red boy, transporting capes to a street out of the line of fire. Crucible was nowhere to be found.
I had a pretty good idea about why the Simurgh had pressed us together like this. Our reason for spreading apart was to save numbers, yet she obviously planned on decimating us all.
Why?
Her shtick was screwing with people's minds so that they could carry out horrible deeds later on. Sleeper spies in the enemy's cell. The Simurgh had already shown that she could teleport, so the reasons for her being here were dwindling.
I caught up with Kid Win.
"Could I use your arm band?" I asked. My bugs were beginning to drop from the temperature and I was having to use fliers to carry the more effective bugs, leaving the smaller ones to die.
He turned to face me, stopping Clockblocker and Vista in their path. I heard a small moan escape the girl cape.
"It doesn't work," he said. Tense.
His was broken, too? "Then your com, maybe? I need to-"
"None of it works," he cut in. "The tech is all dead."
Oh. This was becoming worse by the minute.
I didn't have to ask to know that Vista was in no position to get us out of here. Kid Win's suit was moving only by the strength of his own body, which meant that any tinker tech we had available was barred from us. Along with Miss Militia's state and Weld's barely-solid body, we needed to get out of here now more than ever.
I chewed my lip and scanned the area. Most of my bugs had been obliterated a block west, and the remaining ones skittered across charred ground. No one in sight. A little north from there was where the Simurgh was currently. My bugs crawled over something wet and for a moment I thought it was blood. But it was solid. I tried a check with my bugs' sensors and I got the feel of something cold.
More snow.
Clockblocker and Kid Win muttered in low tones to each other before heading off northwest. Towards the fight.
Defiant and Dragon were engaging, each keeping up with the Simurgh's pace. I had no idea how they were still able to move despite relying on technology, but at the moment I couldn't care less. The two were working in complete synchronization. Each shot fired was backed up by another's shield. When Dragon flew high, Defiant struck low with his spear. They were actually forcing the Simurgh back, though I couldn't say if it were another ruse like Leviathan's. I could only hope that Defiant had learned from last time.
"Wait, she's there," I said. The bug's sight became painfully bright and I had to shut it off, focusing instead on the bugs I had attached to legs and gauntlets.
From the thirty or so capes that were present in that area, only five survived. Two were Defiant and Dragon, though the former seemed a little worse for wear. A heavy blanket of snow crushed my bugs that had stayed on the ground. The ones I had placed on the Simurgh suddenly vanished from the area, throwing me off guard. She's teleporting again.
The Simurgh reappeared east.
"She teleported, three blocks away," I pointed. The gesture was accented by the deafening crumble of a skyscraper.
"Show us the way," Clockblocker said, and if his hands were free I bet the words would've been followed by a sweeping gesture. I paused for a moment, considering the routes before heading south. My bugs swept the area and found nothing but more snow, which I found worrying.
The Simurgh wasn't following her usual MO. Never had I read about her laying snow on the battleground. It was a known evasive maneuver that she tended to favor, an attack that was used quite often, but from what I knew she didn't usually spread it on the ground.
It was working, whatever her reason. Capes that could stand were slipping over themselves, others shivering in some areas that were knee deep. Any bugs in the area were starting to drop at the temperature. Though we weren't near the mess, I could feel the cold burrowing itself under my skin.
It was at a snail's pace that we made it one block, I having switched places with Kid Win to better support Miss Militia.
My bugs felt it before we did.
It was a vibration in the air, and I watched with horror and a thousand tiny eyes as a blanket of snow dropped out of nowhere, blocking our path and wiping out my swarm. I picked up the Simurgh blocks away, which meant that she had to have created the snow and then teleported it over without moving from her spot, showing that her level of awareness was far higher than I previously thought. We stood still for a moment, waiting for a second attack. None came.
"Okay," I said, sounding more confident than I felt. If the Simurgh knew where we were, there was no point in trying to hide. "We go through?" It hadn't meant to be a question, but then again, I didn't know. I still wasn't confident that I was in the right mindset to be in charge.
Weld stepped forward, his body still dripping. He immersed himself in the snow and buckets of steam came from the pile. Out of my swarm, a lone fruit fly had survived. I sent it over to map out the path he made. It was enough.
I helped Clockblocker maneuver Miss Militia through the forming hole, Kid Win and Vista following behind. What struck me was the feel of the steam, not hot or cold but room temp. It was a strange thing to notice, but I hadn't ever experienced anything like it. I wasn't supposed to. It was unnatural.
It was one of those things that I could point out in the moment and say, This is what I'm going to remember later.
I couldn't sense any bugs in the area except the ones that were underground, and those were already being sent up to the surface. They weren't going to make it before us. But the walls of the snow cave were starting to look weak from Weld's path and Clockblocker couldn't risk jostling Miss Militia, so we couldn't afford to wait around and see what lay on the other side.
That was a mistake.
Weld paused at the front of our group. He didn't speak, his vocal chords hadn't formed yet, but he turned his head in a degree that would've snapped a normal person's neck and the look said enough. My fruit fly twisted by him and flew out into the open air. It landed on a leg, then another. And another.
"It's a trap," I said.
Before I finished uttering those words, Weld was already trying to push us back without touching us. It was awkward moving with the unconscious Miss Militia. The space around us was little more than Weld-sized, and though he was big, he wasn't wide enough for more than one person at a time. I tried not to scrape against the walls as I shuffled through, but it didn't matter.
There was a groan of shifting weight, then half our light disappeared. The exit has caved in. Kid Win couldn't stop himself in time and slipped into the mass, causing the snow on top of us to begin to crumble. With the weight above us, we weren't going to survive its collapse.
Making up his mind, Weld dashed out the front so we could escape before the snow crushed us. We toppled out partially covered in snow, not exactly film-quality where we managed to escape in the nick of time, but I would still call it close.
We entered a ring.
All of the other capes were present, both alive and dead, some with limbs spread out like they'd been dropped a story. I spotted Chevalier and Defiant working hand-in-hand to destroy the snow walls. They were making excellent headway, and capes that could move supported the injured out. Dragon was a force of her own, transporting the capes that were alive to beyond the ring, not once breaking stride. Narwhal and a young cape crafted force fields that spliced through entire sections of the Simurgh's pig pen.
I could only assume the Triumvirate was still engaging the Simurgh, blind to what was going on across the city.
Honestly, this wasn't hard to escape from. A giant bowl of snow, no lid. I knew from the vibration my lone fruit fly picked up that this wasn't a trap meant to keep us in.
It was meant to keep us busy, I thought as the avalanche formed.
It blotted out the sun.
There was maybe a scream or two, but all I could really think was how anticlimactic it was. I was actually offended by it. Buried to death by snow? In the summer?
The snow above us was maybe ten seconds away from hitting, broad enough that there wasn't a chance to outrun it unless it was with super speed or tinker tech. Both we lacked as a whole, except for Dragon and Defiant. But they were already occupied with blasting apart the falling mass, joined by the other long-ranged hitters. Our group had none.
Eight.
I wasted no time in spinning back, driving Clockblocker towards the snow wall.
"To the cave! Run!" I screamed above dozens of other voices.
Seven.
The worms that were just making it above surface were trampled underfoot as chaos ran amuck. Some capes tried for the walls as we were, others stayed with their injured comrades. Others just stayed.
Six.
Vista tripped and Kid Win grabbed her by the shoulders, dragging her into the cave while Clockblocker let go of Miss Militia to freeze the snow wall.
Five.
I was left to support Miss Militia on my own. She suddenly jerked awake and ripped some of her bandages in the process, and blood trickled down my body from the dozens of cuts that littered her own.
Four.
She caught onto the situation fast as I struggled to drag her body though the cave, and she weakly shuffled her legs to keep us ahead of the crowd that pushed at our backs.
Three.
Weld must have deemed his skin safe enough for handling, for I felt a solid yet bumpy metal band loop around my waist and my vision flipped upside down. I caught the bottom of Miss Militia's boots as Weld wrapped his other arm under her shoulders and hoisted her off her feet.
Two.
We didn't make it to one.
Instead, we fell forward and never hit the ground.
There was the unexplainable sense of flying. I had felt it many times before, once already today. I think this was the closest I'd ever get to actual weightlessness.
The snow cave broke away like an egg shell and I felt my control over my lone fruit fly be torn away. For a moment I thought there had been some sort of explosion, but below us were clouds. Unless the Simurgh had blown through the entire world and our atmosphere hadn't burst, we'd just been teleported.
My whole body lurched against Weld's iron grip and I squeezed my eyes shut in pain, feeling like I was going to be ripped in half. Mercifully, my body slipped away from his grasp and I drifted away through the air. I had never fallen like this before, where there was enough time to register what was happening and reflect on it. I noted the way the air pushed against my arms and legs like that of a doll.
My ears twitched. Above the fierce wind against my face, I heard something else. I think they were screams, but a part of it sounded like a song.
A name?
Something in my brain clicked and a word popped into my mind, interesting enough to rise above the confusion. Portal.
I opened my eyes and saw the tear through reality. The inside of the snow cave was pictured, dozens of capes forced to the ground from the impact of the Simurgh's snow. Injured, but alive. Relief settled in the back of my mind, unimportant but comfortable in its presence. Clockblocker's power worked.
The portal moved along with me as I fell, inexplicably keeping me in its focus. A flash of green pushed through the crowd in the cave and I saw Dragon make her way to the front, a scraped Defiant behind her. She stretched out a hand and it met against an invisible wall. Her palm rested against it.
I turned my face away from the portal, then. I didn't want my last image to be of capes.
The wind laced through my hair and turned my view of the sky into a mess of black tendrils. For just a second I heard nothing, felt nothing. The near-constant tug of my passenger was absent, and for the first time in months I felt…
Whole?
That wasn't the word, too complete. Content was better.
I wished I hadn't picked yellow lenses for my mask. It would've been nice to see the color of the sky, but knowing my fortune, it was probably better this way. There was a good chance that it was grey. I imagined it a bright blue instead.
Two crumpled notes slipped from my waistband, catching my eye. My hand reached for them far too late, and I watched as they joined the oblivion of the vast sky, fingers stretched, palms up.
Then I hit the ground.
A/N:
So.
That's the end of the "first chapter" that I had written out in Word. Glad that's all finally uploaded.
In case any of you were wondering: No, this is not a Timetravel! AU. I don't know what more I can reveal/write without accidentally spoiling something or giving you guys the wrong ideas, so hang with me for two weeks to see what's going on.
I wrote this under the idea that Miss Militia could probably be knocked out if only for a short while. It's like she's basically sleeping involuntarily, so an attack that would usually render someone horribly unconscious would only inhibit her for several minutes to several hours. That doesn't mean she doesn't have to deal with the hurt that comes with it, just that she's awake.
I stalked several threads to see if anyone had anything to say about Miss Militia's physical abilities (barring her perfect memory and lack of need for sleep), but there was nothing. So I'm thinking that if she can go almost a year without sleep, her endurance and energy levels must be pretty good, at least better than a normal humans. Maybe Captain America level? I think they'd be the best super duo. They could meet over burgers and coke and talk about good ol' America.
(I kinda want to write that now).
Anyways, I'm rambling. Let me know any problems with character, power or plot or stupid English mistakes. Anything you find too unbelievable or just ridiculous and I'll try to fix it or excuse it away. (; But in all seriousness, I love all sorts of critique! So lay it on me, fanfiction!
See you in two weeks!