Horizon

Beta'd and revised by Bms111

AN: I don't know why FF underlines some words, but I can't stop it. I'm sorry.

— O —

01–05–10, Tue. Afternoon, Sarah's workplace.

Sarah tried desperately to not wipe the sweat that was accumulating on her brow with her work gloves while clumsily searching for the towel she had bought the second day of her work, somewhat a week ago, for situations like these. Once she had found it, she sighed in relief, pressing it against her forehead with care, so as to keep anything from falling down to the floor, or, Scion forbid, into the ovens.

Sarah stared at the absolute monster, a thing that was half again as tall as her and at the rolling shelf inside said beast made of gleaming metal and scorching heat. Her fingers twitched, and she had to stop herself from getting her hands inside its guts now, her power not caring in the slightest if the thing was still running. Instead, Sarah bit her lip with almost enough force to pierce the skin, the pressure emanating from the top of her head mounting to truly uncomfortable levels, a crescendo that had been building and increasing for the past week in the form of a constant pressure in her head that Sarah swore was eventually going to pop her eyes out someday.

She did a small jump when the alarm sounded, and Sarah hurried to get her gloves and open the door, the blast of flaming air adding more heat to the already very toasty room. She did her usual routine for this last batch of bread, then ordered everything, putting her gloves where they belonged and her work clothes in her bag once she finished changing in the small dressing room her workplace had for the small number of employees it had – namely, her, the owner's son, and the owner herself.

It was a small thing, just a little place that fit the 'hole in the wall' description pretty well. It was near the hospital, but they hadn't asked her for any ID or work certificate, and the pay was good, even if it was 'below the table', as it were.

Sarah was just finishing zipping up her sweater when a knock on the door drew her gaze, a middle aged woman standing there, one shoulder in the frame and her arms crossed. She had dark brown hair and eyes the same colour but a lighter shade. Her skin was a slightly fair tone that could almost pass as white under the right light. She wore work clothes and an open smile, her eyes slightly crinkled.

Sarah straightened. She had almost forgotten, with her small fugue out there and the pressure of her ideas threatening to crack her skull open, begging for release. The woman reached for a pocket, getting out a stack of bills and counting them one by one. "So," she said, a smooth and chipper tone laced with something else, her posture utterly relaxed. It made Sarah's anxiety flare. Couldn't she count faster? "You never told me who or where you're running from. Mind if I ask?"

Her muscles locked up, cold sweat starting to accumulate rapidly paling skin. She stared, grass-green eyes wide open in burgeoning paranoia that threatened to blossom in a spiral of violence, her hand inching ever closer to the bag where she kept her taser.

"Hey, hey!" the woman raised her hands but didn't move from her position, "relax, girl. Christ, I didn't know you were so jumpy."

Sarah stopped moving, her eyes not leaving the woman — her boss — at all. If she knew about her, did she know about Taylor too? She couldn't let harm come to her friend — still bedridden, still unresponsive. The idea of never seeing those eyes open of their own volition pierced her mind like the spear of Longinus, and she forced herself to drown those thoughts in the face of the possibly immediate danger she now faced.

"Look, Sarah," the woman stopped counting, grabbing the amount she had been putting apart and extending a hand towards her. Sarah didn't move, muscles still taut. "I know when I see someone on the run — great grandma helped girls like you," she gestured towards Sarah, a sad smile pulling the corners of her lips upwards "survive the bombings back home in the 30's. Why did you think I didn't ask for documentation?"

Sarah did a little jump, and her boss's smile softened. "What, did you think I didn't notice you practically looking over your shoulder at every moment? Come on Sarah, I'm Spanish, not stupid, even if the little emperor you have here would like to make you think otherwise."

She stopped leaning on the frame of the door and gave three quick steps, extending the hand with the stack of bills towards Sarah. She hesitantly reached for it, taking the money and sticking it inside the front pocket of her jeans, eyes never leaving her boss.

"Look, I just want to make sure you know that I know what you're going through, and," she shrugged, a strange tension to her shoulders that didn't reach her eyes. "You can always come here if you need something — there's not much I can do to help, but any chance to do so is worth the effort."

Sarah shook her head, incredulity and suspicion still digging its claws into her brain, trying to smother the faint mote of hope she could feel burning anew. "I, look, why are you telling me this? You — you barely know me!"

She shrugged, a nonchalant look to her eye. "Already told you, didn't I?" Then, she smiled just like the cat that ate the canary — weirdly enough, that did more for Sarah's state of mind than kindness seemingly coming out of nowhere. "Well then, who is it?"

At Sarah's look of confusion, she rolled her eyes and rested her back on one of the small lockers, crossing arms marred with faint white scars — broken bones? "I know for a fact that you're not from here, and there's no way that you're staying in this shithole of a city if it's not for someone else." Her smile turned sharp. "Is it a boy?"

Sarah sputtered, a simmer of anger and embarrassment at being interrogated boiling over. "No! She–" Sarah's mouth clicked shut, and she made a move for her bag, settling it on her shoulders.

"A girl, then. Well, good luck with her, and hope you get out of here as soon as you can." At that moment, a faint explosion sounded from the other side of the city, heard even from miles away. They both grimaced. The fights had been getting more and more common the more people flocked from Boston to here, and it was starting to get very noticeable. "Because I think things are going to get much worse…"

Sarah didn't know how to react to that, so she just went with her normal lines, faintly ignoring the conversation they just had — better for her sanity that way. Maybe she could search for another job? "Thanks for the early pay, Lorena."

She waved a hand at Sarah, straightening and falling into step behind her. It made her hands twitch, and she was sure she had noticed even if Sarah tried to hide it. "Don't worry. Now, I need to get back to work and make sure David doesn't eat anything he shouldn't. I swear to God, that boy…"

Sarah nodded rapidly, and approached the backdoor of the bakery, intent on getting out of the building as fast as she could. She was still shaken, surprised, confused and a little jittery and wasn't all that sure that she wanted to come back here once again tomorrow.

She adjusted her backpack and started her trip towards the hotel where she had been staying the past week and change. She really had tried getting an apartment — hell, even a small study would've been okay for her, given that she just needed a small place to sleep, keep her notes and tinker with whatever meager materials and subpar tools she had at hand so her skull didn't explode, but the prices were, somehow, even more costly than central Boston.

The streets, she noticed, were starting to get more and more crowded with each passing day, the average expression on the sidewalk was now one of gloom or barely concealed dread. There was a clear separation between people, some of them had a defensive posture and looked around more than the rest, most had hunched shoulders and taut muscles, as if waiting to be attacked. The others were, if you needed to use only one word to describe them, wary. Side glances, twitches of a hand towards hidden pockets, quickened steps, clothes that clearly fit them better… Or, in other words, the natives to the Bay, and the people from Boston.

There was a tension in the air, a taut wire that threatened to snap with pressure with each passing day — and that wire had more and more force applied to it with each added refugee from the nearby city. The situation, if Sarah was being honest, didn't paint a pretty picture, precisely speaking.

Sarah was crossing the street and barely a block away from her Hotel when a loud crash made her attention snap the road. There, on the ground, laid a figure dressed in what she could best describe as a SS uniform, gasmask and everything else included. Around half the people in the street froze at the sight, the other half taking cover behind cars and-or directly fleeing the scene, hiding behind corners and other places. It was made clear who the natives were when they started pulling phones and recording the scene. Sarah did the same, hiding behind one of the nearby cars when she noticed that she had been standing smack dab in the middle of the crossing.

The figure rose, dusting their uniform from the dust and debris accumulated due to their forceful landing, looking upwards seconds after. Sarah did the same, and saw someone coated in shining armour, wielding a spear that crackled with lightning and a shield almost made of pure light, gleaming boots keeping him aloft effortlessly. Sarah recognised him instantly — Dauntless, head of the Protectorate ENE.

"Surrender!" he boomed, looking at the ground and more specifically towards the other figure — Sarah remembered a name with K, but little else.

"I don't think I will," chuckled the one who was dressed as a WWII German officer, taking something small from one of his pockets and flicking them at Dauntless with a sonorous crack, the hero's shield flashing white for a moment. Sarah noticed then the small suitcase attached to the Nazi's wrist. It was a small thing, but one that he apparently was quite protective over, given that he put himself between the hero and him, using himself as the shield.

Dauntless blocked with his shield, blasting the other guy with his lance and missing when K–something kicked the asphalt, shooting himself towards one of the cars where some people were hiding behind. They screamed as he approached, and outright screeched in fear when the black-clad cape ripped out a door from said car, using it moments later as a shield against Dauntless's lance.

Sarah blinked the lighting out of her eyes, only to come to the scene of who she was fairly sure was an Empire cape flicking coins at Dauntless, the baffling thing being how those coins made a crack sound each time they were shot, being blocked again and again by the hero's shield with an almost deafening clang that echoed oddly with some form of static.

The third shot made Dauntless move his arm to cover his face, giving the other cape a moment to spin twice and shoot the car door towards the other hero when Dauntless had just been lowering his shield. Sarah winced as the slab of metal slammed into him, making him crash to the floor haphazardly.

Door-guy kicked the ground in Dauntless' direction, clearly intent on ending the fight when — everything went blurry. It was hard to focus on the shapes, and Sarah had to stop looking thanks to the small headache she started to develop seconds later. She saw a shadow move over her head, something — a foot? — slamming into the roof of the car she had been hiding behind, and small yelps and screams.

Seconds later, the headache disappeared, and Sarah hesitantly looked again. What she saw bewildered her. It was, bizarre. A collection of cars smushed together, as if melted, that formed what apparently was a small fort, the villain and the hero on opposite sides of its battlements. The most noticeable thing was the Nazi guy looking completely confounded at his hand — the one that had had the suitcase cuffed to it. His now empty hand. Dauntless looked quite out of it, too, his armor and helmet splattered full of colourful paint that almost seemed to form a different canvas, depending on the angle from where you looked.

But the most important — and eye-catching — thing, were the enormous letters in the middle of said fort, painted with a blend of very bright and very dark colours that somehow managed to not be obnoxious, but underline and make pop exactly whatever the artist wanted to.

«Mundus, nostra scena»

— Virtuoso

Well, thought Sarah as the fearful whispers started to form around her, the two capes seemingly having come to an accord and disengaging.

That wasn't ominous at all…